کتاب 09-32

32

The boat beat its way down a wide inlet, into the hard slap of the waves. Harper threw up over the side before the lights of the pavilion were out of sight. John stroked her neck while she gasped and spat.

“Want some of my coffee?” he said. “I’ve still got half. It’ll get the taste out of your mouth.”

She shook her head. He tossed the rest of his coffee over the side and the paper cup, too.

“It wasn’t very good anyway,” he said.

The ship was grimy, the deck slopping with a quarter inch of nasty water. An exhaust pipe protruded from the rear of the little captain’s cabin and the wind blew the smoke back down on them, where they sat in the open on the stern. They huddled on cushioned seats along the sides, squeezed into their orange life vests. Nick’s vest was so big on him, most of him had disappeared behind it: there was nothing left to see of him except his head poking through the collar and his feet sticking out below.

“Is it raining?” Harper asked. Cold, salty spray drizzled down on them.

“That’s coming off the chop,” John said.

“I think I hate the open ocean,” Harper said.

They banged through a wave and Harper turned her head and vomited into their wake again.

There were three men in biohazard suits in the pilot’s cabin: Jim, one of the gunmen from the checkpoint, and whoever was steering. The captain, Harper imagined. They hadn’t been introduced.

“You told them we’re married,” Harper said, when she had recovered herself and wiped her lips. “I was wondering about that. Remember you said that a fireman could grant divorces? What about marriages?”

“I’ll tell you a secret. I’m not a real fireman. But the man steering the ship is a real captain, and they can marry people.” He looked at her with a sudden luminous gleam of inspiration. “Ms. Harper Willowes! I think I should ask you something.”

“No,” she said. “No, don’t. Please. I was just kidding, John.”

His head sank and his expression took on a glum, downcast look.

“But only because my answer might involve kissing. And I can’t kiss you now, that would be gross. Not with the taste of vomit in my mouth.” Although now that she had been good and sick her stomach felt better—or would’ve, she thought, if the goddamn contractions hadn’t started up once more.

His face lit back up. She took his wet, cold hand and squeezed it, and his grin made his ears jut from the side of his head.

Waves hit the boat and came over the rail in an icy, drenching spray.

“Thank God for the rain slickers,” Harper said as they crashed into another trough. “This is miserable.”

“It isn’t bothering Nick.” Nudging her with his elbow. “I think he was out before they untied us from the dock.”

“He’s done a lot of walking,” Harper agreed.

The boat pitched. She looked through the drizzle for the lighthouse she had seen earlier, but they were already too far out to see it.

John yawned into the back of his hand. “Maybe I’ll catch a few minutes of shut-eye myself.”

“How can you sleep in this?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Renée managed it, though.”

Harper looked across the stern. Nick dreamed with his cheek against Renée’s bosom. She slept with her chin on his head. Allie was awake, though, clutching her life preserver in both hands, and staring darkly into the captain’s cabin.

“John,” Harper said. “John, why is Renée sleeping? Who could sleep in this?”

“Well. You said it yourself. We walked at least fifteen miles today, and—”

“Wake her up,” Harper said.

“I don’t want to wake her up.”

“Try. Please.”

The Fireman gave her a sidelong look—his gaze hooded and questioning—and then he rose on his crutch and leaned across the deck and shook Renée’s knee.

“Renée. Renée, wake up.”

The boat slammed over another wave and unbalanced him. He managed to heave himself back onto his seat before he could fall down.

Renée smiled in her sleep and showed no reaction.

“What’s wrong with them?” Allie asked.

John’s chin had sunk a little. Harper thought his eyes were just slightly unfocused.

“Goddamn it,” John said. “Can’t something work out? Just for once?”

Allie shook Nick’s shoulder. He slumped over, fell face-first into Renée’s lap.

“The stew,” John said.

“The coffee,” Harper said.

“But Allie is fine.”

“I didn’t have any,” Allie said. “I didn’t trust them. I just pretended to have some and I poured it out when no one was looking.”

“I wish you hadn’t,” Jim shouted to be heard over the engine and the wind.

He had opened the door to the pilot’s cabin and leaned in it, staring out at them through his clear plastic faceplate. He had a .45 in one hand, but he wasn’t pointing it at them, just casually holding it down by his leg.

“We try and make it peaceful,” Jim said. “No fear, no pain. A little something to put you to sleep and then over the side.”

“No,” Harper said. “No, no, no, no. You can’t. Please. This doesn’t make any sense. Why? Why would you go through this big charade? Why didn’t you just fucking shoot us? Anyone could have shot us anytime. Why put on a big act for us?”

“But it isn’t for us,” the Fireman said. “Is it?”

Jim shrugged. “I like to think it’s nice for you folks to go out on a high note. To fall asleep dreaming of a place where you’ll be safe. Where you’ll be looked after. Christ. We’re human beings, not monsters. We don’t want anyone to suffer. But—no. No, we do it for the community. People like Vivian believe in the island, too, most of them. You don’t know how important it is for morale, to believe they’re saving people. Helping people. If they thought we were sailing out here just to throw people over the side, there’d be a lot of broken hearts. A lot of discontentment, too.” He paused while the boat crashed over another wave and steadied himself against the doorframe. “You have to understand. You folks said you’re—what? The last remnant of a little democracy? You voted to come here? Well, we’ve got a democracy, too. Our own private leadership council. Just the governor and twelve others, including myself. You aren’t the only ones who took a vote. So did we. And this is what we voted for.”

“There’s no island,” Allie said.

“There is! Or there was. The CDC abandoned the place in November. There was a revolt. They were using some experimental drugs that had killed some people and the ungrateful sons of bitches seized control of the hospital. They said they didn’t want a cure anymore. They were raving about how they had made their own cure, were learning how to control fire. They were holding the medical staff hostage to deter military action. But they don’t know our governor. He doesn’t cut deals with terrorists. He commandeered a B-17 out of Bangor and dropped daisy cutters from one end of the island to the other. It’s just a black rock now. They could see the smoke from Machias. That’s when we made up the story about some burners having a bad reaction to one of the new medicines and the hospital burning up.”

“But we heard Martha Quinn on the radio,” Harper pled. “We heard her.”

“Yeah. We’ve got a hundred hours of her on old recordings. We just replay them on a loop. The governor’s argument has always been that this is the fastest way to wipe the epidemic out in the Northeast. Bring all the sick to one processing center and then humanely dispose of them. Drop them in the North Atlantic Current, where there’s no chance of the bodies washing back up in Machias. I am really, truly sorry.”

“You can’t,” Harper said. “Please. My baby might be healthy.”

At this, his face hardened. She could see his jaw tighten behind his mask. “That’s a lie. If you’re sick, he’s sick.”

“That’s not true. You can’t know that. There are studies.”

“I don’t know what studies you’ve been looking at. It’s true a lot of women who are sick will deliver babies without visible Dragonscale. But blood tests show it lurking in the DNA, waiting to emerge. And I don’t mind saying: I don’t think much of a woman in your condition carrying a baby to term. You were a nurse. You had access to pills. You should’ve taken something a long time ago. Put yourself to sleep. The thought of you gestating a little guy loaded with disease—that makes me want to throw up over the side.” He cast a glance into the blackness, then looked back at them. “Look. I don’t want to shoot you. It’s better in the water. More peaceful. It doesn’t matter you didn’t get dosed up. The cold will put you to sleep inside ten minutes. It’s like the end of Titanic out there. Besides, if I have to shoot you I might put a hole in the boat. It’s inconvenient, you know? Help a fella out. Take off your vests. Pull the little boy out of his.”

“Either we get out of our life vests,” John Rookwood said, “or you shoot us. Is that right?” He was tugging at the fingers of the glove on his left hand.

Jim nodded.

“How about a third option,” John said, yanking his glove free, throwing it over the side. His palm crawled with threads of gold light.

“How about not,” Jim said and shot him in the stomach.