Dead Sea

by Tim Curran

  That was life and life was just fucking peachy.

  Saks shook his head, clearing it all away. “Hey, Cook,” he said. “You look hot, friend. Why don’t you jump in and have a swim with that motherfuck of a fish? Take your fishing line with you, maybe you can hook that bastard, fry his ass up in a pan. Fabrini’ll help you. He’s that kind of guy.”

  But they didn’t even look at him.

  Just at those fish, big and small, weaving around the boat, keeping an eye out for the gigantic shadow of something much bigger.

  25

  Cook could take it.

  He could take it very well, thank you. He could take every ounce of shit Saks could dish out and keep coming back for more. Nobody could take more than he could.

  He could take it and take it and take it.

  But give it back? No, that wasn’t his way. Unless you wanted to count that little instance of him killing his father. But he hadn’t wanted that. He just hadn’t been given a choice. He didn’t want to kill anymore than any other sane person. Just like he didn’t really want to kill Saks. But, sooner or later, there might just not be a choice in the matter. He might have to kill him.

  If I get that gun, he thought icily, then maybe. Just maybe I’ll do him out of general principles.

  But it wouldn’t be in cold blood.

  Saks would be given the chance to act like a rational human being. And there was the difference. Saks probably wouldn’t give any of them the same chance. Because deep down, Saks was not a civilized man. He was a crazy, bloodthirsty animal who drew his only true pleasure from the suffering of others.

  And there was no denying that.

  The big fish hadn’t come back and slowly the tension had drained out of everyone, drop by drop. But like sponges, they were still soaked full. Only getting out of that dead zone would ever really squeeze them out. The smaller fish were still around, though not as many now. They bumped the boat and fought from time to time, but other than that, it was quiet. Real quiet.

  Slowly then, the men began talking again and especially after Saks ordered Menhaus to dole out some chocolate and crackers and a few sips of water.

  “What’s the first thing you’ll do when you get home, Cook?” Menhaus said, shifting effortlessly back into denial of where they were and what they were facing.

  “If you get home,” Fabrini said morbidly.

  Saks laughed.

  “Well, I’ll probably take a hot bath and have a good dinner and sleep for three days,” he said. “That sounds good to me.”

  Menhaus smiled. “That does sound good. Me, I think I’m going to collapse on the couch and let the wife pamper me for a week.”

  “Shit,” Fabrini said. “You guys got no imagination. Me, I’m going to get a bottle of booze and a couple whores and have me a good old time.”

  “How about you, Saks?” Menhaus asked.

  Saks smiled, all teeth. “I think I’ll reserve judgment. Some of us aren’t going home again.”

  26

  Although it was hard to tell what was night and what was day and how long of a duration either might be, Gosling posted his little crew in shifts of two hours each. Their job was to keep their eyes and ears open. Not only for danger, but for signs of survivors or land.

  Because he was still holding out hope that there was land here. Had to be somewhere. There had to be land under all that oily water and it only stood to reason that sooner or later, some of it had to poke up and form an island or a continent.

  This is what Gosling told himself.

  This is what he was clinging to.

  He didn’t know what was out there and what terrible forms it might take, but if he could get some dry land under his feet, he figured that they’d all stand a chance. A chance of living and just maybe, figuring a way out of this.

  And maybe his hopes of this weren’t much, but it was the only game in town so he held onto it and held onto it tight.

  27

  “You guys kill me, sitting over there like that,” Saks said in a dry, raw voice. “Not talking. Not moving. Not doing a damn thing.”

  “What’s there to do?” Menhaus said. “And, besides, maybe what we ought to do is be quiet. Crycek said-”

  “Fuck Crycek,” Saks said. “He’s certifiable. Ain’t you, Crycek?”

  Crycek did not say anything; he stared out at the fog and the water and weeds, maybe thinking things, but not saying them.

  “Leave him alone,” Cook said. “What’s he hurting? What are any of us hurting?”

  But Saks didn’t comment on that. At least not with his voice. But his eyes, well, they were saying things and they were the sort of things nobody wanted to hear.

  “What?” Fabrini said. “We’re not allowed to just sit now, big boss man? What the hell do you want us to do?”

  Saks laughed deep in his throat and it sounded like a low rumble of thunder. “Man, you’re slick. The lot of you. Slick as fucking oil. You think I don’t know what you’re whispering about over there? What you murdering bastards are planning? I know, trust me, I know everything.”

  Cook put a hand on Fabrini, to keep him calm. “We’re not planning anything, Saks. All anybody wants is to go home.”

  Saks licked his lips even though his tongue was getting dry. He looked at each of them in turn. He let his eyes hang on each man for a moment or two as if to say, lying bastards, I know what you’re thinking, I know, I know…

  Then he grinned.

  A huge, moony grin like a cat with a mouse. He started laughing. He kept laughing for several minutes. “Stupid dumb shits,” he cackled. “Don’t you know I’ll kill you? That I’ll kill each and every one of you mutinous goddamn dogs before I’ll let you lay a hand on me? Don’t you see that?”

  Jesus, he’s cracking up, Fabrini thought nervously.

  “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” Saks ranted.

  “Come on, Saks,” Cook said. “You’re being paranoid. Quit wasting your energy with this. For God’s sake, look where we are and what we’re facing… how can you act like this?”

  “He’s right,” Menhaus said quietly. “We have to pull together.”

  Saks had a confused, dopey smile on his face. He was humoring the lot of them. Sure, guys, pull together. Let’s all pull together. All for one and one for all, eh? That’ll come in handy when you shitrats jump me and throw me to the damn fishies. Oh, and then you’ll laugh, you’ll laugh and laugh, won’t you?

  Cook watched him and didn’t like what he saw. “Easy,” he said.

  Saks kept shifting in his seat restively like there were splinters in his ass. “You guys better start using your heads cause old Saks is in charge and he’s a hard master. Goddamn, yes.”

  “Please, Saks,” Menhaus said. “Just relax.”

  Saks started laughing again. But there was even less humor in that laughter now than there was before. It was more like an insane cackling, rising up high and hollow like dead laughter in an empty room before becoming a low, evil chuckle. “You bastards. You assholes. You fucking shitbugs,” he said. “How stupid do you think I am? Don’t you see that I’m on to you? That I know your game? You’re not waiting for dark anymore, you’re just waiting for an opportunity, any opportunity. Any chance you can get to kill me. Oh, I see it in your eyes. I see it just fine.”

  Cook and Fabrini looked at each other. Their eyes said volumes. Saks was starting to crack and there was no denying it any longer. The man was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

  Menhaus studied his feet for a time, then said, “Why should we kill you, Saks? Christ, we need you. You’re the only one who can pull us through this. You’re the only guy here who has any sea experience. If you can’t save our asses, nobody can.”

  “Yeah,” Saks said.

  Something like that, coming from anyone but Menhaus, would have been greeted with a hateful outburst. But there was something harmless about Menhaus. Something almost brotherly. It was hard to imagine the big jolly man hurting anything or anyone. He seemed
incapable. The sort of guy who was a sucker for kids and small animals.

  Menhaus saw his opening and went for it. “I’m not a violent man, Saks. I’ve lost just about every fight I’ve ever been in. And most of ‘em I ran away from. It’s just not in me to hurt anyone. I don’t have what it takes. So when I tell you that I wouldn’t let these guys hurt you, you can believe me. If it comes down to that, I’ll warn you. And I’ll stand by you.”

  Fabrini, whose brain worked very simply, looked like he’d been slapped. “What are you, Menhaus? Fucking crazy? This guy’s a psycho.”

  “Shut the fuck up, Fabrini, or I swear to God I’ll kill you,” Saks snapped, his voice hot and electric.

  Tendons strained in his neck when he said this. His eyes bulged. A vein throbbed at his temple. His face was the color of blood. He wasn’t fooling around and they all saw it now.

  “What I said is-” Menhaus began, trying to undo the damage.

  “What you said I want to believe,” Saks told him. “You don’t know how much I want to believe that. But I don’t know. I just don’t know. You’re either real sincere or real slick. I don’t know which.”

  Menhaus was breathing heavy now. “I meant it, Saks. I meant every word.”

  Saks stared him down. Maybe looking for something that would tell him it was all a lie. He found nothing.

  “If you mean that,” Saks said, “then come over here with me.”

  28

  George watched that dead, misting sea and it almost felt like it watched him, too. You watched that graveyard expanse long enough, you started thinking of the sea as more than a natural force but as a living, breathing entity. Something sentient and calculating, a huge evil intelligence that plotted your death with inhuman patience.

  And when you were talking about the sea George was watching, those ideas came to you real easy.

  Like someone or something wants me to think that.

  But he wasn’t going back there again.

  That was Fog-Devil territory.

  So George kept his mind busy by thinking of food, of drinks. Cigarettes. He was pretty sure he would’ve sold his soul for a can of beer.

  He kept watching the sea and that’s when he saw… well, he didn’t know exactly what he was seeing. Something in the fog. Nothing gigantic or especially threatening this time, just, well a shadow or shape flitting around in the mist.

  He looked and it was gone. But it had been there. Something had been there.

  George swallowed, figured he was hallucinating. It wouldn’t have been the first time. You stared into that dirty fog long enough, you could see just about anything. Some things you wanted to see and others you’d rather not look upon. It was the nature of the fog, always slowing drifting and churning like the steam coming off a bubbling pot, but slower and thicker and almost curdled-looking.

  Again, a suggestion of movement out there.

  He looked over at Soltz and Cushing. They were sleeping. Gosling was, too. It was George’s watch. And what had Gosling said to him? Just sweep your eyes back and forth, George, never stare at anything too long or you’ll start seeing things that ain’t there. Gosling had been dead serious when he said that. There was not so much as a glimmer of humor in his eyes. Gosling had spent a lot of his life on watches and he knew the funny things you might see out there.

  George saw that flutter of motion again and shook his head. Jesus, but a cigarette would have been good. A cigarette and a cup of hot coffee. They would have straightened his head right out.

  He closed his eyes, then opened them and looked around in the raft. Just those three men dozing in the roomy interior beneath the canopy and George himself at the door, the fog moving out there, drawing him in.

  You need me, Gosling had said, you wake me, hear?

  Gosling. Jesus. Mother Hen.

  George looked away from the fog, had to force himself to, and studied the water instead. It was steaming and rank, filmed with a rotting membrane that seemed to be equal parts sediment, slime, and decaying organic matter. From time to time it quivered like jelly, as if some underwater current was stirring it. Little islands of weed and knotted creepers floated on it, a scum of pink algae.

  The mist itself seemed chilly and damp, but the sea was warm. Like a mud bath, it was warm and oddly inviting.

  Something moved out in the fog again.

  When George looked up, it was gone.

  Every time he averted his eyes, it moved. Like maybe it did not want to be seen, not yet. Which got George to think something was playing with him. Something was playing headgames with him, maybe wanting to scare him or disturb him or just make him goddamn uneasy. If that was the case, then they or it were doing a fine job for George was all those things. Gooseflesh had spread out on his lower belly and his balls had sucked up now, like they were afraid of being exposed.

  Motion again.

  Then it was gone.

  Like some child, it occurred to George, some kid out there flitting about in the fog, playing hide-and-seek and catch-me-if-you-can. Wanting George to get a peek, but no more. Not yet. Not until he or she was ready, because then it was going to be real funny-

  But it wasn’t funny.

  George badly wanted to pop a flare out there and see what was lurking beyond the fog, sliding in and out of it like a naughty little boy hiding in the curtains.

  George kept swallowing, but he couldn’t seem to moisturize his throat. It felt like old machine parts, rusty and seized-up, choked with dust and mouse droppings.

  The sea was quivering a bit, those clots of fetid weeds sluicing about as if something was pushing them from below. A great dark mass of them swept against the side of the raft with a weird, whispering motion like somebody breathing.

  George caught the movement this time.

  And this time, it did not try to hide.

  What he was seeing was a figure standing just at the periphery of the fog bank, enshrouded in wisps of fog, yet very visible. So visible that he could see that the figure was small and that it was a little girl of all things. She stood stock still like a mannequin or a puppet waiting for fingers to work her.

  George blinked and rubbed his eyes.

  When he looked back, she was still there.

  There was a chill moving up his spine now, spreading out over his shoulders and forearms. He was telling himself that he could not be seeing a little girl standing out there. She would have sank like a rock and what would a little girl be doing out in the mist in the first place?

  George looked back toward Gosling, wanted to say something, wanted to rouse him, but his throat was simply too dry. It had constricted down to a pinhole now and he could barely draw a breath.

  You need me, you wake me, hear?

  But George could not. He was barely breathing. Locked tight, motionless, his heart just a shallow pattering in his chest.

  The girl was waving to him now.

  And George could do nothing, not a goddamn thing. He didn’t have the strength to wave back. And the idea of waving, of drawing attention to himself… it was unthinkable. For in that little girl was the embodiment of every fear he’d ever known, every adult anxiety and childhood terror alive and breathing and rustling.

  The girl was moving now.

  George could see it happening and was telling himself madly that he had to push these awful images from his mind, because it was all hallucination, just some dark fiction vomited up from the depths and if he let it root in his mind, if it got too strong of a hold there. ..

  But he didn’t think he was hallucinating.

  He was seeing some little girl in what appeared to be 19 ^th century period dress moving in his direction, getting closer and closer and he was absolutely helpless to do anything but watch it happen.

  He told himself: You are not seeing a little girl out there. I don’t know what in Christ that is, but it cannot be a little girl. It’s something else. Either a fiction your mind created and fleshed out… or something worse. Something that wants y
ou to think it’s a little girl.

  And that made perfect sense to him.

  Yes, something vile and degenerate, the sort of thing that haunts black submarine valleys and lives in the rotting hollows of sunken ships. Something that picks through the bones of drowned men and howls through high masts and calls ships down into abyssal plains. Yes, that’s what it was. The living, phobic personification of all the men, women, and children lost at sea and drawn into murky graveyards of swaying kelp and gutted coffin-ship and barnacle-encrusted bone that no light would ever touch.

  George thought maybe she was standing on an island of weed, but that wasn’t so. She was moving, yes, but standing perfectly still, drifting in his direction very slowly, just above the water. She was wrapped in tendrils of fog, but he could see that she wore a royal blue silk taffeta dress trimmed in white ribbon and braid. A party dress. There was a gold Celtic cross around her neck.

  A ghost, his mind told him, a ghost of some little girl sucked down into the dead sea, a shade that haunts the mist…

  As she got closer, he saw her hair was done in golden ringlets and her face was smooth and white like porcelain. A Victorian doll. She looked exactly like a Victorian doll.

  No, not at all.

  That face was corpse-white, bleached by seawater, the eyes just huge black pits punched into it and filled with a misty yellow glow like full moons sinking into a cloudbank. Hazy and misty and ghastly. She was only ten or fifteen feet away now and he could see that she was fouled with strands of weed that draped over her shoulders and were tangled in her hair. Her dress was a dingy rag spotted with mildew. Fog was steaming from her, boiling inside her and blowing out through innumerable holes torn through her like she was burning up inside. She came on with a wake of churning, smoky mist, tendrils of fog seeping from her outstretched fingertips.