Dead in the Water (20 page)

“One must be sacrificed, for a good voyage,” someone said.

“Gaaa,” Kevin managed. The pain, rolling over him, waves, waves. The terror, oh, God, bad trip, bad, Officer Donna was right, bad drugs; tripping and …

“I’m sorry,” said another voice, and through his clenched lids, Kevin saw a man covered with sores, with blood—
his
blood—eyes so sunken, a knife—oh, God!

“We sank.
Trinity
. SOS. SOS. Mayday, Mayday.” The man sobbed. “SOS, I’m alive. I’m still alive.”

He raised the knife and held it to Kevin’s throat. “Best you die. I’m still alive. Best …”

“No!” cried the first voice, and the man with the knife halted. He threw back his head and wailed, “Let me die! Let me go with him!”

Fresh agony lurched through Kevin. The blood and vomit hissed like acid, eating a hole in the deck underneath him; and it collapsed into rotted planks of wood that floated up around his shoulders as he plummeted into a place that was darker, fouler, deader …

Freakin’ out. His brain, oh, God, he was hallucinating because—

because—

Mwahhhhahhahahahhahahhahahhahahhahahahhahahahah

The laughter chased him down and slapped him hard. It
was going to bash his skull in. That fucker had done this to him! Had killed him!

In his mind, as he fell, Kevin raised his arm and gave the bastard the finger.

Back in his body, he did nothing.

But smash to the bottom and get on with dying.

Back on deck, Edward Curry, former captain of the
Trinity
, sprawled on the deck, in the blood, near his reward.

“Please let me die,” he pleaded. “Please.”

The captain—the present captain, the one who ruled the waves—sat in his chair in the corner, shrouded by the dark. His hands rubbed the soft wooden armrests, worn down by the centuries of his flesh upon them. A young boy knelt between his legs, nibbling, nibbling fishie, so sweet, so young, his Nathaniel.

“Please. Use someone else. Please. I can’t stand it anymore, I can’t do it again.” Curry barely moved. But his hand, the captain noted with satisfaction, stretched toward the little sausage afloat on the Sea of Death, meatlet, cutlet of Desire.

“Harder,” he whispered to the boy, his little cabin boy. Surges of pleasure ran through his cock. Ah, ah, why not let Curry die? The sacrifice had been made. The captain no longer recalled why one was required. He didn’t even know why those words sounded so familiar. Something in him refused to remember; there was much that was blank these days. He sensed he had struggled against something, and prevailed. Something had tried to … to rule him. To make of him a slave …

 … a thousand times a thousand, it had tried … but he was the captain, he was, was,
was
! It was he who commanded, he who was the god!

He no longer remembered how he had come to be a god, and to rule the dead of the sea. Nor why it was exactly that all those living, save himself, enraged him so. Why it was such sport to pull them down

down,

down, but it was the way of his holiness, his worship, in this temple he had fashioned with his magic.

Nor why, exactly, everything seemed … renewed, or remade, even he …

NO!

No, all was as it should be. All was as he ordered it to be. Life was under his control.

He knew he needed Curry, until he chose another acolyte to take his place.

He also knew he would not allow Curry the blessings of immortality. The man was a coward, and the captain would not suffer cowards in his crew.

“Please, please,” Curry begged. His hand curled around the morsel. The captain kept him hungry; he was easier to dominate that way.

“It shall be as you desire,” the captain promised the other, vanquished captain as he stroked the head of the little boy, who in turn stroked him. “But not yet,” he added, as Curry’s head jerked up hopefully.

“Not yet,” and he leaned back in his chair.

And what had happened to the body of that other young one? As it fell into the hole? Whence that hole?

Not to ask. The captain’s mind shut hard, watertight, as a black, thirsty fog rolled toward it. He began to shake. Not to ask! Never, never, for he was the captain, he!

But the power,

and the glory, and there was a

there had been a

“Ah!” he shouted, and strained against the culmination of his ecstasy, of the swell of the tide within him, the galvanic, joyous fury of his power; and as he sweated and shuddered, his mind roved over the waters, and the seafarin’ winds, seeking out the newest ones; and he thought:

Come aboard, come aboard, me hearties. I shall have you all, I shall take you all, even I shall kill …

 … that bitch …

“Nathaniel!” As the cabin boy sucked it down

down,

down, and the depths were sweet, and the eel of his body slithered into the murk of paradise.

*  *  *

Donna looked at herself in the mirror of her suite. Well, hey howdy, get a load of this. Cinderella is going to the ball.

A much nicer dress than anything in her absent luggage hugged her waist and hips. Low-slung and red, a real Corvette dress. It was very nice of the captain to authorize some credit on board, and the boutique franchisees had been happy to donate some clothes to the survivors.

A ghost of a chill kissed the small of her back. Survivors. Answers better be on their way, or she was going to kick some butt but good.

Well, answers
were
on their way, officer ma’am. Cool your smokin’ jets. She picked up the cream-colored invitation that reminded her of a graduation announcement.

At the top of the stiff paper, an anchor.

Below it, the words,
Captain, the
Pandora

A few spaces, and then:

Damn straight he’d get the pleasure of her company. It was overdue, to her way of thinking.

She’d tried to call Ramón to see what the captain had told him—and vice versa—during his debriefing, but the ship’s operator said no one had told her his cabin number. Donna requested an outside line and the operator—with the same style professional bullshit voice as the nurse’s—replied that no one had authorized charges for her room. So Donna had sworn and sputtered and dug out her MasterCard and given her Glenn’s number, and the operator had finally consented to give it a try, only to report that something was wrong with their satellite connection and that they’d have to try later.

Hell and damn, and back again. You’d think on a boat like this, you’d be able to make a phone call.

Then a clerk from the boutique had come in with a rack of clothes, which didn’t mollify Donna much but gave her something else to do. The invitation from the captain had arrived shortly after that, and then John and Matt had popped by with their invitation, all excited. Matt had told his father he
wanted to write a book about his adventure, which got John thinking about movie deals. Donna was surprised at him; he didn’t seem the greedy, starstruck type, but when he began talking about being able to take off some time from work with the money he’d make, things clicked: he wanted to be there for his son when whatever was wrong with him got worse. Happily enough, though, the boy was looking much, much better.

“I tried to make some calls, too,” Donna said, frustration creeping back into her voice as she recounted her inability to do so.

John frowned. “I got through. Reached my housekeeper. No one’s heard anything about us or the
Morris
. She was shocked. I asked her to keep mum until we learn more from the captain. No sense upsetting everybody.” No, indeed: what if they were the
only
survivors?

“Well, I’ll try later. I guess with fiber optics—” She made a gesture with her arm as she realized she didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. She knew about satellites and signals bouncing wrong and like that, though, so it made sense John had lucked out and she hadn’t.

The doctor came to check her, from stem to stern, which necessitated John’s and Matt’s exit. He asked her about her dizzy spell, and she lied to him and said she felt one hundred percent, and he gave her his permission (gee, thanks, your highness) to leave her stateroom. In truth, she was fagged out; who wouldn’t be after a day and a night on the high sea? But she’d be damned if she’d stay cooped up in bed.

Then a steward told her it was almost time for cocktails in the captain’s quarters, and if she’d dress, someone would be by to escort her.

Now a chime rang, followed by a patter of knocks on the lower third of the door. When she opened it, a dark man dressed like a waiter stood aside as Matt tumbled into the stateroom, his father following behind with a stuffed green dinosaur the size of a heart, and a single long-stemmed red rose. Father and son were both dressed in suits and ties, Matt’s with short pants, and Donna felt a bit outclassed. Her duds were a tad casual, maybe.

John’s eyes widened and he faltered charmingly before saying, “Nice dress.” He looked down at the rose as if he’d just discovered it and held it out to her.

“For you.”

“She can have the dinosaur, too,” Matt ventured, staring up at her. “You look like the lady on MTV,” he told her.

She smiled at her suitors. “Well, gee, thanks.” She took the rose and dinosaur with a little bow. “How keen. I’ll have to put it in water—”

Something mushroomed behind her eyes. Gray filmed over them; she reared backward and dropped the dinosaur as she touched her fingers to her lids.

“Donna?” John said.

Tendrils of darker gray waved in front of her fingers. The fog, she thought distractedly, rubbing again. “Jesus, I can’t see a damn thing!”

Hands grabbed her shoulders. She could feel them but she couldn’t see them. Where someone should have stood, a darker gray swam in front of her. She cried out.

“Hold your head still.” Frightened, she jerked as John cupped her chin and pried her lid open as far as it would go.

Cobwebby lines of black and pewter undulating directly in front of her. And a—she tried to focus—a

“Are you in pain?”

She shook her head. “No, I … I just can’t see you.”

—quick quick, a flash, a semidiscernible image—

“Sit down.” John led her to a chair. She groped like a blind woman.

“Shall I get the doctor?” asked another voice.

—an image of a—

The room flashed back into place. John’s glasses were pressed against the bridge of her nose as he stared into her eye. She blinked hard to clear the tears that were streaming down her cheek.

“Okay,” she said. “It’s okay now. I can see.” She raised a hand as he continued to stare into her eye.

Examined her other one, pulling the lid. “Could you see anything? Anything at all?”

She thought for a moment. What had she thought she’d seen? Or almost seen? She didn’t know.

She made a gesture. “Gray, wavy lines.”

His face took on a distanced, thoughtful expression. Processing the medical computer. And from his look, either coming up with nothing or something he didn’t want to share.

“Should I call Dr. Hare?” The voice belonged to the steward.

Donna shook her head. “I’ll see him later.” John’s lips parted in protest. She raised her chin a notch and said, “I’ll see him later.”

“You blacked out earlier,” he said gently.

“I just spent twenty-four hours in a lifeboat, too.” She eased him away. He rocked back on his heels and stood.

“I really think—”

“MYOB, John,” she snapped. She looked past him to Matt, who had picked up the dinosaur. The rose, too. His eyes were huge.

“I’m okay,” she assured the two of them, softening.

“That happened to me once,” Matt murmured, still staring at her.

John flushed, muttered, “During chemo.”

Donna said, “I think you’d better hang on to that dinosaur for me, okay? I’ll go put the rose in some water.”

Water. What she had almost seen had had something to do with water. Or something in water. Something shiny. Something green.

Something borrowed, something blue. Let it go for now, Donna. It was probably stress.

“Ma’am?” The steward held his hand out for the rose and carried it into her bathroom. He turned on the tap. Donna picked up her purse and room key from the end of the bed.

“I’m fine,” she huffed at John.

The steward returned with the rose, clipped to a stubby-stemmed blossom in a drinking glass. He set it by her bed, turned, and made a little bow.

“I’m Adalberto, your cabin steward.” He smelled of heavy, musky after-shave and his hair was oiled. His nails stabbed a quarter of an inch above the ends of his fingers, like a cheap
hood in an old gangster movie. “If you’re ready, I’ll escort you to the captain’s quarters.”

John held out his arm to Donna. “You insist?”

“I insist.”

He sighed.

“Lighten up,” she chided, then put her arm around his to soften her tone.

They moved toward the door. “By the way, have you heard anything?” she asked. Matt nonchalantly circled around to her other side.

John shook his head. “Not a damn thing.” Lowered his voice. “I keep wondering about Kevin. And Cha-cha.” He glanced down at Matt, who held the dinosaur in his arms. He was pretending not to listen, but Donna knew people pretty well. Chemo. Oh, dear God, the little guy had cancer.

“Wait’ll you see the ship,” John said in a different tone. “It’s fabulous.”

They went out of the room. The hall stretched before them like an endless fun-house corridor, so long it dipped in the middle. The carpet was a wavy pattern of blue and black and green, a vague sea-life motif, with dots of darker blue that resembled fish in a Rorschach kind of way. The walls were white, and light fixtures that looked like hurricane lamps glowed starkly and rippled between their footfalls on the carpet. Shadow and light, the carpet swayed and the fish darted behind ropy ladders of seaweed. Donna looked up; the illusion made her queasy. What if something was really wrong with her? She cast a wary glance at Matt. Something like
that
?