Wake

by Elizabeth Knox

  Sam stared at him. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘We are the feast.’

  For a moment she felt nothing. Then a sudden downpour of terror coursed through her body, and she was soaked and heavy with fear. And not just fear—also despair and pity and fellow-feeling.

  And then the Wake came. It came hungry for her terror, but it wasn’t ravenous, or mindless, and it came for the other feelings too, her despair, and her empathy. It wasn’t moved—it only settled on those good human feelings with a kind of exquisite epicureanism that seemed not just sentient, but intelligent—and alien, inimical, hell-bent.

  Sam could still feel Myr’s grip, and a stabbing pain in her ears, because he was shouting at her. Then the Wake had her completely and there was a moment of stillness, when she lay dissolving in the hollow of its tongue. It was in the room with them, and in all adjacent rooms, rising, basement, ground floor, first floor, roof space—rising and spinning like a whirlwind, but leaving the blond basement dust quite undisturbed. It was down under the earth too, spinning and drilling, like something that should be able to set off earthquakes. Its venomous whirlwind savaged Sam. She was on her knees beneath a waterfall of tears. The Wake’s every revolution wound her out of herself.

  But Sam wouldn’t leave. She had, for once, to be some use to herself. She tried to struggle out from under it—but the monster went with her, still circling her as she pushed past Myr—slithering off his activated force field and blundering across the room. There was no place she could take shelter. She tried to organise her thoughts so that she could fight the urge to go, to be gone.

  The Wake, the whirlwind—the other Sam had danced under it. On those occasions it had come to savour and suck on someone else. ‘But it’s different when it’s me,’ Sam thought. ‘When it’s me, not Fa.’ She let Myr catch her, and they collapsed together onto the floor. The Wake was with her, but Sam no longer felt fed on or threatened with annihilation. For a moment she was simply a bystander, someone who steps up to a window and parts the curtains to look down on some commotion in the street. She was a detached spectator. Then she was gone.

  Holly was unloading the dishwasher and putting away the dinner dishes when Jacob banged in through the back door, out of breath, and headed straight for the refrigerator. Holly had all the ingredients for tomorrow’s lunch sorted and separated into bowls, and she didn’t want any of her preparations disturbed. ‘What are you after?’

  Jacob closed the door and showed her a bottle. ‘I’ve been keeping liquid amoxicillin in here.’

  ‘Is Curtis ill?’

  ‘He has a fever. I’ve got him into a bed with an electric blanket. But I shouldn’t have left him. I’m hurrying right back; I’ll take Warren’s car.’

  Holly asked him if he needed help. For moment he just looked at her blankly. She began to apologise. ‘I know I’m not terribly useful, but . . .’

  ‘I can’t think of anything I need you for right now. I think it’s best if everyone just stays clear.’

  ‘Is he infectious?’

  Jacob’s eyes flickered down to her hands. Holly found she was wringing them. She said, ‘At least let me bring you something to eat.’

  ‘That would be good. I’ll manage my own breakfast. But maybe if you bring lunch. You can just leave it at the front door.’ He stuffed the bottle in his pocket. ‘I’d better get back.’

  He pushed through the swing doors, and Holly heard him calling out, ‘Warren? Are the keys in the car?’ and then she heard the steely boom of the filing cabinet in the manager’s office where he kept drugs and other medical supplies.

  Holly went back to what she’d been doing. She was concerned about Curtis, but comforted by the thought that perhaps, when he’d said that horrible thing to her, he’d only been coming down with something.

  Jacob managed to get Curtis into a fresh bed in another of Mrs Kreutzer’s guest rooms. He closed the door on the fouled bed and bloodied en suite. Before tucking Curtis up Jacob steered the man towards the bathroom.

  ‘No,’ Curtis said. ‘I don’t need to. Though I haven’t gone for hours.’

  Once Curtis was settled, the chills and fever seemed to come upon him in successive cascades. They weren’t really mitigated by a change from over-the-counter to clinical analgesics. Jacob administered a big dose of the amoxicillin—that went down okay. Curtis was having trouble swallowing pills, was gagging on even average sized gel-covered capsules. Jacob took his blood pressure and was alarmed by the result. But there wasn’t much he could do to control his patient’s plummeting blood pressure without intravenous fluids. Curtis needed IV antibiotics. Kahukura’s pharmacy had stocked several kits for an insulin infusion pump—kits with cannula, needles, and grey tube. But of course the pharmacy didn’t have IV antibiotics, or normal saline.

  However, when they were burying the residents of Mary Whitaker, Jacob had taken note of the oxygen pump in one room. He went to get it now, rushed up there, hurried through the desolate rooms, and manhandled the pump out to the Captiva.

  Oxygen made Curtis more comfortable. His colour improved and he even managed a few hours sleep. But the following morning he became agitated and tried to climb out of bed. Jacob struggled with him, and fresh blood burst forth on the bandages binding his legs. Jacob held Curtis down and slipped him some tranquillisers. They were tiny, and melted to mush in his mouth.

  Near midday Jacob left Curtis to answer a knock at the door. It was Holly. She was holding a covered basket. She said she couldn’t just leave his lunch on the doorstep and go away without seeing if there was anything he needed.

  Jacob stepped outside and shut the door. ‘I have him on oxygen,’ he said. ‘Mary Whitaker had an oxygen pump. But it wasn’t the sort of rest home that supported hospital level care.’

  ‘Is he very bad?’

  ‘It’s afraid it’s septicaemia. He has a rash. And he’s bleeding, because his body has used up most of its platelets.’

  Holly stepped back. The wicker basket crackled as her hands tightened on its handle. ‘This is very technical,’ she said. Then, ‘You say he’s bleeding. Is he injured?’

  ‘At this point he wouldn’t have to be injured to be bleeding.’

  ‘Dear God,’ Holly said.

  ‘He’s wandering again. And his breathing is very fast.’ Jacob paused. ‘I’m going to lose him, Holly.’ He took the basket from her. She was clinging and clumsy, and between them they nearly upset it.

  ‘Can I at least spell you?’ Holly offered. She was scared, and her voice sounded strangled.

  He shook his head, and went back in, closing the door on her white face.

  Jacob ate standing at a sideboard in Mrs Kreutser’s sitting room. He was hungry and shovelled down Holly’s bean salad, bread, and fried haloumi. While he ate he thought about the reading he’d done for a course he’d been sent on during the two years he worked in an ICU. He thought about ‘protocols for determining futility’. The paper was about how you could tell when you’d done enough. Not ‘exhausted all your options’, but done enough. Jacob couldn’t find this situation’s ‘enough’ place—because he’d had so few options to start with. And, quite apart from the lack of IV fluids, and intravenously delivered broad-spectrum antimicrobial drugs, dialysis, and steroids—quite apart from all that, he had already failed at what he had been able to do. He hadn’t recognised that Curtis was seeing things; that somehow, for a time, Curtis had been almost as crazy as the victims of the first-hour madness. Jacob wanted to understand what had happened, but how could he ever hope to, with Curtis slipping in and out of consciousness now? Curtis wouldn’t be able to give him any answers.

  Jacob wiped his mouth, washed his hands, and went back into the sick room.

  *

  For the second night in a row William was hiding, hunkered down in the shadows at the edge of the arboretum, waiting for some sign of Sam, or her captor. He stayed rigorously still, strain
ing to hear. This was his life now: looking all day, and listening all night.

  He hadn’t slept for two days, but he was wakeful more from shame than worry. Sam had suffered. She’d been spirited away and tied up and who knew what else had happened to her, and now she wouldn’t come in and be comforted by her community.

  She had wanted his comfort. She’d waited weeping at his door. If her abduction and lonely roaming were to be what finally happened to Sam, a close to her story—one of hard work and stoicism and compassion for others—then his behaviour gave her story a horrible shape.

  William allowed himself to change position. He eased himself onto his knees. He’d only just got comfortable again when a sound came from uphill, a swishing noise that seemed to originate from a place higher than the ridgeline, yet not beyond it, which was impossible. There was a dragging crackle, as if something heavy was being drawn slowly through the treetops.

  William switched on his flashlight and pointed it up through the trees. He saw boles and branches and leaves, and behind everything a solid fretwork of shadows that plunged back and forth as he swung his torch. He pointed its beam at the ground and got to his feet. He set off after the lit spot, sprinting up the hill as fast as he could go, stopping at intervals to listen for that odd, aerial rasping.

  At one pause he thought he heard something behind him. Footfalls, coming up the hill after him. Someone was following him.

  William switched off his torch, and lay in wait. His pursuer kept coming, not at all stealthy, but fast and fearless.

  When the noises of pursuit came close—but not too close—William pointed his quenched torch downhill, at the trees, into their shadows. He switched it on.

  A shadow moved in the blackness, then a form delineated itself in the torchlight, appearing at first like a chalk sketch on a blackboard. The shape came closer, rounded out, and became the man in black, pushing determinedly uphill, his gaze apparently fixed on something behind William’s right shoulder.

  William wasn’t about to fall for that one. He kept his eyes on the man and made calculations. If the man’s force field covered his feet then surely he wouldn’t be able to run. He wouldn’t be able to keep his feet.

  William snatched his rifle off his shoulder. It fell into his hands, and into position. He flicked off the safety and set his eye to the sights. He didn’t look at the man, his face; he only aimed at the man’s feet and let the sights frame and follow one foot, and find its rhythm. He squeezed the trigger. The leaf litter puffed up right beside the man. William got off another shot—but not before the man threw himself behind a tree.

  The man didn’t stay under cover. Instead he made another dive, this one downhill. He tucked his knees up against his chest, wrapped his arms around his head, and began to roll. He picked up speed, skidding, sliding off trees, bouncing more like a beach ball than a body. William took another shot—and the bullet chipped a tree trunk. Then he hitched the rifle back onto his shoulder and gave chase.

  Half an hour later Theresa was there to meet William when he emerged on the road through Cotley’s orchard. The morning sun hadn’t yet cleared the hill and when it did, it would come up behind cloud. The day was dull.

  The sound of William’s shots had roused Theresa and, when she looked out her window, she had seen the light of his torch moving through the woods. She was able to pretty much figure out where to go to wait for him.

  ‘It was the man in black. I lost him,’ William said. Then he noticed she’d been crying. ‘Sorry. It was an epic chase. He lost me twice, and I found him again both times. The third time—I don’t know—he accelerated as if he’d only been playing with me up until then. I think he can control the force field over his feet. Because he is able to get traction and run. Still, if he has an Achilles heel, it’s his heels.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Never mind. What’s wrong, Theresa?’

  Theresa bit her lip fiercely for a time before answering. ‘Curtis died early this morning, of blood poisoning. Jacob said he got to it too late to treat it.’

  William didn’t say anything. He put his hand on her shoulder and then pulled her against him and held her.

  Her voice was muffled. ‘I helped Jacob move Curtis into the supermarket cool store. We don’t think there should be a funeral till we’ve found Sam.’

  ‘So we can hold two funerals at the same time? Yes, that would be more emotionally economical,’ William said.

  Theresa pushed away from him. ‘You’re lashing out. I understand,’ she said, but she found she couldn’t look at him. She took a deep breath. ‘You do know that the man in black didn’t grab Sam just because you pushed her out of your bed.’

  ‘She followed Oscar to talk to him. Because she could trust the kid to be honest—but not us.’

  ‘Or, she followed Oscar because she thought he’d be easier to manipulate.’

  ‘Oh, so now you think she isn’t crazy, but manipulative?’

  ‘It’s pretty crazy to pretend to be two people.’ She took William’s arm. ‘Come back with me. Once everyone is up we’re going to have to tell them that we lost Curtis. Holly wasn’t awake to help us with his body—but she did know he was sick, and that Jacob thought he wouldn’t make it.’

  ‘Are you saying that because Holly knew how bad Curtis was, we don’t have the option of hiding that he died?’

  Theresa nodded, and briefly met his eyes. ‘I wish we could hide it. I don’t think we should have to process Curtis’s passing till Sam’s found. Jacob agrees with me. He’s really worried about our morale. I’ve been on about morale for ages. But when I talk about it I sound like a rugby coach; Jacob sounds like the Chief Coroner explaining why the media shouldn’t report youth suicides.’

  William considered her words for a moment then said, ‘Curtis didn’t kill himself.’

  ‘No. Jacob said it was a neglected infection.’

  ‘So what exactly is it that we want to hide?’

  Theresa shook her head. She was exhausted. William slipped his arm around her waist, led her to her car, and put her in its passenger seat. He climbed in to drive. As he started the engine, she said, ‘Jacob didn’t tell me everything.’

  ‘So you do think it was a kind of suicide?’

  ‘It was something extravagant.’

  ‘Like the first-hour victims?’

  ‘Not that bad. Or at least more gradual.’

  ‘And gradual is better?’

  Theresa had done crying. She just shook her head. ‘No, it’s not.’

  Back at the spa William got himself a cup of coffee, and sat down beside Jacob. ‘So what was the cause of death?’

  ‘Blood poisoning,’ Jacob said. He held his hands out, studied their backs then their palms. ‘I washed his body. I haven’t done that since before I trained to be a nurse. Back when I was working in an old people’s home.’

  ‘I guess washing bodies would be one of Sam’s jobs.’

  ‘Yes. You remember that she wanted to do it for her old people? And we discouraged her because it wasn’t practical.’

  ‘What caused Curtis’s blood-poisoning?’

  William watched Jacob’s right hand wander up to his collar to touch his crucifix. ‘Cellulitis. From a graze. It can come on fast.’

  ‘Why are you whispering?’

  ‘I’m tired. Why else?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  Jacob looked at him, his face bleak. ‘Go away, William.’

  Part Six

  William, in the course of his life, had sometimes camped in the desert. Whenever he crawled out of his tent to urinate, and the liquid splash of that was done, it would be so quiet that he’d imagine the hurtling satellites among the still stars were making a thin, continuous exhalation, as if they ran on steam.

  In the small hours, Kahukura’s quiet had a quality all its own, for it was made of some sounds—t
he low throb of the refrigerator units at the back of the supermarket, a window banging, a cable knocking against the aluminium flagpole far away in the school grounds—and not others: a car engine; a drain gurgling as someone ran a tap; a computer game’s swordplay or gunshots; a sports commentator on the radio of some insomniac senior citizen; the progressive tenor roar of a skateboard going by.

  William lifted his head from the pillow. He thought he heard the sound of the spring mechanism on the swimming pool’s safety gate. After a moment there was a splash.

  He got up, put on his sweatpants and went out.

  The pool was lit and blue. Sam was swimming lengths. Her clothes were draped on one of the timber loungers; her shoes lay discarded by the pool fence.

  William unfastened the safety gate and went into the enclosure. The water slopping over the pool’s sides raised the faint lingering scent of dog from the tiles. Steam was lifting from the disturbed water, which now looked a little oily.

  William picked up one of Sam’s dropped socks; it was still limber with body heat.

  Sam passed up and down the pool, fast and coordinated. She flipped and pushed off at each turn like someone with training, one of those people who carries a constant perfume of chlorine. Her hair flowed back across her shoulders as she turned to breathe. Her eyes were open, her lashes thick and spiked.