The Hanging Wives of New England

by Ellis Brightwell

  “A cure that keeps them half-alive at the cost of their soul. You saw their hollow faces. We did the right thing. And uninfected people have a way out of here now that the fog has cleared up.”

  “If they can find a boat with gas.”

  “Well, they won’t get one from us. You were muttering about going for a swim when you were dozing off with your head on my shoulder. You want to dive with me headfirst into this crap?”

  “The last novel I read ended with the protagonist filling his lungs with water as he reflected on his life,” I said.

  “And?” said Lily.

  “He was full of shit.”

  “At least you know it’s shit. I can’t stop reading those cheesy paranormal romances on my lunch break.”

  “That explains a lot.”

  “Shut up,” Lily said with a half-laugh.

  “Laugh if you want to. For all I know, I’m still infected with no cure in sight. Am I going to have nightmares when I sleep? Will I turn into a skeleton?”

  “I doubt there’s anyone left alive who has the answers to those questions.”

  “What about Ford?”

  “Fuck Ford. Let’s find a way back to town and do all that helpful stuff you were talking about. Together.”

  “‘Together forever.’ I’m an idiot.”

  “Well, I’m the one who got us stuck in the middle of the bay with no gas. We’d succumb to hypothermia before we swam anywhere close to shore. If the black stuff didn’t melt us first.”

  “Does this boat have a radio?”

  “My guess would be up in the captain’s cabin.”

  “Let’s go see who’s out there.”

  10

  Aftermath

  Lily and I ascended a shaky, metal ladder into a windowed captain’s cabin whose dashboard was home to a row of tiny, plastic bottles. The console housed the same type of steering wheel and throttle we had operated down on the deck.

  “Why do they have two sets of controls?” I said.

  “So the captain can drink with impunity,” said Lily.

  She plucked an empty whiskey bottle from the top of the radio and slammed it into a trash can. I steadied my thumb against the microphone’s transmission button.

  “Um… Fishing Boat to… whoever can hear me? This is Fishing Boat. Anyone out there?”

  “I doubt it,” said Lily, “but keep trying. I just hope we don’t pick up some ham radio enthusiast who wants to read through an encyclopedia of military terminology.”

  “Fishing Boat,” came the crackling reply on the radio. “This is Agent Ford with Yamata International. What’s your twenty?”

  “Even worse,” said Lily. She took the microphone from me. Its long, tightly coiled cord swung back and forth as she paced about the cabin. “Ford, this is Lily Ming. I’m here with Shannon.”

  “Lily and Shannon from the bridge?” said Ford. “It’s a relief to hear from you. I understand we did not part on the most amicable terms. My driver and navigator left the safety of our armored vehicle and succumbed to a spray of lethal, black substance from the sea. I took no pleasure in handling the matter. Do you have eyes on the creature?”

  “What does he mean, ‘handling the matter’?” I whispered.

  “We went out with the fishermen to observe the sea monster,” Lily said. “He appears to have departed. The fog is gone, too.”

  “Indeed,” said Ford. “Satellite imagery indicates that the creature is moving toward the Atlantic. Do you have any insight as to what might have prompted his relocation?”

  “I don’t know,” said Lily. “He ate the fishermen but left us alone. Maybe he figured his hunting grounds are tapped out.”

  “Predators rarely migrate in the presence of a readily available food supply unless extenuating circumstances prompt them to do so.”

  I pressed Lily’s thumb against the transmission button.

  “He attacked us,” I said. “We ran out of gas trying to get away from him.”

  “And it would appear you were successful. Where are you now?”

  Lily frowned at me and shook her head.

  “Floating off the docks near the bait shop,” I said.

  Lily sighed.

  “The creature’s departure is having a ripple effect,” said Ford. “The waves should send you back to shore soon enough. I’d like to meet there for a full debriefing. My understanding is that federal authorities are setting up a full military quarantine around Queensport now that the protective fog has dissipated. I’m sure you can understand their reasons for doing so. The upshot is that I’m stuck here with you. We should talk about a plan of action going forward.”

  Lily’s shoulders slumped. She held the receiver up to my mouth.

  “Let’s meet up,” I said. “I’d like to do whatever I can for the people of Queensport to make up for sacrificing their loved ones to the sea creature.”

  “Sacrificing?” said Ford. “What do you mean by that?”

  Lily shook her head. I smacked her shoulder.

  “The fishermen kept infected women hanging from the upper deck of their boat,” I said. “We took them down and set them in the water so the creature could feed on them.”

  “If you sated his long-term hunger,” said Ford, “he may have decided to roam in search of more interesting prey. Fascinating. We’re on the same page when it comes to keeping Queensport safe. I’m on my way to the docks as we speak. ETA five minutes. See you then. Ford out.”

  Lily set the microphone on its hook.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I should have warned you about talking to him. There’s nothing he can—”

  The boat lurched backwards, sending Lily to the floor. I gripped the dashboard’s plastic housing to keep myself from being thrown across the cabin. Another surge sent Lily scrambling to the doorless frame so she could steady herself inside it. The boat shuddered and shook against something beneath it. We jumped up onto the dashboard and pressed ourselves against the window right as the boat jerked to a violent stop.

  “That must have been the ‘ripple effect’,” said Lily. “Let’s get the hell off this hangman’s graveyard.”

  I followed her down the flimsy ladder and over the side of the boat onto snowy sand that was, to my relief, wet with slush rather than black ink. Ford was already waiting for us outside his van in the middle of the road. He waved at us with a smile that disappeared when he pointed a gun at us.

  “What the fuck?” said Lily.

  “That was faster than five minutes,” I said.

  “You admitted that you had extended physical contact with the infected,” Ford said. “I can’t take any chances. I notice that your right pant leg is bloody, Miss Hayes. Did one of the fishermen introduce their ‘ink’ into your bloodstream?”

  Lily stepped in front of me.

  “Alyssa got some of it on my forearm when I tried to help her up from the edge of the bridge,” she said. “It left purple welts. The fog made them disappear.”

  She rolled up her sleeve and held up her right forearm to show him the faint blue bruises that blemished her olive skin. Ford examined them but kept his gun pointed at us.

  “We have no evidence that the creature’s toxins enter the bloodstream through the skin,” he said. “At best, we know it to be an abrasive irritant.”

  “So Alyssa would have been all right?” I said.

  “Provided the toxins did not enter her eyes, nose, or mouth, she may have survived,” said Ford. “But I don’t fault you for what you did. Based on the information you gave me about the women on that boat, it would not be irrational to posit that Agent Lively’s sacrifice secured the safety of the area surrounding the eastern bridge. I hope you can appreciate that your sacrifice will have likewise secured the safety of the entirety of Queensport.”

  He set his finger on the trigger of his gun. I shoved Lily aside.

  “My pant leg is bloody because I was bitten,” I said. I lifted it to show him the six minuscule, red indentations on my otherwise
pale calf. “The fog cured those women. It cured us.”

  “Interesting,” said Ford. “I’m not a doctor, but those marks do not appear to have come from any animal native to this region. Perhaps we could have you examined. If we could cure recently infected individuals or inoculate uninfected persons using information gleaned from your physiology, the risk of keeping you alive might be worth it.”

  Ford took a red rectangle from his pocket and tossed it onto the ground at my feet.

  “Cut yourself open and see whether your blood still runs red,” he said. “Only then would I consider acting as your liaison to federal medical officials.”

  “You don’t even know whether there’s a correlation between blood color and infection status,” said Lily.

  “That is correct,” said Ford. “I’m making a gesture in good faith.”

  I picked up the red length of metal, folded open the utility knife, and sliced a small sliver into my palm. My blood was as black as Ford’s uniform.

  Lily took my hand against her lips and licked the wound clean like a feral animal. She looked at me. I looked at her. This is what we had become. This is what we had left to live for: each other.

  “What in the world are you doing?” said Ford.

  “See? I’m not dead,” said Lily. “If she were infected, wouldn’t I be dead?”

  “Perhaps not instantly,” said Ford. “If she is infected, I would surmise that you have likewise infected yourself by ingesting her blood.”

  “Lily’s fine,” I said. “I’ll show you.”

  I took slow steps toward him with my arm outstretched and my fingers curled just enough that he couldn’t see my palm. He lowered his gun and leaned to one side to peer at my hand. I kicked him between his legs, like Lily would, and took his gun. Its barrel found his forehead between his eyes.

  “We made the monster leave,” I said. “That has to be worth something.”

  “It is,” said Lily.

  “While I do regret not being more personable with Agent Lively—with Alyssa,” said Ford, “she would agree with me that this is not the best way to move forward. The only way to curb the infection is to decontaminate anyone who has had contact of any kind with the creature’s toxins or other infected entities. I thought you knew that. That must have been why you let Alyssa go.”

  “I knew nothing,” I said. “I made a mistake.”

  “You did the right thing,” he said. “Make no mistake about that. Even if you don’t believe me, surely you can agree that the painful sacrifices all of us have had to make ultimately ended up serving the greater good.”

  “I hope you’re right,” I said. “For the greater good.”

  I shot him in the head. He fell to the ground. Black blood darkened the surrounding snow.

  My hands shook. I fumbled with the gun. Lily took it from me, shoved into the back of her skirt, and held me in her arms.

  “I hate your perfume,” I said.

  “It’ll go away.”

  “No.”

  I held her tighter.

  “Talk to me,” she said.

  “Everyone’s had contact with the infected. That includes Ford if he had to ‘handle’ his driver and navigator. It almost sounded like he was advocating mass murder as a solution to the infection.”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me. If the government is blockading Queensport like he said, I wouldn’t put it past them to solve their problems by killing everyone.”

  “That’s about as right as you’re ever going to be about anything,” said Rusty.

  Lily stepped away from me and reached for her gun. Rusty held up one hand with his lowered shotgun in the other.

  “I come in peace,” he said. Lily let her hand fall to her side. “I saw what happened and wasn’t going to interfere, but that man looks like he’s bleeding black into the snow. Had to see for myself. How did you know he had that poison inside him?”

  Lily sidestepped to stand right beside me and held my cut-open hand behind our backs. She looked at me out of the corners of her eyes. Her mouth was half-open, but she had nothing to say.

  “We talked to him over the boat’s radio,” I said. “He kept going on and on about how he didn’t think there was any evidence of ink getting into the bloodstream through the skin. When we met him here, it was all over his forearms. He tried to hide it under his shirt sleeves, but we still saw it.”

  “Yeah,” said Lily. “He was covering his ass. He didn’t want us to tell anyone.”

  Rusty nodded and adjusted the brim of his baseball hat.

  “Can’t say I don’t believe you,” he said. “My sister was a chain smoker for many years. Her nicotine patches sent that stuff into the bloodstream right through the skin. The sea spirit’s poison is a lot stronger. But I don’t see his fog anymore, and it feels like a weight has been lifted from the water.”

  “He left,” I said. “We gave him those hanging women.”

  “The fisher of men,” said Rusty. “That’s how the old story goes. The lonely fisherman stayed in the sea for three days and three nights, growing in size with each sunrise, until the men of the tribe offered their unmarried women to him, one by one, bound at the wrists and ankles. The sea spirit honored their sacrifice by taking the women to his home at the bottom of the sea and keeping them there as his beloved wives to the end of their days. The tribe never heard from him again. But you two changed the ending of that story. You killed the fishermen and took the women out there to send him away. I’m standing here asking myself whether you gave him enough wives to keep him happy. And, as I recall, the one of you with fire for hair has a bite mark on her leg.”

  I lifted my pant leg to show him the milky, blue-veined flesh of my calf. The tooth marks had faded into nothingness.

  “He must have healed you before he left,” said Rusty. “I guess you’re not a threat. Not now, at least. Who’s to say you don’t have his blood in you for the rest of your life?”

  “Maybe we all do,” said Lily. “Maybe anyone who’s breathed in that fog has it.”

  “Huh,” said Rusty. “Hadn’t thought of that.”

  “We’re leaving,” said Lily. “We don’t need to shoot each other, right?”

  “We never did,” said Rusty, “though the radio tells me Uncle Sam is setting up a blockade around this entire township. I’d rather not have him see this dead man in front of my shop. Sam doesn’t like me much as it is.”

  “And we don’t like the women you have hanging by your door,” I said.

  “Tell you what,” Rusty said. “You burn that body, I’ll take the women down and drive them in that van out to the burial ground above the resort.”

  “The women in town, too?” I said.

  “So long as I can remember where we put them,” said Rusty. “I just hope those dead men out there don’t cause trouble when they come to visit their wives and don’t find them.”

  “We’ll take care of the infected,” I said. “We wanted to stay here and help. That’s why we didn’t give ourselves to the sea creature. I lost my husband and children. You lost your sister. I don’t want any more people to die if I can help it.”

  “I like the sound of that,” said Rusty. “I’ll get you a gun and some more ammunition. We’ll tell Amy that’s the price of your permanent departure. Deal?”

  “Deal,” said Lily.

  While Ford’s viscous blood burned his body into ashes, we helped Rusty load his sister and her friend into the back of Ford’s black van. Rusty gave me a backpack loaded with a gun, six boxes of pistol ammunition, four energy bars, and two water bottles.

  “Hope I never see you again,” he said.

  “You won’t,” said Lily.

  He drove off down the road at a snail’s pace while Maria and her mother looked on from the shop’s doorway. Amy glowered at us with her arms folded. Maria smiled.

  “Shannon Hayes and Lily Ming,” she said. “I don’t need to carve your names into a tree anymore, but I promise I’ll remember you.”

&nb
sp; “Not if I can help it,” said Amy. “Goodbye.”

  She shooed her daughter inside the shop and closed the two front doors.

  “We’ll have to walk about as slowly as Rusty drives to make sure we don’t slip on this black ice,” said Lily.

  “Should we have asked him for a ride?” I said.

  “I doubt he wants to ride with murderers.” Lily faced me. “Why did you shoot Ford?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “It matters to me.”

  “He would have killed you.”

  “So I’m your friend because there’s nobody else left.”

  “My son, my daughter, my husband are gone. I have nothing. I have less than nothing. Whatever ashes are left of my heart, you’re welcome to them.”

  Melancholy softened the hard angles of Lily’s lineaments. Whether the pain in her eyes was real or feigned, I couldn’t bear to see her like that. I kissed her cheek like I would a younger sister heading off to college for the first time.

  “Well,” said Lily with a teary-eyed smile, “let’s see how long you feel that way.”

  I offered her my hand. She took it. We set off down the road leading back to Queensport, where nothing but the certainty of death awaited us.