Experiment in Terror 07 Come Alive (32 page)

I wanted to tell her that, but the middle of the swamp wasn’t the best place to do it. Or was it?

“Listen, Perry,” I said. Then the bottom beneath her feet dropped and her head went under. My head went under next.

We flopped to the surface in surprise, the brackish water coming into my throat. I coughed it out and looked around trying to keep her close to me. We could swim, but I had a feeling they could too. And if it wasn’t the zombies who’d get us, whom we could still hear splashing, hot on our trail, it would be the alligators. I was already imagining their rough tails brushing against my feet.

“The trees,” Perry said, jerking her head in their direction. The action made her go under again and I pulled her to me.

“Stay with me. Stay with me,” I said, spitting out the water, keeping my arm tight around her waist. “Remember what we had to do on D’Arcy Island?”

She coughed, but managed to nod. Over her shoulder, in the distance, I could see dark shapes coming closer.

“Grab hold of my neck and hold on tight,” I said. “I’ll bring us to that tree. We can at least get out of the water.”

She brought her arms around me, her legs wrapped around my waist, like she was piggybacking. I swam forward as quickly as I could.

“Are you sure you can handle me?” she asked.

I nodded. “No problem, baby.”

But there was a problem. Back in D’Arcy Island I struggled but I got the job done. I wasn’t much better now. My strength was still subdued thanks to the drugs Ambrosia gave me. My imagination was getting the better of me, the psychoactives kicking into high gear, and my limbs felt like lead. I couldn’t let her know that though, I’d just have to push through the strain.

We had almost made it to the nearest tree when my heart and lungs just decided to give up. It happened suddenly, both organs seizing up and putting me in a stranglehold. I don’t know if it was the strain of the events, the brutality my body had already endured, or the psychosis, but it was like I decided I’d died one too many times today.

My head went under, then Perry’s, my toes straining to find ground but finding none. She let go and swam to the surface. I kept sinking until she pulled me up enough to get air.

“Please, Dex,” she sputtered through the water. “Please, we’re almost there.”

I tried to use my arms, to doggy paddle forward, if not just tread water, and keep afloat. But they failed after a few attempts. Soon I was sinking under again.

Perry yanked me up one more time and I swore it would be our last. The zombies were closer now, I could hear their grunts, the water churning beneath their limbs. They obviously weren’t affected, but I was.

“I won’t let you die on me!” she yelled, her face coming up to mine. The moon chose that moment to poke its head out from behind the clouds. It illuminated the darkness of the water, the milky paleness of her skin, the fragility of her eyes. Oh God, I was lucky to have loved her. So, so lucky.

“Dex!” she yelled again, my eyes closing. “You are not leaving me! I cannot go on without you. You are my future, you are my everything!” She started crying and kissing my face. My head sunk under.

But she wouldn’t give up. She linked her arm under mine and pulled me along as far as she could.

My head fought for surface, fought for air, but every last strength in me was gone. I took in water. She stopped pulling me. The water churned beneath my feet, and I could see hungry eyes glowing in the dark.

In the distance, the roar of the zombies became greater. It shook the water, muddy vibrations, until I knew that even if I wasn’t drowning, she would die here with me. Together. It should have made me feel better not to have to go alone. But all I wanted was for both of us to live. With each other. Until we were old and grey.

The world was turning black and my lungs were now all water. My life flashed before my eyes, and most of it was of Perry. For her short duration in my life, she changed the way I knew how to live. And love.

We’re saved
, her voice cut in.
We’re going to be okay.

I didn’t know if that was her parting goodbye or what that was. In a way I did feel saved. I felt peace for knowing her.

Then the water got choppier, my limbs bobbing around, and the roar of the zombies filled my ears to the core. Something hard grazed the top of my head. The current tried to pull me away, but big, strong hands came down and planted a firm grip under my armpits.

I was yanked to the surface, my lungs gasping hard for air, but only taking in more water.  I was still drowning.

“Shit,” someone murmured and I was pulled backward, my spine being scraped along something hard. I barely felt a thing.

Suddenly I was on my back, staring up at the moon and the two people peering over me.

“You’re going to have to give him CPR,” Maximus said to Perry as I continued to sputter.

Even in the moonlight, I could see her glare at him. She brought me upright and started pounding on my back, a rather crude version of mouth to mouth but it worked. The water flowed out of my lungs and onto the metallic flooring. I moved my head to look around. We were on a air boat driven by Maximus and in the opposite corner from me was a white-haired mound of limbs: Rose. Nearby the zombies were swimming for us, almost within reaching distance.

I couldn’t speak so I just pointed.

“I’m on it,” Maximus said. Just as the closest zombie latched his hand onto the side of the boat, we lurched forward and zoomed out of the way, leaving the zombie, the death, and the bayou behind.

We whirred away into the night.

“Are you missing part of your ear?” Maximus asked incredulously after a few moments.

And that was the last thing I heard. Once again, my body wanted to give up, my limbs becoming heavy, my mind shutting down like a tired old machine. Luckily I knew I wasn’t going to drown this time. I knew I was in good hands. I keeled over right onto the boat and made a note to thank Maximus when I woke up.

CHAPTER TWENTY

I was back on the goddamn row boat again. Back in the world of grey and monotony, of silky swamp water and huddled trees.

But I wasn’t alone.

My mother was on the boat with me, sitting at the end, a shawl wrapped around her. Her eyes were focused on the water, like I wasn’t even there. For once she didn’t look vaguely demonic. She looked as I remembered as a boy— a pretty woman with a lot of pain in her dark eyes.

It was weird being so close to her. I was still afraid, just as I had been when she was alive, never knowing what she was going to say or do to me. I didn’t know where we were, though I was going to assume I was inside the Thin Veil, and I didn’t know what rules applied. Was I dead? Was this my life now? Was she taking me somewhere in the row boat, someplace I’d never return from?

She began to sing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” again, her clear voice sending icy fingers down my spine. She sang the whole song, her voice carrying out over the water and coming back to her in harmony. I remembered that about her, that sometimes she would sing to me, when I wasn’t being terrorized of course. Only now did I realize that
she’s
where I got my singing abilities from.

“Declan, you have to go to sleep now,” she said kindly, still looking at the water.

I shivered at the uneasiness in the thick, grey air, at the blank look on her face. Should I say something to her? I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. She could strike fear in me like no one else could, even when she looked normal.

“Michael is in bed, he’s going to sleep, why can’t you? Why are you always so afraid, Declan? Did Michael say something to you? Is it me?”

I swallowed hard and looked over the side of the boat, to see what she could be looking at. There was nothing but water glinting under a sun I couldn’t see.

A sad smile came across her lips and she lowered her hand into the water, just brushing the surface. I had to imagine there was some younger version of myself in there, talking back.

“I’m sorry for what happened yesterday. Sometimes…sometimes I am not myself. I think it’s getting worse. But I still love you very much. You must know that, my son. I will always love you.”

I felt a lump get stuck in my throat. I nearly choked. My eyes were wet for some reason.

She went on, tears coming to her eyes too. “Please remember that. Remember this. Remember the good days when you look back. You were very much wanted by both me and your father. We will always be your parents. We raised you, it didn’t. You are our child and no one else’s.”

I had to say something. I had to know.

“What happened to you?” I asked her, my voice breaking.

She smiled again, still looking at the water. “Sometimes something very good can come from something very bad.”

“Was Michael the same?” My older brother had always been the overachiever, the sane one, the good son.

She didn’t say anything. Her face contorted in pain.

“Mother, is Michael the same as me?”

She closed her eyes and a tear rolled down. “I don’t even know your brother sometimes.”

What the fuck did that mean?

“Mom…”

“Be strong, no matter what happens to me. No matter what happens to your father. Be good. I know you have that in you, even if he doesn’t.”

“Who!” I yelled at her, the boat rocking beneath me as I stood up, trying to get her attention. “Who isn’t good? My father? Michael?”

She finally turned to look at me. Her eyes were now empty sockets.

“Go to sleep, Declan.”

And so I did.

***

“He’s coming around,” a woman with a heavy Louisiana accent said. “I’ll see if I can find her.”

I didn’t recognize the voice of the person speaking and was met with a spinning head and the strong urge to vomit, all before I even opened my eyes.

Please let me not be on a boat, please let me not be on a boat
, I thought to myself.
Also, no coffins please.

“Hey buddy,” I heard a familiar voice say. A heavy hand was placed on my arm.

I carefully opened my eyes, blinking hard at the stream of light that was coming in through a window. My eyes moved over to Maximus who was leaning over me, his red hair gleaming from the sunlight like some ginger halo.

“Oh god, am I in hell?” I asked, my throat feeling like it had been scraped with sandpaper. “Where am I?” Panic suddenly shot through me like an arrow and I made a feeble attempt to sit up, even though every single part of me hurt. “Where’s Perry?”

“She’s fine,” he said, pushing me back down into the bed. “The nurse went to go get her. She was so worried about you she wouldn’t sleep until they gave her a sleeping pill. I think she’s passed out in the waiting room somewhere. And if you can’t already tell, yes you are in a hospital.”

I groaned and tried to reach up to my ear. There was a lot of gauze wrapped around it and my head. “Fuck me, what happened?”

“You don’t remember?” Maximus asked, pulling up a chair and sitting down.

My mind went back over the events. No, unfortunately I remembered everything until he pulled me onto the air boat.

“I remember you rescuing us. How long have I been out for?”

“Two days,” he said.

“What?!” I exclaimed. “Why…what’s wrong with me?”

He smirked. “Well aside from the fact that your body was carved up, you had a broken rib from a python, according to Perry anyway, your ear’s been Van Gogh’d, and you had a concussion from the car accident, your blood was pumped full of two poisons. The doctors are amazed you’re even alive considering how much you had in your system. I hate to sound trite, but it’s kind of a miracle.”

But I wasn’t the only one this was done to. I looked at him. “What about Rose?”

I already knew it was bad news. He dropped his eyes to the floor. “Rose is alive.”

“How alive?”

He sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “She’s…the drugs did some damage to her. They don’t know if it’s reversible. She’s in there somewhere though, I can see it. At the moment though, she can’t really talk or do anything. She can’t even go to the bathroom by herself.”

My heart jerked. “I’m so sorry, man.”

He eyed me. “No insult?”

I gave him a melancholy smile. “I’ll give you a free pass, for now.”

He bit his lip and nodded. “Well, that’s the way life goes sometimes, doesn’t it?” He cleared his throat.

Ugh. I hated feeling so terrible for the big guy. I wasn’t built for this. “So how did you find us? Perry said it was a long story and then there were zombies and she never had a chance to explain.”

He seemed happy to be off the subject of Rose. “You were gone quite a while, long enough that we were getting worried. Even Perry. We tried your phones but they kept ringing, no one picked up. I went down and asked the receptionist if we could borrow her car and go look for you guys and that was all set up when I got a phone call from Maryse.”