Darkly Human

by Laura Anne Gilman

  “Good lad,” Captain said, somehow knowing who it was without looking back, as it passed from the boy’s hand to his own. Then he swung his body out, dangerously far over the water, only the rope and his one hand’s grip keeping him on the ship. His other hand, gripping the stave, reached out over the distance between ship and that reptilian head, and thwapped it soundly between plate-sized eyes, like St. George tagging the dragon.

  The serpent pulled back, the lower jaw dropping to show a double row of teeth. The Captain fell back, gagging as a miasma of dead fish washed over the deck.

  “Back, beast; your breath will kill!”

  The head ducked, as though hearing and considering his words, and the Captain whooped, charging forward again. The serpent slipped a few length back from the boat, as though conceding the game – then surged forward and knocked the madly-gesturing human off the rail with a hard blow of that massive pointed head.

  “Captain!” The voice rose from half a dozen throats, Oliver’s included.

  Herself wasted no more time with foolishness. “All fire! Now!”

  Fuses were lit and the portside cannon jerked in a harsh syncopation of shot, puffs of smoke rising into the air with an acrid smell.

  The serpent ceased swimming, the eyes showing what Oliver swore was surprise in their depths, and the great head sank, slowly, out of sight, until only ripples on the waves remained.

  Of the Captain, despite all efforts, there was no sign.

  The creak of the sails overhead matched the groan of the wood as Herself paced back and forth across the cabin’s floor. A glass of port was in her hand, but she had not taken a sip for a dozen or more paces

  “Why did he do it?” Herself asked. “Why did the beast follow us to begin with?”

  “It wanted to see what we would do,” Oliver said once again, calmly washing one paw. “It was waiting for someone to play with it.”

  “Play. Madness.”

  Oliver had no shoulders with which to shrug. Humans and serpents, he understood neither one.

  “And play he did, did our man.” Herself – the newly-elected Captain – drank from her glass, then, a long hard pull that left the glass half-empty. “Two foolhardy fools, daring each other, risking – what? Why? What game is worth dying for? Gems, gold, land, that sort of prize I can understand. A game of…what? Of tag? How on god’s green sea can you tell who won?”

  She shook her head, and placed her empty glass down neatly on the table. ” And now he’s played his last, and the ship, damn him, is mine. I’m for bed, cat. A night’s sleep and a day’s work and maybe the world will make sense again. Turn down the lamp when you’ve done.”

  “Good night, captain,” Oliver said.

  Captain’s footsteps sounded through the cabin, then the hiss of a sulphur match, and a low glow came from under the door of her bedchamber, followed by the soft sounds of her settling into her bunk.

  Birds and men might question, but he was a cat, a practical creature, and he took things as they happened. Captain would do well by them, in her own sober way. The ship would sail into profit, and occasional battle, and the crew would reap the benefits of both in proper and orderly fashion. Those were the prizes and risks the crew signed on for.

  There were some, though, who could not be sated with wealth, or exhausted by sweat; he remembered the Captain-as-was’s mad grin glinting, the swoop of his sun-browned hand as he reached out toward the unknown, his hesitation and unhappiness gone, and thought that Herself had it wrong.

  The world didn’t make sense, and everyone lost, in the end. All you could hope for was to go out in style. For some, that was draped in gems, for others glory – and for some, the true pirates, it was surrounded by undiscovered scenery, chasing the final unknown – and the stories you would leave behind.

  As the last of the lamp’s light flickered and died, Oliver curled comfortably on the desk and rested his chin on his paws, his tail curled over his nose, and fell asleep to the slow rocking of the ocean.

  It wasn’t only cats who could live nine times, after all.

  Exposure

  The timer clicked, a cicada in the dark. Lifting the tongs off their rest, he swirled the paper gently; watching, judging. Good to go by the rules, better to work by instinct. Finally judging it complete, he lifted the sheet out of its bath, placing it in another shallow tub and turning the water on, cold, over it.

  The music played, one cd after another, continuous shuffle so that he never knew what would come up next: Melissa Etheridge, Vivaldi, the exotic noises of a rain forest. It suited his mood, prepped him for the evening’s work. For now the lilting strains of “The Four Seasons” kept him company. Tugging at his ear where it itched, he studied the image floating face-up at him. Satisfied, he lifted it between two fingertips, shaking some of the wetness off. Turning off the water, he transferred the print to his right hand and reached out to flick the toggle switch on the wall next to the room’s exit. Stepping into the revolving door, he pushed the heavy plastic with one shoulder and emerged from the darkroom.

  Blinking in the sudden fluorescent lighting, he cast a glance over his shoulder to make sure that the warning light had gone off, then carried the print over to the line strung across the far end of the studio. Clipping it to the line, he stepped back to examine the other prints already there. Several, most notably the three shots of the hookers talking over coffee, leaning intently across the table to get in each others’ faces, pleased him. Others were less successful, but overall he was satisfied. Checking his watch once again, he took off the stained apron he wore, hung it on a hook beside the door, shut off the stereo, and went to take a shower. Time to go to work.

  “Hey, Westin!”

  He slung the bag more comfortably over his shoulder, and stopped to wait for the overweight Latino cop who chugged up alongside him.

  “Going out again tonight, huh?”

  “As I’ve done every night this week,” Westin replied. “And the week before that.”

  “But not the week before that,” the cop said.

  “But the entire month before that I didn’t miss a single night. So why are you asking now?”

  The cop ignored the slight edge to Westin’s voice. “There’s some weirdo out there, past few nights. Scared the hell out of a couple slits Tuesday, cut into their business too. Guy’s wearing pampers and some kinda bonnet, according to reports. If you happen to run into him…”

  “I should take his picture for your album?”

  “The brass’d be thankful. And ya gotta know the Post’d pay for that picture. Anyway, keep your eyes out.”

  “I always do,” Westin said, holding up his camera. He watched with detached affection as the cop loped back to his post, holding up a wall in the upper hall of the Port Authority. Swaddling and a bonnet. That was a new one. He could certainly understand johns keeping away, but why were the hookers afraid of him?

  Westin thought briefly about following up on it, then put those thoughts away. If he came into the viewfinder, then would be the time to wonder. For now, there was the rent to pay. He stepped into the men’s room to moisten his contact lenses, darkened to protect his hypersensitive eyes. Another thing to bless technology for. Even he couldn’t take photographs through sunglasses.

  Leaving the bustling noise of the terminal, he exited into the sharp cold night of Eighth Avenue and paused. Where to go? Where were the pictures, the images waiting for him to capture? He turned in a slow half-circle, ignoring the line of dinner-hour cabs waiting in front of him, letting his instinct pick a direction. There. The hot white lights were calling him.

  Walking briskly, he cut cross-town, one hand on his camera, the other hanging loosely by his side. The sidewalk hustlers and gutter sharks watched him pass, recognizing a stronger predator. But the hookers, ah, the hookers were another story. They swarmed to him, offered him deals, enticements. He did love women so, their softness hiding such strong, willful blood. But he was not feeding tonight. At least, not of that.
Tonight was for a different passion.

  Bypassing Times Square itself, he wandered the side streets, catching the occasional sideways stare from well-dressed theater-goers on their way from dinner to their entertainment. Only the expensive Konica hanging by his side kept them from assuming he was a panhandler. The long trench had seen better decades, and not even the Salvation Army had been able to find anything nice to say about his boots except for the fact that they had once been sturdy. And the less said about his once-white turtleneck, the better. But he preferred these clothes, using them the same way wildlife photographers hid within camouflaged blinds. He was stalking wildlife as well, a form that was more easily spooked than any herd of gazelles or solitary fox.

  For the next seven hours he took shot after shot of the ebb and flow of humanity around him, occasionally moving to a new spot when people became too aware of him, or, more accurately, of the camera. His choices satisfied him. The elderly woman in rags stepping over a crack in the sidewalk with graceful poise. The businesswoman striding along, topcoat open to the bracing wind. Two too-young figures doing a deal with brazen indifference to the mounted policeman just yards away, and the cop’s equal indifference to their infractions. The hooker holding a styrofoam cup in her hands, the steam rising to her face, taking delicate sips. He loved them all, carefully, surreptitiously, with each click of the shutter, every zoom of the lens to catch their expressions, the curve of their hands, the play of neon across their skin. He could feel the beat of their blood, pulling him all unwilling, and he blessed the cold which kept their scents from him. He couldn’t afford the distractions.

  Stopping in a Dunkin’ Donuts to pick up a cup of coffee, he dug in his trench pocket for a crumpled dollar bill to pay for it. “Why can’t you carry a wallet?” he could hear Sasha complain. “That way when someone finally puts you out of your misery I’ll know to collect the body.” Lovely, long-suffering Sasha. But she forgot her complaints when he had a show ready for her pale white walls, secure in her status as Michael Westin’s only gallery. For three long, hungry years she had supported him, and for the last eleven he had returned the favor.

  He understood obligation, and needing, and the paying of debts.

  Finally he came to the last roll of film he had prepared for the night, He took it out of the pouch hanging from his belt and looked at it, black plastic against the black of his thin leather gloves. High speed black and white, perfect for catching moments silhouetted against the darkness, sudden bursts of light and action. His trademark.

  One roll left. He still had time to shoot this roll before heading home, still subjects to capture.

  Or he could try again, a little voice whispered inside his head. There was time.

  Shaking his head to silence the unwanted voice, he removed the used film from the camera, marking it with the date, location and a identifying number, then replaced it in the pouch. Still the unused film sat in his palm. He could reload the camera, finish the evening out. Or he could save it for the next trip, cutting the session short and going home. At the thought his lips curled in a faint smile. Home to where Danielle slept in their bed, her hair fanned out against the flannel sheets. She would be surprised to see him, surprised and pleased, if he knew his Dani.

  Or you could try again.

  “Damnit, enough!” He would be a fool to listen to that voice, a fool to even consider it. Hadn’t the three attempts been enough to teach him that? If the third time wasn’t a charm, then certainly the fourth was for fools. And his kind didn’t survive by being fools.

  But still the thought lingered, caressing his ego, his artist’s conceit. He could picture the shot, frame it perfectly in his mind. The conditions were perfect tonight, the location tailor-made. It would be the perfect finish to this show, the final page of the book he knew Sasha would want to do.

  Stuffing the thought back into the darkness of his mind, he deftly inserted the black cartridge, advancing the shutter until the camera was primed. He cast one practiced eye skyward. Four a.m., give or take fifteen minutes. He had another hour, at most, before he would have to head home, wrap his head under a pillow and get the few hours of sleep he still required before locking himself in the darkroom to develop this night’s work. Then dinner with Dani, and perhaps he would take tomorrow night off. Fridays were too busy to get really good photos. Better to spend it at home, in front of a roaring fire, and his smooth-necked, sweet-smelling wife and a bottle of her favorite wine.

  You work too hard, she had fussed at him just last month, rubbing a minty-smelling oil into his aching muscles after a particularly grueling night hunched over the lightboard, choosing negatives. Always pushing, always proving. You don’t have anything to prove.

  But he did. Had to take better photos, find the most haunting expressions, the perfect lighting. All to prove to himself that he was the photographer his press made him out to be, and not just some freak from a family of freaks, that his work was the result of talent and dedication, not some genetic mutation, a parasite on human existence.

  Shh, my love, he could hear Dani whisper. I’m here, and I love you. She would whisper that, baring her neck so that he might graze along that smooth dark column, feel the pulsing of her blood…

  He swore, cutting of those thoughts before his body reacted to the thought of her strength, her warmth. Jamming his hands into the pockets of his trench, he watched the street theater, looking for something that would finish the evening on a positive note, leave him anxious to see the proof page. But the street was empty for the moment, leaving him with the little voice, which had crept back the moment his attention was distracted. The perfect photograph, it coaxed him. Something so heart-breakingly perfect, that only you could create. Otherwise this exhibit is going to end on a downer, and there’s enough of that in this world, isn’t there?

  Cursing under his breath, he scared off a ragged teen who had sidled up next to him. Westin watched the kid’s disappearing backside with wry amusement. It had been a long time since anyone had tried to mug him, and he would have given the boy the twenty or so bucks he had in his pocket, just to reward such chutzpa.

  Checking the street one last time, he sighed and gave up. Time to call it a good haul, and head on home. To bed, perchance to screw, and then to sleep. Hanging the camera strap around his shoulder, he adjusted the nylon webbing until the shoulder patch fit snugly against his coat.

  There’s still film left, the little voice said, sliding and seducing like a televangelist. Can’t go home with film left.

  “I’ll take shots of some of New York’s finest,” he told himself. Fragile humans, holding back the night. It would be a good image, and it would please Miguel to be included. And Tonio, his partner. Kid was so green his uniform squeaked when he walked. Veteran and rook, side-by-side, against the squalor of the bus terminal. Maybe he’d catch them in an argument.

  He could see that, frame it in his head. The possibilities grew, flicking across the screen of his head fast enough to wipe all thoughts of That Shot out of his head. By the time he reached the corner of Seventh Avenue, he had it all planned out. Stopping to look up at the still-dark sky, he thought he could see just the faintest hint of light creeping skyward from the east. False dawn. At home, he would be watching the deer come down from the wooded area to eat his bushes. He had done an essay on them for National Wildlife which paid well enough to replace the rosebushes the hoofed terrorists had devoured the spring before.

  Waiting at the light on the corner of 41st and Eighth, something made him tilt his head to the right. There. By the chain-link fence protecting an empty lot. A shadow that wasn’t a shadow. His soothing thoughts broke like mirror shards, and he turned his head to stare straight across the street. Live and let live. The fact that he chose not to Hunt — did not, in fact, have to — did not mean others might not. Only once had he made it his concern, when a kinswoman had gotten messy, leaving corpses over the city — his city. His mouth tightened as he remembered the confrontation that had follo
wed. He hadn’t wanted to destroy her — but he wasn’t ready to end his existence yet either. And letting her continue was out of the question.

  Only fools saw humans as fodder. They were kin, higher in some ways, lesser in others, but in the balance of time, equal. He believed that, as his father had believed that, raising his children to live alongside the daylight-driven world as best they could, encouraging them to build support groups, humans — companions — that would offer so that they need not take. It was possible, his father had lectured them, to exist without violence. And so they had. And the daylight world had given him good friends, a loving wife - and the means to express the visions which only his eyes could see.

  With that thought in mind, he turned slowly, looking up at the sky behind him. False dawn. It was almost upon him.

  The perfect photograph. It would only take one shot. One exposure, and then it’s done.

  A scrap of memory came over him. “If it t’were done, t’were best done quickly…” Damn. Damn damn damn damn.

  It seemed almost as though another person took control; moved his body across the street, dodged the overanxious cabs turning corners to pick up the last fare of the night. Someone else walked across the bare floor of the terminal that even at this hour still hosted a number of grubby souls wandering, some slumped over knapsacks, asleep, some reading newspapers or staring down into their coffee as though it held some terrible answer. His hand powered by someone else reached for the camera, holding it as though a talisman, a fetish.

  Standing on the escalator, he watched out of habit, his mind already on what he was going to do. He could feel it pulling him, a siren’s song, and he cursed himself. But he couldn’t stop, no more than the first three times he had tried. Tried, and failed.

  Crossing over to the next level of escalators, he paused at the first step, willing his body to stop, turn around, get on the bus that would take him home. Only a fool would continue, only a madman. Looking down, he saw first one boot, then the other, move on to the metal steps, his left hand grasping the railing. With his right hand he fingered the camera’s casing, stroking his thumb over the shutter button.