by J. E. Gurley
“Ego Te absolvo a peccatis tuis in nominee ego,” Waters intoned slowly in Latin from the Catholic mass. “In my name, I absolve you.”
As he spoke the last words, black flames erupted from Waters’ hands, poured over McAndrews’ head and body like oil, anointing him in dark fire. The flames pooled up on the deck around both of them, blocking Jeff’s view. He could hear Waters’ laughter over McAndrews’ horrendous screams through the ebony conflagration.
“No!” Jeff screamed as he lunged at Waters but Waters was no longer there. He had simply melted into the deck. Jeff collided with McAndrews, knocking him from the flames. McAndrews’ blackened shriveled body went sliding across the deck leaving a trail of acrid smoke.
Jeff ripped the harness holding the air tank from his shoulder and beat out the few flames that threatened to ignite his own clothing with his hands. Waters had vanished. Jeff rushed to the side of the warehouse and grabbed one of the new fire extinguishers they had installed. He pulled the pin and sprayed McAndrews with a stream of fire retardant, but knew it was already too late. He could see McAndrews’ fire-ravaged body through the dying flames. Finally, the black flames died out, leaving a rime of white CO2 over McAndrews’ body like freshly fallen snow.
Jeff stared in horror as McAndrews’ eyes opened and stared up at him. With superhuman effort, McAndrews lifted his head a few inches from the deck. His lipless mouth formed a word.
“Samedi,” he forced out with his last breath. His eyes closed and his head fell back to the deck in death.
Jeff knew McAndrews was dead without checking his pulse, which he was reluctant to do. McAndrews’ body seemed to shrink in on itself as his skin peeled and flaked away in large patches, revealing the seared flesh beneath. He saw Sims’ knife, the one Waters had used, lying on the deck. The wooden handle had shriveled and blackened and the shaft warped from the heat. He reached for it but stopped short of picking it up. He searched for Sim’s body and found him sprawled between two pallets of garbage, a bloody gash on his forehead. By all appearances, he was dead also.
“Sorry, Sims,” Jeff whispered. “I wonder if you’re wandering in that vast plane of existence between heaven and hell you spoke of.”
Sims eyes flickered and opened. He groaned. Jeff leaped back in surprise.
“Don’t count me out yet, Towns. I’m not dead, just sore as hell.”
Jeff reached down to help Sims to his feet. “You sure looked dead.”
As he stood leaning against a pallet for support, Sims reached up and gingerly touched the gash on his forehead. “Waters came at me out of nowhere swinging a steel pipe. I ducked but not fast enough.”
“You were lucky,” Jeff told him.
“Yeah, I…” He stopped and looked at Jeff. “Mac?”
Jeff shook his head and pointed toward McAndrews’ body. “He’s over there.”
“Too bad.”
“Yeah.” Jeff tried hard not to even think he wished it were Sims lying there instead of McAndrews. He couldn’t let his personal disdain for the man get in the way of the fact they all needed each other to survive, now more than ever.
Sims searched the deck. “I can’t find my knife.”
“It’s over there. Waters had it.”
Sims nodded and walked away.
Now only five remained.
Chapter Twenty One
“Baron Samedi guards the doorway between life and death. Why would Mac know that name?” Lisa sat slowly pounding her fist on the table, her brow furrowed in concentration.
Jeff was as perplexed as Lisa was. It had taken McAndrews a great deal of effort to speak at all. The pain must have been excruciating—scorched flesh, no lips, lungs seared from the heat.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Jeff told her. His heart raced just reliving those horrifying moments. “It was all black. The flames were as black as midnight, yet they burned Mac to a crisp.” He was amazed that he had not received a single burn from the flames. He had gone through them unscathed, freeing McAndrews in the process, but too late.
Sims sat across the table drinking coffee and listening to their conversation. His wounded brow had already scabbed over. He had said little since returning from their encounter with Waters. On the table beside him lay his knife, now badly damaged, used by Waters to kill McAndrews. Jeff had been loath to touch it lying on the deck beside McAndrews’ body but Sims had insisted on retrieving it.
Sims and Ed placed McAndrews’ body on a litter and deposited it with the others in the cooler. His body had shriveled and curled into a fetal position as rigor mortis set in, giving him a child-like appearance in death.
“Perhaps he had a moment of insight,” she suggested.
“Maybe somebody told him,” Sims said without looking up.
“Waters?” Lisa asked. “Still, it’s a clue. We know the medallions offer some protection so the force at work here is part of the voodoo pantheon. All we have to do is find out which one.”
Jeff winced at the idea. Tampering with voodoo spirits did not seem like a good thing to do. “How?”
Lisa took a deep breath and leaned forward. “I’ll have to summon a Loa.”
Jeff looked at her aghast. “No way! Unh uh, lady. That’s crazy!”
“It’s the only way,” Lisa insisted. “While possessed, I may learn the answer.”
“It’s too dangerous. For all you know, the deity you summon might be the one behind all this.”
She nodded. “It’s a chance I have to take.”
Jeff sighed, realizing he already lost the argument. “Why you?”
“I know the ritual. You don’t.”
“Teach me.”
She shook her head. “The patois I have to use is a mixture of French Creole, West African and Haitian. I can’t just teach you.”
Sims stood up. “I think this voodoo stuff is a bunch of crap. Waters is a crazed murderer, sent over the edge by what he witnessed out here, not a demon from hell or a voodoo spirit.” He looked at Jeff. “Nor ghost.”
“You haven’t seen what we’ve seen,” Jeff countered. “Waters isn’t even human anymore. He’s…he’s become part of this rig.”
“Bullshit!” Sims replied, challenging Jeff with a stare. “I don’t know what you thought you saw, but get real. There are no such things as ghosts.”
They were still glaring at each other when Ed walked in.
“What’s going on?” he asked, seeing the tension between the two of them.
Jeff nodded his head towards Lisa without taking his eyes off Sims. “She’s going to summon a voodoo deity.”
“I see,” Ed replied quietly. He looked at Lisa. “You’re certain about this?”
“Yes.”
Jeff couldn’t believe his ears. “You can’t let her!” he yelled at Ed. He had expected Ed to back him. “This is insane.”
Sims laughed. “It’s insane all right. You’re all insane.”
“We have no choice,” Ed explained calmly, focusing on Jeff. “Tolson is doing a little better with the antibiotics you salvaged but he’s not out of danger. His fever is still very high. Plus, we have a Class Five hurricane coming right up our ass. We can’t afford to sit and wait.”
Jeff said nothing. There was nothing he could say. Ed was right. So was Lisa. The macho side of him simply thought he should be the one to take the risks, be in the driver’s seat, but Lisa had the knowledge. He didn’t. This time he was just a passenger along for the ride. He couldn’t summon the words, so he just nodded his agreement and started to walk away to check on Tolson.
Sims wasn’t quite as accepting. He grabbed Jeff by the shoulder and spun him around. Jeff placed a hand on top of Sims’ and removed it. “Accept it Towns. We’re all going to die, one way or another. You’ve got to stop this nonsense and see reason.”
Jeff shook his head. “I’m not giving up that easy.” He walked away, leaving Sims muttering under his breath.
Tolson’s face was pallid and his forehead and bald scalp warm
to the touch. Ed had wrapped him in blankets to help sweat out the fever. Jeff could smell the infection in his shoulder. His eyes rolled beneath his lids in some fever-induced REM dream or nightmare. Jeff thought it couldn’t be any worse than their reality.
A week ago, he would have laughed at voodoo rituals. He had bought his medallion as one would buy a St. Christopher medal—an act more of superstition than faith.
“She’s determined to do this,” Ed said. Jeff had not noticed his boss follow him into the room. He had entered quietly, like a shadow. Ed seemed shrunken, smaller than when they had first arrived on the rig. Even his footsteps had withered, gotten softer. The ordeal was proving too much for him. His hair was whiter and his eyes tired, their light blue color gone almost gray.
“It’s too dangerous.”
“I’ve lost four men already.” Ed nodded at Tolson. “I don’t want to lose him too.”
“You think Lisa’s right? Sims doesn’t.”
Ed stroked his cheek with his trembling hand. “I don’t know. I don’t want to believe any of this, but it’s happening. Maybe she’s right. Maybe Sims is right. I just don’t know what else to do.”
“We could use the TEMPSC,” Jeff suggested.
“Will it work?”
“It might need a little more work to straighten the rail, but yes, I think it will.” He did not mention his thoughts on their chances at sea.
Ed shook his head. “Floating around in that thing during a hurricane doesn’t sound too pleasant.” He nodded at Tolson. “It would be worse for him.”
“I know. It sounds mad, but so does staying here waiting.”
“Do you trust her?”
“Lisa? Of course.”
“Help her. She seems to know more about what’s happening here than either of us.”
Jeff nodded. He hated to admit that Ed might be right. He was beginning to believe in the supernatural. If his and her voodoo charms affected the fog, voodoo might provide the answer they were seeking.
“It could be dangerous for her,” Jeff said.
“More danger than she’s facing now?” Ed asked.
Jeff smiled at Ed. “You’re right. Get some sleep while you can. I’ll talk to Lisa.”
Ed placed one foot on Tolson’s bunk and pushed himself up on Jeff’s bunk. The effort seemed almost too much for him. He sighed deeply and stretched out. “I’ll stay here where I can watch Tolson. She’s a good girl. I knew her granny. She was a powerful priestess, one of the best. Don’t sell Lisa short. She knows what she’s doing.”
Jeff pretended to fuss over Tolson for a while until he heard Ed’s soft snoring. He pulled the old man’s blanket over him and closed the door as he left. He smelled something acrid burning. He found Lisa working with her I-Pod. She had a soldering gun and two speakers lying on a table.
“What are you doing?”
“I need music for the ritual. I ripped the speakers out of the Pac Man game and now I’m trying to connect them to my I-Pod using parts from the radio.”
He watched as she made several connections, redoing some until satisfied.
“There,” she announced. “That should work.”
She turned on the I-Pod and drum music began to blare from the speakers. She winced.
“A little grainy, but it will have to do.”
Jeff recognized some African rhythms in the music. At first, it seemed monotonous. Gradually, he began to hear the subtle overtones and back beats that added flavor and color to the rhythm.
“Where did you get this?”
She blushed. “I have several ritual songs in here,” she said, holding out the I-Pod. “At one time I intended to write a paper on voodoo rituals for college but I backed out. I thought I might wind up labeled a quack.”
She stood up and stretched. Jeff watched her pert breasts move seductively under her blouse. He wondered how he could lust surrounded by so much death and uncertainty. He supposed the urge to procreate operated even more strongly in high stress or possible death situation, a species survival factor.
“Satisfied?” she asked.
He jumped and turned away in embarrassment, caught peeking like a teenager. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “I’ve gotten used to it. Lord knows Tolson checked them out often enough. He even asked if they were real.”
Jeff said nothing.
“They are, you know.”
He nodded. “They are very nice,” he croaked, his throat suddenly dry. He swallowed before finishing. “I suppose I should be concentrating on keeping us alive.”
The moment slipped past, not forgotten but set aside for later.
“All I need are some candles, some flour and something to help put me in a trance.”
“Not many candles,” Jeff replied. “Most were broken up by the storm. I looked earlier before we got the generator running. I managed to save two or three. There is a case of Sterno in the pantry.”
“It will have to do.”
“We don’t have flour, but we do have pancake mix.”
Lisa sighed. “I’ll improvise.”
“I also saw a locked metal box in there. Unless the chef kept his valuable recipes there, I suspect it’s where he kept liquor for cooking, or, knowing a few cooks, drinking.”
“It’s better than nothing. We can use this front office. It’s large enough.”
“Have you thought this thing through? Are you sure it’s what we should do?”
She gave him a whimsical look. “I’m not sure of anything. I’ve never done this. As a little girl, I saw my granny do it many times. I think I remember the words. It could give us some of the answers we so desperately need. I don’t know of any other way.”
Jeff watched as Lisa cleared the furniture from the center of the room. Her movements were precise and methodical, as if she had done this same thing a thousand times before. Her brow wrinkled in concentration and she hummed quietly to herself as she worked. He left her to locate the candles and the chef’s liquor stash.
There were four candles, white. Jeff placed these in his pocket, grabbed a case of Sterno and a lighter and placed them on a stainless steel wheeled cart. With a metal meat tenderizer and a chef’s sharpening steel, he broke the lock on the metal box bolted to the pantry shelf. As he had suspected, inside he found a half full bottle of Southern Comfort, a bottle of Marsala and the chef’s wallet with forty-five dollars and a set of keys. He took the Southern Comfort and left the rest.
As he returned to the front office, he passed Sims’ room; then stopped. He considered apologizing to him. After all, Waters had almost killed him. That was enough to shake up any one. He looked in. Sims was asleep. Jeff continued to the front office.
Lisa took the pancake mix and scattered it around the floor. She then took the candles and with Jeff’s knife cut them into smaller pieces. She embedded each one inside an opened can of Sterno and placed them around the room. She eyed the half-empty bottle of Southern Comfort.
“Luckily, I don’t drink liquor often. This should be enough.” She stood and looked around the room. “That’s it, I guess.”
“You can always back out of this,” Jeff urged.
“Jeff, in voodoo there are no coincidences. What are the odds that someone familiar with voodoo would wind up here in a situation where voodoo spirits are killing people?”
He winced as she said aloud what he had been thinking for some time. “You think you were brought here for a reason?”
“According to Waters we all were. I just hope there are other spirits at work countering whatever has taken control of this rig. Maybe I’m here for a different reason.”
Jeff thought Lisa was going somewhere with her train of thought. He encouraged her. “What reason, exactly?”
She shook her head vigorously. “I don’t know.” She paused. “Maybe…maybe I’m here to end this horror,” she answered with more certainty. She stood and examined her work. She moved a few candles around. “I guess I’m ready.”
&nb
sp; Lisa held out her hand. Jeff handed her the Southern Comfort. When their hands touched, he held on for a few seconds and rubbed a finger over the back of her hand before releasing it. She smiled and took the whiskey. Taking a long gulp, she winced at the taste and finished the bottle. Next, she lit the candles, chanting softly as each candle flickered to life. The room took on a ruddy glow as the candles ignited the Sterno. Jeff sat down in a chair as Lisa turned on the I-pod and began swaying to the drumbeat. Her lips moved but he could not hear the words she spoke.
As the music became more frenzied so did her movements. She clasped the Papa Legbe charm with both hands. Her Erzulie Danto medallion was still hanging over the outer door as protection from the fog. She danced around the room, twisting and turning seductively, ignoring Jeff completely. Her closed eyes seeing something beyond the confines of the room. Her hands reached out to it, drew it toward her as one beckons an old friend.
Suddenly, she froze in place and began to tremble. Her eyes snapped opened, revealing only the white of her corneas—a lusterless dead, fish belly white.
Jeff half rose from his chair and called out to her in concern, “Lisa?”
She turned toward him, seeing him somehow with those dead eyes. She shook her head to silence him. He sat back down but still held onto the chair arms tightly. The candles began to smoke heavily, a dense dark, charcoal gray smoke, and the room grew darker and colder. Light, a pallid ghost light, filled the room from an unseen source. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a figure emerge from the shadows as if stepping through an open doorway, a tall black man in a black suit, top hat, dark glasses and a smoking cigarette dangling from his thin, pale lips. He smiled, showing two gold upper teeth.
“Greetings,” he said, staring at Jeff.
* * * *
Lisa gasped as the shadows parted, revealing a man. “Baron Samedi,” Lisa called out to him.
“You called and I came,” he said in a deep baritone voice. “What is your need?”
