The Heavens Rise

by Christopher Rice

  “Wait, wait, wait!” Ben cried. “Don’t radio the ship!”

  “Well, how in the hell do you expect me to—”

  “Listen to me, Greg. And I promise you, I am not fucking around here, okay? So you have to listen to me here—”

  “I’m listening, for Christ’s sake!”

  “If he didn’t get on the ship alone, then he’s in danger—”

  But Greg was talking to the man next to him in the control room again, his tone urgent.

  “Greg!”

  “He’s not alone,” Greg said into the phone. “Guy next to me just talked to the pilot who handed off to him at Destrehan. He said some . . .” To the guy next to him, Greg said, “What frickin’ cousin?”

  Greg’s simple question—What frickin’ cousin?—resounded over and over again in Ben’s head like cannon fire.

  “You want to tell me what the hell’s going on here, Benny?”

  “There’s been a threat against Anthem,” Ben said.

  “A threat against— What kind of threat? Like terrorism?”

  “Something like that.”

  What frickin’ cousin? What frickin’ cousin? What frickin’—

  “You think somebody got on with him?” Greg said, dropping his voice so as not to be overheard. “Benny. Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mother of Christ. I’m calling the ship, for Christ’s sake!”

  “No! Don’t do that! You’ll tip him off.”

  “Then he’ll use the code word we’ve got for hijackings.”

  “Just tell me where the ship is!”

  “Ben, you’re not making any goddamn—”

  “Tell me where he is!”

  His scream frightened Nikki so badly she winced and brought one hand to her mouth. There was a stunned silence from the other end. But Ben didn’t care about any of it. He was trying to strategize in his head. Can’t go behind the floodwalls ’cause we might miss the ship and then we’ll get trapped. And how much range do we have anyway and what good can I do if I can’t see inside of the ship or the bridge or where they are? I’ve got to get high up and the whole city’s below sea level. Have to get downtown. One River Place. The Hilton. Or the bridge. That’s it, that’s it. The bridge. Have to get on the bridge. But what will we do then? Something. That’s all. That’s all anyone can ever do. Something, goddammit.

  “They passed the Upper Nine about fifteen minutes ago,” Greg said, sounding stunned by Ben’s eruption. “That’s Audubon Park. They’ll hit the base of Canal Street in a few minutes.”

  What frickin’ cousin? What frickin’ cousin? What frickin’—

  “If you have a terrorist protocol, activate it. Activate it now.”

  Greg inhaled sharply, but before he could respond, a familiar, static-spiked voice echoed through the room on the other end of the line, sending a spike of cold fear through the center of Ben’s gut.

  “Heeeeeelllllooooo everyone? Is anyone theeeeeerrrrree?”

  There was a rustle against the phone, probably because Greg was setting it down on a table. But Ben could still hear everything: the click of Greg answering the radio call from the man he thought was his brother, and then Greg’s voice saying, too softly, too controlled, “Hey, man. It’s your brotha. How’s everything going out there tonight?”

  “My brother, huh?” came the coy, probing response.

  He doesn’t know his name, doesn’t recognize the voice. He doesn’t know his name because it’s not him anymore.

  “Yeah, man,” Greg answered, trying to play it cool even though his voice had the tension of a high wire. “How’s that Panamax treating yah, A- Team?”

  “Oh, it’s just fine,” Anthem’s voice said, and then in the background, Ben heard something else. Crying. A man crying. Not just crying. A pathetic, terrifying and yet somehow universal sound: a man pleading for his life. “Listen up, brotha”—and this snide ridicule of Greg Landry’s Lakefront accent was all it took to confirm Ben’s most horrifying fear—“there’s something I want y’all to hear!”

  The gunshots came so close together it was impossible to tell how many there were.

  30

  * * *

  Gunfire swallowed the quartermaster’s cries for mercy.

  Amazing how the body just drops like that, Marshall thought. He was crouched in the back corner of the deck. He had, only seconds before, closed the interior entrance to the main deck, and now he was studying his handiwork with a calming sense of satisfaction. No grasping at the chest, no arms opening to God above. Just sudden deadweight hitting the floor like a ton of bricks.

  And now Anthem Landry towered over the crumpled form of his third and final victim, the gun in his right hand, the walkie-talkie in his left; the latter erupting with terrified demands for information from Vessel Traffic Control.

  Marshall saved the quartermaster for last not because he was the smallest, but because he’d been alone at the wheel while the captain and chief mate had been huddled in discussion close to one of the exits. Four shots had taken down both men, then Anthem had crossed the deck in several long, effortless strides, aiming the gun at the terrified, screaming quartermaster as he threw the lock on both doors. All these tasks had been completed effortlessly by the blood-lashed, gun-wielding pilot, probably because a man whose arm wasn’t aching from the gun’s recoil was controlling his every move.

  And now the call had been made, the final murder recorded for posterity’s sake. The interior entrance was locked, which meant anyone who tried to break in from the side staircases would be exposed to gunfire on the landings outside. It had all come together so beautifully; he allowed himself several moments to just savor it. Even the blood splatters throughout the bridge were just a faint, delicate glisten in the radar screen’s green glow.

  Up ahead, the Crescent City Connection blazed high above the rippling black waters.

  He couldn’t wait too long. The clock was winding down. The heart of the city that had stupidly declared Anthem Landry a hero would soon be exposed to the ship’s giant prow.

  Anthem Landry raised the walkie-talkie to his mouth, pressed the button and began to speak. “Answer me a question, brotha, motha, and whoever else can hear me on this beautiful night. Don’t you have days when you’re just ready to be done with this place? With this whole fuckin’ city, I mean. Don’t any of you get tired of pretending this place wasn’t meant to fall into the fucking sea? Anyone? Anyone?”

  • • •

  Could they get there ahead of the ship? Were they ahead of it right now? There was no getting Greg’s attention back. He was too busy trying to break in on his brother’s full-scale mental breakdown. And he was failing. Anthem wasn’t interested in being interrupted. Marshall Ferriot wasn’t interested in being interrupted.

  “ . . . You know how fucked up it feels to have everyone call you a hero, only to turn around and realize you’re the hero of a giant shit pile full of niggers and drunks? It’s like being handed a medal and realizing it’s covered in piss. A piss medal. Hey, maybe I just invented a new term. How about that?”

  “What the fuck, man?” Greg Landry wailed into the phone. “What the fuck is happening?”

  “It’s not him, Greg.”

  “What do you mean it’s not—” Voices on the other end of the line interrupted him. They were gruff, authoritative, trying for a sympathetic tone and failing in their eagerness to get Greg Landry out of the control room. He was losing his shit.

  “Who is this?” a new voice said.

  “My name’s Ben Broyard. I called about a threat we received against Anthem Landry at our offices earlier tonight—” When the guy didn’t ask all the questions he should have been asking, like What office? and What does threat mean? Ben understood the level of terror that now gripped everyone at Vessel Traffic Control.

  In the background, the venomous diatribe continued. “ . . . Fact is, we ignored our own history. No city ever should have been built here. Thi
s damn river! It’s just a giant toilet for the rest of the country. And we’re the sewer! And do you know what that means? Do you know what that means for every last one of us? We live in shit! That’s what!”

  When the stranger spoke again, his attempt to enunciate every syllable only caused his voice to wobble even more. “I’ve known Anthem Landry most of my life. And that’s Anthem Landry’s voice we’re hearin’. So tell me, just who in the hell is this threat against?”

  Shouts erupted in the control room and, after a few seconds of this melee, Ben heard a recurring phrase: He’s turning. He’s turning the thing. He’s turning.

  “Where?” Ben shouted. “How’s he turning it around so quickly?”

  “He’s not turning it around. And it’s empty.”

  “Empty. Isn’t that good?”

  “No. It means its got no weight. It’ll ride up over anything it hits and just keep on going. And they were just starting to drain the ballast so the bow’s still sticking up out of the water and . . . Aw, Jesus . . .” The man groaned. “Aw, no, no, no . . .”

  “What?”

  “He’s turning for the east bank. He’s headed for Spanish Plaza.”

  Spanish Plaza. The spot where Marshall Ferriot’s death plunge had been broken by his own father. How fitting. How fitting, you monster. And that’s what this is about, isn’t it? You’re not just taking out Anthem. You’re sending Nikki a message. And Ben had no choice but to relay it.

  To Nikki, he said, “Spanish Plaza. The Hilton.”

  Her eyes flashed, but then her icy calm returned, even as she drove like a kamikaze pilot.

  “Have you evacuated the riverfront?” Ben asked.

  “A tactical alert’s been sent out. NOPD’s been mobilized. But we’ve got the Hilton, One River Place . . . It’s the middle of the night. Those folks are asleep.”

  “Then wake them up!”

  The Jeep rocketed down the long expanse of the Ernest M. Morial Convention Center, and then Nikki pulled a hard right, tires screaming, before she could plow into the sidewall of Harrah’s Hotel and Casino. Cabs swerved out of their way as she careened into the large circular carport of the Hilton Hotel and Riverwalk Shopping Mall.

  A woman in a bathrobe was staring into the Jeep’s headlights. Nikki slammed on the brakes, came within a foot of hitting her. The woman didn’t care. She took one look at Ben and kept running. She was too busy trying to get away from the Hilton’s entrance. And she wasn’t alone. Several bright lights were flashing above the hotel’s entrance doors, and more guests—most of them sleep-rumpled and in their nightclothes—were pouring out into the night while security guards directed them away from the entrance and the fire alarm let out a series of bloodcurdling, automated screams.

  Several NOPD cruisers squealed into the turnaround behind him, but they didn’t give two shits about the speeding Jeep that had beaten them there by a heartbeat. The uniformed cops sprang into action, directing guests away from the building.

  Ben struggled out of the car, grateful that adrenaline had caused his nausea to wane. But his head was spinning, and the crowd of evacuees from the hotel was threatening to throw him off balance. Nikki was calling out to him from the other side of the Jeep, but he ignored her, focusing instead on a dazed-looking man in a half-unbuttoned plaid shirt and loose-fitting jeans. Plaid Shirt was doing a half-stumble, half-trot away from the lobby doors, because he was scanning the crowd around him for someone important.

  . . . and then he was a ten-year-old boy, standing at his mother’s bedside, reaching for her hand, and she was pale and gaunt and bald from chemo, but her fragile smile and her reach for her son’s hand was enough to comfort him . . .

  He felt Nikki’s hand on his shoulder, but the world had gone silver, the crowd surging through the hotel’s circular driveway casting off ghostly impressions, and Plaid Shirt stood frozen, awaiting Ben’s commands.

  “Let him go,” Nikki whispered into his ear. “Let him go, Ben!”

  It wasn’t ego that had made him hesitate, but the same rich, delicious pleasure she’d described in her journal. It was like the peak of an orgasm, softened and sustained. And letting it go felt like yanking a half-chewed bite of ambrosia from his mouth.

  The world returned to its normal, everyday colors in a seamless instant. And then it was just him, and his nausea, and the screaming fire alarm, and his best friend, back from the dead and glaring at him with a schoolteacher’s anger and intensity.

  “I think I’m good to go,” Ben whispered.

  She started pulling on his shoulder, then she ran for the opening in the concrete floodwall up ahead that served as the entrance to the Riverwalk Shopping Mall.

  As soon as they entered the courtyard, they saw the ship. Its wheelhouse was tall enough to block out part of the glimmering Crescent City Connection bridge it had just left in its wake, and it was on a direct course for the riverbank, its approach silent but undeniable. The fire alarms from both the Hilton and One River Place, the condo high-rise just west of the hotel, sounded eerily distant now, like sci-fi sound effects from a neighbor’s television. The fountain behind him was off. And the plaza around him was just an expanse of empty concrete. No one to scream, no one to warn. Just wind-rattled tree branches and the deceptively gentle swish of the river water breaking across the approaching ship’s giant bow.

  “We can’t drive him,” Nikki gasped, struggling for breath. “We’ll turn him into something so much worse than what he is now.”

  “Then what the hell are going to do?”

  Nikki started to spin in place, surveying their surroundings. He couldn’t tell if she was looking for something specific, or if it was panic that propelled her now. Then she went rigid. It couldn’t be the ferry landing that had stilled her. What could they possibly do with— Then he saw what was just beyond it and rising over the ferry landing’s elevated concrete walkway; the great parabolic sweep of green glass that enclosed the jungle exhibit at the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas.

  • • •

  “Sorry, folks. I wish I could do this another way. But I guess y’all just don’t want to get the message. Hell, if Katrina didn’t deliver it, I’m not sure I can. But I’ll try. I have to try. So here’s what I say to all those folks who called me a—” But Anthem’s voice sounded weak, and a small seizure shook Marshall’s sternum in time with Anthem’s every stammer.

  Something was wrong. His ribs wanted to burst from his chest, he was sure of it.

  Their speed had been over fifteen knots right before they went into the turn. Now they were crossing the current, which was slowing them down, but not by much. And he’d been fine then, his fears about Anthem’s overpowering soul flash seemed to have been for naught.

  Then suddenly, it was all gone. Marshall had fallen to his knees on the metal floor and the world had been returned to its bleak, everyday colors, and several feet away, Anthem Landry’s entire body was shuddering, so severely it was visible even in shadows. It looked as if his shoulders were about to jerk up and out of their sockets, and Marshall realized the chattering sound was the man’s teeth knocking together. And his hold on him was gone. And when Marshall went to hook him again, the shadow that had been Anthem Landry turned on him, and in the green glow of the radar screens, he saw that the shoulders poised to lift free from Anthem Landry’s body had blossomed into impossible, dual swells that surged upward from the man’s arching back. Anthem’s eyes were gone, caverns of blackness that seemed to be devouring his entire face. But there was a channel of suddenly molten flesh pouring down the bridge of the man’s nose, lengthening it. And his stooped pose wasn’t correcting itself. He was standing upright. In fact, the man’s silhouette was expanding, lengthening.

  It’s his spine, Marshall realized. His fucking spine is getting longer. That’s why he’s not standing up.

  And then there were two clattering sounds, sharp and subtle given the nightmare unfolding before him, and in the radar screen’s glow, Marshall saw what had made th
em; two giant, matching talons that had slapped to the floor of the bridge in unison. And that’s when Marshall could no longer deny what the twin surges of shadow emerging from Anthem Landry’s rapidly lengthening back actually were.

  “Wings,” he muttered aloud, before the wave of shadow surged toward him across the deck, emitting a piercing, shrieking sound that emptied Marshall Ferriot’s bladder instantly. And then it felt as if he was being dragged across the metal floor by darkness itself.

  • • •

  The police officer had just finished shooting out four of the glass doors in the entrance to the Aquarium of the Americas when the ship’s great bow slammed into one corner of the ferry landing. The two-story skeletal steel structure gave way like kindling. And then, just as the pilot on the phone had predicted, the ship’s bow jerked upward, riding up and over the descending maelstrom of struts and support beams, driving them down into the maelstrom of muddy water. The ship kept going, the giant chains attached to its four loading cranes swaying.

  Nikki drove the police officer to run in the opposite direction, toward Woldenberg Park, away from where Ben and Nikki now stood clutching each other just outside the now shattered entrance doors to the aquarium. The ground underneath their feet was trembling as the ship tore through yards of red bricks emblazoned with the names of the aquarium’s donors. Its approach across the water had appeared so lazy, it was almost impossible to believe that the deafening sounds of splintering wood and collapsing concrete were the results of its hull devouring the dock front.

  Ben glanced over one shoulder, just as Nikki drove the cop to toss his gun over the railing into the river. Then, once he was a good sprint away from them, she released him and he literally spun in place, he was so disoriented.

  Then he was knocked off his feet, and before he could think twice, he pulled Nikki down with him. The ship’s bow had slammed into the two-story wall of green glass that enclosed the Amazon Jungle exhibit, and the vast sweep of shattering glass was so loud and piercing, it was like a thousand children screaming at once.