She Wakes (22 page)

    “What did you do?” asked Michelle.

    “Nothing. That’s just it. Sometimes there’s not much you can do. You know the story about Cassandra in the Iliad? Apollo fell in love with her and gave her the gift of prophesy. Then he turned against her when she refused him. Since he couldn’t take the gift back, he decided to make it useless to her. He arranged it so that nobody would ever believe her. So she’d always know when disaster was coming and be completely unable to avert it.

    “What could I have done? Called the White House? Uh, Mr. President, there’s some rich crackpot on the phone… And then later, when I’m right, what do I tell the CIA?"

    “No, I just got my own company out of there and let it go at that.”

    “You’re rich, huh?” said Danny.

    “That’s one of the benefits, yes.”

    “Me too. Fat lot of good it does us, huh? Where’s a Cunard liner for sale when you need one?”

    Chase laughed and shook his head. “I tried every ship on the island. I’ve called Athens. Nobody’s willing to buck the meltemi. ‘As soon as it’s over’ is the best they can do.”

    “Can you get any handle on Lelia now?” asked Dodgson. “On what she’s doing?”

    “On what she is?” said Eduardo.

    “No to the first question. You get blind spots. Nothing you can do about it It’s frustrating, like having a single thumb instead of two. You can catch a ball, sure. But what you can’t do is swing the goddamn bat in order to hit the thing. Plus I know from experience-she’s good at concealment.

    “As to the second, I don’t know. I know something’s happening here. I’ve felt it all through Greece. Like something’s changing, or about to change. You’ve been here before, Dodgson. Xenia and Eduardo, you live here. You notice how things seem to have…decayed so rapidly? Just three years ago Greece was a really good place, content, really happy.”

    Xenia shrugged. “Everyone made money. It is not so now.”

    “That’s part of it. But there’s a lethargy about the place too. People don’t seem to care. Things fall apart and don’t get repaired. Terrorists waltz into airports, shoot a few people, waltz right out again. A lot of the old values are going-the openness to new ideas, to people, the really deep respect for what was good about the old ways, the hospitality. “Filokseneea!” said Xenia.

    “That’s right. Filokseneea. This country's ripe for some kind of change. I’m feeling it very strongly here-some kind of readying. And I’m wondering, what if we’re in the middle of that?”

    “What do you mean?” asked Dodgson.

    “I don’t think it’s any accident that we’re just across from Delos. In ancient times, remember, it was the power spot, the place you’d look to for any kind of regeneration or renewal, be it spiritual or physical. The doctors were the best and most learned in Greece. I feel something happening out there. I feel it even as we sit talking. I’ve never been to that island but I bet I could almost describe it to you. I feel something growing, some power surge. Something.

    “And maybe Lelia’s tapped into that somehow. Something about this time and place. I don’t know.”

    The wind had tom a small boat loose in the harbor. A plastic tarp careened around the comer.

    “What happened between the two of you?” asked Billie. “Do you mind saying?”

    Chase sighed. “An affair of sorts. I’m sure you’d guessed as much. Very brief and very…”

    “Nasty?” Dodgson said.

    “Yes. Extremely. I’d rather not go into it, if you don’t mind.”

    He and Dodgson gazed across the table at each other.

    “She was something, wasn’t she?” said Dodgson.

    “Yes, she was.”

    Despite all the people seated there the restaurant was quiet. Maybe it was the weather but there was a heaviness about the place, Billie thought, a feeling of expectation.

    “How about some wine?” said Danny.

    “It’s pretty early. But sure. Why not?” said Dodgson.

    They ordered. The waiter brought the wine, uncorked the bottle, placed a cash-register receipt under the ashtray along with the breakfast receipts, nodded and walked away.

    Rain was falling steadily now in gray windblown sheets obscuring their view of the harbor. It was dark where they sat.

    “So what do we do now?” said Michelle.

    “I think we ought to do exactly what we’re doing,” said Chase. “The more people around us the better. I think we have to expect anything from her, absolutely anything. And she'd probably want to separate us if possible. It would make things easier for her.”

    “And tonight?”

    “Same thing. We stay together. There’s plenty of room at my place, though some of us will have to sleep on the floor.”

    “Fine,” said Dodgson.

    “After lunch we’ll check you and Billie, Michelle and Danny out of their rooms and settle up the bills.” He turned to Eduardo. “I presume you and Xenia are already packed.”

    “I’m ready.”

    Xenia nodded.

    “Good. Then the same thing applies. We go to each place together as a group. From here on in, we’re a family.”

    “Okay,” said Eduardo. “All that is going to take maybe an hour or two. What are we going to do the rest of the time? We can’t just sit here drinking all day.”

    “Why not?” said Danny.

    “At some point I tend to fall down.”

    “Do it moderately, then,” said Chase. “Order Nescafe. Whatever. But I like crowds at the moment. I like them very much.”

    “So do I,” said Billie.

    “Let’s stay till the rain lets up a bit,” said Dodgson. “Then we can start getting the bags and bringing them over to your place. One question, though.”

    “What’s that?”

    “What if it’s the same thing tomorrow? What if we still can’t get out of here?”

    “I don’t know. I guess we handle that when we get to it.”

    There was as silence as they thought about that for a moment. Then Danny raised his glass.

    ‘To good company,” he said.

    He drained it.

    

    

    The first they took were a pair of campers, young men surf-casting for their breakfast and too busy to notice the figures moving toward them through the fog until there was only time to turn and recognize, as in a nightmare, the sharp stick skewering the neck of the teenage boy, the trailing entrails of the Greek, the charred black face of the thin young woman dressed in rags-time only for that before the big man with the open festering shoulder wound sunk his fingers into the eyes and mouth of the nearer one and pulled him down into the foaming sea, breaking his neck as he fell, while the others moved over his friend with open hungry mouths.

    The big man watched them die.

    Then later, watched them slowly rise.

    There had been six of them. So that now they were eight.

    They moved through the morning mist and afternoon rain, scattering along the shoreline and up through the rocks and down to the beach, wading into the sea, separating and coming together, moving toward town.

    The next were brother and sister, twins. Germans, eighteen-year-old handsome blondes. It was raining by then, a light drizzle. They had strung up a line between a pair of trees so the rainwater could rinse out their clothes. The boy was naked. Everything he owned except a pair of socks was on the line already. The girl wore a white cotton blouse. She was hanging up her brother’s socks when the line went down and a girl no older than she appeared and pulled her onto the sand, clawing at her.

    Her brother tried to run. But they were much too close by then, a horrible proximity of pale reaching hands. He tried to run in one direction and then the other and then sank to his knees and cried.

    And watched his sister die before they got to him.

    The old Greek fisherman sat in a boat anchored twenty feet offshore. He was checking his traps, which unfortunately for him were not empty. So that in his distraction with the traps it was a simple thing for the twins to wade out to him and overturn his boat, then hold him under. The last thing he saw were three molting crabs peering out at him from inside a trap he would never live to harvest. One was a very good size.

    The fisherman made eleven.

    The rain fell hard and people stayed indoors. But even so there were stragglers and their ranks slowly swelled-and those few Greeks who lived along the way and noticed the slow-moving group of touristas trudging into the wind along the distant shore were accustomed to seeing strange foolish things from these foreigners, who stayed out all night and slept all day, who took the sun on their fair skin, who treated dogs like children and their children, sometimes, like dogs. They thought nothing of it.

    They thought nothing, either, of the woman who walked alone well behind the rest, who seemed to drift in and out of focus in the shifting wind and rain. Except, perhaps, some of the men who saw her. Even at a distance the supple poise and strength of her was visible beneath the flowing white garment. Even at a distance she was desirable.

    To some she looked like a goddess.

    

    

    They walked the now-familiar maze of streets back to Chase’s room in Little Venice. It was eight o’clock, nearly sunset and turning cooler. The rain had stopped but the seas were still high. There was still no getting off the island.

    Dodgson was tired. The tension, the inactivity, the wine-all of them conspired to make him yearn for sleep, for oblivion.

    But she likes it when we sleep, he thought. No can do.

    They waited while Chase fumbled with the key, then opened the door. All their gear was inside. The spacious room looked cluttered now.

    “I’d like to shave,” said Chase.

    “Me too,” said Eduardo.

    “I imagine we all want showers, don’t we?” Billie looked from one woman to the other and Michelle and Xenia nodded.

    “Ladies first, then,” said Chase. He sat down heavily in the chair by the window.

    Dodgson felt uneasy. “How much privacy do you need?”

    “None,” said Xenia. She answered for all of them.

    “Suppose we double up, then. It’ll be faster-and safer.”

    Xenia shrugged. “Come on, Eduardo.”

    She pulled off her shirt and jeans and dropped them to the floor, flung a towel over her shoulder and marched naked into the bathroom. In a moment they heard the water running.

    “How’s your supply of hot water?” asked Eduardo.

    “Good.”

    "Terrific.” He stripped and followed Xenia inside and shut the door. The room had two beds. Billie and Dodgson sat on the one nearest Chase by the window. Danny took the straight-back chair-probably trying to stay awake, thought Dodgson. Michelle was digging through her suitcase, looking for something.

    Dodgson watched Chase stare out the window. The man looked older than he had this morning. The five o’clock shadow almost succeeded in making him look seedy. He wondered what Chase wasn't telling them.

    “Something out there?”

    “No. I was just…remembering.”

    “Remembering what?”

    He didn’t answer and Dodgson didn’t push him.

    Billie nestled up under his shoulder. She felt warm and comfortable. He noticed that the beds had been made while they were out. He wondered what the landlady had thought of all the sudden luggage. “When this is over,” said Billie, “what are you going to do?”

    He sighed. “Well, I’ve had enough of Greece. You?”

    “I’d wanted to sketch the Parthenon. But yes, quite enough.”

    “I think I’d like to go home for a while. Care to see the States?”

    “I haven’t the money.”

    “I do.”

    She looked surprised, then smiled.

    “Thank you, Robert. I’ll…definitely think on it.”

    “Think hard.”

    “I will.”

    Her hand brushed lightly across his cheek.

    “Got it!” said Michelle.

    She held up a thin-handled safety razor. “I thought I’d lost it.”

    She plopped down hard on the bed across from them.

    "Merde!” she said. “I am exhausted.”

    Dodgson saw her eyes change suddenly, saw them go down to the bed. For a moment she looked like a fighter who’d been punched too hard too often. He followed her gaze. He saw something move. Then she screamed.

    And then she was on the floor scrambling toward them on her hands and knees. Dodgson started toward her. Danny was on his feet already. He heard the water go off in the bathroom.

    She was still screaming when she fell into Billie’s arms and Danny came around behind her.

    “What? What is-"

    “The bed,” said Dodgson.

    He remembered thinking that the landlady hadn’t done such a good job over there, that the covers were more rumpled than on the one they were sitting on, but he’d thought nothing of it and now…

    …now they were writhing.

    Something moving beneath the covers.

    Michelle was crying, hysterical. The bathroom door flew open and there was Eduardo, naked, dripping, Xenia peering out over his shoulder.

    “What…?”

    Chase stepped toward the bed. Dodgson didn’t like it.

    “Chase…”

    “It’s all right.”

    “It’s not all right. Be careful.”

    He reached for the comer end of the bedsheet. Flung it, leapt back.

    Michelle screamed again. Billie too.

    The bed hissed at them.

    It swarmed with snakes.

    They were gray and brown and red and Dodgson recognized them, the dark markings along the back. Vipers, fifty of them, maybe more, sliding over one another, tongues tasting the air, flicking, searching for body heat. Fifty, and any one could kill.