Part 56 (1/2)
”What happened to the world? Did they drop the bomb?”
”No.”
”What then?”
”It's back there somewhere,” he said. ”Back over Quiddity. Over the sea.”
”Oh,” she said, though it was clear she hadn't quite grasped this information. ”Do you have any c.o.ke?” she said. ”Or pills? Anything?”
”Sorry.”
She returned her gaze to Quiddity, leaving him to follow her instructions and make his way along the beach. The agitation in the waves was increasing with every step he took. Either that or he was simply becoming more sensitive to it. Perhaps the latter, because he was noticing other signs besides that of the wave-rhythm. In the air around his head a restlessness, as though conversations between invisibles were being conducted just out of hearing range. In the sky, the waves of color were breaking up into patches, like herring-bone cloud, their tranquil progressions replaced by the same agitation that had tainted Quiddity. Lights still pa.s.sed overhead, moving towards the smoke tower, but there were fewer and fewer of them. The dreamers were definitely waking.
Ahead, the beach was partially blocked by a rock formation of chain-link boulders, between which he had to climb before continuing his search. The Silksheen Woman had offered good directions however. A little way beyond the boulders, around another sweep in the beach, he found several more survivors, both men and women. None seemed to have been able to climb more than a few yards from the sea. One of them was still lying with his feet in the waves, his body sprawled as though dead. n.o.body went to help him. The same languor that kept the Silksheen Woman staring out over Quiddity had affected many of them, but several were inert for a different reason. They'd hauled themselves from Quiddity changed by floating in its waters. Their bodies were encrusted and misshapen, as though the same process that had turned the warring guests into an island was underway in them too. He could only guess what quality, or its absence, marked these people out from the rest. Why had he, and perhaps half the dozen here, crossed the same distance in the same element as these sufferers and stepped out of Quiddity unchanged? Had the victims entered the sea hot with emotion, and Quiddity battened on it, whereas he'd drifted much as the dreamers did, his life left behind in another place, and with it all ambition, obsession; all feeling indeed, but the quiescence Quiddity induced? It had even lulled from him his desire to find Jo-Beth, but not for long. That was his only thought now. He went among the survivors looking for her, but he was disappointed. She wasn't among this number, nor was Tommy-Ray.
”Are there any others?” he asked a heavily set man slumped by the sh.o.r.e.
”Others?”
”You know...like us.”
There was the same puzzled and distracted air about this man as there'd been about the Silksheen Woman. He seemed to be laboring to put the words he'd heard together.
”Us,” Howie said. ”From the house.”
There was no answer forthcoming. The man just kept on staring, his gaze gla.s.sy. Howie gave up and searched for a more useful source of information, electing the one man among the survivors who wasn't looking out over Quiddity. Instead he was standing high up on the beach, staring up at the smoke tower at the core of the archipelago. The journey here hadn't left him unmarked. There were signs of Quiddity's work on his neck and face, and running down his spine. He'd taken off his s.h.i.+rt and bound it around his left hand. Howie approached him.
No excuse me this time, just the plain statement: ”I'm looking for a girl. She's blonde. About eighteen. Have you seen her?”
”What's up there?” the man replied. ”I want to go. I want to see.”
Howie tried again. ”I'm looking-”
”I heard you.”
”Have you seen her?”
”No.”
”Do you know if there are any more survivors?”
The reply was the same deadpan syllable. It got Howie raging.
”What the f.u.c.k's wrong with everybody?” he said.
The man looked at him. His face was pock-marked and far from handsome, but he had a lop-sided smile that Quiddity's handiwork couldn't spoil.
”Don't get mad,” he said. ”It's not worth it.”
”She's worth it.”
”Why? We're all dead anyhow.”
”Not necessarily. We got in, we can get out.”
”What, you mean swim? f.u.c.k that, man. I'm not going back in that f.u.c.king soup. I'd prefer to die. Somewhere up there.”
He looked back towards the mountain. ”There's something up there. Something wonderful. I know it.”
”Maybe.”
”You want to come with me?”
”Climb, you mean? You'll never make it.”
”Not all the way, maybe, but I can get closer. Get a sniff of it.”
His appet.i.te for the mystery of the tower was welcome when everyone else was so lethargic, and Howie was loath to part company with him. But wherever Jo-Beth was, it wasn't on the mountain.
”Just come some of the way,” the guy said. ”You'll get a better view up there. Maybe spot your lady-friend.”
That was no bad idea, especially when they had so little time. The unrest in the air was more palpable with every minute that pa.s.sed.
”Why not?” Howie said.
”I've been looking for the easiest route. Seems to me we're best going back along the beach aways. By the way, who are you? I'm Garrett Byrne. Two R's. No u. Just in case you get to write the obit. You are?”
”Howie Katz.”
”I'd shake your hand only mine isn't fit for shaking.” He raised the s.h.i.+rt-swathed limb. ”I don't know what happened out there but I'll never draft another contract. Maybe I'm glad, you know? It was a f.u.c.king dumb business anyhow.”
”What was?”
”Entertainment lawyer. You know the joke? What have you got if you've got three entertainment lawyers up to their necks in s.h.i.+t?”
”What?”
”Not enough s.h.i.+t.”
Byrne laughed out loud at this.
”Want to see?” he said, unwrapping his hand. It was scarcely recognizable as such. The fingers and thumb had fused and swollen.
”You know what?” he said. ”I think it's trying to turn itself into a d.i.c.k. All those years f.u.c.king people with this, just taking them up the a.s.s, and it's finally got the message. It's a d.i.c.k, don't you think? No, don't tell me. Let's just climb.”
Tommy-Ray felt the dream-sea working upon him as he floated, but he didn't waste effort looking to see what changes it was making. He just let the fury that was fuelling those changes come.
Perhaps it was that-the anger and the snot-that brought the phantoms back. He became aware of them as a memory first, his mind picturing their pursuit of him down the empty highways of the Baja, their cloud like tin cans tied to a dog's tail. No sooner thought than felt. A cold wind blew on his face, which was the only part of him showing out of the sea. He knew what was coming. Smelled the tombs, and the dust in the tombs. It wasn't until the sea around him started to churn, however, that he opened his eyes and saw the cloud circling above him. It was not the great storm it had been in the Grove; the destroyer of churches and mommas. It was a mad runty spiral of dirt. But the sea knew it belonged to him, and it began new work on his body. He felt his limbs getting heavier. His face itched furiously. He wanted to say: this isn't my legion. Don't blame me for what they feel. But what was the use of denying it? He was, the Death-Boy, now and always. Quiddity knew it, and worked its work accordingly. There were no lies here. No pretenses. He watched as the spirits descended towards the surface of the sea, their circle centering on him. The fury in Quiddity's ether intensified. He was spun like a top, his motion s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g him down. He tried to throw his arms up over his head, but they were leaden, and the sea simply closed over his head. His mouth was open. Quiddity flooded his throat; his system. In the confusion one simple knowledge-carried by Quiddity, now swallowed in its bitter whole-touched him. That there was an evil coming he had never known the likes of; that no one had ever known the likes of. He felt it in his chest first, then in his stomach and bowels. Finally, in his head, like a blossoming night. It was called Iad, this night, and the chill it brought had no equal on any planet in the system; even those so far from the sun they could bear no life. None owned a darkness this deep, this murderous.
He rose to the surface again. The phantoms had gone, not away, but into him, subsumed into his transforming anatomy as part of Quiddity's work. He was suddenly, perversely, glad of it. There would be no salvation in the night that was coming, except for those who were its allies. Better he should be a death among many deaths, then, when he might have a hope of being pa.s.sed over in the holocaust.