Carrion Comfort

by Dan Simmons

  I sensed Nina’s own lack of control in the confusion of her catspaw’s response. I brought my people into tight focus and demanded that Nina tell me where she was. She refused, moving her pathetic little servant girl toward the door. I felt sure that Nina had lost all contact with her person on the island and therefore was also out of touch with Willi. The girl was literally at my mercy.

  I moved Culley where he could reach the Negress in two steps and brought the Negro boy from Philadelphia into the room. He carried a knife. “Time to tell all,” I teased Nina, “or time for this one to die.”

  I guessed that Nina would sacrifice the girl. No cat’s-paw— no matter how well conditioned— would be worth Nina revealing her hiding place. I prepared Culley for the two steps and swift movement of arms and hands that would leave the girl lifeless on the carpet with her head turned at an impossible angle like the chickens Mammy Booth used to kill out back behind the house before dinner. Mother would choose; Mammy Booth would grab and twist and fling the feathered corpse onto the porch before the bird knew it had been killed.

  The girl did a surprising thing. I had expected Nina to have her flee or fight, or at the very least for there to be a mental struggle as Nina attempted to seize control of one of my people, but the colored girl stood where she was, opened her oversize sweater, and exposed an absurd belt— a sort of Mexican bandit’s bandilero— filled with what looked like cellophane-wrapped modeling clay. Wires ran from a gadget that looked like a transistor radio to the packets of clay. “Melanie, stop!” she shouted.

  I did so. Culley’s hands froze in the act of rising toward the Negress’s skinny throat. I felt no concern at this point, only a mild curiosity at this manifestation of Nina’s madness.

  “These are explosives,” panted the girl. Her hand went to a switch on the transistor radio. “If you touch me, I’ll trigger them. If you touch my mind, the monitor here will trigger them automatically. The explosion will flatten this smelly mausoleum of a house.”

  “Nina, Nina,” I had Justin say, “you’re overwrought. Sit down a minute. I’ll have Mr. Thorne bring us some tea.”

  It was a perfectly natural mistake, but the Negro girl showed her teeth in something not even close to a smile. “Mr. Thorne’s not here, Melanie. Your mind is turning to sludge. Mr. Thorne . . . what ever his real name was . . . killed my father and then one of your stinking friends killed him. But it was always you, you ancient bag of pus. You’ve been the spider at the center of every . . . don’t try it!”

  Culley had barely moved. I had him lower his hands, slowly, and step back. I considered seizing the girl’s voluntary nervous system. It would take only seconds— just long enough for one of my people to get to her before she could push that little red button. Not that I believed for a second that there was anything to her silly threats. “What kind of explosive did you say that was, dear?” I asked through Justin.

  “It’s called C-4,” said the girl. Her voice was steady and calm, but I could hear the rapid rise and fall of her breathing. “It’s a military thing . . . plastic explosive . . . and there are twelve pounds here, more than enough to blow you and this house to hell and destroy half of the Hodges place too.”

  It did not sound like Nina speaking. Upstairs, Dr. Hartman clumsily removed an IV from my arm and began to turn me onto my right side. I shoved him away with my good arm. “How could you detonate this explosive if I took your little pickaninny away from you?” I had Justin ask. Howard lifted the heavy .45 pistol from my night table, removed his shoes, and moved silently down the stairs. I still had the faintest of contacts, through Miss Sewell, of a security guard’s perceptions as they carried the unconscious form of Jensen Luhar back to the security tunnel while others continued to chase after the one the Negress had called Saul. There were alarms audible even to Miss Sewell in the surrogate holding area. The storm was approaching the island; a deck officer reported waves of six feet and rising.

  The colored girl took a step closer to Justin. “See these wires?” she asked, leaning forward. Thin filaments ran down from her scalp into the collar of her blouse. “These sensors carry the electrical signals of my brain waves to this monitor. Can you understand that?”

  “Yes,” lisped Justin. I had no idea what she was talking about. “Brain waves have certain patterns,” said the girl. “These patterns are as characteristic as fingerprints. As soon as you touch my mind with that filthy, rotten, diseased brain of yours, you’ll create a thing called a theta rhythm— it’s found in rats, lizards, and lower life forms like you— and the little computer in this monitor will sense it and ignite the C-4. In less than a second, Melanie.”

  “You’re lying,” I said. “Try me,” said the girl. She took another step forward and shoved Justin very hard, propelling the poor child backward until he collided with Father’s favorite chair and sat down with a rattle of small heels. “Try me,” she repeated, voice rising with anger, “just try me, you desiccated old bitch, and I’ll see you in hell.”

  “Who are you?” I asked. “No one,” said the girl. “Just someone whose father you murdered. Nothing important enough for you to remember.”

  “You’re not Nina?” I asked. Howard had reached the bottom of the stairs. He raised the pistol in readiness to swing around the edge of the doorway and fire.

  The girl glanced around at Culley and the foyer. The green glow from the second-floor landing threw the vaguest of shadows where Howard stood. “If you kill me,” the girl said, “the monitor will sense the cessation of brain waves and detonate instantly. It will kill everyone in this house.” I sensed no fear in her voice, only something approaching elation.

  The girl was lying, of course. Rather, it was Nina who was lying. There was no way that some colored girl off the street could have learned those things about Nina’s life, about the death of Nina’s father, about the details of the Vienna Game. But this girl had mentioned something about me murdering her father that first time we met in Grumblethorpe. Or had she? Things were becoming very confused. Perhaps death had indeed driven Nina insane and now she had confused things to the point that she thought I had pushed her father in front of that Boston trolley. Perhaps in her last seconds of life, Nina’s consciousness had sought refuge in the inferior brain of this girl— could she have been a maid at Mansard House?— and now Nina’s memories were confused and intertwined with the mundane memories of a colored domestic. I almost had Justin laugh aloud at that thought. What an irony that would have been!

  What ever the truth of it, I had no fear of her imaginary explosive. I had heard the term “plastic explosive,” but I was sure that such a device did not resemble these lumps of clay. They did not even look like plastic. Besides, I remember when Father had to dynamite a beaver dam on our Georgia property before the War, just he and the foreman were allowed to ride out to the lake with the treacherous dynamite and elaborate care was taken with the blasting caps. Explosives would be much too unreliable to carry around on a silly belt. The rest of the girl’s story— brainwaves and computers— simply made no sense at all. Such ideas belonged in the realm of the science fiction Willi used to read in those lurid, penny-dreadful German magazines. Even if such an idea were possible— which I was confident this was not— it would not lie in the realm of understanding of a Negro. I had difficulty comprehending the concept.

  Still, it made little sense to push Nina further. There was always the remote chance that something in her catspaw’s apparatus might include real dynamite. I saw no reason not to humor Nina a few minutes longer. The fact that she was as mad as a proverbial hatter made her no less dangerous. “What do you want?” I asked.

  The girl licked her thick lips and glanced around her. “Get all of your people out of here. Except Justin. He stays in the chair.”

  “Of course,” I purred. The black boy, Nurse Oldsmith, and Culley left by separate doors. Howard stepped back as Culley passed, but he did not lower the pistol.

  “Tell me what is happening,” snapped the Negr
ess. She remained standing with her finger near the red button of the device on her belt.

  “What do you mean, dear?”

  “On the island,” demanded the girl. “What’s happened to Saul?”

  I had Justin shrug. “I’ve lost interest in that,” I said.

  The girl took three steps forward and I thought she was going to strike the helpless child. “Goddamn you,” she said. “Tell me what I want to know or I’ll trigger this right now. It’d be worth it just to know that you’re dead . . . frying in your bed like some hairless old queen rat held over the flames. Make up your mind, you bitch.”

  I have always despised profanity. My repugnance at such vulgarity was not lessened by the images she conjured. My mother was unduly afraid of floods and rising water. Fire has always been my bête noire. “Your Jewish person threw a rock at Willi’s man and ran into the forest before the game was to begin,” I said. “Several of the others followed. Two security guards carried the one called Jensen Luhar into the infirmary area of this absurd little tunnel complex of theirs. He has been unconscious for hours.”

  “Where’s Saul?”

  Justin made a face. His voice conveyed more of a whine than I had intended. “How should I know? I can’t be everywhere.” I saw no reason to tell her that at that moment the guard I had made contact with via Miss Sewell had glanced into the infirmary in time to see Willi’s Negro rise from the table and strangle both the guards who had carried him there. The sight caused me a strange sense of déjà vu until I remembered going to the Kruger-Kino in Vienna with Willi and Nina to see the motion picture Frankenstein in the summer of 1932. I remember screaming when the monster’s hand had twitched on the table and then risen to choke the life out of the unsuspecting doctor bending over it. I had no urge to scream now. I had my security guard move on, passing the room where other guards watched banks of television sets, bringing him to a halt near the administrative offices. I saw no reason to tell Nina’s Negress about these developments.

  “Which way did Saul go?” asked the girl.

  Justin crossed his arms. “Why don’t you tell me if you’re so smart?” I said.

  “All right,” said the Negress. She lowered her eyelids until only a hint of white showed. Howard waited in the shadows of the foyer. “He’s running north,” said the girl, “through heavy jungle. There’s a . . . some sort of ruined building. Headstones. It’s a cemetery.” She opened her eyes.

  Upstairs, I moaned and thrashed in my bed. I had been so sure that Nina was unable to contact her catspaw. But I had seen that very image on the security guards’ television less than a minute before. I had lost track of Willi’s Negro in the maze of tunnels. Was it possible that Willi was Using this girl? He seemed to enjoy Using colored and other less-developed races. If it was Willi, then where was Nina? I could feel a headache coming on.

  “What do you want?” I said again. “You’re going ahead with the plan,” said the girl, still standing near Justin. “Just the way we discussed it.” She glanced at her wristwatch. Her hand was no longer next to the red button, but there was still the matter of brainwaves and computers.

  “It seems to make little sense to continue with all this,” I suggested. “Your Jew’s bad sportsmanship has ruined the evening’s program and I doubt if the rest of them will be . . .”

  “Shut up,” snapped the girl, and although the language was vulgar, the tone was Nina’s. “You’re going to go ahead as planned. If you don’t, we’ll see if the C-4 can level this entire house at once.”

  “You never liked my house,” I said. Justin extended his lower lip. “Do it, Melanie,” ordered the girl. “If you don’t, I’ll know it. If not at once, very soon. And I’ll give you no warning when I detonate this stuff. Move.”

  I came very close to having Howard shoot her at that instant. No one speaks to me that way in my own home, certainly not a colored wench who should not even be in my parlor. But I restrained myself, made Howard gently lower the pistol. There were other things to consider here.

  It would be just like Nina— or Willi for that matter— to provoke me in just such a manner. If I killed her now, there would be the mess in the parlor to clean up and I would be no nearer to ferreting out Nina’s hiding place. And there was always the possibility that some part of her previous story was true. Certainly the bizarre Island Club she had described to me was real enough, although Mr. Barent was much more of a gentleman than she had let on. There did seem ample evidence that the group was a threat to me, although I failed to see where Willi was in danger. If I let this opportunity pass, I would not only lose Miss Sewell but would have to live with the anxiety and uncertainty of what this group might decide to do about me in the months and years to come.

  So despite the melodrama of the previous half hour, I had come full circle to the position of uneasy alliance with Nina’s Negress— the same place I had been for the past several weeks.

  “Very well,” I sighed. “Now,” said the girl. “Yes, yes, yes,” I muttered. Justin slumped into immobility. My family froze into statues. My gums rubbed against one another as I clenched my jaws, eyes closed, my body straining with the effort.

  Miss Sewell looked up when the heavy door at the end of the corridor slammed open. The security guard sitting on a stool in the booth there jumped to his feet just as Willi’s Negro entered. The guard raised his machine pistol. The Negro took it away from him and slammed his open palm into the man’s face, flattening the guard’s nose and sending slivers of bone into his brain.

  The Negro reached into the booth and threw a switch. The bars slid up into the wall and while the other prisoners cowered in their niches, Miss Sewell stepped out, stretched to improve circulation, and turned to face the colored man.

  “Hello, Melanie,” he said. “Good evening, Willi,” I said. “I knew it was you,” he said softly. “It is incredible how we recognize each other through all of our disguises, even after all of these years. Nicht wahr?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Would you get this one something to wear? It is not right that she is naked here.”

  Willi’s Negro grinned but nodded, reached over, and ripped the shirt off the dead guard. He draped it over Miss Sewell’s shoulders. I concentrated on manipulating the two remaining buttons. “Are you going to take me up to the big house?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Is Nina there, Willi?”

  The Negro’s brow furrowed and one eyebrow lifted. “Do you expect her to be there?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Others will be there,” he said and again showed the colored man’s teeth.

  “Mr. Barent,” I said. “Sutter . . . and the others in the Island Club.” Willi’s cat’s-paw laughed heartily. “Melanie, my love,” he said, “you never fail to amaze me. You know nothing, but you always succeed in knowing everything.”

  I showed my slight pout on Miss Sewell’s features. “Do not be unkind, Willi,” I said. “It does not become you.”

  He laughed again. “Yes, yes,” he boomed. “No unkindness to night. It is our last Reunion, Liebchen. Come, the others await.”

  I followed him down corridors and up and out into the night. We saw no other security people although I retained my slight contact with the guard still standing near the administrative office.

  We passed a tall fence where the body of a guard still sizzled and smoked, spread-eagled against the electrified wire. I saw pale forms moving through darkness as the other naked prisoners fled into the night. Overhead, the clouds raced. The storm was coming. “The people who hurt me are going to pay for that to night, aren’t they, Willi?” I said.

  “Oh yes,” he growled through white teeth. “Oh yes, indeed, Melanie, my love.”

  We walked toward the large house bathed in white light. I had Justin point his finger at Nina’s Negress. “You wanted this!” I screamed at her in a six-year-old’s shrill voice. “You wanted this. Now just you watch!”

  SIXTY-SEVEN

  Dolmann Island Tuesd
ay,

  June 16, 1981

  Saul had never been in a rain like this one. As he sprinted along the beach, the downpour filled the air with a weight of water that threatened to crush him to the sand like a massive curtain smashing some hapless actor who had missed his mark. Searchlights stabbing in from the boats beyond the surf or downward from the helicopter served only to illuminate sheets of the torrent gleaming like lines of tracer shells in the night. Saul ran, bare feet sliding on sand turned to the consistency of mud in the downpour, and concentrated on not slipping and falling, sure in some strange way that if he went down he would not rise again.

  As suddenly as the deluge worsened, it quickly let up. One second the rain battered at his head and bare shoulders as the thunder and pounding of water on thick foliage drowned out all other sound, and the next instant the pressure lightened, he could see more than ten meters through blowing curtains of mist, and men were shouting at him. The sand leaped up in small spurts ahead of him and for a mad second Saul wondered if it was some reaction of buried clams or crabs to the storm before he realized that people were shooting at him. Overhead, the roar of rotors overcame storm sounds and a huge shape flashed by, white light slashing across the beach at him. The helicopter banked hard and skidded through thick air ahead of him, slewing sideways only twenty feet above sand and surf. Outboard motors screamed as two boats cut in through the white line of the outer breakers.

  Saul stumbled, caught himself before he went to his knees, and ran on. He did not know where he was. He distinctly remembered the north beach being shorter than this, the jungle set farther back. For a second, as the searchlights swept across him and the helicopter completed its turn, Saul was sure he had run past his inlet in the downpour. Things had been changed by the night and storm and tide and he had run right past. He went on, his breath a ragged, hot wire in his throat and chest, hearing the shots now and watching as the sand leaped ahead and to either side of him.