Emily Kimelman - Sydney Rye 05 - The Devil's Breath (24 page)

I heard the engine of an airboat start. It sounded far away. Blue and I pulled deeper into the hammock, gathering the darkness around us. The air was wet and heavy, smelling of bark and dirt. The airboat got closer and I gripped a tree trunk watching. Was it the professor and his minions or some fishermen like the ones I’d met earlier? The airboat’s engine slowed as it approached and I pulled my knife out, holding it loosely in my hand, ready to use it and the forbidding terrain to my advantage.

The engine stopped entirely and I saw the fan boat drift into view. Laughter rose above the sound of the rain and I took a chance, stepping forward to get a better view. I recognized Carl and his tobacco-chewing friend. A flashlight beam cut through the grasses. I slunk back into the trees.

The two fisherman turned to look at the approaching light. It danced through the reeds and then stopped, centering on the fishermen.

“What are you doing here?” a voice asked.

“I’d ask you the same thing,” Carl said. “You wandering around in the reeds?” He was holding his hand up to block the light from his eyes.

“Did you see a woman wearing a white lab coat?”

Both men laughed. “Yeah,” Carl said, his voice breathless. “And she was walking an alligator.” This brought on a new wave of laughter.

I heard another airboat engine start up in the distance. The light jerked off the men and into the stand of trees, barely penetrating past the first row of trunks. “How long have you been here?” the man with the flashlight asked.

“Just arrived,” Carl answered. “We would have got here sooner if we’d known there was a lab-coated woman on the loose.” They started laughing again and I wondered if perhaps there was a bit of drinking going along with their fishing.

“The woman is dangerous. Do not approach her.”

Their laughter faltered. “Hey, now, what’s going on?” Carl asked.

“Perhaps you two should head in for the night. Looks like a storm is coming.”

The flashlight turned back into the grasses and I watched its glow as it headed toward the driveway.

“Well, what do you think of that?” Carl’s friend asked.

“Think it has anything to do with that lady we saw?” Carl answered as I worked my way back to the canal.

“She wasn’t wearing a lab coat,” his friend pointed out as I stepped up to the water’s edge.

“But ain’t it awful weird?”

“Hey,” I whispered.

Neither of the men turned. Carl was doing something with a fishing rod and the other man was sipping from a small silver decanter that the rain pinged off of as he raised it to his mouth. “I guess you’re right,” the friend agreed.

“Think she was dangerous?” Carl asked, looking up from his hook.

The other man gestured with his canteen toward the reeds. “I’d say that guy was dangerous.”

“Excuse me,” I said louder.

They both turned. I waved. They squinted against the darkness. “Hi,” I said. “Can you give me a lift?”

Carl dropped the rod he was working on and it fell to the boat’s floor with a rattle. The other man froze, the silver decanter paused just before his lips.

I came out of the grove further and with a wide step alighted onto their boat. Blue followed closely behind me. They both continued to stare. “Please take me back to the launch.”

The steady whine of approaching airboats hummed in the air. “We better go,” I said.

Lightning flashed across the sky and thunder sounded quickly after. A gust of wind whipped down the canal, rustling the leaves of the apple trees into a blur. A giant, white spotlight lit up the canal behind us, cutting through the protective darkness. “Boys, we need to go now,” I said.

“Now wait here a minute,” Carl said. “We don’t want any trouble.”

“You’ve already got it. Now you need to start up that engine or the people on that boat will probably kill you, and if they keep you alive they’ll probably frame you for my murder so,” I made a pushing motion with my hands, “let’s go.”

The other airboat was slowly going down the canal, its spotlight scanning the grasses on the one side and then the apple trees on the other. Carl opened his mouth to speak again but the other man, the one whose name I still didn’t know, interrupted. “I think we better go,” he said, his eyes watching the purposeful scanning of the approaching light. Carl bent down and secured his fishing rod to the hull.

“Now,” I said, urgency in my voice.

“I’m going, I’m going,” Carl said, jumping into his seat. I sat on one of the free chairs and clutched the laptop case and lab coat across my lap. Blue hunkered down at my feet, pressing his back against my legs. The fan whirled to life and the boat smoothly glided forward. Carl kept at an easy pace, continuing down the canal, away from the searching light until the hammock of apple trees ended.

Lightning crackled as we entered a field that existed both above and below water. Grasses, some tall, others low, still more beneath the water, shifted with the wind, whipping back and forth. The surface of the water blurring with each gust. My hair, wet from the rain, clung to my face and wrapped itself around my neck.

As we raced across the grasses, barreling through the tall and skimming over the short, I blinked against the rain drops. Another airboat mounted with a spotlight shot out from behind a hammock of apple trees and flew across the water toward us. I looked back at Carl. His jaw tensed before hurling a loogie overboard, the wind taking it the moment it left his mouth.

A voice over a loudspeaker hailed us from the encroaching boat. “Stop please,” it said.

“Well, ain’t that polite,” Carl yelled over the airboat’s engine.

“This is the police, stop now,” the voice said with authority.

Carl slowed down. “What are you doing?” I yelled over my shoulder at him.

“Don’t worry,” he yelled back. “This isn’t my first time at the rodeo.”

As the second boat approached all I could see was the light. When they were about ten yards away Carl throttled the fan up to high and we shot off across the open landscape. The other boat pursued us, their light blazing over our stern, casting strange and frightening shadows through the fan. As it began to gain on us, Carl turned the boat hard, the bow submerging for a moment, and the stern spun around 180 degrees. We jerked forward and passed the other boat as they sped by us.

Their light blinded me for a moment. Now they knew I was aboard. But suddenly that didn’t matter all that much as Carl was headed full speed toward a stand of tall grasses. He hit them hard, crushing the long stems. I turned around and saw them pop back up behind us.

For a moment we were totally surrounded by the swaying reeds, only a small patch of turbulent sky above us. Then we we were out of them and into another canal lined on one side with trees and on the other with grasses. Carl turned the rudder hard just before we slammed into the apple trees and we took off down the narrow passage. I turned around and watched as the other boat flew out of the grasses and slammed into the apple hammock across the way. The light jerked out and the scene fell into darkness. Our fan engine’s furious whirling was the only thing I could hear. “Woohoo,” Carl yelled. “Haha, we showed those bastards, didn’t we, Earl?”

Earl nodded, his forehead creased. Then he raised the flask to his lips. Carl slowed the boat, quieting the engine as we navigated through canals cut between the reeds, which seemed to reach for us as they bent in the wind. We took a left into a canal cut through more apple hammocks.  The wind whistled through the tops of the trees, at water level barely a breeze was felt. Carl slowed and then cut the engine. I strained to listen, hearing the sound of rain tinging against the hull, the croaking of the bull frogs, Blue panting, but no other airboats.

Carl spit into the water again and then started the engine back up and puttered us slowly forward until I could see the launch. A car drove by on the road as Carl tapped the boat against the cement and Earl jumped onto solid land.

I
ran because something terrifying was following me. Branches grabbed at my arms, roots hooked my feet. Blue kept nudging my hip, telling me to fight on.

I blinked my eyes. Blinding light. I blinked again, began to see shapes, dark and light, browns, blacks and whites. “Sydney,” I heard someone say. I could feel scratches on my legs from the trees, they burned.

“Sydney,” I heard again, the voice concerned, soft and hopeful.

A pressure on my left shoulder made my head loll toward it. I heard the shuffling of bodies moving around a room. I blinked my eyes again, but they wouldn’t stay open, only offering the briefest glimpse of a world made up of shadow figures. I rested for a moment, confused, feeling lightheaded.

Taking a deep breath I forced my eyes open. A dark figure closed in on me, the white light behind it making its edges glow brown. “Sydney,” it said. “Can you hear me?”

“Who are you?” I asked, my tongue felt heavy and my voice sounded small.

“It’s me, Sydney. It’s Mulberry.”

The name meant nothing to me.

++++

There was a couch in front of me. Hugh and Santiago were sitting on it, talking to each other, not looking over at me. I was sitting in a chair. There were slippers on my feet. Hugh was looking at me now. His mouth moved. “Sydney?”

It felt like my brain lurched. Like from a train car pile up. My vision twisted and stayed blurred for a moment. Movement and then Hugh and Santiago were over me, their faces close. I could smell shampoo and black pepper. “Can you hear me?” Hugh asked, his voice tight.

“Yes,” I said, the world sliding back into place. There was a ceiling above me. Santiago and Hugh looked at each other. I must have fallen out of the chair, I thought.

“I’ll get the doctor,” Santiago said.

Hugh nodded then turned his attention back to me. Santiago rose off his knees, using the upholstered chair I’d been sitting in for leverage. “Sydney, do you know who I am?” Hugh asked.

“Hugh?”

“Yes!”

“Hugh? What’s going on?” I asked, lifting my head, raising a shoulder and propping myself up on an elbow. Behind Hugh was the couch I’d seen when I first opened my eyes. It was upholstered in red and gold with a straight back and low arms. Meant for visiting, not for relaxing. In front of it a low square table had an array of magazines fanned across it. Hugh’s eyes twitched back and forth, he looked nervous. “What is it?” I asked as the first prickles of warning began to travel up my neck. Footsteps in the hall. Blue’s growl hummed.

A door opened and I sat up further, peeking around the chair I’d slipped out of, to look at two approaching figures. It was Santiago and a woman wearing scrubs. There was a furrow between her brows and her lips were pursed. She moved quickly but loudly, her movements over-emphasized. She bent over and grabbed the armrest of the chair then lowered onto her knees with a grimace of pain. Blue’s growl clicked off and she asked. “Do you know your name?”

“Sydney Rye.”

“That’s good.” She smiled, her face relaxing. Oh shit, I thought. When knowing your own name is an accomplishment something has gone terribly wrong.

I started to get up, climbing onto my hands and knees. The woman put a strong hand around my arm to help me. I took a breath there, looking down at my hands. The nails were filed and buffed. The skin littered with fresh pink scars, almost healed. I was wearing a sweatshirt and a pair of jeans with what felt like an elastic waist.

Sitting back onto my heels I felt my muscles move and a dull ache, as if I’d done a serious session of squats the day before. Aching but strong. Straightening my back I felt the vertebrae line up, my shoulders fall into place, my head raising to rest comfortably on my neck. It all worked.

I felt an itch and the sting of healing flesh on my left forearm. Pulling up my sleeve I found a long scar, small pieces of scab still pulling at the skin. I heard a click and Blue’s growl rose again. A cool breeze touched me and I watched as goosebumps rose around the wound. Looking up I saw an air conditioning vent, air humming out of it. “Where is Blue?” I asked.

“He’s with Merl, totally safe,” Hugh said.

“Not here?” I asked, listening to the air conditioner and not hearing Blue anymore.

“Let’s get you up off the ground,” the nurse said. She helped me into the chair and I was facing the couch again. Hugh and Santiago hovered around me. “Sit down,” she told them. “Give her some room.”

They complied, returning to their seats. The woman put a blood pressure cuff around my bicep. The velcro sounded like a strong wind tearing through trees.

The nurse looked up from my elbow, her stethoscope in her ears. The door was opening and a man wearing a white doctor’s coat walked in. He was about six feet tall with salt and pepper hair. The man turned to Hugh and Santiago. “Could you two wait outside?” he asked.

They looked at each other. Santiago bit his lip and Hugh looked back at me, his eyes pleading. “I want them to stay,” I said.

He nodded and then pulled up a chair made of dark wood with a padded seat. The nurse stood up and backed away. “Her vitals are good,” she told him.

“Good,” he said, sitting down. His pants raised up over his ankles exposing colorful socks. He smiled at me. “My name is Dr. Jose Garcia.” The doctor folded his hands in his lap and leaned back. “Do you know who you are?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“Do you know who I am?”

“Dr. Jose Garcia.”

He nodded. “Good. Before I ask you any more questions, first I want to make it clear to you that you are in a safe place. No one can get to you here. Not only are you safe here but so are your secrets.”

The tingle of warning brushed the back of my neck again. “Am I a prisoner?” I asked.

The doctor shook his head. “No, no. Nothing you tell me will leave this room, doctor- patient privilege. There is no way I can end up in a court room.” I glanced at Hugh and Santiago but they were whispering to each other.

“Where am I?”

The doctor smiled again and separated his hands, resting them on his knees and leaning forward. “You’re in Miami at the FGI headquarter’s recovery department and I’ve been looking after you since your arrival here.”