Elsinore Canyon (31 page)

She stared at Laurie—stiff like Mr. Hamlet now, and curled against Rennie. “The same one she did.” She wobbled to her feet. “The tank? And that drink?”

Two steps—

The supply chest—

Marcellus: “Oh no!”

Her legs planted firmly apart, a dark, heavy object at the end of her raised arm—

“Put it down!” “No!” “Get it from her!”

Dana lowered the gun. Every eye stared into the barrel. “I’m not going to kill anyone,” she announced. The circle around her tightened one step. “Whoever tries to stop me gets a bullet.” The circle froze. She lifted her knees and feet in her foam-encased legs and stalked straight to the trembling body-meld of Oscar and Claudia, who wedged themselves into a notch near the bow. As if sensing the cautious crush behind her, Dana spun and leveled the gun again. “Don’t make me.” Again we froze.

Dr. Claudia’s chest heaved as she stared into Dana’s determined eyes. She shouted out, over, to the rest of us. “She’s lying!”

Dana pressed in.

Dr. Claudia screamed beyond her. “Jesus Christ—are you going to
stand
there?”

“Don’t fear me,” Dana said in a steely voice. “You’re not going to turn me into a murderer. Everything you killed my mother for is gone. You’ve got no money now, you haven’t got any love. I know everything about you—Polly got it all. Rosie and Gale’s parents are on their way to crucify you. You don’t even have until then—you won’t breathe free air after tonight.” She forced the handle of the gun into Dr. Claudia’s palm and laced her finger around the trigger. “Everyone’s got your number. You lying, invading, murdering fiend.
Do it.”

The explosion hurt my ears so much I wondered whether I was shot. The brain tissue was offensively wrong, jellied and squeezed outside Dr. Claudia’s head, visible guts that should have been covered by bone and skin, spilled on the deck—contaminated, I actually thought for a moment, bacteria teeming at her gaping wound, as if it mattered. Bloody crow’s feet stretched from the corners of her mouth out to her jaws and ears, which I would later learn was the consequence of her placement of the gun, still in her hand. Yes, her grip was certain. Dana hadn’t pulled the trigger.

Heads came out from behind arms and hands. Chests hunched over in fear of another shot. Another shot didn’t come. Sobs, a quiet “Oh.” A distraught “Which one?” “Is one of them shot?” Dana crept out towards the center of the deck. Behind her, Oscar emerged from his shock. In a single movement, he heaved Dr. Claudia’s body off himself, scooped up the gun, and hurled it over the rail. It hit the water with a tiny splash. He threw his jacket across what was left of Dr. Claudia’s head and bunched his fist against his brow. “She’s gone.”

“She got what she deserved.” It was the tearful, exhausted voice of Laurie. “So did I. Dana, not you. I’m sorry. Forgive me! I’ve got to have your forgiveness.”

Dana stepped over to her. I thought her gait was sloppy. She put her hand on Laurie’s face. “Marcellus?” she said softly.

He knelt down and felt Laurie’s neck, then helped Rennie lay her flat and close her eyes.

Dana watched the whole thing, nodding softly, her wide-open mouth trying to form words. She looked at the two friends on the deck, only one of whom she could speak to now. “Did she seem like it hurt?”

Rennie lifted her eyes sorrowfully to Dana’s. “No.”

Dana turned. Her father’s body was stretched all this time in the middle of the deck. “I’m going to be like him? I’m going to be like that in another minute?” She struggled to control her voice. “You guys will all still be here? Looking at me the way I’m looking at him?”

I tugged at her arm. “Dana, sit down.” Sit where?

She fell into my lap. My eyes fixed on her, her eyes fixed on her inert father. A bloody battlefield encroaching over the deck. “I don’t want to look at him,” she said. “I don’t want to be like him. Horst, maybe if I want it enough I can live. Maybe I won’t die because I can see it coming. They didn’t. Maybe I can keep it away.”

I had to make her look at me. “Dana, damn it!” I shook her and pulled her around to face me. “Rest! You’re stronger than Laurie.”

“Maybe I got less poison than her. No. Oh, no.” Her cool back fell away from me, against my hands, and I lowered her to the deck, the way Rennie had Laurie. “Horst, I…I really am getting weak. You know about this stuff. My nervous system, my muscles? Is that it? It starts in the legs, and then…”

“Dana, you’re not dying! You’ve got to conserve yourself! We’ll get you back to the dock and get you treated!”

“Maybe I’m just sick,” she whispered. “Make me breathe. Rub me, something—it’s hard to feel.”

“Hang on, baby!”

“I can’t believe I’m leaving you, Horst. It’s swallowing me.”

“No—”

“Don’t forget me, okay?”

“Don’t let it—”

“Just pretend. These are the last things we’ll say to each other, just pretend—”

“No.
No!”
I flailed myself back into my chair. There was something potent, ripe, forgotten: the rest of the drink that had killed Mr. Hamlet. I rolled to it and snatched it off the deck. Half my soul wasn’t enough to live. Oscar pawed at me—

Another pair of iron-like arms braced my shoulders and neck from behind. I stretched my arm out, holding the bottle away from the hand creeping down along my bicep, my elbow. My wheelchair whirled, I curled the bottle into my belly. Dana’s wet hair lashed my neck and her lips were hot on my ear. “Don’t!” Her strength was an iron cloak, mine was a shriveled husk. Crumbling away, was I sick, was I the one who was slowly transforming? I was tilting and rolling in my chair, Dana’s bare arms pinning me—like the fairings and shafts of my motorcycle that day, shock, my tissues and organs fossilizing,
Christ.
With my elbows fused, I shifted the bottle to my other hand and butted my head forward—she hung on me. “No no no, Horst! I need you! I need you
now!”
The bottle popped away from me and bounced along the deck—another pair of hands, I couldn’t see whose, grabbed it and launched it high in the air. It clunked back onto the deck. It was too much, finally, too much—for Dana. My arms and shoulders worked free as she slid off my back. She lay next to my chair panting. She raised her arm—God, was she going to pin me again?—and hooked her fingers through mine. “I need you, Horst! Please, please don’t think about that!”

The bottle rolled to within inches of my wheel. Just lean forward—I launched out of my chair and flung myself on Dana. She groaned as I shifted her to wrap my arms around and underneath her. “Dana!”

Her head rested on my arm and she looked into my eyes. “Not yet,” she said weakly. “Just for a minute longer.” She took a long, shallow breath, her chest swelling against me. She barely moved her lips. “It’s the last time I’ll be selfish with you, Horst. I want to die in your world, not mine.”

What was she asking of me? What should I do? My world was a wasteland now. But I wouldn’t tell her that. All I could manage was her name again, as I poured the embers of my hopes and dreams from my eyes into hers. “Dana.”

She lifted her head laboriously; her lips brushed my ear. “Talk to me,” she breathed.

I loosened my arms to look back at her, and I felt myself liquefy in her beauty like the first time I saw her. That beautiful face with the wide brown eyes and shadowy lashes filling the world. Moving out, her slender shape and graceful limbs. She gasped softly, her mouth opened. My darling, wretched Dana. I cradled her against my chest and whispered. “Good night, princess.”

She sighed through a small and fleeting smile, then relaxed. Her arms dropped away from me, her lids fell shut, and she went limp and lifeless.

But it wasn’t enough. There had to be more than a moment of peace on earth for Dana, and more than a wish I alone had cherished. Dana and I had grown up together. Together, we had left childhood and entered the world of doubt. The blue air spread beyond us endlessly—where was she now? Did she have any share of the heaven we once believed in? Was she watching me, seeing my secrets? Was she still needing me? If my words and wishes could calm an agitated soul, if the most beautiful and innocent parts of the faith we had lost could be true, I owed her something more. I held her still-warm body and bent over her face, her sealed eyes wet with the tears that fell from mine, and said:

“May choirs of angels sing you to your rest.”

THE END

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