(but don’t tell Ric that, mate)
Like back when he was twelve, traveling the Great Barrier Reef with his Mum and Dad, and he side-stroked without looking first right into the middle of a Lion’s Mane jellyfish bloom: That clench of recognition, filaments already wrapping ‘round him from every side in streamers, pale poison-full vermicelli, just beginning to sting him with their multitudinous fine hairs. A caress on its way to becoming a wound.
There at the edge of the shelf, the last clump of brain and cup and stone before the drop-off: Clear shading to blue shading to black, going down and down and down into nothing. He’d hung above an abyss, spun sugar-caged by luminous mucus, watching the jellies’ stomachs pulse like hearts through their sides, and contemplated—in one skipped beat, one breathless no-scream—the utter end of the world.
What’s down there, Dad?
Things you’ve never seen, son. Things you never will see.
(Things you never want to.)
But separate, always, kept down by pressure, gravity versus its lack. No place in our world for their eddying, porous likes, and barely any room in theirs for us: Fragile in a different way, clumsy, blundering in our bathyspheres and our pressurized suits, subject to the bends. Go down too fast, we rupture; come up too fast, we burst. Never the twain shall meet, for long...
But we do strew our leavings everywhere we go, and each bit of garbage left behind is a seed, a potential grit-pearl. The ocean adapts to our corrupting influences, shaping itself to what it assumes is a new system of prey-or-be-preyed-upon.
Look, Sean, Mum said, pointing, her mask-voice a tinny buzz in his ear. Here’s a stonefish, looks like a rock. A skate, trying to look like an old shoe. A sponge grown into the shape of a slipped carburetor—is that rust, or protective colour?
And there, where the bombies meet, a jumble of far more intimate human litter...is that somebody’s femur, somebody’s splintered tibia? Or just a thousand-generation anemone colony bleached white sand-on-calcium grey, trying to fit itself into the hole where somebody’s trapped and weighted corpse once used to lie?
All this, or none of it, or something else entirely—something new, unknown, unseen. For there is far more sea to pore through, waiting unexplored, than there ever will be land.
*
Sean came back up gasping, sweat-wet, in darkness. Felt his dreams shrug aside to let him free, silky-smooth and sandpaper by turns, an affectionate quilt of flocking rays—their cartilaginous wings sliding away quick down every limb, a peeled cocoon. An extra pulse seemed to hammer at his breast-bone, where the female’s pectoral disc would lie; when he checked himself in the cabin mirror, sure it was purely psychosomatic, he thought he saw a bruise just beginning to raise, a wine-dark birthmark kiss. As though something trawling sleep’s deepest levels had bit down on him, hard, before trying to slide its fertilizing claspers in.
Up on deck, the moon hung low and huge in a star-crammed sky, its outline sketched in burnt-retina heat-haze orange. The planks still held most of the day’s heat, beating up right through his flip-flops’ rubber soles; sweat had already stuck pits to sleeves before he’d even climbed the ladder, warm as blood and glue-heavy, ‘til he could barely tell ass-crack from shirt-tail.
When he sucked down a long gulp, straining in search of relief, all he got was more of the same, but salt-flavoured, mildly decayed. Like he was breathing air from his own corpse’s lungs.
“Hey,” the man from the sea said, from behind him.
Sean turned, blinked stupidly, blood pounding in his face and pelvis—instinctively made to back up, and rocked against the railing. Might’ve fallen, even, if somebody hadn’t laid their big American hand (dusted with gold hair on the back, palm still rough with broken blisters) on his, and pulled.
“Should watch out; it’s pretty dark. You fell, sharks’d find you a damn sight faster’n we would.”
“Too right. Smell bring you up?”
“Nah, that’s about the same—just stop noticing it, eventually, I guess. I thought...” He gave a cursory look ‘round: a bit too quick, barely a headshake. “Thought I might check the rig out again, that thing you found me in. See if anything pops.”
“And?”
“Nope.”
“That’s normal, mate. Given the circumstances.”
Another eye-flick, tracing the same static path. “I’m not even trying to remember, so much, now—just to, you know, figure it out. How it all must’ve happened.”
“The wreck...”
“Sure, and after. Like when your captain asked me: That how it went?” He shrugged. “I don’t know. I just—woke up, inside that thing. I mean, I think I woke up...”
“Yeah, well. What else would you’ve done?”
“...I don’t know.”
Sean didn’t, either. So he looked away again, studied what he could see of the waves instead, until his head began to hurt. Thinking, all the while, how immature his long-expired crush on Ric now seemed in the face of this yearning—an all-encompassing draw, deepwater pull, stronger than any undertow.
Desire as a devouring force, as loss of self, as death-wish. The crazy urge to somehow submerge himself inside this ghost of a man he “knew” only from Google, apparently better than the guy knew himself; to dive in head-first, let all that sun-kissed Yank-ness wrap ‘round him and sink ‘til he either came out the other side, or smothered.
“Crazy” is right, Jesus.
“Smart to get yourself in there, though, in the first place,” he heard himself say, numbly. “Shows presence of mind, and all that. I mean...you couldn’t’ve known anybody’d be coming for you, not really.”
The guy nodded. “Yeah, that makes sense, what you’re saying. But I think...I must’ve hoped they’d come for the ship, anyhow. Cost a lot of money. Not the kind of thing you’d just...throw away.”
“No,” Sean agreed.
“It’s yours now, though, I guess. Me, too.”
All at once, that pulse was back, hammering twice as hard.
He can’t mean what you think.
But: “What do you mean?” Sean found himself incapable of stopping himself from asking, shamefaced. To which the guy simply smiled, gently.
“Well...you found me. So, I guess—”
(you get to keep me)
Speech? Thought? Those five small words seemed to stone-skip through him like a bullet-fragment ricochet, cascading from ear to brain and straight back out again. Exiting through the lips, already opened wide, as they collided with the guy’s own and stuck fast: Passing the same lust-flavoured breath back and forth, back and forth, like sharing an air-bubble.
Oh God, let go. Oh God, don’t.
Don’t let me go.
Oh God.
They were the same height, give or take; pretty much the same build, ‘specially after all that time on Shaftoe’s cargo-before-crew starvation diet versus all that time—how long, exactly?—adrift. Even their hand-span a near-exact match, just wide enough for each to clasp the other’s wrists without strain. Yet the contact alone was enough to sap Sean’s reserves, dip the empty he’d apparently already been running on low enough he could feel himself vibrate; he clutched at the guy for dear life, tongues twining, holding on. Holding tight.
Because: If you let me go, I’ll fall. And...if I fall...
...I’ll drown, Sean thought, feeling his eyes roll back, his temples throb and sing. Practically Goddamn swooning.
And time must’ve passed, without either even noticing. For a moment later he glanced back up to find Ric, looming large—already halfway lunged forward into their all-too-closely-shared personal space, raw eyes bugged ‘til his lids started to slant the wrong way.
Uh oh.
A warning seemed in order, but his mouth was otherwise engaged. Besides, the juggernaut was well on its way; all they could do was make room. So Sean side-stepped, tried his best to swing the guy along with him, but only succeeded in turning him so he and Ric could lock gazes: Glazed and crazed to a
miably mild, almost stoner-calm, swimming in endorphins. Should’ve gone over like a bong-hit, defusing the situation, and yet—
Ric simply froze, rigid, riveted. Neither angry nor jealous, anymore, but terrified.
What is he seeing? Not what...who...I am.
A rush and a push and the deck was cleared: Ric went past at high speed, Demeter first mate style, and folded over the rail as if he’d been stomach-punched. Sean grabbed for Ric’s shoulder but felt it slip by, sweat-greased; felt the guy reaching down as well, yet saw Ric twist mid-plunge to avoid that grasping, offered hand. A strange cunning lit both irises, made them flash in recognition. Like:
I know you, now—don’t see how I couldn’t see it, before.
But you won’t bloody get me, too.
Letting go, perfectly deliberate, Ric fell into darkness, hit the unseen water below with barely a splash. Sean made to follow, hollering:
“Ric, fuck, swim, you idiot! Grab for the Knot! Grab hold, you bloody fool!”
No reply, save the lapping waves. And a whisper that might’ve come from the guy whose strong arms were even now holding him back, making sure he wasn’t going after poor, sleep-deprived idiot Ric...Ric, whose misfiring synapses had sent him off and running so hard he’d thrown his entire life away like trash, all to escape a damn dream...
Nothing out here to grab hold of, Sean. Just garbage soup, and plenty of it.
“Sharks’ll get him,” Sam-I-Am said from the wheelhouse door, with peculiar satisfaction. Like he’d just been waiting, all this time, for the pleasure of eventually getting to make that call.
Behind him, further down the staircase, Sean glimpsed both Arjit (pausing to spit, derisively, while perhaps wondering if he should join this impromptu all-hands-on-deck funeral) and Shaftoe (knuckling sleep from his eyes, dazed and confused, having apparently left his six-guns behind in his cabin), both staring upwards. Then everyone cringed at once, top-lit by the glare, as a flare split the night to illuminate a pair of small, sleek craft coming in dark off either bow, armed to the teeth.
Didn’t have to be sporting the Jolly Roger to know what their game was, either, way the hell out here, where there was nothing worth stealing but the trawler out from under them.
Sean did a double-take Shaftoe’s way, wondering if he looked a bit like Ric had, before blurting: “No way in hell even you’d’ve been stupid enough to email reVive already, you stunned fucking cunt.”
Shaftoe gulped. “I...just asked ‘em if they wanted their property back,” he managed. “Before the media got hold of it, and him....”
“Oh yeah. ‘Cause there’s absolutely nothing dicey-looking ‘bout an eco-boat that bloody sinks, is there? Nothing that reeks of corner-cutting, nothing that says: I don’t really give a toss so long’s they stop telling me where not to dump, so please just make sure to drift off-radar when your rig falls apart, and stay there—”
The guy nodded, slightly, like this was happening to somebody else entirely. “Does kinda seem that way, doesn’t it? Man, Sean, you should be in GPA-Marine, or something.”
Two steps saw Arjit up on deck next to Sam-I-Am, Shaftoe left wibbling in the gloom behind; he gave Sam a friendly cuff to the shoulder: You ‘n’ me, eh? Only two brown boys on a ship of crazy whites!
Sam-I-Am just shifted stance to ask out one side of his mouth: “You in on this, man?”
Arjit shrugged. “They get the ship, we’re home in a month, find a real damn job. Told ya it’d be better, this way.”
“Oh, you think? Can’t trust pirates, fool! We ain’t worth the chain to sink us, to them scalawags.”
“Chill, mate. Everything be fine. Just gotta... take care of a few things, first—”
Shaftoe, three steps behind as usual, seemed at last on the ragged brink of reacting to Arjit’s confession when his former second-in-command pivoted to empty the Bad Idea’s own flare-gun—conveniently holstered nearby, for easy distress access—into his face. Though the flare’s velocity was far too slow to penetrate anything, the effects were nonetheless startling: A bright red nitrate-magnesium flash, all hiss and burst, bouncing off-centre to crush in Shaftoe’s beak with a satisfying, gluey crack before ricocheting further, skipping down the hallway like a lit phosphorus-brick.
The “Captain” fell back, hair a-smoke, and out of sight—possibly dead, but Sean supposed that didn’t much matter either way, now the rocket-exhaust trail had below-decks safely caught on fire. And at this answering signal, a volley of shots rang up from the starboard boat, along with a spatter of cheers.
Sam-I-Am clapped both hands over his mouth, and heaved. “Fuck me, up, down and sideways—”
Sean contemplated cutting and running, just for a second, but there weren’t a whole lot of places left to go. Besides which, the guy—Grinnage, goddamnit—
(Simon?)
—seemed spot-rooted, studying Arjit as though he were less threat than vaguely interesting problem, simply one more oddity in a days-long string.
“Got one of those handy for us, buddy?” he inquired, mildly.
Arjit shook his head and pulled a Glock from his waistband, advancing. “Nothing personal, man,” he replied. “I mean, you already had the short end, what with that wreck ‘n’ all. But, see...those out there, they only got berth enough for two.”
*
And here it’s as though the dream drops back over him, a wall of water slopping down to place five fathoms’ worth of highly-welcome waver between himself and what happens next: How the guy, glancing back at him, raises a faint gold brow...
...and Christ-well sheds himself somehow, flips inside-out, opens wide as a bifurcated cloak of lip, unwrapping a slimy heap of bones and muck that clatters to the boards and lies there steaming, an awful surprise gift. What’s left launches itself at Arjit, tumbling from axis to axis, like it can’t tell which way is up. As though it’s used to dealing with a different grade of gravity, entirely.
(but that can’t happen)
(can’t happen, not like that, not like)
(any of it, impossible, no, no goddamn no)
And: Are there eyes in those sockets, that same hypnotic green gone shucked and nude, unblinking? What the hell can it have left to see its way with now, if so?
Arjit’s a bastard, not dumb—pumps his whole clip into it, but nothing slows it down. Sam-I-Am, on the other hand, takes one look, and slams the wheelhouse door on ‘em both. After’s a second’s hammering and cursing, Arjit turns right back into the thing, which hits him like a pizza-dough facial: submerges him completely, quick-digesting him from the outside in. Sean can hear him, muffled, through wads of flesh and cartilage, a kitten swung in a bag against unforgiving walls.
Drowning would be a fucking mercy, by comparison.
Eventually, the sounds stop. Sean looks up again, just in time to see whatever-it-is detach from—never mind, some grotesque hybrid of corpse and turd, like what you get when you peel a snake. Then tumble-splat, tumble-SPLAT as it heads for the wheelhouse, targeting that thread-sized crack under the door and squishing itself flat, flatter, so thin its molecular bonds almost separate. The privileges of bonelessness, caught in action.
From inside, Sean hears Sam-I-Am start to scream. But that doesn’t last too fucking long, at all.
(oh god, I think it’s coming back out)
Re-emerging, the creature flows back over its original sticky core-dump mess and reassembles itself, wetly; everything moves back into place with a series of clicks and pops, “the guy” re-emerging whole from an unrecognizable lump of goo—skin reversed and mainly blood-free, pinky-blond hair only slightly out of place. Those naked eyes pop back into their orbits, open, crinkle slightly.
“Hey,” he—it—says.
*
Sean coughed, rackingly, mouth gone drier than he’d been in a month. “Are you...gonna kill me?”
“Don’t think so, no. You want me to?”
“...not like that.”
A fresh rush of yells from the pirate peanu
t gallery—might be they saw what happened to Arjit; might be they didn’t like it—proved weirdly easy to ignore, ‘specially as Sean’s brain raced to fill in the spaces, ever newer and dumber questions just rolling straight off his tongue with gumball-machine precision. “You’re not...him, then. Simon Grinnage. Never were.”
“No. I thought I was, but....” A shrug. “Guess it doesn’t much matter now, really, what I thought. Or didn’t.”
“So—you just attached yourself to his corpse, that what happened? Grew into the shape of the hole he left, somehow?” Without waiting for a reply: “Is there anything of him still in there at all, in you?”
“Shit, Sean, I don’t know. You saw, when I—back there—” Sean nods. “—well, much as I’d like to think I’m at least some sort of composite, what came out...it felt like bones, to me.”
“Looked like ‘em, too.”
“There you go, then.”
Fresh flares went up, spotlighting this odd little triptych: Sean, Arjit’s leavings. The thing, unnecessary clothes discarded—Sean couldn’t remember where they’d gone—and now clad only in its own smeared blood-tracery, a pattern of red tattoos. More yells from the pirates followed, urgent-fearful, as though they somehow recognized it.
“Don’t s’pose you could take ‘em all,” Sean suggested, only half-joking.
“Unlikely. But...” It glanced over at the Green Phoenix rig. “Could just get back inside that, and hit the water. Did okay, last time.”
“You could, mate. Simon didn’t come off quite so well, though, did he?”
*
Swapping banter in the face of death, or worse...much worse. Yet Sean still can’t find it in him to fear, not completely; every breath he draws seems to say it means no harm to him, if no one else. Something chemical, probably, borne on the hot and stinking wind—something it probably doesn’t even need, underwater. Pheromones, designed to attract landbound prey by making the thing seem lovable? Or spores drifting up his nose to root in his cortex, then bloom and puppet him consumption-wards, the way Brazilian zombie fungi turn ants into living seeders?
Abominations of Desire Page 30
