by David Coy
Habershaw stood up and dropped his pants. Patel was taken aback until Lavachek pointed to the scar from the parasite on the back of Habershaw’s upper thigh.
“See that. That’s where one was,” Lavachek said. “He got that one sitting on the toilet in broad daylight. That’s the one that squirted that yellow juice into you, ain’t it?”
“It was either that one or this one here,” Habershaw said, feeling at a spot under his underwear near his groin. “It hurt like hell, too. It took ‘em three hours to get it off.”
“Yes, it looks like it would have been very painful,” Patel said, looking around rather nervously.
“They’re all over the place,” Lavachek said. “You can’t hardly see ‘em until they jump on your ass. Excuse my language, sir.”
“I see. Well, then,” Patel said. “Mister Lavachek has thanked God for this food, so we should eat it.”
While they ate, Habershaw and Lavachek went on and on with bullshit about the bugs on the rig and how nasty they were. Patel ate without saying a word.
When he was finished, Patel gathered up his things, stood up and started down, trying not to move too fast. “I wish to thank you for breaking bread with me,” he said. “I’m sure the machine and yourselves are up to the job. My pilot is waiting below, and I should be off. I’ll check in with you from time to time. Don’t hesitate to let me know if I can help you.”
His last words were spoken over his shoulder as he went down the first flight of stairs. Then he stopped and turned around.
“And oh, I should tell you that if the road is not completed within my timing frame, it is in my power to have you arrested and detained, and doo have your pay downs stopped as well,” he said through his white grin. “And you should be believing me when I dell you that I will doo it.”
Habershaw just stared blank faced for couple of seconds then said stiffly, “We’ll do our very best!”
Still grinning, Patel turned and continued down. Habershaw noticed that he kept his hands off the handrails.
When he was out of earshot, Habershaw and Lavachek looked at each other. Lavachek frowned.
“Well, we had that sonofabitch figured out,” he said, pursing his lips.
“Yep,” Habershaw said soberly. “We had that sonofabitch figured out.”
“He’s not the first one, is he Bill?”
“Nope. Won’t be the last either.”
Later that afternoon while they were prepping the rig, Lavachek turned to Habershaw and said in Patel’s voice, “My bottom is as tough as yours, I assure you.”
They chuckled.
6
His prayers were answered at the end of ages, and when the pain vanished and the truth of his blessedness was finally confirmed, God’s purpose remained. It shone bright and pure like the light of a single, splendid star in the vast darkness. It shone perfectly for him and only him. It was there as it had always been.
As the jungle’s beautiful green hills rolled past, the sweet thoughts of God’s plan unfolded, detail upon detail like the bloom of one of the jungle’s glorious flowers. Within those folds were pleasures beyond pleasure, promised to him by the Lord God one thousand years ago. For each moment of pain he had endured, God had promised him ten of pleasure. God had shown him Hell. Heaven would soon be his. Why else were the tools of creation left there for him but to create heavenly pleasure?
But there would be time enough for that. God’s plan, like the flower, had many petals.
This was the new home of God’s chosen few. Better than Earth, this place was a sweet ripe fruit, and its sweetness would feed the chosen, and they would grow and grow. God had given him this place, all of it. He could use it as he saw fit; he could change it to his purpose. God’s plan would be fulfilled through him. He was God’s Agent, God’s Messenger and The Favored One. It could only be so. Why else would God keep him alive for so long? Why else would God bring him to this place if not to rule it as He had promised?
He looked out the shuttle’s window at the distant clouds and saw flashes of bright light within them. They looked as they had on Earth; dark and powerful. They were the bearers of life—and often destruction. The shapes fascinated him. He wanted to reach out and run his hands gently over them.
Fond and distant memories of the shapes of clouds and of coming storms filled him.
“We’re approaching the structure, Jacob,” one of the guards said. “Will you be entering to witness the capture?”
“I’ll follow behind you,” he said gently. “I don’t want to get in the way.”
They put the shuttle down some distance from the structure in a patch of less-dense bush, barely big enough to hold it. Jacob remained safely in the back where he watched the half-dozen armed guards flow out close together, their mottled uniforms making them look to him like one long organism.
“Don’t hurt them,” he said gently to the leader. “I want them very much alive and twitching.”
The door closed with a hiss and a click. Jacob watched a small insect crawl up the thick glass of the window. He tapped at it idly with a long and twisted finger.
* * *
Rachel was thinking about bathing in the pool. Bathing in the pool was something she really had to want to do before she would actually do it. She’d submerged herself in the crystalline water many times without incident when they first arrived. But once not long ago, she’d come out with a fat leech attached to her butt. Since then, the idea had to work up to a real hedonistic craving before she’d risk it. The leech was a relatively minor annoyance, but the ambiance of the cool, clear pool had been largely ruined for her.
John had thought it was funny.
Today, the urge to strip and stand naked on this polished rock grew in her loins like a sexual desire. She looked down into the calm water and could already feel its wetness around her legs and breasts. She wanted to feel that coolness on her skin when she plunged into it and to let it caress her entirely. Then she’d climb out of the cool water like some slick and serpentine thing and warm herself in the morning sun, leeches and all.
I must be ovulating, she thought.
She untied her boots, pulled them off and put them aside. Then she unzipped her cottons, stepped out of them and kicked them onto a nearby limb. She undid her bra, then started to strip out of her panties. She hesitated and thought about leaving them on.
“Screw it,” she said, then slid them down and stepped out of them.
The warm sun kissed her smooth back and legs and made her take a long, deep breath. The sweet scent of the jungle came to her as if for the first time.
She stretched up in the warm sun with her arms up high, then higher still. She raised up on her naked toes to stretch her strong calves. It felt so good. She slowly moved her head from side to side, and basked in the sun.
John watched her from the entrance to the structure and believed in his heart that he’d never seen such beauty. He wanted to smile a big, wide smile because of it. To his eyes, she was physical perfection. He felt that if he sniffed the air just right, he and he alone could pick up her scent, even from this distance. He lifted his head and sniffed a few times in his lover’s direction, then smiled to himself. All he smelled was jungle.
He watched her dive perfectly from the stone and disappear with a quiet splash. He always worried about her swimming alone, but he could tell by her spirits this morning that no seizures were likely, and he dismissed the fear.
Having indulged his voyeurism, he turned and left her to her privacy.
As he was turning, he heard the sound; a rustle of leaves and brush that didn’t fit in. To ears that had listened to the jungle’s noises for months on end, this sound was like breaking glass. His hand felt for his weapon. It wasn’t there—he’d left it in the shuttle.
“Don’t move!” came the order and a second later, the first guard, crouching, came at him from the brush, a rifle aimed squarely at him. A second appeared, then a third. Not stupid, John put his arms in the air. He’d be
en dreading this day for months. They’d finally caught them, and he cursed under his breath. He wanted to warn Rachel somehow so she might escape; but when he looked in her direction another guard was standing on the polished stone, his rifle aimed down at the water.
Don’t shoot her. For God’s sake, don’t shoot her.
Two more guards raced past him into the interior, no doubt to round up Donna and Eddie.
The mercenaries were efficient. Within minutes, they had all four of them bound at the wrists and just above the elbows. They had been especially rough about binding them, and the entire time, Donna had cursed silently at their grinning faces.
They’d had the decency to let Rachel dress before forcing her inside, but John was worried about the way they looked at her. One of them, a short man with a salacious grin, couldn’t keep his eyes off her.
“So now what?” John asked, then added, “You would have done the same thing in our position.”
“Shut up. No talking,” the one who acted like the leader said.
“You could at least tell us why you’re arresting us,” Donna said bluntly.
“Shut up,” the man said again. “Keep it up and the last thing you’ll hear from me is bang.”
Donna felt the iciness in his voice press on her spine, and her lips involuntarily pinched together.
They knew why the soldiers were there and where they were taking them. John, Rachel and Donna would be taken back to face charges for the murder of Ed Smith’s alleged nephew, Joe Devonshire and the other man, Kelly. Eddie would be shipped back to Earth, or what was left of it, for his thievery. It was a miracle they’d gone this long without being caught. John turned to Donna and said so with a look. He got the same in return. It was inevitable, had been just a matter of time, and they had both known it. The penalty for murder was death. He wondered if Smith had been close to his nephew. It wouldn’t make any difference, but he thought it anyway. He heard Rachel’s gasp, and the image of a seizure flashed in his head. When he looked at her, she was staring at the opening. There at the entrance, under a hideously blue robe with gold trim, was the unmistakable and crooked shape of Jacob. He limped down the slight incline and came up behind the squad’s leader, as if seeking protection from the captives.
“You . . .” Rachel said. “You’re the one . . .” When she said it, it was if all the air went out of her.
“I have you now,” he said directly to Rachel. “I have you. God has willed it. You will not escape me this time.”
“You . . .” she said again weakly. There was no air in the room she could breathe.
John opened his mouth to speak, but the leader shot him a warning look.
“I have you all,” Jacob said. “You are all mine now. This planet is mine and all that lives upon it. It is mine to do with as I choose . . . as I choose . . . for my pleasure.”
The sound that came out of Rachel was a groan; a long undifferentiated sound like a deep, far-off horn. John felt her leg go stiff where they touched. Then, as if he’d already seen it in his mind, he watched helplessly as she pitched forward onto the floor in a full seizure, her body vibrating from head to toe.
* * *
This time, Rachel went to a place where the air was as thick and as tangible as muddy water. Her legs and arms pumped while the fear and panic of the chase beat in her heart. The thing that chased her was formless, but she knew it just the same. No species, no creature, no living thing was more despicable or loathsome. She wanted to turn her head, and by sight in her dream-mind’s eye, give form to the revulsion for only an instant.
She stopped and turned.
Her scream erupted from deep down. Up and out it came, pulling her insides behind it in a visceral trail that left her empty. Her barren shell floated aimlessly in the muddy water until it was sucked in, swallowed whole by the vile thing in a single gulp. She felt herself inside it, churning around and around, then the vile thing coughed her up in pieces barely connected and that wriggled obscenely.
She groaned.
* * *
“Rachel . . . wake up,” John’s voice gently coaxed.
She heard his voice and saw the light above. The light was pale, green, and unnatural. She squinted against it. She felt his firm leg under her cheek and felt his warm hands on her arm and head.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“In a jail—of sorts,” John said.
“It’s a shelter they’re using as a jail,” Donna said, with a tone of weary indifference. “It’s got bars over the windows and everything. Bastards.”
“I’m hungry,” Rachel said weakly.
“I’ll make us something,” Donna volunteered. “They left us some food. I think it’s my turn anyway.”
“Looks like they caught us,” John said after Donna left. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” she said.
“I could have been more vigilant.”
“No, don’t . . .”
“I wasn’t watching. It was my job to watch.”
“Don’t blame yourself,” Rachel said, almost begging.
He stroked her forehead and ran his hand over her thick hair.
“They’re probably going to execute us,” he said finally. She smiled a wry smile.
“That’s funny?” he wanted to know.
“He’s not going to kill us.”
“How do you know?”
“I dreamed it.”
Her seizures were always accompanied by dreams; bizarre dreams that she would interpret on waking as something meaningful like an ancient shaman would read in bones tossed on the dirt. He and Donna had learned to humor her and listen. It seemed to soothe her to listen to her dreams.
“Tell me,” he said.
“I dreamed I was being chased.”
“I hate that kind,” he said, an impish smile beginning to form at the corners of his mouth.
Rachel didn't find any attempt at humor to be appropriate. “The thing that chased me was horrible.”
“They always are.”
“He wants us,” she said.
“Who?”
“Jacob.”
“Why does he want us?”
“To change us.”
“To change us to what?”
“I don’t know that part.”
He stroked her again. “Okay, we’ll figure that part out later, then.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
He felt her grip on his leg go rigid. “I’m scared,” she said, “Really scared.”
“Me, too.”
Her grip tightened a little.
“John?”
“Yes?”
“Could you kill me if I asked you to?”
The question felt like a blow to his head. The way she’d put it, the tone of her voice told him it was not a rhetorical question. She’d meant every word. He felt tightness in his throat. He was afraid that when he spoke, nothing would come out. “Hush . . .” he said. “Rest now.”
“We have to get out of here,” she said. “We have to get out.”
“There’s nowhere to go.”
“Yes, there is. We can live in the jungle like before.”
“No, Rachel, we can’t. We were barely living as it was.”
“Then we’ll find a new place, somewhere that bugs hate. We’ll . . . we’ll steal a shuttle, and we’ll find a new place just like before.”
“There’s no way out of this thing, Rachel. It’s got bars all around it, top to bottom.”
“Oh, God, we have to get out.”
“Rest . . .”
* * *
As usual, she ate as if she were starving. Nothing seemed to diminish that peculiar trait. While John and Donna picked at their food as if it were something curious, Rachel pounded hers down as though she’d been starved.
Eddie didn’t seem to be taking imprisonment too badly, but he had learned early on to shut his emotions down and just coast when he wanted to—when he needed to.
�
��When’s our trial do you think?” Donna asked.
“Won’t be a trial,” Rachel said into her tray between bites.
Paraphrasing Rachel’s dream, John explained what she meant.
“A dream?” Donna asked when he was done.
“A dream,” John said.
“Why just us?” Donna asked.
“Not just us. Everybody,” Rachel answered.
Donna got up from the table and gave John a knowing look. John pursed his lips. Her dreams were starting to get to Donna. Her eating and her seizures were starting to get to Donna. This whole mystical, bullshit viewpoint Rachel had was starting to get to Donna.
“They’re gonna kill us, Rachel,” Donna said with an unusual harshness. “Get used to the idea.”
“You may hope they do,” Rachel said.
Donna glared at her. “Screw this,” she said. “I’m going to bed. Put your dreams up your ass.” Her blue-brown eye flashed at them like ice in the sun.
“We’re not supposed to fight at the table, remember?” Rachel said as a matter of fact.
“I’m not at the table. Goodnight,” she said and stomped off.
Eddie just hunkered down and hoped the fight didn’t get any worse. He didn’t like it when they fought. They didn’t do it often, but he still didn’t like it.
They were being held in an old, abandoned shelter. It wasn’t very clean inside, but it was bug-tight and large enough to accommodate them. Donna stomped down the hall and picked the first bedroom as her own. The bed had sheets on it; and when she went into the bathroom, she found more items for personal hygiene in the sink, rather than on it. She picked the items out and put them away. That done, she sprayed down the dirt inside the shower stall and took a long hot shower. She hoped she’d run the hot water out for the rest of them.
It was barely dusk, and they’d been cooped up in the shelter all day with nothing to do but sit and wait for Rachel to wake up. Donna wasn’t at all tired, but she went to bed anyway.
Eddie could tell Donna had taken the first room because the door was closed tight. Rachel and John had the second already so he took the last one, the small one in the back. Compared to what he was used to, it was nice. He sat on the bed for a while then climbed up on the bed and looked out through the bars covering the window. It was almost dark. The bugs were starting to get active; the jungle was getting noisy. A few of the smaller bugs had started banging into the screen.
