She growls and screams. Bucks beneath him. Shockingly strong. He grabs a wrist. Ringed with little dots. Blackened burns where the needles jabbed through. He pulls her arm behind her back. Presses an elbow into her spine. Does his best to hold her down one-handed. Reaching back with the other. Digging in a backpack pocket. Barely within reach. Pulling out a small first aid kit.
Filled with staples: Gauze. Antiseptic. Needle and thread. But also, additions specific to their needs: Morphine. Epinephrine. And the nasal spray he just manages to grab before a defiant spasm sends the kit flying. Scattering the contents to the winds.
Biting the cap off the atomizer, he leans on his wife’s neck. Braces her head. Jams the nozzle up her right nostril and squeezes. Hard. Administering a heavy dose of naloxone directly to her nasal mucosa.
~
On the verge of eternal contentment. Almost where she needs to be when he stops her. Pulls her away. But he can’t keep her from satisfying this need. Using all her remaining strength she thrashes. Reopens wounds. She breaks his grip. Breaks his head. Gets free, but he’s on her again before she can do what’s needed.
A voiceless screaming in her head tells her she’s failing. She’ll never find happiness if she can’t get where she belongs. But she’s flattened. Held down. Try as she might, her strength has been sapped. Running on memories of fumes, since long before this attack.
The thing up her nose is the final indignity. A hiss of spray. A burning. A change: The pressure releases. The compulsion fades. Silences. Leaving her with her own desires. No needs outside herself. Feeling the pain from her wounds again. Anaesthetized against them until now. The suffering welcome for being real.
Above her: The man. Her man. His face full of anxiety. Concern.
Love.
He’ll take care of her needs now. Her real needs.
Knowing that, she’s free to let go.
~
The drug kicks in. Battles the opiates in her system. Counteracts their narcotic effect. Zeros everything out.
Her husband sees her come back. Sees her eyes clear. She looks up at him. Recognizes his face. Then, relaxes. Passes out. Overcome by the strain. Feeling again after heavy sedation.
With her out, he’s able to breathe. He rubs the raised line standing out from his forehead. Tender where the little woman battered him. The impact still echoing inside his skull.
He climbs off of her. Glances over the edge. Into the blackness below. Eyes unable to penetrate the murk. Blue glow from above not helping at all. A shiver crawls across him. A physical response to facing the unknown.
Uncomfortably close to the lip of the chasm, Mr. Hunter carries his wife back to the entrance. Lays her carefully down. Inspects her wounds. Finds two. Both on her right side. One in her hip. One in her ass-cheek. Ugly tears. But nothing vital ruptured.
Leaving her, he circles the floor. Collects whatever bits of his first aid kit didn’t go tumbling off into infinity. The needle and thread are gone, but what remains is better anyway: Superglue.
Before sealing up his wife’s wounds, Mr. Hunter looks out across the chasm. Beyond the vast gap, the floor continues. At a distance too remote to traverse by anything short of a helicopter ride. There, something silver sparkles. Reflecting blue stars. Nearly as bright as the strange fungus causing the light in the first place.
He can’t think about it now. He has to get his wife to safety. To medical care. Who knows what damage the toxin in her system might be causing? But after that... Once she’s recovered? They’ll return. See this thing through.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
“Yesh, ma’am. She’sh shtill alive. Only one that ish, though.”
Wanda opens her eyes. Gets her bearings. Currently: Lying on her side in the back of the sheriff’s car. Coiled fetal. Doubly-handcuffed. Ankles together. Wrist cuffed to ankles. Stump left free.
Schilling driving. When he turns to look at her, she feigns unconsciousness. Doesn’t see him reach back from the driver’s seat. Holding his flashlight. Using it to crack her across her stump.
“Christ!” If Wanda wasn’t all the way awake before, she is now. “What the hell, Deputy Shitling?”
He ignores her. “Okay, I double-checked. She’sh alive and kicking.”
What’s the matter with his mouth? Even from her angle, Wanda can see something is off about Schilling’s pretty face. Somebody’s given him a well-earned tuning-up. “Lishen... I don’t know if you know thish, but her hand...”
Beneath the handcuff: An oven mitt. Pulled over her webbed claw. Taped in place. Wanda flexes. Extends her fingers. Feels them tear the fabric with little effort. Pulls back before they poke through.
“Good. No. I jusht wanted to be sure you-- Right. Shouldn’t be long. About halfway there, now.” He sucks in his spit. Swallows. “Around back. Yesh, ma’am, I...” His cheeks go red. She’s hung up on him. Cut him off without warning. He tries to save face with his prisoner. Pretends: “You’re very welcome, Ma’am. It wash my pleasure.” He drops his phone into his shirt pocket.
“So what are you doing in the sheriff’s car, Deputy?”
Schilling sneers. “Sheriff drivesh the sheriff’sh car. Your fellow rug-muncher got hershelf demoted.”
“Oh yeah? How’d they pick her replacement? Release some flies and wait to see where they landed?”
Schilling’s smile falters.
“Not surprising, really. Netty had too much integrity to stay sheriff for long. Way too competent, too. But man, I bet you hang onto the job forever.”
Schilling looks back. Clucks his tongue. “I wash competent enough to catch hold of you.”
“Suppose that’s fair. How’d you happen to be out by Doc Ramsey’s, anyway?”
Proud, Schlling’s chest puffs. “Mish Philipsh gave me the ashignment. She shaid an alarm had gone off. Wanted me to check into thingsh, pershonally.”
Crap. Miss Philips. That was not good news. “So... Sheriff Shitling... You gonna ask any questions? About what happened back on the farm? Or are you waiting until I’m in your interrogation room, so you don’t have to drive and think at the same time?”
He glares back at her. “Not allowed.”
“Don’t even want to ask about my hands?
“Mish Philipsh told me if it wash any of my bushinesh, she’d let me know.”
“Huh.” Now Wanda knows she’s in trouble. The Old Men intend to keep the police in the dark. Deal with her themselves. “I take it we’re not going to the station house, then?”
“Nope. I’m taking you shtraight to the Home.”
Wanda nods to herself. Closes her eyes. Acts blasé. “The Home, right. Wake me up when we get there, then.”
Regardless, she knows: She is so screwed.
CHAPTER FIFTY
The glass wall holds back a half-million gallons of murky green water. Inside: Seaweed. Coral. Sand. A basic ocean environment recreated. An ecosystem transplanted. But nothing swimming. No fish visible. An enormous expenditure - both to build and to maintain. All for the sake of housing...
“I don’t see anything.” Trevor squints into the tank. Silt and darkness obscure his sight farther than a few feet.
“They’re in there, and no mistake.” Gardner has already started up the metal staircase. Cane gripped in one hand. Railing in the other. Climbing toward a catwalk overhead. “Just not very active. Leastwise, not without somethin’ to inspire ‘em.”
He’s reached the top edge of the tank now. Twenty feet up. Where the glass ends, and chain-link fence begins. Stretching all the way to the I-beams above. Keeping people out. Something else, in.
“So this is Mom’s bigger aquarium, huh?” Trevor looks around. An echoey open space. Deep beneath the Home. “How in the world had she ended up down here?”
“She got confused. Got lost. Then? More confused, more lost. Lucky she didn’t end up in Shangri La-Di-Da ‘fore they snuffled ‘er out.” He pauses to catch his breath. Halfway to the top. “All those geezers’re the same. So used
to independence, can’t get their heads around the idea they ought not be doin’ shit on their own anymore.”
“Still. Hard to believe she just... Stumbled onto it. Must’ve been scary, being so far from what she knows.”
“Woman thought she’d lost yer Father. Believe me when I tell ye: That’s what got the ol’ girl right shitbaked.” He glances down at Trevor. Still peering through the glass. “Jayzus. If ye’re expectin’ me to piggyback ye up, ye’ll have a right long wait ahead of ye.”
Trevor clanks up the steps. “So how’s all this link into that weird sauna back there?”
“Y’know the shit ol’ Spinx shared with Grist?”
“In the canister?”
Gardner nods. “This here’s where it comes from.”
“And that’s what burnt up that lady’s skin?” High enough to look out over the water. The tank’s true dimensions revealed. Much larger than Trevor had realized. At least fifty feet square. “So, what is that stuff?”
“Ambrosia, b’y. Nectar, stolen from the gods.”
“So it gets you high. Great. The world needs another addiction.”
“More to it’n that, lad. Much more. I know ye’ve heard the rumors. What folks say ‘bout the Old Men.”
Catching up with Gardner. Nearing the catwalk. Trevor slows down. “But that’s just... Are you telling me what they say is true?”
“Nare but every fockin’ word of it: Strength. Stamina. Longevity. Mental Acuity. Imagine, ’stead of agin’, the old keep developin’. Like children do. That’s what this stuff’ll do to ye.”
“And you used to... Char-broil yourself, too?”
“No.” Gardner scoffs. “That there’s a new one on me.” No more stairs to climb. He unlatches a gate in the chain-link fence. Pushes it open. Steps out onto the catwalk. “A more recent development. Since my time with ’em ended.” He leans against a railing. More spent by the journey than he’d been letting on.
Trevor looks around the congested space. Mostly fenced-in. One large gap in the middle. In front of the catwalk’s centerpiece: A large machine with lots of hydraulics, but no obvious purpose. Suspended from the ceiling. Nearby, a pair of badly beaten-up crash-test dummies lay across a metal table. “But you have been down here?”
“Ayup.” Gardner crosses to a stack of boxes. Opens the one on top. “Used to be my job. Takin’ care of ‘em.” He lifts out two packages.
Trevor goes to a rail. Looks over the edge. Into the tank. “Holy shit.”
Two white circles. Coiled up in the corner of the tank.
“That’s them.” Gardner gazes down. For the tiniest fraction of a second, it seems he may tear up. “Down to just Joan and Bette, looks like. Jayzus... Hardly a wonder they’re runnin’ low on the stuff. There was still six of ‘em last I stood here.”
The remaining pair hang in the water. Motionless. “Not doing much, are they?”
“Just ye wait.” Gardner shows Trevor what he’s taken from the box: Two vacuum-packed plastic bags. Almost black until he holds them up to the light. Filled with a chunky red mush. Labelled: NOT APPROVED FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION.
“Fish waste?”
Gardner nods. Tears one open. Instantly, the stink is overpowering. He goes to the gap in the fencing. Reaches over the edge. Squeezes out a few drops of blood and entrails. Covering his nose, Trevor watches them fall. Hit the surface.
Blood in the water. The shapes stir. Uncoil. Eel-like. Long, lithe bodies slicing away from the corner. Toward the center of the tank. Circling the scent. Waiting.
“Those are fish? How big are they?”
“Twelve... Fifteen feet.” Gardner tears the second package open. Tosses both. In opposite directions. They hit the water with hard cracks. Red seeping out.
The white shapes become lightning. Zig-zag across the tank. One after each bag. Snatching them up in a blurry flash of blood and viscera. Thrashing around their catch. Then, calming. Circling. Anxious for more.
Trevor’s mouth hangs open. “What. The fuck. Are those things?”
Gardner grips the younger man’s shoulder. Steady. Reassuring. “We always just called ‘em Gillies.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
“Fer Chrissakes, stop wit’ yer fussin’ and faunin’.” Norman snatches the towel with one hand. Slaps Max away with the other. Sitting on the patrol boat deck. His back against the transom. Dripping wet. Shivering. Lips and chin still speckled with blood.
Max hovers over the Electrician. “You weren’t supposed to do any diving.”
“Just give thanks I did. Ye wouldn’t be here pissin’ and moanin’, had I done otherwise.” Norman dissolves into a coughing fit. Covers his mouth with the towel.
Max leans forward. Then steps back. Unable to figure out a way to help. When the coughing ends, he angles for a better view. Trying to see into the towel. “Are you all right? Is there blood?”
“Oh, ye got me drove, b’y... Carse, there’s blood. There’s always blood!” He shoves the towel toward his apprentice. Thin white terrycloth. Soaked through with red clots. “There’s blood every morning with my mush and every nighttime with my go-to-bed. Ye got lung-cancer, ye get the blood. And it’s none o’ yer nevermind, anyhow.”
Max moves to the dash. Starts the engine.
“Lard tunderin’, what’re ye doin’ now?”
“Getting you home.” Max turns on the radio. Picks up the microphone. “I’ll get the doctor to meet us at the boathouse. Check you out. Make sure the dive hasn’t made anything worse.”
“Ye can belay that shit, mister.” The Electrician struggles to his feet. Seeing how unsteady he is, Max drops the microphone. Rushes back. Ready to catch the man as he tips. But Norman doesn’t need him. Stands strong. “We’re not moving from this spot, ’til ye’ve completed yer task.”
“My task?! What are you talking about? I did every--”
“All done, are ye?” With exaggerated movements, he looks around the boat. “Where’s that old pulser at, then? Hm?” He stops on Max’s crotch. “Stuff it down yer drawers did ye? Hopin’ to improve yer package? Impress them ladies?”
Max protests: “That thing’s practically scrap metal. And there’s no time to get it, now. You need to see the doc--”
“Max.” The man braces him. Looks him in the eye. “I promise ye: I’m not dyin’ now, any more’n I already was.” He smiles. Tired. “Yer concern’s ‘preciated, it is. But goin’ back without that pulser won’t serve as boon to anyone. Not when it might be salvageable. T’was our last spare ye just plugged in. We lose another, with nothin’ to replace it? Well... We just got a good gawk at what that’d be like, didn’t we?”
Max looks out over the ocean. Shivers. “Holy shit. They’re really out there, huh?”
Norman’s surprised. “Carse they’re out there, ye stunned arse. What’d ye think? The whole of the Watch was just lyin’ to ye?”
“About monsters no one’s seen for fifty years, who left no evidence behind of their existence, but are waiting for the chance to kill us all and take over the island? Yeah, I had my suspicions. Then? After one of them killed Aaron, I fully believed. But that turned out to be a fraud, so I stopped again.”
“And now?”
Max snorts. Gestures at the water. “Um... Yeah!”
Norman claps his apprentice on the back. “Yer late to the party, my son, but - better or worse - the band’s still playin’.” With effort, he leans over. Grabs Max’s diving mask from the deck where he dropped it. Holds it out. “Still got a shit-ton to teach ye, though, so... Best get the lead out.”
Max takes the mask. Readies himself to dive back into the ocean and complete his task.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Since her brother was taken away, Sylvie’s given her father space. But time is growing short. She needs him to keep his promise.
The interrogation was put on hold for Ren’s trial. Everything paused in order to deal with his betrayal. Mete out justice. Now, many of the Old Men have returned to the cellar. B
efore long, Mrs. Rutherford will join them. Re-enter the cramped room at the far end. Close the door behind her. The questioning will resume, and Sylvie intends to be there when it does.
But this will only happen if her father steps in. Pulls strings. Convinces Mrs. Rutherford his daughter has earned the right to take part. So far? He’s made no move in that direction. Leaning against the cafeteria window. Looking out over the ocean. At one small boat getting smaller. Carrying his son to the horizon. Toward his fate.
Sylvie fumes. She’d held up her end: Helped bring Ren in. Delivered him to the Old Men to receive his sentence. Now her father needed to do the same. Honor his promise. Get her in front of their captive. The saboteur who nearly blew up their main line of defense. The woman Sylvie single-handedly captured. Who almost certainly knows Roscoe’s whereabouts.
She rises from the bench. Straightens herself. Able to wait no longer. He can go back to his dreamy reverie once he’s done. That’s all there is to it. But before she can confront her father, Burl enters. Crutching himself across the cafeteria. “Martin? Sorry to bust in on you. But your granddaughter’s outside. I didn’t know whether to--”
“Christ Almighty! Bring ‘er in, b’y!” At the mention of Dawn, Martin comes alive. Limps away from the window without another glance. Sylvie can’t help but be jealous. Seeing her father’s attention turn so fully onto another. Well... Not before he keeps his promise.
“Dad!” She catches up with him. Half-whispering. Mrs. Rutherford only a few yards away. “You promised you’d talk to them. About letting me take part...”
“Ah! Right y’are, m’love.” He knocks on the end of the old woman’s picnic table. “Margie? Sylvie’ll be joinin’ ya downstairs now.”
“Of course, Martin.” Mrs. Rutherford gives a little salute.
FROM AWAY ~ BOOK FOUR Page 18
