The lake began to draw him in like some slow angler, Ethan securely hooked. He clawed with his hands at the rough floor, searching desperately for a handhold. His fear ran towards his instinct to survive, and his mind ran clear of thought.
The filthy man that had plagued him since childhood rushed the glistening tentacles and began tearing at them himself, trying to free his host lunatic from the depth of Black Water Lake. The surreal fact that the bum had made physical contact with Ethan’s reality disturbed him back into thought as his clawing hands found one of the jugs of bleach.
He worked the top off quickly and splashed it on the two taunt tendrils. They immediately parted, a popping and hissing reaction burning rapidly in both directions. The Culture shuddered violently and drew itself back into the lake leaving the smoldering lengths of itself on the shore. Ethan watched the other run up and around his body leaving little more than moisture behind. The effectiveness of the bleach stunned him, but he quickly recovered long enough to grab the next jug.
“Run! Now’s your chance, run!” the bum screamed frantically.
Ethan was now afraid of the filthy man—not as a child afraid to see the horrors the bum liked to show him, but as a man plagued by another who could now do violence.
“Ethan, take Kayla and go. I’m not going to make it anyway…” Shannon said as loudly as she could muster.
“Yes, go!” the bum shouted.
Ethan uncapped the second jug of bleach and turned towards the lake. If he could get this bleach in there, he might be able to kill the Culture for good. He began to work up the courage to charge the thing, run towards what he so desperately feared.
The bum understood his intent and stepped between Ethan and the lake. “Don’t even think about it! Just get the fuck out of here before we both die!”
The bum suddenly surged forward as countless fingers gripped him in their long segmented grasps. The bum’s yellowish eyes burst wide open and he screamed. He suddenly raced towards the lake and vanished beneath the surface.
Ethan felt a sharp, ripping pain race through his mind. He fell to his knees, his intent lost to the agony of having the bum forcefully torn from him.
Even with the blinding rage of pain, Ethan was able to keep his grip on the two jugs as he squeezed his eyes against the ache. He knew that the lake would take him next, and in the same violent way. He had to do something now.
He brought one leg up and heaved one of the jugs of bleach like a World War II soldier storming an enemy trench. The jug tumbled and splashed bleach as it went, but found the surface of the lake as the tendrils began to break the surface once more.
The jug broke through the surface, and the reaction started again. The lake began to boil and surge around the hole that the jug had made, and the waters pulled together tightly around it. The same acrid stench began to rise from the lake and burn his eyes and nose, but the lake drew tighter and tighter, finally forcing the jug to the surface where it bobbed and rolled in the violence of the reaction. More and more of the bleach gushed from the opening, extending the reaction further and further.
Ethan finally found hope, hope for survival, hope for freedom, hope for the destruction of this wicked Culture. It gave him the strength to rush the lake with the final jug of bleach and upend it over the surface. He had come just short of entering the lake himself, not being able to see it well without his flashlight, but caught himself at the last step. As the bleach splashed over the membrane-like surface, he was immediate assailed by the acidic steam as it rushed from the water. He closed his eyes tightly and held his breath as the jug jerked up and down from the bleach pouring out from within.
When it was empty, he quickly returned to the girls, lifted Kayla with one arm, and began to drag Shannon by the collar of her thick coat. Shannon screamed at the pain, but clenched her teeth together and held her voice. The little girl continued to sob, still rubbing at her eyes and mouth with one hand but holding onto Ethan with the other. It seemed to take forever to bring them to the cave’s opening, and the air continued to become less breathable. His own lungs burning from the acrid vapors, Ethan knew he had to get them out of the cave.
A wind was forcing its way into the cave through the opening, but to Ethan’s dismay, it was not fresh air, but the same rotted stench of the smog outside. However, it did not burn his lungs; just made it difficult to inhale deeply. He brought Kayla through the opening and leaned her against a boulder near the opening, then returned for Shannon.
“What’s happening? Ethan, is it over?” she asked weakly, her mouth dry.
“Not yet; I have to get you to a hospital first,” he replied as he worked his arms under hers. He began to pull her through the wind-swept opening, avoiding the hanging rocks and snagging surfaces. He had to stop twice and readjust the moist package resting on her stomach. She winced and sucked breath each time, but held her voice from screaming.
When he was free of the cave, he continued to drag her until she was close to the still-burning but dangerously-shallow fire. He returned and brought the sightless little girl to Shannon, then stoked the fire using wood from the other piles that remained unlit. He remoistened Shannon’s wrapped intestines and washed more thoroughly Kayla’s crying face.
“I’m so thirsty, Ethan. I need something to drink…” Shannon murmured.
“I can’t give you anything, Shannon. You’re not supposed to drink anything.”
“Something, please. I am not going to make it, anyway…”
“Yes, you will,” Ethan said with authority as he placed a moistened cloth in her mouth. “You’re just opened, Shannon; nothing looks damaged. We just have to get everything back in is all. I just have to get you to a doctor.”
“I can almost see,” Kayla said having finally stopped crying.
“That’s great, sweetie,” Ethan encouraged. “It will come back in a bit, just hang tight.”
The smog that had so entrapped them was now rushing into the cave at incredible speed. The Culture seemed to be trying to draw itself back together, perhaps make good its escape. Ethan did not care its intent any longer; he had hurt the thing. Whatever it was, it was a living thing and as apt to be wounded as each of them. He just could not yet start down the mountain to get Shannon to the doctor because visibility was nonexistent, the forest around him obscured by the rushing gray, and any attempt he made would lead to further injury. He would have to wait until the smog was clear.
“It was evil, wasn’t it?”
Ethan had returned his thoughts to the bum and the aching rip still present in his mind, the shallow burning along his scalp. “Yeah, Shannon, I think you were right. Whatever that thing is, it is evil.”
“It’s a virus or a germ, I bet. It had grown unchecked in that cave for so long, evolved beyond God’s intent. I think I might throw up,” Shannon said thoughtfully, her voice clearer now that her throat was wet.
“You won’t. It’s just the sensation, I am sure,” Ethan said without knowing. “I wonder how it became intelligent, became able to speak like it did,” he pondered as he took her hand into his.
“I don’t know… I just know it was true evil.”
“I guess you were right then, yesterday, when you said that stuff about ridding the world of an evil or whatever.” Ethan’s voice betrayed the exhaustion he was trying to conceal.
“That would make me a martyr, huh?” Shannon asked sadly.
“No, you’re not going to die. I can already see pretty far; we will start towards the road in just a bit.”
She lifted her head to look into his face. She could see not only the bone-weary exhaustion on his face but the determination he had to keep her alive. This gave her the hope she needed, and she let her head down to rest once more on the thick collar of her coat.
Chapter 36
There were no more votes, no more shared decisions among the Culture or its council but a simple and murderous fight for escape. The burning liquid that Ethan had poured onto it had eaten so quickly into the Culture,
