Dead Sea (56 page)

Nobody argued with any of that. One thing at a time.

Menhaus and Fabrini began debating what kind of place this was, to have all those ships trapped in the weeds.

“Sargasso Graveyard,” Saks told them. “That’s what the old salts called this place. The Sargasso Graveyard. Even the big steamships and diesel jobs end up here … they run out of fuel and drift into this cesspool. No way out. Then the weed grows all over ‘em. But some of these ships, well, they have to have motorboats on ‘em. That’s what we want.”

“Graveyard,” Crycek said. “That’s exactly what this place is: a graveyard.”

“Lots of dead ships out there,” Menhaus said. “And lots of dead crews to go with them, I’ll bet.”

The idea of that paled Fabrini somewhat.

But that wasn’t what Saks wanted to talk about. He wanted to mention that other
craft
they had seen. The very thing that had prompted this entire line of conversation. Because they had seen something jutting from the weed and it was like nothing any of them had ever seen before.

“What the hell was that?” Saks put to them.

No bullshit, no insults, no bullying, he honestly wanted their opinion on what it was they had seen before the fog swallowed it again. Because, he knew one thing, he hadn’t liked it. Just looking upon it for those few fleeting seconds had made something in him close up like an oyster. Made something else in him begin to shiver. For there were some things you honestly never wanted to see and particularly not in a place like this.

“It was a spaceship,” Fabrini said, finally framing it into words for all of them. “Some kind of spaceship.”

“Spaceship,” Menhaus said. “My ass.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” Saks said.

Menhaus just shook his head. “Oh, come on, you two. A fucking flying saucer? You hear what you’re saying?”

They heard what they were saying just fine. Whatever it had been, it was sticking up out of the weed, the edge of something circular and streamlined. Blackened-looking like it had burned up. And it had been making a low, muted humming that was barely there. But they’d heard it, all right.

It was crazy stuff, to be sure. The stuff of pulp fiction and late-night movies. But when they’d seen it, they’d all been thinking the same thing. The monsters in the mist were bad enough and the slimy things in the Dead Sea, but this was something else entirely. This was the last thing they wanted to see. The last thing anybody ever wanted to see, despite all the claims to the contrary. For the sight of something like that made your guts turn over and your head fill with a funny kind of noise. Because things like that were not supposed to be. Not really. And when you saw them, something in you cringed, the way a healthy cell might cringe at the idea of an invading alien microbe.

Particularly when you started wondering if there had been a
crew
aboard.

“I’m not buying that flying saucer shit,” Menhaus said, about as stubborn as they’d ever seen him. “I don’t believe in any of that shit. We only saw it for a few seconds. Could have been anything.”

“Like what?” Fabrini wanted to know.

“Like … like maybe a hovercraft. They’re round, right? Could have been one of those.”

“A hovercraft?” Saks said, laughing now. “A fucking hovercraft? Didn’t look much like a hovercraft to me.”

“You know damned well what it was,” Fabrini said. “We all do. I knew the minute I’d saw it and I didn’t like it. Didn’t like it at all. And you know why?”

Menhaus looked at him. “You tell me.”

“Because it
scared
me, same as it scared all of you. And don’t you goddamn try and deny it, any of you. It scared the shit out of all of us. Those dead ships are one thing, but-”

“That’s enough,” Menhaus said. “That enough already.”

So that was it. They all knew something was eating him and here it was. He knew what it was they had seen, he just wouldn’t admit to it and the reason for that was it had him scared silly.

“Yeah, that’s enough,” Saks said. “Menhaus isn’t buying it, are you Menhaus?”

“I certainly am not.”

“See, Fabrini? Menhaus don’t believe in little green men from Mars. He’s too damn sensible for that.”

“Damn right I am,” Menhaus said.

“It’s all a big stupid joke and Menhaus isn’t buying it.”

Menhaus swallowed. “Well …”

“Sure, it’s just a joke.” Saks looked amused. “A big, stupid, silly-assed joke. All right, Fabrini, let’s come clean already. This has all been a joke. The fog, the sea, all those big ghost ships out there. We set the whole thing up just to fuck with you, Menhaus. Candid Camera, right? Fabrini? Tell Alan Fundt to turn off that pissing fog machine and bring the lights up. We’re not fooling Menhaus with this shit, he saw right through it. I told you that flying saucer would tip him off. Menhaus, he’s just too smart for shit like this. Isn’t that what I said? Isn’t that what I told-”

“Fuck you,” Menhaus said.

“Yeah, fuck me is right.” He turned and looked at Fabrini. “Break them oars out, we’ll row back there. I wanna show Menhaus how I made that prick out of coat hangers and old garbage bags. He’s going to love this. Hey! Somebody turn the lights on already, enough is enough. Menhaus has had his fill.”

Menhaus looked like maybe he wanted to cry.

“Take it easy,” Fabrini told him. “So it’s a fucking dead flying saucer and there’s a couple little green men floating in the weeds. So what?”

“So what?” Menhaus shook his head. “What if they’re not dead? What if they’re alive right now and watching us? What then?”

Saks laughed. “Then you’ll get that anal probing you’ve always been wanting.”

“Fuck you, Saks. Just fuck you-”

“I think I saw it.”

They were all looking at Crycek now who had kept out of the entire discussion thus far. He was still gazing out into the fog, but apparently he had been listening. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I saw that thing come down.” He turned and looked at them. “Before we picked you guys up … when it was just me and Cook and Hupp … I saw this sort of glowing blue light pass over us. It was up high, kind of hazy in the fog. I could only see that blue glow, nothing else. I been thinking … I been thinking that maybe it was that flying saucer coming down. Why the hell not? This goddamn place might have a hundred doors to it. Maybe that ship got sucked through one of ‘em, same way we did.”

“But if they can build a ship like that, something that jumps around from star to star like in those shows,” Fabrini began, “then they’d have to be real smart. That kind of technology is about a thousand years or a hundred thousand from where we are. You wouldn’t think a race like that could get sucked in here and even if they did, you’d think they’d know how to fly back out.”

Saks said, “Maybe the thing was damaged. It looked kind of burnt or something. Crusty.”

Menhaus was just sitting there with his arms folded.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Menhaus,” Saks said. “We’re leaving you out of the loop again. See, we’re talking about this movie we saw once about these queers lost in the Bermuda Triangle. This big, dumb fat lick of dogshit named Menhaus don’t believe that these ass-raping little green fuckers from the Andromeda galaxy have come to sodomize him. Movie was called
Invasion of the Butt-Guppies
or
I Married a Leather-Boy from Outer Space.
Something like that. It was one hell of a flick, I tell you.”

Fabrini joined in, laughing now with an almost hysterical sound. “Sure, I remember it. But I think it was called
It Came in My Inner Space
or
The Man from Planet XXX.”
He couldn’t stop laughing. “Remember that movie poster, Saks? It said:
In space, no one can hear you squeal.
Oh, oh, oh, that was a good one. What a movie!”

Menhaus was just staring off blankly now. There were tears coming down his cheeks. He just looked … broken. Used-up and violated like something important in him had been handled, dirtied-up and then stuffed back inside of him. That’s how he looked.

Crycek finally said, “None of this gets us anywhere.”

He was right, of course.

Saks said, “Let’s find us a ship somewhere so Menhaus can cry in private. Jesus H. Christ.”

Fabrini got out the oars and Crycek and he started working them. It was hard pulling through that weed. Anything with a keel on it was going to have trouble cutting through that growth. But they kept pulling and pulling until they sighted a fishing boat.

“She ain’t much,” Saks said. “But she’ll do for now.”

About then, a sound rose up out in the fog. Something like a high, insane chittering. The sound of a beetle just completely out of its mind. When it sounded again it was closer. And they were all starting to imagine the mother of all crickets coming out of the mist.

“Let’s make that boat,” Saks said. “I think our number is about up.”

It was the sort of wild, implausible rescue that, looking back on it later, George could scarcely believe had happened in the first place. There they were, about to be eaten by that monster-squid and then flames began to spread over the weeds … and out pops a woman, tossing fuel oil at the beast and driving it off. She said her name was Elizabeth Castle. That they had about two minutes to get out of there before Mr. Squid came back, probably not in the best of moods.

After that, to George’s thinking, things were a little fuzzy.

Everything happened very fast. They threw what gear they could into her boat … one of those flat-bottomed things that looked like a big box, you saw them on TV, people poling around the bayou in them … and carefully brought Gosling aboard, still not knowing what any of it was about and just goddamn happy they were being rescued.

Of course, Chesbro had to get some preaching in, saying, “You were sent by God, Miss, you surely were.”

To which she politely replied, “If you say.”

George and Pollard grabbed poles and joined the lady in directing them wherever it was they were going. That flat-bottomed little scow was really something in the weed. It glided right over the most tangled and knotted patches. Elizabeth Castle was apparently an old vet, because she steered them through the congested weed, darkness, and mushrooming fog where you couldn’t see ten feet in any direction. She brought them back to a big sailing yacht that said
Mystic
on her bow and couldn’t have been in the weed for too long.

On the way, Elizabeth had Chesbro toss pailfuls of fuel oil over the water at irregular intervals and light them up.

“The squid,” was all she would say. “For the squid.”

Then they were on board the yacht and had hoisted her flat-bottom aboard and that was it. It all came down quickly and efficiently. Elizabeth Castle was some kind of woman, all right.

And the
Mystic?

Oh, she was big and beautiful.

That’s what George thought as she came up out of the mist, sleek and proud with a bow sharp enough to slit paper. He never thought he could love something so abstract as a boat, but he loved this one. He loved her size, her sleek lines, her draft in the sea. She was a big sailboat and he was in love. And, admittedly, he would’ve loved her had she been but a leaky barge loaded with sewage and buzzing flies.

After that U.S. Army-issue tin can that wasn’t much more than a buffet for the squid, yeah the
Mystic
was a beauty. Sure, she’d been through some rough weather and tough times-the sails were hanging like dirty rags from the shrouds and the masts themselves looked haggard, leaning awkwardly like they were ready to come down any minute-but all in all, the
Mystic
was looking pretty damn nice in comparison to the other hulks and derelicts going to rot in the weeds.

They went into the main cabin. Like the rest of the boat it smelled of dampness and dank mildew. It was carpeted in a thick, rich burgundy shag that nearly swallowed your feet. And it was dry, warm. Nice. There was a fixed oak table in the center of the room and a settee along each wall upholstered with fat cushions the color of blood. There was a bar with a leather bumper bad encircling it. It was a big, roomy place and George figured twenty people could’ve lounged around in there comfortably. In the back of his mind he could almost hear the laughter and drinks being poured, smell cigarette smoke and women’s perfume. He didn’t know who’d owned the
Mystic,
but he was willing to bet that whoever they’d been, they’d been rich.

“Is this your boat?” Cushing asked.

Elizabeth Castle shrugged. “Now it is.” She went into the next room, a galley probably and they could smell wood smoke. Again, it was nice. When she came back, she announced, “I’ll heat some coffee.”

They had Gosling stretched out on one of the couches. Cushing had given him a preloaded syringe of Demerol and he was feeling no pain. Which was about all they could do for him. Everyone introduced themselves and George gave her an encapsulated version of how they’d ended up in the Dead Sea and how it was they’d been on the transport plane.

“I watched you,” she told them. “I saw you coming through the mist on my telescope while it was still light. I had hoped you’d choose a better vessel than that one.”

George felt oddly like he’d been chastised. He swallowed. Elizabeth Castle was the first woman he’d seen in … Jesus, it was getting so he couldn’t remember anymore. But it had been awhile. Since they’d sailed on the
Mara Corday
from Norfolk. He wasn’t sure exactly how long that had been now. Days and days. Maybe weeks. Regardless, he hadn’t seen a woman since the docks. He supposed, at that moment, he was in love with Elizabeth Castle as he figured they all were. She would never be called beautiful, he decided, she was simply too hard-looking, too intense, but she was certainly striking. Tall and sleek, a sort of feline intensity about her green eyes, a full-lipped mouth that was unabashedly sensual.

She wore clothes that looked homemade … gray woolen pants and a matching baggy-sleeved shirt, worn leather vest and high black boots … like the outfit of a 19
^th
century sailor. They were shapeless garments, designed for practicality rather than vanity, but she fit them very well. With her long auburn hair tossed over one shoulder and those green eyes blazing, she made you want to stare and keep staring.