by Julius Fast
"What the hell..." Tom looked down at the deck. "Did he come out of that fish? Where did he come from?" No one answered and his voice rose, "Where did he come from? Where the hell did you come from?"
The young man had backed away, and now he turned his head, listening, absorbing the words but not the meaning behind them. In his brain the fish still lingered, but fading rapidly under the imprint of the man.
But it was a new man, not the man who had plunged from the bridge, not the man who had been first a bird and then a fish. In the frantic struggle to keep from asphyxiating, the image of a man, an air-breathing man, had taken over the fish body, but it was not the man who had turned into a fish. That man was still within him, struggling up from the depths in which he had been submerged, that man still fought for identity. This was an idealized abstraction, man as a dictionary would illustrate him.
"Who the hell are you?" Tom repeated.
When an event occurs that passes belief, the human mind finds it easier not to believe. Hartsdale weighed the possibility of a shark turning into a man and rejected it at once. Since it was impossible, it hadn't happened, and they had pulled a man aboard, a naked man out of the sea, but they had all been too drunk to know it. The mind plays strange tricks, he told himself comfortingly.
"There never was a shark," he said to Tom soberly. "We were all loaded. We pull a guy out of the water and we see a shark. For Christ's sake, throw him a coat or something."
Alice took her hands from her eyes and stared at him. "But I saw a shark."
"You think you did," he said rationally, nodding at Mike, who was still heaving over the side of the boat. "That's how loaded we were. Haven't you got any extra clothes, Dickenson?"
Tom shook himself as if shrugging off a bad dream. Maybe Hartsdale was right. He ducked into the cabin and came out with a pair of pants and a jacket. "Here." He held them out to the motionless man. "Get into these."
Hartsdale put his arm around Alice. "It's all right, sis. We fished him out of the water. He must have fallen overboard from some ship. He looks as if he's in shock."
"But the blood..."
"All right," he said angrily. "I hooked a shark, but we never pulled him up. This is a man."
Mike, turning his back to the rail, sank down into a squat, holding his face in his hands. "God, I'm sick."
Tom, still holding the clothes out, said, "Take them. Put them on. Get covered."
The boy backed away till he touched the rail. He looked back at the water and there was a momentary flicker of life behind his eyes, then the blankness descended again.
"Here." Tom shoved the clothes forward. "I've got to get back to the wheel."
Hesitantly, the boy took the clothes, and Tom turned and hurried to the wheel. Without even asking Hartsdale, he checked the compass and the stars, saw the lights off Montauk, and revving up the motor headed back towards port. He switched off the cabin light, leaving the group in semidarkness. At the stern Hartsdale approached the boy gently, showing how to pull the pants on and button the jacket.
"The poor kid is shocked," he told Alice. "Who knows how long he's been in the water. But he'll snap out of it. Won't you, son?" He smiled at the boy and slowly, awkwardly, the boy smiled back.
Alice stared at him as the boat throbbed ahead, and finally she said softly, "God, he's handsome. But he scares me. There's something missing."
With the clothes on, the boy began to shiver, and Hartsdale took the bottle of Scotch and handed it to him, lifting it up first and taking a swallow to show him how.
The boy took it, imitating him, but as the liquor touched his lips, he spat it out and began to cough. He moved away apprehensively, but Hartsdale took his arm. "It's okay. It's okay. Hey, Tom, can you push it? This kid is in a bad way."
The rest of the trip was made in silence, except for the roar of the motor and the shuddering of the deck. At the Port of Egypt dock Tom secured the boat while Hartsdale helped the others off. Once on the dock the boy hesitated, staring uncertainly back at the boat and then to the water, to the wide, dark expanse of the bay. His hand touched his chest and moved uncertainly down his body. Then he lifted it and stared at his fingers, spreading them and flexing them.
"He's still shook up," Hartsdale said confidently. "Come on, Alice. Help me get Mike back."
But Mike shook off their arms. "I can walk, damn it! Just let me get away from that—fish."
Left alone for a moment, while Tom tended to the boat, the boy followed the faint, unfamiliar tendrils of thought that wandered into his numbed brain, that probed out tentatively from the man that had cowered so long within the shark.
As a shark, his man consciousness had been half withdrawn, half forced back into the shadowy, almost unconscious fringes of sanity. There it had waited, taking no part in the savage, predatory life of the shark, but for a while it had received stimuli, impressions, sensory perceptions and it had been aware, frighteningly aware of all the days spent in the green hell of the sea.
When faced with death from hypoxia on the floor of the boat, instinct for survival had taken over and the plastic flesh had become a man again, an air-breathing creature. But it had not become a specific man. Jack's own identity was too deeply buried for that. It had become a concept of a man, a perfect model of a man borrowed from some recess of the shocked, controlling mind still cowering in the neural caverns of the skull.
Now, slowly, tentatively and fearfully, the mind came back and the empty, perfect body changed and shaped itself to the blueprint of Jack Freeman, the face aging, the hair thinning and the muscles slacking.
Awareness, consciousness, whatever constitutes the whole of the man crept back slowly. Jack, staring at his hand, first became aware of the awkward tightness of his pants. He loosened the belt buckle with a sigh of relief and then stared around him.
Memory washed back, confused and filled with terror, dominated by the remembrance of tearing blood-soaked mouthfuls of flesh from the whale's side. Then the other parts of memory fell into place, his fall from the bridge, the moment as a bird, the change to a shark, the fight against the line and the gaff and finally the floundering terror of choking to death on the deck of the boat.
"Hello. Any better now?" He heard Tom's footsteps and turned, searching desperately for something to say, some rational explanation. But he was saved the trouble. Tom looked at him in the light from the bar, then glanced beyond him. "Sorry. I thought you were the other one, the kid. Did you see a kid standing here?"
"A kid?" His voice was hoarse.
"In a jacket like yours."
"Oh, yeah." He gestured vaguely. "Down the end of the dock there."
"Thanks." Tom turned and started off, then looked back curiously. Jack held his breath, turning his head so the light caught his face. Instinctively he knew that it had changed, was his own now. Tom shrugged and walked on.
He had accepted Jack as someone else. The similarity of clothes had puzzled him, but if they searched and didn't find the boy, then found him wearing the boy's clothes—what would they do?
He had to get out of here! Barefoot and still shocked, he turned and walked quickly towards the building. Then he hesitated. If he went on, into the restaurant, he would have to face the girl and the men. He would have to explain what he was doing here, why he was wearing Tom's clothes. In the bright light of the restaurant they'd be sure to notice that.
He glanced behind him and saw Tom pause to light a cigarette. The restaurant door was closed, the side of the building in darkness. Without stopping to think he ducked to the side, into the shadows of the building, and ran lightly around it. Behind there was a low, brick wall, and beyond that a parking lot with about six cars.
If only the keys had been left in one! With his heart hammering, he slipped over the low wall and checked the cars nearest to it. The doors were all locked. One by one he tried the rest. One was open, but there were no keys in the ignition nor on the overhead visor. He had heard of jumping wires to start a stolen car, but he di
dn't know enough to try it.
He stood there chewing his lip uneasily. Could he go back to the restaurant? Was there any story he could tell to convince them? What would they think when they couldn't find the boy? They had seen a boy, a young man on the boat. In a little while they'd start searching for him, probably notify the police.
He started to turn away, and then on the back seat of the car he saw a pair of old, tattered sneakers. He had them in his hand and was closing the door when he heard voices raised at the front of the restaurant. This was it! They had missed him and in a moment they'd be back here searching.
With the sneakers in his hand he raced across the parking lot and jumped the low wall on the other side, landing on a patch of sandy beach. Without stopping he raced up the beach till he reached the shelter of a house on piles. He ducked under the rear and fell down into a patch of dry sand. For a moment he lay there, gulping air, then he pulled on the sneakers. They were too small, but better than nothing. There was a sense of security in having his feet protected. Each article of clothes makes me a little more of a man, he told himself, and fought down a sudden frightening urge to laugh.
Voices were raised on the beach near the restaurant and lights stabbed into the darkness for a little while, then gradually the hubbub died away. He waited on, for what was probably only half an hour, yet seemed half the night. Then he crawled out from under the house, stood up and walked away from the beach. He crossed a sandy, weed-grown lot and waded a ditch to come out on a road stretching east and west, lit to a silver sheen by the low bright yellow of the moon. Which way did he go? Which way was the city? He stood, shaking his head slowly. In fact, just where the hell was he?
Chapter Eleven
The road stretched in either direction like a white ribbon, and the moon, almost full, washed all color out of the bushes and trees beside the road. A pale, lonely landscape, Jack thought, but bleached of all character, like himself.
What was he? He looked down at his body, and with his hands pushed the denim pants against his thighs. Were they firmer, more muscular than they had been? When? How long ago? He touched his face and felt his cheeks, clean-shaven and without stubble. How long had he been—like that? His mind veered away from the time spent in the ocean.
He started walking abruptly. Direction didn't matter. He'd come to something, to someplace eventually. He began to shiver, suddenly aware of the cold, but more frighteningly aware of what had happened. Memory began to return, and with it a mounting hysteria.
He had leaped from the George Washington Bridge. He remembered every moment of the fall, and the change—but why? Why had he changed? Because he had willed it. The answer was as simple as that. That old joke, he had changed his mind partway down. He had wanted to survive, with all his heart and mind, out of fear and terror. And survival was only possible if he could fly.
Why not an airplane? he thought hysterically, and then stopped, shaking his head, fighting down a wild urge to laugh. He had changed into an awkward bird, too big and heavy to fly, but enough of a bird to break his fall, to save his life.
And then he had changed again, when drowning was inevitable, to a fish, again in order to survive, to save his life. Could he believe that? Did he dare believe it? Was he still sane?
He began to walk once more. The third change had been back to a man, and again it had been a matter of survival. All right then, there were ground rules to the game, and where there were rules there was sanity.
Sanity! But why did it have to be sane at all? Insanity was the obvious answer. He had never changed. He had imagined the whole thing in some unbalanced corner of his mind. Was he even imagining this? But why would insanity come so suddenly? The answer to that too was easy. The cancer had metastasized to his brain. It was affecting his whole concept of reality.
But he could easily prove the reality of the situation by walking back to the restaurant, by asking them, "Did you catch a shark that turned to a man?"
"Oh, my God!" he whispered, shaking his head and staring up at the moon. If this were another hallucination, he could prove nothing, could only live it out. The moon. It was almost full, but was it waxing or waning? What kind of a moon had it been the night he had raced through Central Park as a wolf? How long ago? How long had he cruised the dark waters of the Atlantic as a fish?
Again the mounting hysteria rose in him, and again he fought it down. Get to the rules, the ground rules. If he was sane, there had to be rules. Something had happened to him. He had changed again and again, from man to beast and back. That he must accept as true. But why? Why had it happened?
He plunged his hands into his pockets and hunched his shoulders against the cold. There could only be one answer to why. Because of the treatment in Montreal. He had been given DNA. What had DNA done to Stiener's rats? It had changed the rate of growth of their tumors. Could it also control man's growth? Could it also cause him to change? A fleeting memory came back, Steve looking at the cages of wild rats, looking at an empty cage. She had said something, some hint, dimly understood and now hardly remembered. He had a moment's mental image of a rat changing to a snake, sliding through the bars of the cage. Could DNA do that? Could it change life's very form?
DNA, deoxyribonucleic acid. It was the stuff chromosomes were made of. That much he knew, and chromosomes were the blueprints from which the body was built. In every microscopic cell of his body he had enough DNA to blueprint the construction of an entire man. He remembered that from an article he had once researched. But more than a man? A shark? A bird? A wolf? Was it possible that in some way he could change his body now, change at will?
He stopped on the lonely, deserted road. Let him change now, then. Into what? A horse? He was too small for that. Surely no amount of change could add weight to his body—or take it away. That was why the bird hadn't been able to fly. A deer then. As a deer he could race alongside the road and eat up the miles.
A heady exultation filled him and he closed his eyes, willing himself to change with all his strength, willing himself a deer till sweat stood out on his forehead—and he opened his eyes to find himself still a man.
He walked on slowly. What were the rules, the ground rules? Only to save his life. That of course had been the key. For some reason, when the chips were down and it was a matter of life and death, he could change, but not like this, not walking along a deserted road, not by simply willing that change.
The yellow headlights of a car behind him threw his shadow ahead of him at the same moment that he became aware of the car's noise. His first instinct was to plunge into the bushes and hide, but reason took over. Why hide? He had done nothing wrong. Even if it were the fishermen coming, what could they say? The denims he wore were like any other pair. Maybe they could be identified and maybe they couldn't, and even if they could, he had done nothing wrong. What was he guilty of? Anthropomorphism? Lycanthropy? Piscanthropy? Was there even a word for it?
He turned and faced the oncoming car, and lifted his thumb in the traditional hitchhiker's query.
The headlights picked him out, and abruptly, with a squeal of brakes, the car lurched to a stop. It was an old, badly weathered station wagon, and as Jack loped towards it, the side window was rolled sown and Tom Dickenson's head poked out.
"Hey—''
For a moment Jack hesitated, then, fighting down the urge to run, he approached the car. "Can you give me a lift?"
As he came close, Tom shook his head in disappointment. "Damn, I thought you were the kid. They're turning the place upside down for him. You might as well get in."
Jack climbed in as Tom started the car moving. His heart was racing and his hand shook. Forcing his voice to be steady he asked, "The kid you asked about on the dock?"
"Oh—that's where I saw you. Funny, I could have sworn you were the kid. Especially those clothes." He was silent for a moment. "We fished this kid out of the ocean."
Striking a casual note, Jack said, "You've got to be a little nuts to go swimming in this weath
er."
"Well, he was way out, maybe washed off some boat or ... I don't know..." His voice trailed away. "Funny thing..."
"Where are you heading?" Jack asked carefully.
"Riverhead." He nodded over his shoulder. "Keep my boat in Greenport. Just took a fishing party out tonight. That's when we pulled the kid in. Thought he was a shark at first."
"A shark?" A little surprise and disbelief, but don't be too curious. Or should he be curious? Wouldn't anyone be curious as hell? "You thought he was a shark?"
Uncomfortably, Tom said. "We'd been drinking a lot. We pulled this shark up on deck, and then..." he hesitated and ran his tongue over his lips. "It wasn't a shark, you see. It was a kid, only ... I could have sworn..." he shook his head as his voice trailed away.
"How far is Riverhead from the city?" Jack asked. This had to be Long Island. Riverhead, Greenport.
Tom looked at him curiously. "Maybe sixty, seventy miles. That where you're going?"
Now he had aroused Tom's curiosity. He searched his mind desperately for some rational explanation. "Yeah, to the city."
"How come you're out here with no car, in jeans like that?" Was there suspicion and uneasiness in Tom's voice, or just curiosity?
He mustn't hesitate. "Looking for my buddy. We were drinking together," Jack said. This would make sense to Dickenson. "He's got a crazy sense of humor, my buddy. Told me he was going to the men's room and just took off, left me stranded out here. That's his idea of being funny."
The idea appealed to Tom and he chuckled. "You gotta admit it gets a rise. What some guys'll do for a laugh."
"Big joke!"
"Well, I can take you into Riverhead. You won't have any trouble catching a train to New York from there."
"Thanks. That's pretty decent of you."
"That's okay. It's pretty lonely on the road this time of night. Good to have someone to talk to. I got my girl back in Port of Egypt, that's near Greenport, and the boatyard gives me an excuse to spend some time there—you know how wives are."
