CHAPTER TWENTY
My mind reeled awake like the slow wind of undeveloped film. Everything was black. Very black. A shade of coal darker than anything behind closed eyes. And then I realized my eyes weren’t closed at all. They were open, squinting against a light mist that burned them like salt. >
Where was I?
I couldn’t bring my mind around fast enough to remember anything concrete. But there were thoughtless flashes. The reel in my head spun wildly, more shady images skittering past the spokes. There was a forest. I was running. I was hunted down by hounds. Or humans on four legs. Their grotesque, disfigured shapes flicked flickered in the woods like a pilot light. Then nothing.
My watery grave. The phrase floated around in my head for no reason.
I lay still. I was on my back, on top of something awkward and bony. I told my limbs to move but nothing happened. I concentrated, desperately finding some light my retinas could latch o to, to give some meaning to where I was and what was happening.
There were sounds, suddenly, like ear plugs were plucked out of my head. I heard muffled cries, like someone was yelling very far away and the sloshing sounds of water encompassing the space around me. The distinct feeling that I was floating was apparent and my inner ear rolled and swayed back and forth inside my heavy head.
All my senses were coming to me now. I could smell seawater and a putrid, decaying smell like rotted fruit and mold. I felt dampness at my back and bit by bit, the sensation that my hands were emerged in ice–cold water.
I moved my arms and this time they responded sluggishly. They had been in water, though the rest of me was dry. I moved them out to the sides and they struck hard barriers with a force I barely felt through my numbed nerves. The sound of the impact echoed around me. It told me I was in some sort of box or…or…
Panic began to sweep through me. I moved again, feeling like I was balanced precipitously on top of something very peculiar yet very familiar. Whatever it was, it was smaller than the length of my body and I noticed my legs dropped off below at an angle. I kicked them up. A spray of ice water fell up on top of my shins and my waterlogged boots met with the bottom of something.
I felt all around me, wildly placing my hands and feet on whichever surface they could reach. I was in a box after all. The space above my head was only about half a foot before a damp wooden ceiling cut me off from the rest of the world.
I tried to catch my breath but the fright inside my chest was overpowering it. I was trapped, trapped in a box. A mime’s worst nightmare.
Not only that, but the box was filling with water. I could feel the liquid fingers crawling up my legs and arms and saturating my back.
I started writhing and fighting. I couldn’t keep it together any longer. I was in a box and I was going to drown in here.
I started pounding my hands against the top, hoping to break through. They were tired and without much feeling and soon I felt a gush of warmth flowing from them. My blood. More blood. It seemed oozed freely from the wounds at my wrist. I didn’t care. I had to get out. If I didn’t I was certain I would die.
The water came faster now and it wasn’t long before I was floating slightly above whatever had been below me. In seconds it would come over the tops of my pants. My pants, where my front pocket felt tighter than usual.
I quickly slipped my hand into my front pocket on a hunch. There was the lighter in my pocket from earlier.
I pulled it out and started to flicker flick it. My fingers were cold and clumsy and I almost dropped it but after a few awkward attempts, the flame came alive, the spark catching hold. I held it up and away from me. The weak, orange light illuminated the space around me.
I was right. I was in a box. It wasn’t just a box though. No, it wasn’t. I knew with sick, absolute certainty what it was.
My watery grave.
I swallowed hard, feeling my world jar wildly with the incoming waves. I was in a coffin, set adrift in the sea.
“Your ship has come in.” A man’s voice echoed inside my head.
Amidst all the commotion in my head, among all the confusion over what had happened – I knew where I was and why I was here. I wished I was alone. But I knew that wasn’t true either. I knew that awkward, protruding, lumpy shape beneath me spared me of that luxury.
I felt my left hand slip into the water and gingerly feel felt for the bottom of the casket. Maybe the only way out was through. It met with the ragged wood bottom and felt around. I was careful to avoid what was directly beneath me.
The water was up to my chest now, heaving and wet. I was running out of time and fast.
I placed my hand on the bottom and tried to stabilize one part of me while I prepared to kick out with my legs, hoping that the splintery walls would give way.
Tiny, slimy fingers made their way around my submerged wrist.
I screamed but it escaped through my lips like a wordless gasp. The fingers tightened like a tiny clamp and held my wrist down, drowning it.
Something shot out from the water beside me and knocked the lighter out of my hands, enveloping the casket in darkness again. My arm was seized by another miniature grasp. It pulled it roughly down into the water.
I tried to move, to yell, to fight but the water’s chill seized me like poison. I was being held down, the water was rising and almost to my face.
Something moved beneath my head. It came close to my submerged ear. Someone whispered into it.
The voice was distorted and muffled underwater. But it was unmistakable.
“Mother!” it cried out, cold, child lips brushing my earlobe.
I opened my mouth to scream again but only found water. I took it in instead of air and let the liquid saturate the life out of me.
“Mother” it said again and again until we were floating together and the world closed its eyes.
I felt my body losing consciousness. I had been captured just like Mary had, on my 23rd birthday, and set off to sea with the remains of Madeleine. I was going to drown with her. I was going to drown. Drown.
Drown.
Nothing.
A flash of celestial light.
A brightness coming from inside my head.
Nerves misfiring.
Water.
Peace.
“Breathe, baby, breathe.”
I was cold. The light began to retreat and everything was black again. Multicolored planets twirled in my head.
“Please, baby. Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me.”
A rush of air entered my lungs. It met at the bottom, creating a whirlpool in my chest. The water was rising.
It rushed out of me in one monstrous convulsion. I turned over and let the water flow out of my lungs and stomach and onto the space beside me. I gasped wildly for air. My eyes flew open to see black sky and waving tree tops.
I felt a hand at my face, gently resting on my cheek. After my lungs were clear enough and I felt icy air replacing them, I gingerly moved my head up and looked.
Dex was kneeling over me, soaking wet from head to toe, water dripping off of his hair. He was holding one of my hands very tightly, the other hand on my face. He was smiling painfully through tears, or maybe it was just salt water.
He stroked my head and brought my hand up to his chest, holding it there tightly.
“I thought I lost you,” he croaked. “I thought I lost you.”
It all came rushing back to me, the feelings of guilt flooding my head.
“I’m sorry,” I said weakly. The words pushed me into a coughing fit.
“No,” he said, cradling the back of my head with his hand and propping me up, helping me get it all out. “Don’t say anything. I’m sorry. I am so sorry. I should have believed you.”
I slowly eased myself up to a sitting position. We were on the beach, just a few feet from the waves that overturned the stones with each passing. We were both soaking wet. I knew the intense cold would set in at any minute but for now I was numb. It was pitch black outside, nighttime already.
“What happened?” I managed to say. I remembered John coming at me with the rope, the lepers and that was it.
He shook his head. “I was at the beach. Waiting for you. I was worried sick. I started heading back into the woods to get you when I heard this ripping sound. I saw…I saw a small woman. I thought she was a child at first. She had the hunting knife. She cut open the Zodiac.”
“Mary,” I whispered.
“Yes. It was her, all right. I knew it. And then suddenly…it all made sense. And I knew you were right. I didn’t say anything to her, I didn’t need to. The damage was done. I ran off into the woods to find you. I guess I tripped up on a log and knocked myself out. When I came to it was dark. I went to the campsite and saw…I saw the lepers. They were standing right here. Pushing the coffin out to sea. I don’t know how, but I knew you were in it.”
“What did you do?” Feeling was coming back into my hands and feet like pins and needles. Or maybe that was the fear.
“I just…ignored them. I ran out past them and into the water to get you. I almost couldn’t; the lid was too strong and the water too deep. But something gave. And I saw you in there, blue, floating. And I…I really thought you were dead.”
He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath.
“But I’m not dead. Dex, you saved my life,” I wished I was strong enough to properly express how I was feeling. Weak words were not enough. “After everything I said to you–”
He put his finger to my lips and pressed it gently. His eyes searched mine earnestly. “No. You had every right. The thought of losing you…I’ve been a terrible partner and a terrible friend.”
Now I wanted to shut him up. “You haven’t been. I don’t blame you for not believing me. Most people don’t.”
“But I, of all people in this world, should,” he finished. He squeezed my hand again.
A snap was heard amongst the trees behind us. Suddenly I was filled with panic.
I sat up straighter and looked around me wildly. “The lepers, where did they go?”
“I don’t know,” he said grimly, eyeing the forest. “They were gone when I came out of the water.”
“I don’t think we have much time left,” I sniffed. We were both soaking wet. If they didn’t get us, the hypothermia would.
“I know. Can you walk?” he asked, getting to his feet and gently pulling me up.
I nodded, feeling numb and useless. The shivers were starting to build up. I could see them running through Dex too.
“What do we do? You said she slashed the Zodiac,” I mumbled hopelessly.
He squeezed my hand again and said in the most confident voice he could muster, “There’s still one more way off this place. Come on.”
He led me away from the beach. It was painful to move but we kept going. We got to the turnoff to the trail across the island but he kept leading me towards the bog and other campsites.
“Where are we going?’ I whispered, all too aware that things could be watching us from among the trees. The shadows all seemed to move.
He leaned to my ear and said roughly, “There is no way we are going down that path anymore. The mud has a mind of its own. There’s a weak trail up by the other campsites. I don’t know how far inland it goes, but at least there won’t be anyone waiting there for us.”
I nodded. An unmarked bush hike through the dark haunted island was just as disturbing as going through the middle, but he was right. Maybe they wouldn’t expect it.
We walked as quickly as we could up the path and through the campsites. The ground here was like a small lake of grass, and covered the tops of our shoes. For once, being wet didn’t matter. We were already soaked to the bone.
We were almost out of the grassy lawn, looking for a sign of a small trail out of there, when Dex cried out. I spun around and saw him fall to the ground with a splash. The earth was opening, the rocky grave markers were moving aside and graying, peeling arms were reaching out from the dark chasms below, holding onto Dex’s leg and trying to pull him down.
I screamed but luckily my reaction time wasn’t as numb as the rest of me. I grabbed Dex around the chest, not able to avoid his chest wound, and tried to yank him out. He was swearing, screaming, kicking out with his legs but unable to get free of them.
I let go, picked up one of the small boulders and bashed it against one of the ghostly arms, the sound of bones splintering reverberated through the air. Their grasp loosened for long enough for Dex to get to his feet.
He grabbed my arm and we scampered off into the forest, forgetting about the path; the only instinct was to run for our lives. I could hear the ground still being unearthed behind us, their maddening moans, the sloppy, thumping sound of their bodies flopping out of their graves and coming after us, wanting to exact their revenge, their justice for the horrible lives they were forced to live.
We ran in silence and as fast as we could while trying to avoid the tangles of bushes at our feet, darting in and out between the trees, ducking beneath the branches, our hands the only thing keeping us together in this blind marathon. Foot in front of foot, stride by stride, leap by leap, stumble by stumble, we kept going, ignoring the cramping in our legs, the tightness of the dark and the feeling that we were being chased by things too terrible to imagine.
Somehow, I don’t know how, we reached the other side of the island, our feet flying out of the brush and landing on the dirt coastal path. We hurried down to the left and galloped along it. The urgency never left us.
Finally the trees opened up and we could see the beach, the deflated, defiled lump of a Zodiac and the sailboat swinging out at sea.
We piled down through the brush until we hit the stones. Dex ran straight for the Zodiac, picking up his backpack he had left there and swinging it on his back. He ran back up to me and began pulling me along with him in the direction of the cliff.
“Where are we going?” I yelled, unable to catch my breath for even a second.
“The rope!” he yelled back. We leaped over a piece of driftwood in unison. We heard the sound of the beach stones scattering from behind us. It was the lepers, they were still on our trail. I knew better than to look. I couldn’t afford to lose it now. >
We got to the start of the cliff and proceeded to climb up it as quickly as possible. My hands burned from the sharp edges and slicing barnacles but I pushed the pain out of my head and kept going. I eyed the rope at the top when I could, just to make sure it was still there, and understood what Dex’s plan was. We were going to slide down the rope and onto the boat. It was ridiculous but our only choice.
We were almost at the top, only a few more feet of scraggly ground and crusty boulders to go, when Dex stopped in his tracks. I pulled up beside him and followed his gaze.
Mary was standing at the arbutus tree, her dress blowing billowing out to the side of her like a black cape. She was as grotesque as the last time I saw her. The rat was gone from her face, but her eye was still missing and all her fingers were still gone except for the thumbs and ring fingers. In her disfigured hands she held the hunting knife in her hand, waving it front of the rope, taunting us with it.
“Mary,” I yelled at her, raising my hands in surrender. “Please don’t do this, Mary. You need to let us go. We don’t belong here.”
“I didn’t belong here either,” she said. Her voice sounded distant, robotic even, and buzzing with a metallic edge. “They want you to stay. Stay here or in the black and white world. You’ve seen it before. They’ll take you there.”
She nodded at the distance behind us. Dex and I turned and looked. The lepers were climbing up the cliff like reverse lemmings, with John marching behind them all, a mad herder.
We didn’t have much time before they were upon us. I looked back at Mary. She had taken a step closer to the rope and was wiping the blade up and down the yellow length of it with a scaling sound. “I want you to stay too. We are both the same, you and I. We have no one else but ourselves.”
“That’s not true,” Dex said angrily. “She has me. You’re the one who has nothing.”
“Not anymore!” she cried out and raised the knife. She brought it down with the first hack, the rope frayed, twirled, began to split.
Dex screamed. I had seconds to act. I remembered he had put the flare gun into his bag earlier. I could only hope it was still there, that she hadn’t taken it along with the knife.
I reached into his open backpack, reached around wildly until my fingers found the shape. I grabbed the flare gun from out of it.
Mary raised the knife again.
I raised the gun, aimed it at Mary and pulled the trigger.
The gun exploded in my hands, the flare shooting out in a storm of red light, smoke, sparks and the most heart–stopping bang that shook my ear canals loose.
The flare shot straight below the rope, missing it only by a foot, and hit Mary square in the stomach. She erupted in a sizzling firework of guts and fire and fell backward off the cliff, landing on the rocks below.
I didn’t have much time to think about what I just did. Dex and I exchanged a quick look. He was as surprised as I was.
“You are a good shot,” he said. Then noticing the ghouls were only a few feet away, he grabbed my arm and we made a made a mad dash up the cliff for the tree.
Once at the crest, I got up and inspected the rope. I touched it gingerly. It didn’t look good. It would probably snap under our weight. But it was our only way to live.
The lepers were now coming up beside the tree, their scabby arms reaching over the sides of the rocks and swiping at our ankles. Dex quickly whipped off his backpack and flung it over the rope, sliding it down to the very edge of the cliff. He squatted, facing the direction of the boat, holding on to the straps of the backpack and wrapping his hands around them a few times. He looked over his shoulder at me.
“Hold on to me as tight as you can. Don’t look down. Don’t let go.”
I was too afraid to move. This was going to be the world’s most terrifying zipline ever.
But I felt a random hand tug at the back of my cargo pants, and I knew it was zero hour. One more hesitation and I would be dead.
I wrapped my arms around one of the backpack straps, linked my hands across Dex’s chest and squeezed him for dear life.
A growl and moan from behind me, someone’s hot breath filled with death and decay, floated up the back of my neck. I pushed away with my legs and we were gone.
As we dropped away from the cliff, the backpack sliding forward with an abrasive, high–pitched sound, the rope caved down with our weight. We flew through the air at a startling speed. I couldn’t watch, I just concentrated on holding on to Dex as hard as I could, even though I knew I was slipping inch by inch.
Snap.
Before I could process what the noise meant, the tension in the rope gave way and we were suspended in air. Then we were free falling.
I screamed as we both fell, not knowing where we would land.
I hit the water like a brick, the cold seizing my lungs and shaking me awake. I rose up and paddled furiously against the water, searching for Dex.
“Dex!” I screamed, the frigid saltwater splashing against my open mouth. I splashed frantically, trying to stay afloat, to see above the waves. I couldn’t see him anywhere. The rope was gone. The lepers watched from the top of the cliff. The boat was free and slowly floating away from me, maybe a couple of yards away.
“Dex!” I yelled again, panic rising, my arms treading water as rapidly as they could. There was no light here in the water, only the vague reflection of the moon through the fog vapors. The water was black, the swells obscuring my vision every other second, and Dex was nowhere to be seen.
I panicked. What could I do? What if he drowned? What would I do?
The thought was too painful to handle. I felt everything start to shut down, including the will to keep living, to make a swim for the boat as the current and riptides led it out to the open oceans.
I screamed one last time. It sounded dull, as if no one was around to hear it.
Then a splash from behind me. I twirled around to see Dex pop his head out of the water.
“Got it!” he cried out through chattering teeth and held up the rope in his hands.
It was the greatest sight I’d ever seen.
He swam over to me and handed me the rope. “Can you do this?” he asked between splashes of waves. “We need to haul ourselves in. Pretend the boat is one big fish. OK?”
I nodded and together we both started to pull at the rope. There was no way we could pull the entire thing towards us, so we moved our hands along it, one on top of the other, steadily going up the length of the rope like we were rock climbing. It was tiring and the water was starting to slow my limbs down to an unfeeling slog. But eventually, we were getting closer to the boat.
I just couldn’t go any further. My hands had lost all nerves and my heavy boots were weighing me down, too heavy to lift up and kick.
Dex scooped his arm around me. “Hold on to me, baby. We’ll make it.”
His face was alabaster, his lips a sick shade of blue. This reminded me of the end of Titanic. That was a fate I didn’t want for myself.
With what little energy I had left, I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and he continued to pull us both. Where he got the strength to pull us both in, I didn’t know.
I must have fallen asleep on his back. The next thing I knew, Dex was yelling at me, telling me to put my feet up on the ladder.
I looked up. I thought my head might roll off. It was that heavy.
We were at the back of the boat. I was face to face with the exhaust pipe. The ladder was down and right beside us in the water. Dex moved my legs over for me. I was supported, even though I couldn’t feel my feet.
He took my hand into his shaking one and pressed it against the ladder rung.
“Hold on tight. Hold on as tight as you can, OK? Don’t let go,” he pleaded loudly. I nodded feebly. He climbed up the ladder, leaving me clinging on to the rung. I was so close to be being saved, and yet closer to letting go.
Dex knew that. Once he was on board, he leaned over and grabbed me by the elbow and began to pulled pull me up like a 130–pound marlin. I felt bad that I couldn’t do anything to help him.
But somehow he managed. I was pulled up on deck. I lay on my back, unable to move.
“Stay with me,” he said through the clank of his shivering teeth. “We’re almost out of the woods.”
I closed my eyes. I could hear him fiddling around. Then the roar of the engine, the boat shuddering under its surge. I heard Dex run across the deck and haul up the anchor from the front of the boat and then disappear below deck.
He came back up and I found myself being covered with a million blankets. He tapped me lightly on the cheek until I opened my eyes.
“Hey. You need to stay awake. I can’t put you downstairs yet. It’s warmer there but you might fall asleep and not wake up. OK? Stay with me.”
I nodded slowly. He tucked the blankets around me. He was wet too, shivering uncontrollably. I wanted to tell him to cover himself up but I couldn’t form the words.
He got behind the wheel, put the boat in the highest gear and motored it away. The more we picked up speed, the colder I got. The wind was brutal.
Occasionally Dex would check on me, shake my leg, to make sure I was still conscious.
Finally I felt him slow the boat down, heard him flick a switch and come out from behind the wheel. He picked me up, the blankets falling away, and took me downstairs.
The heat was going full blast and the lights were all on. In a dream–like state I noticed my iPhone lying on the table as he took me into the front bedroom. He had shut the door so the room was the warmest.
He lay me down on the bed, brought out another pile of linen and sleeping bags from the closet as well as a bunch of towels.
“I don’t care if you think this is inappropriate,” I heard him say through shivers. I turned my head and saw him stripping down to his boxer-briefs. His body was shiny and translucent from the cold, every inch covered in automatic convulsions. He came on top of the bed and started to pull my jacket and top off.
“What?” I mustered.
“Trust me,” he said. He took off my boots and pants as quickly as he could until I was also just in my underwear. Then he lay down beside me and pulled all the blankets and towels over us. He pulled me right up to him and wrapped his arms and legs around me and held me tight. I was too sluggish to protest and I knew I wouldn’t have anyway.
He held me until I started to feel again. At first it was the shivering, then the terrible never–ending cold. Then we both began to calm down. The heat between us was warming us over, trapped beneath the blankets in the warm room.
I was able to think more clearly. I was able to feel my body parts again. I was very aware of his bare skin on mine. I looked up at his face. He looked relaxed, relieved, but didn’t loosen his grip around me. Our mouths were close. His breath smelt like saltwater.
“Who is driving the boat?” I whispered carefully.
“Autopilot,” he said, looking into my eyes. “I’ll go up and check on it in five minutes.”
I closed my eyes and brought my face into his neck, burrowing it. He cupped his hand behind my head and held it there.
“We made it,” he murmured.
I started to cry. It was all too much for me to take. It always would be. I didn’t know how much I could keep going.
“I’m scared, Dex,” I mumbled between sobs.
“I know.”
“I don’t…I can’t live like this. Why do I have to see these things? Why do they come after me? What is it about me?”
“We are putting ourselves at risk by doing this…”
“No. It’s always been like this. I know it has been. I feel like I can’t tell what’s a dream. What’s real. I’m going crazy. I have to be. What if all the world is inside of my head?”
“It’s not, Perry. It’s not.” He held me tighter.
“What if I really am alone?”
“Baby, you aren’t alone. I’m here.”
“I’m so scared. I don’t want to see these things anymore. It makes me want to tear my brain out. I don’t know what’s real. How can I tell what’s real anymore? What’s real, Dex? Tell me what’s real.”
He put his hand on my face and looked at me with the most magnetic, impassioned spark in his dark eyes. “I’m real. This is real.”
I closed my eyes in gratitude, my heart filling up, the warmth radiating out from there and soaking up my nerves. He kissed my forehead and pulled me back into him.