The Sound of Many Waters

by Sean Bloomfield

  Chapter Twelve

  Zane clung to the skeletal remains of the launch pad and tried to think of a way out of what had become a desperate predicament.

  “You can drop the bag to me,” said Miguel, “or I can come up there and get you down the hard way. You have five seconds to decide . . . Five.”

  If he dropped the bag, Miguel would quickly discover that most of the coins were no longer inside it. Miguel moved to the base of the ladder and gazed up. “Four,” he said.

  The ladder extended only a few more rungs past Zane, ending at a twisted, rusted-out platform that looked like it could collapse at the slightest touch.

  “Three,” said Miguel.

  Zane thought about climbing out on the nearest crossbeam but he feared he would slip off if he did—it was slick with vulture droppings. He closed his eyes and hugged the metal ladder. There was no way out.

  “Two.”

  Zane tried to calm himself by looking at the phantasmal rafters around him and envisioning how the structure looked when it was still in use. Eager workers checking gauges. Steam rising from cooling systems. A freshly-painted spacecraft aiming for the stars. If only he were a rocket, he mused, when Miguel finished his vile countdown, his thrusters would burn the man to bits.

  “One,” said Miguel. “Bad choice, my friend.” Miguel put the knife blade between his teeth and started climbing up. Zane had to do something. He scrambled up the last few rungs of the ladder and touched the crooked platform to test it but, as he expected, the entire thing lurched to one side and made a groaning sound as it did. Fragments of rusty metal fell off—which gave him an idea.

  Miguel stopped and wiped the rust off of his head and then he took the knife out of his mouth. “Your father sold you out, you know. He won’t be able to blame anyone but himself for your death.”

  “You’re lying,” said Zane.

  “Deep down, you know I’m not.” Miguel bit down on the knife again and continued up.

  Zane’s eyes fell on one of the platform’s girders. It was rusted through on each end. He reached out as far as he could and grabbed hold of it and strained to break it off. When it finally gave, he had to stop himself from falling backward. He took a deep breath. That was too close.

  He looked down. Miguel was halfway up and still climbing with vigor. The knife blade glinted in his mouth and his clenched teeth were curved into what looked like a wicked smile. Zane held the heavy girder chunk over Miguel. “Stop, or I’ll drop this on you.”

  Miguel kept coming, so Zane aimed and let go. It fell silently. Just as it was about to hit Miguel, however, it bounced off the ladder and deflected away. He heard it hit the ground with a solid thunk.

  Now what?

  He looked at the platform again but saw nothing else to detach. All he could hope for now was to kick Miguel away, but that would be difficult with a knife flailing at his legs. He put his head against the ladder and tried to think of a solution and that’s when he felt the thrumming of a vehicle engine in the metal.

  It soon became audible. Both Zane and Miguel turned to look toward its source at the same time. There, passing by on the nearby dirt road and throwing a plume of dust, was a military Jeep. Large letters on the side spelled out US Air Force Patrol. The two men inside it wore full camouflage fatigues. Zane could hear faint music and the driver bobbed in his seat.

  Zane waved his hand in a broad sweep and yelled. “Hey! Up here!”

  Miguel stopped and took the knife out of his mouth. “Shut up!”

  Zane yelled louder. “Help! I need help!”

  The Jeep stopped and Zane could see the soldiers looking around for the source of the voice. The cloud of dust overtook the vehicle and concealed it. Miguel hurried down the ladder, half climbing and half sliding; when he reached the ground, he looked up at Zane. “I will find you and I will kill you.” Then he ran into the woods.

  Zane looked toward the road—the dust had settled and the soldiers had spotted him. They jumped out of the Jeep with M-16s drawn; Zane started going down the ladder and lost sight of them among the treetops. For some reason, the large guns did not bother him. In fact, they made him feel somewhat safe; after all, Miguel was not brazen enough to go up against two automatic rifles with one little knife. Or was he? Zane’s hands became moist with nervousness and as he approached the last ten feet of the ladder, he slipped off. Splat. He landed in something gooey. Drawing a painful breath, he almost vomited when he tasted the air. He had fallen in a puddle of vulture excrement.

  He tried to stand and almost slipped in the glop but he grabbed the ladder and caught himself. He picked up the duffel bag. It, too, was covered in the stinking grime. He tried to shake it off but it clung like some horrid glue.

  “Sir, this is a restricted area,” said an approaching voice.

  Zane looked up. The two soldiers stood at the edge of the slab, their guns pointed at him. He stood up straight and tried to brush the slime off his arms.

  “Sir, did you hear me?” said the taller of the two soldiers, an African American man in his mid-thirties. “This is a restricted area.” The other soldier, squat and pale in contrast to his partner, looked to be even younger than Zane.

  “Restricted?” said Zane, trying to act ignorant. “Really?”

  He could tell from the looks on their faces that they assumed him to be some kind of vagabond, and he was not surprised. His ripped shirt hung open and the wound on his head was caked in dried blood. The rest of his skin, covered in dirt, now boasted a generous splattering of bird filth.

  “How the hell did you get out here?” said the younger soldier.

  “With difficulty,” said Zane.

  “Where are you from?”

  “Jupiter.”

  “Jupiter?” said the tall soldier, a slight smirk on his face. “Last dude said Mars.”

  “Sorry?”

  “You’re in one of them UFO cults, ain’t you.”

  “Cult?” Zane let out a nervous laugh. But then he realized that going along with the soldier’s presumption might be a better alternative to the truth. “Well, to be honest,” said Zane, “we call it a religion, not a cult.”

  The tall soldier looked at his partner. “See, what I tell ya? Seems like every year we catch one of these nut-jobs trying to stow away in a rocket, wanting to go up and rendezvous with their alien leader or some crazy story.” The other soldier laughed, and then the tall soldier looked at Zane. “How’d you get past the gates, buddy?”

  Zane put his weight on one hip, trying to look casual. “That was the easy part. Came out on a tour bus and snuck off.”

  “Then why’d you pick this launch pad? Ain’t been no rockets out here for decades.”

  “Well, I was just waiting, I guess.”

  “For what?”

  Zane had to conjure a more convincing act. He looked at the sky and pointed. “For it to land,” he whispered, and then he twirled his fingers in front of his face as if doing something magical. “Behold, earthlings. The mothership is coming to get me, for I am the only being in the universe who can prevent the intergalactic war.”

  He must have convinced them of his madness because they laughed out loud. A barrage of sarcastic questions ensued.

  “So,” said the younger soldier, snickering. “Who’s your leader?”

  “Captain Kirk. James T.”

  The soldiers guffawed. “And what’s your name?” asked the tall one.

  “Jeff Skywalker.”

  “Jeff?”

  “Luke’s nephew.” More laughter.

  “Okay, Jeff. So how is it you’re able to talk with the—what is it again?”

  “Mothership,” said Zane.

  “Yeah, how do you talk to the mothership?”

  “Phone home,” Zane said in his best imitation of E.T., but when the soldiers raised their eyebrows without laughing, he knew he had gone too far. “Really, though,” said Zane, “that’s just what I call it. Layman’s terms, you know. I actually use a complex subatomic
communications device, made with alien technologies that are way beyond your infantile minds.”

  “Watch it,” said the tall soldier. He no longer looked amused. “What’s in the bag?”

  “Just some stuff for my journey. Toothbrush, clean undies, astronaut ice cream.”

  “Let me see.” The soldier stepped closer and reached for the bag but he stopped. His nostrils twitched and his face contorted. “What’s that smell?” he asked.

  “What smell?” said Zane. He had been breathing through his mouth the entire time in order to avoid it.

  The younger soldier smelled it, too. “What the hell is all over you, man?”

  Zane tried to think of an answer appropriate to his character. Alien slime? Spaceship sewage? Antimatter? Nothing sounded authentic, even for a lunatic, so he went with the truth. “Vulture crap. I fell in it.”

  The soldiers took a step back. “Nasty,” said the younger one.

  The tall one lowered his gun. “We’ll have to give you a citation and get you back to the mainland. But you sure as hell ain’t riding in front.”

  Keeping their distance, the soldiers ordered Zane into the flatbed of the Jeep and instructed him to sit against the tailgate. They did not appear concerned about him as a threat—maybe they were convinced that he was a harmless weirdo or were simply afraid to deal with his stench—and they did not even look back at him as the Jeep started bouncing down the road. Zane gazed toward the launch pad as they left and there in the dark woods near its base he saw Miguel glaring out. Zane waved, smiled and held up the duffel bag, but he quickly thought better of taunting a murderer and looked away.

  The Jeep turned onto a paved motorway. Zane watched the seemingly endless swampland and forest fly by in a greenish-brown blur, every mile as good as a light year away from Miguel. Eventually the Jeep turned onto a wide four-lane highway. The driver turned on the stereo, but the R&B ballad that burst forth did not seem to agree with him. He scanned the stations until he came to Hank Williams, Jr., drawling out A Country Boy Can Survive.

  “What’s with the cowboy music?” said the passenger.

  The driver smiled. “What, a black man can’t listen to country?”

  “I just thought you had better taste. I’m picking the next song.”

  The Jeep reached a bridge that spanned an immense lagoon. As it climbed the steep road, Zane could see houses and condominiums on the other side—freedom. He looked at the body of water below and guessed it to be the Indian River. With scant wind, the water was glass. Crab trap buoys of various colors speckled the surface like ice cream sprinkles. A manatee sounded and left a circular upwelling with its tail. A bottlenose dolphin blasted a school of mullet, the front of its body coming all the way out to snare the one that tried to leap away.

  When the song ended, a DJ came on to deliver breaking news. “Still no word on the whereabouts of the men wanted in connection with a boating accident and the death of a federal officer that occurred off the coast last night.”

  Zane froze.

  “My turn,” said the passenger, and he changed the station.

  Zane exhaled.

  “Hang on,” said the driver, and he changed it back. “Listen.”

  No, no, no, thought Zane.

  “Authorities say that one of the men has a history of drug abuse. They’ve identified him as Jupiter resident Zane Fisher. They describe Fisher as a 25-year-old white male, five-ten, medium build, sandy blonde hair, and blue eyes.”

  The Jeep slowed and stopped at the top of the bridge. The soldiers both turned and looked at Zane. He feigned disinterest by gazing at the lagoon. “Police say Fisher may still be lost at sea or has swum to shore,” continued the DJ. “He’s considered extremely dangerous and should not be approached. Now, back to your Wacky Workday Hoedown on K-95 FM.”

  The driver shut off the stereo without looking at it. “They aren’t talking about you, are they, Jeff?”

  “His name ain’t really Jeff, dumbass,” whispered the passenger.

  “I know that. What’s your real name, buddy?”

  The soldiers angled their guns toward Zane, so he grabbed the duffel bag, jumped out of the Jeep, and ran down the bridge. He stopped, however, when he saw a police car coming up the bridge toward him. He was cornered.

  The soldiers leapt out of the Jeep, aiming their rifles at Zane. “On the ground!” yelled the younger soldier.

  Zane looked at them with pleading eyes. “The guy you want is back at that launch pad.”

  “I said get on the ground! Now!”

  The police car stopped. A portly policeman stepped out. He aimed a pistol at Zane and inched toward him.

  “Who’s this dirtbag?” the policeman yelled to the soldiers.

  “I think he’s the one they’re looking for,” shouted the tall soldier. “We found him near the beach.”

  Panic filled the policeman’s face and he mumbled something into his shoulder-mounted radio. Then he looked at Zane. “Are they right? Was that you in the boat out there?”

  Zane hesitated, but he was tired of lying. The time had come to give up, to come clean. “Yes, sir,” he said.

  “You piece of crap. You like to kill cops?”

  Zane was startled. “No sir.”

  The policeman glared at him with terrible eyes. “Cop-killers don’t get arrested. They get shot. I want you to know that before I pull this trigger.”

  Zane went damp with terror. Without even looking down to check the height or depth or if there appeared to be any dangers in the water—the three unwritten rules he had learned from a childhood of jumping off Jupiter’s bridges for fun—he turned and leapt over the guardrail. A gunshot cracked behind him but he was too distracted by the sensation of freefalling to even wonder if he had been hit.

  When he glimpsed the brown water coming up from below, he let go of the duffel bag and curled into a ball. The world around him detonated. The water’s impact sent stinging pain through his whole body and the force of the fall propelled him deep into a shadowy gloom where his legs were thrust into cold mud up to his thighs. He tried to extract them but it felt as if they were cemented in. He realized that he would soon drown if he did not get himself unstuck. A stunning thought flashed in his mind—this could be it.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The serpentine river twisted and contorted northward until it pushed the canoe across a shallow delta and out onto a vast lake, its waters as black as cassina. Angry little wind-driven waves jostled the canoe and spit in Dominic’s face. Licking the rim of his mouth, the water’s pleasant flavor surprised him. Agua dulce—sweet water—was the Spanish term for fresh water, and the contents of this lake fit that description more precisely than anything he’d ever tasted. He dipped his hand and cupped a sip to his mouth.

  “Do not do that,” said Francisco.

  Dominic stopped drinking mid-sip. “Please tell me the water is not poisonous.”

  “The water is good, but you should not put your hand in it. You will bring things up from below.”

  Dominic gazed into the dark water. The sunlight struggled to penetrate its surface. “Snakes?”

  “Worse.”

  “Alliga—” he stopped. “Itori?”

  “Close.”

  “Enough riddles, old man.”

  Francisco leaned toward him. “Alligator gar.”

  “Gar?” Dominic laughed. “A fish?”

  “Not just any fish. These grow as long as this canoe and their teeth will peel the skin right off a man’s bones. Splashing brings them in. That is why you do not see any of us dangling our hands in the water.”

  Dominic cupped another handful and gulped it down. “I am not afraid of a fish.” He had never tasted water so delicious and he intended to drink as much as his stomach would allow. He splashed some on his face and ran his wet fingers through his hair. The coolness invigorated him.

  “I am not telling stories,” said Francisco. “You will attract them.”

  Dominic grinned. “I canno
t help it. I am an attractive man.”

  “This is not a joke. How do you think I lost my finger?”

  “I thought the Calusa ate it.”

  Dominic leaned over for another handful but stopped; an iridescent eye stared up at him. Dominic squinted. The eye, because of its sheen, was the only thing visible in the murk; the rest of the creature must have been a dark color because it was totally concealed. The eye descended mere inches and vanished.

  Dominic leaned back. “I may have just seen a—”

  The water exploded near the front of the canoe. A jagged snout with rows of scythe-like teeth grabbed hold of Utina’s paddle blade. When Utina jerked back, the thing in the water reacted violently, whipping its tail, arching its thick back, and flexing its spade-like scales. Dominic froze in awe—the fish had to be ten feet long. With one tic of its head, a crack rang out and the beast disappeared into the blackness, leaving Utina with the splintered end of a now useless paddle.

  Everyone was stunned, but no one more than Dominic. He pulled his hands away from the edge and folded them in his lap. “Good God,” he whispered.

  “Still not afraid of fish, commander?” said Francisco.

  Dominic scowled. “Mock me again and you will be swimming with that thing.”

  Only one paddle remained, and it was in Francisco’s hands. He held it up and said something in Timucuan, and then repeated it in Spanish. “I do not want to be responsible for our success or failure.”

  Dominic could see by the worry on the natives’ faces how dire the situation had become. They all stared at the paddle as if it were both cursed and anointed. None of them seemed to want to take it.

  “Give it to me,” said Dominic. “I will do it.”

  The natives watched Francisco contemplate the offer. “No matter what,” said Francisco, “do not let go of it.” Dominic nodded and Francisco handed the paddle to him.

  The natives bowed toward the sun in unison and mouthed a silent prayer. Francisco, in turn, closed his eyes and recited the Our Father in Latin.

  “Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum…”