The Night Season (22 page)

CHAPTER

47

So this was
the aquarium room. There were tanks on all four walls, lined up side by side on floor-to-ceiling shelves. There were at least fifty of them. They were the room’s sole illumination, a Caribbean blue filtered through gels. Some of the tanks were lit with black lights, creating a dizzying array of incandescent fish and coral. Pink. Blue. Purple. Susan’s hair had been all those shades.

Heil’s voice was smooth and firm, each word carefully enunciated. The black light made his eyes and teeth a dazzling unnatural white. “Now stand up, very, very slowly.”

“What. The. Fuck?” Susan said.

She followed his gaze to a wall of aquariums. All four of the room’s walls were lined with shelves of aquariums. But the aquariums on this wall were empty.

“There are seven of those tanks,” Heil said. “Each one had a blue-ring in it.”

It took her a second to understand.

They were in the water. She was sitting in it up to her chest.

She made a strangled cat sound and started to get up.

“Stop,” Heil said quickly.

His urgency froze her in her tracks.

“Listen to me,” he said. “They’re not aggressive. They’ll only bite if you brush up against them. You just need to stand up slowly. Don’t slosh.”

Susan’s mouth felt dry. How did you stand up from a seated position without sloshing? She was on her butt. Her hands were on the floor behind her. Her legs were out in front, bent at the knee. If she stood up, she’d have to move through the water. She’d touch one of those things and it would bite her and she’d suffocate and her heart would stop. She was just going to stay where she was. She would sit there in the water and wait for someone to come get them out of there.

“Stand up, Susan,” Heil said.

She didn’t move. “Why can’t I stay like this?”

“Because they’re swimming around in here, and your odds of getting in one’s way are directly related to the surface area you have in the water.”

An excellent observation.

“I thought they couldn’t survive in this kind of water,” Susan said.

“They can live briefly in it,” Heil said. He rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know.”

“Okay,” Susan said.

But she still couldn’t move.

“Are you going to stand up?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

She wondered if her teeth looked like that.

“Give me a minute,” she said.

She looked down toward her right hand and began to incrementally lift it to the surface of the water. Every cell in her arm hummed with electrical current, ready to react at the slightest contact with solid matter. When her hand broke the surface and eased out of the water, it was like Susan had never seen her hand before. It looked incredible and marvelous. A hand!

“What are you doing here?” Heil asked.

“My engine stalled,” Susan said.

She moved on to the other hand now. “I was walking home and I saw your car.” Measured, steady breaths. “I wanted a ride.” Finally, she had both hands up above the waterline. Now all she had to do was get to her feet. She inhaled deeply, mentally anchored her feet to the floor, and lunged slowly forward.

It didn’t work.

She couldn’t get the leverage without her hands.

“Use your stomach muscles,” Heil said.

She was going to die because she didn’t have rock-hard abs.

Then she saw a dimple in the water, just a few feet away from her knees. Heil saw it, too. She heard his intake of breath. The adrenaline was enough to power her forward and up on her feet. She didn’t do it slowly. Water streamed down her body and rippled outward all around her. She hugged her arms and waited for something to bump against her leg. The water settled.

Susan’s panting slowed.

She looked over at Heil. “So I guess he’s the guy you’ve been looking for?”

He swallowed hard. “Yeah.”

“Is help on the way?”

He didn’t answer.

Surely he’d called for backup. “Is it?” she said.

He looked her in the eye. She’d never seen his face so serious. “My phone doesn’t work down here.”

She let that sink in. Okay. That was bad. But they still had options. She had a phone. A smartphone. If she couldn’t get anyone on the horn at 911, at least she should update her Facebook status.
Susan Ward is: being menaced by octopuses and wants her friends to save her.
“I’ll try mine,” she said. The realization hit her as soon as the words left her mouth. “Oh, no.”

“What?”

She could see it sitting at the foot of the fake leather sofa. “I left my purse upstairs.”

“I thought you never put your purse down,” Heil said.

“Shut up.”

She looked up at the ceiling and cupped her hands around her mouth. “Hey!” she shouted at the top of her lungs. “Someone help us! We’re down here! Hey!”

“I think it’s soundproof,” Heil said softly.

She squinted. He was right. There was some sort of thick padding on the walls and ceiling, held in place by a metal grid. She felt the prickly sensation of panic under her skin.

“I’ve tried,” he said.

Why would someone soundproof a room full of aquariums?

Then she realized: “He kept the kid down here,” she said.

“There’s a folded-up cot over there,” Heil said, lifting his chin toward a wall of electric-blue tanks.

The toys upstairs. The deck of cards. She was shaking. She couldn’t stop herself. “So where’s the boy now?” Susan said.

“I don’t know,” Heil said.

“I called Archie,” Susan said. “I left him a message. I told him that my car broke down and I saw you.” She looked down at the cold water. The light from the aquariums reflected off the surface, giving it a turquoise sheen.
Don’t move,
she told herself.
Just don’t move.
“He’ll come for us,” she said.

CHAPTER

48

It was hard
not to move. Susan’s leg was cramping up. She couldn’t stop shivering. How long had it been? Fifteen minutes, twenty? Her feet ached from the cold, from standing in flat rubber boots on concrete.

She should have stayed with the car. You were supposed to stay with the car. Everyone knew that.

Where was Archie?

“My leg hurts,” Susan said.

The blue glow all around them was not tranquil anymore. It made her head hurt. The black lights made everything look radioactive.

Heil was scanning the water. She noticed that he had a pattern, like he was tracing the spokes of a wheel. She hardly knew anything about him. Now she felt bad about that. She should have shown an interest.

He took his gun out of his shoulder holster and leveled it at the water in front of him.

“What are you doing?” Susan asked.

“I’m going to try to get to the door,” Heil said. “And if I see one of those things, I’m going to shoot it.”

Susan looked around at all the glass and concrete. Wouldn’t a bullet ricochet in there?

“Why don’t we wait?” she said.

“I’m going to try to get to the door,” he said again. He swallowed hard and slid one foot forward an inch, eyes trained on the water along with his gun.

He was going to get himself killed. They should wait for Archie. He was on his way.

Heil inched his other foot closer to her, to the door.

“Keep talking to me,” he said.

She couldn’t think of anything to say. “Do you like fish?”

“I used to.”

“What kind?”

He tilted his head at the north wall of aquariums. “See those weird silver fish that are shaped like little axes?” he said.

Susan scanned the tanks until she saw a dozen shiny silver fish with flat tops and large beer bellies. “The ones zipping around the top of their tank?” she said.

“They’re hatchetfish,” Heil said. “Good, dependable aquarium fish. They’re social. They like to hang out. Jump around. They’ll jump right out of the tank if you don’t keep a lid on it. They live longer if they have friends. So you want to keep a school of at least six.”

He was only a few feet away from her now, halfway to the door.

The water rippled between them. “Did you see that?” Susan said.

He leveled his gun at it. “Yes.”

“I think you should stand still.” She felt something move past her leg and she yelped.

“What?” Heil said, alarmed.

Susan lip started to quiver. “I think something bumped me.”

“Where?”

“On the knee,” she whimpered. Had she been bitten? She couldn’t tell. “Does it hurt, when they bite?” she asked.

“I don’t think so,” Heil said.

She was breathing too fast. Hyperventilating. “I can’t catch my breath,” she said. She bent over, gripped her thighs with her palms, and tried to think of something besides dying. Song lyrics. Think of song lyrics.
Load up on guns / bring your friends / it’s fun to lose and to pretend
.

She could feel her breathing slowing back down to normal. She was okay. “I’m okay,” she said. “I’m okay.”

Heil didn’t answer.

She stood up. “Heil?”

He was studying his hand.

“What is it?” she said.

He looked over at her with a perplexed expression on his face. “My hand feels numb.”

Then he turned his head, leaned over, and vomited into the water. The vomit swirled and then sank, leaving an acidic tang in the air.

“I think I need to go to the bathroom,” Heil said. “I…” He took a couple of sharp, short breaths. “I can’t feel my hands.”

“It’s okay,” Susan said. She worked to keep her expression calm. It took every ounce of her willpower not to burst into tears. “You need to come to me. Before you fall.”

He looked up at her. The gun fell from his hand with a plunk into the water.

Susan held her arms out to him as if he were a child. “Come to me,” she said.

Heil was looking at the spot in the water where the gun had dropped.

“Leave it,” Susan said. “You don’t need it.”

He turned his neon-white eyes up toward her and stumbled forward.

She caught him under the armpits as he fell, so that his face was pressed into the front of her shoulder.

“We’ll be okay,” she said. “We’ll be okay.”

He was too heavy. She couldn’t hold him like this; he was already slipping from her grasp. She lowered him into the water on his knees and cradled his head against her hip with both hands.

“I know you can hear me,” she said.

CHAPTER

49

The hatchetfish swam
happily in their tank, their silver bodies shimmering like coins.

Heil had not taken a breath in a long time.

Susan still hung on to him.

“You’re okay,” she kept saying. “You’re okay.”

She hadn’t seen any more ripples in the water. But she’d stopped looking. She didn’t want to know. If she didn’t see them, then they weren’t there.

The hatchetfish seemed so content, not a care in the world. She hated them.

Heil sank an inch lower and she repositioned him. Her whole body was stiff. Her feet ached. She was standing in knee-high water, wet and cold and shivering. But she was not going to let him go.

She heard someone at the other side of the door. She didn’t know if it was the killer or a rescuer, and she didn’t care. “Hello?” she cried. “I need help! Please! Let us out of here!”

The door swung open.

Susan’s heart sank. The man was back. He still wore the waders, but now he had added a coat, like he was going somewhere. He stood in the doorway for a moment, the aquariums bathing him in blue light.

“I need you to help me,” he said to Susan.

Susan turned away from the door and hugged Heil tighter. “I’m not leaving him.”

The man tromped through the water over to her and put a hand on the back of Heil’s neck. Then he checked under his jaw for a pulse.

“He’s dead,” the man said.

Susan could feel tears slipping down her cheeks.

The man looked at the water. “They’re still alive,” he said. “If they were dead they’d be floating.”

That’s why he was here, Susan realized. The blue-rings were going to die soon. With them gone, she might have gotten out of there. She would have had a chance.

The man pulled Heil out of her arms and pushed him into the water. Susan could barely breathe.

He yanked Susan’s arms behind her back and tied her wrists together with some sort of twine while she watched Heil sink below the water’s surface.

“I’m going to pick you up,” the man said.

One of the hatchetfish flung itself against the lid of its tank.

Susan’s whole body was trembling.

He scooped her up, carrying her as if she were an infant. She sobbed, relieved to be out of the water, terrified to be in his arms. He hauled her out of the aquarium room and through the laundry room to the bottom of the stairs, where Patrick Lifton sat just above the waterline gripping a
Star Wars
figure between his hands.

“Patrick?” Susan said.

The boy scurried up a few steps to make room, and the man set her down on her feet a few steps below.

Susan wiped the tears and snot from her face. “Everyone’s looking for you, Patrick. Your parents miss you.”

The boy’s eyes darted to the man and then back at Susan.

“Let’s go,” the man said, and he gave Susan a push. The boy sprang up and took the steps two at a time. Susan trudged behind him. When they got to the kitchen the man told the boy to get his coat and the boy left the room.

The man was going to kill her. Susan knew it. He was going to take her somewhere and kill her and they would never find the body.

“What’s your name?” she asked him.

His eyes were small and he blinked at her for a moment. “Roy,” he said.

She nodded. Now she was certain. She was going to die. He wouldn’t have told her his name if he’d planned on letting her live.

The boy returned, wearing an oversized black raincoat.

“Can I have a glass of water?” he asked the man.

It was the first sentence Susan had heard him speak.

“Hurry,” Roy said.

The boy went to the sink and got a glass from a dish drying rack on the counter, filled it with tap water, and drank a few sips. Then he poured the rest down the drain and set the glass on the counter in front of him.

“Come on,” Roy said. He opened the back door, cursed at the rain, and put up his hood. Then he put his hand on the back of Susan’s neck and led her outside, behind the house, into the night. There was an unattached garage back there, and a car parked in the driveway in front of it. A sedan. Dark-colored. Nondescript. Even looking right at it, Susan couldn’t have described it.

The rain hissed all around them.

“Where are we going?” Susan asked. Raindrops pelted her bare head and stung her hands.

“To get supplies.”

Roy opened the back door and shoved her, shivering, in the backseat. The boy got in after her, and she slid over to the other side to make room, leaving a damp stain in her wake. She noticed he didn’t have the
Star Wars
figure anymore.

Roy got in the front seat and fingered a switch, and the chrome lock on Susan’s door snapped down with a deadening finality.

As they pulled out onto Division, Susan saw the blue and red glow of police lights straight ahead at a distant intersection.

They had found her car.