Gil told him everything, and had almost gotten to the point where he’d ditched the bus when the detective’s computer froze solid, mid-clack. The screen went a strange kind of black. Gil didn’t have much experience with those machines, but if he didn’t know better, he’d have sworn it was looking at them.
The detective quickly scanned the squad room to see that all the other computer terminals had also stalled. Officers and clerks clicked fruitlessly at their keyboards. “That’s strange,” he said. “Maybe something with the network.” Then the fluorescent lights hanging above them flickered for a moment. And it all went back to normal.
Fifteen minutes later, Gil Gibbons, prophet of the Big Man, herald of the One Chosen, and anointer of the Deliverer, was back on the police station steps. Was back to being just another piece of human debris that most of New Harbor would welcome seeing washed away by the next passing squall.
He wondered about the judgment he’d face for this trespass, for his fear and weakness. That glitch in the system, the flickering lights. That was the Big Man’s doing. He felt it in his bones. And again he found himself praying that he’d be let off the Maker’s cruel hook. He drained the last of his rotgut and pitched the flat plastic bottle into the trash bin. Nothing now but to face the music, no matter who called the tune.
Forty-five
Jack gazes at the glistening sea. It stretches out like God’s bedspread to disappear beyond the rim of the world. The sun sits high, burning at his back, and a steady but friendly breeze pushes whitecapped waves up onto a vast expanse of postcard-perfect pink sand. He reaches down and lifts out a heaping handful. He holds it out at arm’s length. Soft rose granules sparkle as they slip through his fingers. He watches it all fall into the air, taken by the wind.
Bermuda.
He knows it’s so because of the sand, the pink sand. Ribbons of pale garnet weave their way through the acres of white like palm fronds. He knows this is Bermuda even though he’s never set one foot on this beach anywhere but in his imagination. He knows because this is a dream, the only one he ever has.
He’s dressed in a long duster. The edges of his coat flutter, thwapping against his jeans and worn engineer boots. Odd attire for the beach, even in a dream, and he knows it, as he always does—but it remains, as it always does. Odder still is the wind that seems to blow in reverse but just for him alone. If only time could do the same, he thinks, as he always thinks.
He knows that this is a dream, the same one over and over. He knows that everything is but thought: the sand, the surf, the wind, even his boots. All of these things belong to his mind alone; they live in his mind alone. He knows that he could wake up if he wanted to, that he should wake up, for the bad part is coming. Coming soon. But he will stay. It is a decision he will regret, and he knows it. It is a decision that he always regrets, always dreads, no matter how many times he makes it. But still he pushes through, because here, in this dream, is the only time he can ever see his Sarah, not in faded photos but in the flesh.
Jack looks to the sky. It is blue but more the blue of steel than of any sky he’s seen outside of this dream. He has his weapons strapped across his waist and chest, as he always does. They will prove useless, as they always do. They are no good, not here. Like him, like the sky, the beach, the boots, they are mere thoughts. Creations of his mind. And here his mind will deny him even their cold comfort.
For now, the ocean is still empty. One more piece of the dream remains for him to witness, and Sarah won’t come until he does. Jack looks over, as he’s learned he must. The dream has its own dictates, and he must bend to them. He turns to see himself seated high in a lifeguard’s chair. It is not the him of now but the him of his daylight life—or a version, perhaps. Tanned, toned, Ray-Bans masking his eyes and zinc oxide smeared white across his nose. He relaxes back in the high chair, twirling a whistle around his index finger as he stares out at the bright horizon the way he loved to do so much back then.
That fool. There is nothing on earth that Jack wouldn’t give to be that fool again. Useless, his wish, and he knows it, for he has nothing to give. All has been stolen, or thrown away, or pressed into service.
The service of the hunt.
Of the kill.
Jack knows what comes next, what always must. He turns to face the sea, and there is Sarah. She stands thigh-deep in the swirling surf, sun glinting off the drops of seawater that bead her skin. She’s wearing her light blue bikini, the one picked for the modest honeymoon that they never went on. The one she was too bashful to try on in front of him, even in their home.
Sarah cups water in her hands, throwing it high to splash across her face and chest, smiling, laughing. Jack toes the sand, crushing a stray seashell beneath the heel of his boot. She can’t see him. She has eyes only for that fool perched high in the whitewashed lifeguard chair. Eyes only for the one who doesn’t see her, just that horizon. He doesn’t move, just sits, twirling that damn whistle lanyard around his index finger, around and around and around.
Jack knows what’s next—and he knows it’s soon—but he keeps staring at his Sarah for as long as he can. Unblinking, he watches her, drinking in every second left before it will come once again to take her.
And it does come.
As she dips into the surf for another splash, a fin sails behind her. Big, black, knifing through the water. A long, dark shadow beneath it spreads like a stain. What comes isn’t always the same. This time, it’s a shark fin. Sometimes it’s a tentacle, the whiptail of a devil ray, or the paralyzing tendrils of a man-o’-war. Sometimes something unseen. Just a tug, and she’s gone, pulled beneath the waves.
Sarah doesn’t notice the fin. She never does.
And the fool in the chair doesn’t notice it, either. Never sees, never warns, never does anything but keep on twirling that damn whistle that he’ll never blow, as more and more of those pitch-black fins slice up the surface.
One draws close behind Sarah and hovers for a second before it rises from the waves. It covers her in its shadow as it breaks the surface to tower over her. What emerges is a grotesque step between shark and man. Eyes a void, pitiless, hollow. Water streams from its broad, flat snout as it hinges open jaws as wide as a cellar hatch. A triple row of jagged white teeth glint in the sun as they descend on her.
And the fool in the chair looks on, unheeding.
Jack screams, but no sound will come. He reaches for his gun but can’t move.
And the last thing he sees is his Sarah’s blood spreading out across the surface of the water, inviting more of those things to finish the job.
Forty-six
Consciousness broke across Jack like a plank to the jaw. He was awake. He was alive. It would be some time, however, before he’d be in command of his body. The paralysis always freed the mind before the flesh. Those creatures liked their prey alive, the blood fresh-flowing and vital, and their neurotoxic bite made sure of it. Few survived. But for those who did, reward was this: sleep paralysis.
Jack braced himself for the harrowing ride to come, focusing on what he could remember. He’d killed the creature that tracked him from the nest. Beth had distracted it, buying him just enough time. That much he remembered clearly; then things got hazy, muddled. She’d bundled him up in something, a tarp, maybe, and dragged him first into the elevator, then across the lobby of the apartment building.
His body had gone completely numb by then. Every sensation felt as if it came through two feet of foam. Right before everything faded to black, he heard the guard speaking through the muffled fabric. “Wow, those were some big critters.”
“You have no idea,” had been Beth’s reply. Witty. Smart, too. She’d protected both him and the mission.
A sewing basket’s worth of pins pricked their way across his fingers and toes. He tried to wiggle them. Not yet. He willed his shoulder to twitch. It cramped into a knotted ball, agony crashing on his ner
ves like waves over the breakers.
He forced himself to focus on his surroundings. A low rumbling filled his ear, rising and falling. There was the hollow sound of footfalls on rubberized steel and the familiar texture of his sleeping pad beneath his back. He was in the van. One eyelid sprang open with a flutter, the other a moment later. Halos swam across his vision, as his still-dilated pupils struggled to filter the fluorescent light. Jack flexed his injured left hand. It still worked—good. He felt something hot and wet lap his cheek, repeatedly. The dog. That was good, too. Messy but good.
He hoisted himself up on his elbows to see Beth standing by the work station. She had the torch going, a flask on the ring stand above it, bubbling. He inched up farther, the agony in his shoulder singing an aria as he gently pushed Blood aside and tried to rise.
“No, no, stay down.” Beth rushed over, draping the blanket back over his shoulders. “I made you some soup.”
He said nothing. His voice had yet to return. But he ignored her advice just the same, wrenching himself off the floor. She held out a Styrofoam cup. He took it, drinking half of in one gulp. The heat scalded his vocal cords into service. “Thanks,” he managed to grate out.
“How are you?”
“Fantastic.” Jack slurped back more of the salty noodles and set the remainder on the van floor for Blood. He wobbled over to his single chair and collapsed into it. It appeared that Jack Jackson would be staying down whether he liked it or not. He spotted a balled-up laundry bag in one corner of the van. That must have been what she’d used to smuggle him out with. “How long have I been unconscious?”
“Almost fourteen hours. I didn’t think you were going to make it.”
“Might want to get used to that.” At those words, he watched a wave of dread ripple across her face. That was the wrong thing to say to the woman who’d just saved his life. “I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just what I always tell myself.”
“I get it.”
He shook his head. He’d have to learn to handle her with more care. She was strong, perhaps even stronger than he had been at first, but it was all still new to her. Her wounds had yet to scar over. They needed tending to as much his own did. “I mean it. I’m sorry.”
“I know,” she said, laying her hand lightly on his good shoulder.
Even through the numbness, he could feel her warmth, her forgiveness. He let it rest there as he pressed thumb and forefinger to his aching temples. His head felt as if it had been run over by a tank.
“What happened?”
“Their venom has a paralytic agent,” he answered. “They feed while you are still alive. While the blood’s pumping. It’s almost like a drug. At first, you feel this amazing rush, like a hurricane in your veins. Like God’s fishhooks sinking into your flesh and taking you to heaven. It’s . . . narcotic. Then you’re out. Pulse, heart rate, brain activity—it shuts down to a level where even medical equipment wouldn’t pick up on it.”
“Like you’re dead.”
“Exactly like you’re dead,” Jack said, knowing all too well what the experience looked and felt like. “I think that’s where another one of the legends comes from. The one about people coming back. If someone managed to survive an attack, he’d look stone dead to anyone else. When he finally did wake up,” he added, “well, the lucky ones would find themselves at the business end of a torch-waving mob.”
“And if they weren’t so lucky? Where would they find themselves then?”
“In a pine box. Clawing at the lid. Try not to think about it too much.” Jack ran his swollen tongue around the inside of his mouth. Dehydrated didn’t even begin to describe it. Plus, it seemed he’d lost a lot of blood. He saw that she’d dressed his wound with strips of torn fabric. It wasn’t a bad job. But it wasn’t a great one, either. “Hand me that triage kit.” He pointed to the stainless-steel box on the wall behind her.
Beth set it on the counter and opened the lid. He reached for a half-used roll of gauze, some tape, and the EMT shears, then set them in front of himself in an orderly line. He could hear Blood’s breath quicken, as if the dog knew what was about to happen. Jack looked down to see him panting, his eyes beginning to water.
“Do me a favor,” he said to Beth, his voice pitched to a whisper. “There’s a can of dog food in that cabinet over there. Open it up and put it outside. No need for him to see this. You might want to take a walk while you’re at it. Shouldn’t take me more than half an hour.” She nodded and obeyed. Jack watched them go, Blood flicking him a forlorn look as he bounded reluctantly into the night.
With the two of them out of sight, Jack reached into his pocket and tugged out his worn Bermuda travel brochure, along with his engagement photo. Both looked a little worse for the ordeal but had survived—much the way he had. He opened a drawer and deposited the newspaper announcement inside. He could handle a lot of things, but looking at that right now wasn’t one of them.
Instead, he smoothed out the brochure with his working hand, tracing the line of the surf with his fingertips until it met the silhouette of a couple walking hand-in-hand toward the sunset. It wasn’t the first time he’d done that. Not even the thousandth. Over the years, he’d done it so often the paper’s gloss had worn away in patches. He wondered how much longer any of it would be left. Of the picture or of him.
Jack heard the van’s door squeak open. He dropped the brochure into the drawer and slammed it shut. He turned to see Beth standing there. “You’re back.”
“You look like you could use some help.”
Jack sighed. He did need help, even though he hated to admit it. This was likely the worst wound he’d gotten in years. If that thing had struck a few inches over, if it had been able to inject its beautiful, horrible death toxin straight into his jugular, he wouldn’t have survived. She’d done better than he’d thought she would. He turned to her. “Can you sew?”
Forty-seven
Beth popped the curved surgical needle from its blue plastic vacuum pack. Then she threaded the medical filament through the loop at the far end. Now what? Sew up a wound? She’d never done anything more complicated than jazzing up a vintage T-shirt.
Jack just sat there calmly. His shirt was off, exposing his heavily muscled—and heavily scarred—torso. A bottle of black rum dangled from his uninjured hand. “Doesn’t have to be pretty.” He flicked off the bottle cap and took a slug. The sweet scent of molasses nudged against the metallic stench of gore permeating the van. “Just has to do the job.”
Beth peeled back the bandages. Blood ran down his arm in a fresh red sheet. She tried to wipe it off with the trailing edge of the dressing, but it just kept welling back up.
“Their saliva has an anticoagulating agent,” Jack said offhandedly. “So the quicker the better.”
Beth wrung out a rag in a bowl of hot water. The warmth felt good on her hands, calming the gooseflesh that had risen in the van’s chilly air. She wiped as much of the blood away as she could and examined the laceration with lingering apprehensiveness. It was vicious, going deep into the muscle tissue, and the skin at the edges was uneven and torn. And by the look of the web of interlocking scar tissue covering large patches of Jack’s shoulders, neck, and back, the wound hadn’t been his first, either. Not even close.
“How could you fight it?” She picked the suture needle back up. “That thing, it made me want to do things. It made me want—”
“To give in?” His tone was beyond knowing.
“. . . Yes.”
“It gets easier. Well, maybe not easier, but different. You learn to push the desire away. Keep the memories locked up. To be less . . .” His words trailed into silence, leaving the rest unspoken.
Less what? she wondered. Less vulnerable? Less imaginative? Less human? “How?”
“I wish I could tell you there was a way to practice. But there isn’t. You just have to survive it enough times.”
Beth tried not to dwell on how many times that might end up being. “What did it look like? What did you see it as?”
“Some club kid. Sexy. Generic. Thankfully. That’s what I usually get these days. Sexy generic.”
“Yeah, me, too.” Beth decided that this was not the time to mention that it had been Jack she’d seen in there—or any of the fantasies that had flooded her mind while that thing had held her in its thrall. Not when she was about to jam a needle through his flesh, repeatedly. “I was afraid it would be Ryan again.” She sucked in a quick breath, still trying to come to grips with the idea that he was really gone. That Zoë was gone. And that this was her life now.
“Doesn’t always work that way. The mind picks different things at different times. It’s tricky that way. Sometime it’s a lost loved one. Sometimes the sex appeal. Sometimes it’s people who make us feel safe.” He reached past her and grabbed a bottle of high-strength isopropyl alcohol. “It helps if you focus on the work. Use that to flush the wound first.”
She popped the cap. The antiseptic’s harsh chemical fumes made her eyes water almost instantly. “Won’t it hurt?”
Jack took another slug of rum. “Yes. It will hurt.”
Beth steeled herself. Then she upended the bottle. Just a few ounces at first, directly into the open wound. Jack didn’t flinch—no reaction at all. She poured more. Again, no reaction, not even a reflexive muscle twitch. His eyes had gone to some far-off place, planning the next move, the next assault. She inched the needle’s sharpened tip forward, testing the skin.
“There a problem?”
“Sorry,” she answered, a touch rattled. “It’s just that this isn’t exactly the kind of thing they cover in home ec.”
“Start from one side.” His voice was still matter-of-fact, but it had taken on a softness as he guided her. “About as far back from the edge of the wound as it is deep, and aim for the same distance on the way out. Simple.”
As the Worm Turns Page 18
