Carrion Comfort

by Dan Simmons

  Still not strapped in, Saul struck his head against the roof, ricocheted off the unlatched door and grabbed the seat and console to keep himself from falling against the pilot and control yoke.

  Meeks looked at him sourly. Saul strapped in and looked around. Trees flashed by to their left. A half mile ahead, three speedboats were headed directly toward them, their bows lifted completely out of the water.

  Meeks sighed and banked right so steeply that Saul could make out the dark shape of a manta ten feet under the water, directly below him. He could have spanned the distance between wingtip and wave with his forearm.

  They leveled off and flew west, leaving the island and boats behind but staying low enough that their sense of speed was tangible as they accelerated through 150 m.p.h. Saul wished the Cessna had retractable landing gear and found himself resisting the urge to lift his feet off the floor. Meeks braced the yoke with his knees while he removed a red kerchief from his pocket and loudly blew his nose.

  “We’re going to have to fly all the way up to my friend Terence’s private field at Monck’s Corner and call Albert and have him file that alternate flight plan,” said Meeks, “in case they’re checkin’ the coastal airports that far north. What a damned mess.” He shook his head but ruined the effect by grinning.

  “I know we said three hundred dollars,” said Saul, “but I don’t think that’s the price for this junket anymore.”

  “No?” said Meeks. “No,” said Saul. He nodded at Natalie and she fumbled in her camera bag for the four thousand dollars bundled in fifties and twenties. Saul set it on the edge of the pilot’s seat.

  Meeks set the bundle on his lap and thumbed through it. “Look,” he said, “If any of this’s helped you get any information on who killed Rob Gentry, then that’s worth it to me without this bonus.”

  Natalie leaned forward. “It’s helped,” she said. “But keep the bonus.”

  “Are you two going to tell me anything about how that bastard Barent had anything to do with Rob?”

  “When we know more,” said Natalie. “And we may need your help again.”

  Meeks scratched at his sweatshirt and grinned. “You bet, ma’am. Just don’t let the revolution start without me, all right?”

  Meeks turned on a transistor radio hanging by a strap from a knob on the dash. They flew toward the mainland to the beat of steel bands and Spanish song lyrics.

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  Melanie

  Nina’s catspaw took Justin for a drive on Sunday.

  She knocked at the gate shortly before eleven A.M., when decent people would be in church. She declined Culley’s invitation to enter and asked that Justin— she said “the boy”— come out for a ride.

  I considered for a moment. The thought of having Justin leave the compound was disturbing— of all of my family he was my favorite— but not allowing the colored girl into the house had its advantages. Also, there was the chance that the excursion might shed some light on the mystery of Nina’s whereabouts. In the end, the girl waited by the fountain until Nurse Oldsmith had dressed Justin in his cutest outfit— blue shorts and a sailor’s shirt— and he joined the young Negress for the ride.

  Her car told me nothing; it was an almost-new Datsun with the look and smell of a rental vehicle. The colored girl was dressed in a tan skirt, high boots, and beige blouse— no purse or sign of a billfold that might carry identification. Of course, if she were Nina’s conditioned instrument, she would no longer have an identity.

  We drove slowly up East Bay Drive and then north along the highway to Charleston Heights. There, at a small park that looked down on the navy yards, the girl parked, took a pair of binoculars from the otherwise empty rear seat, and led Justin to a black iron fence. She studied the thicket of dark gantries and gray ships across the water and turned to me.

  “Melanie, are you willing to help save Willi’s life as well as protect your own?” she asked.

  “Of course,” I said in my childish contralto. I was not concentrating on what she said but on the station wagon that had pulled into the parking lot and stopped at the far end. There was one man in it, his face concealed by shadows, dark glasses, and distance. I was sure that I had seen that vehicle behind us on East Bay Drive shortly after we had turned left from Calhoun Street. It had been easy to conceal Justin’s covert glances behind the facade of childish wiggles.

  “Good,” said the Negro girl and repeated the farfetched story of others with the Ability staging a bizarre version of our Game on an island somewhere.

  “How can I help?” I asked, contorting Justin’s face in what I was sure was an expression of interested concern. It is hard to distrust a child. While the Negro girl told me how I could help, I thought about my options.

  Previously it would have benefited me little to Use the girl. My experimental probe had shown that either—a) Nina was Using her but showed absolutely no willingness to fight to keep her should I attempt to usurp control b) the girl was a superbly conditioned cat’s-paw, demanding no supervision from Nina or whoever had conditioned her or c) she was not being Used at all.

  Now things had changed. If the man in the station wagon was connected with the colored girl in some way, Using her might be an excellent way to gain information.

  “Here, look through the binoculars,” she said and held them out to Justin. “It’s the third ship from the right.”

  I took the glasses and slid into her mind. I sensed her shock and the image of a strange pattern on a machine called an oscilloscope— familiar to me only from the equipment Dr. Hartman had arrayed in my bedroom— and then I had her. The transition was as effortless as I had come to expect with my enhanced Ability. The Negro girl was young and strong; I could feel the vitality in her. I thought that such strength might be useful in the minutes to come.

  I left Justin there, still holding the absurd binoculars, and walked quickly back toward the station wagon, wishing that the colored girl had brought something that might be used as a weapon. The vehicle was at the far end of the parking lot and because of the sun glare on the windshield I was halfway to it before I realized that it was empty, the driver’s door open.

  I had the girl pause a moment and look around. There were several people in the park: A colored couple strolled near the fence; a young woman in jogging attire reclined shamelessly under a tree, her nipples clearly visible through thin fabric; two businessmen were talking earnestly near a drinking fountain; an older man with a short beard stood watching me from his place near another car; and an entire family sat at a nearby picnic table.

  For a second I felt something like the old panic well in me as I searched the area for Nina’s face. It was noon on a bright, spring Sunday and I felt that at any second I would see a rotting corpse sitting on a park bench or staring at me from the front seat of a car, blue eyes rising into place on a tide of maggots . . .

  Justin picked up a fallen branch in the carefree manner of a playful child, and swinging it in front of him, came near the colored girl, staying close behind her as I had her approach the station wagon. Peering in the window on the driver’s side, I could see the profusion of electronic instruments and cables snaking over the seat into the back of the vehicle. Justin turned to keep watch on the people in the park.

  I had the colored girl move to look in the backseat. There was a sudden, slight impression of pain which I quickly damped, and I felt myself losing control of her. For a second I was sure that Nina was attempting to seize her, but then I realized that the girl was collapsing onto the pavement. I shifted full awareness to Justin in time to see the girl fall heavily, her head sliding against the metal of the car door. She had been shot.

  I backed away on Justin’s short legs, still holding the branch that originally had seemed so formidable from Justin’s point of view, but which I now realized was an absurd little twig. The binoculars still hung around my neck. I backed toward an empty picnic table, swiveling my head, not knowing who my enemy was or from which direction he might co
me. No one seemed to have noticed the colored girl’s fall or to see her body where it lay between the station wagon and a blue sports car. I had no idea who had killed her or what method they had used. Justin had caught a glimpse of a spot of red on the back of her beige shirt, but it had not seemed large enough for a bullet hole. I thought of silencers and other exotic devices in the movies I had watched on late shows before I had Mr. Thorne get rid of the television set forever.

  It had not been a good idea to Use the colored girl. Now she was dead— or so I assumed, I had no interest in having Justin approach her body— and Justin was trapped in this park miles from home. I backed farther away from the parking lot, moving toward the fence. One of the men dressed in a business suit turned and began walking in my direction and I swiveled toward him, raising the branch and snarling like a feral creature. The man merely glanced at me and continued on his way toward the picnic pavilion where the rest rooms were. I had Justin turn and run toward the fence, stopping at the far corner of the park, his back against cold iron.

  The colored girl’s body was not visible from this angle. Two men stepped off large motorcycles at my end of the parking lot and walked toward me.

  Culley and Howard ran to the garage to get the Cadillac. Howard had to get back out of the vehicle to open the garage door. It was dark in there.

  Nurse Oldsmith gave me a shot to slow the mad beating of my heart. The light was strange, falling across Mother’s quilt at the foot of my bed, reflecting off the water on Cooper River into Justin’s eyes, through the grimed window of the garage as Howard fumbled for the latch.

  Miss Sewell stumbled on the stairs, the colored boy in the kitchen moaned and held his head for no reason, Justin’s vision blurred, cleared again, there were more men on the grass . . . it was hard to control so many at once, my head hurt, I sat up in bed, watching myself from Nurse Oldsmith’s eyes . . . where was Dr. Hartman?

  Damn Nina!

  I closed my eyes. All of my eyes except Justin’s. There was no reason to panic. Justin was too short to drive the car, even if he found the keys, but through him I could Use anyone he could see to have them drive him home. But I was so tired. My head hurt.

  Culley backed the Cadillac through the closed garage doors, almost striking Howard, driving off down the alley without him, fragments of rotted wood on the trunk and rear window.

  I am coming, Justin. There is nothing to worry about. And even if they take you, there are others to stay here with me.

  What if it is all a diversion? Culley gone. Howard crawling in the garage, trying to get to his feet. What if Nina’s agents were approaching through the front gate at that moment? Crawling over the fence?

  I concentrated on sending the colored boy named Marvin out front with an ax from the back porch. He struggled to resist. It lasted only a second, less than a second, but he struggled. My conditioning had been too lax. Too much of him remained.

  I forced the colored boy into the courtyard, past the fountain. No one was there. Miss Sewell joined them and they kept watch. I awoke Dr. Hartman from his nap in the Hodgeses’ parlor and brought him to me on the run. Nurse Oldsmith fetched a shotgun from the closet and pulled the chair close to the bed. Culley was on Meeting Street, approaching the Spruil Avenue exit near the navy yards. Howard stood guard in the backyard.

  I felt better. Control returned. It had been only that old panic that only Nina could cause. It was over now. If anyone threatened Justin, I would have that person impale him or herself on the iron fence. I would happily help him rip his own eyes out and . . .

  Justin was gone.

  While my attention had been diverted I had left him to his own conditioning. Left him standing with his back to the fence and river, a six-year-old boy holding the world at bay with his stick.

  He was gone. There was no sensory input at all. I had felt no impact, sensed neither bullet nor knife. Perhaps it had been clouded by Howard’s pain or the struggle with the flicker of consciousness in the colored boy or Miss Sewell’s awkwardness. I did not know.

  Justin was gone. Who would comb my hair at night?

  Perhaps Nina had not killed him, only taken him. For what purpose? As a trade because I had caused the death of her silly little pickaninny messenger? Could Nina be so petty?

  Yes, she could.

  Culley arrived at the park and lumbered around until people stared at him. Stared at me.

  The rental car was still there and empty. The station wagon was gone. The colored girl’s body was gone. Justin was gone.

  I leaned Culley’s massive forearms against the metal railing and stared down at the river forty feet below. Gray currents rippled and swirled.

  Culley wept. I wept. We all wept. Damn you, Nina.

  It was late that night as I hung in the half sleep the drugs provided that there came an angry banging at the front gate. Groggily I had Culley, Howard, and the colored boy go outside. I saw who was there and froze.

  It was Nina’s colored girl, face ashen, clothing soiled and rent, eyes staring. She held Justin’s limp body in her arms. Nurse Oldsmith parted the drapes and peered through the shutters to give me another angle of view.

  The colored girl raised a long finger and pointed directly at my room, directly at me.

  “You, Melanie!” she shouted so loudly that I was sure it would awake everyone in the Old Section. “Melanie, open this gate immediately. I want to talk to you.”

  Her finger remained raised and pointing. It seemed that a very long time elapsed. The green spikes of the monitor near the bed pulsed wildly. All of us closed our eyes and then looked again. The colored girl was still there, still pointing, still staring imperiously with an arrogance I had not seen since the last time I had foiled one of Nina Drayton’s plans.

  Slowly, hesitantly, I sent Culley forward to unlock the gate and step back quickly before the thing Nina had sent could touch him. She entered briskly, striding toward and through the open front door.

  The rest of us made way and drew back as she entered the parlor. She laid Justin’s body on the divan.

  I was unsure of what to do. We waited.

  FIFTY-NINE

  Charleston Sunday,

  May 10, 1981

  Saul was watching Natalie and Justin in the park and listening to their conversation via the microphone she had clipped to the collar of her blouse when the computer gave its shrill alarm. His eyes flashed to the screen of the portable computer on the passenger seat of the station wagon, thinking for a second that it must be a failure of the telemetry pack, sensors, or the battery pack in the backseat rather than the event both of them dreaded. One glance told him that it was not equipment failure. The theta rhythm pattern was unmistakable, the alpha pattern already showing the peaks and valleys of rapid eye movement. At that second he found the answer to a problem he had been wrestling with for months and at the same instant he realized that his life was in imminent danger.

  Saul looked out and saw Natalie turning in his direction even as he grabbed the dart gun and rolled out his door, scuttling away from the station wagon, trying to keep it and the other vehicles between Natalie, the boy, and himself. No, it’s not Natalie, he thought and slid to a stop behind the last car in the lot, twenty-five feet from the station wagon.

  Why had the old lady decided to Use Natalie now? Saul wondered if he had done a poor job of following them. He had been forced to stay close— the microphone and transmitter they had added to Natalie’s belt of devices had a range of less than half a mile— and the traffic had been light. They had grown overconfident as a result of last week’s successes and their expedition to the island the previous day. Saul cursed softly and crouched to peer through the window of a white Ford Fairmont as Natalie strode toward the station wagon.

  The boy advanced fifteen paces behind Natalie, carrying a branch he had picked off the grass. In that second Saul felt an overwhelming urge to kill the child, to empty the entire magazine of the Colt automatic in his jacket pocket into that small body, to dri
ve the demons out by death. Saul took a deep breath. He had lectured at Columbia and other universities on the peculiar and perverse strain of modern violence in such books and movies as The Exorcist, The Omen, and innumerable imitations, going back to Rosemary’s Baby. Saul had seen the rash of demonic-children entertainments as a symptom of deeper underlying fears and hatreds; the “me-generation’s” inability to shift into the role of responsible parenthood at the cost of losing their own interminable childhood, the transference of guilt from divorce— the child is not really a child, but an older, evil thing, capable of deserving any abuse resulting from the adult’s selfish actions— and the anger of an entire society revolting after two decades of a culture dominated by and devoted to youthful looks, youth-oriented music, juvenile movies, and the television and movie myth of the adult-child inevitably wiser, calmer, and more “with-it” than the childish adults in the house hold. So Saul had lectured that the child-fear and child-hatred becoming visible in pop u lar shows and books had its irrational roots in common guilts, shared anxieties, and the universal angst of the age. He had warned that the national wave of abuse, neglect, and callousness toward children had its historical antecedents and that it would run its course, but that everything possible must be done to avoid and eliminate that brand of violence before it poisoned America.

  Saul crouched, peered through the rear window at the loathsome sight of the small thing that had been little Justin Warden, and decided not to shoot him. Not yet. Besides, gunning down a six-year-old in a park on a Sunday afternoon was not the best way to assure their continued anonymity in Charleston.

  Natalie walked around the station wagon and peered in, bending slightly to look in the rear seat, her back to Saul. At that second the boy turned to watch people at a nearby table. Saul rose, braced the dart gun on the roof, fired, and dropped out of sight.

  For several seconds he was sure that he had missed, that the distance had been too great for the tiny gas-propelled dart, but then he caught a glimpse of the red tail feathers on the back of Natalie’s blouse an instant before she fell. He wanted to run to her then to check that she had not been injured by the drug or the drop to the pavement, but Justin looked back his way and Saul dropped to all fours behind the Ford, fumbling out the small box of anesthetic darts and breaking the pistol open to load a second one.