Gateways. Part 10

"I ain't so crazy about that neither." He rubbed a hand over his face. "My daddy said them lights made us the way we is, twisted us up, just like it's twisted the trees and the fish and the bugs around here. And that's from when they was just s.h.i.+ning up through the water. What happens this year when there ain't no water?"

Semelee felt a thrill at the prospect. "That's what I want to see."

The lights had been comin' twice a year-at the spring and fall equinoxes-for as long as anyone could remember. Her momma had told her they'd kept that schedule every year since she'd been born, and her her momma had told her the same thing. momma had told her the same thing.

But Semelee's momma'd said that years back the lights started gettin' stronger and brighter. And it wasn't long after that, maybe a few years, that the people livin' around the lagoon started noticin' changes in the plants and the fish and things around the sinkhole. It started with the frogs missin' legs or growin' extra ones. Then the fish started lookin' weird and the plants started gettin' twisted up.

All that was bad enough, but when the lagooners' kids started bein' born dead or strange lookin', the lagooners moved out. Not as a group to the same place, but piecemeal like, in all different directions. Some stayed as close as Homestead, some as far as Louisiana and Texas. After they moved away, they stopped havin' strange kids and they was happy about that.

But the strange kids they already had wasn't happy. Not one bit. Not because they was all mistreated by people as they was growin' up-Semelee hadn't been alone in that-but because when they all finally growed up they felt like somethin' was missin' in their lives.

One by one they all-all the misshapen ones-found their way back here to the lagoon and learned that this was where the itch stopped, this was where they felt whole, where they belonged. This was home.

And home was where your family lived. They came to call themselves a clan, and all decided to stay here on the lagoon.

Yet even with this big family-type gang around her, Semelee still felt a yearning emptiness within. She wanted more, needed needed more. more.

"Why do they hafta take our our sand? There's plenty of sand around. Why they want ours?" sand? There's plenty of sand around. Why they want ours?"

"Don't rightly know," Semelee said.

"Who is they, anyway?"

"Blagden and Sons. You know that."

"Yeah, I know the name, but that's all it is: a name. Who are are they? Where do they come from?" they? Where do they come from?"

"Don't know, Luke, but their money's good. Cash up front. That's bout as good as it gets."

"Do they know about the lights?"

"That one I can answer: Yeah, they know about the lights."

Some guy named William somethin' from this company called Blagden and Sons come around in a canoe a few weeks ago askin' if anyone'd been seein' funny lights about this time of the year. The clan folk he talked to sent him to Semelee since she was sorta the leader round here. Not that she'd ever looked to be the leader, but it seemed whenever somethin' needed decidin', she wound up the one who did it.

Semelee played it cagey with this William fellow until she was pretty sure he wasn't no tour-guide type or scientist or anything like that, and wouldn't be bringing boatloads of strangers or teams of pointy heads to peek or poke at the clan and the sinkhole. Nope, all William wanted was to haul off the dirt and sand from around where they'd seen the lights.

When Semelee had told him they'd been comin' up through this sinkhole that used to be underwater but was now gettin' dry, he got all excited and wanted to know where it was. Semelee pretended she wasn't gonna tell him, and held off even when he offered money. So he offered more money and more money until Semelee had to say yes. Maybe she could've held out for even more, but there weren't no sense in gettin' all greedy about it.

When she'd took him to the sinkhole she thought he was gonna pee his pants. He danced around it, callin' it a senn-oaty or somethin' like that. When she asked him what he was talkin' about he spelled it for her: C-E-N-O-T-E. Told her it was a Mex word and you said it like coyote. Semelee liked sinkhole better.

The dredgin' was all hush-hush, of course. The clan wasn't upposed to be livin' here on the lagoon, this bein' a National Park and all, and Blagden and Sons wasn't upposed to be takin' the sand.

"Matter off act," she told Luke, "I'm pretty sure they want the sand because because of the lights." of the lights."

"That's kinda scary, dontcha think? Them lights ain't natural. They changed us and everythin' around them. Probably even changed the sand in that hole."

"Probably did."

Luke looked uneasy. "What on earth could they want it for? I mean, what're they gonna do with it?"

"Can't rightly say, Luke. And I don't rightly care. That ain't our worry. What I do know is that our little sinkhole is gonna be a lot deeper without all that sand. And that just may mean that the lights'll be brighter than ever. When the time comes maybe someone can even look down into that hole and see where they're comin' from."

"Who's gonna do that?" Luke said.

Semelee kept her eyes on the rim of the deepening hole. "Me."

Luke grabbed her arm. "Uh-uh! You ain't! That's crazy! I won't let you!"

She let Luke have s.e.x with her once in a while when she felt the need, and that probably was a mistake. She'd told him flat out from the git-go that it didn't mean nothin', that they was just now-and-again f.u.c.k buddies and that was all there was to it, but she'd probably made a mistake lettin' it get started. Still, every so often she needed to get laid and Luke was the least ugly of anyone else in the clan. Trouble was, it let him feel like he owed her, like he had to protect her or somethin'.

If anyone needed protectin', it wasn't her.

"You got nothin' to say about it, Luke," Semelee told him as she wrenched her arm free of his grasp. "Now lemme be. I gotta get to town."

"What for?"

She flashed him a sly smile. "I'm joinin' the nursin' profession."

He shook his head. "What? Why?"

Semelee felt the smile melt away in a blaze of anger. "To finish your half-a.s.sed job from the other night!"

3.

As Jack stepped out of the elevator on the hospital's third floor, he spied Dr. Huerta waiting to get in.

"Any change in my father?"

She shook her head. "Stable, but still level seven."

"How long can this go on?" he said. "I mean, before we start thinking about feeding tubes and all that?"

She stepped into the elevator. "That's a bit premature. I know it must seem like a long time to you, but it's been less than seventy-two hours. The IVs are perfectly adequate for now."

"But-"

The elevator doors slid shut.

Jack walked down the hall to his father's room, wondering if Anya would be there. He'd stopped by her place before leaving this morning, threading his way through the gizmos crowding her lawn, to offer her a ride to the hospital if she needed it. But she hadn't answered his knocks.

Normally that wouldn't have bothered him, but with old folks...well, you never knew. She could have had a stroke or something. Jack had peered through the front door gla.s.s but hadn't seen anyone on the floor or slumped in a chair. Then he'd remembered Oyv. The little dog would have been barking up a storm by then if he'd been around.

But Anya wasn't in his father's room either-he checked the corners and behind the curtains, just to be sure. Empty except for the patient.

He stepped to the side of the bed and gripped the limp right hand. "I'm back, Dad. Are you in there? Can you hear me? Give a squeeze, just a little one, if you can. Or move just one finger so I know."

Nothing. Just like yesterday.

Jack pulled up a chair and sat at the bedside, talking to his father as if the old guy could hear him. He kept his voice low-pausing when the nurses buzzed in and out-and discussed what he'd learned about the accident and the conflicting information, dwelling on the time discrepancies between the report and his father's watch. He'd hoped talking it out would clarify the incident for him, but he was as confused afterward as before.

"If only you could tell me what you were doing out there at that hour, it would clear up a whole lot of questions."

Once off the subject of the accident, he thought he'd run out of things to say. Then he remembered the pictures in his father's room and decided to use them as launch pads.

"Remember the family camping trip? How it never stopped raining...?"

4.

After an hour or so of talking, Jack's mouth was dry and his vocal cords felt on fire. He stepped into the bathroom to get a drink of water. As he was finis.h.i.+ng his second cupful his peripheral vision caught a flash of white. He turned to see a nurse approaching his dad's bed. She hadn't been around before; he was sure he would have noticed her if she had. She was pretty in an odd way. Very slim, almost to the point of boyishness, and with her dark skin-made all the darker by the contrast of her white uniform-prominent nose, and glossy black hair trailing most of the way down her back in a single braid, Jack thought she might be part Indian-not the Bombay kind, the American kind.

She had her hand in the pocket of her uniform-little more than a white s.h.i.+ft, really-and seemed to be gripping something.

Jack was about to step out of the bathroom and say h.e.l.lo when he noticed something strange about her. Her movements were odd, jerky. She'd slowed her progress toward the bed and seemed to be straining to move forward, as if the air was holding her back. He saw sweat break out on her forehead, watched her face flush and then go pale as she forced herself forward another step. He watched her throat working, as if she was trying to keep from vomiting.

Jack stepped out and approached her.

"Miss, are you all-?"

She jumped, twisted toward him, staring with wide, confused, onyx eyes. Her hand darted from her pocket to a thong tied around her neck, and Jack thought he saw something move in the pocket.

She shook her head, pulling on the slim leather thong around her neck. It snapped but she barely seemed to notice. She was drenched in sweat.

"Who-?"

Before Jack could reply she turned and staggered out of the room. He started to go after her but heard a groan from the bed.

"Dad?" He rushed over to the bed and grabbed his father's hand again. "Dad, was that you?"

He squeezed the fingers-gently at first, then harder. His father winced, but Dr. Huerta had said he was responsive to pain. After shaking his father's shoulder and calling to him, all with no response, he backed off. Nothing happening here.

He went out to check on that nurse. Something wrong about her...besides looking sick.

At the nursing station he found a big, brawny, gray-haired nurse who seemed to be in charge. Her photo ID badge read R SCHOCH, RN.

"Excuse me," he said. "A nurse just came into my father's room, then turned and ran out. She looked kind of sick and I was wondering if she was okay."

Nurse Schoch frowned-or rather, her frown deepened. It seemed to be her only expression. "Sick? No one said anything." She looked around at the a.s.signment board. "Three-seventy-five, right? What was her name?"

"I didn't get a look at her badge. Come to think of it, I don't think she was wearing one."

"Oh, she had to be. What did she look like?"

"Slim, dark, maybe five-three or so."

Schoch shook her head. "No one like that here. Not on my s.h.i.+ft, anyway. You sure she was a nurse?"

"I'm not sure of a lot of things," Jack muttered, "and that's just been added to my list."

"She could have been from housecleaning, but then she would have been in gray instead of white-and she'd still have to have a badge." She picked up a phone. "I'll call security."

Jack wished she wouldn't-he didn't want rent-a-cops messing into this-but couldn't think of a reason he could tell Schoch.

"Yeah, okay. I'll be back in my father's room."

He'd been keeping an eye on the door, making sure no one else went in there. When he returned, he checked his father to see if he'd moved-he hadn't-then went to the window and looked out at the parking lot. He saw a slim woman in white walking away through the lot. Heat from the late-morning sun made her s.h.i.+mmer like a mirage.

It was her. Couldn't mistake that long braid. And now she was climbing into the pa.s.senger side of a battered old red pickup.

Jack dashed into the hall in time to see the elevator doors closing. Too slow anyway. He found the stairs and raced down to the first floor. By the time he hit the parking lot, the pickup was gone. But he kept moving, running to his Buick and gunning out to the street. He flipped a mental coin and turned right, telling himself he'd give this ten minutes and then call it quits.

He'd traveled about half a mile when he spotted the truck, stopped at a red light two blocks ahead.

"Gotcha," he said.

When the light changed he followed the truck out of town and into the swamps. Somewhere along the way the pavement ended, replaced by a couple of sandy ruts flanked by tall, waving reeds. He lost sight of the truck for a while but wasn't going to worry about that unless he came to a fork. Better to stay out of sight. Luckily there were no forks, and before too long he was pulling into a clearing at the edge of a small, slow-moving stream.

The red pickup sat there, idling, while the woman in white rode downstream in a small, flat-bottomed motor boat piloted by a hulking man in a red, long-sleeved s.h.i.+rt. Jack jumped out of his car and ran to the bank, waving his arms, calling after them.

"Hey! Come back! I want to ask you something!"

The woman and the man turned and stared at him, surprise evident on their faces. The woman said something to the man, who nodded, then they both turned away and kept moving. He saw the name on the stern: Chicken-s.h.i.+p Chicken-s.h.i.+p.

"Hey!" Jack shouted.

"Whatchoo wanner for?" said a voice from behind.

Jack turned and saw a man with a misshapen head leaning out the driver window of the pickup. With his bulbous forehead, off-center eyes, and almost non-existent nose he reminded Jack of Leo G. Carroll from the opening scenes of Tarantula Tarantula. This guy made Rondo Hatton look handsome.

"I want to talk to her, ask her a few questions."

"Looks to me like she don't wanna talk to you." His voice was high and nasal.