The Remington James Box Set

by Michael Lister

  Near the bottom, he gets enough signal. Calls Sam. Voicemail. Tells her where he is.

  —I’m gonna look around some more. You probably won’t be able to call back. Signal is for shit. But get somebody out here as soon as you can to help search. And a Crime Scene crew to process this place. David is far more disturbed than we thought. He started out decent enough, but wound up in Josef Mengele territory. Operating under the radar. Doing all kind of experiments. Immoral, unethical stuff. He’s obsessed with conjoined twins—especially the one who doesn’t survive. It’s like he’s trying to save his brother, Karl, over and over again. And he’s most obsessed with Taylor and Trevor. I honestly believe he could have Shelby. He may even have taken Savannah. I hear something.

  83

  The River Sticks.

  Tributary.

  Overgrown.

  Surrounded.

  Swollen bases.

  Enormous cypress trees rising out of the water.

  Exposed root systems.

  Black water.

  Gloom.

  Mist.

  Smattering of raindrops.

  Julian maneuvers the boat around the mammoth water cypresses as best he can, the hull banging and scraping often, Marc and Taylor bracing themselves on the center seat.

  —Just a little further, Julian says. We’ll get past all these. Be on the big river.

  —Once we’re on the river, Taylor says, help me go under again.

  Marc nods.

  84

  Daniel moves to the door on the first floor, following the squeaking noises. Opening it with one hand while holding the gun up with the other, he steps out of the stairwell and looks up and down the hallway.

  To his right, there is only old abandoned medical equipment—piled, stacked, overturned. Everything is covered in cobwebs and dust.

  To his left, near the opposite end of the corridor, is the source of the sound.

  Ancient. Antique. High back. Wicker. Wheelchair.

  Slowly rolling toward him.

  Squeak.

  Squeak.

  Squeak.

  Startling. Surreal. Horrific.

  A deformed, diminutive young man, partially leaning over the side, struggling to inch it down the hall.

  Beneath the dim, flickering fluorescents, and with the creepy, canned music echoing, the eerie scene is discordant, disquieting, disturbing.

  One of D. Kelly David’s experiments?

  He glances all around, but sees no one else.

  Squeak.

  Squeak.

  Squeak.

  —Hey, the man says when he sees Daniel. Hey, mister. Who are you?

  —Who are you? Daniel says, beginning to ease toward him. What are you doing here?

  —My name is Carter T. Lee. I live here. Is that a gun?

  Despite the macabre backdrop and the young man’s shuddersome appearance, he has an innocent, childlike, upbeat manner, his voice sounding as if it’s perpetually trapped in puberty.

  —You live here? With who?

  —Whom.

  Daniel smiles.

  —Not many here anymore, he continues. He left me again.

  —Who left you? Where’d he go?

  —Power keeps going out. Don’t like being by myself. I really don’t. But you better go. Don’t want to be here when he gets back. No, sir, you don’t. That’s a fact. He’s a bad one. I see you have a gun and all, but won’t do you no good. Not against a god. No, sir, it won’t. Could you push me to the kitchen before you go?

  —How long you lived here?

  —Whole life. Known no other. That’s a fact. Where’re you from?

  —Kansas, I guess.

  —What’s it like there?

  —Different. Where’s Dr. David?

  —You better go now. I don’t like to be by myself, but I don’t like seeing nobody get hurt or killed neither. No, sir, I don’t.

  85

  Sam, Will, and Keith are in Keith’s SUV, out of the rain, when their phones ring. All three—simultaneously.

  Earlier in the day, Emergency Management had made the call not to evacuate. Keith hopes they’re not now calling to say they’ve changed their minds. It’s too late. Way too late to attempt any sort of evacuation now.

  Sam and Will ignore their phones as Keith’s comes in over the speakers in the vehicle.

  —Sheriff, the night dispatcher says in her soft, slightly sleepy voice, we got a call from a Victor Wilson. He’s got a camp on the river and he came to board it up before the storm.

  —Yeah?

  —His camp is only a few down from where the Summers girl’s car was found. There’s an old van parked on his property. He called ’cause he didn’t recognize it. Doesn’t know anything about it.

  —Okay. Thanks.

  —I ran the plates he gave me, she says.

  —And?

  —It’s registered to River Park Inn Center and D. Kelly David.

  86

  West.

  Toward the river.

  False dawn glow behind, storm darkness before.

  Rain.

  Running.

  Limping.

  Hurting.

  Crying.

  Shelby tries to move silently through the gloom—and though she’s not crying or breathing too loudly, her movement alone through the dense woods is noisy. Alerting. Attracting attention.

  Slight slope.

  Soggy, spongy ground.

  Surface aquifer.

  Reaching a seepage slope, she slows just a bit, the water on the ground soothing to her feet.

  The gradual incline allows water from just beneath adjacent, higher land to seep onto the surface of the ground and run across the slope. The gradually changing moisture across the expanse of the wetland mosaic leads to the flourishing of an enormous diversity of species.

  She moves from upland pine—longleaf, pond, and slash—to an herb bog, through a shrub bog, and into a cypress and tupelo swamp, passing through myrtle dahoon, laurel greenbrier, wiregrass, butterwort, orchids, and pausing to breathe in the big, beautiful bog bouquet of whitetop pitcher plants emerging from the surrounding cutthroat grass and sedge.

  Dawn. Bright glow behind her.

  Raindrops making the plants dance. Sway. Tilt. Lean.

  God, it’s gorgeous. I want Julian to see it, want to bring him back and make love on the wet ground of this field of flowers.

  Silly girl. You’re gonna die today. Maybe they’ll scatter your ashes out here.

  Fuck you. I’m gettin’ to the river, gettin’ back to him. We will make love in this very spot one day. I swear it.

  Even in her head her words sound hollow. Weak. Insecure. Empty bravado.

  Just keep moving. What else can you do?

  87

  Is he really a wolf? Sometimes he wonders.

  He wants to be. Wants to be for her. But is he?

  And is that what she wants? Sometimes he scares her. He can tell. Sees it in her eyes, in her soul. But how can she be scared of him? How can a wolf be scared of a wolf? How can she not know? How can she not want what he wants? He wants what she wants? Wants to make her happy, wants to give her all of himself and all that she ever desires. How can that not be enough?

  The wolf wonders if he’s a wolf. But how can this be? Can the wolf really doubt? Is the wolf capable of an identity crisis?

  Who am I?

  You are the wolf.

  Who is the wolf?

  You are.

  I am the wolf.

  The wolf exists. The wolf is. The wolf is incapable of existential angst, of questioning and wondering, of doubting and second guessing.

  The wolf is pitiless. Without remorse. Without regret. Then who else is in the wolf’s head?

  88

  Storm rising.

  Cloud-shrouded sun.

  Daybreak. Nonevent.

  Christine is all.

  Over northern Gulf waters. Warm. Feeding. Fueling. Increasing.

  89

 
Thwack.

  Thwack.

  Thwack.

  Wind bangs old shudders and loose boards against the ancient inn, howling.

  Pushing Carter toward the kitchen.

  —Is anyone else here? Daniel asks.

  —Lupa never leaves.

  —Lupa?

  —She can’t leave anymore. Like me. Not able.

  —Anyone else?

  He shrugs.

  —Who’s usually here? Who lives here?

  —Just me, Doc D, Lupa, and Rom. I sure am hungry. Can you push a little faster?

  The lights blink out, the music grinding down, then back up again as the power comes back on.

  —Lupa and Rom? Daniel asks.

  —What he makes us call them.

  —Who?

  —Lupa and Rom.

  —No, who makes you call them that?

  —Him. Said he’d cut me if I ever called ’em any different.

  —Rom as in Romulus?

  —Yeah.

  —Which rooms are theirs?

  —Second floor. Upstairs. Where I can’t go. She doesn’t want to leave me down here alone, but he makes her. Where’re you goin’?

  —Can you make it from here? I’m gonna go talk to Lupa.

  —Don’t do that. No. No. No. You gotta go. Now. Please, mister. Before he gets back. Please.

  90

  Landfall.

  Christine arrives with a vengeance. Pounding the Panhandle with sustained winds of 127 miles per hour. Tossing trees and telephone poles, snapping power lines, toppling cell phone towers, ripping off roofs, scattering shingles, leveling buildings, and sweeping away mobile homes like a child’s toys.

  Transformers popping, blue arcs like the body of a candle flame shooting into the air.

  No electricity.

  No phones.

  No communication with the world outside Tupelo.

  Keith’s call gets dropped right in the middle of an evacuation update.

  —That’s that, he says. She’s here.

  They are on the small side road that turns off from the landing and runs parallel to the river, not far from Shelby’s car, pulling up behind the van registered to D. Kelly David.

  —Not that much can be done now anyway, he adds, but it’s just us now. Everyone else is working shelters, flooded roads, and looters.

  —We’re flyin’ blind too, Will says. No phones, no radios, no electricity. No nothing.

  Sam looks at her phone.

  —I’ve got a shit-ton of messages but I can’t retrieve them, she says. Hope Daniel is somewhere safe and dry.

  —I’m sure he is, Keith says.

  91

  Sheets of rain.

  Windswept water.

  Waves.

  Boat tossed about.

  —We’ve got to get off the water, Julian yells. Find shelter.

  —Just a little further, Taylor yells. Please. We’re close. I can feel her.

  Julian looks at Marc and shakes his head.

  —We’re gonna turn over, he says. Can’t help Shelby if we all drown.

  92

  Stinging.

  Burning.

  Piercing.

  Pelting rain like bullets.

  Curtains of them like constant machine gun bursts.

  Blind.

  Wind and water assault her eyes and she’s unable to see.

  Blinking.

  Blurry.

  Buffeted.

  Debris batted about.

  Wind whipping limbs and branches around. Sheering off the tops of pines, upturning oak and cypresses, snapping birch and magnolias.

  Leaning.

  Pressing.

  Pushing.

  So loud.

  Jet engine throttling up for take-off.

  She pushes against the wind, but it pushes back, actually lifting her occasionally. For all her fighting and struggling, all the energy and effort she’s expending, she’s making very, very little progress.

  ––Don’t stop, Remington says.

  ––Have to.

  ––No. Keep going.

  ––Where have you been?

  ––Right here. Come on. I know it’s bad, but just a little further. Almost there. I’m not going to let you die. Not today. Not here. Not like this.

  93

  Darkness.

  He’s taken two steps down the second-story corridor when the power goes off and stays off.

  Pitch-black blind.

  He can see nothing.

  But he feels something—a presence, a force—something in this darkness that is far more than the absence of light.

  Back against the wall. Frozen in fear. Heart pounding. Heading toward hyperventilation.

  As bad as it is, he can’t help but think it’s worth it just to have the music grind down to a halt.

  Snapping on the flashlight.

  Scanning the area.

  Slow your breathing or you’re gonna pass out.

  Gun in his right, light in his left, he begins to make his way toward the opposite end of the hall.

  Slowly.

  Carefully.

  Methodically.

  He inches down the hospital corridor, holding his light just above his gun, turning to look behind him every few feet, sweeping beam and barrel through the blackness.

  All the while, the howl of wind, the thwack of shudders, the tata tata tata tatta tat of torrents of rain sounding like roofing tacks being hammered in overhead.

  Eventually, he makes it to the other end of the hall and opens the first of the three closed doors.

  More blackness. The only illumination that of the small flashlight.

  The room is not what he expects.

  Spartan.

  The small beam glides around the room, revealing isolated objects out of context.

  Single twin mattress on the floor.

  Modest, maimed chest of drawers.

  Upturned wooden crate bedside table. Lamp. Small stack of books. Sketch pad. Empty glass.

  Weapons.

  Propped in corners, lying on the floor.

  Shotguns.

  Rifles.

  Swords.

  Bows.

  Knives.

  And then he sees it.

  Fully one-fourth of the room.

  Black paint on white wall.

  The she-wolf, Lupa, standing, as if caught in midstride, tail tucked, ears up, head turned looking warily in Daniel’s direction. Eight prominent tits, nipples protruding, hanging straight down under her body. Two human male infants, one sitting, the other on his knees, necks craned, heads up, suckling, receiving sustenance from their she-wolf mother.

  Carter said he calls himself Romulus.

  Twin sons of Mars, god of war, Romulus and Remus were rescued as infants from the Tiber River by the god Tiberinus and raised by the she-wolf, Lupa. The famous, feral children grew up to be the founders of Rome. While arguing over who would name and rule the city, Romulus killed Remus with a shovel.

  Is the occupant of this room, the one who calls himself Romulus, a surviving twin? Did D. Kelly David play the role of Tiberinus, symbolically pulling him from the river behind the hospital? Does he identify with Romulus because by living he killed his brother? Who is Lupa?

  94

  Romulas, the wolf, is not a wolf at all, but the son of one—a lone twin, a solitary, sole-survivor, thanks to his adopted she-wolf mother Lupa. And yet surely he is part wolf now. At least wolfish. He had been transformed by his time at her tit. Part man. Part wolf. Half a human twin. Half the wolf son of Lupa.

  The wolf, Romulas, ignores the wind and the rain, the snapping trees and falling limbs. The hunt is all. Finding his prey, finishing his mission all that matters.

  He’s overcome with the urge to howl. Howl like the wolf he is. Howl like the wind swirling about him.

  So he does.

  He is the wolf. He does what he wants. And that, with impunity.

  He howls again. His howl indistinguishable from that of
an actual wolf. His transformation is complete.

  The wolf’s howl is immediately sucked up, torn from his mouth as if by a tornado. It joins the great howl of the wind and it is as if the world entire is a wolf howling—at the universe, howling at god himself, howling at hell, howling from a pain too intense, too deep, too brutal, too goddamn raw to simply speak.

  95

  —I can feel her, Taylor yells. We’re close. I swear. It’s just a little further.

  The boat is being tossed to and fro, the bow actually pointing in the wrong direction much of the time.

  The wind and rain so loud, they can barely hear each other, even yelling as loud as they can.

  The rain continues to pock their faces and hands, and even, through their clothes, their arms and legs and backs and chests.

  Along the banks, all the trees are leaning north, their tops shaking like the weaves of black Pentecostal women under the influence of the Holy Ghost.

  Julian continues to run the motor at full throttle, but it’s no match for Christine.

  —Marc, I swear, she says. I wouldn’t say if I weren’t sure. We’re almost there. We’ve got to continue.

  —We’ve come as far as we can, Julian says.

  Marc nods, wondering if they’ve not come too far already. The thought makes him shudder, and he feels as if death has somehow just joined them in the small boat.

  —It’s just around the next bend. A hidden camp set back in the woods.

  Does she really know that? he wonders. Or is she just trying to get us to keep going?

  —Which side?

  —What?

  —Which side? he yells even louder.

  —There, she says, pointing to the left side.

  —Let’s pull the boat over to the bank and go the rest of the way on foot.

  —What?

  Before he can repeat himself, a downed tree hits the right side of the hull, spins the boat around, and flips it over.