Dead Sea (22 page)

This elicited a low, dry laugh from Menhaus. Cook said nothing. Crycek just stared. Fabrini clenched and unclenched his fists.

“I mean, if this goes on for a long time,” Saks went on, “we’re going to have to eat someone. Fabrini’s my choice. Let’s face it, he’s the most expendable.”

“No, you’re wrong, Saks,” Fabrini said. “I’m too thin. What you want is some lardass. Like you for instance. A big, fat blowhard. A blubbery hothead that’ll cook in his own juices.”

Saks cackled. “You hear that, Menhaus? He wants my juices. All he ever thinks of is my dick.”

Cook tuned them out. He was watching the fog, watching Crycek, and mostly just watching Saks. Crycek’s diatribe earlier of some devil out there, waiting, was not lost on him. It seemed, that he could feel this other when he closed his eyes. Some presence nipping at the back of his mind. And maybe that was sheer imagination and maybe not, but there was a much more clear and present danger and that was Saks.

“Right now, food don’t sound so good,” Menhaus grumbled. “What I need is a cold beer.”

“Shut up,” Fabrini said.

“There’s no point in talking about that,” Cook said. “We have to be realistic.”

Saks held his hands out before him in surprise. “Shit, was that you, Cook? Who rattled your cage? Let’s be quiet, guys, he might speak again.”

Cook narrowed his eyes. “I’m just saying we must be realistic here. There’s no point in talking about beer. We’ll have to get by on our survival rations until … until something else shows up.”

“Well there you go,” Saks said. “Mr. Realism has spoken.”

“Oh, just shut up,” Fabrini said.

“Why don’t you go fuck your mother, Fagbrini?” Saks snarled.

Fabrini rose to his feet, the boat rocking slightly. “I’ve had as much as I’m going to take from you, Saks. You’ve been asking for this.”

Saks grinned without mirth. He stood up slowly, knowing that he
had
been asking for this. He’d been trying to push Fabrini to violence ever since the ship went down. And the fact that the moment had come gave him no end of satisfaction. He liked to be able to manipulate people. It gave him a feeling of power knowing he could push the right buttons and get someone to act accordingly. Like Fabrini, for instance. Hotheads were the easiest to control.

“Stop this,” Cook said. “You can’t fight in the boat.”

And in his brain he was trying to think of a reason why they couldn’t. Because it was wrong? Because it was immature? Because they might tip the boat? But, no, none of that was what he had been thinking at all. It had been something a little higher and a little mightier. They couldn’t fight because, dammit, they were men, they were both men and that had to count for something. For men were a rarity in this new savage world and if indeed there was some malefic devil out there, some puppet master, then they had to stick together. Had to show this thing that men always stuck together, always presented a unified front against adversity.

Sure, maybe it was all a little idealistic, a little pretentious, but Cook figured it was important. They could not allow themselves to become puppets, playthings, amusement for something wicked and inhuman. For negativity amongst their numbers made them weaker … and made
it
stronger.

“Please,” he said to them, “just stop this. Don’t you see what you’re doing?”

But they didn’t and continued to hurl insults back and forth, most of which were getting damned unfunny by this point.

Crycek said, “You should listen to Cook. Maybe some of you don’t know, but Cook? Oh, he knows, all right. He knows what’s out there, what waits for us. Divide and conquer, that’s what it’s doing. It feeds on fear and hopelessness and anxiety, violence and anger … and you’re feeding it. Oh, you certainly are. Filling its belly with your filth, making it strong …”

Crycek launched into another of his insane sermons about this mythical other who watched and waited and listened, amused, constantly amused. That both Saks and Fabrini were idiots because they didn’t really want to fight, that they were being manipulated by this thing, that it was in their heads seeding their actions. Crycek told them that they had to fight it, force it out of their minds … didn’t they see?
Didn’t they see anything?

Cook knew Crycek was crazy, but that didn’t necessitate that he was wrong. Because Cook himself had been thinking along those lines. What if they were being manipulated, forced into this? Sure, they were both idiots when you came down to it, drowning in their own testosterone, and this is exactly how you’d figure they’d act. But what if Crycek was right?

Cook thought:
It makes sense, doesn’t it? This thing, this devil, it would go after those with weakest minds, those it could bend the easiest. Saks and Fabrini might be physically strong, but mentally—like all such men—they’re simplistic, simple-minded. Everything’s black and white and minds like that are the easiest to exploit … that’s how countries got men to go to war, by exploiting their base instincts. This thing would know that. It would know the weakest psychological links instinctively …

Mind control … Jesus.

“Both of you stop it,” Cook said, trying one last time.

They both ignored him, edging closer by the moment.

Menhaus opened his mouth to say something, then closed it once more. He slipped around Fabrini to the bow and sat beside Cook.

“This is madness,” Cook said. “Grown men acting like this! We are in a life and death situation here and-”

“Let ‘em go, “ Menhaus said, enjoying it immensely. “Let ‘em get it out of their systems.”

Like a boxing match or a football game … Menhaus was relieving his own tensions and frustrations vicariously. These two were his pressure-release valve.

When they were a few feet apart, Saks stopped smiling. “Okay, you little shitfuck, let’s see what you got.”

The words had barely left his lips when Fabrini made his move. He swung roundhouse at Saks and Saks ducked under it easily. He came up quickly pounding Fabrini twice in the face with tight, economical jabs. Fabrini did not go down. He lunged forward with a stumbling grace, blood running from his nose, and tackled Saks. They both went down in the stern, the boat rocking wildly. Saks fended off two punches and took a third and fourth in the face. Fabrini was swinging like a man possessed. Very few of his blows found their intended target, but those that did were devastating. Saks was being battered badly. He got his foot in Fabrini’s crotch and kicked out with everything he had. Fabrini cried out and, arms flaying madly, went over the side of the boat.

Cook and Menhaus went to his assistance.

Saks wiped blood from his face. “Leave the bastard!” he howled.

But Cook and Menhaus were already pulling him onboard. “He was bleeding in the water,” Cook kept saying frantically. “He was bleeding. In the water.”

But the import of that was lost on Saks. “Yeah, and he’s going to bleed a lot more,” Saks said, coming at them. He had a knife in his hand. The same one he’d pulled from Hupp’s boot. Before anyone could hope to stop him, he slashed out with it, taking off the top of Fabrini’s left ear.

Somebody shouted. Maybe Cook, maybe Menhaus.

Fabrini didn’t seem to know what was happening. A look of rage swept across his features followed by one of dazed confusion and finally pain. His hand went to his ear, blood gushing between his splayed fingers. He saw the knife, felt the warm wetness course down his neck and started to scream, crawling away towards the bow on all fours.

Menhaus tripped over one of the seats trying to get away from the glinting silver of the knife. “Oh shit,” he gasped. “Oh Christ.”

Apparently, Menhaus didn’t like it when his thrills spilled over in his own lap.

Cook stood his ground, his eyes like shining metal balls. “Give me the knife, Saks,” he said in a low, hard voice. “Give me that fucking knife!”

Saks cackled, blood running down his chin from a split lip. “You want the knife, fuck-face?
You want the fucking knife?”

Cook knew he was in a dangerous position. He could see the raw animal rage in Saks’s eyes. It was like fire and rusting metal. The man was about as close to insanity as anyone he’d ever seen. Anyone save his father.

Saks slashed at him with the blade, driving him back. “You be good, asshole, you be real good,” he panted. “You get over there with your buddies or I swear to God I’ll slit you open.”

Cook backed away slowly, hands held out before him peacefully. “Sure, Saks, sure. We don’t want no trouble here. You just relax and keep cool.”

“Oh, I’ll be cool, shitbag, don’t worry about that,” he said, still smiling like a skull in the desert. “Just as long as you do what I say. Otherwise, heh, there’s things out there … hungry things. You know what I’m saying?”

In the bow, Cook found Fabrini splashing water on his ear. Washing blood from it and his neck, but also putting blood in the water.

“You idiot,” he said. “Stop it.”

“What?” Fabrini said. “What?”

“You’re getting blood in the water.”

“What of it?” Fabrini said.

“The blood,” Cook said breathlessly. “Sharks can smell it in the water.”

He didn’t need to say more. Nobody was really worried about sharks, but there was bound to be other things. Worse things. Hungry things, as Saks had said.

Menhaus licked his dry lips. “I think you’re right.”

Cook decided he’d better derail that one. “Besides … this water … it doesn’t look real clean to me. You might get some sort of infection from that slop.”

He got out the first aid kit and bandaged Fabrini’s ear for him, sprayed a little disinfectant on it. Fabrini complained, but he wasn’t too bad about any of it. Which got Cook to thinking that there was hope for him. The fact that he hadn’t tried to grab an oar or something and go at it with Saks, proved there was something very human in him.

But Saks?

No, he was too far gone.

“Right there,” George was saying. “Do you see it … right over there …”

Gosling was looking through the doorway with him and he saw it, all right. Tangled in a mass of weeds, something bright orange. Looked like styrofoam. He was thinking it might have been an EPIRB tube that had floated free of the ship or one of the lifeboats. At least, that’s what it kind of looked like.

“What do you think?” George asked.

Gosling figured it was worth checking out. “Help me unzip the canopy.”

The canopy was zippered to the inflated arches of the raft. Together, they began taking it down. Maybe it put them at risk, Gosling was thinking, but it was nice not being enclosed in the canopy. To feel the air again … even if it did smell like something mossy and rotting.

Gosling passed out oars and they began rowing over there, feeling the drag of the sea anchor behind them. The weeds were growing more numerous and none of that had escaped Gosling’s attention. Before, there had been little drifting clumps, an occasional island, now the islands were getting more numerous. They rowed on, parting the mats of weed, moving towards their target.

When they were maybe six feet away, Gosling saw the orange of an EPIRB. “Just a radio beacon,” he said. “We already have two of them.”

“Fuck it,” George said. “Let’s just keep rowing. Feels good to be doing something.”

Gosling figured he was right. It did feel good. And maybe, just maybe, with weeds becoming more concentrated it meant they were nearing some landmass. Maybe.

So they rowed and watched the weeds, the tendrils of steam wafting off the water, the heavy fog shimmering and glimmering. It felt good to put their muscles to work.

George suddenly said, “What the hell?”

He was yanking on his oar, managed to free it. He studied the end and began rowing again. Gosling figured he’d caught it on the weeds, paid it little mind … until something seized his oar. Held it tight.

“I’m caught on something,” he said, struggling with it, trying to pull it up and out of the mire. He managed to work it free of that dark, sluicing water a few inches and then it was
pulled
back down again. No, it surely wasn’t weeds, it had to be-

There was a thump under the raft. And then another. A rubbery scraping sound that made Gosling’s hackles rise. It was like the sound they heard earlier, a sort of slow investigative motion. More scraping, another thump. Then something down there hit the raft hard and it lurched to the left.

“Christ,” George said.

He had his oar out of the water by then and Gosling gave his a yank and there was nothing holding it. They sat silently, waiting for what would come next for they both knew something would. Something was about to happen here. They were froze up, looking at each other, the sea.

There was a ripple of motion just beneath the surface on the port side. George’s side. Then another. He let out a little involuntary gasp and then water sprayed up and over him like he’d been hit by a big comber.

And then something big moved in the water.

Gosling caught a quick glimpse of something dark and shiny-looking, like oiled rubber.

“What in the hell?” George said, moving away from the gunwale, maybe feeling whatever it was in his mind and not liking it at all.

Gosling was thinking about a weapon, something other than the wet oar in his hands when another gout of water splashed into the boat and George cried out and … and something huge and serpentine came winding out of the drink. It was big around as a man’s thigh, brown and leathery, with a long snaking body and a huge, eyeless head that looked bony and plated. It had a mouth and it was a big one.

George ducked down as it snapped at him, darting its head in his direction like a python trying to snatch a rat. The head was about the size of a mailbox, set with a hinged jaw that allowed the mouth to open wide enough to take hold of a man’s head.

Gosling hit it with his oar and then hit it again.

It backed off, slid under the water and came back up again.

It lashed out at where it thought the men were, but it was blind. Completely blind, something engineered to haunt the black depths far below. It looked, if anything, like some immense moray eel. Its body in the water was coiling and twisting. Gosling figured it had to be fifteen or twenty feet in length. It had fins like an eel and that awful length of corkscrewing, boneless body. There were bright yellow gill slits set just behind the head. It hammered into the raft with its head and body, not sure what to make of it. Every time those jaws came open, Gosling could feel a rush of hot, briny air