Red Tide (22 page)

“I have raised Bebe from the egg,” he said, nodding at the snake. “I have given him a special taste.” He looked up. His blood was dripping into the saucer and the snake was starting to uncoil towards him. He smiled, a pleasant smile. “For blood. He likes human blood.” He shook his head happily. “Very unnatural. His kind, they do not normally like the human blood. It was very hard to teach him, but well worth it. He has been a great help in my work.”

He pursed his lips and whistled, a soft trill of a whistle that was strangely intimate.

The snake wound down from the coat rack and onto Cappy’s shoulder. He whistled again. The snake moved its huge flat head down to the saucer and began to drink.

“To him, he knows it means he will soon be fed, you see? And I have trained him to take the blood and then—” He gave me a beautiful smile. “—then he wrap himself where I say and squeeze. Very helpful with the sacrifices. For Papa Legba.” He laughed, then shrugged. “A parlor trick, yes. But it is very impressive, to the peasants in particular.”

“Your snake killed the old man. And the sailor, Oto,” I said, trying to keep my eyes on him. But it was almost impossible not to watch the snake.

“Two in one night,” he said with great satisfaction. “I was not sure he could do it. But he did,” he crooned to the snake. “Ey, Bebe?”

“Put the snake away,” I said.

He raised an eyebrow. “He will not hurt you,” he said. “He is not hungry, not for two, three more days.” The last 
s
 trailed off into a long, soft hiss.

“Put him back,” I said again.

He shrugged. It was a dark version of Honore’s shrug, saying of course, what’s the point, only because I want to, you’re a coward and a fool, I’ll get you anyway. And with one slow hand he guided the big snake back onto the coat rack and then slapped a bandage onto the razor cut.

“And so?” he said. “Now I am helpless, without my Bebe. So now what will you have me do?”

It’s not possible to get across the insult and menace he managed to put into those words. But as he spoke, smiling and leaning back in his chair, the hairs stood up on my neck and without thinking I took a step towards him, leveling the gun at a spot between his eyes.

He made no move to defend himself, pretending not to notice my gun, as if he believed that I would never dare to shoot him, or that bullets wouldn’t hurt him.

I hoped to surprise him. I moved right up to the desk, the gun aimed at the center of his forehead. I couldn’t miss at this range. But I also couldn’t shoot him when he was just sitting there, smiling. And not before he answered at least one question.

“Where is she,” I said, in a voice that sounded crude and raw next to his sleek French accent.

He raised an eyebrow and tapped his fingertips together. “She has not been harmed,” he said. “I am saving her for something very special.”

“So am I,” I said.

He laughed, three light, musical syllables. “You will be—disappointed.”

“You will be dead,” I said, taking the last step to the front of the desk. The barrel of the gun was only about eighteen inches from his forehead now but he still gave no sign that he had even noticed it.

Instead, he reached for a can of soda at his elbow on the desk. I could see the snake tattoo on his forearm. He picked up the can. A brightly colored drinking straw poked out the top. I didn’t recognize the label on the can, but as he brought the straw to his lips something else filtered in through my rage and tension.

There was no sweat on the outside of the can, no circle of water on the desk where it had been sitting. We were in the tropics and this man was drinking room-temperature soda.

Or—

I was already moving sideways as he whipped the straw out of the can and blew. He was fast, so very fast, and I felt myself doddering clumsily to the side as he pointed the straw at me.

A cloud of powder came out of the straw. Most of it missed me as I lunged to the side, but I felt a light stinging on the side of my face, an unpleasant odor in my nostrils, and an instant numbness spreading from my cheek into the rest of my face.

“Good night, Billy,” he said in his delicate laughing voice.

I straightened and looked at him as I felt all the power drain out of my body and then I—

The fireworks were endless this year even though it was too dark to see them. They exploded without light over and over in reds and greens and yellows. The wooly blackness was hung with the swirls and patterns of the millions of dark bursting rockets and below them I sank toward the ground that was falling away from me just a little bit faster.

And now the rockets burst into bones, whole skeletons forming in the sky, red viscera dangling from the ribs. And still slowly falling, I became one of the skeletons as I fell out of my flesh in a dark red burst.

My bones rattled and burned with a cool green glow, the luminescent green of rot. I felt my skeleton begin to dance without me and I was afraid.

One coil of the darkness wrapped itself around a passing skeleton and became The Snake. At first I thought it was dancing, too. But then I saw that it was making the bones move to its own pattern and the mouth on the skull was opening and closing slowly, saying, “Help me.” And I felt The Snake coil on my bones, moving me to its bone dance.

My mouth was opening and closing to the same rhythm, but I couldn’t hear the words. I could hear nothing but the pounding clash of the falling bones and the laughter of the snake.

And I fell and danced and cried for a time longer than there are words to tell.

And after this unbearable long time I finally smashed into the earth and shattered into cool darkness.

• • •

There was rhythm. I could not move but at last I could hear and there were drums and I could feel and there was pain.

All of me burned with a terrible fire and the pain in my head was like a living thing trying to eat its way out but I could not move even a little to try to ease the pain.

I was as dull and stupid as it was possible to be and I could not understand where I was or what was happening or why my whole body felt like it was rotting off my bones, melting away in terrible heat.

But slowly—oh, so slowly—I came back. Just a little bit at a time, but I came back. First there was awareness. I was. That was enough for a while.

And then from nowhere two words popped in: Billy Knight. Those words meant something. I let them echo in my head. Billy Knight. Billy Knight. Billy Knight. I said them too often and they lost all meaning again. It scared me.

I was just scared for a long time. Nothing more. There was no room in me for anything more complicated.

After a while the fear pushed that thought back into my head. Billy Knight. I knew what that meant. Billy Knight.

That was me.

I was Billy Knight.

I could feel my brain move up another level, a little faster, as the thought took hold. Okay. I had a name. That was good. Now on to the tougher questions. Where was I? I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t hear much except drums. I gave up. Where I was seemed too hard.

Why did everything hurt? I was pretty sure it wasn’t supposed to feel like this, like my whole body was smoldering in a slow fire. I could almost remember a time when it didn’t feel like that.

A few more brain cells came online and I remembered something else. Oh, right. If you’re being burned, move away from the fire. That thought made me happy for a few minutes. I knew what to do.

I went up another level. Good; you know what to do, move away from the fire. So do it.

And I tried.

I could remember the idea of moving. I could almost remember the 
feeling
 of movement. But the mechanics of it were beyond me. How did that work? How did you move? Move? Move—Movemovemovemovemove—

I said the word too many times and again it lost meaning. It was just a sound, mooooow.

The fear ran over me again with sharp little rat’s feet. What was going on? What in God’s name was happening?

Why couldn’t I move?

I was almost sure it shouldn’t be like this. This wasn’t natural, wasn’t right. I was supposed to move. I was supposed to feel good and know who I was. This just wasn’t right.

It wasn’t right. It hadn’t been like this before.

Before what?

I thought. That was beyond me. I didn’t know before what, but that idea of 
before
 seemed to have a lot of other ideas hanging off it. The pain, the not moving, that was 
now
. Something else was 
before
.

There was something I was supposed to do, something I had to do, and now I would not do it and something terrible would happen. Something worse than me being dead. I could not remember what any of it was, but I remembered that it was all up to me and I had failed. I was dead.

I felt something cool roll across my face. A tear. That meant something. I bit down hard in my mind so I wouldn’t repeat the word too many times and lose the meaning.

Tear
.

I was crying.

But—

If I was dead, I couldn’t cry. Could I? I thought hard for a minute, as hard as I could, and managed to sweat out an answer: no. When you’re dead you can’t cry.

I was crying. So:

I wasn’t dead.

I wasn’t dead.

I did not know what I was that I should feel like I was dead but I could not be dead because of the tear. I was alive.

It was another eternity before I went past that thought. Just the idea of being alive set off a soundless, motionless party in my mind and I celebrated for a very long time. And then more grey cells woke up and I thought, hang on. When you’re alive you’re supposed to be able to move and see and speak and know where you are. I can’t. Why not?

Something was wrong. Something had happened. I tried hard to think what and I couldn’t. It was hard to think through all the pain, the burning across my skin and the pounding in my head. And those damned drums. How could I think at all with those damned drums rattling away like that?

Drums?

Were there supposed to be drums?

I listened for a while. Drums were not normal. But I had heard them before. Not long ago, too. I had heard drums and then something had happened. Something bad. Had the drums made me like this?

I thought hard for a while. It came back to me slowly: No, the drums had not made me like this. Drums could not do that. But something that went 
with
 the drums had.

For a time that was enough. I was satisfied. Something that went with the drums was not good. Now I knew.

I came back to that question eventually. What had happened to me? If not the drums, what? What was the bad thing connected to the drums?

I worked on that. Nothing came to me. I drifted for a while, listening to the drums.

There was a new sound. A door opening. The drums got louder for a moment. I heard scuffling, heavy breathing, a sharp 
SMACK
 sound, a thump.

The feet moved closer to me and I felt a new pain blossom in my side, about the size and shape of a foot. A voice hissed something in a language I did not know. The foot kicked me again. The voice laughed.

“You’ve bloody killed him!” said a different voice. “You fucking bastards!” I knew the voice. I was sure I’d heard it before, but—

“Not dead. Zom-BEE!,” the first voice said, sounding very happy. “Your friend is a zom-BEE!” And it laughed.

I almost didn’t even hear the feet moving away, the door opening and closing, the lock clicking home. Because I had begun to remember and it all came pouring back over me, cascading across my mind in a terrible flood.

I remembered. I knew what had happened to me and what the drums meant. I knew where I was.

I was on the Black Freighter.

“Christ. Oh hell, mate, what’ve they done?”

I felt a hand touch me, shake me, slap my face. Although the voice was in my ear the hand felt far away. It was as though he was talking to me and touching somebody else.

“Bloody fucking Christ,” Nicky said. I heard a soft fumbling sound and then he was forcing something small and cold between my lips. I felt a few drops of something bitter roll slowly across my tongue and into my throat. Then I felt Nicky lift my hand into the air and feel for a pulse.

“We’ll be all right,” he said, as if he was trying to convince himself. “Long as they haven’t given you the second powder. That first dose just puts you out, mate. The second, that’s what makes you a right proper zombie. We’ll be all right.”

I wanted to talk back, make some small joke about my condition. I couldn’t. I tried to move just a little bit to let him know I was alive. I couldn’t. I tried as hard as I know how to speak, to say I couldn’t move, and I couldn’t. I think I managed to twitch one corner of my mouth.

“Gotcha,” Nicky muttered, but whether he had seen my mouth twitch or just found my pulse, I don’t know.

And then, as strange as anything that had happened to me so far, Nicky dropped my arm, picked up my foot, and started to take off my shoe.

So they got to him, too, I thought. They’ve pushed him over the edge. Poor Nicky. He was never strong enough for this, never meant to stand up under this kind of treatment. Of course he’s cracked, poor guy.

He had my shoe off now and I felt his thumbs digging in around my toes, and just above my arch and below my big toe, at the large pad on the bottom of the foot.

And if I needed any more proof that Nicky had slipped quietly out of his tree, he started to hum at me. At first it was just sounds, “EEeeh,” and “Aaah.” He would hold to one note and sing it for a full breath as he poked at my feet.

And then the sound changed and he was humming, “All You Need Is Love.”

It didn’t make sense. I was in mortal danger and paralyzed and my friend was poking at my feet while singing The Beatles’ greatest hits. The weirdness of the whole thing suddenly made me want to laugh out loud. A huge bubble of hysterical laughter built up inside me, tried to explode.

“Uh,” I said, very softly.