At the Midway

by J. Clayton Rogers

  "Enough gawking. Enderfall! You stay here with me. The rest of you get back to work on the bunker. You don't want to spend another night out in the open, do you?"

  This cheerful prospect prompted a mad scramble back to the compound. Observing their panic, Ziolkowski allowed himself a brief moment's satisfaction. Then he turned to his black sheep.

  "We stay here."

  "And what?"

  "Die, most likely," said the top cutter, not without some glee. A part of him had been terrified that someone might have witnessed his flight the day he abandoned his gun. But the more he looked into their eyes, the more it was confirmed no one had seen him. Maybe there was a God. Maybe He was looking down on him this moment, getting ready to snuff out his Leatherneck life. All well in good. God had been the only witness, after all. He never squealed. And the sergeant was grateful enough to give up his life in exchange for His benevolent reticence.

  As the largest of the creatures raised its long neck, one of the small human dots stopped still in the open. At this distance it was hard to tell, but it seemed as if the creature had something in its mouth. When it gave its peculiar head-flick, Ziolkowski knew. Either a man or a donkey was rolling around inside, shooting craps in hell.

  "You might end up with a new commander, Enderfall," Ziolkowski said. "Then your ass would be all mine. How does that sound?"

  "Doesn't sound too good, Top."

  "How the hell you end up a sexual deviant?"

  "That story's a lie."

  "That's what you say. But God's watching, Enderfall. He's watching close and He knows."

  1452 Hours

  Lieutenant Anthony could have told his sergeant more about God than the sergeant would ever want to know. When the largest creature lifted its head, Anthony could clearly see the mule leg jutting out of its mouth, flexing spasmodically like a toy crane. After the monster tossed its head, it fixed the lieutenant with a long look.

  As though he'd just glanced into the cold stone eye of Medusa, Anthony froze--and stared back. The giant eye that was turned in his direction was black, living coal. It did not have the flat death-in-life aspect of a shark's eyes, but a bright, almost amused, almost intelligent gleam.

  Anthony dropped to his hands and knees. He could bear to look no longer, but his legs would not work. The best he could do was kowtow to death as it prepared to clamp down. He remained in that position for over a minute--not so much blind to terror, but blinding himself against it. When he finally looked up and found the creature had once again disappeared behind the dunes, the terror did not fade. It lay festering inside of him. It slowed his movements, his thoughts, his soul. Pushing unsteadily to his feet, he could feel the beast looking out from within, convenient to the murder of his heart. God had borne down on him. God had laughed with raucous malice in his ear.

  God. Unmerciful. Unforgiving. Without design. Just God. And He was Death.

  Anthony staggered a short distance before realizing what he'd done. Still staggering, he retraced his steps and picked up his rifle. He might as well be dead. But he was still a marine.

  1507 Hours

  The two low sheds where all the Chinese save Bonehead maintained their quarters were undamaged, but empty. Lieber was surprised. The sand, marram grass and gooney bird nests nearby were twisted and flattened in giant swirls, as if the monsters had held a cotillion. The German imagined the Chinamen dashing for the shacks and being intercepted before reaching their spurious protection.

  Faint voices suddenly halted him. He circled around the huts. Behind them the sand crested where one of the creatures had turned sharply. He stopped and listened. The island was a caterwaul of screeching birds, panicked donkeys, and the drumbeat movements of the monsters. He had to wait several moments before hearing the shouts again. He found the spot along the ridge of sand where the shouting was loudest. Now he remembered: There had been a storm shelter here. He pounded his foot against the ground.

  The men below heard. Their cries grew frantic.

  He lay his rifle to the side and began scooping sand. The shouting grew louder, as though the trapped men believed they could hold Lieber in place with their voices.

  "Quiet down!" the marine hissed. "You'll be stuck here forever if I become knockwurst."

  The sand began to jump as the Chinese pushed at the storm door. A moment later they burst out, gasping for breath. A half hour more and they would have suffocated. Their sobs of gratitude were cut short when they saw the sinuous necks beyond the dunes.

  "Boat," Lieber whispered. "Boat."

  They knew the word. And when he pointed, they knew the direction. They took off for the lagoon with Lieber at their heels. Rounding a grassy hummock, he ran into Lieutenant Anthony. It had been about fifteen minutes since he'd last seen him, but the teniente wore the craggy expression of a man who'd just seen his wife die of old age. He said something.

  "Sir?" Lieber asked, not understanding.

  The lieutenant mumbled something else. Lieber could still not understand him. He pointed at the running Chinese. With an unintended pidgin lilt to his voice, he said, "Boat! Boat!"

  "Good...." Anthony nodded almost absently and followed.

  A rifle shot.

  Both marines stopped and looked back. One of the creatures had moved away from the trapped donkeys. It made quick darting movements as it came inland. A moment later, they saw the third volunteer racing in their direction.

  "He's leading it to the boat!"

  "He's leading it to us!" Lieber countered.

  They stepped back a few paces, then paused again.

  "Goddammit... goddammit...."

  Lieber shared Anthony's fear and frustration. "We can't leave. He's a stupid bastard."

  They kneeled and took aim.

  The creature swept up like a land-going cruiser behind the running marine. It was one of the smaller beasts. They aimed for its eyes and quickly learned what Ziolkowski had found out with his Rexer. With its whipping back and forth, scoring a head shot against the creature involved the wildest luck.

  Lieber was stunned by the magnificent impossibility of the brute, a planetary rhino at full gallop. What a thing to stuff, mount, contemplate--for you could not think reasonably about the impossible unless it was stuffed and mounted.

  The marine trying to escape was not so appreciative. He knew he was going to die. The knowledge forced his mouth and eyes open as if by sharp bamboo splinters. His howl of protest over his fate could barely be heard over the pounding limbs and the peculiar bleats of the creature. When he saw the long shadow of its neck descending from behind, he leaped sideways into a drainage ditch. The creature reacted deftly, as though it had trained for this very maneuver. Dirt and sand exploded as it rammed its snout into the ditch. There was a scream as it plucked the man out.

  Lieber did not know he was screaming also. He fired, advanced a few steps, fired again. The thing was impossible. It had to be controlled!

  But a volley of Prussian expletives proved as useless as bullets against the creature.

  "Come on!" Anthony shouted. Determined not to lose Lieber too, he slapped the back of his head to get his attention. "Marine! Follow me!"

  The creature let out an odd, resonant squeak. An instant later its green-striped partner poked its head up in curiosity, then began a monstrous scamper over the dunes in their direction.

  This was enough to convince Lieber. He and the lieutenant ran for their lives. They saw the motorboat already in the shallows, engine idling. The marine at the stern and the Chinese waved wildly, urging them on. Raising a splash as they hit the water, they tumbled over the gunwale at full tilt.

  "Where's--" the marine at the stern began.

  "Dead!" Anthony shouted. "Go!"

  Throttle opened, the boat surged forward. Its progress was distressingly slow. The two beasts gained on them. Lying in the bottom of the boat, gasping for breath, Anthony and Lieber were surprised to hear gunshots over their heads. The lieutenant turned over. To his dismay, he saw t
wo of the Chinese had taken up their Springfields and were blasting away.

  The Chinese ignored him and fired until they ran out of ammunition. Lieber jerked away as they reached into his haversack for more cartridges. He tried to stand. The boat gave a lurch and he banged against the thwarts. The Chinese held him down and pulled off his pouch.

  "Thieving Chinks!" Lieber cursed through bloody lips.

  Sitting up, Anthony saw what was prompting their defiance. The creatures were in the water not fifty yards away, coming on fast. The motorboat seemed to be sitting still, though the marine's white knuckles on the throttle showed they were making best speed. The lieutenant looked ahead. His heart sank. Sand Island seemed a world away. They weren't going to make it. He opened and closed his hands, as though contacting himself for the last time.

  Suddenly, the water around the creatures' heads erupted in a hundred narrow spouts. Ziolkowski's aim was impeded by the intervening motorboat, but that did not stop him from laying down a blanket of machine gun fire. The men in the boat shouted when strays hit the wood walls, throwing up painful splinters. But when they saw all the churning was confusing the beasts, they set up a silent cheer. Slowly, the boat pulled ahead.

  "We live!" one of the Chinese exulted.

  "Maybe...."

  Ziolkowski stopped firing the instant they hit the beach. "Back! Back!" he yelled.

  They raced inland. Lieber risked a glance backwards. Without the suppressing fire, the creatures quickly reoriented themselves. They were halfway out of the water.

  "Down! Down!"

  "We can't! They're--"

  Something sailed through the air.

  "Grenade!"

  The concussion felt like a steel plate knocked against their heads. Another explosion. This time, hearing the whiz of shrapnel, they dropped to the ground as the fire from the first explosion began setting off the other drums.

  The conflagration caught the green-striped creature as it straddled the line of drums. It yelped in terror as the fire jumped up around it. The other creature held back, emitting high-pitched squeaks of fear and commiseration.

  Baffled and singed, the green-striped creature fell back on the beach. It flopped in the sand, then rolled away from the fire and flopped in the water. The other creature scooted over and nudged it inquiringly.

  The lagoon blew--seemed to rise in the air. The high plane of water broke and the head of the largest monster emerged. The gas-fed flames whipped in circles as it let out a roar that caused the marines and Chinamen to melt into the ground with terror.

  Ziolkowski readied his machine gun for a last stand. His gray veteran eyes popped with disbelief at what happened next.

  The biggest serpent attacked the smaller, unburned creature. It slammed into its flank with a horrific body slap. The smaller creature let out a screech and dodged the flashing teeth. A great rip of blood spurted when it was caught at the shoulder, but it swerved sharply and escaped serious wounding. The larger creature chased it to the mouth of the lagoon, then turned and hurried back to Green Stripes, touching it dotingly with its muzzle and going over every inch like a concerned mother.

  The realization hit all the observers at once.

  "Mama Monster! And she thought the other one hurt that one."

  "Not so bright, after all...."

  The fire died out, but the men remained to watch. The two creatures in the lagoon paid no attention to them. The mother closely went over Green Stripe's hide again and again. The smaller creature did not seem badly burned--but appeared to enjoy the attention.

  XVI

  May, 1908  37°50'N, 126°06'W

  From the Deck Log of the USS Florida:

  Summary court awarded 12 marines 2 month's restriction for returning 2 hours late from liberty in SF and being drunk, disobedient, disrespectful and obscene; Mast awarded 3 marines 10 hours extra duty for leaving their posts; Mast gave Ship's cook 1/c 2 weeks restriction for drunkenness; 3/c Machinist Blovonske given a meritorious Mast; while in SF 12 enlisted men assigned by Naval Militia of the State of New York as replacements arrived by rail and were graded Seamen, Ordinary Seamen and Landsmen; sited strange sail to the north; Captain commented it reminded him of the unknown ship the Fleet encountered in the Caribbean (that mystery was never solved); stowaway discovered on board.

  The engine churned the superheated air with hundreds of gleaming insect legs. Rods, pistons, beating frantically, going nowhere. Gleaming like teeth in the midst of a bloody meal. Self‑consumption. Always the engineers were squirting lubrication on the intimate parts, priestly unguents for the anointed and the dying. At one point, during the wild turn around the Horn, oil had run short. The engineers substituted olive oil. The smell had been memorable.

  Feed valves hissed in back‑handed approbation as he passed through to the boiler room. Down here, men were able to convert fire and metal into 16,500 horsepower. One had only to feed the golden scarab to produce one of the mightiest powers on earth.

  This was not a metaphor for Fireman Gilroy. He'd invested too much attention on the mechanics, spent too many years feeding the beast, first on a Spanish tramp steamer, then for Cunnard, then for the American Navy. In all fleets, on all ships, the beast was the same.

  He'd recognized the golden scarab and its molten legs long before his first puff of opium; long before the night that mysterious sailor pumped gold liquid into his arm. The drugs merely threw off a disguise Gilroy had seen through years ago, when someone who claimed to be his father cut the throat of the woman who claimed to be his mother. Why had that been? Gilroy had often retraced the moments before the murder. The man who said he was his father had just brought home three herring from a market on Lewis Street. The fish were wrapped in a Yiddish newspaper. Nothing out of the ordinary about that. Manhattan's Lower East Side was a conglomerate of Old World Jews, as well as Galacians, Hungarians, Russians and Rumanians. The English language was as rare as a cool breeze between East Houston and Division. In fact, when some of those new characters called social workers showed up, the universal cry from the denizens of the tenements was: Luft, qibt mir luft. No one could breathe, it seemed. Gilroy could not imagine the meaning of fresh air.

  But he knew he would have herring that evening, and his mouth watered as he watched the woman who said she was his mother unwrap the package.

  "Well look at this, now," she said in her sad voice when she glanced at one of the articles on the wrapping. She swept away loose scales. "It's Mrs. Gould, now. She's gone and killed herself."

  The man grunted. "Another yid, that's all."

  "Go on, now. How can you say such a thing? You'll be knowin' her from the tobacco shop on Canal. Poor old Abe must be heartsick, and me not knowin' the funeral."

  "How do you know all this?" the man who said he was Gilroy's father asked.

  "I told you. It's right here in the paper."

  "That's a yid paper. Don't say you can read it."

  "Oh, some bits of it. What's the bother? Look: 'Genumen di gez.' The poor dear killed herself with gas. Even the boy can read it. Here...." She drew Gilroy's head over the fishy paper. "Don't tell me you can't read that."

  "Genumen di gez," Gilroy read obediently.

  "Now even you know you can't step out the door without hearin' it. So what's the harm if we read it, too?" With that, she took a knife and prepared to behead one of the fish.

  "Yes, what's the harm." And then the man who said he was his father smiled at the woman he called 'wife', took the knife gently from her hand, then quick as a trolley spark whipped it across her throat. Gilroy remembered blood pouring down upon the herring.

  He wondered: Was that really Gilroy who screamed and ran? Yes, of that he was fairly certain. He was a quick little runner, the boy called Gilroy. He'd almost made it to Hester Street before the man caught up with him. Somewhere, he'd dropped the knife, or else Gilroy would have died right there, in front of the Yiddish Rialto. But fists were something the man who called himself 'father' always had with him
. The boy's arm was yanked from its socket as he was whirled around. He saw the great fist come, but could not duck. The air rose with shouts in a half dozen languages just before the sky separated into two distinct entities.

  And in the crack was the golden scarab.

  They took him to the Beth Israel Hospital near Rutgers Square. Then someone said something and he was carted down to the East River and put aboard the Camp Huddleston Hospital Ship School, moored across from Corlears Hook Park. The medical students said something to a man who called himself a doctor, and the doctor said something to a man who called himself a policeman.

  Gilroy never found out what happened to the man who called himself his father.

  All he new was that a new force had entered his life.

  The golden scarab set in the evening, but quickly sprang back up with the gaslights. The only time it really bothered Gilroy was when it reached out with one of its molten pincers and snipped at a spot deep in his head. Still, one had to make a living no matter what bizarre creatures cropped up in the world.

  It was a short hop from the hospital training ship to the piers. Gilroy walked down one gangplank and up another--a deckhand at eleven years of age. His occasional howls of pain startled the rest of the crew, so he was sent to work below, out of earshot, in the deafening cacophony of the engine room. A few years as a grease monkey, on one ship or another. Then as a coal passer or stoker, on one ship or another. He found his happiest home on the Spanish tramp steamer, with an entire crew as demented as he was. But while off the coast of Africa, someone decided it would be amusing to open the sea cocks, and the ship went down in clear weather. After being rescued, Gilroy was able to find passage to England. It was there that he got a job on the Cunnard Line.

  In 1905, recruiters from the United States Navy began hanging around the piers where passenger liners were tied up. The Navy was having awful luck with stokers and coal passers. A bad lot, for the most part. Shoddy in appearance and manners, wasteful with coal, and at turning trials they refused to make the all‑out gut effort modern battleships needed to reach flank speed. It was decided a better breed of fireman could be had on the luxury liners, where speed was at a premium. So in a bit of authorized piracy, proven firemen were bribed away from their old jobs and into the service.