Harrison Squared

by Daryl Gregory

  “No, of course she’s not pregnant.”

  “Because the scriptures refer to choosing a child, as young as possible. Someone without much of a defined personality, you know, and what’s more undefined than a fetus, eh? My theory, which I’d once hoped to publish before I perished, is that every visitor from the Other Side needs to take on earthly form in order to persist on this plane—an empty vessel to act as a kind of, say, diving suit to allow it to walk around here.”

  “Professor, what visitor?”

  “Hmm, what would be the phrase in English…?” He held up a finger. “In Armitage’s notes he used the Latin phrase ‘sanguinem gubernator,’ which I thought a trifle dramatic, but that’s Armitage for you.”

  “Blood pilot,” I said.

  “Ooh, you speak Latin?”

  “Enough languages that are close to it,” I said. “Okay. Do they need my mother at the same time as they’re summoning Urgaleth?”

  “Most likely,” he said. “The Scrim—” He cleared his throat. “The Scrim—”

  “What is it?” I asked. What could a ghost choke on—ectoplasmic phlegm?

  “The, uh, folk artist,” the professor said.

  And then I understood. The rules were kicking in again. “What about him, Professor?”

  “He will want the host to be very close by when Urgaleth comes,” the professor said. “You’d better hurry, my boy. I seem to be losing my ability to—” He opened his mouth, then shut it.

  “Quick then,” I said. “Do you know where the Scrimshander’s cave is?”

  He shook his head.

  I said, “Do you mean you don’t know, or you can’t tell me?”

  He looked at me with a pained expression.

  “Okay,” I said. “Just talk in the abstract. Where might the home of such a creature be, in theory?”

  A grin appeared on his face. Then he cleared his throat again. “In theory he would stay close to his possessions.” He looked me in the eye. “And vice versa.”

  “Thank you, Professor Freytag.” I started for the door, then turned. “Someday, I don’t know how, I’ll make this up to you.”

  That afternoon, I was waiting outside the school when Lydia walked out.

  She saw something in my face. Raised an eyebrow.

  “I know where the Scrimshander’s cave is,” I said.

  * * *

  “Under the library?” Lub said.

  “You can quit saying that now,” I said. We were in the alley outside the school. Lydia unlocked the kitchen door, and we slipped inside. We were getting to be old pros at this.

  “But why would they do that?” Lub said. “Go to all that trouble to hide in a school, right under the biggest number of people in Dunnsmouth?”

  “You’re thinking about this backward,” Lydia said. She clicked on her flashlight. “The caves are older than the school—and it was a temple before it was a school. They chose the site because of the caves—especially the main cavern.”

  “And it’s worked till now,” I said. “He’s been hiding down here for over a hundred years.”

  In the Involuntary meeting room in Lydia’s house, we’d gone over the maps of the school. There were no official floor plans to the building, but the students had made their own. As far as they knew, there were no rooms of any kind below the library. The only basement rooms at all were the locker rooms, Coach Shug’s office, and the pool cavern.

  Lydia led us down a hallway that I hadn’t noticed on the Involuntary maps. From the inside it looked awfully similar to the outer loop I’d been in twice before, but this was obviously a different hallway, because it ended in a big oak door painted red. The door was unlocked, and opened onto the staircase that led down to the pool.

  “That’s odd,” Lydia said. “All the hall lights are on.”

  “Is someone here?” I whispered.

  We stood for a moment, listening. The only sound was the faint hoot of air rising up the staircase. Lydia shrugged. “Might as well keep going.”

  We went down the stairs. The lights were on here, too. We went through the girls’ locker room (dark, thankfully), but didn’t step out to the arena because a) the entire place was lit up, and b) someone, maybe a few someones, was splashing and laughing like it was a pool party. A deep male voice and a higher female voice echoed in the large space, but we couldn’t make out their words.

  We hid in the locker room for another minute, but the sounds never died down. Finally I said, “I’ll go look.” So of course both of them decided to follow me. We got down on all fours and crawled out of the locker room. As quickly as we could we ducked behind the stone rows. I took a breath, then slowly lifted my head above the bench.

  Down in the pool, Coach Shug and Nurse Mandi were … frolicking? Mandi pushed down on the coach’s big white shoulders, and he allowed himself to be dunked. Her laughter ricocheted off the walls.

  “Do they know that a giant toad woman lives in there?” Lub asked.

  “Or the Scrimshander,” I said.

  “He must not,” Lydia said. “Or else he knows that they never come unannounced.”

  We ducked down and crawled back to the locker room. Lydia kept her flashlight off. Our only light was the glow from pool lamps coming through the open doorway.

  “Were they naked?” I asked, keeping my voice low.

  “I don’t want to know,” Lydia said.

  “I don’t see what the big deal is,” Lub said.

  “Of course you don’t,” she said.

  “So how long do we wait here?” I said.

  “I say we take our time,” Lub said. “I never liked this plan in the first place. I’m supposed to go into that water, alone, and look for a tunnel that might lead to either a sea troll or a knife-wielding mass murderer.”

  “Or both,” Lydia said.

  “I don’t see how we have any choice,” I said seriously. “My mom could be somewhere down there.”

  “And you are the only one with gills,” Lydia said.

  I said, “With great power—”

  “Comes great gullibility,” Lub said.

  Out in the pool, the laughter had stopped. I couldn’t hear either of their voices. Then the glow through the open doorway dimmed, then dimmed again; the mercury lights in the arena were being shut off, one by one. Then we were in the dark.

  “Should I check out there?” I asked. “I don’t want to … interrupt anything.”

  “Don’t rush it,” Lydia said.

  We sat in the dark for another minute, and then we felt our way out to the arena. We couldn’t hear Coach Shug or Nurse Mandi. Lydia turned on her flashlight—and I held my breath. No one yelled at us. Finally we walked down to the pool.

  Lub stood at the edge with his big webbed feet hanging off the side.

  Lydia touched his shoulder and pointed back the way we’d come. “The library is in that direction.”

  “Right,” he said. His gills opened, closed. “No problem.”

  “You don’t have to do this,” I said.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I can always swim away, right? Nobody’s faster than me in the water.”

  “Good luck,” Lydia whispered.

  Lub slipped into the water, feet first. Then a moment later he bobbed to the surface. “If I don’t come back, donate my books to the library.”

  I started to answer, and then a row of lights lit up above us.

  “Hey!” a deep voice shouted. “Who’s down there!”

  “Go!” I said.

  Lub saluted, then vanished.

  19

  The creature’s face loomed out of the haze of white and hovered within inches of her. His eyes narrowed, studying her. His lips parted. He looked like a man in love.

  “Yes,” he whispered. “Almost finished.” And then, at the periphery of her vision, his hand appeared out of the ice-white mist, and the tip of the knife caressed her again.

  She felt no pain. She felt almost nothing now but the cold of the rock floor again
st her back. She longed to close her eyes, but she feared that her eyes were already closed. There was only the white, and the creature, and the knife.

  The creature talked to her as he worked. “‘Hurry,’ she said. ‘We need that body.’ But does she understand me? Does she understand my work?” He touched her with the knife. “Art cannot be rushed.”

  Sometime later he sat back. His eyes roved her face. Then he nodded, and his eyes glistened with some emotion. “There,” he said. “Yes.”

  The world tilted, and suddenly she was looking down at the creature. He smiled up at her with his sharp teeth. Regarding her with approval. Was she floating? No. He seemed to be holding her in the air with one hand. And at his feet lay something impossible:

  Her own body, sprawled on the cave floor.

  She could feel the rocky floor against her spine, the heat-leaching cold of that surface. But she was also above it, in his hands, feeling nothing.

  “One last step,” the creature said.

  He set her on the floor, beside her body. Now she was staring up at the roof of the cave, and at the cave walls with their rows of shelves. The gallery of faces stared down at her. The man with the thick glasses. The dark-haired couple with wide eyes. The sailors and children and families. All of them vivid, almost moving but not quite. All of them so sad. She could hear them whispering to her.

  She felt a stab of pain. Her palm. He’d cut into her palm.

  It was almost a relief to feel something besides the cold floor. She held onto that pain, concentrating on it. The bright sensation was connected to her hand, and arm, and body. All she had to do was move that arm.…

  “Shhh,” the creature said. “You’re about to become immortal.”

  She saw her own hand. The creature was holding it before her. There was no color in her vision. The thin wound in her palm welled with blood that seemed as glossy and black as ink. A dollop of blood detached, and dropped onto her. Into her.

  It was so warm.

  Another drop fell, and another. The blood slid eagerly along her cheek, along the lines that made her lips and eyes and nose. It filled her. Defined her.

  “From blood and bone, to blood and bone,” the creature said. “A new body, incorruptible. Do you know how beautiful you are?”

  He lifted her from the floor and carried her across the cave. “You belong to the ages now,” he said, and set her on the shelf.

  20

  With sloping masts and dipping prow,

  As who pursued with yell and blow

  Still treads the shadow of his foe.

  “You want to explain what you’re doing here?” the coach shouted. He marched toward us, still wearing nothing but his swim trunks. His body was huge and pale.

  I nearly jumped into the water after Lub. But Lydia turned to face him and said, “I could ask you the same question.” This was, hands down, the coolest response under fire I’d ever seen.

  He stopped. “What did you say?”

  Lydia nodded to a spot behind him, and he glanced back. Nurse Mandi stood in the doorway that led to the coach’s office. A towel was wrapped around her body, and her hair was still wet and curly.

  So much pale flesh turned red so quickly.

  “We were thinking of a midnight swim,” Lydia said. “We didn’t realize how popular the idea would be.”

  “How did you get in here?” he said.

  Lydia ignored the question. “I’m willing to make a deal,” she said.

  Nurse Mandi came forward. “Wilbur? Is that the Harrison boy?”

  “It is,” he said, and glared at me. “I thought you couldn’t go in the water.”

  I had no good answer for that.

  “Are you all right?” Mandi asked me. “No aftereffects from the accident?”

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  “I’m glad,” she said. “Tell your aunt that I also appreciate her not … well, calling anyone about me.”

  I had no idea what she was talking about. “No problem,” I said.

  “What accident?” Coach asked.

  “When he fell in the bay,” Mandi said.

  “So,” Lydia said. “Why don’t we just go, and everybody forgets that they saw anyone down here. Deal?”

  Go? I thought. What about Lub? He was still down there. Then Lydia caught my eye and silenced me.

  The coach looked uncomfortable. “Don’t do this again,” he said finally. “It’s dangerous to come down here at night.”

  I bet it is, I thought.

  “Have a good night,” I said, and then Lydia yanked me up the steps.

  * * *

  “We can’t just leave him there,” I said. We were striding down Main Street. The wind had picked up, and cold gusts were blowing off the sea. Storm clouds hid the stars.

  “No choice,” Lydia said. “Later, after the coach and Nurse Mandi leave, we can maybe sneak back in—but not now.”

  “But he’s going to come back up and think we ditched him!”

  “Harrison, you’ve got to stop panicking about things we can’t change. Lub knows we were almost caught, and he knows where we live. It’s not like he can’t get out of the school without us.”

  “I guess. It’s just … I hope he’s okay.”

  Icy rain began to fall. The wind was fierce, and Lydia’s hair whipped away from her face. I was happy to have the coat Aunt Sel had bought me.

  We’d almost reached Lydia’s house when we saw the light of a bicycle coming up the hill. It was Garfield, pedaling hard to move what looked like a hundred-pound relic from the 1950s. He practically fell off the bike when he reached us. “They’re at Ruck’s!”

  “Who is?” Lydia asked.

  He gulped to get his breath. “Waughm and your uncle! They’re getting on the boat!”

  I looked up at the sky. Where was Venus, and the green glow the Congregation had been waiting for? The storm clouds now cloaked everything, even the moon.

  Gar turned and zipped down the hill. We ran after him, and suddenly it was as if all of New England had decided to stop us. The wind kicked up leaves and grit into our faces. Thunder boomed overhead, and the rain came down. It struck us in sheets, dousing us. We pushed the water from our faces and kept running. In the distance, lightning spiked between low clouds and the black sea.

  Ruth and Isabel were waiting in the gravel parking lot of the pier. Ruth pointed at Ruck’s garage. The Albatross, outlined by its red and white running lights, slowly backed out of the big open doors.

  “Did they bring my mother onboard?” I asked her.

  Ruth said something I didn’t catch in the roar of the wind.

  “What?” I yelled.

  “Slay them all,” Isabel said.

  “I don’t think Ruth said that.”

  “I didn’t see your mother!” Ruth said, shouting now.

  The boat swung about, and I could see the main cabin, and the bridge above it. Several figures were silhouetted in its lights, but we were too far away to see who they were.

  “It’s going to cross in front of the bait shop!” Lydia shouted. She ran out onto the pier. I hesitated for a second, then chased after her.

  The lights along the pier swayed in the wind. The entire structure seemed to shudder as the waves struck the pilings. At the end of the pier, the lights of the bait shop shimmered through the rain. I wouldn’t have been surprised if everything suddenly went dark, the pier broke free from the shore, and the shack dropped into the bay. The lobster boats bobbed heavily in their berths. Lights shined from a few pilothouse windows. No doubt the crews were trying to tie everything down before the storm hit in full. Battening down the hatches.

  Lydia was twenty feet ahead of me. A bulky figure appeared in front of her—Chilly Bob. He raised his hand to shield his eyes from the rain and yelled, “What the heck are—”

  Lydia dodged to his right, barely breaking stride. He twisted to reach for her, and I went around to his left. Out on the water, the Albatross was aiming for the mouth of the bay, and
seemed to be moving slowly in the choppy seas.

  Lydia stopped, pointed over the side of the pier. “Bob’s outboard,” she shouted.

  I looked over the side. Below, Bob’s orange boat was tied to the pier, bucking in the waves. The boat rose up, then slammed into the pilings. No way, I thought. We’d die in that thing.

  Someone grabbed my arm. “What you up to, little man?” Chilly Bob bellowed. His salt-and-pepper beard was strangely matted by the rain, becoming five separate beards fighting for control of his face. He’d added another layer of clothing, a green plastic poncho with a peaked hood, and rain coursed down the creases in streams and rivulets. He looked like a mountain in the rainforest: not just his own landscape, but his own ecosystem.

  I tried to yank my arm free, but his grip was fierce.

  “No more messin’ about on my pier!” Chilly Bob said, and pulled me toward him. He shouted something else, but I was beyond hearing him now. The only thing in my head was the roar of static.

  Instead of pulling away, I grabbed the front of his poncho and yanked him toward me. His eyes went wide in surprise.

  Pictures flashed behind my eyes: a dozen violent things I wanted to do to this man. “Get out of my way,” I said.

  Chilly Bob released his grip. He backed away from me, then stumbled. He caught himself, then turned and ran down the pier, poncho flapping.

  Lydia stepped up to me. “What did you say to him? Harrison?”

  I turned to face her, and Lydia stepped back in alarm.

  I took a breath, trying to calm myself down.

  “Are you okay?” she asked. Rain had plastered her hair to the sides of her face.

  “We’ve got to catch them,” I said. The Albatross had passed the pier and was heading out to sea, picking up speed. “This way.”

  I ran toward a berth closer to the shack. Below was the lobster boat Muninn, parked nose-first against the pier. The rear of the boat was stacked high with lobster pots. No one was on deck, but the cabin lights still glowed.

  I took a breath, then climbed down the ladder to the platform below, and then jumped onto the rocking deck of the boat. A man in a yellow rain slicker came around the side of the cabin, a length of rope wrapped around his shoulder. He saw me and stopped.