Hell's Bay

by James W. Hall

  Again my name. And I adjusted my direction, homing in on the word. Thorn, Thorn. That family name, inherited from a long line of people who each in their own way had conspired to bring me to this exact place and moment. And again my name. Thorn, coming through the darkness.

  This time when I heard her voice, it was distinct. Rusty. Rusty Stabler was calling out to me from nowhere I could see.

  Arrangements had changed on the Mothership, some radical shift.

  Athe saw thumping and my name and I paddled toward it, toward Rusty’s fragile voice.

  Closing in, gliding, then lifting the paddle from the water, listening.

  “Thorn? Can you hear me, Thorn?”

  Oh, yes, I could and what I heard sent a dance of prickles across my back. She was weaker than when I’d left her. So weak it sounded like she was about to wilt away.

  “She knows you’re coming, Thorn. She’s waiting for you. Watch out, Thorn. Watch out.”

  I was close to the bass boat but could not see it. Maybe twenty feet, maybe slightly more. The wind and water made estimates of sound all but impossible—increasing its volume, muting it. Bouncing it away from its source. But I was close. I was certain of that. Very very close.

  I picked up the reciprocating saw, the fucking saw, and pushed the trigger, then let it go. A satisfying purr.

  I floated, leaning forward, trying to peer through the black curtain, but could see nothing, not a gleam.

  “Thorn.” Rusty’s voice was forlorn. Somewhere off my starboard side.

  The saw required finger pressure to keep it running. Or some other pressure. I unwrapped the gauze from my throat, and felt the trickle of blood resume. I slid the paddle onto the floor of the kayak and made three quick wraps of the gauze around the reciprocating saw, tightening the bands down across the trigger, then making a hard knot. Keeping the saw lifted high in one hand, I drew myself up from the seat and slid overboard, and set the humming tool on the kayak floor.

  The saw bounced nicely against the hard shell of the boat, and its noisy chatter would carry a hundred yards in every direction. I held on to the kayak’s stern and flutter-kicked beneath the surface, pushing my simple decoy ahead of me. Then gave it a decent shove.

  What Sasha would make of such a noise, I didn’t know. I hoped it spooked her, hoped it drew her fire, or at least the beam of her flashlight. In either case, I didn’t want to be nearby.

  It coasted ahead into the night, the saw thumping and rattling.

  “Thorn,” Rusty called again. “She knows you’re coming for her.”

  Why had Sasha Olsen left the radio on? Had she abandoned it? Was she dead or dying? Or was she using it to lure me to her?

  Didn’t really matter. I had no choice.

  I swam toward Rusty’s voice. Breaststroking, listening, careful to make no noise. I covered at least twenty yards before I sensed the bulk of the boat a half second before I saw it.

  I extended my arms, dropped below the surface, reached out to touch its slick hull, then patted my way around to the stern. I couldn’t recall the exact design of the craft, how high I’d have to heave myself to grab the gunwale and pull aboard.

  I pushed myself under, went down feetfirst as far as I could manage, then swept the water past me, kicked hard, and breached with a burst of air—a war whoop meant to stagger her and jolt my own adrenaline as I went up and over the side.

  I clawed for purchase on the slick fiberglass. It took longer than I wanted, far too long. Expecting the bullet in the brain, the white blast of death, I got nothing. I scrabbled up and over, coming down hard and clumsy on my hip and ribs, flopping on the deck like a foul-hooked trout.

  “Thorn?”

  I rose and banged into the console, made a quick circuit of the boat, swatting and punching at the empty air. I made another circuit to be sure.

  She was gone.

  She’d taken refuge out there somewhere in all that blackness. I heard the clack and clatter of the reciprocating saw bouncing around inside the kayak’s hull thirty-odd feet away. Maybe she was tracking that, or maybe, goddammit, she was swimming to the houseboat.

  Back behind the console, I located the golden screen of the walkie-talkie. It was sitting upright in a cup holder.

  I squatted down behind the console. Keeping my voice to a murmur, I said, “It’s me, Rusty. What’s going on?”

  “Thorn?”

  “I’m here.”

  “You’re okay?”

  “I’m good. What’s happened, Rusty?”

  “Mona radioed her. Warned her you were coming.”

  I bit down hard on that, and couldn’t speak for a moment.

  “Thorn?”

  “And after Mona called, what then?”

  “Where’s Sasha, Thorn? Did you get her?”

  “She’s not here. She’s not on the boat.”

  I began patting the console, searching for the ignition.

  “Mona’s got a knife,” Rusty said. “One of Teeter’s ceramics.”

  “Are you safe?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t where she is. I can’t see a goddamn thing.”

  “But she has a knife, you’re sure of that?”

  “Oh, yeah. I’m sure. I bashed her with my flashlight, got the radio away from her, then she found the knife somewhere and came back and slashed me once just out of pure spite, then disappeared. She’s a twisted fuck.”

  “Aw, shit, Rusty.”

  “I’m okay. I’ll make it.”

  “Listen, Rusty. Sasha could be coming. She could be on her way. I’ll be there as quick as I can. Use the flashlight on her. Shine it in her eyes, then hit her.”

  I saw the glow fading in my hand.

  “Rusty, can you hear me?”

  Then the glow was gone. Quick as that. Back into darkness.

  I patted down the console and found the ignition just where it was supposed to be. But no key. No key on the top panel. No key in the side pockets. No key.

  I rose and looked out at the impenetrable night. I drew out the Maglite. I’d submerged it for a minute and doubted it still functioned. I flicked it on. Bright as ever. And remembered as I did it that Rusty’s skiff was still unaccounted for. That’s where Sasha could be. Set up her shooting blind somewhere nearby, just waiting for a target to appear.

  Fuck it. I swept the light across the boat, found the front storage locker, and dragged it open. I stayed low and searched with short bursts of light, but the compartment was empty. No flares, no supplies of any kind. A brand-new boat, as yet unstocked with Coast Guard equipment. I checked the locker in the stern, the bait well. Nothing.

  I listened but heard only the jangle of the saw using up its juice.

  I dropped the Maglite into the pocket of my pants, then slipped over the side and began to swim. The kayak sounded like it was close by, maybe twenty feet, thirty. I kept my stroke quiet. Thinking of the bull shark, the croc, the gators. Thinking of Rusty, her exploded knee. And now a knife wound. Mona had been working all along with Sasha. A traitorous alliance I hadn’t time to consider. Two twisted fucks.

  I reached the kayak, pulled myself up, and slithered back into the seat.

  I unwrapped the gauze from the trigger of the reciprocating saw and set it between my legs, then stooped forward and felt around for the paddle. Then felt around some more.

  It wasn’t there. The paddle was gone.

  I drew out the Maglite and flashed it across the water, made a circle five feet out, another circle farther out. Saw nothing. Then the little flashlight dimmed and went dead in my hand. Everything I touched was dying.

  A mile west the black night exploded with radiance.

  The big bruiser. Its eighteen-million-candlepower beam was pointed directly toward the sky. The dazzling shaft of light shot straight up into the low swarm of clouds like the memorial to those skyscrapers no longer there.

  A come-hither beacon for Sasha.

  I plunged back into the bay and swam. Flutter-kicked as hard as I knew how
and knifed toward the Mothership, churning the water behind me. Bull sharks be damned.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Wing-embedded landing lights, and a single headlight under the prop spinner, that’s all the Cessna had. Barely making a dent in the dark.

  “I can’t do this,” Mosley said. His voice frail inside the headset. “A night landing on water. Never done it. My night vision is terrible.”

  “You’re going to do it now,” Sugarman said. “Put it down.”

  Sugar saw the single light ahead, looked to be that massive sixty-watt spotlight Thorn and he had picked out at West Marine a few months ago. The biggest baddest spotlight on their shelves. Natural daylight illumination, color temperature of 4,300 Kelvin. Rechargeable battery could go for eighty minutes, producing 1,100 lumens. Mother of all spotlights aimed straight up into the sky.

  “Land this plane,” Sugarman said. “Land it now.”

  Carter Mosley made another pass, dropping to less than fifty feet, then, panicked by the sight of mangroves rushing toward them, pulled up.

  Sugarman leaned to his window and saw the Mothership was half sunk. Just as they passed, the spotlight on the houseboat’s roof switched off and the shock of the sudden blackness pressed Sugarman back into the seat.

  “Land it,” he shouted into the tiny mike. “Circle back and land this goddamn plane.”

  * * *

  A mile was farther than I’d swum in years and my heart was letting me know, banging body shots to my left rib cage like a nasty middleweight working me over from inside. I’d let my body slip, getting sloppy in middle age. Even the adrenaline charge was already wearing off.

  I was two-thirds of the way across the bay when the airplane dropped from the clouds, loud and wobbling its wings, skimming close to the water like it meant to land. Then the pilot seemed to lose his nerve, pulled up sharp, and banked away. A drug drop or the park-service flyover. Hell, my thoughts were too scrambled to make a decent guess.

  When I looked back at the Mothership, the spotlight cut off, and the black curtain dropped again before me. Blacker than before because my pupils had corrected for that glare.

  I kept on swimming, trying to stay on the track I’d managed so far. It was only another ten or fifteen minutes if I didn’t stray off course.

  I toed off my boat shoes to get better snap in my kick, then fumbled open the top button and unzipped my shorts and swam right out of them. I didn’t want to chuck that shirt, even though it was proving a hell of a lot less lucky than I’d believed.

  Another five minutes and my arms were as heavy as if I’d been lugging a bag of cement up twenty flights. I wanted to stop but couldn’t. Couldn’t get Rusty’s words out of my head. She’d been cut but claimed she was okay, an assurance I didn’t buy.

  I was lost in the rhythm of my stroke, taking a breath on every right hand reach, when something below me in the water brushed my leg. A gentle, whisking swipe.

  It woke the jet-fuel gland and sped me up by double.

  There was no creature living in those waters that I could possibly outswim. But that didn’t stop me from trying. I pumped my legs, left a fluttering roil behind me. And whatever it was dropped away for a full minute.

  Then it grabbed my ankle. Left ankle, and hauled me to a stop, then let go. I spun back on it, ready for a punch, a kick, whatever I could do. Go down scrapping.

  I was panting hard and couldn’t hear a thing beyond my breath.

  I swiveled a one-eighty, faced behind me, came back almost at once. A spastic water dance. On impulse, I smacked the surface flat-handed, which I knew at once was a fuck-up, more likely to draw attack than spook.

  She surfaced five feet away and I made out enough of her through the darkness to know who it was. Black gleam of hair, pale sheen of skin.

  I was about to speak when she sunk out of sight. Then the hand gripped my right ankle and drew me down.

  I got only the quickest breath and knew at once I would drown in seconds unless I broke her grip on the first try.

  Her hand strength was staggering, a grasp that numbed the flesh. I relaxed and went along for another second, then tucked into a ball as tight as I could squeeze, and plowed my hands forward, turning an underwater somersault.

  Halfway around, it broke the hold and I shot to the surface.

  A few seconds later she bobbed up nearby.

  “Better than your granny,” she said. “Better than Uncle John.”

  I didn’t waste my lungs on words, trying to drag in deep breaths as quietly as I could, stifling the gasps, not wanting to give her any reason to attack again so soon. Treading water, moving backward, little by little, opening up some distance.

  “You ever timed yourself?” she said. “How long you can go? I have. Lying beside my boy, him struggling to get a sip of air, coughing blood and little specks of tissue. Five and a half minutes, that’s my best.”

  I heard the plane off in the west. Closing in, but still minutes away.

  “That’s not record territory or anything,” she said. “But it’s longer than you can hold yours. I’ll bet my life on that.”

  “What do you want?”

  I saw her teeth and suspected a smile, but couldn’t be sure.

  “You going to offer me cash? That’s what the rest of your people did.”

  “I don’t have any money. What do you want?”

  “You know,” she said, “I don’t want a damn thing. That’s the weird part. Not a damn thing. Already had joy enough for a lifetime, until you people stole it from me, bone by bone.”

  I filled my lungs and filled them again, then ducked below the surface and frog-kicked away from her. I made what I hoped was a wide circle, trying to get back on path to the Mothership.

  She was stronger than any woman I’d ever grappled with. Stronger than nearly any man. Just that grip around my ankle was enough to scare me. The flesh still deadened. I stayed down until my chest was ready to break open, then angled upward, ruptured the surface with a gasp and started swimming hard. I called out Rusty’s name. Called it again. Then got back to swimming.

  Rusty answered through the darkness.

  “Thorn!”

  I was off course by ninety degrees.

  Rusty called again and I veered toward her and plowed on. Taking breaths on every stroke, leaving behind me a furious wake.

  But Sasha cut me off. This time mounting my back and looping an arm around my neck and twisting me to the side, hauling me under, not so much with her weight, which was far less than my own, but using some kind of leverage, that precisely controlled force I remembered from a brief and unsuccessful fling at high school wrestling.

  I twisted and writhed and tried to punch her somewhere solid. But she rode with me, and had me under and we were going down, her naked body pressed flat against my back, right forearm locking across my throat, left hand braced against the back of my head, jamming my chin against my chest. A neck breaker, a stranglehold from the playground, the barroom, the back alley, crushing so hard the sparklers began to fire up in my eyes.

  I pried at the arm at my throat, dug my fingernails into her flesh. Her body was as slippery and hard as a bag of eels. I threw an elbow into her gut but it didn’t faze her. I threw another with the same result. She tightened the pressure, wriggled for further advantage, using her weight and angle to keep me buried a few feet below the waterline.

  I had no secret countermoves. I’d never drilled in breaking choke holds. For a loony moment I thought of the hero in that novel Sugar had pushed on me. That eight-foot-tall fantasy man had black belts in a dozen martial arts and could dispose of enemies with his little toe.

  But I was going to die down there in the black depths, either by drowning or by broken neck. It was just a question of which came first.

  The lights were winking out, brain cells bidding each other farewell, when the plane thundered across the water. Maybe twenty yards away, forty. I don’t know how deep we were at that moment, but the plane’s roar and shudde
r exploded in a chaos of bubbles.

  It woke me from my defeat. I wrenched and bucked and fired an elbow backward, and this time I caught bone. The grip around my neck softened by some tiny fraction.

  I twisted again, down to my last seconds of consciousness when I broke free, kicked to the surface. As soon as I got a breath, she was beside me. Breathing harder than before.

  “Round two,” she said.

  But before she could duck out of sight, I snapped a right hand full in her face. Hit her again in the right eye.

  That first punch dazed her. In that defenseless second I struck her with an overhand left and felt her nose crunch. I punched her twice in the forehead, then sent a roundhouse to her temple. No traction in the water, but the blows landed hard enough.

  She slumped forward, sputtered. I grabbed her hair, hauled her face out of the water, and held her before me. She gagged and coughed and swatted at my arm. I slammed my fist into her mouth, slammed it one last time, then held her head underwater and counted off the seconds.

  I was nearing sixty, watching a thin trickle of bubbles rise from her mouth, when Rusty called out my name, and swept the beam of the flashlight across the water.

  I flipped Sasha on her back and hauled her by the hair through the dark bay toward the Mothership. I didn’t know if she was dead already, or if I was drowning her as I towed her in. And I can’t say I really cared.

  Back at the ship, I heaved her onto the dive platform. She wound up facedown, head turned awkwardly to the side, looking out to sea. I didn’t bother to right her. I squatted down and fingered her throat for a pulse. Got nothing and felt a black thrill.

  “Mona’s upstairs,” Rusty said when I broke into the salon. She was biting off her words, a sharp wince at each breath. “She’s got the Kyocera—Teeter’s best sushi knife.”

  “Where’d she cut you? How bad?”

  Rusty was crouched in the corner behind the upturned table, close to where I’d left her. She raised the flashlight and brightened it against her shirtsleeve. The cut was six inches long and the bloody trail ran from wrist to elbow. A defensive wound.

  “Shallow,” she said. “Not bleeding anymore. The bitch was pissed cause I got the radio from her.”