Hell Rig (31 page)

He was in love with her. He knew she felt the same for him. It felt good to be in love. It would have been much better if they were in New Orleans in the French Quarter or on Grand Isle or even in Shreveport, anywhere but here on this hell rig, surrounded by death and horrors beyond the pale of normalcy. Romance pulled a poor second to fear and simple survival.

Jeff was as near to giving up as he had ever been in his life, and indeed, his life was the very thing at stake, his and Lisa’s and probably Tolson’s. Waters had damaged Tolson in some way, had broken off a piece of the monster he had become in Tolson’s mind and left it there to fester. Jeff wondered what nightmares Tolson was facing, what tortures he was enduring. Faced with the same prospect, would he give up?

If he bothered to look in a mirror, Jeff wondered what his reflection would show. An expression like Waters had worn on the journey out, distant and resigned? Lack of sleep and living on the edge of death for five days had worn him down both physically and emotionally. He hadn’t eaten since…he couldn’t remember, but the thought of food made him queasy.

He wished he could provide more comfort to Lisa, but she was, in her own way, stronger than him. She at least had some idea of what was happening; some hope of fighting it on equal terms. Jeff was cast adrift on a sea of sorrows, flotsam in the wake of his shipwrecked beliefs. He had neither answers nor the expectation of answers. He wasn’t even certain what questions applied to the situation.

Voodoo—he had always imaged it as some primitive religion with its false gods and even more bogus followers, a way to con the ignorant and gullible tourists out of a few dollars, akin to séances and Ouija boards. He didn’t have faith in any religion. An alcoholic mother who managed to drag him to church on the occasional Sunday but ignored him the rest of the week; a father too weak to fight her but prayed to God for help. These were his memories of church and priests.

In the horror movies, the cross was no protection against vampires unless the person holding it believed in its power. He had no cross to lean on and no faith to cling to, except Lisa. She seemed so confident, so sure of herself, that he found it difficult to fault her faith. Too many people believed in something, some religion, for faith to be a fluke. He knew he was a minority, a cynic, and did not hold himself above believers. He had seen too many things to dismiss the power of voodoo.

Jeff reached in his pocket and pulled out the
gris-gris
. He stared at the dirty, slightly grease-stained cloth bag in a new light. Was it hope that made it warm to the touch, or just imagination? Was it hope that made him feel safer with it, or despair? Mama Cariou had said Digger Man’s
gris-gris
held something too powerful for him to control and had opened him up to the shadows. Was he any safer with it than Digger Man had been? He considered tossing it in the garbage, but just as a drowning man would cling to a reed, he was clinging to a voodoo charm. Why had its contents not worked on the bullets against Waters? Maybe it was the whole thing and not the sum of its parts that mattered, that held the power. Not the powder but the
gris-gris
itself, a talisman, much like the cross in Christianity and not the metal it is made from.

He shoved it back in his pocket.

The platform heaved. Jeff braced himself against the wall. For a heart wrenching moment, he thought the platform was going down. The storm that had become Hurricane Rita was rapidly growing in intensity. It was almost upon them, a little ahead of schedule, as if eager for the kill. Anger welled up in him, a blind rage at their hopelessness. He was mad enough to face Damballah Wedo alone if he knew how. Waters first, though. The two were connected somehow by some evil black thread. Jeff suspected he, Lisa and Tolson would not survive the coming storm. He just wanted a chance at revenge before his death.

He mentally counted the bodies of the dead just since arriving on Global Thirteen—eleven, plus the twenty-two original deaths that had opened up the Gateway. Thirty-three deaths. That was a lot of ghosts. Would it soon be thirty-six? He struggled to grasp the reality of the unreal situation. The things that had happened, that he had witnessed, could not be dismissed or explained away by logic. They were the new reality, as real as any nightmare while in a dream state, but now the nightmare was taking place while they were wide awake. He thought of Bale hanging in the same way Digger Man did, except Bale did not crucify himself, did not hoist himself upon… Jeff sat up quickly. Something had been bothering him about Waters’ account of finding the Digger Man. The remote control cable—Jeff measured it twice. There was no way the Digger Man could have hoisted himself twenty feet into the air. The remote would have been jerked from his hands before then and he would have continued rising until hitting the top of the boom. Could Waters have been wrong about the height? He seemed so specific, as if the memory were etched forever into his mind by the horror of it.

If Digger Man had not killed himself, who had? Waters? No, that did not fit. Why would he lie about it? Was there someone else on the platform, someone capable of remaining unseen? No. He hit his forehead with his fist as he shook his head. That didn’t make sense either. There was a physical presence here. McAndrews had insisted Waters could not have killed Bale, yet he had seen Waters kill McAndrews. Even if Clyde had killed Bale and Easton, who had killed the ship’s crew and Ed?

What had the kid on the sinking ship said…watch out for the man with the eagle knife? Lisa’s Granny Iris had said almost the same thing. What was the significance of the eagle? He tried to think. Where had he seen an eagle? He remembered a flash of light, a glittering object, wings unfolded as if in flight. He rubbed his forehead in frustration. The vision would not come.

He had to wake Lisa.

Chapter Twenty Seven

Lisa Love slept but not soundly. Her sleep interrupted by a dream so strange, so nightmarish that she tossed and turned on her bed, a fine sheen of perspiration covering her body. In her dream, she was young, perhaps twelve, watching as she had often done from a distance as her Granny Iris performed a voodoo ritual.

Lisa knew her mother would not approve of her being there, but something about the hypnotic, pulsing rhythm of the drums and the almost incomprehensible chanting struck a chord deep within her young, prepubescent body. She felt alive, as if the secrets of the universe were just beyond her grasp. Her excitement moved her feet to the sway of the beat. Her granny had taught her the Loas just as her mother had taught her the saints. She knew more than she had ever admitted either to Granny Iris or her mother. The power of voodoo seemed as tangible as the wind and the rain. She closed her eyes and swayed to the music, allowing it to transport her to a different place, a place with no cares, no worries.

“Lisa!”

She opened her eyes. She was standing in the middle of the room. The other celebrants stared at her, saying nothing. The music stopped. She was breathing hard and was tired, as if she had run a long way. She looked into the eyes of those around her and saw awe and wonder. She felt she missed something important.

“What is it, Granny Iris?”

Her granny’s eyes sparkled. “You were in trance, child, a deep trance. Don’t you remember?”

She concentrated. It seemed she remembered something, a voice or a presence calling to her, whispering in her ear, and then a blank spot. She knew it would come back to her if she concentrated hard enough.

“No, Granny,” she lied. She wanted the voice to be her secret.

Granny Iris stared at her a moment longer, and smiled. “Well, that’s okay, child. You better run along home to your mama afore she has words with me.”

Lisa left but she knew something had left with her that day. Later that night, while in bed, she tried hard to recall the voice. It had been a woman’s voice, strong and powerful, a warrior’s voice like in her fantasy books, and yet still sweet and compassionate.

“Stay true,” the voice had whispered to her. “Stay true and remember this night.”

She did not know what it meant but it was her secret and she relished it as a young girl would any secret. Her granny noticed something different about her after that night and Lisa began to stay away from the rituals afraid she would reveal too much, but somehow she knew the rituals as well as her granny. She knew it was the voice inside her.

Time passed and school and boys begged for more and more of her time and attention. Memories came and went, but always, deep inside, her secret voice remained, hidden but vigilant.

* * * *

Eric Tolson was in hell. He knew this with a certainty beyond anything else he had ever known before. It was exactly the type of thing described by the evangelists he had listened to while growing up, real Revelations-type stuff. He was surrounded by death and misery. He couldn’t see; all was in complete darkness, but he could visualize everything around him through some occult sense.

Red prevailed, not the cheerful red of apples or cherries, but the horrible, tortured crimson of fresh blood, splashed on every surface, dripping in clots to the floor, which was an equally red substance more flesh-like than solid. It writhed unnervingly beneath his feet. Sounds, terrible ululations from tortured throats, rose like a cloying mist from the ground, saturating his body with the pain of others.

His own pain was secondary, a mild itch in the back of his mind. It was nothing compared to the unending horror within which he was submerged, an alien ocean of dismay, with waves of disgust lapping hungrily on bloody red beaches of dread. He remembered his encounter with Waters, or what had once been Waters. The evil blackness of Waters’ touch had burned deep into his mind, burning away the past and future, pinning him like a butterfly to the awful present, unending and enduring. He could feel his shoulder; feel things moving beneath the skin; maggoty things eating corrupted flesh. He tried to move but couldn’t. His arms were stretched wide to each side, pinned to the undulating crimson wall with slimy tendrils of sanguine flesh that wound around and pierced his skin. He was crucified, like Bale, on an incarnadine cross.

“Not like Bale,” a voice called to him from the not darkness.

“Waters?” he called out.

A sickeningly morbid laugh followed. “Not Waters.”

“Am I dead?” he asked, hoping he was not; hoping a spark of life yet remained in his body; hoping for a reprieve from his agony.

“Death is too easy. I have plans for you.”

He thought about Jeff, Lisa and Sims. “What about the others? Are they alive?”

“For now,” the voice answered.

Tolson struggled against his bonds. “Let me see you, you bastard.”

The darkness withdrew, replaced by a dull red glow, almost below human perception. He knew this light was real, not some trick of his mind. The crimson wall of flesh beside him bulged outward as if pregnant before splitting like a rotten apple, leaving a figure drenched in blood standing before him. At first, he could not recognize the figure. As the blood dripped from its face, it became more recognizable. Tolson’s heart stopped beating; then resumed with a chest-wrenching thud. Anger surged through him as he struggled to reach his tormentor with his bound hands.

“You!” he cried out. “You lousy bastard!”

Chapter Twenty Eight

Jeff looked at her as they sat at the table drinking coffee.

“Did you sleep?” he asked.

Lisa shook her head. She felt worse than when she had lain down. “Not well. I had…dreams.”

“Maybe Tolson was right. Maybe we should take our chances on the TEMPSC.”

“Tolson would never make it, even if we did.” She pulled out her cell phone and dialed a number, hoping. “Nothing,” she said, slamming it on the table.

“It doesn’t want us to call for help.” He hesitated a moment. “The TEMPSC might be our only option. We can’t lock Waters out.”

Lisa thought of riding in a small, enclosed boat while a hurricane bounced her about like a rag doll. She saw it split open like a balloon and spill them into the cold, dark waters. She thought of those same cold, dark waters rushing over an already drowning New Orleans. She could not let that happen.

She shook her head resolutely. “No, we have to stop him here. If we don’t, New Orleans will surely die.”

“How?”

She looked into Jeff’s eyes and saw a reflection of her tears. “I don’t know.”

Jeff burst out laughing. “Good,” he said. “At least now we have a plan.”

His humor lightened her burden. Overcome with a sudden urge to hug him, she instead found herself kissing him passionately. His response was quick. He pulled her to him, not roughly but confidently. She fell into his embrace and let the tensions of the last few days drop away, at least for a few moments. His hands felt hot as they caressed her body, bringing to the surface deeply buried needs and desires. A fire exploded in her loins that threatened to burn out of control. For that short while, nothing else mattered, only her growing need for him.

Slowly, she pulled away. It was not the time for release. She was glad he did not try to stop her. She did not know if she could have resisted his insistence. It felt right to take the passion he had given her and use it against Damballah Wedo.

“I don’t know what I would have done if you weren’t here,” she said softly, still clinging to him.