Bottled Abyss

by Benjamin Kane Ethridge

  But that wasn’t enough. Right?

  Right?

  He’d wanted to put the fling past him but he couldn’t. He wasn’t built that way. And he’d wanted to hurt Faye for how she’d hurt him, but had held off a long time. That was beyond difficult, and yet he’d done it for both women. Did they care? Fuck no.

  Then, just when he figured Faye had broken all ties to Janet, there she was at the duck pond, ready to become best friends again. That couldn’t happen. It may have been a horrible time to do it, but now there was a clean wedge between the two women. Any future dealings with them would be more pleasant for everybody, especially if Faye’s kid did turn out to be his.

  Evan noticed Janet had disappeared from outside the apartment stairwell. Drapes blew outward from a window upstairs. He shook his head. If Baker had ended up being there, Evan intended on going up, maybe.

  But now she was inside an apartment of a wanted criminal. What if the guy came back? Evan was no hero. He certainly couldn’t beat some thug with his bare hands.

  He waited for five minutes, watching the landing, hoping to see Janet come back out. There was a baseball bat in the back of the Jeep. Yeah, and if the guy had a gun?

  Evan decided it was silly to worry until someone actually showed up. He would calmly wait and see how things turned out.

  Vincent Baker crashed into Janet’s sternum before she could react. It happened like a force of nature. He was on top of her, pinning her right arm under his knee, heavy peppermint breath in her face. She saw his knife-hand dive clumsily for her neck—she twisted away—the blade split through the brown carpeting. She caught a glimpse of the bottle on its side. Its waters rushed out, crawling over the floor like billons of kneading onyx fingers. The gurgling screech that came from within the bottle startled her attacker.

  “—the shit is that?”

  The naked old man sat up in the bed and this frightened Vincent more; this time he nearly jumped in the air. “Who the fuck are you?”

  “Let that woman go, you piece of trash,” said the man, huffing for breath.

  Beads of sweat dappled the tanned peak of Vincent’s bald head. He shook his head, reached down and snatched the coin purse. He pointed the knife at Janet. “I’m gonna find out who you are and what your deal is and soon you’ll be less than nothing, bitch.”

  The frothing black waters stretched out and Vincent hopped back from it and stumbled for the front room. “Crazy fucking shit!”

  Like someone half his age, the old man leapt from the bed. The water receded from his feet and gave him a clear path out of the blackened bedroom.

  Janet got to her feet, legs quivering, knots already forming in her lower back. She limped forward and watched the surreal sight of the old man throwing himself headlong into Vincent’s legs. Just at the apartment’s threshold, the coin purse flew out of Vincent’s hand and the impact opened the clasp.

  Janet’s stomach dropped at the metallic sound of coins spilling. Interior light from the apartment glanced off some of their bronze surfaces as they fell over the edge. The coin purse lay against the railing in the darkness.

  Vincent whirled and stabbed the old man through the shoulder. He wiggled the knife around inside the wound, gritting his large square teeth together, nostrils dilated like midnight chasms. The damage to the man’s shoulder didn’t illicit the response Vincent had been looking for—the old man’s hatred had him numb. He grasped Vincent’s hand and held the knife in place. Making a fist with his other hand, the old man slammed his knuckles into the twisted face below him, over and over again. Blood blossomed in Vincent’s face and ran into his brown-gold goatee. He let go of the knife, leaving it in the old man’s shoulder and yelled out as the bottle’s waters surged from the bedroom.

  Janet came forward to help him and caught Vincent’s foot to her stomach. Air blew from her lungs, she fell back and landed on her ass, the bottle’s waters hissing around her in avoidance.

  She looked up through a haze of cramping pain to see Vincent lurch onto the balcony and once again swipe up the coin purse. She caught her breath and rolled over to stand up. The old man must have finally taken notice of the strange water because he sprung to his feet and went barreling outside.

  Holding her ribs, Janet followed. Vincent crossed the sidewalk below with all the confidence of someone who had fled many brutal engagements. He was even looking inside the coin purse as he went, pretending like it was his or something.

  Janet glanced down to the planter area below. How many coins had spilled out? A couple? One? All of them? The bushes, flowers and hedge row would make it difficult to find them. It might take a good long while. There was certainly no time for that.

  The old man descended the stairs in his bare feet. Janet was about to go down behind him when she saw Vincent abruptly stop walking and stare into his hand.

  A trembling laugh consumed Janet then.

  FURY

  The fuck was this all about—? Try to make out the currency, looks foreign—why in the hell would someone bring this to my place—? Then again, there was living water upstairs so anything strange gets a pass today—weird though, get this feeling like the coin doesn’t belong to me, but I’ve taken it—never experienced ill feelings over theft before, which is beyond funny, especially with how foreign this feels—it really doesn’t belong to me, shouldn’t make it my own, but I have—seems more than a sin, like I’m breaking a law of nature—

  Just realized, stopped walking to the truck, need to get a move on, crazy rich man’s going to come and tackle me again—can’t move, want to, can’t—am nauseous, burning up, insides boiling, bones brittle as I stand here—what’s happening to me—? Feel like I just caught cancer in its final stage, or what I’d imagine it would feel like to have your body turn against you—holy shit, this isn’t going to stop, is it—?

  Coin throbs and bubbles in my palm—it could just melt into water at any moment—it doesn’t seem to be made of a metal at all—the woman brought this dark magic to my place, hear her coming down the stairs—now, getting my legs to work, moving so slow though—worthless to move on—scrub at the drying blood on my chin, a bunch of hairs in my chin beard come away—

  A blood soaked monster lunges around the corner, dragging a dragon’s tail behind it—slithering red trail on the sidewalk leads from the shadows to where it stands—the thing has an evil fucking face, like a great white shark with armored scales, but there’s only one eye in its head, the other seems to have rotted out long ago—it staggers forward with a snarl and a voice comes from behind the rows of serrated teeth—

  Too much—fall to my knees, head whirling, blood feels poisoned, can’t hardly breathe—think the magic woman from my apartment is standing behind me, watching, will the monster come after her too, after it’s done with me—? Hope so—

  “What were three are now one, and I am Fury—”

  The desire to curse at the monster passes over me, but save my energy—

  “You have a chance to stay my vengeance,” says the Fury—the voice pleads— “Do you know the song—? The song my heart wants so badly to hear—?”

  Remember a song from one of Mrs. Horrace’s old mythology books—it was about the Three Furies—or maybe my mind is withering with the rest of my body—

  Fuck it—give it a shot— that thing wants to chew me up with those teeth—

  “The River has no surface, has no bottom.

  An Abyss is never bound,

  Not by up and down.

  The River is not deep, is not shallow,

  An Abyss is never bound,

  Not by up and down.”

  The coin bursts into gray steam and my palm burns with invisible fire—shake my hand and press it protectively to my body—my energy returns suddenly, my blood fires up, my muscles fill out, my heart beats with a new, wonderful rhythm—

  The Fury is sobbing—it steps up to me—it reaches into its mouth, pries back the shark mouth—an affluence of red blood flows from the terrib
le perforation—and there is a human head, covering in aquatic gore, it’s smiling, it looks thankful—the entire creature flickers like a dying image from a dissolving film reel—the smell of the sea and the smell of bronze fills the air—

  “I am Fury—” it says— “what was one is now… none—”

  The monster’s body collapses into nothing—

  Not waiting around any longer—this whole place is cursed—don’t know if I’m being punished for how I lived my life but I’m not going to hang around to find out—hell, no—

  Check my pants pocket for the flash drive—good, still there—my legs feel great building up speed—just was dying, not but five minutes ago—dying, really, like I got instant AIDS, what a bitch—shit, always will remember that song, teach it to my kids if I ever find the time for some—that tub of lard Horrace turned out to be good for something after all—crying, I’m actually crying, so fucking happy to be alive—deep, deep breaths—where’s Carlos’s fucking truck—?

  Janet knew her life had really changed when seeing a monster was more believable than what happened in the street.

  Vincent Baker had escaped somehow. The Fury had come for him and Vincent had become a shadow of himself, quickly losing a battle with whatever ailment he’d acquired from the coin, and then, only moments after, he recovered. The Fury, on the other hand, did something akin to self decapitation and then just winked out of existence.

  This would have left most people agape, but it wasn’t until Vincent Baker went running out to the street, perhaps to find his car, that something truly shocking occurred.

  A dark green truck crashed into Vincent, sending him twirling in the air like a human pinwheel. His body banged down on the concrete with brisk impact. Out of adrenaline maybe, Vincent lifted his upper body and looked around in confusion, just as the truck continued forward. The front tire forced his head to the ground, his jaw separated and moved sideways, and then a colossal grenade-burst of white and red skull shrapnel fanned over the street. The back tire rolled over Vincent Baker’s body casually like a speed bump, but a broken spine didn’t matter at this point: the deed had already been accomplished.

  What the Fury hadn’t accomplished, a rubber tire had.

  The man who killed Melody was dead.

  Janet ran to the curbside. Her right set of ribs still stung from where Vincent had kicked her and it burned while she breathed. As she approached the grisly scene, a pang of disappointment took her. She’d never get to ask Vincent about Melody, about that day. Any chance to tell him what he’d done to her life was long gone…

  Blood pooled around his crushed body, soaking into his blue t-shirt and khaki pants, flooding a pair of loafers that hugged his ankles tightly.

  Janet looked into the cab of the truck. The old man from the apartment sat in the front seat, his head against the steering wheel and his body hitching with sobs. He turned his shot eyes to her and she nodded at him. He nodded back.

  Thank you, she thought, though she imagined he hadn’t done it for her.

  After a few moments, the man put the truck in drive and took off. Janet wondered where he’d go now, much like she wondered where she would.

  The Fury was dead. What did that mean for the bottle? Would the coins still work the same way? If there was no enforcement now, maybe the bottle could just help people. She could save the coins or throw them into the damn ocean for all it mattered. The bottle could give people new chances at life. She could make frequent visits to children’s hospitals, in fact. And without the Fury enforcing death, there would be no more painful passings. This could be the start of something really good for a change.

  That was, of course, if the bottle cooperated.

  Janet looked up to the light crossing over the balcony above. She wasn’t leaving without the bottle. Abandoning it wasn’t a thought she could or would stomach.

  She took the stairs with purposeful speed. She didn’t hear anybody out in the street yet, but vehicular manslaughter had just been committed, so it wouldn’t be long before the cops and ambulances and all the surrounding snoops were out and about.

  The flooded apartment made not one ripple, the water’s surface inky and its smell like decomposing vegetation. A small area on the carpet near the door remained bare and this led to a wider opening in the kitchen where a tall woman stood, waiting.

  She was nude with a dark gray complexion, glassy river rocks pebbling each shoulder, agate eyes and leafy green-black algae for hair. She took a step toward Janet and hisses came from her bouncing breasts, the nipples flickering with serpent tongues.

  “Are you another Fury?”

  “I am Nyx,” she said, raising one water logged twig of an eyebrow. Her eyes had long been crying and there was madness in their sorrow.

  Janet thought of running but instead fixated on the being. “You are from the bottle?”

  The bottle glided out of the bedroom, leaning on the waters as it went, coming to rest near the carpeted shore near Nyx’s gray toes. “The bottle is from me, little one, not the other way around. Now tell me, where is the man I’ve helped you find?”

  “You helped me?”

  “In the hospital, here tonight—I’ve tracked this man since I first smelled him on your hound in the desert.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “He left his mark on your pet, on your husband, on you. The smell goes bone-deep. I risked much to conjure new waters for him to ride. Now that the Fury is gone, I must take my chances and begin again. Where is Vincent Baker?”

  “Dead.”

  A flare of anger went through Nyx’s inhuman face. “He knew the Fury’s song. I heard it singing in his mind. That song can be recalled by few living mortals in this time. I again ask you where he is. Lying to me will bring you much pain, little one.”

  “Vincent Baker is dead. I saw it happen just minutes ago.”

  Nyx’s bottom lip quivered, as though she was on the verge of bawling. “The Fury could not take him!”

  Janet laughed. “Well, it turns out Ford could.”

  Tears flooded Nyx’s angry eyes. “You are telling the truth, it seems.”

  “Happily so.”

  Nyx’s nipples trilled with their snake tongues, equally disturbed. “Things have changed, little one. Vincent was perfect. With no time or effort he would have been the new Broker of Souls, the man to sail my waters… he understood value.

  “Now I am left with you, Janet Erikson. You showed cunning in the hospital, but you narrowly understand value. A dead child and its father, that’s all you can grasp. That is a single dimension inside a billion prisms of life.

  “I’ve waited this long and I have no choice but to retain my patience. You will have to learn, little one, and grow. Even if you survive my waters, it may take thousands of years of anguish, it may take until the dawning of a new intelligence in the world of mortals, but one day I can hope for you to retain the song, to hear my lessons, to become the solitary sailor of my new river, Hythia. You will navigate the ferry and relish the passing of all souls.”

  “All of them? So if I do this…is it possible I will see Herman and Melody?”

  Nyx shook her head. “I could lie and tell you this is so, but that is no way to begin. Those mortals, your husband, your daughter, they are lost to this universe, part of the last scheme. Now only paying souls can wander the lands of the dead. It is a restored era.”

  Janet stood up straighter. “You’re telling me they died at the wrong time?”

  “You mock me.”

  “No,” Janet said carefully, “I’m just turning down your job.”

  “You’re turning down immortality.”

  Janet turned to run.

  “It wasn’t an offer,” said Nyx.

  A hand grabbed Janet’s ankle and she hit the floor hard. She kicked and pulled to free herself but the arm stretching from the black surface brought her into the water, down to her hip. She clutched the carpet, thrashing her legs. In the murky regions below, Nyx’s
face creased with bladed teeth, unfathomable heartbreak around the pits of her eyes. Another tug on her leg and Janet’s entire body went below the waterline, and there she lost her grip on this world.

  Evan crept up the stairs, baseball bat quivering in his hand. Nobody was inside the apartment. From the looks of things, a fire had been started earlier and ultimately squelched. He’d wondered if he took too long making up his mind. The opportunity had presented itself. He’d seen a bald man crashing out the front door, saw Janet’s purse of death coins spill over the balcony, but Evan could only hunker alongside the building and watch. When the Fury came out, he just couldn’t hang any longer and ran for his car.

  But he was here now. Only, everybody had left. The apartment was empty.

  He spotted the bottle sitting on the floor nearby. Evan picked it up, surprised at how full it felt.

  Voices played in the street on the other side of the complex. Something was amiss over there. Maybe the police were on their way. Quickly, he hightailed it out of the apartment, bottle in one hand, bat in the other.

  He got back to the Jeep and felt queasy. Janet’s truck was still where she parked it earlier. It was crazy. He’d seen her go back up to the room and he’d only returned to get his bat. That hadn’t taken long. So what had happened?

  Where had Janet gone?

  CHAPTER III

  The Baby

  Janet never enjoyed being under water. As a child she could remember being the only kid at the pool party who didn’t fight over the snorkel. She couldn’t bear it. She had to wear earplugs, pinch her nose shut and never stayed under for long. The whole experience rang as unnatural to her.