Night Freight

by Pronzini, Bill

  The first thing he said was, "Good to see you again, men." But he didn't sound as if he meant it. And he didn't smile or offer to shake hands with either of us. "Everything cope here?"

  "Yes, sir," Renzo said. "Everything cope."

  Dietrich gave both of us long penetrating looks, like he was trying to establish a telepathic link so he could shuffle through our thoughts. Then he said, "Well, let's get moving," and we left the pad and went straight to the bubble.

  But Dietrich didn't want to rest or eat or clean up in his quarters before beginning inspection; he never did. So right away it was through our living area, then into the supply section for an inventory check on the stores, then out to the hangar for another inventory check on the tool and supply bins there.

  It was late afternoon before Dietrich finished with the hangar. He seemed satisfied that everything was in order—but not too happy about it, as if he'd wanted to find something out of line. He said, "We'll save the rest of the compound for tomorrow. Right now I could use some nourishment."

  I said, "Whatever you say, Mr. Dietrich."

  On the way back to the bubble Renzo caught my eye and grinned and nodded in the direction of the rec field. Then he said to the Chief, "If you don't mind, sir, there's something Alex and I'd like to show you before we go in."

  "Show me?"

  "Yes, sir. It won't take long."

  "What is it?"

  "Something we're kind of proud of."

  I could see that Dietrich wasn't much interested in anything we would want to show him, but he shrugged and said, "All right, where is it?"

  "Over behind the bubble," Renzo said, and we took him out there and right up near the fence beyond the bleachers, on the first base side of the baseball diamond. "Isn't that a fine-looking recreation field, Mr. Dietrich? Alex and me built it in our spare time over the last twelve months; we just finished it a few days ago."

  Dietrich stood looking around at the field for a third of a minute. Then he turned and stared at us. There were wrinkles in his forehead and alongside his nose, and his cold eyes seemed even colder, like frozen green water. "Is this some kind of joke?" he said.

  "Sir?"

  "There's no recreation field here. There's nothing here except bare rock."

  Renzo and I both frowned at him. "That's a lie," I said. "The field's right here in front of the trees."

  "What trees?" Dietrich said. "There aren't any trees on 217-C. It's a dead world; nothing grows here."

  "That's a lie too," Renzo said. "There are trees. That's how we built the field. With the trees and the grass."

  Dietrich didn't say anything this time. Past him I saw the green field shimmer and seem to fade away for a second, leaving nothing but black and gray. But that was only a trick of the dark daylight, an optical illusion. It was there, all right. It was there.

  I said, "You've got no right to say our field isn't here. It's all we've got; it's all we've had for eleven months. If it wasn't for that field we'd both have cracked up a long time ago."

  "I think I've heard enough," Dietrich said coldly. He pushed past us and headed toward the bubble.

  Renzo said, "Where're you going, Mr. Dietrich?"

  "To call for a psych team," he said without looking back.

  "Psych team? You think we have cracked up."

  "It's not up to me to decide that."

  "Well, you sure as hell did decide it if you're calling in a psych team." Renzo's face had gone all flushed and squeezed up with anger. I felt the same way; the dark gray things were jumping inside my mind again, the way they had before we started building the field. "Use the insanity clause in our contracts," he said, "to cheat us out of our wages. That's the idea, isn't it? I'd heard the Company did things like that but I never believed it until this minute."

  Dietrich just kept on walking, a little faster now, toward the bubble.

  I traded a glance with Renzo. Then I took out the laser tool I kept in my toolbelt, lined up, and cut Dietrich down with one clean slice; he didn't make a sound as he fell. Lasering all those trees to build the rec field had made me a pretty good marksman.

  We went over and stood above the Sector Chief's body. Neither of us said anything; we didn't have to. After all this time together I was tuned in to Renzo's thoughts and he was tuned in to mine, almost as if we'd become symbiotes. What we were both thinking was that now our last major rec problem was solved.

  So without wasting any time we got busy. And just before dark that night we went out onto the field, onto all that beautiful bright green grass, and played our first game of soccer.

  We used Dietrich's head for the ball.

  My first published story dealt with salmon fishermen plying their trade along the northern California coast, individuals whom I admire for their courage and resilience. "Deathwatch" is also about salmon fishermen—and, even more prominently, about levels of light and dark. This may be the darkest of all my stories, in fact, in more ways than one; an existential nightmare that has left some readers depressed, others annoyed or repelled or both, and still others thoughtful and with a disinclination to turn out the lights.

  Those in the last group are the ones for whom it was written.

  Deathwatch

  They just came and told me I'm dying.

  I've got first- and second-degree burns over sixty percent of my body, and the doctors—two of them—said it's hopeless, there's nothing they can do. I don't care. It's better this way. Except for the pain. They gave me morphine but it doesn't help. It doesn't keep me from thinking either.

  Before the doctors, there were two county cops. And Kjel. The cops told me Pete and Nicky are dead, both of them killed in the explosion. They said Kjel and me were thrown clear, and that he'd come out of it with just minor burns on his face and upper body. They said he hung on to me until another boat showed up and her crew pulled us out of the water. I don't understand that. After what I did, why would he try to save my life?

  Kjel told them how it was. The cops didn't say much to me about it, just wanted to know if what Kjel said was the truth. I said it was. But it doesn't make any difference, why or how. I tried to tell them that, and something about the light and the dark, but I couldn't make the words come out. They wouldn't have understood anyway.

  After the cops left, Kjel asked to see me. One of the doctors said he had something he wanted to say. But I wouldn't let him come in. I don't want to hear what he has to say. It doesn't matter, and I don't want to see him.

  Lila is in the waiting room outside. The same doctor told me that, too. I wouldn't let her come in either. What good would it do to see her, talk to her? There's nothing she can say, nothing I can say—the same as with Kjel. She's been sitting out there sixteen hours, ever since they brought me here from the marina. All that time, sitting out there, waiting.

  They have a word for it, what she's doing.

  Deathwatch.

  The pain . . . oh God, I've never hurt like this. Never. Is this how it feels to burn in hell? An eternity of fire and pain . . . and light? If that's what's in store for me, it won't be so bad if there's light. But what if it's dark down there? Christ, I'm so scared. What if the afterlife is dark, too?

  I want to pray but I don't know how. I never went to church much, I never got to know God. The doctors asked if I wanted to see a minister. I said no. What could a minister do for me? Would a minister understand about the light and the dark? I don't think so. Not the way I understand.

  The lights in this room are bright, real bright. I asked the doctors to turn the lights up as high as they would go and one of them said he would and he did. But outside, it's night—it's dark. I can see it, the dark, pressing against the window, if I look over that way. I don't look. Dying scares me even more when I look at the night—

  I just looked. I couldn't stop myself. The dark, always the dark, trying to swallow the light. But not the black dark that comes with no moon, no stars. Gray dark, softened by fog. High fog tonight, high and heavy, blowing col
d. It'll drop by morning, though. There won't be much visibility. But that won't stop the boats from going out. Never has, never will. Wouldn't have stopped us from going out—me and Kjel and Pete and Nicky. It's the season, and the big Kings are running. Christ, it's been a good salmon run this year. One of the best in the last ten. If it keeps up like this, Kjel said this morning, we'll have the mortgage on The Kingfisher paid off by the end of the year.

  But he said that early this morning, while we were still fishing.

  He said that before the dark came and swallowed the light.

  It seems like so long ago, what happened this morning. And yet it also seems like it must have been just a minute or two . . .

  We were six miles out, finished for the day and on our way in—made limit early, hit a big school of Kings. Whoo-ee! They were practically jumping into the boat. I was in the wheelhouse, working on the automatic depth finder because it'd been acting up a little, wishing we could afford a better one. Wishing, too, that we could afford a Loran navigation system like some of the other skippers had on their boats. Kjel and Pete and Nicky were working the outriggers, hauling in the lines by hand. We didn't have one of those hydraulic winches, either, the kind with an automatic trigger that pulls in a fish as soon as it hits the line. The kind that does all the work for you. We had to do it ourselves.

  The big Jimmy diesel was rumbling and throbbing, loud, at three-quarters throttle. I shouldn't have been able to hear them talking out on deck. But I heard. Maybe it was the wind, a trick of the wind. I don't know. It doesn't matter. I heard.

  I heard Nicky laugh, and Pete say something that had Lila's name in it, and Kjel said, "Shut up, you damned fool, he'll hear you!"

  And Nicky said, "He can't hear inside. Besides, what if he does? He knows already, don't he?"

  And Kjel said, "He doesn't know. I hope to Christ he never does."

  And Pete said, "Hell, he's got to have an idea. The whole village knows what a slut he's married to . . ."

  I had a box wrench in my hand. I put it down and walked out there and I said, "What're you talking about? What're you saying about Lila?"

  None of them said anything. They all just looked at me. It was a gray morning, no sun. A dark morning, not much light. Getting darker, too. I could see clouds on the horizon, dark hazy things, swallowing the light—swallowing it fast.

  I said, "Pete, you called my wife a slut. I heard you."

  Kjel said, "Danny, take it easy, he didn't mean nothing—"

  I said, "He meant something. He meant it." I reached out and caught Pete by the shirt and threw him up against the port outrigger. He tried to tear my hands loose; I wouldn't let go. "How come, Pete? What do you know about Lila?"

  Kjel said, "For Christ's sake, Danny—"

  "What do you know, goddamn you!"

  Pete was mad. He didn't like me roughing him up like that. And he didn't give a damn if I knew—I guess that was it. He'd only been working for us a few months. He was a stranger in Camaroon Bay. He didn't know me and I didn't know him and he didn't give a damn.

  "I know because I was with her," he said. "You poor sap, she's been screwing everybody in the village behind your back. Everybody! Me, Nicky, even Kjel here—"

  Kjel hit him. He reached in past me and hit Pete and knocked him loose of my hands, almost knocked him overboard. Pete went down. Nicky backed away. Kjel backed away too, looking at me. His face was all twisted up. And dark—dark like the things on the horizon.

  "It's true, then," I said. "It's true."

  "Danny, listen to me—"

  "No," I said.

  "It only happened once with her and me. Only once. I tried not to, Danny, Jesus I tried not to but she . . . Danny, listen to me."

  "No," I said.

  I turned around, I put my back to him and the other two and the dark things on the horizon and I went into the wheelhouse and shut the door and locked it. I didn't feel anything. I didn't think anything either. There was some gasoline in one of the cupboards, for the auxiliary engine. I got the can out and poured the gas on the deckboards and splashed it on the bulkheads.

  Outside Kjel was pounding on the door, calling my name.

  I lit a match and threw it down.

  Nothing happened right away. So I unlocked the door and opened it, and Kjel started in, and I heard him say, "Oh my God!" and he caught hold of me and yanked me through the door.

  That was when she blew.

  There was a flash of blinding light, I remember that. And I remember being in the water, I remember seeing flames, I remember the pain. I don't remember anything else until I woke up here in the hospital.

  The county cops asked me if I was sorry I did it. I said I was. And I am, but not for the reason they thought. I couldn't tell them the real reason. They wouldn't have understood, because first they'd have had to understand about the light and the dark.

  I close my eyes now and I can see my old man's face on the night he died. He was a drunk and the liquor killed him, but nobody ever knew why. Except me. He called me into his room that night, I was eleven years old, and he told me why.

  "It's the dark, Danny," he said. "I let it swallow all the light." I thought he was babbling. But he wasn't. "Everything is light or dark," he said. "That's what you got to understand. People, places, everything, the whole world—light or dark. You got to reach for the light, Danny. Sunshine and smiles, everything that's light. If you don't you'll let the dark take over, like I did, and the dark will destroy you. Promise me you won't let that happen to you, boy. Promise me you won't."

  I promised. And I tried—Christ, Pa, I tried. Thirty years I reached for the light. But I couldn't hold onto enough of it, just like you couldn't. The dark kept creeping in, creeping in.

  Once I told Lila about the dark and the light. She just laughed. "Is that why you always want to make love with the light on, sleep with the light on?" she said. "You're crazy sometimes, Danny, you know that?" she said.

  I should have known then. But I didn't. I thought she was light. I reached for her six years ago, and I held her and for a while she lit up my life . . . I thought she was light. But she wasn't, she isn't. Underneath she's the dark. She's always been the dark, swallowing the light piece by piece—with Nicky, with Pete, with all the others. Kjel, too, my best friend. Turning him dark too.

  I did it all wrong, Pa. All of it, right to the end. And that's the real reason I'm sorry about what I did this morning.

  I shouldn't have blown them up, blown me up. I should have blown her up, lit up the dark with the fire and light.

  Too late now. I did it all wrong.

  And she's still out there, waiting.

  The dark out there, waiting.

  Deathwatch.

  The pain isn't so bad now, the fire on me doesn't burn so hot. The morphine working? No, it isn't the morphine.

  Something cool touches my face. I'm not alone in the room anymore.

  The bastard with the scythe is here.

  But I won't look at him. I won't look at the dark of his clothes and the dark under his hood. I'll look at the light instead . . . up there on the ceiling, the big fluorescent tubes shining down, light shining down, look at the light, reach for the light, the light . . .

  And the door opens, I hear it open, and from a long way off I hear Lila's voice say, "I couldn't stay away, Danny, I had to see you, I had to come—"

  The dark!

  A major social problem of our times is the stuff of this mordant little tale. The central premise strikes me as all too possible; if something like it hasn't happened yet, I for one won't be surprised to pick up my morning newspaper one day soon and find an account of a similar occurrence. It should probably be noted that my personal sympathies here are about equally divided between Rennert and Dain and their real-life counterparts. Victims both, victims all.

  Home

  Rennert unlocked the door to his apartment, thinking that it was good to be home. It had been a long day at the office and he was eager for a dry m
artini and a quiet dinner. He walked in, shut and relatched the door. The hall, five steps long, led into the living room; when he reached the end of it he stopped suddenly and stood gawping.

  A man was sitting on his couch.

  Just sitting there, completely at ease, one leg crossed over the other. Middle-aged, nondescript, wearing shabby clothing. And thin, so thin you could see the bones of his skull beneath sparse brown hair and a papery layer of skin and flesh.

  It took Rennert a few seconds to recover from his shock. Then he demanded, "Who the hell are you?"

  "My name is Dain. Raymond Dain."

  "What're you doing in my apartment?"

  "Waiting for you."

  "For Christ's sake," Rennert said. "I don't know you. I've never seen you before in my life." Which wasn't quite true. There was something vaguely familiar about the man. "How did you get in here?"

  "The same way you just came in."

  "The door was locked. I locked it this morning—"

  "I'm good with locks."

  A thread of fear had begun to unwind in Rennert. He was a quiet, timid man who took pains to avoid any potentially dangerous situation. He had no experience with anything like this; he didn't know how to handle it.

  "What's the idea?" he said. "What do you want?" Dan was looking around the room. "This is a nice apartment. Really nice."

  "I asked what you want."

  "Comfortable. Warm. Everything in good taste."

  "None of the furnishings is worth stealing," Rennert said. "There's nothing here worth stealing—you must know that by now. I have twenty dollars in my wallet and about two hundred in my checking account. I work for an insurance company, my salary isn't—"

  "I'm not after your money, Mr. Rennert."

  ". . . So you know my name."

  "From the mailbox downstairs."

  "If you're not a thief, then what are you?"

  "A salesman. That is, I used to be a salesman. Sporting goods. At one time I was the company's top man in California."