The Alex Crow (5 page)

Why bother?

It was entirely unbelievable. When we saw the dark breach ahead of us, Captain Hansen and Mr. Piedmont presumed we were approaching Kotelny Island, and that what we saw must have been the rocky shore. This proved to be incorrect as we neared the edge of the ice pack.

So it was with renewed spirit the men bothered to lower the heavy longboats into the sea. The dog teams, however, were forced to turn back in the direction from which they'd come, since there was not adequate room on our boats for everything. I sensed some great relief among the native handlers when they were finally free to leave our ill-fated expedition.

I am in Captain Hansen's boat. I believe that his leadership has kept the majority of the expedition alive during the difficult journey across the ice, and I have faith that he will bring us safely to the shores of the northern islands where we will find shelter and warmth among the natives there.

This is my hope.

T
UESDAY
, F
EBRUARY
24, 1880—
A
LEX
C
ROW

We lost sight of our sister boat in a vicious storm last night.

One more of the seamen—Richard Alan Culp—died aboard our vessel this afternoon. Once again, our diminished party feels alone and without hope. It is all I can do to tend to their aching bodies, and attempt to inspire some sense of confidence and optimism. I'm afraid this is entirely useless, though. The least I can do is to ignore the constant questioning of Murdoch.

This afternoon, Mr. Warren and I huddled beneath the gunwale in a small covered space we'd made with one of the expedition's tents. I'd asked him if he was still dictating the narrative of our expedition to Murdoch. He insisted that readers would want to have the full account of the loss of the
Alex Crow
, even if none of us survived.

“Particularly if none of us survive,” I said.

To this, Mr. Warren replied, “I cannot think any of us will ever see his home again. Why would anyone think such a thing, given our current state?”

I do not believe we can last one more night in this boat. I have found myself hoping—and that is an odd word to use—that I will not wake to find myself the sole living inhabitant of the boat, that if I am not to make it home again, as Mr. Murdoch predicts, that I die before too many others are dropped into the sea.

I realize that death and survival are both extremes of selfishness.

Just before nightfall, from beneath our covering, Mr. Warren and I heard Murdoch shouting that land had been sighted, but when we came out to look, it was already too dark to see anything more than an arm's reach from the boat's hull.

Imagine our disappointment and dread at Captain Hansen's cautious decision to forgo any attempt at landing until daylight tomorrow.

“Who knows where we will be at daylight tomorrow?” Murdoch wondered.

“
I
'
m going to tell you guys
something, but you are not allowed to ever repeat it to anyone else as long as you live.” Larry pointed his index finger like a spear to emphasize the words
anyone else
.

“That sounds perfectly reasonable, Larry,” Cobie Petersen said.

I wondered about Cobie Petersen. Like Max and me, Cobie Petersen just didn't belong here; he didn't fit in with the other kids at Camp Merrie-Seymour for Boys. At that moment, after his smart-ass comment went unnoticed by Larry, I almost wanted to talk to him, to ask him why his parents sent him here, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.

Robin Sexton, on the other hand, was a different story. Of the four boys of Jupiter, he was clearly in the right place.

I watched Robin Sexton. His face was blank, and he stared into the fire with frozen eyes. His thumbs and fingers wriggled over an invisible controller. I was pretty sure he was hallucinating clearing a difficult level in some violent video game.

“I'm going to tell you what happened to Earth,” Larry said.

“Before or after the asteroid that killed all the dinosaurs?” Cobie asked.

Robin Sexton rocked back and forth.

“No,” Larry said. “I'm going to tell you about the Earth cabin, and why we don't use it anymore at Camp Merrie-Seymour for Boys. And you fuckheads can't say anything to
anyone
, because this is a true story. But you have to tell a scary story, too. It's what
normal
kids do at camp, at night.”

Max and Cobie looked warily at Robin Sexton. Then they both promised they would tell a story.

Larry said, “What about you, Marcel Marceau? You in for telling us a story?”

I shook my head.

“You could just act it out,” Larry said.

I
was
acting it out. I shook my head again.

“Whatever,” Larry said. “Well, two of you is better than none. We already know Earbud's scary story, about the time he got caught jerking off at camp. So here goes: I started working here as a counselor when I was seventeen—just out of high school. My dad wanted to make me join the army, or he said he was going to throw me out of the house when I turned eighteen, which was going to be in a month and a half, so I headed east and ended up answering an ad for a live-in counselor. In those days, there were
three
alternating programs here: a camp for fat kids; this one you guys are in—the camp for fuckheads like you who don't have any
real-life
friends; and a camp for kids with psychological disorders, you know—neurotics, compulsive liars, narcissists, kleptomaniacs, sadists, and arsonists.”

It sounded like the future of America to me.

“Lucky thing I missed out on the Camp Merrie-Seymour for Psychopathic Boys cycle that summer,” Max said.

“Every day, you'd wake up and it was like Custer's Last Stand,” Larry said.

“That's slang for jerking off,” Max pointed out.

“It is?” Larry said,

Max nodded his assurance.

Larry went on, “The Earth cabin's counselor was a guy named Marshmallow Jeff. The kids called him that because he was really, really white, and he'd use marshmallows as bribes to get the crazies to behave themselves. And he was super creepy, too. He kept marshmallows in his pockets for the kids, and tucked inside the tops of his socks, too. Nobody liked him, and he never talked to anyone.”

For some reason, this last statement caused Max and Cobie to turn and stare at me.

Then Larry said, “But the kids of Earth were like zombies under Marshmallow Jeff's control, on account of all the marshmallows he'd give them. The Earth cabin's still here, too. It's on the other side of the creek from the mess hall, in the woods. After the incident that happened there that summer, they stopped keeping the vines knocked back around Earth, so unless you know it's there, you don't even notice it.”

“So, what happened at the Earth cabin?” Max asked.

“I'm telling you, kid. Be patient.” Larry moistened his lips and burped a silent blast of vodka gas. “Pretty much as soon as the camp term started that summer, Marshmallow Jeff complained to Mrs. Nussbaum that one of the other planets was playing tricks on the Earth boys—trying to scare them. He said that his kids kept seeing two red eyes in the woods at night, like they were staring in at them through the screen on the cabin. Nobody likes to get stared at by red eyes at night, right? Anyway, it kept happening, night after night, and the eyes kept getting closer and closer and closer to the Earth cabin.”

Larry lowered his voice and got a crazy look in his eyes when he said the part about the eyes getting closer. And I'll be honest—I'd never heard stories like this before, so it was making me more than a little scared.

Then something happened that made us all jump.

We heard the fluttering buzz of a vibrating cell phone. Larry jerked his hand down to smother the spot in his cargo shorts where he'd hidden his phone, but it was too late. The thing may just as well have been an air-raid siren as far as the boys of Jupiter were concerned.

“Uh,” Larry said.

Robin Sexton's eyes flashed flames.

“You have a phone!” Robin said.

“No—I—uh—”

In other circumstances, with other planets, I could easily imagine a bloody scene ending in Larry's gruesome dismemberment. But clearly, Max, Cobie, and I didn't care about Larry's cell phone. Robin Sexton, on the other hand, began salivating and attempted to get to his feet.

But Larry held out a warning hand and said, “Don't even think about it, kid.”

Robin chewed on his lower lip and sat back in the dirt.

It was reasonable that counselors would be permitted to have such luxuries as cell phones and electricity and so on. I could only assume that most of them were more adept than Larry at keeping their secrets concealed.

“Am I going to finish telling this story, or what?”

“If we had our phones, you could group text us,” Cobie Petersen offered.

Larry sighed, and put his hands on his knees like he was going to get up and go to bed.

“No. I was just kidding, Larry,” Cobie apologized. “Please finish the story.”

Larry pointed his spear-finger at Cobie. “You're telling one, too.”

“I promised, didn't I?”

So Larry continued, “One night there was a terrible storm. Everyone shut themselves up inside the cabins just trying to keep dry and warm, except for Marshmallow Jeff and the boys from Earth. They'd seen the red eyes in the woods again, right outside their cabin, and Marshmallow Jeff told his campers he'd give them all fistfuls of marshmallows if they would go out in the storm into the woods with him, so they could kick the living shit out of whoever was trying to scare them.”

“Were you in Jupiter then, Larry?” Cobie Petersen asked.

“Yeah.”

“Six summers in Jupiter.” Cobie shook his head. “You must be very, very lonely.”

“Shut up. It's not like I spend all year here, kid. I have a life,” Larry said.

“Doing what, exactly?” Cobie asked.

“Jesus. Are you guys going to let me tell the story, or what?”

I think we all wondered what Larry did when he wasn't in Jupiter.

“Sorry,” Cobie Petersen said. “I just find you endlessly fascinating, Larry.”

Larry's jaw kind of hung open slightly, and he stared blankly at Cobie Petersen—probably the way one would look out at a pair of glowing red eyes in the middle of a creepy forest at night. When he regained his composure, Larry said, “We heard screams—the most horrible sound you could ever imagine—coming from deep in the woods that night. The whole camp was terrified, and when we looked, Earth cabin was completely empty. We searched and searched all the following day, but there was no sign at all of Marshmallow Jeff and the boys from Earth. It was like they had completely vanished into thin air.”

Max, Cobie, and I glanced at one another, trying to gauge by each other's face whether or not we should believe Larry's story.

Robin Sexton twitched, rocked slightly, and stared into the fire.

Then Larry's voice lowered to a sinister whisper, and he said, “We only ever found one clue that remained of Marshmallow Jeff and the boys from Earth. Out there . . .”

Larry stretched his arm out and pointed off into the woods on the opposite side of the creek from the mess hall. “Their shoes—six pairs, counting Marshmallow Jeff's—were all perfectly lined up by the well house. And there were a few marshmallows scattered on the ground. That was it. Nothing else. It was a mystery, but the boys and Marshmallow Jeff were never seen again. Unless, that is, if you believe the stories some people tell of seeing a big barefoot white man who wanders the woods and hunts for children with baits of marshmallows.”

“I call bullshit,” Cobie Petersen said.

“Oh yeah?” Larry was irritated. “I dare you kid—right now, I bet you could go out there in the woods past the well house, and you'll see footprints—bare feet—that belong to Marshmallow Jeff and the crazy boys he abducted from Earth.”

And Larry added, “I dare you, tough guy. Let's all go take a look inside the old Earth cabin right now, if you have the balls. Marshmallow Jeff and his friends are waiting for you.”

Max said, “Maybe
we should just go to bed now.”

Larry shook his head. “No. It's you guys' turn.
You
got to tell a story now. You know—normal kids at camp and all.”

“Well, your story was horseshit, Larry, and mine's true,” Max said.

“Whatever you say, kid.”

Max folded his knees and hugged his shins. He leaned toward the fire with a look of concentration in his eyes, and said, “My father gets paid to think up and make things that should never exist in the first place.”

“That's a start,” Larry said. “I'm interested, kid. Like what kinds of things?”

Of course, I sat there cringing at the thought of all the stories Max might tell about life in our home, and I was also confident I didn't even know half of the terrible things my American brother could possibly reveal.

“One time, we had a pet cat,” Max began. His voice was low and solemn.

This intrigued me. There were no cats in the Burgess home, so I suspected Max's
scary story
was not going to end well for his leading character.

“When I was in third grade, one afternoon my father brought home a cat—one of his projects he'd been developing for the place where he works.”

“Awww . . . ,” Larry said. “What was the cat's name?”

“What does it matter?” Max shrugged. “It was a cat. Everything our dad brings home is always named Alex.”

It touched me that Max said
our dad
, until he pointed at me and added, “Except
him
. For some reason Dad didn't name
him
Alex.”

What could I say? I wondered if Max suspected I was one of our father's inventions.

Max went on, “Did you ever hear of a Russian scientist named Vladimir Demikhov?”

“Are you just making that up?” Larry asked.

“No. He was a real person. My father used to tell me stories about him. He was fucking insane. One of the things Demikhov was famous for was something he did to dogs. He used to surgically attach extra heads to dogs. He would make dogs with two living heads, that could eat, and everything.”

“That's fucking
sick
,” Cobie Petersen said.

Although what Demikhov did to dogs was sick, Cobie Petersen used the American teenage slang version of the word
sick
, which meant that attaching extra heads to dogs was something Cobie Petersen admired very much.

And Cobie Petersen added, “That means he'd have to actually
cut the heads off
living dogs to do it, right?”

Max nodded.

“How many heads did your cat have?” Cobie asked.

“Just one. It wasn't
that
kind of invention my dad was working on. Demikhov was stupid. Nobody wants a dog with two fucking heads.”

Cobie Petersen raised his hand, an earnest look in his eyes. “I would. I would want a two-headed dog.”

Max shook his head. “The cat did have extra toes, though. His feet were as big around as billiard balls, but that wasn't something my dad did, either. The cat was born that way. But the cat was really weird, too, because they had done all this tinkering around inside his head and body. Mechanical stuff and things with computers that were made from synthetic animal tissue that you'd never know were in there, but they changed him so much he didn't really
act
like a regular cat. Maybe that's just because he was fucked up on the inside. But I'll be honest; he seemed depressed, like he didn't want to live. And he didn't sleep all the time, or chase bugs and mice and birds like normal cats, either. He just sat around staring and staring and staring at us. The cat—Alex—was one of the first versions of what my dad's company calls a
biodrone
. They were made to spy on people, and to do worse things, too.”

“So? What's so scary about that?” Larry said.

“Biodrones are made to kill people,” Max said. “And you'd never know it. Some fucker could be sitting at a computer screen at Alex Division, listening to you, maybe watching you
vaporize your excess anxiety
, and then press a button, and—
poof! kablooey!
—you're done.”

Everyone got very quiet when Max said that. There was only the crackling of the fire and the metronomic rustling of Robin Sexton's rocking in the dirt.

“It's a creepy thing,” Max said. “Because when most people think of spy drones, they think of things that follow you around and you don't know about them. Biodrones are things that
people
follow around—like pets—and you never know what they're actually doing. It's a safe bet that Alex Division has probably made biodrones out of people, too.”

Then Max glanced at me, and said, “What do
you
think, Ariel?”

What could I say?

“Why did your dad bring it home if it was made to kill people?” Cobie Petersen asked.

“They were just testing it out, to see how well it performed, and if it fit in with a family,” Max explained. “In the lab, they could actually hear and watch on monitors whatever the cat was looking at or listening to.”

“Did you
know
it was spying on you?” Cobie said.

Max shook his head. “No. Not until afterward. Neither did my mom. But that's just normal, everyday shit in our house.”

“Did it—you know—did the cat ever catch you
punching the clown
?”

Once again, the things American boys felt at ease talking about mortified me.

“Dude. Don't be an idiot. I was eight years old.”

“So?” Cobie said.

Max cleared his throat. “Well, no, dumbass. The cat only stayed with us a few months, anyway.”

“What happened to him?” Cobie Petersen asked.

“Well, our house is out on the old South Fork Route,” Max began.

Naturally, a kid like Cobie Petersen would know the road, since it was the only link between Sunday and Dumpling Run, which is where Cobie Petersen lived.

Max said, “The cat was always trying to kill himself. Seriously. I know that sounds unnatural, but he would wait in the grass on the side of the road, just like a normal cat waits and watches for birds. Only Alex was waiting and watching for cars or trucks to speed by, then he'd try to run out and throw himself into their wheels. At first, my mom just thought it was because the cat was young and inexperienced with cars and stuff. But after enough times grabbing him by the tail at the last second, the coincidence started to kind of wear off.

“So, one day, my mom was taking a load of garbage out to the incinerator and the cat made a try at it again, just as an old Plymouth came barreling down the highway.”

Cobie and Larry, caught up in Max's story, leaned closer to my brother.

“My mom had to drop the garbage and make a dive for the cat. But the cat got loose, and my mom broke her wrist on the blacktop.”

“Was she okay?” Cobie Petersen asked.

Max shook his head and shrugged. “Who knows? Her arm was broken—anyone could see that—and she got a tooth knocked out, too, but she said she'd be fine, and she refused to let anyone take her in to see the doctor.”

That's our mom!

“Wow. Your mom's fucking tough,” Cobie said.

Max shrugged again and said, “Yeah. Whatever. Who knows? The thing is, though, when the cat met the Plymouth in the middle of the road, the thing exploded. Blew up.
Kablooey
. Done. It made a five-foot-deep crater in South Fork Route, and the road was shut down for almost two weeks.”

“I remember that,” Cobie Petersen said.

“Yeah. Well, it was our cat, Alex, the biodrone, that did it.” Max said, “The official explanation said that the boys in the Plymouth were carrying barrels of high-octane moonshine, and that's what caused the explosion. But it was actually our cat, which wasn't much of a cat at all.”

“That's kind of creepy,” Larry said.

“Yeah. So next time you see a basket of free kittens in a Walmart parking lot, or even if you happen to notice a blue jay swooping down from the branches on a nice summer day, you can just stop and think about whether what you assume you're looking at is really something that happens to be looking at you; something that's worse than anything you could ever imagine,” Max said.

Then Max did something that surprised and embarrassed me. He tapped my knee with the back of his hand—almost affectionately, the way that conspiratorial brothers might do when they're pulling one over on someone—and said, “Isn't that right, Ariel?”

What could I say?

I nodded.

And I thought, maybe in some new language, Max and I would become
we
.