‘Agh!’ I grunt.
Lolie ducks past me, snatches at a huge white dressing gown hanging on a hook. Vicki tears off Olivia’s bunny shorts. She tugs my stinging fingers from Olivia’s mouth and stuffs the silky shorts between her teeth. Olivia bucks against me, tries a muffled shout.
Inside the living quarters, I hear Janeé reply, ‘Huh?’ as if the two friends are miscommunicating in a deep, bewildered dream.
Lolie jerks the furry belt from the dressing gown. Her little hands fly as she ties tight knots around Olivia’s wrists. Olivia lifts her legs, kicks wildly at the crowd. The desert strangler’s head snaps back. He dives at Olivia’s legs and drags her to the ground. He takes over from Lolie, binds Olivia’s wrists to her feet.
‘Don’t hurt her,’ Vicki whispers.
We all gape at Olivia in a foetal position, her pubic hair reddish in the steamy light. I float Janeé’s huge dressing gown over her white buttocks, make her decent. I grab Vicki’s wrist, haul her towards the maintenance door.
Behind us, Lolie crouches down and strokes Olivia’s cheek. ‘Sorry,’ she whispers.
Angus, the skinny rapist, steps carefully over Olivia. ‘Sorry,’ he echoes Lolie.
Samuel picks Angus up, almost tosses him after us. Vicki throws her white thighs forwards, grips my hand like we have been lovers for far longer than eleven minutes. Her trust turns my stomach to steel, powers my courage to lead this party. By some freaky miracle the cat-mating door opens soundlessly.
* * *
I draw Vicki into the steep stairwell dividing the rig, pull her up the first twelve stairs.
‘Vihaan,’ I type. ‘Where is he?’ My spokesman whispers the words to Vicki, who whispers them to Samuel. The words drop down the staircase, snake through the door to the prisoners still emerging from it.
Barry almost carries the Indian over the threshold. The others flatten against the wall to make way for them to climb the stairs to us. I pick up the black box from its perfect shadow, show it to the panting little man. Vihaan squints at it. He nods, grins a gap-toothed grin. The relief hits me like a fever. I press the black box into my broken bones, grab Vicki’s hand and pull her up the next flight. The prisoners behind us catch my happy delirium. They find new strength in their atrophied limbs, grasp the railing, shunt their bodies after us. Two by two they climb the ark to start a colony of sinners who, if they live, will spend their days and their nights asking for forgiveness from their beloved dead.
So be it.
Vicki’s legs are stronger now. She breathes against my back, the scent of something dark and sweet. Is it liquorice? She keeps a tight hand on Vihaan while Barry pants heavily, flagging behind us. The desert runner catches up, gets a shoulder beneath Barry’s bum and heaves him up. A stifled cry comes from somewhere below us.
Eulalie has collapsed to her hands and knees. Charmayne lets go of Madame Sophie. She slings Eulalie’s withered arm around her neck and lifts her easily up the next ladder of steps. I peer down the twisted metal cliff. From this height I see it clearly. Shikorina has left a trail of bloody footprints. The murky light paints her thighs a deep red.
My legs buckle towards the floor. I grip the railing, hang on to the black box. Vihaan babbles something, tears it away from me.
Josiah climbs lethargically in Shikorina’s red footprints.
Vicki hooks her arms beneath my armpits. ‘Up, Malachi!’
I press my face into her stomach, a silken, pungent pillow of strong, striped skin. I thrust my feet into the rig, rise up against her full-cream breasts. I extricate myself from Vicki’s delicious breath, watch Samuel far below us, trying to persuade Josiah to keep climbing. Josiah is shaking his head hopelessly. Samuel smacks him hard on the back of his head. Is he mad? Josiah will crush his skull out of mere reflex.
‘We need Josiah for the engines. Tell him,’ I type.
The words start with Vicki, tumble down from the prisoners’ mouths.
They land in Josiah’s fleshy ears.
He stares up at me from beneath his oily eyebrows. A slow pride seems to infuse him, the little boy who loves engines. Josiah places a hairy hand on each railing, swings himself over Shikorina’s bloody footprints.
I give Samuel a quick smile. Thank him.
Vicki and I reach the door to the rest of the universe. She waits one step below me, breathing heavily, whiter than the pages of a paper book. The prisoners gather below us, rasping through rusty lungs, exhausted from carrying the organs Raizier has smuggled in their bodies like drugs. I raise the key card from my heart.
God help us.
A bolt of terror strikes me down. I slump in the shadows of the top stair. Vicki touches my knee. I grab her hand and pull her to me. I kiss her, fold into her fig lips. I suck their plush sweetness, feel the terribly loud ticking of both our hearts, out of time. I kiss Vicki hard with the inside of my lips until our heartbeats synchronise. I will take a bullet right now for this brave, man-killing beauty. I want to kiss deeper, touch her taste buds, but I have no tongue to reach her. I stroke my hand gently between her legs, touch the velvet of her vaginal lips. I do this instead of a tongue kiss.
‘Hurry,’ Samuel whispers somewhere below us.
Vicki does not flinch. She stares into my eyes with a mixture of desire and fear. I use my lips to try to mime my infinite gratitude. Thank you.
This is the first time I have ever kissed a woman.
Now I raise the stolen key card, unlock the door to the night sky.
* * *
The rig lights are all off. A golden moon path sweeps across the sea,
