Mute

by Brian Bandell

  Aaron eyed the rifle. He doubted it would slow a creature boasting the size of horse and the constitution of a gator for long.

  He could try steering around it. That hadn’t worked with the possessed sea turtle. Those juiced-up horse legs could probably run down a Ferrari. If he felt like seeing Moni again—not to mention catching a wave on the bonsai pipeline one day—it would take a circus trick better than anything he had landed on his board. The half-baked plan sprouted from his brain in a flash. Aaron knew that if he wiped out, he wouldn’t paddle back ashore from this one.

  Accelerating to 40 miles per hour, he closed the distance on the mutant. The creature cracked its massive jaws open and wiggled a purple tongue that clamored for a taste of his innards. Aaron steered the ship to the right so hard that it felt like someone had slammed on the brakes. Except watercrafts weren’t built like cars. The skiff tipped over on its way to capsizing. Aaron leapt off the tail end of the boat. As he flew through the air in his scuba gear, the momentum carried him roughly in the direction of the dock. With a quick glance back, he saw the horse legs flatten the steering console that he had stood behind a second ago. The mutant tore through his boat, but the craft carried out a crucial final mission by knocking the hunter away from its real target.

  Aaron splashed chest down in the acidic water. So much for being like007 and landing on the dock with a martini in hand, he thought. His head bounced off the strange glassy surface on the bottom of the lagoon so hard that it cracked his face shield. Aaron stood up in the waist-high water before anything nasty penetrated his mask. He had overshot the dock, but he stood as close to the wall of stones lining the shore as he did to the pier. Seeing that the wood pillars were going crooked as the acid ate away at their bases, he chose the shore. Aaron prayed that the acid wouldn’t devour all of Merritt Island too.

  When Aaron lifted his left foot up, it stung like a bitch. He hoisted it out of the water and bent it across his waist so he could see his heel. His wetsuit had torn there. The acid hadn’t broken his skin, but it had burned it red.

  “Not much further,” Aaron muttered as he hopped on one leg across the slippery glass through the shallows. He moved a handful of inches at a time. If he put his left foot back in the water and toughed it out, he could reach shore in seven seconds. The vivid memory of Swartzman’s raw muscle, and bones boiling and his head falling off his body on its way to the worm-like colony kept Aaron’s exposed foot well above water.

  He heard a burst of water behind him. Without wasting time turning around, Aaron grimaced and plunged his exposed foot into the water. The acid scorched his heel. It felt as if he were wearing a red-hot skillet on his foot. As long as it didn’t burn though his skin and give the microscopic invaders an opening, he might make it. Something started threshing through the water at his back.

  In a few long bounds, Aaron reached the wall of stones lining the shore. He threw his exposed foot atop the barrier first. It throbbed as he pulled himself onto the rocks, and rolled onto the grassy shoulder along the road. He wiped his foot dry on the grass, but even that didn’t dull the burn. He ditched his scuba mask and tank. Before he could examine his heel, Aaron heard something smack the stone wall. Scooting back toward the road and taking sight of it, he saw milk white hands that didn’t belong to any true human.

  The dolphin flopped ashore under the strength of the arms welded on its torso. It flashed its jagged teeth at Aaron. Forgetting his throbbing heel for the moment, Aaron leapt to his feet and scurried backward. He didn’t understand why a dolphin would pursue him on land until it curved its tail underneath it so that its body formed a “C”. Then it posted its arms before it. The mutant resembled a backwards tricycle. Crawling with its arms and scooting on its tail, the dolphin made right for Aaron.

  He turned and ran down the street. Or he tried, at least. With his heel in such pain that he couldn’t set it down on the sun-baked asphalt, his left foot helped him as much as a peg leg. Frantically hobbling along, Aaron knew he could run ten times faster when healthy. He had two-thirds of a mile to go before he reached the bridge. He must have been right about the yuppies abandoning their waterfront homes, because he didn’t see a single car in the driveways. No one would bail him out with a rifle blast this time.

  He peeked over his shoulder, and didn’t feel all that good about what he saw: a huge set of enhanced dolphin jaws closing in on him. Even though it walked like a three-legged dog, the mutant still had a beat on him. And if he didn’t hurry it up, another one of its buddies might show up and split the meal.

  Screw the pain, he thought. Aaron shifted into a full sprint. Every time his exposed heel struck the hot pavement, the agony shot up his leg. He struggled to stay upright. He made it past two houses before he couldn’t take it any longer. Aaron settled for hobbling and knowing that he had bought a little more time. Then he caught sight of something awesome in one of the yuppies’ yards. He took back everything bad he ever said about them.

  Aaron scooped up the skateboard, set it in the street and hopped on. He only needed one good foot on there. Aaron sped away from the lumbering dolphin. Normally, he would have grinned and exclaimed something like, “Shredding!” but Aaron found no reason for celebration.

  He couldn’t run forever—not on a strip of land about a mile wide with a bridge over the deadly water separating him from the mainland. At least he still had a sliver of hope. Swartzman had nothing, thanks to him.

  Chapter 42

  The wind whipping across the balcony of the hotel’s sixteenth floor swept through Moni’s braids so that they bounced against her back and chest. Clutching Mariella’s hand as the little one stood beside her on the top floor of the barrier island’s tallest hotel, Moni didn’t worry about the wind pulling her woven braids loose. The scene unfolding on the lagoon below her captivated every corner of her mind.

  The water churned like a boiling kettle of soup. On both shores, the mangroves and docks that had rested in the lagoon were withering and melting like sticks of butter. The color faded from yellowish green to translucent yellow. She thought she could see the lagoon bottom in the shallows, but that couldn’t have been right. It looked too smooth and glassy.

  Mariella’s people were doing this. They had started building their home. Soon it would host the rebirth.

  But at what cost, Moni wondered. Before she could elaborate on that thought, a wave of newly-acquired memories engulfed her mind. She saw gleaming cities in perfectly clear seas. The structures were of flesh and metal. They moved in seamless harmony as they shuffled their inhabitants around. Moni could barely make out the creatures. She only saw purple dots from that high a vantage point. They flowed as elegantly as the notes of a symphony. A small slice of that world would do wonders on earth.

  When the images faded, she gazed at the girl who had given them to her. The faint purple glimmer in Mariella’s eyes no longer terrified her. It was beautiful. Now she had met the real girl that she loved.

  “I’ll bring your home back, baby. A lot of people won’t understand what you’re doing, but I’ll tell them you don’t mean them any harm. I don’t know if they’ll listen to me, but I’ll tell them.”

  Moni knew that Sneed wouldn’t listen. That’s why she didn’t answer his fourteen calls to her cell phone. It didn’t matter what he told her. He hated black people, purple people, and anything he didn’t understand. She wouldn’t let megalomaniacs like him demean her anymore.

  When her father called, she answered the phone immediately.

  “Hi dad. Almost here?”

  “Are you serious?” Bo Williams asked. “The lagoon looks like piss today. And it smells worse.”

  “Oh, we can see the water fine from here,” Moni said. Not only did she see the water, but through her binoculars she also saw her father’s rusty Camaro pull off the narrow strip of land just before the ramp to the Eau Gallie Causeway. It entered the parking lot, which granted access to the walkway underneath the bridge. He fished down there all the time. �
��I bet you won’t have a problem finding a parking space today.”

  “You don’t say. Your undercover cop car is the only one out here,” he said. Moni grinned. She had parked her Taurus near the bridge and used her badge as leverage to hitchhike to the hotel. He got out of his car and circled around Moni’s battered ride. She had covered Darren’s bloodstains in the back seat with a blanket, but the exterior was still smashed up. “Shit, what happened to this clunker?”

  Someone who drove a car that sounded like it had a trash compactor working under the hood didn’t have the right to call anything a clunker.

  “I was playing bumper cars with the Lagoon Watcher. That was before I choked him out and brought him in.” Now he couldn’t needle her for dealing with only kiddie stuff. He would finally get the message that she had grown into a tough woman and no longer a girl cowering in the closet.

  “Yeah, I saw his mug shot,” her father said. “I could have whooped his ass without getting a scratch. I heard he marked you up pretty good.”

  A normal father, after hearing that a man had hit his daughter, would break into jail and kick his teeth in. Moni’s father acted like he’d rather shake the man’s hand and give him some woman-beating pointers for next time.

  She had so many sharp words for him—poison-tipped words that had marinated within her for years—but she couldn’t unleash them now. Let him get onto the walkway first.

  “We got into a bit of a tussle, but I handled it,” Moni said. “Now come on. Your granddaughter can’t go fishing without your help. I never was any good at it.”

  “That’s because fishing is a sport of patience, and you got none of that,” he said as Moni watched him trot from his car over to the walkway. He wore a pair of crusty old jeans and a faded biker t-shirt—with no sign of fishing gear. “How the hell you think we’re gonna fish in this? If any fish are still alive in there, you can cook ‘em up yourself, darlin’.”

  She loved how he called her darling and suggested that she choke on toxic fish in the same sentence.

  “Don’t worry. I’ve got your monthly rent in my pocket,” she said.

  “Now we’re talking. I could get used to this grandfather deal. See you kids soon.”

  No you won’t.

  They both hung up. About halfway across the walkway underneath the bridge, he stopped walking and called her back. “Hiding again are ya? Well, there ain’t many hiding places ‘round here. Come on out before you piss me off.”

  He had threatened her when she hid in the closet too. He offered her a chance to come out before he broke in and laid his boots into her—as if the outcome would change if she approached voluntarily. She’d rather suffer in resistance than give him a shred of justification.

  She could do it now. He had strayed into range.

  “You don’t scare me anymore. You’re a broken down old man.”

  “Is that right, honey? Well, you looked mighty scared to me last time I paid your home a visit. I hope you brought that skinny punk again. I’d get a kick outta snapping his neck.”

  She hadn’t heard from Aaron since early that morning. She hoped he had listened to her and stayed away from the lagoon. Moni glanced at Mariella. She didn’t respond to that train of thought.

  “He’s sitting this one out. This is between you, me and Mariella, who, by the way, isn’t your granddaughter. You’re nothing but a stranger.”

  “You think you can raise her by yourself? She’ll be turning tricks on the street corner by the time she’s fifteen. Hell, that’s where you woulda been if I hadn’t taught you straight.”

  “Do you call the abuse you put me through teaching?” Moni nearly flung the phone over the balcony in a futile attempt to plunk him in the head with it. Her tears fell over the edge in its place. The droplets carried off into the swirling wind. “You had no right to do what you did to me. You had no right to touch me like that! You had no right to hit me and choke me and… say what you said…”

  “You been fucking up my whole life, you little whore! All you do is screw up!”

  Her trembling hand seized her ear, and a clip of braids, but it couldn’t muzzle her father’s yelling voice inside her head. The imprint of his harsh words still stung her even as her physical scars had long faded.

  “Have you ever slaved in a grease shop for a boss that didn’t give two shits about you? Can you imagine how I felt when I got home, and saw your mom with her fat ass on the couch and you dressing like a lil’ floozy and blabbering on the phone? I busted my ass every day. All you and your mother did was think of new ways to burn my paycheck.”

  “I don’t care. Okay? I don’t care why you did it. You had no reason to hurt me. And what you did to mom…”

  She remembered the sickening thump that reverberated through her wall when her father slammed her mother’s head on the other side. She heard her mother whimpering as she dropped to her knees. She heard her scream, “Don’t hurt my baby!” Another thump silenced her. Her mother tried to cover the bruises with makeup, but Moni could still see the blue and purple marks on her dark skin, and the swelling. Yet, she never whimpered about her own suffering. Her mother’s eyes looked upon her daughter in agony when they saw the scars she couldn’t prevent.

  Her spirit had been shattered so completely, that she couldn’t reassemble herself after he went to jail. The woman’s heart couldn’t take it. When her father sent her degrading letters, week after week, that blamed her for his arrest, she couldn’t throw them away. She read every one, and each of them pushed her closer to her casket.

  Moni had watched her mother die in a hospital bed; her heart had surrendered. The whole time, she asked herself why she had never called the police on her father, so her mother could escape.

  “Mom tried so hard, but she couldn’t fight you. I was too small, and afraid to keep you off her. How would I even think about it? What young child thinks of protecting their mother, instead of the other way around? That’s just it. I had no one to protect me, because you didn’t care. You thought your paycheck was all you owed me. I’d have rather gone to bed hungry every night with a loving family than have a monster like you as my father.”

  “Don’t turn your mother into a saint!” Her father kicked the walkway railing. Moni jerked her head back—even from miles away. “Oh, she pampered you when you cried like a bitch, at every little bump and bruise. She looked the other way when you flunked. There were no consequences with her. The way I was raised, if you screw up, you get the wood laid to you. My way got the job done. Hell, I wish you were a real cop and not on the Sesame Street beat, but at least you’re working.”

  “Oh, that’s right. I work so I can earn enough money to repay you for all the kind things you’ve done for me,” Moni said with more than a hint of sarcasm.

  “Damn straight. Now, if only you meant it. I toughened you up for the real world, Moni. The lessons I taught you saved you from the Lagoon Watcher. You can’t deny that.”

  Unbelievable, thought Moni. The yelling and the hitting that tormented her every day of her life had become her father’s fond memories of his strong parenting.

  Now Moni could return the favor. She could take pride in ridding the world of him. They could do that for her, and more, but only if she agreed.

  Peering at her father through binoculars, she saw an old man alone on a walkway to nowhere. He had lost his family and all but the most insensitive of his friends. He had paid a price. Yet, that was for abusing Moni’s friend once—not for hurting her and her mother dozens of times.

  What punishment would serve as retribution for me and my mother?

  Moni knew the answer. She also knew that she wasn’t the kind of person who did such a thing. As Mariella squeezed her hand, the memories returned more potent than ever. She had lost her first baby tooth when her father slapped her in the face. He had twisted her fingers until they swelled and she couldn’t hold a pencil straight. If she let him go again, he’d find another vulnerable child. She wouldn’t cower in the close
t any longer.

  “Dad, you’ve caused me nothing but pain. I’ve accomplished all of this, despite what you did to me. I owe you something, but it’s not gratitude.”

  “Yeah, I figured you’d say as much, you spoiled runt.” Her father peered underneath the walkway for his daughter’s hiding place. “You wanna pay up? Come out and greet me face-to-face. I got somethin’ for ya.”

  Moni lowered her binoculars. She couldn’t stand seeing him again, even from over a mile away. Mariella tightened her grip on her hand. She felt her soul flutter in and out of her body. They were listening to her. They wanted to know: Was she ready for it?

  “And while you’re at it, bring that girl along. I’ve got something for her too.”

  With her mouth to the phone and her mind to an instrument much more complex, Moni answered both of them at once.

  “The only thing I’m giving you is a trip to the grave. Say goodbye, daddy.”

  She didn’t need binoculars this time. Bursts of fire erupted from the lagoon on both sides of the causeway. One blast rocketed from directly beneath where her father stood. The simultaneous explosions ignited the hydrogen that the sulfuric acid in the lagoon had been spewing into the air. The massive columns of the causeway cracked and toppled into each other like trees bursting in a wildfire. Gray smoke smeared the sky. Moni couldn’t see her father amid the cloud of black smoke rising from the detonation site, but she saw that he wouldn’t die alone. The bridge tilted. A van swerved into the guardrail and plummeted over the side. It splashed into the water like a giant cannon ball. The passengers couldn’t even get the doors open before it sank amid the bubbling acid and flames.

  “What’s going on here?” Moni asked. No thoughts answered her this time. “You didn’t tell me this would happen. You…”

  It had begun. She had sworn that she would give Mariella her home. They had promised they would rid her of the men who harmed her. Their pact would soon be sealed.