“Nothing happened,” David said. “Nothing.”
His one chance at life, lost because of the betrayal of a single tear. And hadn't he thought then that dying with the only people he'd ever cared about was better than living in Tockland? But now, away from Mattock and back in the cell with the sickness and the stink, he questioned his own sanity. Physically, he felt better, the strange healing liquid already doing its work, but it wouldn’t save him. Not now.
“Did he threaten you, torture you, what?” Annabelle asked. She looked unwell, all the color drained from her face, eyes bloodshot, beads of sweat on her forehead and upper lip.
“He decided I’m already ruined and sent me back here to die,” David said.
“Oh.” Annabelle stuck a finger in her mouth and rubbed at her gums, wincing all the while. “Telly and Gooty are worse,” she said, after a moment. “I’ve never seen the sickness progress this fast. I’ve known people to have it weeks, months, years even.”
“A strong dose,” David said.
Telly, as if in response, moaned. Annabelle reached over and patted him on the back.
David wedged himself in between the toilet and wall and sat down. The creature in the pool, the source of death and of healing—he could still taste the slime, like a film of dirt on his tongue. He debated whether or not to tell the others. Would it make them feel any better to know that a source of healing was only a few corridors away but unreachable? He thought not. Better, perhaps, to waste away together, believing they had done all they could do.
Cakey stirred suddenly and began pacing back and forth, but since the cell was so narrow, it took only three steps to get from one wall to the other. As he paced, he ran his fingers through his hair, grabbing great fistfuls and tugging on it until he grimaced in pain.
“Would you stop that?” Annabelle said.
“What, the hair pulling, the pacing or the ugly faces?”
“All of the above,” she said.
Cakey paced two more times for good measure, then crouched down on the floor.
“He made you an offer,” he said, pointing at David. “The general, he made you an offer, yes?”
“Well…uh, yes, actually,” David replied. How could Cakey have known about that? “He offered me a place in Tockland, if I would renounce all ties and swear allegiance to him.”
“That's what tyrants do. They make offers,” Cakey said. “You didn't take it.” Not a question.
David shook his head.
“Oh, David,” Annabelle said sadly. “You should have. Why die with us?”
“I thought not,” Cakey said. “Yes, he saw promise in you when you cut down Officer Mayes, when you pierced her heart.” He mimed stabbing a knife and slashing upward.
“Please, don’t talk about that. I don’t want to think about it ever again. I didn’t want to kill her.”
Cakey hopped to his feet and resumed pacing, his mouth hanging open, eyes flitting back and forth. He looked more demented than ever. Annabelle asked him to stop half a dozen times, and he ignored her, even picking up his pace a little bit.
“You know what I always hated the most?” he asked, to no one in particular. “Walking offstage. That’s what I always hated the most. In character, on stage, in the spotlight, yes, that’s where I wanted to be, always. Always. Gavril...Gavril Tugurlan of Kurpmignid. An uninteresting fellow.”
“Why are you talking about this now?” Annabelle said. “Haven’t we argued about it a hundred times? Let it go.”
Cakey did not seem to hear her. His eyes were cast upward, as if speaking to some invisible face in the air above him. “I hated taking off the makeup, removing the costume, turning back into that sad sack of a man. Ah, but Cakey, silly name, yes, yes, but that character on the stage, commanding audiences, flawless in all his ways. The solution seemed ever so simple, didn’t it? Yes, didn’t it indeed? Never leave the stage, that’s it. Never leave the stage.”
“Are you sharing this for David’s sake?” Annabelle asked. “Because, as you know, I am all too familiar with the story. And let’s be honest, the real reason you never wanted to break character is because you felt responsible for Josefina’s death. Gavril got her killed by escalating the fight with the rubes. Gavril did that, not Cakey—or so you told yourself—so let’s never be Gavril again. Skin dye, hair plugs, whatever it takes. Wasn’t that the thought process? Let’s never be Gavril again, no matter how much it might hurt the woman you loved, right?”
Cakey stopped pacing, and his eyes, as if tracing a falling raindrop, descended down to her. “I never said I loved you.”
Annabelle reacted as if slapped, then set her jaw and tipped her head to one side. “Maybe not,” she said, tightly. “But you implied it. Jerk. ”
“Implied it,” Cakey echoed, ignoring the insult. “Yes, I suppose that’s right. I probably felt it, but Gavril would never have said it. He was always mixed up, wasn’t he? Never knew what was right, what was best, what to feel or think or say. He confused you, but he couldn’t help it. Don’t take it personally.”
“Why would I take it personally?” Annabelle said bitterly. “It doesn’t matter. I’m over it, and I’m over you.” She leaned her head back against the wall. “And both Gavril and Cakey are going to die here in Tockland, so will you please sit down and stop talking?”
Cakey smiled at her, and, for once, none of the madness showed in the smile. There was genuine affection, and a glint in his eyes. And he did sit, but cross-legged, his hands clamped onto his knees.
“My grandmother had a saying,” he said softly. “Nu iese fum fără foc.”
“What does it mean?” David asked, when Cakey offered no translation.
“I don’t know,” Cakey said, after a moment. “Something about destiny, I think, but I can see her face, wrinkled as an old plastic bag, her hands pressed to my cheeks. I hear her voice, whisper quiet. She saw the world ending, and she wanted me to stand firm.”
He bowed his head and his eyes narrowed. Finally, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly through his teeth.
“I feel destiny welling up inside of me,” he said.
Annabelle sighed and closed her eyes. An awkward silence followed and filled the room with a depressing heaviness. David hated the idea that they would spend their last days—or mere hours, perhaps—barely speaking, Telly and Gooty unconscious, Annabelle seething, Cakey lost in strange thoughts. He had spent so much of his life in silence, and now he longed to hear friendly voices.
“So,” he said, trying to think of something to say. And, really, there was only one thing to talk about, after all. Despite his better judgment, he blurted it out. “Mattock is responsible for the sickness. He showed me.”
That comment went off like a grenade in the tiny cell. Annabelle swung her head to face him. Cakey turned. Telly roused himself on the cot and rolled over to look at him. Even Gooty opened his eyes and struggled to find him.
“Responsible?” Telly said, his voice thick with phlegm and pain. “Wha’mean? In the water, right?”
David chewed on his lip, biding time, wondering how much to tell them. And, in the end, he decided to tell them everything. About Wormwood, the burning mountain, falling out of the sky during a meteor shower, about finding the mysterious creature among the rubble, about the spore clouds released from its tail and the healing liquid oozing from its pores. He told them everything, as best he remembered it.
“Dear God,” Annabelle said in a breath, when he was done, pressing feeble fingers to her lips. “Can it all be true?”
“I drank the liquid myself,” David said. “I can feel it healing me.”
Telly groaned and buried his face in his arms. “Nu’n we can do ‘bout it,” he said. “Locked in here.”
“He said they awakened the creature when they found it,” Cakey said. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know for sure,” David said. “Except that it apparently killed a bunch of people. It’s sleeping now.”
Cakey r
ose to his feet and backed into a corner near the cell door. He pressed his hands together in a strangely prayerful gesture and grinned so broadly it looked painful. “Fragments in my mind coming together,” he said in a voice that sounded choked. “One vision, one destiny, one path.”
“Stop,” Annabelle said. “That’s not helping.”
“How are you feeling, David?” Cakey asked. “Are you at full strength?”
“Better than I was,” David said, testing himself by stretching his arms. “Hungry and tired, but other than that—”
“Will you embrace destiny with me?” Cakey said. “Will you embrace it fully and without reservation?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
Cakey started to say something else—or, at least, make some kind of noise—but he stopped suddenly. They heard the sound of boots in the corridor again, the rattle of chains, and the plastic and metal clink of rifles. Annabelle laid a hand on the back of Telly’s head, as if to shield him from what was coming. Gooty lifted his head briefly, looked around with one bleary eye, then lay down again.
The cell door opened, revealing Captain Helt and a handful of soldiers. In the front, framed in the doorway, was a young soldier clutching a fistful of handcuffs—not plastic strips but heavy chains. His eyes flicked from the sick lying on the floor to Cakey to the captain.
“You are all to come with me,” Captain Helt said.
“What about these two?” Annabelle asked, patting Telly and Gooty. “They’re too sick to walk.”
“You are all to stand, be cuffed and follow me,” Captain Helt said. “Those are my orders. Refusal to do so will be considered disobedience and treated accordingly.”
“Are we to be killed, then?” she asked.
“You are already being killed, even as we speak,” Helt said coldly.
“Mattock wants to make a spectacle of us,” David said. “Whatever that means. That’s what he told me.”
Cakey clapped his hands and did a little dance. “A spectacle! That sounds exciting. Count me in. I've been yearning for a nice, rousing spectacle.”
At the sudden movement, Captain Helt’s hand went to the grip of his pistol. “Good, then you can be first. Step forward.” He pointed to a spot just in front of the lead soldier.
Cakey presented his wrists, palms up as if in supplication, and stepped to the door. The lead soldier shook a pair of handcuffs out of the pile and reached for Cakey’s wrist.
“Destiny!” Cakey shrieked.
The sudden sound caused everyone to flinch, and Cakey seized the opportunity. He grabbed the soldier by the upper arms, clamped down tight and drew him in, as if he meant to kiss him. Instead of a kiss, however, he cocked his head to one side, opened his mouth and bit down on his nose. It all happened in a fraction of a second. And then the soldier screamed, dropped the handcuffs and tried to pull free. Blood spurted out of both sides of Cakey’s mouth like juice from a crushed grapefruit. When he couldn’t pull free, the soldier started punching wildly with both hands, hitting Cakey in the ribs, the stomach, the back, but Cakey did not respond to the blows.
Captain Helt, caught off guard, only realized what was happening when blood spattered his cheek. He uttered a little bark of surprise and drew his pistol. But Cakey moved the soldier between them and forced Helt back against the door frame, pinning his arm against his belly, so the pistol was pointed at the ground.
The soldiers in the corridor now understood what was happening. Rifles were slipped off shoulders, but nobody had a clear shot at Cakey. Helt slipped his arm free and moved his hand above his head, as Cakey and the soldier, still connected at the nose—blood poured down the soldier's face into his open, screaming mouth—struggled. The soldier gave up trying to punch Cakey loose and reached for his pistol, but Cakey caught his hand just as he drew it out and wrestled it away. Captain Helt brought his gun over the soldier’s shoulder, aiming down in an attempt to shoot Cakey from above, but Cakey brought his pistol up first, aimed at Helt’s hand, and pulled the trigger. The bang was deafening. Annabelle clamped her hands over her ears. Telly buried his head deeper into the nest of his arms.
The tip of Helt's thumb dissolved in a spray of blood. His hand flew backward, losing its grip on the pistol, which sailed over the heads of the soldiers in the corridor and landed somewhere out of sight. Cakey released the soldier’s nose, leaned back, shot him in the chest and shoved him out the door.
All of this happened in a few short seconds, too fast for David to react, but the fire was in him now, rising quickly, burning through flesh and bone, filling his heart. He rose to a crouch, every muscle tensing, looking for his moment. Cakey was a blur. As the soldier fell into the hallway, the others scrambled to get out of the way, while at the same time trying to bring their rifles up for a clean shot. Cakey seized Helt by the throat. Helt, in turn, seized Cakey by the throat, but Cakey proved the stronger of the two. He turned Helt’s body and made it a shield as he stepped through the door.
Once in the corridor, and despite the fact that the captain continued trying to crush his windpipe, Cakey stuck the pistol around Helt’s body and fired on the other Tockland soldiers. David leapt to his feet and moved toward the door. He heard a bullet ping off the ceiling somewhere above his head, as the soldiers returned fire.
“Don’t shoot, you idiots,” Captain Helt said. He had given up on choking Cakey and was now clawing at his face, trying to get at his eyes. “He’s stronger than he looks. Run and sound the alarm. We need—”
Cakey smashed his forehead into Helt’s face, and Helt stopped speaking mid-sentence and went limp. Cakey resumed firing until he ran out of ammo. David dared to peek around the edge of the door and saw half a dozen black uniforms. Three were down, another crawling away, bleeding from the neck, and two more had turned and fled down the hallway toward the guard station. Cakey shoved Helt to the floor, stepped over him, picked up a rifle from one of the dead and aimed at the retreating figures.
He shot one in the lower back, and the man crumpled, sliding a few feet on the slick tile floor. He shot the other just before he reached the guard station, but the soldier kept running. It took two more shots to bring him down. And then all was still. David stood there, gaping, for long seconds. Finally, Cakey turned to him, breathing heavily.
“Long way yet to go, Disturby,” he said.
“You just took out half a dozen armed guards in seconds,” David said.
Cakey nodded. “Destiny has a funny way of making things irrelevant. Superior numbers, for example.”
He handed the rifle to David. David hesitated a moment before taking it. What was he being asked to do here? Yes, Cakey had taken out six armed men plus their captain, but there remained countless soldiers throughout the surrounding building. There wasn’t enough ammo to shoot them all. Still, it seemed wiser to be armed, even in a hopeless situation, so he accepted the weapon. Cakey poked his head back into the cell. Annabelle had pulled Gooty and Telly into the corner, tucking Telly behind the sink, Gooty between the toilet and wall.
“What was the point of that?” she asked. “They’ll just send more soldiers and more guns. And these two aren’t going anywhere in their condition.”
“Well, I’ll have a blaze of glory before I die,” Cakey said. He picked up another rifle from another dead body and brought it into the cell. “Look, I have a beautiful plan, all the little pieces neatly fitted together, thanks to our good friend, Disturby David. Take this.” He handed her the gun.
“Why? You expect me to go with you and leave Telly and Gooty here all alone?”
“No, I expect you to stay with them,” Cakey said. “Defend them if need be.”
She took the rifle, examined it and set it on the floor beside her. “Okay, fine, I can do that.”
And with that, Cakey left the cell and shut the door, tapping it a couple of times before turning away as a kind of strange farewell. He looked at David.
“Brother, will you embrace destiny with me?”
Da
vid was shaking with rage and fire. He struggled to hold the rifle still. What did it even mean to embrace destiny? To fight a hopeless battle and die together? Yes, David thought he could do that. At least they would not be made a spectacle. At least he would not have to watch Annabelle die a slow, excruciating death from sickness.
“Yes, I will,” he said. “I will embrace destiny with you.”
Were they vastly outnumbered, was there every certainty that the endless streams of armed Tockland soldiers would take them out sooner or later? Yes and yes, but somehow, at that moment, seeing the bodies in their black uniforms cast about, the silver star of Tockland mingled with blood, thinking of Karl and the endless sick, he didn’t care. He would die shooting his way into the heart of hell.
Captain Helt tried to sit up. Cakey kicked him in the face, and he slumped down again. Then Cakey reached down, grabbed him by the collar and hoisted him up, holding him against his chest with one arm. Despite the fact that the captain was almost as tall as Cakey and a bit thicker, Cakey seemed to have little trouble bearing his weight as he started down the hallway. Still, the sight of the captain slumped over Cakey’s shoulder, bleeding profusely from his hand and face, was a disturbing sight.
“Why not leave him here?” David said. “We’ll lock him in a cell, if you want, so he can’t cause any trouble.”
“This fine captain here has work yet to do,” Cakey said. “He has one good hand left, and we shall need it. Now, embrace destiny and don’t question it, my friend. Come on.”
“Okay,” David said.
They stepped over the bodies of the dead. David retrieved a pistol in passing, slipping it into the pocket of his clown suit. Because the suit was a few sizes too large, the pistol sank down almost to his knee.
Shadows of Tockland Page 33