Arkadium Rising (20 page)

2.

Jason squinted against the steady downpour washing over his face. He was at the base of the tree that halted his descent. Some time had gone by, but he didn't know how long. He squinted and wondered if he might die here, paralyzed, unable to ward off predators seeking an easy kill.

His back ribs on his left side hurt terribly when he breathed, and he realized pain was a good sign. He moved first his arms, and then his legs, finding comfort in the fact he wouldn't have to watch a pack of coyotes feasting on his flesh without even feeling it.

He wiped his hand down his face, feeling filth as well as rain wick away. He steeled himself with a deep breath and then forced himself into a sitting position. Pain radiated from his side, forcing all the air out of him.

"Oh, god, fuck." He grunted between panting breaths. He unlatched the strap on his waist that had kept his backpack in place during his tumble and shifted the pack off his shoulders. He ran his fingers along his back ribs, finding a knobby protrusion that shouldn't be there. All told, he supposed the backpack had saved his life. As he struggled to roll to his side and then to his hands and knees, he wondered if Marcus was searching for him.

Leaning on the tree that had nearly taken his life, he worked himself into a standing position. He looked back at the path his body had taken down the hill. It was miraculous he hadn't died during the fall. He found the situation to be an endless source of dark humor, but he tried not to think about it, not wanting to even risk the slightest morbid chuckle. He shuffled down the remaining fifty feet of hill until he reached a bowl-like valley. Floodwater extended as far as he could see along the valley bottom, reaching four or five feet of depth along the handful of buildings he saw at a sleepy intersection. He worked his way along the edge of the water, trying to get a better look at the buildings. He wanted to see people. Normal, not-crazy people.

But he saw no sign that anyone had remained behind as the floodwater unleashed by the Arkadium came surging in to town. He found a good vantage spot where he could see most of the storefronts that had been built along a three-way intersection at the bottom of the valley. Near one building he saw a broad white sign with blue script that read: Brunner's Body Shop. Next in line was a place called Spike's Tavern and then a couple of storefronts he couldn't make out. The red awning shading the windows of the building dominating the center of the intersection read: Kettle Creek Supper Club—Steaks, Italian, Garden Bar.

He again wondered about his brother; he couldn't imagine Marcus just giving up on keeping Jason nearby and under his thumb. They hadn't seen each other in a long time, not since long before Marcus had kicked heroin and came under the spell of the Arkadium, but the dynamics of their childhood relationship had come to dominate their interactions once again.

He listened for any sign of pursuit, but all he heard was the driving rain casting a hissing static over everything. He walked farther along the edge of the water until he came across a row boat bobbing in place. A rope tied to the boat's prow disappeared into the rain-pattered water. It looked like it was tied to a submerged dock of some kind, but the water was too dark to tell for sure. Jason again looked at the buildings. He saw a covered deck running along the supper club's second story. If he could reach that deck he could at least escape the rain long enough to get some rest.

Marcus would never suspect Jason was hiding in a flooded building. Or so he hoped.

Jason pulled out his knife and cut the rope near the waterline, groaning in pain as he stood to his full height. The little boat looked watertight. He unslung his backpack and dropped it into the boat. As he climbed aboard, he gritted his teeth and panted like a woman using Lamaze to fight a painful contraction.

He supposed it was dumb luck to find the oars at the bottom of the boat, just like it was dumb luck that he hadn't cracked his skull when he fell down the hill. He supposed dumb luck was better than no luck at all.

He soon found a steady but agonizing method for advancing the boat through the water. Three quick panting breaths. Check. Hold breath. Check. Grit teeth and skim oars through the surface of the water. Check. He repeated this pattern until he was two-thirds of the way to the supper club and didn't think he could take the pain. As soon as he eased off the oars he realized he had unintentionally found a gentle current taking him in roughly his intended direction. He breathed a sigh of relief and let the boat follow nature's course.

He steered the final twenty feet until he was able to grab the stairwell's railing that led to the second-story deck. After carefully tying off the boat, he hefted his backpack and climbed the stairs, feeling like someone who had just survived five back-to-back car accidents. Every sector of his body hurt. Every limb had its own inventory of bruises, scrapes, and lacerations. He last slept… he couldn't remember. Was that two days ago now? Three?

He lifted first one foot then the other to the next rain-soaked runner. Then again, working the steps like a deliberate ninety-year-old.

When he reached the top of the stairs he noticed the "covered" portion of the deck was just a series of vine-draped trellises. There was no escaping the rain. Not here. The deck had four aluminum chairs set around a glass-topped table with a citronella candle at its center. He contemplated climbing under the table to rest. Besides the table and chairs, the deck had a central air conditioner unit tucked into one corner, a rusted five-gallon bucket filled with sand and cigar butts, and a few flower boxes set along the railing.

There was always the door. The door to anywhere-but-here. The door to inside.

His mind was too sleep-deprived to think about anything other than the most basic comfort: a dry roof over his head. That's all that mattered in Jason's whole existence, the very reason he continued to live and breathe—a dry roof overhead.

Fuck it.

Jason opened a rusty screen door and pounded on the inner storm door. He waited. Pounded again. Could hear nothing but the distant thunder and the slackening rain.

He knocked one more time and then tried the knob. It was a bit stiff but unlocked.

Jason looked back in the direction he had come and saw two small sources of light moving steadily down the hill. The movement was too ordered to be anything but people walking in formation. He didn't want to know the odds of it being Marcus and his people. It very well could be them. Or it could be another group just as bad as the Arkadium. He didn't want to risk it.

Still holding his knife, he opened the door and stepped inside, preferring to face the unknown than the possibility of encountering his brother. He shut the door behind him, waiting for an attack that never materialized. The place was silent; even the sound of rain had been tempered to almost nothing. He locked the door.

"Hello?" he called out. "Anyone home?" He waited, his many wounds throbbing in sync with his heartbeat.

It was a small apartment, probably a single bedroom, and it smelled like cat piss. No one was home but a scrawny black cat with a spiky cowlick behind its left ear. The goofy-looking cat looked half-starved and had a bad case of bedhead. It whined when it saw him and followed him as he took a short tour of the place to make sure he really was alone. When he entered the bathroom, he automatically flipped the light switch.

"Wonder how long I'll keep up that old habit?" He chanced a small laugh and pain shot through his wounded back ribs.

Isn't talking to yourself the first sign of madness?

He opened the medicine cabinet, but unable to see the labels in the windowless room, he gathered up an armload of bottles and carried them out to the kitchen table. He sifted through prescriptions and OTCs alike until he found a bottle of generic ibuprofen. He popped open the cap and dry swallowed a few.

As he moved about, the cat tried to rub against his legs. He wasn't a cat person. His dad always had at least one companion tom at all times even though his mom didn't understand the point of keeping pets. Jason fell somewhere between the two; he liked animals, generally, but not enough to ever keep a pet. Once he was certain he was alone and in no immediate threat, he opened two cans of cat food from a tidy stack next to the stove and set them on the counter. The cat meowed in appreciation and jumped up to eat.

The cat began to purr as it ate. Somehow this simple act allowed Jason to breathe a little easier. All that Jason cared about was the roof over his head. Now that he had that squared away, he dropped his pack on an avocado green recliner before collapsing as carefully as he could manage on a tattered couch that might've been new during the Nixon administration. As he settled in, he blinked long and slow. When he opened his eyes again the room swam. He closed his eyes again, and this time, they remained closed.

The rain that had been threatening all night finally let loose, quickly drenching Marcus to the skin. He stood among the prairie flowers as lightning lit the sky, flashing glimpses of the log cabin and the endless miles of surrounding woods. His shoulder hurt where he had stabbed himself, but he ignored it. Anger pervaded his every thought; his senses were heightened by it, giving him both increased focus and astonishing levels of clarity.

He shifted at the sound of someone approaching him from behind. He turned quickly, ready to strike, but he relaxed when he saw it was only Delaney. She looked concerned—for him, for Jason, for herself? Perhaps for any or all of those reasons. Whatever the case this clusterfuck of a situation was all her fault. In a matter of seconds, at the inflection point between calm reasoning and irretrievable violence, Delaney had acted on impulse, taking the decision out of his hands. And in those few short seconds not only did Marcus lose one of his best men, but his brother had lit out for parts unknown.

"You shouldn't be near me right now." It was a warning as much as a statement of fact.

"He's gone, love." Delaney placed her hand on Marcus's shoulder.

"Don't say that." He shrugged her away. "Don't ever fucking say that."

Even though he rebuffed her, something in that brief touch subdued his urge to wreak havoc, at least temporarily. He walked toward the boundary between the fields surrounding Jerry's cabin and the woods, searching for some pattern that would indicate his brother's crazed route of escape.

"He's been gone, what, an hour?" He rubbed his face roughly with his palms until he saw stars. "We're going to find him," he said resolutely. "We need him."

"We don't need anyone but us," Delaney insisted. "Just you and me."

"No, Deli, that's where you're wrong.
I
need Jason, and if
I
need him, that means
we
all
need him."

Fear glimmered in her eyes and she lowered her gaze. "Right… you are so right, Marcus."

He supposed she would fear him just as much or more than he feared her, and he did fear her and her unpredictable, violent ways. But could he keep her in line? Could he afford to not have her at his side, especially if Jason wasn't around? No, he wouldn't allow the idea to cement in his mind; Jason would be back in the fold, and soon. There was no room for contingencies.

"I need you on board with this, Deli. It's what I want."

"I'm sorry… for everything." She looked up from the ground, her every action demure, contrite. It was hard to reconcile this gentle soul with the woman who had so ruthlessly cut down Austin Collins little more than an hour before. "Yes, we'll find him. I have faith—in you, in the Arkadium, in our survival."

"That's my girl."

Delaney nodded and brushed lank wet hair back from her forehead. She ran her finger along his chin and then placed her hand over his heart.

"I love you, Marcus. That will never change."

Before he could reply, she left him standing in the middle of the field of rain-soaked flowers. As she headed around the side of the cabin, she cupped her mouth with her hands.

"Jason!" she shouted. "Please, it's okay to come out! We need to stick together!"

While Jerry had retreated to the dry confines of his cabin, everyone else had fanned out in search of Jason. After seeing Delaney so viciously attack and kill Austin, no one argued, falling robotically in line. He supposed they all needed something to do.

"Jason!" Marcus screamed for the hundredth time in the last hour, unable to hide the emotion from his voice.

He sensed hurried strides and saw Hector rushing back toward the cabin.

"Hector!" he called.

Hector spotted Marcus and sprinted to him.

"I found something, Marcus!" He came to a stop to catch his breath.

"What is it?"

"A trail… going off into the woods. It's all over the place, clumsy, but it's fresh. I found some boot tracks, bent grass."

"Show me."

"Can't see for shit in this mess. We'll lose the trail in fifty feet, and if we do that, it'll be no good."

Marcus glared at him. "Fuck that. Get me some light out here. Make torches. Do something."

"Torches won't last in this rain," Hector said, thinking out loud. His eyes lit up and he snapped his fingers. "But you know, that old man, it looks like he's using a lantern in his cabin. I bet he's got extras we can, you know, borrow."

Marcus nodded appreciatively. "What are we going to do, Hector?"

It was a weighted question, and for a moment Hector didn't understand he was being tested. Then again, his eyes lit up, understanding. "We're going to do whatever it takes, sir. Whatever it takes."

"God damned right we are." Marcus headed over to the cabin door.

When he had nearly reached the cabin, Eldon, Mandy, and Linda Dwyer exited the woods nearby. They saw Marcus and fell in step with him. Besides being soaked, they were covered in mud.

"Were you three rolling around out there? Don't tell me you three were…?" He looked to each of them in turn. No one understood the implication.