Mute (43 page)

When Aaron lifted his left foot up, it stung like a
bitch. He hoisted it out of the water and bent it across his waist so he could
see his heel. His wetsuit had torn there. The acid hadn’t broken his skin, but
it had burned it red.

“Not much further,” Aaron muttered as he hopped on
one leg across the slippery glass through the shallows. He moved a handful of
inches at a time. If he put his left foot back in the water and toughed it out,
he could reach shore in seven seconds. The vivid memory of Swartzman’s raw
muscle, and bones boiling and his head falling off his body on its way to the
worm-like colony kept Aaron’s exposed foot well above water.

He heard a burst of water behind him. Without
wasting time turning around, Aaron grimaced and plunged his exposed foot into
the water. The acid scorched his heel. It felt as if he were wearing a red-hot
skillet on his foot. As long as it didn’t burn though his skin and give the
microscopic invaders an opening, he might make it. Something started threshing
through the water at his back.

In a few long bounds, Aaron reached the wall of
stones lining the shore. He threw his exposed foot atop the barrier first. It
throbbed as he pulled himself onto the rocks, and rolled onto the grassy
shoulder along the road. He wiped his foot dry on the grass, but even that
didn’t dull the burn. He ditched his scuba mask and tank. Before he could
examine his heel, Aaron heard something smack the stone wall. Scooting back
toward the road and taking sight of it, he saw milk white hands that didn’t
belong to any true human.

The dolphin flopped ashore under the strength of
the arms welded on its torso. It flashed its jagged teeth at Aaron. Forgetting
his throbbing heel for the moment, Aaron leapt to his feet and scurried
backward. He didn’t understand why a dolphin would pursue him on land until it
curved its tail underneath it so that its body formed a “C”. Then it posted its
arms before it. The mutant resembled a backwards tricycle. Crawling with its
arms and scooting on its tail, the dolphin made right for Aaron.

He turned and ran down the street. Or he tried, at
least. With his heel in such pain that he couldn’t set it down on the sun-baked
asphalt, his left foot helped him as much as a peg leg. Frantically hobbling
along, Aaron knew he could run ten times faster when healthy. He had two-thirds
of a mile to go before he reached the bridge. He must have been right about the
yuppies abandoning their waterfront homes, because he didn’t see a single car
in the driveways. No one would bail him out with a rifle blast this time.

He peeked over his shoulder, and didn’t feel all
that good about what he saw: a huge set of enhanced dolphin jaws closing in on
him. Even though it walked like a three-legged dog, the mutant still had a beat
on him. And if he didn’t hurry it up, another one of its buddies might show up
and split the meal.

Screw the pain, he thought. Aaron shifted into a
full sprint. Every time his exposed heel struck the hot pavement, the agony shot
up his leg. He struggled to stay upright. He made it past two houses before he
couldn’t take it any longer. Aaron settled for hobbling and knowing that he had
bought a little more time. Then he caught sight of something awesome in one of
the yuppies’ yards. He took back everything bad he ever said about them.

Aaron scooped up the skateboard, set it in the
street and hopped on. He only needed one good foot on there. Aaron sped away
from the lumbering dolphin. Normally, he would have grinned and exclaimed something
like, “Shredding!” but Aaron found no reason for celebration.

He couldn’t run forever—not on a strip of land
about a mile wide with a bridge over the deadly water separating him from the
mainland. At least he still had a sliver of hope. Swartzman had nothing, thanks
to him.

Chapter 42

The wind whipping across the balcony of the hotel’s
sixteenth floor swept through Moni’s braids so that they bounced against her
back and chest. Clutching Mariella’s hand as the little one stood beside her on
the top floor of the barrier island’s tallest hotel, Moni didn’t worry about
the wind pulling her woven braids loose. The scene unfolding on the lagoon
below her captivated every corner of her mind.

The water churned like a boiling kettle of soup. On
both shores, the mangroves and docks that had rested in the lagoon were
withering and melting like sticks of butter. The color faded from yellowish
green to translucent yellow. She thought she could see the lagoon bottom in the
shallows, but that couldn’t have been right. It looked too smooth and glassy.

Mariella’s people were doing this. They had started
building their home. Soon it would host the rebirth.

But at what cost, Moni wondered. Before she could
elaborate on that thought, a wave of newly-acquired memories engulfed her mind.
She saw gleaming cities in perfectly clear seas. The structures were of flesh
and metal. They moved in seamless harmony as they shuffled their inhabitants
around. Moni could barely make out the creatures. She only saw purple dots from
that high a vantage point. They flowed as elegantly as the notes of a symphony.
A small slice of that world would do wonders on earth.

When the images faded, she gazed at the girl who
had given them to her. The faint purple glimmer in Mariella’s eyes no longer
terrified her. It was beautiful. Now she had met the real girl that she loved.

“I’ll bring your home back, baby. A lot of people
won’t understand what you’re doing, but I’ll tell them you don’t mean them any
harm. I don’t know if they’ll listen to me, but I’ll tell them.”

Moni knew that Sneed wouldn’t listen. That’s why
she didn’t answer his fourteen calls to her cell phone. It didn’t matter what
he told her. He hated black people, purple people, and anything he didn’t
understand. She wouldn’t let megalomaniacs like him demean her anymore.

When her father called, she answered the phone
immediately.

“Hi dad. Almost here?”

“Are you serious?” Bo Williams asked. “The lagoon
looks like piss today. And it smells worse.”

“Oh, we can see the water fine from here,” Moni
said. Not only did she see the water, but through her binoculars she also saw
her father’s rusty C
amaro
pull off the narrow strip of land just before the ramp to the
Eau Gallie Causeway. It entered the parking
lot, which granted access to the walkway underneath the bridge. He fished down
there all the time. “I bet you won’t have a problem finding a parking space
today.”

“You don’t say. Your
undercover
cop car is
the only one out here,” he said. Moni grinned. She had parked her Taurus near
the bridge and used her badge as leverage to hitchhike to the hotel. He got out
of his car and circled around Moni’s battered ride. She had covered Darren’s
bloodstains in the back seat with a blanket, but the exterior was still smashed
up. “Shit, what happened to this clunker?”

Someone who drove a car that sounded like it had a
trash compactor working under the hood didn’t have the right to call anything a
clunker.

“I was playing bumper cars with the Lagoon Watcher.
That was before I choked him out and brought him in.” Now he couldn’t needle
her for dealing with only kiddie stuff. He would finally get the message that
she had grown into a tough woman and no longer a girl cowering in the closet.

“Yeah, I saw his mug shot,” her father said. “I
could have whooped his ass without getting a scratch. I heard he marked you up
pretty good.”

A normal father, after hearing that a man had hit
his daughter, would break into jail and kick his teeth in. Moni’s father acted
like he’d rather shake the man’s hand and give him some woman-beating pointers
for next time.

She had so many sharp words for him—poison-tipped
words that had marinated within her for years—but she couldn’t unleash them
now. Let him get onto the walkway first.

“We got into a bit of a tussle, but I handled it,”
Moni said. “Now come on. Your granddaughter can’t go fishing without your help.
I never was any good at it.”

“That’s because fishing is a sport of patience, and
you got none of that,” he said as Moni watched him trot from his car over to
the walkway. He wore a pair of crusty old jeans and a faded biker t-shirt—with
no sign of fishing gear. “How the hell you think we’re gonna fish in this? If
any fish are still alive in there, you can cook ‘em up yourself, darlin’.”

She loved how he called her darling and suggested
that she choke on toxic fish in the same sentence.

“Don’t worry. I’ve got your monthly rent in my
pocket,” she said.

“Now we’re talking. I could get used to this
grandfather deal. See you kids soon.”

No
you won’t.

They both hung up. About halfway across the walkway
underneath the bridge, he stopped walking and called her back. “Hiding again
are ya? Well, there ain’t many hiding places ‘round here. Come on out before
you piss me off.”

He had threatened her when she hid in the closet
too. He offered her a chance to come out before he broke in and laid his boots
into her—as if the outcome would change if she approached voluntarily. She’d
rather suffer in resistance than give him a shred of justification.

She could do it now. He had strayed into range.

“You don’t scare me anymore. You’re a broken down
old man.”

“Is that right, honey? Well, you looked mighty
scared to me last time I paid your home a visit. I hope you brought that skinny
punk again. I’d get a kick outta snapping his neck.”

She hadn’t heard from Aaron since early that
morning. She hoped he had listened to her and stayed away from the lagoon. Moni
glanced at Mariella. She didn’t respond to that train of thought.

“He’s sitting this one out. This is between you, me
and Mariella, who, by the way, isn’t your granddaughter. You’re nothing but a
stranger.”

“You think you can raise her by yourself? She’ll be
turning tricks on the street corner by the time she’s fifteen. Hell, that’s
where you woulda been if I hadn’t taught you straight.”

“Do you call the abuse you put me through
teaching?” Moni nearly flung the phone over the balcony in a futile attempt to
plunk him in the head with it. Her tears fell over the edge in its place. The
droplets carried off into the swirling wind. “You had no right to do what you
did to me. You had no right to touch me like that! You had no right to hit me
and choke me and… say what you said…”

“You been fucking up my whole life,
you little whore! All you do is screw up!”

Her
trembling hand seized her ear, and a clip of braids, but it couldn’t muzzle her
father’s yelling voice inside her head. The imprint of his harsh words still
stung her even as her physical scars had long faded.

“Have you ever slaved in a grease shop for a boss
that didn’t give two shits about you? Can you imagine how I felt when I got
home, and saw your mom with her fat ass on the couch and you dressing like a
lil’ floozy and blabbering on the phone? I busted my ass every day. All you and
your mother did was think of new ways to burn my paycheck.”

“I don’t care. Okay? I don’t care why you did it.
You had no reason to hurt me. And what you did to mom…”

She remembered the sickening thump that
reverberated through her wall when her father slammed her mother’s head on the
other side. She heard her mother whimpering as she dropped to her knees. She
heard her scream, “
Don’t hurt my baby!”
Another thump silenced her. Her
mother tried to cover the bruises with makeup, but Moni could still see the
blue and purple marks on her dark skin, and the swelling. Yet, she never
whimpered about her own suffering. Her mother’s eyes looked upon her daughter
in agony when they saw the scars she couldn’t prevent.

Her spirit had been shattered so completely, that
she couldn’t reassemble herself after he went to jail. The woman’s heart
couldn’t take it. When her father sent her degrading letters, week after week, that
blamed her for his arrest, she couldn’t throw them away. She read every one,
and each of them pushed her closer to her casket.

Moni had watched her mother die in a hospital bed; her
heart had surrendered. The whole time, she asked herself why she had never
called the police on her father, so her mother could escape.

“Mom tried so hard, but she couldn’t fight you. I
was too small, and afraid to keep you off her. How would I even think about it?
What young child thinks of protecting their mother, instead of the other way
around? That’s just it. I had no one to protect me, because you didn’t care.
You thought your paycheck was all you owed me. I’d have rather gone to bed hungry
every night with a loving family than have a monster like you as my father.”

“Don’t turn your mother into a saint!” Her father
kicked the walkway railing. Moni jerked her head back—even from miles away.
“Oh, she pampered you when you cried like a bitch, at every little bump and
bruise. She looked the other way when you flunked. There were no consequences
with her. The way I was raised, if you screw up, you get the wood laid to you.
My way got the job done. Hell, I wish you were a real cop and not on the Sesame
Street beat, but at least you’re working.”