“I guess… I guess we won’t die on this hatch cover after all,” was all Soltz could say, cheated out of his whiny, dramatic death once again.
Quickly then, they began paddling over to the raft.
When Cushing first saw it, that shape come drifting out of the mist… he thought the worst possible things, of course. Although he couldn’t see exactly what it was – just a shadow moving against that field of yellow and gray – he started imagining plenty. Was certain that whatever was out there was about to show itself.
That was what he had originally thought.
And sometimes in life, it was just damn great to be wrong.
When they got up near the raft… or it got up near them… Cushing saw George Ryan and Gosling, the first mate of the Mara Corday. It was the best company he could have hoped for.
“You’re late,” was the first thing George said to him as he hauled him aboard, up the little boarding ladder. “Least you could have done is called. Was that asking too much?”
Cushing laughed. Laughed loud and full like it was the funniest thing he had ever heard and maybe it was. It got him an odd look from Gosling, like maybe he was losing it, but that was okay. After all those hours on that hatch cover listening to Soltz bitch, a man was allowed a certain level of joyful delirium. And Soltz, true to form, complained the entire time Gosling yanked him aboard.
The raft was big and roomy, Cushing noticed, and could have accommodated a dozen men without crowding. That was a good thing because what he needed more than anything else was to stretch his legs without fear something was going to nip one of them off.
After George had given them a quick encapsulated version of the plight of himself and Gosling, leaving out certain unpleasant experiences concerning giant eels and luminous fishies, Soltz began.
“We must’ve drifted for days,” he told them, wiping his glasses against his shirt. “It had to be at least that long… an endless fever is what it was. Just a blur for Cushing and me. Yes, I was pretty certain that we were nearing our last breaths.”
Gosling was just staring at him.
When he was done doing that, he looked at Cushing as if to say, is this guy for real here? But the look Cushing gave him back assured him that, yes, this was Soltz in the flesh. The weakest link? Yeah, and then some.
After they had some freeze-dried food and water that tasted a bit brackish after being stored in plastic bags, the novelty of their new position wore off some, at least enough where they could relax and discuss things in depth.
And after it was hashed-out, what was really to be said? They didn’t know where they were or if by luck or providence they’d ever find their way out.
“About all we can do is take it day by day,” Gosling said. “What else is there to do?”
He was right and they all knew it.
Except maybe Soltz. “What we have to do, I think, is accept that we’re lost far from home, in an ocean I don’t think exists on any map.”
“He thinks we’re in the Devil’s Triangle or something,” Cushing added.
“No, not exactly,” Soltz pointed out. “We were somewhere like that. But that fog reached out for us and dumped us here, in this place… wherever this is.”
Gosling just studied him. “What do you mean it reached out?”
“I mean it took us, transported us somewhere else. I don’t know. .. another plane or dimension, call it whatever you want,” he said to them, eyes huge behind his spectacles. “I know it sounds impossible and far- fetched and you all probably think I’m crazy or having a nervous breakdown. Please yourself. Think those things all you want, but down deep you know I’m right. This is the Twilight Zone. This place is neither here nor there, but caught in-between, a world or dimension stuck in the mist and shadows. Nothing’s right here. Nothing’ll ever be right.”
It was all very sobering stuff, of course, but nothing they hadn’t all been through in their minds dozens of times.
“Don’t get carried away,” Gosling finally said.
“I don’t think I am. I think, given the circumstances, I’m being entirely realistic. This fog is not right. The sea is funny. Even the air… have you noticed, that even the air feels-”
“Like it isn’t put together right?” George said. “Too thick or too thin, too moist or too dry. But too damn something. Yeah, I think we’ve all felt it. Like… like maybe the atoms are turned inside out.”
They looked at each other for a time after saying that, nobody speaking at all.
Finally, it was Cushing who broke the silence. “Well, I tell you boys something. This place is fucked-up. We all know it. And I think it’s a dangerous place, too. But the fact is that something pulled us in here and I’m willing to bet that whatever it was, can throw us back out again. Any time it chooses.”
22
The first thing Saks realized was that he was looking at a body.
“Hey, you guys,” he said, deciding just this once not to insult any of them. “We got ourselves a floater over here”
The four of them peered anxiously into the water. The body was floating face-down. Its clothing was burst open due to bloating, the flesh brilliantly white and puckered obscenely. As it drifted closer, they could see it wore no lifejacket.
“It’s got fatigues on,” Fabrini said. “What the hell would a soldier be floating out here for?”
“Same reason we are,” Menhaus said.
“Maybe a troop transport went down,” Cook suggested.
And that got Crycek going on one of his conspiracy theories again. This one concerning the military toying around with technologies they did not understand like children with their fingers on remote controls, having no true conception of what doors they might be opening or what things or forces they might be waking up.
“What the fuck are you babbling about?” Fabrini put to him.
But Crycek just giggled. “Yes,” he said. “Yes.”
Fabrini looked to Cook for a translation, but Cook just shrugged. He knew very well what Crycek was taking about, of course, but he wasn’t about to launch into some half-baked diatribe concerning Crycek’s theory about the military trying to smash holes into other dimensions. Maybe it was true and maybe it just belonged up on that dusty high shelf along with the Philadelphia Experiment.
“All of you shut up,” Saks said. “Quit listening to that fucking monkeyskull. He’s crazy, that’s all.”
When they drifted close enough, Saks stuck his knife in the web belt around the soldier’s waist and pulled him or her or it to the boat.
“Menhaus, get your thumb out of Fabrini’s ass and lend a hand here,” he said. “The rest of you… stay put.”
Fabrini and Cook eyed him coolly.
Crycek grinned.
“What’re you girls staring at?” Saks said. “Find something to do. Go shave your pussies or something. Jesus Christ, what a bunch.” He shook his head. “Soon as our backs are turned, Menhaus, they’ll be pumping each other. Got that look in their eyes. It’s a big day for both of ‘em. Soon as Fagbrini gets home, he’ll be writing, ‘Dear Diary, Cook shot his load into me. It was the greatest day of my life since I blew Liberace.’ What a guy, what a guy.”
“What the hell do you want me to do?” Menhaus said, looking at the soldier’s corpse. “Jesus, what a stink.”
“Just hoist him up, bright boy.”
“Me?” Menhaus said.
“No, the gay midget in your pants. Yes, you. Maybe Sergeant York’s carrying something we can use.”
“C’mon, Saks, he’s rotten,” Menhaus whined.
“So’s Fabrini’s asshole, but that never stopped you before.”
