Part 22 (1/2)
Somewhere to their right, there's a tremendous splash, as if a gigantic body has risen from and fallen back into the sea, and then there's laughter and a sound like thunder rolling across the water.
”You don't want to know,” Spyder says, ”so don't ask.”
And the catwalk shudders slightly beneath their feet as the thunder fades away.
”Jesus,” Niki whispers to herself, trying not to let her mind make too many pictures of the things that might be out there in the mist, floating or swimming just out of sight, watching their progress along the catwalk.
”Keep moving, Niki. There's a village up ahead. It's not much farther.”
”Another island?” Niki asks hopefully, but Spyder shakes her head.
”Not exactly,” she replies. ”Just a little fis.h.i.+ng village.
But there will be men with boats there who can take us to land.”
”Are you still p.i.s.sed at me?”
”No. I'm still disappointed, that's all.”
196.
”Yeah, well,” Niki says, keeping her eyes on her boots and the moldering boards of the catwalk. ”Maybe that's because you expected too much.”
”Maybe so. Or maybe it's because I know you've spent too many years looking for the answers you need in prescription bottles, listening to people who are too afraid of the truth or too stupid to even ask you the right questions.”
”People tried to help me,” Niki tells her, but she isn't sure she believes it, and she can hear the doubt in her voice. She starts to say something about Dr. Dalby, then thinks better of it. ”Marvin tried to help,” she says, instead.
”Did he?” Spyder asks, and leaps easily across a particularly wide gap in the slats. She stops and waits for Niki to cross it.
”Yes,” Niki replies, gazing at mist filling the empty s.p.a.ce left by the missing boards, wondering how far down it is to the water. ”I think he did. Spyder, I don't know if I can get across this one.”
”You have to. You can't stay here.”
”If I fall-”
”-you'll drown,” Spyder says. ”Or something will eat you. Or both.”
”Marvin tried to help me,” she says again.
”Daria paid him to take care of you. You were his job, Niki, just like that other girl he told you about, the one who saw wolves.”
”How do you know about her?” Niki asks, taking off her pack and handing it across the gap to Spyder.
”It's all about salvation,” Spyder replies, and holds an arm out to Niki. ”He couldn't save that girl, so he had to try to save you. When he lost her, he lost himself. You were supposed to be his redemption.”
”I can't do it. I'll fall. It's too far across.”
”Christ, girl. A little while ago, you were throwing yourself off f.u.c.king bridges. Now you're afraid to hop over a little bitty hole like that?”
”It's not the same,” Niki says, and she looks up at Spy- 197.
der, at her pale blue eyes and the glowing red gem between them. ”There's nothing down there but water.”
”How do you know that? You don't, do you? For all you know, there's another place waiting for you underneath this one. h.e.l.l, for all you know, next time it's Heaven.”
”You just told me I'd drown, or get eaten-”
”Come on, Niki. Take a deep breath, and keep your eyes on me, and jump. I can help, but I can't do it for you.”
”What makes you any better than Marvin?” Niki demands, looking back down at the hole. ”You brought me here because you think I can save this place, because you can't.”
”Yeah,” Spyder says. ”Exactly,” and when Niki looks up again, she's smiling. ”Now you're thinking. Come on, Niki.
You could make this jump in your sleep.”
In my sleep, Niki thinks. In my dreams, and she takes a deep breath, filling her lungs with the damp and salty air, and jumps.
Just over the Tennessee-Alabama state line, the rusted purple Lincoln pulls into a BP station because the girl in the backseat is awake now, and she has to pee. The big car glides smoothly across the wide parking lot, past the double row of self-serve pumps and cases of canned Coca-Cola stacked up like Mayan ruins. Archer Day lights a cigarette and points at an empty parking s.p.a.ce between an SUV and a pickup truck.
”Where the h.e.l.l are we this time?” the girl asks from the backseat and rubs her eyes.
”Just about a hundred miles north of the a.s.shole of the world,” the driver replies and squints through his cheap truck-stop sungla.s.ses at the sun glinting bright off the wide and tinted plate-gla.s.s windows of the convenience store.
”So we're almost there?”
”We'll be in Birmingham before noon,” the man tells her and slips the Lincoln in snug between the SUV and the pickup, easy as you please. There's an NRA decal on the rear winds.h.i.+eld of the truck and a b.u.mper sticker that 198 reads THOSE WHO LIVE BY THE SWORD GET SHOT BY THOSE WHO DON'T.
”s.h.i.+t. It looks even worse than Kentucky,” Theda says, and opens her door, letting in the cold.
”You ain't seen nothing yet,” Walter Ayers says and removes his sungla.s.ses. He glances at his aching, bloodshot eyes in the rearview mirror. Nothing a few drops of Visine and a couple more ephedrine tablets wouldn't fix, but he thinks maybe he'll let Archer drive the last leg. Maybe he'll get lucky and sleep an hour or so before the city. ”From here on, it just keeps getting better.”
”I'm sure it does,” Theda sneers, and gets out of the car, slamming the door loudly behind her.
”I think she's having second thoughts,” Archer says, whispering, watching the frowzy girl in her ratty black sweater and black-and-white striped leggings, her tall Doc Marten boots, the tangled poppy-red hair hiding her eyes.
”Aren't you?”
”No,” Archer Day tells him. ”Not now. I know better now.”
”Do you?” he asks, and slips his sungla.s.ses on again.
”Well, I gotta admit, that sure puts you one up on me.”
”There's no time left for doubt.”
”I'm not talking about doubt. I'm talking about finally having the good sense to look the other way. Maybe sit this s.h.i.+t out and let someone else pick up the pieces.”
Archer turns her head and glares at him with her hard brown eyes. ”After all you've seen?” she asks. ”After all these years?”
He shrugs and turns the key in the ignition; the engine sputters once or twice and dies. ”Sometimes I think you got a hard-on for Armageddon,” he sighs.