'Stop talking those words.'
'You don't have to cut Mama out of me, Willy. I can just send her away. I can send her off the edge of the world.'
'She won't go. She's stuck here!'
'Not anymore. You scared her with your secret magic movie, your wizard movie. She's not even in this room, Will. Won't you come and let me up? Let's escape from here before Mama comes back.'
Willard Lindy, Mr. Cutter, picked up a scalpel and whisked his thumb over the blade.
'It won't work, Mama. You used to say that too.'
'No, Will, don't, Will…'
Her belly was so soft and warm.
The ladder to the deck of the boat was anchored in the mud beside a large four-wheel ATV. The boat's keel was a yard above the mud, the craft raised on thick planks for repairs that never arrived. It looked unstable and I was afraid of the boat shifting when I stepped on the ladder.
I heard a soft sound through the hull: Ava's voice.
The boat held firm as I climbed to the deck. The light came from a slender strip of window where one course of tape had not quite overlapped another. I heard a second voice now. Crouching, I slipped my eye to the window.
Willet Lindy standing over Ava. She was in a bra and panties, strapped to an autopsy table. Lindy wearing nothing but muddy suit pants and boots. I watched him define a trail down her abdomen with his finger, a scalpel poised to follow.
I dived against the door and the corroded hinges dissolved away. It was like diving into paper and I stumbled, arms flailing, across the slender cabin. I slipped in blood and mud dripping from my legs and fell hard, bouncing, pain screaming from my hip, my knife skittering away. The boat shivered on its pylons, yawing as if on water. A crunching sound from below and the craft listed. Food cans, water bottles, plates, tools, crashed from shelves onto the floor. The television slid forward and stopped, held by a cable. The remote pitched onto the floor as I sprawled, nearly naked, on the floor.
The tape started to rewind itself.
'Eee-yawp, tis-tris sipppen…' On the screen, the mouth of Willet Lindy appeared from black and began vacuuming its words. The real Lindy was above me, the dark eyes of a double-barreled shotgun staring at my face.
'Stay down!' he screamed. 'Just stay right there, Detective Ryder.'
He kicked me hard in the side with a steel-toe boot and I doubled over.
'I cleaned and cleaned and now you're getting filth everywhere.' He pushed the shotgun against my head.
'Owp, eenyah, yeppuh…' the television Lindy said as he swallowed more words.
'Get across the room. Not standing. Crawl!'
I crawled.
'I've been watching you, Detective Ryder,' Lindy said. 'You've been sniffing around after Mama.' On the TV Burlew's massive arms relaxed into Deschamps's biceps, deflated further into Nelson's arms.
'Creen-yee-up, ten rip ri dish…'
'Sit. There. Don't. Move.'
I obeyed. If he pulled the triggers my head would turn to gruel.
'Why are you here?' he demanded.
'To take Dr. Davanelle home.'
'Mama is staying here.'
The TV showed Ava replacing organs in Deschamps's body like packing a parcel for shipping. One swift motion of the scalpel and the slit in the body was healed.
'Tten-yupo, pinreep, too do…'
'I can't tie you up. Hold up your hands.'
He was going to blow my hands off.
'Your hands or your head, Detective Ryder.'
I had never heard of anyone who escaped death saying the world became like this, hyper real almost luminous, like another sense coming on, feeling everything. Even the tiniest shift in the boat, as if someone else had crept into my final moment. Could it be?
Again, the shift, the smallest creak. A whisper of wood.
Someone outside?
Lindy's eye squinted down the black barrel. He hadn't heard. 'Hold up your hands now!' he howled. I moved my hands slowly upward and to the side so the pellets might miss my face. Lindy's finger whitened on the trigger. I closed my eyes.
A yellow bird flew through the door. It bellowed. Lindy spun and blew it to pieces. The bird disintegrated into a soft snow of white foam and scraps of plastic, a former life vest.
I rolled across the floor and kicked Lindy's legs from beneath him.
Thunder at the door. Harry charging. Me rising, grabbing at the table beside Ava. The boat shivered under the motion and one of the shoring planks cracked. The boat shifted again and the tray of surgical instruments spilled across the floor. Lindy squirmed past Harry and cracked him on the jaw with the stock of the shotgun.
Harry dropped.
I grabbed a scalpel from the floor. Lindy spun toward Harry, the gun swinging up.
I roared and threw myself at Lindy, grabbing his neck with one hand, the other angling the gun up and away. It discharged through the roof and the kick spun it from his grip. I bent him backward across the tilting table. He tore at my eyes and hands, ripping his fingers on the scalpel, blood pouring between us. His belly was to me and I pushed the edge of the scalpel just below his navel as he screamed and snapped his teeth at me. I felt the resistance of his skin against the point of the scalpel. An inch of bright blade slipped inside his belly.
I had the power to slice him all the way down to his first breath.
'Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama…' he recited like a litany. I looked at Ava. She shook her head, No, no, no.
Lindy howled, 'Mamamamamaraa…'
I felt my arms slacken.
'Dee-yup, pen it tesheeup…' On the TV screen Ava returned Nelson's insides.
The floor listed and I grabbed the table to steady myself. Lindy spun away and dived into the bilge hatch. I looked into it and saw only wired-together ranks of batteries. A sharp crack came from the keel and the boat shifted again, harder. The gasoline can by the generator tumbled and upended, dumping fuel across the floor and through the hatch to the engine room and bilge. The batteries shifted and clacked together. We were adrift in a boat soaked with gas and a hold full of jerry-wired batteries in the rain, our captain a madman.
One short, one spark…
The boat listed several more degrees. Joists screamed, bulwarks strained. Harry and I dug at Ava's ropes, fighting to stand on the slanting floor. Failing metal squealed beneath us and the deck shivered and dropped another six inches. I fell. Harry grabbed the edge of the bolted-down table and continued tearing at Ava's bindings.
Gasoline fumes burned tears from our eyes. Harry struggled at the ropes as I pulled myself up.
'Te-repped uten benetha…'
Harry roared with effort, his arms shaking with strain. I smelled the acrid stink of wires cooking off insulation.
Only her neck bound now.
A crack of wood and the boat teetered severely. The last holdings of the shelves emptied across the floor. On the tape Ava traced her hand over the bare body, nodded, and backed quickly from the picture. 'Amam, amam,' Lindy said as the tape rolled to its beginning. His lips faded to black. The tape snapped off.
'Got it,' Harry yelled, Ava in his arms, rising.
I heard the thunder of heavy wood breaking. The boat shivered for an instant, then knelt forward and buried its prow in the soft earth. We tumbled across the floor as cans and tools and debris clattered over us. Smoke suffused the gasoline-laden air.
