Outcasts

by Alan Janney

  “And the storms?” Katie asked.

  “I get drunk off storms. So do Shooter and the Outlaw. I could smell it in their pores. The ocean is medicine and I require a constant and heavy dose. A morphine drip preventing madness. Good squalls are a narcotic.”

  “Speaking of madness,” Samantha said, “do you support the Chemist’s crusade?”

  Minnie answered in a voice surprisingly strong. “We shall NOT discuss these things at night. Such topics are better left for daylight. I will tell you what I know. Tomorrow. And offer counsel, because I understand your crusade too. Perhaps good will come of these revealed secrets. Perhaps not. But it will certainly create mischief, which I adore in all seasons.”

  Dinner finished. Her stewards cleared the table. Cory, still weak from being nauseated, went to bed. Samantha pestered Pacific until she relented and took her to the cockpit for a discussion on navigation and piloting.

  The Amnesia lay in a calm, bobbing before the moon’s long reflection. The stars had exploded tonight. I lit soft electric lamps and pulled back the jacuzzi’s cushioned cover. The steaming bubbly water was illuminated with submerged golden lights.

  “What are you doing?” Katie asked with a cagey smile.

  “I’m getting into the hot tub. And you’re coming with me.”

  “No way, boyfriend.” She shook her head. “It’s chilly. I will kiss you until sunrise in my cabin, however.”

  “I’ve always wanted to kiss in a hot tub. It looks so great in the movies.”

  She laughed, my favorite noise in the world. “You’re not wearing swim trunks.”

  I undid the clasp of my Navy belt.

  She gasped and said, “Chase Jackson you may not get naked on Minnie’s boat!”

  “Relax,” I grinned. I shimmied out of my Navy khakis. I still had on football practice shorts and a t-shirt. “Look, we already have this stack of towels waiting.”

  “You go ahead. It’s freeeeeezing. I’ll just enjoy the view inside Minnie’s warm nightshirt.”

  “Nope. You’re coming.” I bounded across the deck and hefted her easily.

  She smothered a shriek and hit me in the chest. She pleaded, “No no no no! Let’s just go to my room.”

  “Why not here?”

  “Because this is the nicest article of clothing I’ve ever put on and she said I could keep it,” Katie answered in a rush. “Please please, sweet sweet kind Chase, most handsome boy in all the world. It has layers of cashmere and silk and I’ll be so sad if you get it wet.”

  “I’m worth it.”

  “I won’t talk to you for…twenty minutes if you throw me in. The chlorine will ruin it.”

  “Then take it off.”

  “I’m not wearing a bathing suit!”

  “Are you wearing anything underneath?”

  “Of course.”

  “That’ll do.”

  She held my eyes with hers and her face filled with a charming blush. “Just my bra and underwear!”

  “I’ve seen you in a bikini. Same thing.” We were at the edge of the jacuzzi and her arms wrapped tightly around my neck. In her defense, it did feel like a nice shirt.

  “It’s NOT the same thing.”

  “Katie-”

  “Okayokayokayokay. Fine. Put me down. I’ll take off the nightshirt.”

  “Promise not to run?”

  “I promise. You have seduced me. Well, the way your arms feel. That seduced me.”

  I set her down and blocked the escape in case she changed her mind. She gathered the blue fabric in her fists with deliberate care, her arms crossed, and pulled it over her head. My chest tightened and my throat partially closed. I said, “No wonder people follow you on Instagram.”

  “Thank you. I feel ridiculous.” She posed like a runway model on a catwalk and we laughed. It may have been the most indecent and brazen and sexy pose ever struck by a Model UN captain. “Remember, this is a bikini.”

  “Somehow…it’s not.”

  “Yes it is! But you can’t see the back.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s a thong, silly.”

  “Your legs look great. You work out a lot. I’m sure it looks nice.”

  “I know it looks nice!” She backed towards the water’s edge. Her skin texture changed from smooth to goosebumps. “But this is a swimsuit, remember? No thongs. I’m SO cold.” Katie dipped her foot in the pool and held the rail. She stepped backwards down the stairs, her face dissolving into pleasure.

  “Oh its heaven,” she cooed. “Oh wow.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Get your big beautiful body in here. Now.”

  I entered. The hot, effervescent water sloshed over both sides. She placed her hands under my t-shirt, flat on my stomach, and said, “You’re swelling. I like it when you do that. You get so tall.”

  She was correct. My shorts felt considerably shorter. Luckily we’d just eaten; the change in body composition required calories. A lot of them.

  Katie pushed me onto an underwater bench and stood over me. I looked straight up to kiss her. Our mouths pressed together for a long, perfect moment. We’d been dating for months and I still enjoyed the first contact, the intimacy.

  “You’re wearing the cologne,” she murmured against my lips.

  “So we can find each other with our eyes closed.”

  “You’re a weirdo. Why on earth are you wearing this stupid shirt?” She pulled it over my head and dropped it wetly on the wooden floor slats and kissed me again.

  We didn’t speak for twenty minutes. Just melted into the other. Both of us happy and scared, trembling with desire and fear, aware this oasis was temporary. There was no safe place left for us except each other, and soon we had to let go of that. So we indulged and forgot everything except the stars and ourselves. Her fingernails cut lines through my hair, scoring my scalp, carving deeper, more permanently into my soul.

  Finally she lowered into my lap, forehead pressed into my temple, and grazed the stubble on my jaw with her lips. I said, “I’m glad it’s you.”

  “What do you mean?” she whispered.

  “Humans invariably fall in love. When we’re young we have no idea who with, you know? We just know it’ll happen. I’m glad it’s you.”

  “You’d rather have me than Natalie North?”

  “I’d want you for one lifetime rather than her for a thousand.”

  I felt her lips pull into a smile against my skin. “That’s sweet. Did she ever kiss you?”

  “She did.”

  “I get to kiss a boy who kissed Natalie North. I assume I’m much better at it?”

  “Of course. You were born for me and our mouths fit. Celebrity made Natalie arrogant and lazy.”

  She giggled, a bubbly rich sound. “I know that’s not true. But thanks for saying it.” She sat up, facing me, straddling my knees. Water rivulets streamed from her hair, down her shoulders and collarbone. She punched me playfully in the chest. “Remember when you weren’t this big? You used to be scrawny.”

  I frowned. “No I wasn’t. That’s outrageous.”

  “Well. You were normal sized. Now you’re like…” She spread her arms. “Pow! You get so wide. And your arms.”

  “Maybe you-”

  She punched me again. Harder. “It’s like hitting the earth. Does it hurt?”

  “Not really. But that doesn’t mean I’m loving it.”

  “Poor sweetie.” She closed the distance and started kissing my neck and chest. “What’s it like? Being that big and strong? Is it weird?”

  I spoke through deep breaths. “It hurts. What’s it like being that small and weak?”

  “Do you still want to wait? To have sex?”

  “I never wanted to wait.”

  “But you still think we should?”

  I didn’t answer. I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate.

  She asked, “What if one of us dies before we get to have sex?”

  I quoted from memory, “Oh she is rich in be
auty, only poor, that when she dies with beauty dies her store.”

  Katie straightened in surprise. Her eyes appeared hazel in the pool’s glow and they glittered. “You just quoted Romeo and Juliet.”

  I continued, “Hath she sworn that she will live chaste? She has, and in that sparing makes huge waste.”

  “Are you trying to arouse this literary nerd with Shakespeare? Because it’s working. Do you know what that quote means?”

  “Yes,” I grinned. “If you were to die before someone enjoyed your perfect body, it would be a waste of riches.”

  She groaned and laid her face back against my chest. Her voice was muffled. “That is so hot. Tonight is perfect.”

  “Agreed.”

  “I want you desperately, but I keep hearing my mom’s voice. Wait until you’re ready! Wait until your ready!” She imitated her mom’s tone and Spanish accent.

  “She’s probably right. Losing one’s virginity is a pillar of the human experience.”

  “I told you that. I read it in a magazine in middle school. Think about what happens to people when they experience sex too early. Before they’re ready. It profoundly hurts them. It sometimes redirects their life on a completely different path. But I want to do it anyway.”

  “Me too. But we always said we’d wait.”

  She looked up and glanced at our surroundings. “I have to admit. I’d rather our first time not happen in someone else’s pool with strangers watching.”

  “You think Samantha’s watching?”

  Her lips pulled into a mischievous curve. “I’m positive Samantha’s watching. But the hot water, the moon, the stars, the muscles, the skin contact-”

  “The…bikini.”

  “-the kissing. It’s almost worth it, despite Samantha.”

  “I bet she’s recording us for Puck.”

  She puckered her cute nose. “Ew.”

  “What’s a bigger waste? Ruining the first time? Or never having it?”

  “I don’t know. But I know I love you. Thank you for waiting for me.”

  “Thank you for not having sex with Tank.”

  She grimaced and shivered. “He wanted to.”

  “I know.”

  “He didn’t want to wait.”

  “I don’t blame him. You’re crazy fly.”

  She grinned. “I think you have one of the purest hearts and souls on the planet. And I’m just a girl trying to get into her boyfriend’s pants.”

  That was funny. I laughed. Hard.

  “No but seriously.” She slid off my lap and climbed from the pool. The night was chilly and she wrapped herself within a cocoon of fluffy white blankets. “Our planet is really lucky you got sick. Most people aren’t as good as you. Most wouldn’t stand against the Chemist.”

  “Most people don’t have as much to lose as me. They don’t have you.”

  “But that’s also a weakness, I think.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You are too concerned with my safety.” She held open a towel. I got out and she wrapped me. “It’s almost a form of selfishness. You will only die for me. Nobody else matters. Put it another way; the only thing that matters to you is…you. Your wants. You want me alive. It’s selfish.”

  “It’s love.”

  “It’s flattering. It’s endearing. But perhaps it’s not enough.”

  I crushed her against me, surrounding us both with the last towel. I kissed the top of her head. “You’re asking me to be willing to sacrifice you, if need be, for the sake of the planet.”

  “And I know it won’t come to that. But I’m suggesting…your willingness to sacrifice yourself isn’t enough. You need to think beyond yourself and beyond me. Your purpose can’t be me. This is too important. Too many people depend on you.”

  “I’m not that selfless,” I admitted.

  “You must be.”

  “Maybe one day. In the meantime, we can agree on one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I saw you getting out of the pool. You were right. You and your thong look great.”

  She tried to suppress a smile but failed. “Earth is doomed.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Wednesday, February 7. 2019

  The next morning we gathered on the aft deck in a circle of palatial sun chairs. The canvas shade overhead tinted us tones of sapphire and indigo, and the sun sparkled so radiantly off the water’s surface we had to wear sunglasses. Breeze blew gently from the north and Amnesia rose and fell on long shallow swells.

  “Why are you helping us, Pacific?” Samantha demanded, arms crossed. This didn’t strike me as a productive beginning, but I’d been wondering too.

  “Because PuckDaddy asked me to and it sounded like an adventure.”

  “Sure, yeah, but why are you providing council today? He’s your husband and we’re trying to kill him.”

  “I suspect the answer to your question will become clear in a moment, once you hear what I have to say.”

  Puck spoke from speakers mounted in the deck and bulkhead. “Before you begin your council of war, it may interest you to know the FBI uncovered another volunteer station. This one in Ohio. The patients were injected recently with Chemist blood and are still in a coma. Carter is en route.”

  Pacific mused, “Do you know, PuckDaddy, I think this is the first time I’ve heard your voice.” She wore a short yellow sundress and held a jar of iced punch. Her legs were crossed serenely.

  “Sup.”

  “Are you black?”

  “More like a sexy brown, baby.”

  “How many patients are unconscious at the volunteer station, Puck?” asked Samantha. Her scowl was in full bloom today.

  “Two hundred. And twenty workers tending them.”

  “Tending them?”

  “You know. Keeping them fed. Giving them drugs. That stuff.”

  Katie shook her head in disbelief. “Where does the Chemist get all of these volunteers?”

  “Mad men and megalomaniacs have always and will always attract droves of the weak minded,” Pacific said.

  “Is he mad?”

  “He is both.”

  “Puck, does the FBI or anyone else have a guess how many Chosen this makes?”

  “Puck read the number ten thousand somewhere. I forget where. I’m forwarding your phones paraphernalia discovered at the Chrysalis.”

  I pulled out my phone and watched the files download. “Chrysalis?”

  “That’s what he calls these volunteer stations. In your files you can see that the worthy volunteers are referred to as Larva. The Larva are injected and kept in a comatose state. When unconscious, the workers call the patients Pupas.”

  Katie finished his thought. “And then the survivors emerge as Butterflies, I bet. Ferocious Butterflies. It’s a fitting analogy to the transformation.”

  Puck sounded a little put out that Katie guessed the final stage. “That’s correct. Katie. Know-it-all. New Chosen are called Butterflies until they leave the Chrysalis. Then he calls them Twice Chosen.”

  Pacific raised her hand for attention. “Martin calls them Twice Chosen. But you call Martin’s new creations simply Chosen? Yes?”

  “It’s confusing, we know.”

  “Chosen is his term for sickos like us, sick since birth.”

  Samantha grunted, her heels bouncing on the deck. “Yeah, the Chemist doesn’t like the term ‘Infected.’ That’s what we call ourselves.”

  “‘Infected’ is the term that Carter uses,” she noted, rubbing her thumb on the rim of her jar.

  “Makes sense. We were recruited by Carter. Have you met him?”

  She nodded. “Multiple times. A very crass and blunt man. But not without his merits.”

  I picked absently at stray threads on my pants, lost in thought. “I haven’t decided which man I dislike more.”

  “Neither are very ingratiating. Martin, at least, has manners. Those two have always had a strained relationship. Had they collaborated, the world would hav
e surrendered without a fight. But. They are fish of different colors.”

  Katie asked, “How so?”

  “Carter never wanted our small society of sickos to be public, dear girl. He wanted control but anonymity. And on that point, I am in complete agreement with him. Martin wants fame and power and recognition.” She shrugged delicately, the ice clinking in her fist. “Hard for those two ideologies to co-exist. Neither man is right. And perhaps neither man is wrong.”

  I asked, “Can you tell us what Martin’s goal is?”

  Pacific did not answer immediately. She sat down her glass carefully, wiped her hand on her dress, and stared off towards the mainland and the unseen shore. After a minute, “He and I are alike in many ways. We both…profit…from disorder. It satisfies needs within. I understand his crusade. We’ve witnessed too many normal human births and burials for us to fret over deaths anymore. He is the oldest living human. And maybe the strongest. And possibly the most intelligent. He’s outlasted billions. And survived dozens like him. By right of survival of the fittest, he feels this should all belong to him, especially now in his waining years. Conceivably, he’s right.”

  “But-” Samantha started.

  Pacific talked over her. “He wants to create a kingdom. A new country or state which he rules by right of his abilities and power. He and other Chosen, or Infected, will live openly and govern as they see fit and the borders will be flung wide to his many admirers.”

  Puck said, “Sounds like a religion.”

  “A religion whose god is dying,” she nodded in agreement. “We are all sick, both physically and mentally. You two appear more stable than most, but most likely that will deteriorate with age. Martin has a couple decades left at most, and what then? His kingdom, his religion, will be left in tatters, destroyed by less powerful sickos. We make poor leaders, inherently.”

  I agreed. “There’s dissent in his ranks already. Walter already hates him. And hates Blue-Eyes.”

  A ghost of a smile crossed Pacific’s lips. “We all hate each other. It’s in our nature. Even Samantha, though you are lovely and unoffensive…I desperately want you off my ship.”