friend Bjoe lurking above us, calling down for us to go ahead and sleep up there with them, in their fishy cave.
My thoughts were: I do, I might not wake up. And the last defiant thing I might ever do is give Bjoe or the others a spot of indigestion and then pass turd-like out of existence. On the other hand, I might be nothing more than a warm pleasant feeling in their tummies. Couldn’t have that.
So we climbed down. Quick. And once in the bus we slept, after having made sure all the windows were closed and the door was good and locked, and we kept knives by our sides.
Bjoe’s story got me worried. I think there’s good reason to worry. I’m awake. So I should worry. I also worry in my sleep, now that I think about it. At least most of the time.
Reba is worried too. She climbed on me this “morning,” and we had sex so desperate and savage and unsatisfying, I wish I had just pulled my pud or maybe stuck a stick up my ass.
We spent the morning flushing out our bus by backing it even closer to the exit from which we entered the fish’s belly. We stood outside and let the water that the fish swallowed flush through the back window and cleanse it.
It isn’t exactly clean smelling, but it got rid of all the muck, washed it out the door.
That done, we considered driving the bus closer to the piles of cars and the darkness, which lay thick, like something stacked.
James, who had wiled away his time in the bus while we were visiting with Bjoe, said, “If what you told me about the dark things is true, wouldn’t it be smarter not to go that close to those things? The Scuts?”
“Yes,” I said, “it would be smarter. But, it’s a kind of trade-off. Bjoe, he’s not coming right out and nailing us. I figure they don’t want to fight if they don’t have to. But, you can see he’s starting to think of us as lunch. He can’t help himself.”
“And maybe more than that,” Grace said. “I think he had other plans for Reba and me.”
Reba nodded. “Seemed that way. Especially you.”
“Yeah,” Grace said. “He wants to screw us, skin us, eat us, make pouches out of our tits.”
“Yours would certainly be utilitarian,” Steve said, and Grace slapped him in the back of the head.
“It was a compliment,” Steve said. “Sort of.”
“So, we can be near a spot that they don’t like to go,” I said, “or, rather we hope they would rather not go, or we can be right out there in the brightest part of the light, where they feel safe.”
“I could tell he’s got the willies about those shadow things,” Grace said. “He tried to play it pretty deadpan, but he sure was massaging the old sausage when he got to the part about the things in the dark. The Scuts, for scuttle, I presume. I thought he was gonna toss the old mayonnaise from one end of the cave to the other, way he was getting down.”
“Sure sorry I missed that little trip and conversation,” James said.
“I don’t think you really mean that,” Reba said.
James grinned.
“Here’s the way I see it,” I said. “Last night, we just locked up. And I guess that was enough to save us. But in time, the more they think about it, us down here, them up there, their bellies gnawing, and this Bjoe with a love for human flesh, I think a day will come when they decide to try and take us.”
“I agree,” Grace said. “I get the feeling they aren’t trying to add new members to their group. Not really. Just lunches. Here near the darkness, if we have to, we can retreat into the shadows and deal with those things as they come.”
Cory had been silent, trying to get over his hangover, but now he spoke. “Big question I got, is how do we get out of here? It’s cozy all right, but I’d rather not stay here.”
“That one,” Grace said, “we’re still working on.”
“And, if there’s a solution,” I said, “I suggest we find it. Not only because of Bjoe and his companions, or because of the Scuts, but because this morning I noted that some of the lights that had been just in front of the cars, they went out. My guess is, in time, all the lights will go out. And then we’re going to have to deal directly with the Scuts. We won’t last long inside of a fish where we can’t see how to move about.”
“Another thing,” Reba said. “Have you noted that it’s temperature controlled in here? A little warm, but there’s something keeping a fairly balanced temperature. The lights go, maybe it goes. For that matter, maybe whatever powers the fish will play out.”
“Can I say something?”
It was Homer. He went through spells so quiet, it was easy to forget he was there.
“Sure,” I said.
“One way out might be we wait until the fish is close to the surface, and then we exit like turds and float up, taking something to hang onto with us. There’s wood lying about, stuff the fish has swallowed. We might could do that.”
“Good as far as it goes,” Steve said. “But how would we know how deep down we are. We go out when we’re way down deep, we’d drown before we made it to the surface.”
Homer shook his head. “Catfish like to get along the bottom, that’s no lie. But don’t you feel it?”
“Feel it?” Grace said.
“Pressure in your ears?”
Now that he mentioned it, I had to admit I did. It came and went. The others agreed that they too felt it.
“When the pressure goes away,” Homer says, “I think Ed’s at the surface, or close to it. That would be the time to go. I mean, there was a door, that would be when to go out of it.”
Everyone was silent for a moment.
“It’s a thought,” Steve said.
“It isn’t much,” Grace said, “but it’s more than anyone else has offered. Homer, you just might be a genius.”
“You think?” Homer said.
“No,” Grace said. “Not really. But even a blind pig finds an acorn now and then. And I think you may have found an idea.”
“Well,” Homer said. “Wow. An idea. Me, of all people. Uh, what kind of idea did I have really?”
6
“It was a thought,” Homer said. “But I didn’t take into consideration that there isn’t a door.”
“There are two ways inside this fish,” Grace said. “We got the mouth, and we got the asshole. We try to go through the mouth, well, water rushes through there all the time. We’ll drown. Maybe, if we go to the rear we can find an exit. This thing may eat and shit, but it doesn’t have real fish intestines. I think Bjoe is wrong about some things. I think this fish is, or was, a work in progress. The robots were supposed to finish it all up, give it fish insides, but, for some reason, they played out.”
“Leaving the fish not quite complete,” Steve said.
“Yep. I think that whatever built this world, the things in it, is losing its grip. Maybe mentally, maybe it, or they, or whatever, just got bored with the whole thing.”
“So it’s falling apart?” I said. “Our gods are going insane?”
“Yeah. Or it’s not being finished. It’s like a dream I used to have when I went to bed at night, elves would take up the rest of the world and fold it away. But they were quick, see, so if I got up to go pee, looked out the window, they were always therewith a backdrop. And they built things instantly, before I could get to them. But sometimes, in my dream, I’d look out of the corner of my eye, and there would be nothing.
“I remember the dream well. Gave me this feeling that the world was all a lie, and that I made it up as I lived and breathed. And sometimes, my daydream broke down.”
“So in the dream, you dreamed you were daydreaming?” Steve said.
“Yeah. And now I may be living in just the sort of world I dreamed about. But, a lot more unpleasant.”
“My head’s starting to hurt,” Homer said.
“About escaping?” Steve said.
