The Experiment

by John Darnton

  "I'm not sure. In, I think. Even so, we should be able to make it."

  "Yes, but can we make it back?"

  Skyler shrugged, and it was a gesture that indicated, with its fatalistic eloquence, how upset he was at thinking about Julia.

  "I think so," was all he said.

  He went back to the woods and returned a minute later with two large walking sticks. Then he undid his shoes, tied the laces together, draped them around his neck and rolled up his pants. Jude did likewise.

  Skyler went first, moving sideways while facing the incoming water, feeling the way with his left leg to get a secure foothold before pulling his right leg up. He used the staff for support behind him whenever a wave came. Despite all this, he went surprisingly quickly.

  Jude watched him and, once he was ten yards off, followed suit, imitating his movements as best he could. The water was warm and the rocks underneath were covered by seaweed, which made them slippery. Keeping his balance was harder than it looked, because the currents swirling around his legs kept changing direction and velocity. Twice, he managed to prop himself up with the staff just in time to avoid a dunking. At one point, Jude looked up and saw a fishing boat anchored maybe half a mile out to sea.

  Soon they reached the halfway mark, and the water got shallower. Then they made rapid progress and reached the opposite shore quickly. Skyler sat down to put his shoes on, and Jude did the same.

  "Did you see that boat out there?" asked Jude.

  "Yeah. Just fishing. They're always out there."

  "I guess."

  Skyler looked around.

  "I can't tell you how strange it is to be here, standing right here on this land. When we were growing up, it was prohibited even to come near the place. So naturally we had all kinds of fantasies about it—we imagined all sorts of things."

  "Like what?"

  "Mostly about the children. Who were they? What were they going to do?"

  "This whole place must have filled you with fear."

  "Not really. Though on some level, I think we probably feared they were going to take our places—"

  "Which probably wasn't far off."

  "I'd say it's right on the mark. Since we're clones, chances are they're clones, too—only younger ones. It all makes sense when you think about it. That way, their organs could be used further down the line, when ours wear out. Another great advance in extending life span."

  Skyler said this with no effort to hide his bitterness, looking directly at Jude, as if he were holding him responsible.

  "Anyway," he added. "All this is by way of saying that we don't know what we're going to find here, if anything."

  Jude nodded. He had been thinking the same thing himself. Again, he was struck by the fact that his mind and Skyler's seemed to work in tandem. They were so much alike in so many ways—and yet so fundamentally different. He noticed that Skyler, back on his home turf, seemed more confident, more assertive. And again he was proud of him for that—proud and keenly competitive.

  "You know," he said. "Now that I'm here and I'm actually seeing all this"—he waved one hand to take in the island they had just left—"I still have trouble getting my mind around it. I mean, it's just so incredible. This little colony existing off the coast of Georgia, the private laboratory of a madman, producing human beings for experimentation."

  Skyler looked at him for a long time without speaking and then just grunted. He stood up.

  "Better get going," he said. "Follow me."

  The marsh grass was spread all around them. From where they stood it was apparent that this island was much smaller—they could see the shore on both sides where the grass abruptly dropped off. About fifty yards ahead was a line of trees. There the island widened, but it was still narrow enough to cross in five or ten minutes. There were no buildings visible, no sign of habitation at all, except for a thin brown path through the grass. Skyler found it and started off, and Jude followed.

  Once the path hit the trees, it seemed to disappear, so they were forced to fight their way through the underbrush, which was thicker than on the other island. There were vines and brambles and thorn bushes that ripped their pants legs and scratched their arms. Their progress was slow, but eventually they came to a small meadow.

  It was here that they first heard the sound.

  A strange sound, like a low humming or even a moaning, distinctly human but unlike anything they had heard before. It carried on the wind, ghost-like.

  They looked at each other, and without a word hurried across the meadow. Ahead was a grove of tall, smooth-trunked palm trees, rising up every which way to reach the sun. Through them they could see in the distance some sort of structure.

  Drawing near, they made out a brick wall, about five feet tall, topped by razor wire. It looked solid and impregnable, without an opening. The sound was louder now—coming over the enclosure. They followed the wall to a corner where it formed a perfect right angle, and then to another corner and another right angle. Here the trees were sparse and there was a driveway, a small brick gatehouse, and in the distance a docking area, and beyond that, the sea. No one was in sight.

  Skyler and Jude walked up to the entrance—two hinged wooden gates, large enough for a car to drive though, which were standing wide open. They walked through them and found themselves in the central courtyard of an old building, constructed in the French colonial style, with verandas, shielded walkways and slanting tile roofs. It had fallen on hard times; the walls were cracked, tiles had fallen to the ground, windows were broken. A large, spreading oak tree sat squat in the center, its limbs hanging so low that the Spanish moss brushed against the bare ground.

  They knew right away that someone was there. Not from anything that they saw, but from the sounds—a mumbling, an echoing cough, a dry groaning, whispers—that seemed to come from the shadow of every window and every doorway.

  The nearest door led to a sort of office, which was empty. A stool rested before a counter upon which a book lay, one page rustling softly in the wind. Sitting beside it was a mug whose bottom was coated with a brown layer of coagulated coffee.

  Next door was a cavernous room. They paused at the door because the smell was overwhelming, a smell of decay and illness. They stepped inside, and as their eyes accustomed to the dimness, they began to make out shapes and movement—people lying upon bare mattresses that lined the wall. Not ordinary people, but small, wizened figures, turning slowly to look at them.

  "Good God," said Jude. "What is this?"

  They walked over to a small naked person lying on his back and staring up at the ceiling. He seemed to be a boy, but it was hard to tell. He was totally hairless—bald without eyebrows or eyelashes. The skin on his overly large skull was thin and crinkly, almost transparent, so they could see the veins throbbing underneath. He was about four feet in height, but oddly proportioned, with a bulging head and a small face and a small lower jaw and receding chin, protruding eyeballs and a huge beaklike nose. His skin had numerous yellow-brown blotches upon it. His chest was narrow, his belly stuck out, his knees were prominent and his sexual organs were large.

  He was a strange birdlike creature. As they stood over him, his eyes moved and found theirs, and he looked from one to the other, silently. It was like looking into a bottomless well. He was beyond reach, gone. They had the odd sensation they were looking into the glazed eyes of an old man on his deathbed.

  They realized they were in a ward of some sort, but no one seemed to be in attendance. There were no doctors or nurses. Their presence created no reaction. The moaning that had brought them there had stopped, and it was strangely quiet, except for the occasional dry cough. The only movement came from a ceiling fan, which turned slowly with a steady ticking. It churned the smells of vomit and diarrhea, spreading them throughout the sick bay.

  "They've been left behind," Jude said to Skyler, whispering. "They've been abandoned."

  Skyler did not reply. His eyes looked around, taking everything in fur
iously.

  Many were lying upon the filthy mattresses. Sometimes their eyes flickered as Skyler and Jude approached, the only sign that they took notice of them. Others just lay there with their eyes closed, barely breathing, in a posture of exhausted resignation.

  A few seemed to be quietly weeping. In the second ward, they again heard the moaning—the sound they had heard earlier beyond the wall. It came from a girl, and when they tried to help her, she withdrew into total silence again, a mummy with wrinkled skin and brown-rimmed eyes.

  Many looked like the first boy, with that same birdlike body, except that some had hair which was wispy thin and white.

  Skyler and Jude went into a third room. Here were some who could walk, but they did so with a wide-legged, shuffling gait, as if it were hard to move.

  Skyler approached one who was pacing slowly in a circle.

  "Who are you?" he asked. "What is wrong with you?"

  The figure stopped moving and hunched its shoulders and furrowed its brow and looked up at Skyler, bewildered. Then wordlessly, it went to a corner and sat down and put its thumb in its mouth and slowly rocked back and forth.

  In the fourth room were three corpses covered with flies. The smell was so putrid that Skyler and Jude could not stay.

  Altogether, there were perhaps twenty or so of these poor creatures.

  None were over four feet tall, and most were under three feet. They had the look of exoskeletons, as if the being inside had shrunk inside a dried husk. Jude took Skyler by the arm and led him to the center of the courtyard, under the oak tree. He was sick to his stomach and he felt a surge of vomit rising in the back of his throat, but he kept it in.

  They stayed there for some minutes, too stunned to speak. Finally, Skyler collected himself and looked Jude in the eye.

  "They seem to be children. They're no taller than children. But when you look at them, when you look into their eyes and see the suffering, they look like old people. What's going on?"

  "I don't know. I've never seen anything like this. It's beyond horror."

  "They're waiting to die—that much is clear."

  "But from what?"

  "God only knows."

  "Do you think they were born like that?"

  "I don't think so—why would they have been left to die? Somebody must have cared for them. Somebody must have fed them."

  They fell silent again.

  "We have to do something," said Skyler finally.

  "Yes—but what?"

  * * *

  In the rear of the courtyard, they found a pump, and from it they drew a bucket of water. Then with glasses that they found in a pantry, they went from mattress to mattress in each ward, offering water to every child. Most did not take it—the water dribbled fruitlessly down their sunken cheeks-but some gulped it down greedily. Skyler tried to wash the glasses each time, worrying about contagion, but that took so long, he soon gave up and simply poured one after another.

  They found a shovel in a tool shed and dug three graves out front, to the left of the gate. Then came the moment they had been dreading. They tied pieces of cloth across their lower faces and entered the last ward. The stench was overpowering; Jude opened his mouth and made retching sounds, but nothing came out. They threw a sheet over a corpse, capturing dozens of flies and causing dozens more to circle noisily in the air, and wrapped it tightly around the thin little body. Skyler lifted it easily and tossed it over his shoulder and carried it to one of the graves. He laid it carefully down, and they shoveled dirt in upon it, covering it quickly.

  When they were going back for the second body, Skyler stopped Jude by the arm.

  "Listen!" he said.

  Jude could hear nothing.

  "Voices," said Skyler. "I'm sure of it."

  He led the way up an outer staircase to the second floor. There was a small tower here, and Skyler found a ladder leading to the top. From there, standing up, they could see part of the island spreading out around them, its lush foliage giving way to a perimeter of green grass and then beaches splashed by white foam.

  Behind the compound, they saw six or eight newly dug graves. So someone had been here—maybe they fled when we arrived, thought Jude.

  And looking back over the way they had come, across the isthmus to the larger island, they saw what Skyler had heard—four boats had anchored in the shallow water and men were wading ashore. It looked like they were carrying weapons. Others had already landed and had spread out, cutting off access to Crab Island. They were trapped.

  "Who's that?" asked Skyler.

  "Hell if I know, but they don't look friendly."

  "Maybe the FBI."

  "Maybe. Maybe not."

  Skyler turned and looked at the ocean behind.

  "That fishing boat is gone too. It was probably part of it."

  They stood there for a couple of seconds, scared but fascinated.

  "Well, we can't stay here," Skyler said with finality.

  He pointed to the eastern end of the island, where the shoreline bulged and the woods of cypress, tupelo maple, holly and greenbriar ran closest to the water.

  "We should head over there."

  "That's where they'd expect us to go."

  "'Cause that's what makes the most sense."

  Jude stood there without moving, and Skyler shot him an irritated look.

  "You can stand there and double-think this to death and get caught. Or you can follow me. I'm not waiting around."

  Skyler turned and started back down the ladder, and as soon as his head disappeared, Jude went after him. They walked to the ground floor and through the courtyard, hearing the coughs and raspy breathing and low moans that echoed after them. They walked past the one filled grave and two gaping holes, back around the brick wall and razor wire.

  As soon as they reached the woods, they felt more protected. The trees and honeysuckle and brush seemed to envelop them, though they knew they could not remain hidden forever. From the tower they had seen just how small the island was; in no time the men would divide it up and beat the bushes to flush them out. Even now, running on the path, they were actually moving toward the men, looking for a break in the forest.

  About fifty paces in, Skyler cut to the left. When Jude caught up, he saw that he had turned to follow a broad stream. Soon it turned into a swamp—knarled tree trunks, hanging vines, banks of moss and black water skimming with bugs. Skyler stepped into the water and waded through it. Jude followed him, keeping an eye out for cottonmouths and water moccasins. He wondered, with his dread of snakes, whether it was more dangerous to forge the path first and stir them up or to follow behind when they were already riled.

  It was hard to find steady footing and keep up with Skyler, who stopped from time to time, glancing back and waving him on urgently. Jude began to curse him under his breath and stopped looking at him, just concentrating on each step. He was sweating profusely. His legs were waterlogged and heavy, and he could already feel exhaustion nagging at him and beginning to sap his fear. He wasn't sure how much more of this he could take.

  When next he looked up, Skyler was gone.

  He blinked and looked again, then stood stock still. Ahead the swamp ended; the trees stood out in dark silhouette, and through them he could see the pearl blue sky. They had reached the shore.

  Jude was about to step out into the grass when he saw Skyler bounding back at him.

  "Get back," he said urgently. "The fishing boat—it's right here."

  Jude turned, and they ran back into the swamp.

  "I think they saw me," said Skyler, breathless. "They must have. I didn't even see them until I was right on top of them."

  They went crashing through the water, heedless now of the noise they were making. They kept going until they came to a solid bank, where they hauled themselves out and stopped, the water draining from their pant legs. They listened. Far ahead through the trees, a murmur of voices—metallic-sounding. Someone talking over a radio—more likely, a walkie-talkie. The
y were hemmed in.

  "We've got to find a hiding place," said Skyler. "That's our only hope—and it's not a good one."

  They looked quickly around, and both saw it at the same time—a crater formed by the roots of an upended tupelo maple. The hole was partially filled with leaves and sticks and other debris, and they threw in more. Then they jumped in and burrowed down until they were totally covered, and they waited. They waited a long time.

  At first they heard nothing, just the ticking and rustling of normal woods sounds. Then they heard the radio voices, snapping on and off across a frequency, barking orders and giving locations. It was impossible to tell how close it was, or what direction it came from, but eventually the sound receded. It got smaller and smaller until it disappeared. But then another sound took its place—the sound of footsteps approaching through the brush, steady, sure of where they were headed, directly toward their hiding place. The footsteps got louder and louder until they came right to the edge of the crater, where they stopped.

  Jude and Skyler held their breath. Jude froze, his stomach seizing up. Skyler tried to stare up through the leaves. He thought he could see the tips of a pair of old shoes. A sound right next to his head, the debris being riffled, and suddenly he felt a pain in his side, a stick being jammed in.

  It surprised him—he yelped.

  Then he jumped up and grabbed the end of the stick and started to pull it down with all his might, until he saw who was on the other end of it, and then he just stood there, his mouth wide open. Jude, down below, had no idea what was happening.

  "My God!" said Skyler, his voice flooded with amazement. "You!"

  "Who oona spect fa see?" came back the voice, flowing in a familiar cadence.

  Jude stood up, the leaves falling around him like scales. An old man was standing there, holding onto a long stick.

  The old man looked at him with surprise.

  "And who might this be?" he asked.

  Skyler let out a laugh, a long low quiet laugh of relief.

  "Jude," he said. "Meet Kuta."

  He looked up at his beloved friend.

  "Kuta, this is Jude."