The Antarcticans (6 page)

The buzzing grew louder and circled Joshua’s head. He reached up and swatted the air. Everything was turning smooth: the walls were Matisse paintings glossed over; the texture of the tile beneath his chair disappeared into a brown iced-over surface. His fingertips lost sensation.

“Stop it!” he yelled.

“It isn’t nice to hound him like this. He’s a good boy,” Margie told the other voice. “Joshy’s just doin’ what those helpful doctors tell him to do. I listen to them too, ya know.”

“No, he’s a little fuck nut who thinks he’s gonna scare me.” The buzzing sound in Joshua’s head turned into the flapping of wings.

The demon had done this before; Joshua knew what was coming next. Deep-black creatures, with no eyes, just mouths and vicious teeth attached to wings, swooped down and lashed at this neck and back. Joshua yelped from the pain. One of them tore off the top pieces of his flesh, and then a second creature, with its darkened face and obsidian eyes, came in for more. When the holes appearing over his body were wide enough, the menaces dive-bombed headfirst into the bleeding wounds and hooked their jaws into the nubs of tendons and ligaments, piercing veins and fresh channels. Then they spun, boring deeper and deeper inside him, rolling the tendrils from his body like thread from a spindle, ripping from the inside every fiber that held him together. Joshua’s mind and body went numb with pain; he didn’t know he was standing on the kitchen floor, rapidly whirling. Over and over, the creatures tore farther inside him, penetrating his stomach, his bowels, moving toward his brain.

“Oh, dear. How are you doin’, Joshy? You hangin’ in there?” he heard Margie say. She was flickering to life in front of him: head piled high with blond hair, her plump lips painted with pink lipstick, a turquoise debutante gown on. Her hands were clasped, her head cocked to the side. She couldn’t have been more than thirty. When she made eye contact with him, her hand flew up to her mouth.

“Oh, my Gawd. Darlin’, you can see me, can’t you?”

Joshua couldn’t answer. One of the creatures was excavating his vocal chords. He reached down and grabbed the slick, slimy tail and yanked it. He felt the slight tug on his throat, and the wriggling tail separated from the creature’s body and came off in his hand.

“Hot damn. They’re slimy little bastards, aren’t they?” the gravelly voice rumbled.

“I can’t…” Tears gushed from Joshua’s eyes.

“You can’t what?” Laughter followed.

“No more,” Joshua gurgled through what was left of his esophagus.

“Well, I hear the little bastards hate Clorox. Maybe you should douse ’em with the stuff. Give ’em hell.”

Joshua fell to the floor and dragged himself along with the one arm not infested with the creatures. Every second of flesh spinning off his body and splattering the cold white edges of the kitchen was an eternity of pain. He yanked the cabinet door open and pushed around inside until he saw the bleach his mother had used so many times to clean the floors and bathrooms.

With one hand, he futilely fumbled with the cap.

“Joshy…” Margie’s dress was poofed out around her on the floor. Her pink nails, which matched her lipstick and were slightly chipped and faded, rested on the blue cap. “That’s not a good idea.”

The revolutions of the creatures accelerated as they worked their way into his chest. Joshua knew if they reached his heart or brain, he’d be gone. He pushed Margie’s hand aside and twisted off the cap. He looked up at her glitter-coated eyes and running mascara. “Pray for me, Margie.”

“Okay, but you’re gonna regret this.” She took the blue cap from him and positioned the bottle so the handle was available for his hand to slip through. “Oh, well…bottoms up.” She held her hands up in surrender.

Joshua put the bottle to his mouth, inhaled the strong fumes, and drank. The searing liquid snaked through his throat and into his stomach. The pain, however, was comforting, because he knew it would end the suffering. He felt the burrowing creatures lose their grip and shriek before falling dead on the floor around him. Oh, it felt so good as they died one by one.

“You showed them.” The gravel turned to rasp and began to fade.

“No, motherfucker, I showed
you
,” Joshua choked out through his bloody throat.

More laughter from the gravelly voice and then unconsciousness.

…

The fluorescent lights were pushing into every crevice of the hospital room. Joshua was hooked up to an array of wires and monitors, his wrists snugly tied to the bed railings.

“Josh?” Noila looked down into her son’s closed eyes, her hand on his forehead.

Warm, stale air came from his mouth and then a hard swallow.

“Don’t talk,” she said, her eyes welling up. “You have burns.”

“Hello?” Gavin pressed the phone to his ear after taking it from the sales attendant.

“Honey?” Noila’s voice was shaking. “Who was that?”

“Just one of the salesgirls. What’s wrong?”

“But I called your cell.”

“Dunno, must have been routed to where I was somehow. I’m in a tailor shop, on the ship I told you I was going on.”

“Joshua is…” She started to cry.

“What? Joshua is what?” Gavin asked clearly but not loudly, his heart rate increasing.

“He…he’s tried again. Come home.” She was sobbing now.

“Is he okay? Where is he? I…” He paused. “It’s not that easy for me to get home. I can explain everything when I get back. I’ll be there as fast as I can, but it might not be until tomorrow. I’m not sure they have a way for me to get back right away.”

“We’re at the hospital. He’s in surgery.” She told him about the Clorox and mumbled a string of descriptions.

“He drank bleach?”

“Mm-hmm,” she whimpered.

Gavin knew he had to leave to be with her and Joshua. His wife had become increasingly unstable as the episodes with their son increased in frequency and intensity. Noila had grown up in a family with a long line of God’s men: her father, her grandfather, and the most significant, her great-grandfather, who had laid the seeds to the great familial commission one hundred years ago. Although she never had met him, his memory was weaved through every nook of her childhood home. Her expectations of life had been neat and predictable. If she prayed and did the right things, God would reward her. In the last year, she had begun to question why she was being punished and drew further and further into herself, looking for a dark core that held the answer to her torment.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Gavin whispered into the phone, not wanting Leo to hear him. He handed the phone back to the clerk and nodded, thanking her. He turned back to Leo, who was staring blankly as the tailor inserted his last pin into the embroidered red flower at the bottom of the silk dress.

“Is there any way I can talk to Lucifer?” Gavin asked Leo.

“He’s very busy right now. You’ll see him tonight.”

“A few things have changed. I need to get back to Fort Lauderdale.”

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible tonight,” Leo told him. “The transport helicopters are all on the mainland and will be heading toward us in the next couple of hours to ferry the participants of tonight’s meeting. Whatever it is will have to wait.”

Gavin let out a sigh and looked around the shop. The woman in the dress had retreated to a fitting room. The tailor and the clerk were looking expectantly at him, their brows raised.

“Please, Mr. Gavin,” Leo said. “We made a special accommodation for you to be fitted. I would appreciate it if you would fulfill the appointment.” He gestured toward the small leather-covered riser for Gavin to stand on during the fitting.

Gavin stepped onto the riser and finished the appointment. He felt guilty about not being completely honest with Noila; she deserved better.

An hour later, he was sitting at the desk in his quarters, tapping the black Mont Blanc pen with the gold dragon and ruby eyes against the desktop, wondering what he was going to tell Noila when he picked up the phone and called her. He leaned back in the black suede chair and spun, taking in the richly wallpapered walls covered in dark-colored paintings.

He listened to the phone ring on the other end, and then Noila picked up.

“Hello?” Her voice sounded weak.

“Hey, it’s me. How’s Joshua?”

“Not good, but stable for now. Are you on your way?”

“I’ll be there tomorrow. There isn’t a way for me to get back tonight.” He waited, hearing her inhale deeply. “I can call someone, have someone come over and be there with you.”

“I already called my dad. He’s here. Where are you?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. I’ll explain everything when I get back. Honey, really, I would be there, but it isn’t possible. I’m trying to help Joshua too.”

“What about helping me through this? Let me guess…another church emergency?” She was grasping; he heard it in her voice.

“No, the complete opposite. I’m doing what I can for Joshua. I can’t be everywhere at once.”

Noila hung up. Gavin knew that was a defensive response for her; he had learned that early on. She wasn’t necessarily mad at him. She just couldn’t handle the situation alone. He put the receiver down and rested his head on his arms.

The door chimed then opened slowly.

“Mr. Gavin, your clothing for this evening.” The small female clerk from the shop softly stepped in and hung the tuxedo in the closet. As she backed out of the room, she said quietly, “Leo will be here at six thirty to take you to the cocktail reception.”

“Thank you,” Gavin told her. He glanced at the clock. It was 4:00 p.m. He had two and a half hours to go crazy by himself.

He felt his box of emotions, the one he kept neatly buttoned up, pry itself open. Inside were little compartments: one with his wife’s pain, the compartment next to it filled with his mother’s. He pictured a whole section of compartments filled with the separate despair of each of his parishioners and those he counseled—each disappointment, each soul, like a delicate fine ornament wrapped in tissue paper and placed away, only to be taken out and looked at if there was an explicit reason.

Gavin didn’t know what had prompted Joshua to try to commit suicide this time, but he could guess. The first time it happened, Gavin went into shock. He had walked into Joshua’s room. He had a black belt around his neck and was trying to secure the other end over the light fixture. Had he come into the room a few minutes later, he would have certainly found him hanging dead. Joshua was deranged, mumbling and cursing the voices. Joshua hated the voices; Gavin knew that. The second time, Gavin questioned the situation over and over, wondering what had gone wrong, what could he do to make sure this never happened again. By the fifth time, he was waiting for it to happen again. Each minute of his life that ticked by, was lived under the shadow of wondering how much time he had left with his son. That fear wove its way through everything he did. But now he was numb to it—not the pleasant numbness of too much Scotch or a good narcotic, but numb to the inevitability and helplessness of the situation. His hands were in his hair, his fingers scratching his scalp; he couldn’t feel it. He dug harder; there had to be feeling somewhere. He dug until he felt the sticky texture of his blood.

Leo was knocking at the door, in what seemed minutes later. Gavin broke his trance from the ruby eyes of the dragon. He looked at the clock; it was already six thirty.

“Damn it,” he said to himself, and rushed to the door.

“Leo, sorry. I…Can you give me ten? I can be ready,” he apologized.

“Please hurry, Mr. Gavin. Lucifer doesn’t like me to bring guests late.”

After Gavin shaved, ran a comb through his hair, and donned his tuxedo, they crossed the deck and came to the end of a hallway. Leo stepped up to the credenza, which had ornate vases on top of it and a picture of the ship hanging on the wall behind it, and grasped a hidden handle. The whole arrangement of furniture swiveled open to reveal a small room. The walls were awash in smooth, dark alligator skin and bordered with mirrored tiles and mahogany. A small crystal chandelier sparkled from the ceiling.

“This is the entrance elevator to the ballroom. After you,” Leo said.

When the door closed and the elevator started moving, he pressed a button on the panel and briefly stopped their ascent. He pressed a small panel in the wall, and an array of toiletries and a mirror moved out of the wall on a motorized tray.

“Would you like to take one last glance at yourself before you’re presented to the room?” Leo asked.

Gavin looked at himself in the mirror; grabbed a breath mint from the assortment of colognes, makeup, and hair products; pushed his slicked black hair neatly into place; and gave a thumbs-up to Leo.

Leo grabbed a small black bottle, poured some of the tonic into his hand, then rubbed it into Gavin’s hair and face. He reached in Gavin’s pocket, pulled out the bow tie, and tied it around his neck. He stepped back and looked at him, adjusted Gavin’s cummerbund, then pressed the panel that retracted the toiletries into the wall.

“You’ll go first into the room,” Leo said. “I’ll follow you and introduce you to your table and a few people, and then I’ll disappear and attend to my other duties. Please don’t seek Lucifer out and bother him about going back to land. It isn’t appropriate.”