by Eric Ellert
Coffins stuck down from the ceiling, others lay broken-up along the ground before them, some of the bones scattered, some partly mummified in old-fashioned lime.
Faudron cried, knowing for sure where the werewolves had gotten their suits, and worse, they hadn't dug down, they'd dug up. She shook her head pointing back the way they had come.
Rau pulled his mouthpiece out and pointed up. "It's only six feet up, maybe a little more."
"Have you no heart, Rau?"
She wanted him to argue, to feel sorry for the horrors of the horrible world, to say that yes, they were not his dead, but hers and for her sake he'd honor them and run, pretending forever that this never happened but all he said was, "It's the practical thing to do."
And she knew he might have a heart but not a human heart. If they had a future, it was going to be very difficult. She smiled, no time to become maudlin. "Back to the back there, we were...beyond. That right?" she asked.
Rau nodded and they backtracked. Luckily the wolves were gone, smart-enough to know that they could flood the tunnel with carbon-monoxide when they chose to.
Fifteen minutes later, they made it to the glowing room with the water ceiling. Rau was breathing hard, which was strange; he ought to be used to this.
Faudron ducked under the ceiling water trying to get a look up, but it was too cloudy, full of dead wolf dust. "How do we?"
Rau helped her put her helmet on and pulled the mouthpiece off her canister and attached the canister to her suit, opening the valve wide. A few seconds later, the suit bulged out, pressurizing her ears and making it difficult to move her arms, which stood outstretched like a doll's. "Did you ever see that movie with the gorilla with the fish tank space helmet, that you –"
Rau looked at her as if she was stupid for making the same mistake twice. Of course he couldn't hear her. That was the funny thing about Rau, he was trustworthy but unpleasant.
Faudron made a scratching motion with her hands as if the werewolves might still be up there.
Rau didn't answer and pushed her forward until they were stooped beneath the water, then he took her by the arms and made her stand.
They floated to the surface pulled by their helmets. The fabric on Faudron's suit strained at the neck, tearing at the dried-out stitching, water seeping against her face and she spun around with no way to move her arms fast-enough to direct herself but something was different; she brushed against trees and the branches flipped Faudron over and as she spun. She saw lab buildings below her with broken roofs and they looked so familiar. She had known them so well and the photograph hadn't lied. She had lived here briefly and she had been so young. She remembered the screams as they did things to the little bits of DNA that told the cells that made up people what to do, and made them scream as their very shapes changed before their eyes.
As she approached the surface, she remembered something else, the Nords didn't look the way they pretended to, but Rau was different; he had to be.
Some of the kids she'd been here with shared a secret they'd kept from their parents, because their parents could not leave at the time and the more they knew, the greater the pressure on them to remain. The Nords could not stay here forever, unless they were changed in the hospital, one of the buildings below her, and she remembered that the hospital had been horrible and the change a thing of pain and the Nord children she had known were not conquerors, or the shipwrecked, but refugees, from a world pressed upon terribly, maybe destroyed, she wasn't sure. They'd handed over their youngest to have a place to call home, but their parents were desperate and dangerous.
As she tumbled, glimpsing Rau's face at every spin, she felt like a strange thing, as strange as Rau, like two people floating in space, running out of air, balancing on a dime.
When they broke the surface, the island lay before them and their helmets bounced together like two kids playing ball. She got a glimpse of Rau's face through the scratched, soapy, plastic helmet. All NASA kids played space; all Nord kids must have played space; it was natural, no? Was he natural?
They put an arm around each other's shoulders and made it to shore. Rau pulled off his helmet and Faudron pulled off his gloves, then her's, and smiled as she realized he didn't sweat and his face didn't turn red with exertion. None of it mattered but air in the lungs and a hand in hand.
This place must have had evil rules for people to have dropped their children off on an island for profit; call it what you would, but Faudron was not of this place and neither was Rau, because they knew better.
She swam to shore, laid on the wet grass and stared at a cloudy sky with just a few patches of blue sticking out. "Maybe Florida, maybe the everglades."
"There might be wolves about," Rau said
"Who cares? We could have a house on stilts and one of those fan boats."
He laughed but when Faudron tried to pull her suit off, Rau grabbed her by the wrist and shook his head. "Gloves. It's all clear, but you never know. Gloves on, ok?"
Faudron pressed her hand in the dirt trying to get up. The soil was squishy, yet not soaked. She squeezed it in her hand and held it up to her face. "What is this, it's like that rubbery stuff they put under the Astroturf."
"Gloves, please."
She smiled to keep herself from asking any more questions. She knew part of the answer. They'd made a diorama like a bear cage in the zoo and Rau didn't know it. He'd never been outside.
Rau leapt to his feet and helped Faudron up so easily, he'd nearly picked her up with three fingers; she hadn't realized how strong he was or he'd hidden it like number 8 Cylon.
Rau spun around, sniffing the air the way the lama did. "Not all clear. I was wrong." He ran a few steps.
"Will they ever let us leave?"
He ran back to her and they were suddenly in each other's arms, all the air drained from the wet, form-fitting, thin, nylon suits.
"Do you think, Rau, you'll ever see McDonalds?"
"Dunno. After midnight, maybe things will be possible."
"That's not really an answer."
"All right," he said, pulling away, with a military distance as he straightened his clothing. "We should get home."
He helped her undress. They rolled-up the suits and stuffed them inside their helmets.
He kissed her and she wanted to ask what he really looked like; if he had been changed; if the change was permanent; if he could stay but decided she'd never ask any of those things.
He held her close and looked past her, holding his left arm high in the air, tensing, his heart beating so hard he might have had two.
"What's wrong?"
"Lost my watch." He showed her his wrist, a pale strip where the watch-band had protected him from the sun.
"At least you can remember it."
He laughed to be polite but looked worried. "I was going to call the horse."
"With the watch?"
"You see."
Rau might have been talking about the horse's watch; he might have been about to tell her about his home and the past they shared but she pressed a finger to his lips; all was secrets; what did it matter now at all?
"There's a phone," he said after a moment. He gestured east towards the center of the island. "7780." But with each number he spoke his voice grew softer, his breath shallower; his eyes looked this way and that and he fell to the ground. Before his eyes closed, he whispered, "The Nords come. They're not your friends. You're like animals to them and like animals they'll treat you. One hour after midnight."
"Rau, wake up, please."
People in Star Trek fell in slow motion, landing as if the floor was made of pillows, and their necks and arms under their soft, dwindling control. When Rau collapsed, he fell hard and wrong. He was hurt, something small, maybe something unseen, a little bone snapping in the neck or an organ getting knocked out of place. Who could say, but something was wrong, something she could not fix without help and there was no help to be had. She took a breath but dare not yell.
He'd held her so tight, sh
e'd forgotten how to breath and all that strength had leaked out of him and into the miserable, swampy ground. "I have to leave you," she whispered. "788, that's it right?"
Even the rain smelled. What was up there that could do that, Faudron wondered as the sky and the air and the rippling water became one.
Chapter 17
Something left a contrail in the water across Moren's tack, maybe twenty yards ahead. Her eyes followed it left to right. It could be a trick of the light. They said people saw lake monsters that went away when the waves stopped, the lake monsters being made mostly of waves. Then again, this was a place of monsters. Rau told her, and he never lied to her. And the blind lady, wasn't a poor blind lady, but a hepatitis infected monster, so who knew what lived in the reservoir.
Moren was going to spool up the footage again when she heard the engine from the craft the contrail must belong to. When she drew closer, she saw a blue man floating across the water, so big, he didn't seem real.
"Slow! Slow!" he whispered like a man who knew boats.
Moren put the barge into reverse but there was too much speed and something dragged along the bottom of the barge, catching the two outboards, popping them out of the water and dropping them back down, seizing them up and killing the right engine then the left, sending bits of metal flying in the air, one of which knocked Moren behind the ears. She covered her face; she'd been just about to turn around; it would have struck her eye. She reached back, telling herself it was sweat, but her hand came back red. She rubbed it against her shoulder like a dog scratching an itch.
"You all right?" the big blue man yelled.
"Go away. It's just a scratch."
She tried the ignition twice but nothing clicked.
"Yeah, engines' shot. Sorry about that."
"No problem." But why was he dressed in sky blue? She could just see his outline in the fog but at least he wasn't floating on top of the water as she'd first imagined; he was standing on some type of cable ferry, the deck running just below the surface with low handrails all around and chicken wire in the gaps. "You the logging guy?"
"Shut up a minute. All right," he whispered. "I'll toss you a line."
Moren caught it and tied it to a hasp at the bow. She stepped backward until she got inside the cabin. She tried to shut the front window but it wouldn't budge. She tried not to look at him but felt compelled to. Against the grey-sky background, he looked as blue as a parrot or a tropical fish. Moren had the impolite urge to ask if he'd been painted or dyed.
When she saw his blue face and baldy blue head up close, she asked, "Why are you blue?"
He turned his back on her, one shoulder higher than the other.
The long line grew taut and with the short-distance fog, his ferry disappeared, only the clank-clank of its bad engine giving Moren any sense of direction; east into nothing she guessed.
She sat on the pilot's chair and tapped the screen but nothing happened. Maybe her finger's were too cold. She reached into the first aid kit hanging on the bulkhead, opened it and spilled everything on the deck. She found the hand warmer. It was shaped like an eyeglass case and contained a slow-burning, silver-colored stick you lit, closed within the asbestos lined case and put in your pocket.
"What was that?" the blue man yelled.
"Nothing."
"You sure? I heard fire."
Moren wasn't about to answer.
A couple of seconds later, he towed her to a dock made of that stony concrete they'd put up all over in the Depression. The ferry made a loud, hollow bang when it struck. He tied her barge tight against the ferry and gestured her aboard. "Welcome to Duck Island."
"Why you call it that?"
"Cause if you don't learn to duck around here, you're liable to be in trouble...but not me."
Moren couldn't disagree. He was nine feet tall, very wide with over-long arms and big hands and feet. He wore a black, plastic hat that looked like it was made of the stuff they made dime store sunglasses out of that covered his ears and the front of his face down to his nose. All in all he looked stitched-together out of cast-off parts, but she felt no threat from him and if anybody knew things, it'd be him. If she could just lead into it.
"Excuse me?" Moren asked. "Why are you blue? You must have forgotten to answer before."
He laughed hard. "Now that's refreshing, most people run or laugh."
"Sorry, just as kin'." Moren was sure she'd asked the wrong question because he gave a sad, lopsided smile as if the question pained him and was often asked. "I'm blue cause I was stupid one night and let Doc. Kau talk me into watching the wolves."
"Pardon me?"
"I'm the shepherd. Silver I eat makes my skin blue. Doctor didn't tell me about that and the permanence of it. But the no-good-men-of-wolves, that's what I call 'em, won't dare bite me." He gave a goofy smile as if to say 'would you?' "Come on, we'll look at that engine. Get you home before dark. Name's Shep. Some people used to call me Cray, for Crayon. I didn't like it. Please don't do it. I suppose you'll call me Blue."
"Moren." She couldn't help but giggle.
"I know. Cray's funny isn't it?"
"Sorry."
Him knowing her name should have made her tremble, but it didn't. He just existed, like the water or the dock or the gray sky above. No one belonged here but he belonged here. He might have been squeezed out of some mountain spring by an earthquake when the mountain was young. "About my mom?"
"One sec." He unlocked each engine from its mooring, lifted each by one hand and tiptoed from Moren's barge to his ferry to the dock. He paused a moment and lay the engines down as if he'd expected her to catch up, then turned and scratched his head, lifting the strange hat ever-so-slightly and covering his skin with his other hand. "She's all right. Come on."
Moren followed. "And?"
"And I'll say no more. You might get it in your head to follow. That wouldn't be a great idea."
"It only kinda' worked, didn't it?" Moren just knew he knew. He was the voice of this place; if it had a center, and if it had a center that could be understood and reasoned with.
"I see everything. She escaped but she didn't get away. No one gets away. They're too smart."
"Who's too smart?"
"You're people?"
She pulled the bottom of her shirt down low. "Don't you say that?"
"See. You say you wanna know but you don't wanna know. That's why I don't generally say all that much. Please come."
Moren followed him past the dock and down a path covered in Belgian stones to a wooden staircase with thick, wild bushes growing around it. She got to the top and hurried down. A weathered-building with broken windows sat at the bottom of this little cut out as if it had fallen from the sky and left a hole. The building looked like something out of the Garden District of New Orleans, out of place in any winter, surrounded by wild ivy that grew over the windowsills and inside.
"Mrs. Rochambeau's house?"
"You've been?" Shep asked, quite surprised.
"No, it just, it just seems so."
He sang a line from La Vie En Rose, mimicking Mrs. Rochambeau' voice just so.
"That's not nice."
"Then you don't know her very well. Was she who started callin' me crayon. I'm kind of fond of her, though."
"I thought you people were in the business of killing each other," Moren said.
"We are. If she could cross the water, she would. One day when I sleep too soundly, she will."
"No," Moren said.
"Believe what you will."
For all the broken windows, Blue pulled out a modern Fichet key and opened the lock in the center of a grey metal fire door. He guided Moren inside and set the engines down.
The ceiling had fallen in and ivy clung to the walls. The parquet floors were cracked and broken-up. Blue started a fire by smashing two chairs in the fireplace and setting a match to their horsehair stuffing, which burned with a sweet, oily smell.
"Mom," Moren said staring into the fire.
"In the past, that is new," he said with such glee.
A picture formed in her mind of an empty world, twi-lit, full of strange game with weather always just like a San Francisco summer. In the distance, people dressed in skins drifted through the wreckage of a city. "But there's more." As soon as she spoke the picture faded.
"Told you not to worry. They didn't expect her to arrive but they're not cruel people," Blue said.
"I think I saw her, but when's she commin' back?"
Blue reached up, touched the eyeglass hat as if he'd scratch under it, then moved his hand away as if he'd done something private in public. "They didn't expect her to arrive but they're not cruel people."
"You already said that."
"Maybe, just maybe you can join her but she ain't comin back."
"You lied. You said she'd be all right."
"It's the laws of physics. The Nords poked a hole in space. It made that cloud that sucks in the satellites, but it leaks. It's like a manhole cover placed over a sewer. You go in and follow the flow, not knowing where it comes from or how to stop it."
"We'll go down there, inside that thing; it glows."
"You've got it all figured out? It glows because its in two places at once. She'll come and get you." He smiled and looked away.
"Then there's nothing more to say."
"I'll work on the engines. Kitchen in the back. Rest of the house is pretty much intact."
"They brought it here for Mrs. Rochambeau?" Moren asked.
"No, I imagine they just made it. People might have asked questions if a Frenchy's house disappeared."
"Ever been?"
"To France? Why would I want to be anywhere but here. Right here."
"Right."
Moren went to the hallway at the other end of the room and found a bathroom that smelled of mold. A dribble of water poured out of the leaky, brass faucet. She kept the door adjar so she could see into the hallway, then shut it when she saw a rat. She leaned against the door and listened to the tap-tap of Blue working on the engines and the drip of the faucet. She felt cold and sweaty at once. The whole building, now that she thought of it, smelled of urine, like a dog's kennel.