The Lie Spinners (The Deception Dance) (48 page)

“
The
docks,” Stephen repeats, still holding the back of his head.

May
rushes out the door and we wait almost a minute before following her
into the alley. Somehow white powdery sand must have travelled from
the beach to the alley; Pom is going to be pissed. Though the white
chalk sand of sunrise beach always sticks to me, this sand coats my
feet in seconds.

Halfway
to the Jeep, Stephen collapses, sending up a cloud of white powder.
On his knees in the alley, his hands clutch the back of his head and
he starts screaming.

I
almost fall on him in my rush to help him.

Ragged,
roaring screams tear out of his mouth, one after another. His fingers
tear at the back of his head.

“
Ste—Nathan,
Nathan, stop.” When I grab at his hands, trying to stop him
from hurting himself, my fingers brush against the back of his head;
white-hot searing pain shoots up my arm.

“
What
is that?” I yell cradling my not burnt but throbbing hand.
“What’s happening?”

He
just keeps roaring out screams.

On
my periphery, several people run into the alley.

“
Is
he okay?” a voice yells. Someone crouches on his other side.
“Should I go get help?”

“
Nathan!”
I scream. Grabbing for him, he thrashes so violently he knocks my
arms aside. He’s completely covered in the white powdery sand
now.

Suddenly,
Stephen stumbles to one knee, knocking into the guy crouching down to
help him. Then to his feet, Stephen knocks over another guy who’s
trying to help, then takes off running in the opposite direction.
Then he’s running away from me down the alley.

“
Did
he take something?” someone calls at me.

“
Nathan?”
I yell, chasing after him. “Sorry, sorry,” I say as I
dodge the poor, sand-covered, Good Samaritans that got trampled by
Stephen’s panic.

Stephen
turns the corner and runs down another alley. The distance between us
grows larger and larger, he might be in a panic but he’s moving
fast. Then he turns another corner and when I get to it, he’s
gone. Vanished.

I
slow, turning to glance at the open shops and the second stories,
he’s not there. “Nathan!” I shout, making a couple
shop owners and patrons turn to me. The next couple streets I run
into are filled with shoppers and I have to slow even more to check
face by face. But he’s not anywhere.

Backtracking,
I run back to the club, making sure to recheck everywhere on my
route. The heat dries my throat until it hurts to inhale, but I still
run. When I see the back of the club its walls waver in my vision.
Knowing I’ll be useless if I pass out from dehydration, I turn
to the club door.

Extracting
my key from my pocket it takes me three tries to shove it into the
keyhole. No one is in the back room when I enter, nor the club when I
go through the bar door. Drinking bottle after bottle of water, the
ache in my throat slowly subsides. I slam down the last bottle,
making the plastic crumple.

“
Sa-wat-dee
kraup
,”
someone says.

I
spin around to find a guy I’ve never seen before approaching
with a broom. He crosses to a scattered pile of colored straws just
on the other side of the bar.

“
What
happened?” I ask.

The
guy, who looks like a younger Pom minus the long hair and
ever-present wry smile, responds in Thai.

“
Pom?”
I say.

He
points to the door I just rushed in from.

I
shout a, “
Kob
kun kah!”
thank
you
,
over my shoulder as I dash back through the door. But Pom isn’t
in the back room, freezer, back alley, dumpster...anywhere.

I
take a break to sit in the Jeep. Then hyperventilating into my hands,
I truly panic; Stephen grabbing the back of his head in excruciating
pain? It was like that demon-detector tattoo blazed oven hot-hotter-
on his head.

I
sit straight in my chair, could Andras have opened the gates to Hell?
Could I have broken our deal without realizing it? I just assumed
that because of my vision of the future I couldn’t break the
deal until later. But, am I in love with Stephen? I don’t know.

I
feel like if I was
in
love
,
I would be absolutely certain. It would be a realization, revelation,
a fact. I have feelings for Stephen, strong feelings...but ‘
in
love’
?
I’m not ready to call it that. Or, at least I don’t think
so.

But
how does Andras gage it? How could he judge it? Two questions I’ve
wondered and asked Albert and never been supplied with satisfactory
answers to.

I
hoped that I’d have to say it aloud and have it be heard for
true, prove it or something irrefutable. Or maybe a demon has to
observe it... The only demons that have seen me and Stephen together
recently are Chauncey and Furcas, and I don’t think either was
too focused on my feelings.

Though,
something is wrong...very, very wrong. I don’t know what, but a
tide of terror rises in me. The same that was in my visions... it
starts now.

Starting
up the Jeep, I head back to my bungalow. Driving on the opposite side
of the road proves to be a big challenge as I’m so distracted I
keep veering onto the right-side of the road and almost hitting
scooters, before veering into the left side. When I make it back, the
restaurant overflows with Full Moon Party guests, many of them
already holding and drinking from buckets.

I
run to the big screen television and grab the remote. Several people
call complaints at me when I change the channel from a dirty American
cartoon to flip through Thai stations. The station that looks the
most like the news has a big picture of a criminal and shows footage
of a robbery. I sit down ignoring some drunk Australian chick who
keeps calling for me to change the channel. Ordering only a bottle of
water, I watch through several news briefs; though I don’t
understand a word they are saying, nothing apocalyptic-looking comes
on.

Shivers
travel up my arms, then through my whole body. A hand grabs for the
remote.

“
I
swear to God, I will bite you if you touch it,” I say to a guy,
who puts up his hands and backs away. No one grabs for the remote
after that.

Nothing,
no disasters, or crisis, no emergency news report comes on. When the
channel changes into a Thai Soap opera and I can’t find any
other news stations I pay for my water and head back to my bungalow
room. I hadn’t planned on ever returning, but the room looks as
I left it, purposely messy. Stephen isn’t here.

I
sit on the edge of my bed and look at the clock. One hour. I only
have an hour before I need to leave to meet May at the dock and take
a boat with Linnie to leave this island.

I
have exactly a week from today to bring Stephen back to Madeline or
die. If I leave with Linnie on the boat in an hour, without Stephen,
I’d have to sneak back on the island, find him, and escape
again. That’s if The Spider doesn’t make good on his
promise to kill him if I escape, which he will. That’s if he’s
even alive...

No.
He’s alive
.
I smack my head.
Stephen
is alive
!

But
if I stay and the greater demons escape while I’m still right
under their noses, unprotected...

Leave,
die.

Stay,
die.

My
only hope is that maybe, maybe, Stephen will be at the docks.

I
wash off the white powdery sand from the alley I didn’t realize
I was covered in, until I used the restroom. Afterwards, I just sit
on the bed. The hour lasts forever; it passes too quickly. Before I
know it, I’m in the Jeep, dodging scooters on the way to the
dock. I’ve only ever taken this road twice, on the first day as
I travelled in and when I rode back from my trip to May’s
house. But the road is direct; a direct steep road along a cliff that
I’m next to since I have to drive on the left side. Oh the
ridiculousness of the idea of my dying from crashing off this cliff
because I’m not used to driving on the right side of the car
and left side of the road.

For
a moment, my mind fills with the morbid thought:
plunging
off a high cliff would be better than what I’m heading for
.
But I make it to the dock, safe and early. The dock is as crowded as
we planned for: overflowing with traffic of Full Moon Party goers.

Sheep
to the slaughter
.

I
can’t quite look at their faces. There’s nothing I could
have done. I could have done something...

Keeping
my gaze at the level of people’s torsos, I focus on weaving
through the crowd away from the ferries to the other side of the
harbor where the fishing and other commercial boats pull to the sand,
dock or anchor. The boat I’m looking for is closer to a ferry,
a pig boat, that May basically told me should be the drabbest boat in
the area. It wouldn’t be hard to be drab in its company; each
fishing boat’s painted a bright hue, blue, orange, green and
proudly totes hundreds of flags and lines, they sway in the light
current as if bobbing happily that they have a front row seat to the
end of the world.

More
than its color, the uproarious squeals and snorts of its passengers
clues me in to which is May’s uncle’s boat. An older Thai
man rushes down the gangplank when I pause in front of the boat, he
gestures for me to follow him. He looks maybe seventy, small and skin
weather-worn, and nothing like May, but I follow him. Grabbing my arm
and motioning he rushes me into a covered part of the boat which I
only assume is some sort of crew area because of all the ropes and
other equipment laid out. He motions for me to sit down in a chair,
and with a flat hand gestures for me to stay down, then immediately
heads back to the gangplank.

The
smells of motor oil and fish would almost be unbearable if I wasn’t
beyond caring.

Thirty
minutes later I’m clutching so hard to my metal chair that my
fingers threaten to snap.

May
was caught... or she changed her mind. When I taste blood I know I’ve
bitten through my lip but I can’t make myself wipe away the
blood dripping onto my chin.

Linnie
dies. Stephen dies. I die. The world is consumed by Hell. This will
be the requiem of my life. First I’ve destroyed the people I
love; now my own destruction, so the world can be ripped apart.

This
is the reason I was created: to end.

I
peek out of the cabin window at a sun diving into the ocean and
leaving the sky crimson. Ducking back down, I stare at the shadows
stretching across the cabin floor.

Two
people rush through the wide metal doorway of the cabin I’m in,
carrying a large sack between them. The old man and a young boy I
recognize, the young boy who delivered all the messages to Kasem. As
they rush past, the boy calls, “Raven, follow us, but crawl.”

Utterly
confused, I obey. Slipping off the chair I follow them on my hands
and knees; when we get to a steep stair leading down I crawl
backward.

When
we’re deep in the ship away from all windows, I stand. No
natural light reaches this cramped blinking-halogen-lighted cabin.
The smell of livestock wafts up the stairs, dirt, food, animal sweat
and excrement.

The
squealing and screaming of pigs echo in all directions and I’m
startled to find only four pigs and a piglet-all in the same small
pen; the rest of the pens are emptied and cleaned.