Carrion Comfort

by Dan Simmons

  The three ambulatory corpses moved their mouths in perfect unison. “Go away,” they said in a petulant child’s whine. “I don’t want to play anymore.” The old woman’s face, warped and elongated by the crinkled lens of the clear plastic oxygen tent, moved back and forth as the toothless mouth made wet smacking sounds.

  The three catspaws raised their right hands in perfect unison. The short scalpels caught the green light from the monitor screen. Only three of them? thought Natalie. She felt there should be more, but she was too tired and too scared and hurting too much to figure it out. Later.

  Right now she wanted to say something; she was not sure what. Perhaps explain to these zombies and to the monster behind them that her father was— had been— an important person— much too important to be wasted like a minor character in a bad movie. Anyone— everyone—deserved better than that. Something along those lines.

  Instead, the thing that had once been a surgeon began to shuffle toward her, the other two followed, and Natalie contented herself with moving quickly to her left, breaking the seal and twisting the dial on the first oxygen tank, and throwing it as hard as she could at Dr. Hartman. She missed. The tank was unbelievably heavy. It hit the floor with a resounding smash, knocked Nancy Warden’s legs out from under her, and rolled under the canopied bed, spraying pure oxygen into the room.

  Hartman swung the scalpel at her in a swift, flat arc. Natalie jumped back but not quite quickly enough. She shoved a cart carrying an empty oxygen tank between the neurosurgeon and herself and glanced down to see the thin slash across the midriff of her blouse, already stained red from the shallow incision.

  Culley crawled into the room, using his elbows for leverage.

  Natalie felt the fury in her system reach new heights. She and Saul and Rob and Cohen and Jackson and Catfish . . . all of them had come too goddamn far to stop here. Saul might appreciate the irony of it, but Natalie hated irony.

  With the adrenaline surge that allows mothers to lift automobiles off their children, businessmen to carry steel safes out of burning buildings, Natalie lifted the seventy-five-pound second oxygen tank over her head and tossed it directly into Dr. Hartman’s face. The flow valve cracked off completely as the tank and doctor’s body crashed to the floor.

  Nancy Warden was crawling toward her. Nurse Oldsmith raised her scalpel and ran directly at her. Natalie tossed a urine-stained sheet over the tall nurse and ducked to her right. The sheeted figure crashed into the wardrobe. A second later the scalpel blade appeared, slicing through the thin fabric.

  Natalie had grabbed a gray pillowcase and was wadding it up as she ran when Nancy Warden’s hand shot out and clutched her ankle.

  Natalie fell hard onto the threadbare rug, trying to kick the woman away with her free foot. Justin’s mother had lost her scalpel but used both hands to hang on to Natalie’s leg, apparently intent on pulling Natalie under the high bed with her.

  Three feet away, Culley pulled himself into the room. His wounds had made his abdominal wall let go, leaving a trail of viscera that ran out onto the dark landing.

  Nurse Oldsmith cut away the last of the sheet and swiveled like a rusty, street-corner mime.

  “Stop it!” screamed Natalie at the top of her lungs. She fumbled the matchbook out, dropped it, struck one match while Nancy Warden pulled her a foot closer to the bed, and tried to ignite the pillowcase. It singed but did not catch. The match went out.

  Culley’s fingers seized her hair.

  Her hands still free, Natalie lit the second match, held it to the match-book, and pressed the short-lived flare to the pillowcase, resisting the impulse to let go when the fading brand burned her fingers.

  The pillowcase burst into flame.

  Natalie used a sidearmed toss to flick it onto the canopied bed. Saturated by a jet of pure oxygen from beneath, the lace canopy, bed-clothes, and wooden frame exploded in a geyser of blue flame that blasted straight upward to the ceiling and spread laterally to all four walls in less than three seconds.

  Natalie held her breath as she felt the air become superheated, kicked free of the flaming woman who held her ankle, and stood up to run.

  Culley had released her hair but had stood when she did. Now he blocked the doorway like some half-disemboweled cadaver rising in wrath from an autopsy table.

  His long arms seized Natalie and spun her around. Still holding her breath, she saw the form of the old woman in the bed thrashing and writhing in a sheer blue ball of concentrated flame, her blackening body appearing to be all sharp-edged joints and angles— a grasshopper frying and changing shape even as Natalie watched— and at that instant the woman on the bed let out a single, overpowering scream that a second later was picked up by Nurse Oldsmith, Nancy Warden, Culley, the corpse of Dr. Hartman, and by Natalie herself.

  In a final surge of effort, Natalie spun Culley and herself around and pulled herself through the doorway and onto the landing just as the second oxygen bottle exploded. Culley took the full force of the blast behind her and for a second the house was filled with the odor of roasting meat. His arms were forced open as they struck the wall together at the curve of the staircase and Natalie tumbled onto the stairs as the flaming man jackknifed over the railing and fell into the carnage below.

  Natalie lay head down on the stairs, face near the banister uprights. She could feel the heat from the burning ceiling and see the brilliance of the flames reflected in the riot of shattered crystal below, but she was too tired to move.

  She had done her best.

  Strong arms lifted her and she struck out feebly, her fists as soft and useless as cotton balls.

  “Easy, Nat. I need one arm free for Marvin.”

  “Jackson!” The tall black man carried her in his left arm while he dragged his ex-gang leader along by the shirtfront. Natalie had confused impressions of a glass room with one wall smashed in, of being carried through a garden, of the dark tunnel of the garage. The microbus waited in the alley and Jackson lifted her gently into the rear seat, laying Marvin on the floor in the back.

  “Jesus,” Jackson muttered to himself, “what a day.” He crouched next to Natalie, mopping away blood and soot with a moist washrag. “My God, lady,” he said at last, “what a piece of work you are.”

  Natalie licked cracked lips. “Let me see,” she whispered. Jackson put his arm under her shoulders and helped prop her up. The Fuller house was totally engulfed in flames and the fire had spread to the Hodges place. Through the gaps between buildings, Natalie could see fire engines, car roofs, and heads blocking the street. Two streams of water began to play in effec tive ly against the conflagration while other hoses were turned on the neighbors’ trees and rooftops.

  Natalie looked to her left and saw Saul sitting up, squinting nearsightedly at the flames. He turned toward Natalie, smiled, shook his head in sleepy disbelief, and dropped back to sleep.

  Jackson propped a rolled blanket under her head and covered her with another one. Then he jumped down to slam the doors, and climbed into the driver’s seat. The little engine started without hesitation. “If you tourists don’t mind,” he said. “I’ve got to get us out of here before the cops or fire persons get around to finding this alley.”

  They were out of traffic within three blocks, although cars and emergency vehicles were still rushing the other way toward the smoke.

  Jackson got onto Highway 52 and headed northwest, past the park that overlooked the naval yards, then past the motel strip. At Dorchester Road he cut back to Interstate 26 and headed out of town past the main airport.

  Natalie discovered that she could not close her eyes without seeing things she did not want to see and feeling a scream welling up inside her. “How’s Saul?” she asked in a shaky voice.

  Jackson answered without taking his eyes off the road. “The man’s great. He woke up long enough to tell me what you were going to do.”

  Natalie changed the subject. “How’s Marvin?”

  “He’s breathing,” said Jackso
n. “We’ll see about the rest later.”

  “Catfish is dead,” she said in a voice not quite under control. “Yeah,” said Jackson. “Look, babe, a few miles up here beyond Ladson, the map says there’s a rest stop. I’ll get you cleaned up good. Get dressings on those two puncture wounds and some cream on the burns and cuts. Give you a shot that’ll let you sleep.”

  Natalie nodded and remembered to say, “Okay.”

  “You know you got a big bruise on your head and no eyebrows, Nat?” He was looking in the rearview mirror at her.

  Natalie shook her head. “You want to tell me what happened in there?” Jackson asked gently. “No!” Natalie began sobbing silently. It felt very good to do so. “Okay, babe,” he said and whistled a snatch of tune. He broke it off and said, “Shit, all I want to do is get out of this cracker town and back to Philly and it turns into Napoleon’s goddamn retreat from goddamn Moscow. Well, if anybody messes with us between here and the Israeli Embassy, they’ll be sorry bad asses.” He raised a pearl-handled .38 revolver and quickly tucked it back under the seat.

  “Where’d you get that?” asked Natalie, brushing away tears. “Bought it from Daryl,” said Jackson. “You’re not the only one willing to finance the revolution, Nat.”

  Natalie closed her eyes. The images were still there, but the urge to scream was slightly less strong. She realized that— for a while at least— Saul Laski was not the only one who had given up the right to his own dreams.

  “I saw a sign,” came Jackson’s deep, reassuring voice. “Rest stop coming up.”

  SEVENTY-SEVEN

  Beverly Hills Saturday,

  June 21, 1981

  Tony Harod congratulated himself on being a survivor.

  After the black bitch’s unprovoked assault on him on the island, Harod had thought that maybe his luck had run out. It took him half an hour to unbend and he spent the rest of that insane night avoiding groups of security people who had the tendency to fire on sight. Harod had headed for the island’s airfield, thinking that perhaps he could bluff his way out in Sutter’s or Willi’s private plane, but one look at the bonfire there had sent him scurrying back into the woods.

  Harod spent several hours hiding under the bed in one of the Summer Camp bungalows near the amphitheater. Once a group of drunken security people actually broke in, ransacked the kitchen and main rooms for alcohol and valuables, and hung around to play three hands of poker in the living room before staggering back out to join their detachment. It was from their excited babble that Harod learned that Barent had been aboard the Antoinette when the yacht was destroyed.

  It was getting gray in the east when Harod crept out and made a break for the dock area. Four boats were tied up there and Harod managed to hot-wire one of them— a twelve-foot speedboat— using skills he had not practiced since his street gang days in Chicago. A guard who had been sleeping off a hangover under the oaks took two shots at him, but Harod was already half a mile out to sea and there was no further sign of pursuit.

  He knew that Dolmann Island was only about twenty miles from the coast and even with his limited navigation skills, Harod reasoned that it shouldn’t be too hard to intercept the coast of North America if one headed west.

  The day was overcast, the sea mirror calm, as if to make up for the night’s storm and madness. Harod found a rope to lock in the steering wheel, dragged the canvas cover across the cockpit, and fell asleep. He awoke less than two miles from the coast, out of gas. The first eighteen miles of his journey had taken ninety minutes. The last two miles took eight more hours and he probably never would have made it if a small commercial fishing boat had not seen him and pulled alongside. The Georgia fisherman took Harod aboard long enough to give him water, food, and sunburn cream, and enough fuel to get him to the coast. He followed them in, between islands and wooded points that looked much as they must have three centuries earlier, finally tying up at a small harbor near a podunk town called St. Mary’s. He discovered that he was in southern Georgia, looking across a delta at Florida.

  Harod passed himself off as a landlubber who had rented his craft near Hilton Head and lost his way, and while the locals were reluctant to believe that anyone was so stupid as to get that lost, they seemed willing to accept the fact in Harod’s case. He did what he could to cement bicoastal relations by taking his rescuers, the marina owners, and five onlookers to the nearest bar— a disreputable-looking dive sitting right next to the turn-off to Santa Maria State Park— and spending $280 on goodwill.

  The good old boys were still drinking to his health when he prevailed on the bar own er’s daughter, Star, to drive him to Jacksonville. It was only seven-thirty in the evening with another hour of summer sunlight remaining, but when they were almost there Star decided that it was too late for her to drive the entire thirty-five miles back to St. Mary’s and began musing on the possibilities of getting a motel room out at Jacksonville Beach or Ponte Vedra. Star was pushing forty and expanding her polyester pants in ways Harod had not thought possible. He tipped her fifty dollars, told her to look him up the next time she was in Hollywood, and had her drop him near the United door at Jacksonville International.

  Harod had almost four thousand dollars left in his wallet— he hated to travel without some spending money in his pocket and no one had told him that there would be nothing to buy on the island— but he used one of his credit cards to get a first-class ticket to L.A.

  He dozed on the brief connecting flight to Atlanta, but it was obvious during the longer flight west that the stewardess who brought him his dinner and drinks thought that Harod had stumbled into the wrong section. He looked down at himself, sniffed himself, and could see why she might act that way.

  His tan Giorgio Armani silk sport coat had avoided most of the blood being shed the night before, but it reeked of smoke, engine oil, and fish. His black silk shirt had absorbed enough sweat to keep a desalinization plant busy for a month. His summer-linen Sarrgiorgio slacks and Polo crocodile moccasins were, not to put too fine a line on it, shot to shit.

  Still, Harod didn’t appreciate some dumb cunt of a stewardess treating him this way. He had paid for first-class ser vice. Tony Harod always got what he paid for. He glanced at the forward lavatory; it was empty. Most of the dozen or so first-class passengers were already dozing or reading.

  Harod caught the eye of the stuck-up blond stewardess. “Oh, miss?” he called.

  When she came closer he could see every detail of her tinted hair, layers of makeup, and slightly smudged mascara. There was a hint of pink lipstick on her front teeth.

  “Yes, sir?” There was no mistaking the condescension in her voice. Harod looked at her for a few more seconds. “Nothing,” he said at last. “Nothing.”

  Harod arrived at LAX in the early hours of Wednesday morning, but it took him three days to get to his home.

  Suddenly cautious, he rented a car and drove down to Laguna Beach where Teri Eastern had one of her hideaway beach houses. He had shacked up there with her a few times when she was between lovers. Harod knew that Teri was in Italy now, doing a feminist spaghetti western, but the key was still there, buried in the third rhododendron pot. The house needed airing and was decorated in Nairobi-chic, but there was imported ale in the refrigerator and clean silk sheets on the water bed. Harod slept through most of Wednesday, watching Teri’s old movies on the VCR that night and driving up the coast for Chinese about midnight. On Thursday, he disguised himself with dark glasses and an oversize Banana Republic fedora belonging to one of Teri’s boyfriends and drove back into the city to check out his house. Things seemed all right, but he went back to Laguna that night.

  Thursday’s newspapers had a short, page-six story on the elusive billionaire C. Arnold Barent dying of a heart attack in his Palm Springs estate. His body had been cremated and a private memorial ser vice was being arranged by the European branch of the Barent family. Four living American presidents had sent their condolences and the article went on to tell of Barent’s
long history of philanthropic enterprises and to speculate on the future of his corporate empire.

  Harod shook his head. There was no mention of the yacht, the island, Joseph Kepler, or the Reverend Jimmy Wayne Sutter. Harod had no doubt that their obituaries would pop up like late-summer flowers in the days to come. Someone was keeping a lid on things. Embarrassed politicians? The trio’s long-term flunkies? Some European version of the Island Club? Harod didn’t really want to know as long as it never again involved him.

  On Friday he staked out his own house as best he could without calling down the Beverly Hills cops on himself. It looked all right. It felt good. For the first time in several years, Tony Harod felt that he could make a move without fear of bringing ten tons of shit down on his head if he took the wrong step.

  Early on Saturday morning, before ten, he drove straight to his house, saluted his satyr, kissed the Spanish maid, and told the cook that she could have the day off after she fixed him some brunch. Harod called the studio head at home and then Schu Williams to find out what the hell was happening with The White Slaver— it was in the final steps of re-editing, getting rid of about twelve minutes that had bored the preview audiences— called seven or eight other essential contacts to let them know that he was back in town and operating, and took a phone call from his lawyer, Tom McGuire. Harod confirmed that he was definitely going to be moving into Willi’s old place and would like to keep the security on. Did Tom know of any good secretaries? McGuire could not believe that Harod had actually fired Maria Chen after all these years. “Even smart chicks get too dependent if you let them hang around too long,” said Harod. “I had to let her go before she started darning my socks and sewing her name in my jockey shorts.”

  “Where’d she go?” asked McGuire. “Back to Hong Kong?”

  “How the fuck should I know and why should I care?” snapped Harod. “Let me know if you hear of anyone who can take good shorthand and give good head.”