As Griffin eased across the ship's deck, he heard the thick rubber band snap twice. A very bad sign…
…for whoever was out there.
3.
'Please, Eric, get rid of it,' Tracy pleaded.
Eric's hands were clutching the lapels of a sopping denim jacket. Inside the jacket slumped the bloated body of a young man in his early twenties. Water lapped his chest as he bobbed next to the canoe. Exact age was hard to determine because the skin was so puffy with water. Rubbery, like moist bread dough. Parts of the face had been nibbled away by fish, particularly the lips and the right side of the mouth all the way back to the cheekbone. The clenched teeth that showed through the flapping flesh hinted at the grinning skeleton lurking beneath.
But Eric's purpose in hauling him out of the water to show her was clear now. So was his warning. A wooden arrow had drilled through the face just to the left of the nose and was sticking out the back of the skull.
'Seen enough?'
She nodded, unable to work her frozen mouth.
Eric wrapped his fingers around the wooden arrow and firmly tugged. The shaft moved slowly at first, reluctant.
'What the hell are you doing?' Tracy asked, horrified.
'We may need the arrow.' He added a little more muscle, twisting the arrow as he pulled. Finally it dislodged from the skull. The soggy skin tore easily, clinging to the wood like wet tissue paper. Eric swirled the shaft in the water a few times, rinsing it clean, then handed it to Tracy. 'Put it in your quiver with the others.'
She held the arrow, said nothing.
Eric pushed the dead man away from the canoe and wiped his hands on the thighs of his Levis. They watched the boy's lifeless arms flop into the water, the swollen body rotate face down with black water bubbling like a fountain through the hole in the back of his head.
'That's why you keep your head down,' Eric said, kneeling back down and grabbing his paddle. 'Understand?'
Tracy tucked the arrow into her quiver next to the long bow, fighting the surge of nausea clawing in her stomach. Her mouth tasted bitter, metallic, as if she'd been sucking a rusty nail. Fresh blood. Sometime within the last minute she'd bit her lower lip. She prodded the wound with her tongue, then ignored it. She fished the fallen carrot stub from the canoe and finished the last two bites.
Since Atlas and Thor-that's what the outside world called the great earthquakes that had instantly made obsolete every map and globe in the world-Tracy had seen her share of horrors, ghastly sights much worse than that boy's chewed-up face. It wasn't merely his bloated corpse which was making her feel so chilled and sick, it was the constant unexpectedness of it all. Living in a perpetual state of tension, of being on guard. Like an unending Tunnel of Terror ride in a carnival. Peek around any corner, open any door, turn over any rock and you might suddenly be looking down the barrel of a madman's shotgun or staring at a mutilated body. Or worse. In this new world, the flesh had lost all dignity.
Tracy grabbed an empty Campbell's Tomato Rice soup can Eric had tied to the thwart, and began bailing water out of the canoe.
She kept her head tucked low.
Eric was kneeling in the stern, facing her, paddling with slow powerful strokes. Occasionally he would change sides or let the blade of the paddle drag so he could steer. Each stroke dug into the slick black water without a sound, propelling them along as smoothly as if they were sliding across glass.
Tracy tossed another canful of icy water over the side, then looked up. 'Eric?'
'Yeah?'
'Do you think Goldie Hawn's still alive?'
'Huh?'
'I've been kinda wondering, you know, if maybe Goldie Hawn was killed in the quake. I know it's crazy. But I've been thinking about it a lot lately. Like maybe she was home with her kids. Or maybe she was somewhere on location, safe. Don't ask me why her, I'm not even that much of a fan.''
Eric smiled.
'I just hope we don't come across her corpse like all the others.' She stared at him, her eyes intent. 'You think I'm nuts, right?'
'Nope. For a while at the beginning, I used to wonder the same thing about Pavarotti. And I hate opera.' He shrugged. 'Trick of the mind, I guess. We miss the things we never got a chance to know. Even if we didn't like something, it was still there, so we might like it someday. Taps into our sense of hope.'
'Like New Yorkers who've never been to the top of the Empire State Building. At least they knew they could go.'
'Right!'
'Hey! Maybe in a couple months we can start a gossip magazine. A Who's Who of celebrity survivors.'
The canoe sliced quietly through the water.
'Eric?'
'Yeah?'
'I hate boats. That's why I've been acting strange lately.'
'I noticed.'
'You've never complained. Not once.'
'Is that an accusation?'
'No. Well, yes. You make me feel so damn guilty. Always patient and understanding. You rehearsing for sainthood?'
He laughed. 'No, I figured it was just withdrawal tension, you know, from quitting smoking.'
'I never smoked.'
'Really?' He shrugged. 'My mistake.'
Tracy laughed, her first in the two weeks since Eric had revealed his plan for them to take to the sea. The news had reached out, grabbed her by the throat, and had been squeezing tighter ever since. Not only did she hate boats, she hated any kind of water that didn't come out of a tap or was safely enclosed in a pool. Jaws had only confirmed her worst fears about the sea, begun when she was a child watching Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. For weeks afterward she'd suspected a giant squid lived inside the toilet, waiting for her. She used to run next door to the Riker's house to use their bathroom. Once she didn't make it.
But this was even worse, knowing that they were floating over the drowned remnants of cities she used to romp through back in high school. Yesterday Corona del Mar. Today Huntington Beach, where she once dated that surfer her parents hated, Davy Lee. Silver Surfer, his buddies had called him. Was Davy down there now, hanging upside down from the ankle strap attached to his surfboard while fish gnawed away the cute dimples she'd loved to kiss when she was sixteen?
Eric was doing his best to make her feel better, letting her blow off steam without comment. It made her feel like a selfish child. After all, he had lost more than she, had even more to lose if they didn't hurry. So even under his cheerful patter she could detect the grim determination in his eyes.
But he hadn't always been so calm and understanding. She still remembered the rage that had fueled him only a few weeks ago during all that killing at Savvytown. Suddenly she realized that he had not dragged that murdered body out of the water just to prove to her there might be danger or to retrieve an arrow. He had wanted to study the face. Make sure it wasn't him. Dirk Fallows.
'Eric, are you sure Fallows came this way?' 'You were there when I questioned that old man in Anaheim. He said a white-haired man in his forties and a young boy. Described Fallows and Timmy perfectly. Said the man shot him before stealing his boat. That's Fallows' style.'
'Except that the old man lived.' 'Fallows wanted him to. So he could tell us.' 'Okay, but he could have taken that boat in any direction.'
'No, he'd-' Eric paused, peered into the dark, looked troubled.
