Carrion Comfort

by Dan Simmons

  Natalie forced herself not to scream as she straightened up and raised her fists in a reflexive response.

  “It’s me,” said Saul. He straightened his glasses. “Are you all right?”

  “Oh, Jesus,” breathed Natalie. She felt around, found the keys, and started the car with a roar.

  A shadow separated itself from the shrubbery and ran into the street fifty feet away. “Hang on!” cried Natalie. She slammed the car into gear and pulled into the street, accelerating to fifty miles per hour by the time they reached the end of the block. The headlights illuminated the young man for two seconds before he leaped to one side.

  “My God,” said Natalie, “did you see who that was?”

  “Marvin Gayle,” said Saul and braced himself against the dash, “turn right up here.”

  “What could he be doing here?” cried Natalie.

  “I don’t know,” said Saul. “You’d better slow down. No one is following us.”

  Natalie slowed to fifty miles per hour and got on the highway heading north. She found that she was alternating laughter and tears. She shook her head, laughed again, and tried to modulate her voice. “My God, it worked, Saul. It worked. And I was never even in a school play. It worked. I don’t believe it!” She decided to give in to the laughter and found that tears came instead. Saul squeezed her shoulder and she looked at him for the first time. For a single, terrible second then she knew that Melanie Fuller had outsmarted her, that somehow the old monster had discovered them and known about their plans and managed to take over Saul . . .

  Natalie cringed from his touch.

  Saul looked puzzled for a second and then shook his head. “No, it’s all right, Natalie. I awoke and found your note and took a cab to within a block of Henry’s . . .”

  “The phenothiazine,” whispered Natalie, barely able to watch the traffic and Saul at the same time.

  “I didn’t drink all of the coffee,” said Saul. “Too bitter. Besides, you mixed it in the proportions for Anthony Harod. He is a smaller man.”

  Natalie watched him. Part of her mind wondered if she was going mad. Saul adjusted his glasses. “All right,” he said. “We had decided that these . . . things . . . had no access to memories. I was supposed to quiz you, but we can start with me. Shall I describe David’s farm at Caesarea? The restaurants we patronized in Jerusalem? Jack Cohen’s directions from Tijuana?”

  “No,” said Natalie. “It’s all right.”

  “Are you all right?”

  Natalie brushed away the tears with her wrist and laughed. “Oh, Christ, Saul, it was awful. The place was all dark and this retarded giant and this other zombie brought me into the living room or parlor or what ever the hell you call it and there were half a dozen of them standing around in the dark. Jesus, they were like corpses that had been propped up there— this one woman had buttoned her white dress all wrong and her mouth hung open the entire time— and I just couldn’t think, and every second I was sure I wouldn’t be able to talk anymore, my voice just wouldn’t work right, and when this little . . . little . . . thing came in with a candle it was worse than Grumblethorpe, worse than I’d imagined, and his eyes looked— they were her eyes, Saul, mad, staring— oh, God, I never believed in demons or Satan or hell, but this little thing was straight out of Dante or some Hieronymous Bosch nightmare, and she kept asking me questions through him and I couldn’t answer any of them and I knew this nurse, this creature dressed like a nurse who was behind me was going to do something, but then Melanie, actually the little boy-demon, but it was really Melanie, mentioned Bad Ischl and my mind just clicked, Saul, it just clicked, all those hours reading and memorizing those files Wiesenthal had put together and I remembered the dancer, the one from Berlin, Berta Meier, and then it was easy, but I was terrified that she was going to ask about their early years again, but she didn’t, Saul, I think we have her, I think she’s hooked, but I was so scared . . .” Natalie stopped, gasping slightly.

  “Pull over here,” Saul said, pointing to an empty parking lot near a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet.

  Natalie stopped the car and set it in park, fighting to regulate her breathing. Saul leaned over, took her face in his hands, and kissed her first on her left cheek and then on her right cheek. “You are the most courageous person I have ever known, my dear. If I had had a daughter, I would have been proud if she was like you.”

  Natalie brushed away the last of her tears. “Saul, we have to hurry back to the motel, hook up the EEG thing like we planned. You have to ask me questions. She touched me . . . I felt it . . . it was worse than the time Harod . . . it was cold, Saul, as cold and slimy as . . . I don’t know . . . as something from the grave.”

  Saul nodded. “She thinks you are someone from the grave. We can only hope that she fears another contest with Nina enough that she won’t try to take you away from her supposed nemesis. If she was going to use her power on you, it seems logical that she would have done it while you were in contact.”

  “Ability,” said Natalie, “she called it ‘our Ability,’ and I could hear the capital A.” She looked around with fright in her eyes. “We need to get back, Saul, and do the twenty-four-hour quarantine just as we planned. You’ve got to ask me questions, make sure I . . . remember things.”

  Saul laughed softly. “Natalie, we’ll hook up the EEG telemetry pack while you sleep, and you will sleep, but we have no need for the questions and answers. Your little monologue here in the car convinces me that you are who you have always been . . . and that is a very brave and beautiful young lady. Scoot over here, I’m going to come around and drive.”

  Natalie put her head back against the headrest as Saul drove the last few miles to the motel. She was thinking of her father— remembering quiet times in the darkroom or at dinner with him— remembering the time she had sliced her knee on a shard of rusted metal behind Tom Piper’s house— she must have been five or six, her mother was still alive— and running home, her father coming to her across the yard, leaving the lawn mower running where it was and coming to her, staring in shock at her leg and white ankle socks stained red with blood, but she had not cried, and he had lifted her and carried her through the screen door, all the while calling her “my brave little girl, my brave little girl.”

  And she was. Natalie closed her eyes. She was. “It’s the beginning,” Saul was saying. “It’s definitely the beginning. And it’s the beginning of the end for them.”

  Her eyes still closed, her heart rate slowing at last, Natalie nodded and thought of her father.

  FIFTY-SIX

  Melanie

  In the daylight it was harder to believe that Nina had contacted me. My first response was one of anxiety and a sense of vulnerability at being discovered. But this soon faded, to be replaced by a sense of resolve and renewed energy. Whoever this girl represented, she had stimulated me to think about my future once again.

  That Wednesday, I believe it was the fifth of May, the Negress did not return so I took some action of my own. Dr. Hartman went from hospital to hospital, ostensibly considering a new residency but actually checking to see if there were any long-term patients there who might fit Nina’s medical description. Remembering my own stay at the Philadelphia hospital, Dr. Hartman did not inquire of medical personnel or hospital administrators but gained access to the hospital computers and reviewed medication lists, surgical histories, and material requirements under the guise of inspecting the hospital’s facilities. The hunt continued until Friday and still there was no sign of the Negro girl or word from Nina. By the weekend, Dr. Hartman had inspected all hospitals, nursing homes, and medical centers with provisions for such long-term care. He also had checked with the county morgue— which insisted that Ms. Drayton’s body had been claimed and cremated by executors of her estate— but that only confirmed the possibility that she might be alive . . . or her body secreted away . . . because when I slipped quickly into each of the morgue attendants’ minds, I found one— a dull-witted, middle-aged man n
amed Tobe— who had the unmistakable mental imprints of someone who had been Used and ordered to forget that Use.

  Culley began visiting the Charleston cemeteries that week, searching for any grave less than a year old that might hold Nina’s corpse. Nina’s family had come from Boston, so when the search of Charleston-area cemeteries yielded nothing, I sent Nancy north— I did not want Culley to be gone during this time— and she found the Hawkins family crypt in a small, private cemetery in old North Boston. She entered the crypt that Friday night, after midnight, and with a crowbar and pickax purchased at a K-Mart in Cambridge she carried out a thorough search. There were Hawkinses galore, eleven in all, nine adults, but none of them looked to have been lying there for less than half a century. I stared through Miss Sewell’s eyes at the crushed skull of what had to be Nina’s father— I could see the gold tooth we had made jokes about— and I wondered, not for the first time, if she had forced him under the wheels of that trolley in 1921 because of her pique at not being allowed to purchase the blue coupé she had set her heart on that summer.

  The Hawkinses on display that night were all bones and dust and long-rotted remnants of burial finery, but to be absolutely sure, I had Miss Sewell crack open each skull and peer inside. We found nothing but gray dust and insects. Nina was not hiding there.

  As disappointing as these searches were, I was pleased that I was thinking so clearly. My months of convalescence had confused me somewhat, slowed my usually acute perceptions of things, but now I could feel the old intellectual rigor returning.

  I should have guessed that Nina would not choose to be buried with her family. She had hated her parents and loathed her only sister, who had died young. No, if Nina were indeed a corpse, I imagined that I would find her lying in state in some newly purchased mansion, perhaps right there in Charleston, prettily dressed and daily cosmeticized, reclining in cushioned luxury in a bowered bier amid a veritable necropolis of servants of the dead. I confess that I had Nurse Oldsmith dress in her finest silk and walk to Mansard House for lunch in their Plantation Room, but there was no hint of Nina’s presence there and although her sense of irony had been almost as keen as mine, she would not have been so foolish as to return there.

  I do not want to give the impression that my week was occupied with fruitless searches for a possibly non ex is tent Nina. I took practical precautions. Howard flew to France on Wednesday and began preparations for my future sojourn there. The farm house was as I had left it eighteen years earlier. The safe-deposit box in Toulon held my French passport, updated and delivered by Mr. Thorne only three years ago.

  It was a sign of my immeasurably enhanced Ability that I was able to perceive impressions received by Howard even when he was more than two thousand miles away. In the past, only such superbly conditioned catspaws as Mr. Thorne could travel so far, and then acting only in a preprogrammed sort of way that denied me any direct control.

  Through Howard’s eyes I stared at the wooded hills of southern France, the orchards and orange rectangles of rooftops in the village in the valley near my farm, and wondered that escape from America seemed so difficult.

  Howard had returned by Saturday evening. Everything had been expedited for Howard, Nancy, Justin, and Nancy’s “invalid mother” to leave the country on an hour’s notice. Culley and the others would follow later unless a rearguard action was called for. I had no intention of losing my personal medical staff, but if it came to that, there were excellent doctors and nurses in France.

  Now that an avenue of retreat had been insured, I was not sure that I wanted to retreat. The thought of a final Reunion with Nina and Willi was not unpleasant. These months of wandering, pain, and solitude had been additionally disturbing because of the sense of unfinished business hanging over it all. Nina’s phone call at the Atlanta airport six months earlier had sent me fleeing in headlong panic, but the actual arrival of Nina’s representative— if that is what she was— was not nearly so disturbing.

  One way or the other I thought, I will find the truth of things.

  On Thursday, Nurse Oldsmith went to the public library and searched out all references to the names the Negress had mentioned. There were several magazine articles and a recent book on the elusive billionaire C. Arnold Barent, mentionings of a Charles Colben in several books on Washington politics, several books about an astronomer named Kepler— but an unlikely choice since he had been dead for centuries— but no mention anywhere of the other names she had given. The books and articles convinced me of nothing. If the girl had not been sent by Nina, she was almost certainly lying. If she had been sent by Nina, I felt it was equally possible that she was lying. It would not have taken the provocation of a cabal of others with the Ability to incite Nina to turn on me.

  Was it possible, I wondered, that death has driven Nina insane?

  On Saturday I took care of a final detail. Dr. Hartman had dealt with Mrs. Hodges and her son-in-law about the purchase of the house across the courtyard. I knew where she lived. I also knew that she drove alone to the old city marketplace every Saturday morning to shop for the fresh vegetables that were such a fetish with her.

  Culley parked next to Mrs. Hodges’s daughter’s car and waited for the old lady to come out of the city market. When she did, with both arms full of groceries, he approached her and said, “Here, let me help you.”

  “Oh,” said Mrs. Hodges, “no, I can . . .” Culley took one bag of groceries, squeezed her left arm tightly, and led her to Dr. Hartman’s Cadillac, thrusting her in the front seat the way an exasperated adult would seat a balky two-year-old. She was fumbling at the locked door, trying to get out, when Culley slid behind the steering wheel, reached out a hand as large as the silly old woman’s head, and squeezed once. She slumped heavily against the door. Culley checked to make sure that she was breathing and then drove home, playing Mozart on the car’s stereo tape deck and foolishly trying to hum along with the music.

  On Sunday, May 10, Nina’s Negro messenger knocked at the gate shortly after noon.

  I sent Howard and Culley out to let her in. This time I was ready for her.

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  Dolmann Island Saturday,

  May 9, 1981

  Natalie and Saul left Charleston by plane shortly after 7:30 A.M. It was the first time in four days that Natalie had not worn the EEG telemetry pack and she felt strangely naked— and free— as if truly released from a quarantine.

  The little Cessna 180 took off from the airport across the harbor from Charleston, turned toward the morning sun, and then banked right again as they crossed over the green and blue waters where the bay became ocean. Folly Island appeared below their right wing. Natalie could see the Intracoastal Waterway slicing south through a mad web of inlets, bays, estuaries, and coastal marshes.

  “How long do you think?” Saul called to the pilot. Saul sat in the right front seat, Natalie behind him. The large, plastic-wrapped bag lay at her feet.

  Daryl Meeks glanced at Saul and then looked back over his shoulder at Natalie. “About an hour and a half,” he called. “A little more if the winds kick up out of the southeast.”

  The charter pilot looked much as he had seven months earlier when Natalie had met him on Rob Gentry’s front porch; he wore cheap plastic sunglasses, boat shoes, cutoff jeans, and a sweatshirt with faded letters which read WABASH COLLEGE. Natalie still thought that Meeks looked like a somewhat younger, long-haired version of Morris Udall.

  Natalie had remembered Meeks’s name and the fact that Rob Gentry’s old friend was a charter pilot, and it had taken only a check through the yellow pages to find his office at a small airport north of Mt. Pleasant, across the river from Charleston. Meeks had remembered her and after a few minutes of chatting, mostly anecdotes of mutual remembrance of Rob, he had agreed to take Saul and her on a fly-by of Dolmann Island. Apparently Meeks had accepted their explanation that Natalie and Saul were doing a story on the reclusive billionaire C. Arnold Barent and Natalie was sure that the pilot was
charging them less than his going rate.

  The day was warm and cloudless. Natalie could see where the lighter coastal waters bled into the blue-purple depths of the true Atlantic along a hundred miles of serrated coast, the green and brown of South Carolina receding toward the heat-hazed horizon to the southwest. They spoke very little as they flew, Saul and Natalie lost in their own thoughts and Meeks busy with occasional radio calls to controllers and evidently content just to be airborne on such a beautiful day. He did point out two distant smudges to the west as their flight path took them farther out to sea. “The big island’s Hilton Head,” he said laconically. “Favorite hangout for the upper classes. I’ve never been there. The other bump is Parris Island, marine camp. They gave me an all-expense paid vacation there a few police actions ago. They knew then how to turn boys into men and men into robots there in less’n ten weeks. Still do, from what I hear.”

  South of Savannah they angled in toward the coast again, gaining sight of long stretches of sand and greenery that Meeks identified as St. Catherines, Blackbeard, and then Sapelo Islands. He banked left, steadied on a heading of 112 degrees, and pointed out another smudge a dozen miles farther out to sea. “Thar be Dolmann Isle,” said Meeks in a mock-pirate growl.

  Natalie readied her camera, a new Nikon with a 300mm lens, and braced it against the side window, using a monopod to steady it. She was using very fast film. Saul set his sketchbook and clipboard on his lap and thumbed through maps and diagrams he had taken from Jack Cohen’s dossier.

  “We’ll come in north of it,” shouted Meeks. “Come down the seaward side, like I said, then circle around to get a look at the old Manse.”