“Those things move awfully fast out there,” I said.
“I know,” Grace said. “I can go instead of you.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I can, though,” Grace said, “but the problem is James. I don’t trust him, and with me out of the way, well, Steve could handle him, but I like having him doubleteamed. I may just go on and kill him. That would be the smart thing to do.”
“But it wouldn’t be the right thing,” I said. “We start doing things like that, then Homer is correct, we’ll be like a lot of other folks on this world, and with no one acting as room monitors, this will be hell.”
“I’ll try to remember that,” Grace said. “Now, you remember Bjoe’s story, about how the torches his folk were carrying went out, and they were nabbed. I think that’s exactly what happened. The torches burned out, and the light went out, and when it did, they were nabbed. Once you turn your flashlights on, don’t turn them off. No light, and they come. You’ve got light, they won’t bother you.”
“You’re sure?” Reba said.
“Of course not,” Grace said. “I’m trying to make you feel better. All we know is they don’t like light. They might be strong enough to have put those torches out themselves. They might jam those flashlights up your asses. I don’t know. I can go, you can stay. One way or another, someone has to go out there and look around.”
“We could all go,” Reba said. “Isn’t it a bad idea to divide? You know, we’ve all certainly seen enough horror movies.”
“If we all go, and it goes wrong, none of us make it,” I said. “I wouldn’t like that. I want some of us to survive, if for no other reason than I’m stubborn. We don’t make it, then we still got others who can.”
“You could send James,” Reba said.
“He wouldn’t be worth a damn if I did send him,” Grace said. “I don’t like him, and I don’t trust him. Besides, I’d hope he would drop his flashlight. Here’s the bottom line. We got to find a way out. We all go, we wouldn’t have a chance. There’s only two more flashlights. There would be a wad of us out there without enough light. The two of you, you can fend for each other. I don’t know what to say you’re looking for. A way out. That’s it. We’ll all probably drown anyway. But I’d rather do that than sit here and hope there’s a god who notices and sends us individual scuba suits.”
“I got you,” I said. I turned to Reba, said, “Think the way we do this, Reba, is one of us takes up the rear, sort of back to back, and we wave the lights around a lot. Let them know we’re armed with bits of sunshine.”
“I’ll have Steve turn on and flash the lights every now and then. I can’t tell time, but I’m going to wet a string, hang it from the ceiling, when the drips fill a paper cup-”
“You don’t have any paper cups,” I said.
“I’m going to fold one out of a piece of paper from your pack. I’ll make it a small one. When it fills, I’ll flash the lights. Then I’ll flash them again. Three, four times. Then we’ll wet the string again, let it fill the cup.”
“And if the string dries out before the cup is filled?”
“I’ll keep it wet,” Grace said, “if I have to pee on it.”
“All right,” Reba said. She took a deep breath, called over to Steve. “Open the door.”
12
Even with the lights it was very dark, and my first thought was that those little pale yellow beams of ours weren’t worth anything when it came to the big bad things out there in the wilds of Ed’s belly; those dark things all het up and fast and nasty and full of teeth.
Reba actually put her butt to mine and backed. We rotated our beams like search lights looking for Kamikazes. We hadn’t gone far when we found the little shadow dears.
They whispered past us, rattled and fluttered there in the dark. I shone my light this way and that, felt something at my elbow, snapped the beam over there, only to have a chunk of the dark pop away.
“Oh, shit, don’t fall down, Jack. Don’t trip. Don’t fuck up. And, for heaven’s sake, I hope the flashlights don’t go out.”
“I’ve been trying not to think about that,” I said. “All I’ve been thinking is, I ever get hold of the director of this picture, boy is he gonna take a bitch-slapping.”
“Oh, Jack,” Reba said. “It hit me.”
“What?”
“Those things. One of them hit my arm. It’s bleeding.”
“Get the light off yourself. Keep it searching. Keep moving.”
“I shouldn’t have come. I sounded so brave when I volunteered. But I shouldn’t have come.”
“Neither of us should have. Do you want to go back to the bus?”
“Yes. But guess what? I can’t see it anymore.”
I looked back the way I thought we had come. And Reba was right. There was nothing but the dark to see.
The things moved around us as if we were the center of a hurricane. They swirled, crinkled, and cracked, like an old film negative being wadded. As we moved forward, flashlights extended, waving this way and that, the things scattered.
But it seemed to me they were getting a bit more testy, coming ever closer. Pretty soon, we both had a number of cuts from the edges of the things as they flittered by.
“Look,” I said.
So she could look, I turned right and she followed around until I took her position and she took mine.
“My God,” she said.
“Yep.”
What she was looking at was a narrow metal bridge. A grillwork bridge. It went across into a darkness the flashlights would not cross.
The bridge spanned what looked to be an abyss.
“Let’s scoot onto the bridge,” I said. “One of us can point our light, get a better look at what’s down there while the other watches for critters.”
As we made our way onto the bridge we were confronted by a foul smell.
“God Almighty,” I said. “We must be at Ed’s sewage plant.”
“Or a way out,” Reba said. “It goes down a ways, but it also veers to the right there, to what could be Ed’s rear end. Though, with just a flashlight, it’s hard to tell what I’m seeing.”
“Let’s change roles,” I said. “You flash about, I’ll have a look.”
Reba was right. The hole beneath the bridge dropped way down, and there were worker ladders on either side of the pit, something the robots used for maintenance. But there was a ki nd of tunnel that went off to the right. I noticed too that it was moving. As I watched, it irised open, then closed. Then repeated itself. Again and again.
It was a sphincter. I saw a mass of something dark rise up from the pit and reach the tunnel, flow into it as if sucked, and disappear.
I lifted my light and joined Reba in flashing mine about.
“I think it’s a sphincter that exits Ed’s waste. We might could get out that way.”
“Boy, won’t that be shitty?” Reba said.
“Frankly, I don’t see how we can do it. Not and live.”
“Grace is right though. We have to try something. We can’t just wait here. We’ll die anyway. I’d rather go out trying.”
“I could go down there and investigate. I think I can swing over the bridge and get closer for a look. Can you stand being here by yourself?”
“Oh, Jesus… Make it quick as you can.”
“Kiss me,” I said.
She did. Quickly.
I went to the base of the bridge and started climbing over. Reba’s light hit me.
