'The woman I saw.'
'You on that again? Long shook his head. 'You need a woman, boy; I can see it plain and simple.'
Foster nodded, slightly distracted, then said, 'But there was one. I saw her. She was at the sides of those three men — one of 'em that Irishman and now they're all dead.'
'Plenty o' men here are dead, and there ain't been no woman with 'em.'
'Not this time.'
Long shook his head again and pushed himself down and rolled over, and Foster knew their conversation was over.
That night the woman brought with her the scent of wood smoke and spices, and she knelt beside the red- faced man.
In the morning he was dead. And when the nurses hauled him out, Foster could see that the drinker was no longer red-faced. The dead man was pale, paler than he should have been even in death, and he seemed to have shrunk down upon himself, as if something his blood, his soul had been sucked out of him.
Foster looked at Long. 'She's coming down this way.'
'You're crazy, you know. Crazy.' Long concentrated on drinking his broth.
Foster pushed back the sheet and swung his legs over the side. Momentarily he felt light-headed, and his arm pained him. He tried to push up from the cot to stand, trembled, and fell back. He couldn't escape, not even if he wanted to. He managed to get under the covers again, and saw that Long was watching him.
'You could help me,' Foster said. He hated to ask for help — it wasn't his way — but there was no other choice.
'Help you?'
Foster nodded. 'To escape.'
'You're here to heal, boy, and that's good enough for me. I'll be out in a day or two, or so the docs say. You need to stay a little longer and rest up.'
'You don't understand,' he said bitterly.
'No, I guess not.'
Two nights went by and the woman didn't appear. Then on the third night she was across from Foster, by Long's bed.
'No,' Foster said, struggling to sit up, but his limbs were entangled in the sheets, and they dragged him down. His head was spinning, and he couldn't hardly keep his eyes open, and yet he saw the woman, so beautiful, slithering atop Long, who was staring wide-eyed at her. She caressed and kissed the one-eyed man, and delicately nipped at the skin on his chest. Foster watched as her mouth slid lower and lower, and suddenly Long moaned, a loud sensual sound.
She spread her skirts around them, and rode Long like he was a horse being broke, and Foster could hear Long's cry of lust, the cry that was almost a scream.
Foster struggled once more to sit up; he had to help Long. But he couldn't manage, and every time he moved his arm throbbed so fiercely he himself momentarily blacked out. He could only lie back and watch helplessly.
When it was over, Ariadne smoothed her skirts, kissed Long upon the lips and left.
In the dimness Foster stared at Long. The man was pale, too pale.
'Long?' he called.
No response.
And when morning came, the nurses took Long away.
'I don't understand it,' Foster called to them. 'He was getting better. He was going to be out in a day or two. He didn't have no killing disease.'
The burliest of the two nurses shrugged. 'It happens sometimes. They seem all right and then just up and die.'
'No, no, not Long. He was all right, I tell you.' Foster laboured to sit. 'That woman came for him. I warned him, I did, but he wouldn't listen. No one would.' He looked around the ward, but most of the patients were sleeping or had slipped into their own private hells. 'Long didn't listen to me — he didn't believe — and now look at him.'
'Calm down,' one of the nurses said, and he glanced across at the other. They called for a third nurse, and between the three of them they restrained him and tied him down with ropes to the cot.
He fought and screamed and shouted at them, but they told him it was for his own good, that he was too violent to be left on his own.
He tried to undo his bonds, but couldn't, and after a while he stopped fighting. He closed his eyes. Some time later one of the nurses came back and fed him some broth, this time with a little bit of potato and onion in it. He tasted nothing.
He simply lay there, his eyes shut, and waited. He felt the coolness of the air when the sun went down. And when he smelled the spices, he opened his eyes.
Ariadne stood at the foot of his cot. She was smiling at him.
She whispered his name, and he realized then what that strange odour about her was. It was the smell of death.
Sleeping Cities
Wendy Webb
