Okay, though, ’cuz it was so good. Hey, howdy, somethin’ behind Door Number One, just for him
COMECOME
HUNGRY
And whatever that groove-thang was, it started pushing on the other side of the cold, cold door.
“Dang,” he breathed. “You see that, goodbuddies?”
No one answered.
Cha-cha was alone.
The hand poked from under the door.
And someone started singing:
“Bye, baby bunting,
Daddy’s gone a-hunting,
Going to find a rabbit skin
to wrap his baby bunting in.”
Cha-cha’s eyes filled with tears. “Mom,” he murmured, kissing the door. His lips stuck to the frozen metal.
But he sang along anyway.
Matt’s head thumped against his father’s shoulder as his dad, Donna, and Curry, the monster-man, ran down a corridor that was not a corridor on the Pandora, but on some other ship, one that had posters on the walls with army guys in helmets and life jackets, and guys saluting a flag; and one of a ship slipping under the waves and underneath, the words “LOOSE LIPS SINK SHIPS.”
Fog rolled in, dry-ice tons of it, a heavy, sodden net unfurling as his dad raced into it. Matt cried out and threw his arms around his father’s neck, and when he looked back, he saw the gray raging water of the ocean rushing toward them at a thunderous pace. Within seconds, it washed around his dad’s thighs, splashing Whitewater into the foggy air. A piece of seaweed whipped around his leg—no, it was an eel!—and shapes spun and danced beneath the surface of the rising waters.
Matt raised his hand and pounded on his father’s shoulders, crying “Daddy!” but his father didn’t answer him, just kept running and praying and running on. Donna was saying something to him and he was nodding, and the other guy made a funny noise in his throat and Donna smacked him one but good.
The water grew choppy as it built and roared and churned shapes to the surface: the bisque head of a doll, china plates, a piece of net, a bathing cap, a chair leg.
A figurehead, hands clasped over her naked tee-tee’s, with brown eyes and flowing dark hair; and in her hands she held one of Dane’s mittens. She bobbed past, late, late for an important date; it was the lady he’d seen, the statue lady!
Matt screamed, and screamed, and screamed, but his father plunged on, not hearing him.
Farther on, another set of posters was plastered on the walls, with funny stick writing all over them, and all the men had cat-shaped eyes. They were faded and old, half rotted away; there was a hole in the wall and Matt saw not another part of the ship, but the sky, and it was pitch-dark out, and things were exploding in the air, bombs or something, and airplanes droned and whirred—
—and something shot downward, and the hallways shook. Chunks of the ceiling rained down on them. Matt covered his head and something struck his fingers, cutting into them. He cried out and jerked up.
But the adults kept going, a powdery coating like snow covering their heads and shoulders. The water rushed around their thighs; it lapped up and drenched Matt’s bottom.
“Daddy!”
Farther on, wooden signs hung on the walls: “All Steerage Passengers Must Report to Assistant Purser,” and Matty’s mind reeled, because the ocean was swallowing up the ship, and airplanes were bombing it, and the wall was a patchwork of green paint and gray metal and dark wood, and some of it was streaked with slimy stuff, and some of it was streaked with brown splotches. He didn’t know what the hell was going on but steerage had to do with cows and he thought of the freezers and moaned.
They reached the deck of an old sailing ship. It was the playroom Matt had seen on the way to dinner.
But no, it was a ship, a real ship, or part of one. It jutted topsy-turvy, all smashed up, and a mast to Matt’s right had cracked in half, and the other end had crashed through the floor, leaving a huge hole less than an inch from Matt’s dad’s right foot.
And beside the other foot, there was a pile of bloated, purple bodies that stretched to the other side of the deck, maybe ten feet away, and one of them was—
—Matt’s mouth dropped open and he threw up.
One of them was a boy with no face. Two eyes peered from an oval that pulsed red gore, but when he smiled, his teeth sparkled and glittered, clean and pearly; and then a crab crawled out of his mouth and dropped into the goo, and flailed in it, its claws and body sinking, sinking into gut quicksand.
The boy sat up and reached a hand toward Matt. He wore old-timey clothes, all rotten and torn: a striped shirt and a pair of black pants that stopped just below his knees.
“Climb, baby. Climb up the mast,” his father said. Matt stared at him, at the boy. His father didn’t see the boy!
“Daddy …”
“The water’s coming. We’ve got to go up.”
“But the boy! The boy!” he shrieked.
“C’mon, Matty,” Donna said, pulling him out of his father’s arms. Matt screamed and clung to his father. Donna pried him off, one piece of him at a time, and the monster-man helped.
Matt reared away from them as the boy stood up.
“Climb, Matt!” his dad pleaded as Donna pushed him against the mast. “The boat is sinking!”
“Daddy, he’s coming!” He jabbed wildly at the air. They all looked, but Matt could tell they didn’t see him standing there, blood running down his face.
“No! No!”
“Get up there, goddamn you!” Donna slapped Matt’s face and pushed on his butt. “Please, baby. Please.”
Grinning, the boy slogged toward them, right through the gooey bodies, guts squishing under his bare feet. He was maybe six feet away. Sobbing, Matt shinnied up the mast. It was old and splintery. The wood tore at his hands and pants knees.
“Go up, Donna,” his dad said, but she shook her head and moved away.
“I’m going to find the captain. Curry, come with me.”
They argued while Matt watched the boy come closer, closer. Matt gave a shout and began to climb. His dad came after him, boosting him with his hand as Matt scrabbled up the mast for all he was worth.
They went high, very high. Ignoring Donna and Curry, who still must not have seen him, the faceless boy put his hands on the mast.
“Oh, no!” Matt shouted. He stopped, frozen.
“Please, sweetheart, please, Mattman.” Distantly, his father’s voice, from another world. Matt’s heart was the loudest thing he had ever heard. “You can do it. Think about James Bond.”
The monster-boy started to climb. Matt’s heart roared in his ears. If he didn’t move, the boy would get his father! Even now, he could see his fingers, just bone, with pointy ends and blood—
Matt scrabbled upward.
“Good boy. That’s my Mattman.”
Matt tried to go faster. The boy’s hands were grabbing for his dad’s feet. Faster, and faster, and—
With a cry, he lost his grip and fell
down
down
down, into the rushing water. He heard his father’s wail as his head went under.
There was a second splash, and the boy’s worm-eaten face cannonballed down on him, and his hands came around his throat. Matt tried to push him away, but he kept coming, kept pushing Matt
down, and Matty thought he heard him say, This is how it feels to drown, Matt. It’s not so bad, is it? Just let it happen. Let it go. It’s better than dying of cancer. Believe me. Far better. We’re doing you a favor.
29
Drowning
This couldn’t be happening, Donna thought distractedly as they pulled Matt from the water and raced to higher ground: the top of a stack of crates marked “SPECIMENS.”
“I dreamed this,” John husked as they tried to force the water out of Matt’s body.
And lived it? Donna tingled with a horrid déjà vu. Not Matt, too. Not another little drowned kid. Not here.
She fell to her knees beside John. His face was whit
e. “There’s no pulse.”
As they looked at each other, she began to shake. She clenched her muscles tight to make herself stop. It didn’t work. Not Matt. Please, God, not again, and not Matt.
“You compress,” she said steadily. “I’ll breathe.”
“No, he has cancer …” John blurted.
“Compress,” she said evenly, waiting.
Drown, how could he drown? John pushed his bony chest five times, nodded to Donna. She listened for his breath, breathed into him. His lips were cold and soft. She thought of other small lips. The mittens. The failure.
The death.
“Compress,” she said. John began to pump.
Oh, God, oh, God, the water was sloshing over the tops of the crates as the level rose. Curry, useless Curry, screamed and moved toward the center. Wouldn’t do any good, Donna thought. Reade wanted them, he had them … unless they could get him first. Son of a bitch. What the hell was he? Son of a bitch, she shot him and he didn’t die. Her cop brain raced ahead to possible scenarios, showdowns, outcomes. Curry was hopping on one foot, the other, screaming how they mustn’t drown on board, any of them, or he would have them.
Mutilate their souls. Jesus, what a load of crap.
But the bullets. The bottles. The floor.
The air changed, violently. A swirl of fog, the poof! of magic smoke from a lamp … and then her world cracked open.
Her little floater crouched at Matt’s feet. Same Windbreaker, same soft brown hair. Those jug ears. Those eyes. She hadn’t seen his eyes until she’d checked his pupils.
She froze and stared at the ghost. John’s glance ticked at her. I’m so sorry, ma’am, she’d said to his mother. I’m … and the lady had fainted, dead away, without a word.
You okay, Osmond? Listen to this, what do you call a dead floater? Bob.
What kinda wood floats?
Natalie Wood.
You lose some, Officer. Now and then, you lose some.
“Breathe,” John ordered her sharply. Automatically she complied.
Gonna lose him, the floater said, and didn’t say. Lost him already.
“John,” she whispered.
“Breathe!”
She obeyed. The floater watched with a smile on his face. He held up his hands to show her his reindeer mittens.
You lost me. You could’ve had me if you hadn’t let your boy-friend hurt me. You were too wimpy to stop him in time. If you weren’t such a whore, I’d be alive today.
“No.” She breathed for Matt without John’s prompting. He couldn’t be gone, could he? Not little Matty. Not this one, too.
You’re a whore. You know you are. Going after another woman’s husband. You know your Desire. You want to be a slut.
She breathed for Matt.
“We’re doing good,” John said, panting. “We’re fine here.”
It’s your fault, the boy said. You killed me, and you don’t even remember my name.
“Dane,” she murmured. And she’d tried, goddamn it, she’d tried; and she knew that. She knew she did her best. She’d forgiven herself. She had.
She breathed into Matt.
No. It was your remorse pulled you to us, to him. A Desire for relief. You want to pay for losing me.
Wrong. She had wanted to save the boy; and she wanted to save these guys, too. And that was her strongest desire: to protect and to serve. To save. Social worker with a gun.
Breathe, baby. Breathe, sweet baby.
“A pulse!” John cried.
Water spewed out of Matt’s throat. John flipped him on his side again and patted his back. The boy vomited, coughed, choked. John held him and rocked him.
Dane faded away without another word, another gesture.
Shaking, Donna got to her feet.
“Now we’ve got to get a boat,” Curry said. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
Donna licked her lips. “You three go ahead.” With an unsteady hand she tousled Matt’s wet hair. “Can you help your daddy, hon? Can you move okay?”
The water sloshed over the crates, and then everything heeled backward, slamming them against the wall. Matt screamed and fell hard on Donna. His father followed after, and all the breath was knocked out of her.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” Curry cried.
“It’s going down.” Donna pointed to a metal ladder that led up to the next deck. It rose from the waterline at a thirty-degree angle. “Get a boat, get off the ship, wait a while for me and the others. If we don’t come, get away. The suction …” Her heart skipped a beat. Christ, ghosts or no ghosts, she didn’t want to die on the Pandora.
“Come with us,” John urged. He took her hand.
She shook her head. “I’ve got to find the others. And stop him. If any of it’s true …” She laughed bitterly. “Christ, just go. I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about. But the damn boat is really sinking, and I’ve got to get the others.”
A low, slow moan shuddered through the room, metal against metal. Matt’s eyes widened. “Get him out of here,” Donna said fiercely.
John gazed at her as Matt climbed around his waist. Kissing the top of his son’s head, he murmured, “You won’t be able to do anything.”
“Yes, I will. I will.” To Curry, she said, “You help them. You know where things are. You know what’s … real. Get them off here.”
Curry nodded. He dropped his gaze. “I’m so ashamed. I—”
“Save it,” she said, took a breath, and jumped—
—don’t let her hit anything big and heavy!
—off the crates.
Keening, the captain started down the ladderway. He must stop, because I am come to do my penance! I am hurrying to your side, oh, Stella Maris! Forgive me, forgive, and await your slave!
Cha-cha stood in the doorway, totally overwhelmed as the water rushed back out of the room and flooded around his waist. It sluiced around him like a buffalo stampede and ran off.
COMECOMECOMECOME
He took a step closer. The room was frigid and filled with cold mist. When he breathed, he sent out a stream of breath-smoke that curled into the air. Water ran from the top of the doorway, melting ice, and blankets of fog unrolled as he stepped closer.
COMECOMECOMECOMECOME
He recoiled as the fog billowed left, right, making a path for him.
COMECOMECOMECOME
The king! No, something glistening. His mom! No, something sharp and shiny, like a kaleidoscope. Something with tentacles! An octopus! No, something with a little Nessie head, sea serpent! A mask, all white. A spider face. A skull.
No.
No.
Things that were, and weren’t. In the center of the changes and the movin’ and groovin’, like in a lap, an old, wooden boat teetered as the things—the colors! the mists—drooped over it and seeped along the boat’s gunwales. A boat encased in ice, and a guy sitting upright inside it?
Cha-cha cocked his head. That couldn’t be—
A scream of terror behind him. Cha-cha jumped in the air and turned, ax at the ready.
That couldn’t be the King Neptune in the boat, man, because here was His Majesty, standing right in front of him.
But the Big Guy was freaked. Cha-cha doubted he had ever seen a look like that anywhere but on the faces of the sailors on the old Morris, when she was the Abernathy, and all her ammo did its thing to all the Vietnamese who crackled and grizzled on the delta shore.
His Oceanic Majesty staggered left, right, fell to his knees, screaming all the time. Over and over.
Cha-cha looked back at the boat. The block of ice obscured his vision, but that thing in the boat was a body, mostly bone but with some meat still clinging to the ivory; and lots of a face, and that face was King Neptune’s.
Except for where his king wore an eye patch, the boat king had a green bottle stuck in the eye socket, and a—a what?
A pincer,
a ripple of shadow,
a pretty hand with green nails
r /> was, like, pushed through it, or had grown through it, or he didn’t know what. And it wiggled at Cha-cha from a thatch of dried, bleached hair that sat on top of king’s—of this dude’s—head, like the stuffed mom in Psycho. He blinked, wondering how anything could move in there. Must not be frozen all the way, he thought; and realized—even he!—that that was the least of the things he was looking at that should totally wig him out.
Then the ice made a wrenching sound—Titanic hits the iceberg, they blow up half of Nam!—and slid in big, honkin’ chunks to the floor.
“Shee-it,” Cha-cha whispered. Then the head made a popping sound—a single gunshot—and it cracked open like a coconut husk. And the thinking stuff was in there, man, fresh and clean and knobby, slick and set and thumpin’. Pieces of the wiggly pincer-shadow-green-nailed-hand were buried down deep in it, like fingers smushed into a piece of watermelon; and everything was … pumping, living,
doing.
And King Neptune grabbed his own head and threw it around and around in a circle, Jane Fonda Workout on speed, like he was trying to whip it off his neck and slam-dunk it—
—and Cha-cha stood there, completely befuddled, more than a little amazed; and all of a sudden, clang-clang-thump, thump! somebody else joined the party.
Officer D. raced down the stairs.
“Freeze!” she shouted.
He raised his hands, even though hers were empty.
Donna clambered over the railing of the catwalk, ran through the droppings and litter on the deck beside it. She saw the captain, and Cha-cha, and—
My dream of life, all over
Billie Holiday’s voice; Donna saw the singing; and feelings, saw them: a black column of pain and tears; something that reached for her, stretched with such pleading. So blue, so lonely; ice-blue, so lonely. A purple-black stream of unbelievable desolation: Oh, baby, baby, I am hurtin’, I am friendless, no one to call my own. I am so
down
down
down,
I’m as low as you can go. I hurt so bad I cannot breathe.
Singing, drawing her in; Donna’s cheeks were wet with tears and she sang back; yeah, she sang it, she knew it: