His voice sounded strange, something wrong with his vocal cords. He coughed, spat blood. The blanket in front of him seemed covered in a pink mist. He looked down, saw that his chest was coursing with rivulets of blood.
You should have left it down there where it was safe, he heard Dantec say, his voice distant now. You shouldn’t have tried to understand it.
“Quickly,” he said, holding out his hand. “Dantec? Understand what?”
But Dantec was nowhere to be seen.
The air kept hissing out of the breathing tube and out into space. He tried to close the gap with his hand, but it was too deep—air kept leaking out. His hands were sticky, his chest, too, the hair on it all matted with blood.
He tried to call out for Dantec again, but something was wrong with his throat. He could make only a gurgling sound. He tried to get out of the bed, but everything seemed to be moving too slowly, as if he were underwater.
Very slowly, he moved one foot and slid it to the edge and over, letting it fall to the ground. There was only the other foot to worry about now. And then he would stand up and go to the mirror and take a good hard look at himself and try to figure out where he had gone wrong.
29
The boy led the way confidently, despite the darkness. He had to stop several times, waiting impatiently for Altman and Ada to catch up.
As they got closer, Chava began chattering away, saying things difficult for Altman to interpret.
“The bruja, he said, “she was dead but she helped us anyway. I went to find her and she came with me and spoke to me, and told me what to do. If she did not come, how was I to know what to do?”
He looked at Altman, apparently expecting a response.
“I don’t know,” said Altman, slightly out of breath from tramping through the sand in his shoes.
This seemed to satisfy the boy. “But she did come. And she showed us what to do. A circle,” he said, and nodded at Altman.
“What do you mean, ‘a circle’?” asked Altman.
The boy looked at him; then he stopped and traced something in the sand. Altman shone the flashlight on it, saw a circle.
“This is what I mean,” the boy said, and then started walking again.
Altman shook his head. The boy’s way of thinking was so different that it was like communicating with someone from another world.
Suddenly the boy stopped. He made the sign of the devil’s tail with his intertwined fingers and pointed.
Altman raised the flashlight. There had been a fire there, its remains half-buried in the sand. He waited for the boy to move forward, but the boy just stayed where he was. So Altman stepped around him to take a closer look.
Carefully he pushed the sand aside with his foot. There were lots of half-burnt pieces of driftwood and char and ash. Then he realized that some of what he thought had been driftwood were in fact bones. They were human, or at least human-sized, but there was something wrong with them. They were oddly twisted and deformed. There were, too, leathery bits of something—skin or seaweed, he first thought, but as he looked closer, he was less sure. The texture was wrong.
“Do you think fire could have done that to those bones?” he asked Ada.
“I don’t know,” she said.
He shook his head. Why was it that he kept on running up against things he didn’t understand? Was it a problem with him or a problem with the world?
He dug through ash and driftwood and bone until his foot unearthed the skull. It was blackened throughout, missing the jawbone. All the teeth were missing, though it seemed less like they’d fallen out than as if they’d never been there: the bottom edge of the maxilla was smooth, socketless.
“It looked like a cross between a balloon and a man?” asked Ada.
Chava nodded.
“How was it sitting?”
Chava thought for a moment and then kneeled in the sand, hunched over, hands near his sides. “Its arms were becoming its legs,” he said.
“What do you mean by that?”
“The skin was the same skin, the flesh the same flesh.”
Maybe some sort of hideously deformed man, thought Altman. There was probably a logical explanation. But if it was a hideously deformed man, how had he managed to live for this long?
He suddenly thought of something.
“Where was the balloon?” he asked.
Chava, still hunched, put his hands up by his neck and waved his fingers.
“How big was it?” asked Ada.
“Very big.”
“Bigger than my arm?” asked Altman. Chava nodded. “Bigger than my body?” He nodded again. “As big as a house?” Chava hesitated, then nodded.
“Sometimes it was smaller,” he said, “but in the end, yes, I believe it was as big as a house.”
“Can you make any sense of this?” Altman asked Ada after they had walked with the boy back to the edge of the shantytown and left him there.
“Not any more than you can,” she said.
“You think it really happened?”
“I think something happened,” said Ada. “Whether it was exactly as Chava says is anybody’s guess. It sounds impossible. But, then again, a lot of weird things have been happening lately. I don’t know what to think anymore.”
“What about the others?” asked Altman. “Have they been telling you the same story?”
“They still won’t talk about it with me,” said Ada. “I don’t know why.”
“I was really worried about you,” Altman confessed.
“Once the boy started talking, I had to keep going,” she said. “Any interruption might have spooked him.”
Altman nodded. They walked a little farther, their footsteps soft in the dust of the road. “You know that guy I talked to? At the bar?”
“Yes,” she said. “What about him?”
“He’s dead.”
She stopped. “Dead?” she said. “What happened?”
“His throat was slit.”
She grabbed his arm, jerked it until he looked at her. “You see,” she said, “I told you it was dangerous! And now somebody’s dead.”
“It’s probably nothing,” he said. “Probably just a mugging.”
He saw a flicker of hope pass through her eyes, and quickly fade. “But what if it’s not? You should give this up. You should stop your game of spying and do the job you were sent down here to do.”
He didn’t say anything, just tried to tug his arm away.
“Promise me, Michael,” she said. “Promise me.”
“I can’t,” he said.
“Why not?”
“Look,” he said, taking her by the shoulders. “You were the one who brought Chava to me. I didn’t ask you to do that. But every new thing I hear makes it seem stranger and stranger. I need to figure out what’s going on.”
At first she was very angry. She started walking, fast, staying out in front of him and wouldn’t look back. He followed her, calling her name. Gradually she slowed down a little, finally let him take her hand, but still wouldn’t look at him. He pulled her close and held her while she tried to push him away, very gradually giving in.
“You don’t love me enough to do this for me,” she tried.
“I do love you,” he said. “That’s not what this is about.”
She pouted. Finally she put her arms around his neck. “I don’t want to lose you, Michael,” she said.
“You won’t lose me,” he said. “I promise.”
They walked slowly down the street. They passed an open door, a makeshift wooden sign hanging over it reading BAR DE PRIMERA CATEGORÍA, another sign beside it, this one cardboard, reading BEBIDAS, MUY BARATAS.
They were already twenty feet past when Altman stopped and doubled back.
“Where are you going now?” asked Ada.
“I need a drink,” he said. “I need to raise a glass to Hammond.”
He pushed open the door. The patrons, all locals, looked up, fell immediately silent. He went up to the
counter, which consisted of a stack of old crates, and ordered a beer for himself, one for Ada.
When the beers came, he looked around for a place to sit. There was nowhere. All the tables were full and people were leaning against the wall. He paid the bartender and then carried their drinks outside.
They sat on the edge of the dusty street before the makeshift bar, in the light coming through the half-open door, backs against the rickety wall, and drank their beers.
“It worries me,” he said, putting his beer down.
“What?”
“This,” he said. “All of it. The things going on in Chicxulub, the pulse, the submarine, the stories you’re hearing, the dreams everyone has been having, the thing we just saw on the beach. I think we’re in trouble.”
“You and I?”
“Everybody,” he said. “Maybe I’m just being paranoid.”
“All the more reason to leave it alone,” she mumbled.
He ignored her. He groped for his beer but suddenly couldn’t find it. He turned and looked for it, but it was gone.
He turned on the flashlight and shone it into the shadows on the edge of the building, a little farther away from the door. There was a man there, his shirt and clothes filthy. He was obviously very drunk. He was holding Altman’s bottle to his lips, rapidly emptying it.
“That drunk just took my beer,” he said to Ada, a little astonished.
The man finished the beer, smacked his lips, and tossed the bottle off into the darkness. Then he looked at them, squinting into the beam of the flashlight.
Altman lowered it a little bit. The man held out his hand, snapped his fingers.
Altman grinned. “I think he wants your beer, too,” he said.
Ada spoke to him softly in Spanish and the man nodded. She held out her beer and the man took it eagerly and upended it, quickly downed it. He tossed the bottle away then leaned back against the wall.
“Hello,” said Altman.
The man carefully smoothed his filthy shirt. “Mucho gusto,” he said. His accent and cadence were surprisingly formal. He redirected his gaze toward Ada, inclined his head slightly. “Encantado,” he said.
“We’ve met before,” said Ada. “You’ve told me your stories. Don’t you remember?”
The man looked at her with his watery eyes but did not answer. After a long moment, he leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. He stayed like that for long enough that Altman wondered if he hadn’t fallen asleep.
Suddenly he asked in Spanish, “What are your names?”
“Michael Altman,” said Altman. “This is my girlfriend, Ada Cortez. What is your name?”
The man ignored the question. “Thank you for the drinks,” he said, his Spanish excessively polite. He turned to Ada. “Cortez, a good, vigorous Spanish name, but not one my people care for, for reasons that you must know. We have a very long memory. You must not hold it against us.”
Ada nodded.
“Ada, from Hebrew, meaning ‘adornment.’ It is a lovely name for a woman as beautiful as you. Centuries ago, it was the name of the daughter of a notorious and handsome club-footed poet. And, a century or more later, the name, too, of a book by a famous writer.”
“How do you know this?” asked Ada.
“Names were a hobby of mine,” the man said. “Before drinking became my only hobby.”
He turned back to Altman. “Michael, the name of the archangel on God’s right hand. Are you a religious man, Michael?”
“No,” said Altman. “I am not.”
“Then we shall refer to you not as Michael but as Altman. The name Altman, it is German, is it not?”
“Yes,” said Altman. “But I’m from the North American sector.”
“You do not have a German face,” the man said. “I hope it does not offend you that I say this. What places are there in you?”
“I’m a mongrel,” said Altman evasively. “A mix of everything.”
“I can see from your face that you are one of us as well,” said the drunk. “The devil thinks he knows you, but he does not know all of you.”
“My mother was part Indian,” Altman admitted. “I don’t know what tribe.”
“I would say she was of our tribe,” said the drunk.
“I don’t know,” said Altman.
“What?” said Ada. “Your mother was part Indian? You’ve never told me that before.”
“She didn’t like to talk about it,” said Altman. “I don’t know why. I don’t think about it often.”
“You are here for a reason,” the man said.
“I came here with Ada,” said Altman.
“That may very well be,” said the man. “But that is not the reason.”
“And what is the reason?”
The man smiled. “Your name,” he said. “Altman. Alt meaning ‘old,’ mann, with two n’s, meaning ‘man.’ You are not an old man. You are a young man. Can you explain this to me?”
“It’s just a name,” said Altman.
“You understand the importance of a name only once you have lost yours. As I have.” He leaned his head back against the wall, closed his eyes.
“There is perhaps another meaning,” he said. Alt could mean ‘ancient,’ but that is not so different from ‘old.’ Altman might be an ‘old man’ or an ‘old servant’ or, if I am not taking too many liberties, a ‘wise man.’ ” He opened his eyes again, gave Altman an intense stare, his eyes glittering in the crosslight from the flash beam. “Which one shall it be for you?”
They sat in silence. Again, Altman thought the drunk had fallen asleep.
“Ready to go?” he asked Ada.
“If you buy me another drink,” said the drunk quietly. “I will tell you what I know.”
“About what?” asked Altman.
“About the thing you have been asking of all over the town.” He crossed his fingers. “About the tail of the devil.”
Here we are, said the old man, sipping his drink, living on the edge of the place where the devil dug down to hell, leaving only his tail behind. Perhaps you do not believe this to be true, he said. You, Altman, are no believer. But I have come to tell you that it is we, it is you and I and the other Yucatec Maya, who have been called to watch over the devil and to drive him back to hell whenever he appears.
This is not the only body burned on the beach. My father told me of others. He had not seen them and his grandfather had not seen them, and his great-grandfather had not seen them, but perhaps his great-great-grandfather had. Or if not him, some ancestor before. There is a clock ticking within the devil’s tail, a clock that measures the hour in its own way and judges us accordingly. When the hour is ready, the devil’s tail awakens. Its curse sends our dead back onto our shores and into our heads. We destroy the messengers on the shores, and plead with those in our heads to put the tail back asleep, we are not ready to listen to it.
We do not talk of this with strangers. But you are only partly a stranger, so perhaps it is not wrong to talk to you. And I myself have become a man with no name, so it no longer matters what I do or whom I tell. For how can I be punished if I do not have a name? When I heard your name and in it heard that you were a wise man, I told myself I would speak.
I saw the creature with my own eyes. Had I a name and children, I would tell my name to them, and have them memorize it, just as my father had me do, so that they could tell their own children, and their children’s children. Such is the way we learn and understand. Such is the way we remember.
I saw the creature with my own eyes. It was like a man but it was not a man. Where a man would have had separate legs and arms, its legs had joined with its arms and there was no parting them. Where a man would have a face, this creature had a hole. Where a man would have a cage of ribs to frame him, the ribs of this creature’s back had opened and curled upon themselves in a scroll. Where a man has lungs that obey him and keep the same shape and form, the creature had lungs that kept swelling and swelling, rising from its
back like nothing so much as an inflating balloon.
How can this be? It is not the same creature that my father told me of and made me memorize, but another. Bodies do not do what this creature did. And when it breathed air in, the air it breathed out was not the same. The air had been bled of its life and become noxious and stinking, and choking.
There are rituals associated with the appearance of the devil or his minions, ways of driving the devil out. There are forgotten languages that can be spoken and that are remembered in time of need, that the dead come whisper in our ears. This time it was a boy who led us, a boy who understood what he was doing almost not at all. There are dances and measured steps that one can take to contain the darkness. Each stage of the dance is a stage of the development of life and as we dance the development of life, the creature becomes caught in them and becomes vulnerable. When it is tight in the trap, then we destroy it.
But there is one thing that I saw about this creature that I would not put in the stories, that I would not tell to my children, did I have them, and for this reason I could not bring myself to dance with the others. One thing I saw that I cannot make fit with the stories I have heard and which I can only drive away by telling it to you. There, on what would be its arm—were it human—was a tattoo. It was a tattoo I had seen before, in a bar a few weeks before, on the arm of a sailor sitting at the bar beside me. In his cups he showed me his tattoo, the image of a woman riding on a wave, the sun cupped in her hand, the workmanship very fine. The next day he was gone, shipped out, and then his tattoo reappeared on the creature that we burned on the beach.
Now tell me this, Altman. Tell me this, wise man, if that is what you are and not an old servant instead. Was the tattoo there because the creature, through a power known only to itself, had stolen it? Or was the tattoo there because the creature had not always been a creature? Was the tattoo there because the creature had once been a man?
On the way home, his arm wrapped protectively around Ada’s shoulders, both of them silent, he felt like there was too much moving around in his head, too much to consider. He tried to tell himself that he didn’t believe the old man’s story, that it was simply a fantasy, but he had seen the remains. He simultaneously couldn’t believe and couldn’t not believe, which made him feel like he was carrying a whole heavy indecipherable world in his head. He needed to do something. To forget about this entirely or do something.
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