The Girl in the Maze

by R. K. Jackson

  Aye, it will surely die. And you’ll die, too, Lenny said. That’s the way of this world.

  “No, no,” Martha said. “I can’t let that happen.”

  The sun had turned blood-orange and swelled and wavered as it descended toward the horizon. Soon it would be dark.

  Martha swung the canteen over her shoulder, gave it a shake. The sudden movement sent the fiddlers scurrying toward their holes. Still a little water left. “Jarrell would come if he could,” she said. “Anyway, maybe I can walk now. I’ll backtrack to the cabin.”

  Martha pushed her palms against the soft mud, got up onto her haunches. A spasm of pain burned through her injured leg, and her vision went dark brown. She waited for blood to return to her extremities.

  Lenny flicked an ash. It slowly floated toward the mud. Have it your way, Lovie. Fill your boots. Drowning is as good a way to die as any, innit?

  She made her way gingerly along the creek bank, following the mud regions that appeared drier and more solid. She tried using her crutch, but it sank deep into the muck. She left it standing there, like a milepost.

  Another step, and her bandaged leg plunged up to the shin. She dropped onto her butt to pull it out of the soggy hole. Her leg slithered out, coated in gray muck. Her shoe had come off. The hole where her foot sank vanished, infilling with gray ooze. She heard Lenny’s phlegmy laugh.

  See, Lovie? It’s all gone tits up. You can’t walk in this.

  She ignored him and reached into the mud hole, found the shoe, and pulled it out. It was heavy now, filled with the wet, gray batter. She considered trying to rinse it out in the shallow water, then decided it was futile. She dropped the shoe and continued, using her bare foot to test the mud.

  The ground was firmer closer to the saw grass, and Martha hugged the edge of it, making her way down the canal. She continued for several hundred yards, feeling the cool muck slither between her toes. Ahead, she spotted the bones of an old wooden pier. The trackway had collapsed. Its planks were blackened with age and fanned out like a clamshell.

  Martha made her way toward the debris and took hold of an oil-soaked piling to steady herself. She reconnoitered, swatting away mosquitoes. A fork in the river here, and the spot didn’t look familiar. She drank the last few drops of water in the canteen, then placed it on top of the post and considered. Was this one of the forks Jarrell took, or should she keep going straight?

  Confusing, ain’t it, Lovie? Lenny said from somewhere behind the skein of weathered planks. What’ll it be, door number one, or door number two?

  She decided to take the fork. In a few hundred yards, the creek began to dissipate into a thicket of marsh grass, and she knew this was probably not the way they came in the boat. How could it be? There was no creek here at all, just a basin of dark gray mud, scattered with marsh grass and oyster beds. Even at high tide, it wouldn’t be a creek. She decided to strike out across it anyway, moving toward the sunset. She headed west, because she knew that somewhere in that direction, maybe very far away, was the mainland. To the east, beyond the fields of grass, lay the Atlantic Ocean.

  —

  At dusk, exhausted and dehydrated, her leg aching, she reached a river. It was not bounded by land on either side, only marsh. She wondered if she had found the Oracoochee Sound, the area’s main waterway. There was no sign of land, buildings, or docks in any direction. She heard the clanging of a buoy somewhere downstream and walked toward it. Then, a whining in her ears, and at the same time the needle bite of a mosquito on her thigh. She slapped at it, felt another bite on her shoulder. The whining was all around her. Hundreds of mosquitoes.

  You won’t get much farther, Lovie. Not without water.

  Her leg was throbbing, and she was nauseated. She heard voices in the marsh. Grass voices. Whispering, chanting. Occasionally, she could make out a word or two, a fragment of a phrase. They were whispering about her. She could make out their steady chant: to die…to die…to die.

  She ignored the grass, waved at the cloud of mosquitoes, slapped at the constant pinpricks, brushed them from her face, and limped on toward the sound of the buoy. The mud bank, where the river had pulled back, was firm here. She took off her remaining shoe and carried it, stepping carefully to avoid clumps of oyster shells.

  When she reached the buoy, it was near the center of the river, gently rocking and clanging. It offered no comfort, but instead seemed menacing. The clangs were directed at her, some kind of warning. There was still no land, only inscrutable stretches of grass. She kept on walking, stumbling, attended by the thick cloud of mosquitoes. Their whine was all she could hear now, like a million tiny airplanes attacking her. Martha slapped her skin, smearing herself with mosquito bodies and her own blood, but scores more hovered and bit. She broke into a limping run, tried to escape, but the cloud moved with her, ravenous.

  Blinded, Martha stumbled across the mudflat, waving and slapping frantically at the swarm, and her foot plunged into a soft spot. She tumbled face-first into the mud. She rolled over and was submerged in the whispering hum, slapping frantically, the cloud of needles biting her everywhere, taking away her precious blood, drop by drop. Martha covered her face and eyes, screamed, cried for help. There was no answer, and she balled up into a fetal position, whimpering.

  Didn’t I warn you, Lovie? Lenny’s voice penetrated through the white noise. Now this is how it ends. You’re a feast for insects. At least you’ve served a purpose.

  Lenny’s taunting voice enraged her, but she lacked the energy to respond. If her father were alive…if he were to see her like this—he—he—

  Martha lifted her hands from her face and looked down at her body. The swarm covered her skin like a layer of rotten fur. They drank from every part of her body—arms, hands, thighs—everywhere—except for her left leg. The hungry cloud ignored that leg, the one coated with gray mud. Martha scooped up a handful of the muddy batter and smeared it on the other leg, all the way up to her thigh, engulfing whole squadrons of mosquitoes. Then she scooped up more mud, packed it on her arms. She worked frantically, covering every exposed part of her skin. She applied a thin veneer across the back of her neck, her face and ears. The humming diminished.

  Exhausted, Martha collapsed in the mud, panting, her skin burning from the bites. She waited a moment, listening to see if the whine would return. She heard only the murmur of the marsh, the clang of the buoy. She pulled herself up to a sitting position, wrapped her arms around her knees, and crouched in the near darkness, a mud beast, exhausted and dizzy, her mind shattered and spinning in a thousand directions.

  She tried to remember exactly where she was.

  Nowhere, Lenny offered.

  Continuing to walk now, in the darkness, was unthinkable. She lacked the energy, anyway.

  She sensed the vastness of the marshland around her, stretching in countless directions, the grass tips now silvered by the light of the rising moon. And then the grass shimmered and shimmered, animated by a gust out of nowhere. Somewhere out on the marsh plains, she could make out a chant of demons, an exuberant song carried on a poisonous breeze. A promise of darker hells to come.

  Chapter 22

  Sunlight reached Martha through the backs of her eyelids.

  She heard the familiar clatter of the seabirds, the lapping of water. She blinked her eyes, expecting to see the ocean of grass, the tidal creeks, but instead, there was only white. A thick nimbus of fog, silent and enveloping. She was a broken piece of driftwood, something washed up on the shore.

  She was lying on her side, cheek pressed against a damp log, numb. The gray mud, potholed and oozing, stretched away along her line of sight until it disappeared into the mist. And pressing into it, just a few feet away, was something that didn’t belong, something that hadn’t been there the night before—a pair of black rubber boots.

  The boots were wide and featureless, bent at the flex point, and beaded with water drops. Above them, a dark, hunched shape, lost in the fog. She wanted to be invisible, unnotice
d by this thing, so she didn’t move. She didn’t turn her head to find out who, or what, might be attached to the boots.

  “Hallo. Hallo?” A male voice, thick and spongy. Martha didn’t move.

  Don’t answer, Lenny hissed at her, disembodied now. Don’t say anything.

  “Hallo, can you hear me speakin’ over there?”

  If you speak, they’ll know, Lenny said.

  Martha saw the boots straighten out, then step closer, tentative, smacking in the sticky mud.

  “I saw your eyes just open up, but can you hear my voice? My gosh, you look like you was washed up here by the tide. Maybe one of them manatees. What are you?”

  A doughy face moved into her line of sight, hovered over her. The face reminded her of a cow. The nose was misshapen, like a piece of fungus, and one cheek contained a large wart. Two short hairs sprang from the wart.

  “And you’re a pretty little thing, too. What happened, fall off your boat?”

  Don’t talk, Lenny said. Don’t say a word. Trust no one.

  “Can you walk?” the dough-man said. “I can carry you, if you need me to.”

  The man took a step toward her and Martha pushed herself up. The mud, hardened during the night, cracked as she moved, falling away in slabs, exposing patches of pale skin.

  “Are you all right?” The man rocked on his haunches, jaw working slowly. “I can take you back to the port, if you want. Got my boat right over there, see?”

  Martha turned her head slightly and saw a shape in the mist—square cabin, dark booms, a drapery of fishing nets. Closer by, a rubber dinghy perched on the mud.

  The man crouched down in front of her in his overalls. Martha pulled her knees close. The man stared at her a long time, saying nothing, his dull eyes fixed in wonderment. Water, she thought. Please, oh please, give me some water.

  “You’ve got pretty eyes, you know that?” The man clutched a green cellophane bag in one misshapen hand. He tipped the bag sideways. Small, brightly colored objects tumbled into the palm of his other hand.

  “Would you like some gummy bears?” The man held his hand toward her.

  Water, Martha thought, her eyes pleading.

  “These are the best kind. Black Forest. I went all the way out to McNalley’s yesterday just to get some of these. It’s a little bit out of the way. But I go over there sometimes because they don’t carry this kind at Tenesco’s. All they got is them hair bows.”

  The man tossed the colored things into his mouth and watched her, his jaw moving in slow circles.

  The mud was irritating Martha’s skin and she started knocking it off, breaking it away from her legs in chalky-wet chunks. The man watched her, fascinated.

  “I done seen you when I was just coming by on my boat this morning. That’s when I first seen you. I been watchin’ for quite a while. I didn’t know if you was alive or what. Then I saw you was breathing, I even thought you might be a mermaid.” The man snorted. “Dang, you got pretty eyes.”

  Martha brushed the mud away from her left calf, exposing the mud-soaked bandage. Blood oozed through the fabric in dark red seeps.

  The man knelt next to her, his mouth agape. He was missing several teeth, and the remaining ones slanted at random angles. “Hey, let’s clean you up a little bit.”

  Martha watched the man walk to the dinghy on uneven legs. He returned with a cracked plastic pail and paused next to her, nodding at her legs, smiling.

  Martha understood that he was offering to rinse her legs, and she extended them for him. He poured the water slowly over her calves and feet. The water was cool, but not frigid. The caked mud turned pulpy. He fetched another pail and rinsed again.

  “Now, that looks better, don’t it?” he said after several rinsings. “My name is Loren.” He glanced toward the rising sun.

  “You know, another hour, it’s gonna be hot out here. Hotter than August hell, and no shade. Maybe you’re thirsty? I’ll get you some water and food too, if you’re hungry.”

  He slid his arms under her knees and back. Martha was too weak to resist, lacked the energy to be frightened. He lifted her up out of the mud and carried her toward a rubber dinghy on the shoreline. He smelled of fish.

  —

  Inside the boat cabin, Loren set Martha on a wood bench that ran the length of the sidewall. The cabin had round portholes in the sides, a rectangular window in front. Martha tried to remember—what was it called, this part of a boat? The wheelhouse.

  “Welcome to the Ha-Le-Loo,” Loren said.

  Loren took a plastic cup from a shelf, twisted the spigot on a yellow plastic barrel, and filled it with water. The barrel sat on a shelf and was attached to the plywood wall with bungee cords. Martha drank the water gratefully, leaning against the plywood.

  “That’s good, huh?” Loren smiled at her, showing stained gums. She held the cup toward him and he refilled it. Then he turned to the controls, twisted the ignition key, and the engine gurgled to life.

  “Had ’er for thirty years now. My lifeblood, this old boat. We can’t turn around here, have to go farther down the channel. Then I’ll take you back over to my place so’s maybe you can get yourself cleaned up and we can get you something to eat, maybe figure out where you belong. I had a pretty good run with the bluegills yesterday, so it won’t matter.”

  Martha wanted to thank him for his kindness, but she knew she mustn’t speak. Loren reached with one hand to turn up the throttle. She noticed that the other hand, the one holding the wooden wheel, was shorter. The fingers fused together into one member. The hand resembled a fleshy crab claw.

  Martha looked around the cabin. There was a tattered map of the marshland stapled to the wall. It was a familiar pattern, the same tentacled landscape she’d first seen hanging above the reception area of the Historical Society and later, rendered in Lydia’s story quilt. Specks of shrimp shells clung to the wooden surfaces. She concluded that Loren caught shellfish, and this made sense to her, in a way that few things had recently, because the man himself seemed part crustacean.

  “Do you like seafood?” Loren reached up with his crab claw and yanked off his knit cap. “Hope so, ’cause that’s what I’ve got, mostly. Crab, shrimp, or fish. Or I could fry us up some channel cat.”

  They traveled for a long time on the river, passing under freeway overpasses, past housing developments and countless tributaries, until they merged into a larger river. Loren whistled fragments of a tune now and then. He seemed endlessly patient, standing at the front of the cabin and navigating the brackish waters.

  The boat passed an industrial port with cranes and tanker ships. Warehouse buildings lined the waterway.

  Loren steered the Ha-Le-Loo into a narrower channel, then throttled down the engine and guided the nose of the craft toward a planked wooden pier. The dock groaned as the boat nudged against it. Loren tied it off with heavy ropes.

  “Here we are. My place is right over there, ’cross the path. That’s where I can get you some food.”

  Martha started to rise from the bench.

  “Here, let me help you.” Loren scooped her up again and carried her through the wheelhouse door, toward the pier. Martha felt like a child, both repulsed by the man and herself repulsive, but beyond resistance, beyond caring.

  “I don’t know if you can walk with that hurt leg. Hope you don’t mind, but they’s prickle pears on the path. You don’t want to walk here without shoes. It’s okay, though, ’cause you’re light as a feather.”

  She held on to the fabric of his overalls as they followed a sandy, tree-lined road flanked with dilapidated shotgun shacks. Another sandy path took them past a beige propane tank and to the front door of Loren’s cottage, a boxy cinder-block structure with metal awnings. He squeezed her a bit as he unlocked the front door and used his elbow to nudge it open.

  “Here we are.” He turned sideways to enter.

  He carried her into the living area, which contained a mottled brown sofa, a pipe stand, and a pale green vinyl chair with
cigarette burns. He lowered her onto the chair.

  “Okay?” Loren said. “Comfortable? You can rest your leg on the coffee table. I would have cleaned up a bit if I’d know’d you was coming.”

  The room smelled like a male dormitory. The carpet was dark brown and stained. Toward one end stood a dining table with chrome and vinyl chairs, and behind that a kitchenette. Loren leaned down and looked into her face.

  “Do you have a family? People you know around here?” His crab claw described small circles in the air. “Do you know what I’m saying? Maybe you can just nod your pretty head, yeah or no?”

  Martha nodded.

  “Okay, that’s good. I thought you understood my words. You’re such a pretty little thing. Maybe I’ll call you Angelfish, hmm? That okay? Who knows what happened to you? You remind me of that hurt pelican I found one time…his leg broken like a pencil. I brought him home and fixed him with tape. Fed him fish every day. His name was Andy. He was hungry. Anyway, I bet you’re hungry, too. What would you like?”

  The thought of food nauseated Martha. Bath, she thought. I need a bath.

  Loren went into the kitchen. She heard a door open and close, some rattles, then a thunk of something heavy in the sink. A hiss of running water. Martha scanned the room, calculating the distance between herself and the front door. On the other side of the room, a narrow door stood partially open and beyond that, a gleam of porcelain. She gripped the armrests of her chair and pulled herself to a standing position. She felt light-headed, wobbly, but her injured leg didn’t seem to mind holding her weight. She limped quietly across the dark carpet. Loren busied himself chipping at a block of ice in the sink.

  She passed an old metal desk next to the wall and paused, holding on to it for balance. She quickly inventoried the desktop—a stack of yellowed comic books, a metal can full of bolts, a plastic tray with a tangle of rusted fishhooks, a coffee mug. The mug contained wooden pencils and a black Sharpie pen. Martha grabbed the Sharpie and loped past the desk and into the bathroom.