Swamp Thing 2 - The Return of Swamp Thing

by Peter David

  “Worse. Complete cellular breakdown. You’ll . . . you’ll virtually crumple into nothing unless the process is reversed.”

  Arcane stared at the backs of his hands, where the cracking, drying skin could no longer be denied. “The good news,” he said softly, “had better be damned good.”

  “We’ve found, in the blood sample we got from your stepdaughter, the same type of antigen that existed in the blood of your late wife.”

  Arcane looked up with renewed hope.

  “But if we don’t act within the next seventy-two hours, the deterioration may become permanently irreversible,” warned Rochelle.

  “And this antigen . . . could it possibly provoke a fatal immune reaction?”

  Rochelle nodded, flinching as if afraid Arcane would strike him. “I’m afraid so, unless we can obtain a counteragent from a subject with a compatible blood type.”

  “And genetically splice the two,” Arcane said slowly.

  “Exactly. However, because of the large amounts of blood required, the process would doubtless be fatal to the donor, and there are only two persons on staff with the correct blood type. The security man, Conklin, and . . . uh . . . Dr. Zurrell.”

  Arcane did not hesitate a moment. “Check Conklin’s whereabouts. If he’s out with Gunn, arrange for one of the men here to relieve him, and say he’s required to assist you in the lab. If Conklin should die before you have the full amount of blood required, then,” and he shrugged, “although I would hate to lose Lana . . . do whatever is necessary. Clear?”

  “Yes, sir, but . . . may I ask you a candid question?”

  Arcane waited for it, certain it was regarding the morality of using Dr. Zurrell.

  He should have known better as Rochelle asked, “Have you given any thought to that salary increase we spoke about . . . ?”

  “Your question is too candid,” said Arcane tightly, and he stalked out of the room, all thoughts of his bath erased by the whirl of the preparation that would have to be made as their timetable had been unexpectedly moved up. Abby would definitely be brought back, but everything had to be ready before that. There was so much to be done, and where the devil had Lana gone off to?

  The answer to that had been in Arcane’s own bathroom. Lana was sitting there on the floor, wrapped only in a towel, her knees pulled up to her face, rocking back and forth gently and sobbing. Nearby her the bath was filled with water that was rapidly going from hot to tepid.

  She had wanted to surprise him, have the bath ready and herself waiting in it for him.

  She had been in the bathroom and had heard every word Arcane and Rochelle had said.

  Every damned word.

  12

  They walked slowly through the swamp, and Abby could feel the life all around them, watching them, fascinated. The coolness of him felt marvelous against her. “So where’s this place we’re going to? Is it your home? How long have you lived there?”

  “Actually . . . it is . . . under construction.”

  “When will it be finished?”

  “Shortly before we arrive.”

  “Oh.” She paused. “Is there a . . . y’know . . . Mrs. Swamp Thing?”

  “No . . . I am a . . . bachelor.”

  “Yeah, well, you scientific types . . . your work is your life, I guess.”

  “Literally.”

  They stepped into the clearing, and Abby gasped in astonishment.

  The trees seemed to caress the heavens. Great leaves stretched forth, which would provide shade in the daytime and shelter from rain at night. The trunk was twice as wide as Abby, with a large hole serving as a door. When she stepped through, to her shock, she found a stairway hewn out of the living wood itself. She followed it upward, peering into great chambers filled with the softest moss. The entire place smelled of the beauty and simplicity of nature. It was intoxicating.

  She picked a chamber at random and walked in, having to bend only slightly, and still having trouble coping with the fact that she was in a tree. She eased herself down carefully onto the moss floor and felt the first cool breeze she had detected since coming to the swamp in the first place. Behind her was a wall of wood, but it was open in front of her, and she looked out, surveying the swamp from her unique vantage.

  She had to be thirty, maybe forty, feet in the air. It was difficult to make out much of the swamp in the darkness, but far, far in the distance she could glimpse the lights of the Arcane mansion.

  She felt an inner revulsion she hadn’t before. For some reason, the intrusion of humanity into this place of beauty seemed an abomination.

  She heard the Swamp Thing stirring behind her, peering through the chamber “door” from inside the tree trunk, and she tried to find something to say. The entire structure was so outside her frame of reference all she could come up with was “The rent on this place must be incredible. I bet you must earn a lot of the . . .” She paused and realized there was no other way to conclude the sentence. “Green stuff,” she finished weakly.

  There was an odd sound then from deep in the Swamp Thing’s chest, almost like a wheezing or the creaking of a tree.

  “It has been a long time . . . since I have laughed,” he said.

  Is that what it was? I thought it was a freight train on Valium. “Well, I have that effect on most of my boyfriends,” she said easily.

  “Me . . . your boyfriend?” She heard bemusement in his voice.

  “Why not?” she demanded.

  He pulled himself up into the chamber with her.

  “Abby . . . I have not lost my humanity . . . so long ago . . . that I have forgotten . . . all that is part of it.”

  “Yeah? So?”

  “There are . . . obvious limits. I cannot give you . . . physical love. After all . . . I am a plant.”

  “That’s okay. I’m a vegetarian. Besides, physical love isn’t so hot. I mean, once you’ve done it four or five hundred times, it loses its mystery. At least, that’s what I hear,” she said quickly, then added, “Anyway, I didn’t know I was offering it. Isn’t that just like a man—there’s any sign of intimacy and—”

  “Abby . . . I know why . . . you are saying these things . . . but glib talk . . . cannot begin to hide . . . the differences between us.”

  She turned toward him then, reached up, and caressed the side of his head. “I don’t want to hide them,” she said softly. “I want to cherish them.”

  “I cannot give you . . . the love you want.”

  It was incredible to her that there was such fragility in the voice of a being so massively powerful.

  She took his hand and said, “Maybe you can give me the love I need.”

  “You take . . . all I say . . . and turn it . . . to your advantage.”

  “I’m a woman. That’s what we’re best at.”

  “Division of gender . . . and attributes of each . . . are so important to humans.”

  “Isn’t it to everything?”

  He reached up, where just over her head was suddenly an orchid. She watched as he brought it in front of her face, passed it slowly just under her nose.

  “Humans . . . are by definition . . . half beings,” he said slowly. “The man . . . and the woman . . . are each a part of the whole . . . yet eternally separate . . . and alone. That is why . . . physical intimacy is so important . . . to you. It is only during that time . . . that a man and a woman . . . are once again merged . . . into the single entity . . . they are meant to be.”

  He held up the orchid. “A flower . . . is complete. It has the stamen . . . and the pistil . . . male and female organs . . . together. It is a unit . . . content . . . not endlessly searching . . . for a missing half. Perhaps that is why . . . humans have always envied flowers . . . and tried to destroy them . . . for they are . . . what humans can never be.”

  She stared at the orchid, then touched it gently. “You’re not like the orchid, though,” she said softly. “Perhaps you thought you were, but you’re starting to realize you’re not. Unlike a
flower, you’re feeling incomplete. You, just like the poor humans, need a companion, a mate.”

  He nodded slowly. “Nobody is . . . perfect . . . I suppose.”

  Very gently, very nervously, Abby brought her face around to him. She tried to find his mouth somewhere in the darkness of the lower part of his face, and when she did, she closed her eyes, pictured Tom Selleck in her mind, and kissed him. It was extremely tentative, the merest brushing of lips, and when they parted, she giggled slightly. “Tastes like lime,” she said.

  They sat there for a time, Abby chewing on her lower lip, Alec thinking of things unknowable. “There isn’t any way, though, is there?” she whispered.

  He was silent for a bit longer, and then said, “There are ways . . . beyond ways . . . if you are willing . . .”

  In a very small voice, she said, “I’ll try anything once.”

  He paused, seeming to concentrate, and then Abby noticed something beginning to emerge from his chest, just above where his heart would be. It was yellowish brown, like a small potato, or a yam, and when it was halfway out, he reached up and pulled it completely free.

  He handed it to her, and uncertainly she held the tuber in her hands and stared at it as if it had just dropped down from outer space. “Uh . . . for me?” she asked. He nodded. “Uh . . . gee, Alec, uhm . . . I’m all for romantic metaphors, with, like, giving me your heart and stuff, but this is a bit much, y’know?”

  “It is not . . . my heart . . . although the heart I have created . . . serves no real biological function.”

  “No?”

  “No . . . the tuber . . . is merely a portion . . . of myself . . . that will enable you . . . to see the world . . . as I do . . . and share yourself . . . with me . . .”

  “Well, hey, okay.” She forced a confused smile. Gingerly she held it up to her cheek and looked around, trying to imagine what in God’s name Alec was expecting. Not wanting to disappoint him, she said, “Oh, yeah, hey, I see it. It looks, like, really great. What a beautiful world!”

  In the darkness of his lower face a smile emerged. “Take a bite.”

  She stared at the tuber. “You’re kidding.”

  “If you would . . . rather not . . .”

  “No, I . . . well, I mean, I just ate a few hours ago. I’m kind of full, and I . . .”

  She looked into those unknowable eyes, and wanted to know the mind behind them. The tuber felt so light in her hand.

  When she was six years old she’d eaten a worm on a dare. This couldn’t possibly be worse than that. Could it?

  “Well . . . I mean, I guess just a small bite couldn’t hurt, y’know?” Gamely she smiled and raised it to her lips. Talk about your consuming passions, she thought as she nibbled at it.

  She chewed it slowly, and it tasted like a sweet potato. Not bad. Not really bad at all. She swallowed it, then leaned back against the Swamp Thing’s mossy chest, waiting for something to happen.

  Nothing did.

  She sighed, not wanting to admit to Alec that she wasn’t feeling anything, and then she noticed in a very distant way that her hand was glowing.

  “Alec?” she whispered. “Do you see it?”

  There was no answer. She held her hand up, staring with rapt attention as shimmering colors radiated outward from her hand, from her arm. All the colors of the rainbow surrounded her, but predominant was red. A soft, joyful glow of life.

  It was all over her now, but muted by her clothes. Alec, Arcane, the swamp—everything was secondary to this incredible new sensation. Quickly she peeled off her clothes to see the colors shimmering all over her body. They seemed to stretch outward, to caress the walls of the tree around her, and now that was glowing, too, but a cooler, more peaceful glow, blue mixed with brown.

  A bolt of color shot past her, tracing a graceful arc in the air, like a flashing ember, and she realized to her amazement that it was a mosquito. An insignificant bug, an insect she would have promptly swatted earlier, now was a stunning array of hues and shadings—a blazing light, a symbol of the beauty of life darting just past her eyes.

  She looked out upon the swamp, and it was beyond anything she had experienced. A dazzling kaleidoscope, shifting back on itself, shimmering and undulating, blues and greens, and traces of glorious red, small animals wending their way through or sleeping or hunting for food.

  She forgot to move. She forgot to think. Abby reached out with her mind, and she was in the plants, and in the animals, and she was the smallest of fish swimming through the water and the highest of birds soaring through the air, and her blood had become as the water and her body had become as the dirt, bristling with life in all its infinite varieties and textures.

  She was part of it; it was part of her—the glory and majesty of all there was.

  In the rainbow haze around her someone approached her. She saw him, towering and strong, and he was all the colors and more; he was nature’s harmony and purity, untampered and unfouled. She felt the barest hint, the slightest taste, of what the world was like when it was new.

  The Swamp Thing stood before her, his eyes glistening with joy, and he reached out for her. She had lost all sense of up and down, of time and space. There was Alec, there was she, there was the all, and that was all that mattered. She took his hands, her eyes wide, her lips slightly parted.

  Long, tapering vines extended from his arms and encompassed hers. She closed her eyes, feeling the wetness and firmness of the growth, pulsing with God-given life. It surrounded her, moved along her body, tracing the curving slope of her back, the graceful line of her leg. She shivered and trembled, and through half-lidded eyes she looked at Alec.

  He was reforming. The moss and green were departing him, leaving behind firm and tanned skin, wood fiber being replaced by human tissue. His eyes lost their redness, became soft and blue as the skies. The deformed shoulders and back smoothed, became smaller and human.

  Deep in his chest, his heart began to beat. His lungs expanded and contracted, his chest rising and falling for the first time in what seemed a millennium.

  Alec Holland, in the glory of humanity, stood before her. And she . . .

  She was an array of flowers. Violets, orchids, roses decorated her—no, grew from her. Her hair was spun straw, her body a breathtaking garden seemingly sculpted from humanity’s most ancient memories of Eden.

  Their lips joined, and his fingers entangled themselves in the sleek vines of her body as she tenderly stroked the firm flesh of his.

  She lay back on a bed of moss, and he was atop her, their spirits as one and their bodies moments later following suit. Color and heat poured from his skin, from her blades, and for the first time in her life, she was alive.

  “What’re they up to?”

  Gunn was watching through his binoculars, the night already beginning to wane, the dawn mere hours away. He envied Conklin, who’d been recalled for some candy-ass easy assignment back at the mansion. In response to Pointsetta’s question, he replied, “Damned if I know. It’s so dark over there. There’s never any light in a swamp, y’know. They went into some kinda tree, but that was ages ago, and since then I—”

  Suddenly there was a rumbling beneath their feet, a quake so powerful it knocked them to the ground, their equipment falling all over the place. The dozen men and women could only stagger about for the long moments until the seizure subsided.

  Gunn found himself lying on top of Points. Annoyed, she shoved him off as she sat up and said, “What the hell was that? We never have quakes around here.”

  “Yeah, I know. It’s been ages since I felt the earth move . . .”

  His voice trailed off, and they stared at each other.

  “You don’t suppose—?” began Points.

  They pondered it a moment and then together affirmed, “Naaaah.”

  13

  The first rays of the sun were creeping outward across the swamp, touching the treetops, which seemed to have become hushed with anticipation.

  Rochelle was unawar
e of it. Deep in the pit of the laboratory, he had been working all night, to the point of exhaustion and beyond.

  He put down his diagrams and walked across the room, past the unconscious form of security guard Conklin, lying comatose on a diagnostic table with tubes sticking out of what seemed to be every visible portion of his anatomy. He checked the blood flow briefly, then sat down at a nearby table and made himself a glass of Tang, a drink he’d been hooked on ever since the early days of the astronauts.

  From the table drawer he pulled out a copy of Young & Easy magazine and turned to the centerfold. He studied it with mild interest, and then his eyes widened as he pulled a marker from his jacket pocket and started making sketches on the picture.

  “Yes,” he said thoughtfully. “She’d definitely look good with fins . . . or maybe flippers. Yes, definitely flippers.”

  “Doing a little homework, are we, Doctor?” a female voice came from behind him.

  Quickly, like a guilty child, he shoved the magazine from sight. “Yes, yes, always thinking of the next experiment.”

  “You know, I think you work entirely too hard,” said Lana. She smiled coldly.

  “Well,” he began, “excellence is—”

  She cut him off, pointing at Conklin. “Isn’t that one of the security men?”

  “Yes, yes, Conklin, I think his name is. Was.” He gestured weakly. “An emergency transfusion for Dr. Arcane.”

  She studied the unfortunate security guard carefully. “Will he have enough?” she asked very quietly, and with the barest hint of danger in her voice.

  She knows! Rochelle’s alarmed voice warned him. Then he dismissed the thought. She couldn’t know. She was only a woman.

  But the blood might not be enough.

  But he was lousy at lying.

  “There is,” and he gathered his thoughts, “there is a good chance his blood will suffice.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Lana said in a calm, even tone, then turned and walked out of the lab.

  Rochelle let out a breath of air in relief. He had the distinct feeling he’d just been the victim of a near miss.