1987 - Swan Song v4

by Robert McCammon

  “You might not,” Sister agreed. “I do. There’s nothing here.”

  “I’m going with you,” Artie said. “I’m not afraid.”

  “Who said I was afraid?” Jack countered. “I’m not afraid! I’m just not fucking crazy, is all!”

  “Beth?” Sister turned her attention to the young woman. “What about you? Are you going with us or not?”

  She stared fearfully at the clogged tunnel entrance, and finally she replied, “Yes. I’m going with you.”

  Sister touched the Spanish woman’s arm, pointed down at the Holland Tunnel and made a walking gesture with two fingers. The other woman was still too shocked to respond. “We’ll have to stay close together,” Sister told Beth and Artie. “I don’t know how deep the water’ll be in there. I think we should link hands and go through so nobody gets lost. Okay?”

  Both of them nodded. Jack snorted. “You’re crazy! All of you are out of your minds!”

  Sister, Beth and Artie started down the ridge toward the tunnel entrance. The Spanish woman followed. Jack shouted, “You’ll never make it through there, lady!” But the others didn’t pause or look back, and after another moment Jack came down the ridge behind them.

  Sister stopped in chilly water up to her ankles. “Let me have your lighter, Beth,” she said. Beth gave it to her, but she didn’t spark it yet. She took Beth’s hand, and Beth grasped Artie’s, and Artie held onto the Spanish woman’s hand. Jack Tomachek completed the chain.

  “Okay.” She heard fear in her voice, and she knew she had to take the next step before her nerve broke. “Let’s go.” She started walking around the hulks of vehicles into the Holland Tunnel, and the water crept up to her knees. Dead rats bobbed in it like corks.

  Less than ten feet into the tunnel, the water had risen to her thighs. She flicked the lighter, and its meager flame popped up. The light revealed a nightmarish phantasmagoria of tangled metal before them—cars, trucks and taxis torn into half-submerged, otherworldly shapes. The tunnel walls were scorched black and seemed to swallow up the light instead of reflecting it. Sister knew there must have been an ungodly inferno in here when all the gas tanks blew. In the distance, far ahead, she heard the echoing noise of a waterfall.

  She pulled the human chain onward. Things floated around her that she avoided looking at. Beth gave a little gasp of terror. “Keep going,” Sister told her. “Don’t look around, keep going.”

  The water crawled up her thighs.

  “I stepped on something!” Beth cried out. “Oh, Jesus… there’s something under my foot!”

  Sister squeezed her hand tightly and guided her on. The water had reached Sister’s waist by the time she’d taken another half dozen steps. She looked over her shoulder at the entrance, now about sixty feet behind them, its murky light pulling at her. But she returned her attention to what lay ahead, and immediately her heart stuttered. The lighter’s flame glinted off a huge, mangled knot of metal that almost completely blocked the tunnel—a pile of what used to be cars, melded together by the heat. Sister found a narrow space to slip around, her feet sliding on something slick at the bottom. Now rivulets of water were falling from above, and Sister concentrated on keeping the lighter dry. The waterfall’s noise still lay ahead.

  “It’s about to cave in!” Jack shouted. “God… it’s gonna fall in on us!”

  “Keep going!” Sister yelled at him. “Don’t stop!”

  Ahead of them, except for the small glow of the flame, was total, unfathomable darkness. What if it’s blocked up? she thought, and she felt the scurryings of panic. What if we can’t make it? Settle down, settle down. One step at a time. One step.

  The water reached her waist and continued to climb.

  “Listen!” Beth said suddenly, and she stopped. Artie bumped into her and almost slipped into the foul water.

  Sister could hear nothing but the increased rumble of the waterfall. She started to pull Beth on—and then there was a deep groaning noise from above them. We’re in the belly of the beast, Sister thought. Like Jonah, being swallowed alive.

  Something splashed into the water in front of her. Other falling objects banged loudly off the wreckage, like the noise of sledgehammers at work.

  Chunks of stone, Sister realized. Dear God—the ceiling’s about to collapse!

  “It’s falling!” Jack shouted, about to choke on terror. Sister heard him thrashing through the water, and she knew his nerve had given out. She looked back and could see him struggling wildly the way they’d come. He slipped into the water, came up sobbing. “I don’t wanna die!” he screamed. “I don’t wanna die!” And the sound of his screaming trailed away after him.

  “Don’t anybody move!” Sister commanded before the others fled, too. Stones were still falling all around, and she clasped Beth’s hand so hard her knuckles popped. The chain trembled, but it held. Finally, the stones ceased to fall, and the groaning noise stopped, too. “Everybody okay? Beth? Artie, is the woman all right?”

  “Yeah,” he answered shakily. “I think I’ve shit in my pants, though.”

  “Shit I can deal with. Panic I can’t. Do we go on or not?”

  Beth’s eyes were glassy. She’s checked out, Sister thought. Maybe that was for the best. “Artie? You ready?” she asked, and all Artie could do was grunt.

  They slogged onward, through water that rose toward their shoulders. Still there was no light ahead, no sign of a way out. Sister winced as a piece of stone the size of a manhole cover slammed into a wrecked truck about ten feet away. The noise of the waterfall was nearer, and over their heads the tunnel groaned with the strain of holding back the Hudson River. She heard a fault voice from behind them: “Come back! Please come back!” She wished Jack Tomachek well, and then the waterfall’s roar drowned him out.

  Her bag was full of water, her clothes pulling heavily at her, but she kept the lighter extended over her head. It was uncomfortably hot in her hand, though she dared not flick the flame off. Sister could see her breath pluming out into the light, the water numbing her legs and stiffening her knees. One more step, she resolved. Then the next. Keep going!

  They passed another surrealistic heap of melded vehicles, and the Spanish woman cried out in pain as an edge of underwater metal gashed her leg, but she gritted her teeth and didn’t falter. A little further on, Artie’s feet got tangled up in something and he went down, coming up sputtering and coughing, but he was okay.

  And then the tunnel curved, and Sister said, “Stop.”

  Before them, glittering in the feeble light, was a torrent of water pouring from above, stretching the width of the tunnel. They would have to pass through the downpour, and Sister knew what that meant. “I’m going to have to put the lighter out now, until we get past,” she said. “Everybody hold on tight. Ready?”

  She felt Beth squeeze her hand, and Artie croaked, “Ready.”

  Sister closed the lighter’s lid. The darkness consumed all. Sister’s heart was pounding, and she gripped the lighter protectively in her fist and started forward.

  The water hit her so hard it knocked her under. She lost Beth’s hand and heard the young woman scream. Frantically, Sister tried to get her footing, but there was something slick and oozy all over the bottom. Water was in her mouth and eyes, she couldn’t draw a breath and the darkness distorted her sense of direction. Her left foot was trapped and held by an underwater object, and a shriek was very close, but she knew that if she let it go they were all lost. She flailed around with her free hand, trying to hold the lighter up with the other—and fingers gripped her shoulder. “I’ve got you!” Beth shouted, her own body being battered by the waterfall. She steadied Sister, who wrenched her leg free with an effort that almost tore the sneaker off her foot. Then she was loose and moving again, guiding the others away from the snag.

  She didn’t know how long it took them to clear the waterfall—maybe two minutes, maybe three—but suddenly they were past it, and she wasn’t gasping for air anymore. Her skull and shoulders
felt as bruised as if she’d been used as a punching bag. She shouted, “We made it!” and led them a distance away before her side bumped metal. Then she took the lighter in her fingers again and tried to strike it.

  A spark leaped, but there was no flame.

  Oh, Jesus! Sister thought. She tried it again. Another star of sparks—but no flame, and no light.

  “Come on, come on!” she breathed. The third time was no charm. “Light, damn you!” But it wouldn’t, not on the fourth or fifth attempts, and she prayed that the lighter hadn’t gotten too wet to catch.

  On the eighth try a small, weak flame appeared, wavered and almost died again. Fluid’s almost gone, Sister realized. They had to get out of here before it was used up, she thought, and before that instant she’d never known how sanity could depend on a tiny, flickering flame.

  Beside her, the crumpled radiator grille and hood of a Cadillac protruded from the water like an alligator’s snout. In front of her, another car lay on its roof, all but submerged, the tires shredded from its wheels. They were amid a maze of wreckage, their circle of light cut to a fraction of what it had been before. Sister’s teeth had begun to chatter, her legs like cold chunks of lead.

  They went on, step by careful step. The tunnel groaned above them again, and more rubble tumbled down—but suddenly Sister realized that the water was back down to her waist.

  “We’re coming out!” she shouted. “Thank God, we’re coming out!” She strained to see light ahead, but the exit wasn’t yet in sight. Don’t stop! You’re almost there!

  She stumbled over something on the bottom.

  A gurgle of bubbles exploded in her face, and from the water in front of her rose a corpse, blackened and gnarled like a piece of wood, its arms frozen stiffly over its face, its mouth straining in a soundless scream.

  The lighter went out.

  The corpse leaned against Sister’s shoulder in the dark. She stood motionlessly, her heart about to burst through her chest, and she knew she could either lose her mind in that moment or…

  She took a shuddering breath and pushed the thing aside with her forearm. The corpse slid under again with a noise like a giggle.

  “I’m going to get us out of here,” she heard herself vow, and in her voice there was a dogged strength she hadn’t known she possessed. “Fuck the dark! We’re getting out!” She took the next step, and the next one after that. Slowly, the water descended to their knees. And—how much later and how many steps further Sister didn’t know—she saw the Holland Tunnel’s exit before them. They had reached the Jersey shore.

  Twenty-one

  The most wonderful light

  “Water… please… let me have some water…”

  Josh opened his eyes. Darleen’s voice was getting weaker. He sat up and crawled over to where he’d piled up all the cans he’d uncovered. There were dozens of them, many of them burst open and leaking, but their contents seemed okay. Their last meal had been baked beans washed down with V-8 juice, the task of can-opening made simpler by a screwdriver he’d discovered. The dirt had also yielded up a shovel with a broken blade and a pickaxe, along with other bits and pieces from the grocery’s shelves. Josh had put everything in the corner, organizing the tools, large and small cans with the single-minded concentration of a packrat.

  He found the V-8 and crawled to Darleen. The exertion left him sweating and tired again, and the smell of the latrine trench he’d dug over on the far side of the basement didn’t help the air any, either.

  He reached out in the darkness and touched Swan’s arm. She was cradling her mother’s head. “Here.” He tipped the can to Darleen’s mouth; she drank noisily for a moment and then pushed the can away.

  “Water,” she begged. “Please… some water.”

  “I’m sorry. There’s not any.”

  “Shit,” she muttered. “I’m burnin’ up.”

  Josh gently laid a hand on her forehead; it was like touching a griddle, much worse than his own fever. Further away, PawPaw was still hanging on, intermittently babbling about gophers, his missing truck keys and some woman named Goldie.

  “Blakeman,” Darleen croaked. “We gotta… gotta get to Blakeman. Swan, honey? Don’t you worry, we’ll get there.”

  “Yes ma’am,” Swan replied quietly, and Josh heard it in her voice: She knew her mother was near death.

  “Soon as they come get us out of here. We’ll be on our way. Lord, I can see my daddy’s face right now!” She laughed, and her lungs gurgled. “Oh, his eyes are gonna jump right out of his head!”

  “He’ll be real glad to see us, won’t he?” Swan asked.

  “Sure will! Damn it, I wish… they’d come on and get us out of here! When are they comin’?”

  “Soon, Mama.”

  That kid’s aged ten years since the blast, Josh thought.

  “I… had a dream about Blakeman,” Darleen said. “You and me were… were walkin’, and I could see the old house… right in front of us, across the field. And the sun… the sun was shinin’ so bright. Oh, it was such a pretty day. And I looked over the field and saw my daddy standin’ on the porch… and he was wavin’ for me to come on across. He didn’t… he didn’t hate me anymore. And all of a sudden… my mama came out of the house, and she was standin’ on the porch beside him… and they were holdin’ hands. And she called ‘Darleen! Darleen! We’re waitin’ for you, child! Come on home, now!’” She was silent, just the wet sound of her breathing. “We… we started ’cross the field, but Mama said, ‘No, honey! Just you. Just you. Not the little girl. Just you.’ But I didn’t want to go across without my angel, and I was afraid. And Mama said, ‘The little girl’s got to go on. Got to go on a long, long way.’ Oh… I wanted to cross that field… I wanted to… but… I couldn’t.” She found Swan’s hand. “I want to go home, honey.”

  “It’s all right,” Swan whispered, and she smoothed back the sweat-damp remnants of her mother’s hair. “I love you, Mama. I love you so much.”

  “Oh… I’ve messed things up.” A sob caught in Darleen’s throat. “I messed up… everything I ever touched. Oh, God… who’s gonna watch out for my angel? I’m afraid… I’m so afraid…” She began to sob brokenly, and Swan cradled her head and whispered, “Shhhh, Mama. I’m here. I’m right here.”

  Josh crawled away from them. He found his corner and curled up in it, trying to escape.

  He didn’t know how much time had passed—maybe hours—when he heard a noise near him. He sat up.

  “Mister?” Swan’s voice was weak and wounded. “I think… my mama’s gone home.”

  She broke then and began to cry and moan at the same time.

  Josh folded his arms around her, and she clung to his neck and cried. He could feel the child’s heart beating, and he wanted to scream and rage, and if any of the prideful fools who had pushed those buttons were anywhere within reach, he could’ve snapped their necks like matchsticks. Thinking about how many millions might be lying dead out there warped Josh’s mind, like trying to figure out how big the universe was, or how many billions of stars winked in the skies. But right now there was just this little girl, sobbing in his arms, and she could never see the world in the same way as before. No matter what happened to them she would forever be marked by this moment—and Josh knew he would as well. Because it was one thing to know that there might be millions of faceless dead out there; it was something else again to know that a woman who used to breathe and talk and whose name was Darleen was lying dead in the dirt less than ten feet away.

  And he would have to bury her in that same dirt. Have to use the pickaxe and the broken shovel and dig the grave on his knees. Have to bury her deep, so they wouldn’t crawl over her in the dark.

  He felt the child’s tears on his shoulder, and when he reached up to touch her hair his fingers found blisters and burned stubble.

  And he prayed to God in that moment that, if they were going to die, the child would pass away before him so she wouldn’t be alone with the dead.

>   Swan cried herself out; she gave a last whimper and leaned limply against Josh’s shoulder. “Swan?” he said. “I want you to sit here and not move for a while. Will you do like I say?”

  She made no response—then, finally, she nodded.

  Josh set her aside, got the pickaxe and shovel. He decided to dig the hole as far away as possible from the corner where Swan lay, and he started scooping away a mess of cornstalks, broken glass and splintered wood.

  His right hand brushed something metal buried in the loose dirt, and at first he thought it was another can he could add to the others. But this one was different; it was a slim cylinder. He picked it up in both hands and ran his fingers over it.

  Not a can, he realized. Not a can. My God—oh, Jesus!

  It was a flashlight, and it held enough weight to suggest that there were batteries inside.

  He found the off-on switch with his thumb. But he dared not press it yet, not until he’d closed his eyes and whispered, “Please, please. Let it still work. Please.”

  He took a deep breath and pressed the little switch.

  There was no change, no sensation of light against his closed eyelids.

  Josh opened his eyes and looked at darkness. The flashlight was useless.

  He thought he would burst out laughing for a second, but then his face contorted with anger and he shouted, “Damn it to Hell!” He reared his arm back to fling the flashlight to pieces against the wall.

  And as the flashlight jiggled an instant before he let it fly, a weak yellow ray speared from its bulb—but to Josh it looked like the mightiest, most wonderful light in all of creation. It all but dazzled him blind, and then it flickered and went out again. He jiggled it furiously; the light played an impish game, coming on and going off again and again. And then Josh reached two fingers through the cracked plastic lens to the tiny bulb itself. Carefully, his fingers trembling, he gave the bulb a gentle clockwise turn.