The Deep (47 page)

“
We exist in many guises
,” said the squat one.

“Is all this . . .” Luke shivered involuntarily. “Did you . . . ?”

The creatures inclined their heads at one another, teeth chattering in their seemingly lipless mouths. Was it laughter?

“Why?” was all Luke could ask.

“
Fun
,” the tall Fig Man said in a honeyed voice.

“
Fun
,” the squat one echoed.

“Games.”

“
Games
,” came the echo.

Torturously, the gears in Luke’s head began to mesh. He was beset by the same sense that he imagined a field mouse might hold the moment before the falcon swooped down: the sense of having been singled out, tracked at great distance, studied for a purpose that he could not possibly understand—and then, when the time was ripe, he was plucked squealing from the long grass. Meat for the feast.

“Why me?” was his next, utterly selfish question.

“
You
?” the squat one scoffed.

“
You were not the key
,” said the tall one.

“Then who . . .”

The Fig Men’s faces split in lewd rictuses.

“
Oh, child
,” they said in unison.

Luke knew. Of course he knew.

“
We observed you
,” the tall one said. “
For as long as you can remember, we have been watching you both
.”

“
Tedious
,” the squat one said.

“
Our reach is not insignificant
.” The tall one angled its head like a dog intuiting a high-pitched whistle. “
We have connections to your world. You have seen them, child.
”

It arrived with a thunderclap of understanding. The thing in the drainage pipe. The thing in the Tickle Trunk. Maybe even the thing in Westlake’s basement in Belmont, Connecticut . . .

. . . the thing lurking in the park not far from Luke’s house in Iowa City?

All the same thing, or parts of it. The Fig Men were their proud parents. And their children were malevolent, but not as old or repellent as these things.

The tall one said, “
We have observed many of your species, over centuries
.”

“
Eons
,” said the squat one.

“
Your brother intrigued us
.”

“
As much as any of your kind do.
”

“
The special qualities of his mind.
”

“
Mulish, but intriguing
.”

“
We chart these qualities. There is so little else to occupy us down here. There have been other minds to capture our interest.
”

“
Better ones
,” said the squat one.

“
The short-eyed Florentine
,” the tall one said.

“
Da Vinci
.”

“
And the other one. The insomniac pigeon-keeper
.”

“
Tesla
.”

“
Fine minds.
”

“
Superior to your brother
,” the squat one said.

“
Perhaps so
,” the tall one agreed. “
And of a quality suited to our purposes . . . and yet
.”

“
And yet
.”

“
You were not ready. As a species. You lacked the knowledge to find us. But now you have that knowledge
,” the tall one said mock-brightly.

“
And here you are
,” said the squat one.

Tricksters
—the word raced through Luke’s mind. Merciless game players. Everything that had occurred had been the work of these . . .
things
.

“Why not just leave this place if you hate it so much?”

The tall one shook its head. “
We cannot, child
.”

“
We have been shackled
,” the squat one said petulantly.

The Fig Men’s eyes swiveled skyward. Heavenward. Luke could only wonder at their origins. Perhaps they were the last surviving members of an ancient tribe who’d been cast out, cast down. Shunned. They had lain down here, licking their wounds. Next, they set about baiting their trap—and when that moment arrived, their knives were sharp for the opportunity.

“Why?” Luke asked.

“
We like to toy
,” they said in perfect unity.

Toy
. Never in Luke’s life had the word sounded so monolithically sinister.

“
We fiddle
,” the squat one said.

“
We test
,” said the tall one.

“We discover how things work.”

“How they fail.”

“Their pressure points.”

“Their tolerances.”

“We are curious.”

“Eternally curious.”

Luke envisioned these ageless tinkerers examining bodies and minds for the sheer sport of it. Flaying brains open and plucking each synapse like the strings of a lute, teasing out every private fear and horror. Caring
nothing for those they entrapped and tortured, committed solely to their games. They had done it to everyone down here. They had turned the
Trieste
into their laboratory. Their killing jar.

“I remember everything down here,” Luke said. “My mother. My family. My old life. But it’s too clear. The clarity is . . .
hellish
.”

The Fig Men grinned like children.

“Oh, yes?”
said the tall one.

“This pleases us,”
said the squat one.

Luke’s brain pounded within its bowl of bone; it seemed to expand, the grey matter expanding with the mad hum of his tormented thoughts, pressing against his nasal shelf until he was ill with it. Memory as a sickness.

“Your species is so busy forgetting,”
the squat one said.

“But not you, child,”
said the tall one.

“It is our special offering.”
The squat one stared at Luke placidly.
“Does it not please you?”

Were they even evil? Luke considered the fact that these things may well exist above the terms that humankind ascribes to certain actions or behaviors. The Fig Men were elementally themselves, as surely they had always been.

But their natures must have gotten them in trouble with the higher ups. And so they had been put in a place where they could do the least harm.

“The ambrosia,” he said. “Yours?”

“
Your kind requires a small enticement. You need . . .
”

The tall one looked to the squat one in search of the word.

“
Bait
,” the squat one said.

“
Yes, bait. The hounds must chase the hare down the hole
.”

“And the ’Gets?”

“
A happy convergence,
” said the squat one. “
Our powers do not extend to such a degree.
”

“
You would have come for less
,” said the tall one.

“
You are a vain species,
” the squat one sneered.

Luke knew this was true. Ambrosia appeared to cure the ’Gets, and
so that was how the narrative played out—the hunt to find a solution for the incurable disease. But Clayton and others of his ilk would have pursued the lure of the ambrosia regardless of circumstance, whether it promised relief from cancer, AIDS, or old age. The unknown was a profoundly powerful intoxicant.

“Why me?” he asked again. “You had my brother already. So why?”

“
Because
,” the tall one said, “
we had nothing to offer him in return for bearing our gift
.”

“
There was nothing tying your brother to the surface.
” A look of true confusion graced the squat one’s face. “
He prefers to be with . . . us
.”

“
There is no accounting
,” the tall one said.

“
But you
.” The squat one flicked a serrate black tongue over its teeth. “
Ohhh, now
you
 . . .”

“
You have loved, my child.
”

“
You have supped that weak nectar.
”

“
You have ties to the sunlit world. And you see, we too wish to see the sun again
.”

“
After all, we were there for its birth,
” said the squat one. “
Your brother was the key. He was a satisfactory tool. But his use has been served.
”

“
Your use has yet begun,
” the tall one told Luke.

“I just want to go home,” Luke said. It was the simplest request he’d ever made, and he asked as a child would.

“
And you may
,” the tall one said laughingly. “
Of course, of course. We insist upon it. But with our gift. You will bear it
.”

Gift?

The cliff behind the Fig Men flexed and cramped. A shrill, prolonged moan filtered out of the dark. Chillingly, it sounded like a dog’s moan.

“
Our gift
,” the tall one repeated.

“
You must take it
,” the squat one echoed. “
We have arranged it. You must accept our terms.
”

“What terms?”

The tall one grinned. “
Oh, come now
.”

“
It took all of our powers to accomplish it
,” the squat one said. “
It was . . .
draining,
would be your understanding of it
.
We had to slumber afterward.
”

“
Such sweet slumber
.”

“
Sweet, yes. And when we awoke we had company.
”

“
Such merry company
.”

The long con
.

It was a term Abby had described to Luke years ago, after they had watched a movie about a pair of bunko artists plying their trade across the Midwest.

There are two types of cons
, she’d told him.
Short and long. The short con is a confidence trick that can be pulled in minutes. Three-card monte’s your classic short con. The other one, the long con, unfolds over days or weeks, even years. It involves preparation, props, costumes, scripted lines. The long con takes time. The con men have to gain the full trust of their rubes; it’s got to be seamless, you know? A perfect facsimile of life.

How the hell do you know all this?
Luke had asked her.
Should I be watching my wallet around you?

Your wallet?
Abby sniffed.
That’s pure short con. You should watch your bank account.

These creatures had
known
. Luke saw that now. All along they had known.

They had seen the shape of the world to come and had bent it to their own devices. They had divined it all a lifetime ago, back when Clayton and Luke were only babes. They had watched the two of them their entire lives, doting over them like careful babysitters . . . no, more like pig farmers waiting with idle interest while the spring hogs were fattened for slaughter. These things had toyed with the fates of both Clayton and himself, engineering their lives to the finest calibration . . .

. . . and then, one autumn evening at a park not far from Luke’s home, they’d played their finest trick of all.

“You stole my son.”

The squat one tittered. “
Foolish child, you must always mind your belongings. Never let them out of sight.
”

In a conversational tone, Luke said: “Fuck you.”

The squat one’s face peeled back from its skull, its teeth elongating into curved rat’s teeth. Its arms undulated silkily.

“
Have you any idea what I could—”

The tall one hissed warningly. The squat one cringed.

“
Such a harsh word,
stole,” the tall one said. “
We have held him. Kept him safe. And we did so knowing you would pay what you owe to reclaim that which was once yours.
”

Luke closed his eyes. Ole Zach Attack. They had taken him. Ruined his family. Ripped Luke’s life apart—they knew he would have to be utterly hopeless before he agreed to come to this watery hell in pursuit of his insufferable brother. Luke must have nothing left to live for. Well, they had seen to that. Zach had spent the last seven years with these things. Seven human years, the passage of which seemed immaterial in a place like this. More years than he had spent with his own parents. What would that do to his son—to anyone?

Luke opened his eyes. “What do you want?”

“
To be free
,” they said simply.

“You don’t deserve it,” Luke croaked, a ghastly smile spreading across his face. “You deserve to be down here. Alone.”

The Fig Men smiled back. Luke’s soul shuddered. The cliff was swelling behind them—it seemed to be curling over in its upper recesses, beyond Luke’s sight, a horrific wave preparing to break.

The Fig Men smiled bashfully, coquettishly. It’s just little ol’ us, child. What harm can we cause?

“Our gift . . .”

“I won’t accept it.”

The tall one said, “
Why ever not?”

Luke set his feet. “I’ll die here.”

They chuckled mordantly.

“
Oh my child,
” the squat one said, “
will you remain a stranger to yourself to the very end?
”

“
You love too much,
” the tall one said. An expression flitted across its face that could have charitably passed for sorrow. “
Your kind does so—loves heedlessly, without restraint or governance. It can lead you to grand places, surely. Places we have never seen or ever will
.”

“
But love has other uses, too
,” said the squat one.

The ovoid ball those monstrous hands had left behind began to throb, its exterior issuing crackling birch-bark sounds. It bulged and heaved as whatever lay within struggled to set itself free . . .

A cocoon. Of course it was. Just like the one he’d once pointed out to Zach in the backyard, the one with a lunar moth crawling out of it. This cocoon was tar-black, just like the ones that had encased the Fig Men in his son’s closet . . .