Beneath Ceaseless Skies #147 Read online

  But the unreality of seeing another person makes the peril of abyssi seem silly and distant. As I strike the flame, I say, “Tell me how you ended—”

  “No!” A ragged cry rips from his throat, and he pounces on me, swatting the lighter out of my grasp. We tumble onto the sand, and after rolling around together, my hands trying to push him away and his easily circling my wrists, he has me pinned. He is surprisingly heavy, and his nimble bulk makes me feel wasted and powerless.

  “You fool!” He speaks in a rasping whisper that sounds painful. “Have you gone mad? Do you want to bring them upon us?”

  “Calm down.”

  “They’re already close.” Every sailor, and every man, woman, and child at a port town, knows to douse the lights at sundown. Even the Russian War doesn’t reach the coast, and enemy ships pass at sea without incident.

  I squirm, hoping he’ll relax his grip and move off me. “How do you know?”

  “How do you think I ended up here? They wrecked my ship.”

  “What do you mean, ‘they’? You saw more than one?”

  “I saw the maelstroms. At least three or four, but I didn’t stop to count.”

  His knees weigh on my thighs like stones. I wrench a wrist from his grasp and push against his chest. “That’s impossible,” I say. “Nobody’s ever seen more than one at a time.”

  He slides onto the sand next to me. “Tell that to my shipmates.”

  I sigh. There’s no point in arguing about it right now, and having a conversation with a stranger in the dark feels too much like talking to myself. “What do you suggest?”

  “Hunker down for the night, get some rest, and keep the lights off.”

  I sit up, brushing the sand from my shirt. Something feels wrong. It takes me a moment to register the lightness, but when I do, it stops the breath in my throat.

  The flare gun is gone.

  I pat the sand around me, feeling nothing but the cool grains between my fingers.

  My companion shifts away. “Something wrong?” Unease colors his voice.

  “Nothing.” My head is swiveling around the beach even though it’s too dark to see anything. “It’s nothing.”

  We feel our way back to the hut. He follows a couple yards behind, giving me space after our scuffle.

  But why should he be afraid? He’s the one who attacked me. I should be afraid of him.

  Unless he has something that belongs to me.

  Ridiculous. I felt his hands on mine almost the whole time we were down. It’s lying somewhere on the beach, and I’ll be able to find it in the morning.

  I’ll just have to make sure I’m up first.

  * * *

  The surreal thing about total darkness is that the line between sleep and wakefulness is almost invisible. It becomes difficult to tell when your eyes are closed and whether the rushing in your ears is the sound of waves or the static of dreams.

  I crack my eyes open, and morning light spills in like a yolk from an eggshell. I’m alone, and I begin to wonder if the stranger from last night was a dream until I look around the hut and realize that the flare gun is still missing.

  I stagger out of my shelter and in the direction of last night’s fight. It’s impossible to tell exactly where we were, and it’s hard to distinguish the ripples and crests in the sand from tracks. The crawl back to the hut last night didn’t feel that far, but I don’t see my gun anywhere. Taking deep breaths, I start walking a wide circle around this side of the beach and slowly spiral inward, dragging my feet through the sand. It might have gotten buried in the night.

  I reach the center of my spiral with nothing to show for my efforts but a vague trail in the sand. A salty breeze ripples through my hair, and I look up and down the beach again. Could it be farther out? I was sure we’d fallen on the leeward side of the hut.

  A voice calls out from the other end of the beach. I look back and see a man walking toward me. He looks up but doesn’t acknowledge me.

  We meet at the hut, and I’m surprised and relieved to see that my stranger actually exists.

  He smiles in a way that shows too many teeth. “I would have woken you if I’d known you wanted to walk.” He looks over my shoulder, still smiling insipidly. He sounds bored and indulgent, like someone offering to let his kid brother help chop firewood. “Oh, I found something while I was out.”

  He reaches into his pocket and I draw a shallow breath. But what he presents to me in the flat palm of one hand is only my lighter.

  I feel my lips stretch themselves into a rigid smile as I take it. “I was missing that,” I say. “Where did you find it?”

  “Just down there,” he says, pointing at the tract of beach that I’d just searched. “Saw the edge sticking out of the sand.”

  “How fortunate.” I look at his face for what seems like the first time. He’s about average height, average build. A little on the skinny side—like he hasn’t had a proper meal in weeks. He’s got a ragged, unkempt beard, and his hair has been starched and tangled by the salty winds. The sun-burnished glow on his skin makes his eyes look bright and a little mad. There’s something blandly familiar about him that I can’t place until I figure that he looks a little like me, or the way I expect I’d look after a few weeks on the rough.

  It takes me a moment to form words. “You didn’t happen to find anything else out there, did you?”

  He cracks that grin again. “Like that lifeboat over yonder? If I’d found something like that, I’d be long gone by now.” He laughs, and several seconds pass before I realize that he’s joking with me, and I laugh along. Still, I can’t help but look over his shoulder, hoping to see in his tracks how far he’s walked this morning.

  Far enough that I didn’t see him when I first woke up.

  He shields his eyes with one hand and looks at the sky. “We should try to stay in the shade. Keep ourselves from getting dehydrated.” I follow him back to the hut.

  We sit on opposite ends of the hut and begin the day’s vigil. No ships yet.

  I tuck my heels under my thighs. “So,” I ask, “what brought you here?”

  “We were shipwrecked a week ago.” He gestures at the back of the hut and the portion of the island beyond it. “On the other side. We were just in sight of the island when we went down.”

  “Supply clipper?” He sounds English, but the war has bred enough profiteers that he could be working for anyone. Not that it matters out here.

  “No. One of the new ironclads. Fat lot of good it did.” Evading the abyssi with speed versus surviving them by strength is the fashionable shipyard debate. What no one seems ready to admit is that neither matters more than luck.

  “What about the rest of your crew?”

  He shakes his head. “I’m lucky I made it. I must have coasted in with the tide that night.” His fingers trace a pattern in the sand. “Anyway, I walked around, and I finally caught sight of your camp in the distance yesterday. I guess I was hoping for some good news or something, I don’t know.”

  “Something like that lifeboat you mentioned?”

  His eyes crinkle at the edges. “That would be a start. Anyway, you seemed to be set up well enough.” And there it is again, the question of food, hanging between us like a silent accusation.

  “Were you able to salvage anything from your wreck?” I ask.

  “Nothing but a couple barrels of pitch and some scrap wood made it to shore with me.”

  I make a little hmm sound and stare at the sand between my knees.

  The trouble is, I’ll need to eat soon.

  He clears his throat as if sweeping our awkward evasions under the rug. “How’d you end up here? And what can I call you?”

  I’m grateful for the change of topic. I extend my hand to the stranger and tell him my name.

  “Lee,” he says in return.

  “Huh. That was my father’s name.”

  He takes my hand. His grip is firm, and he holds on a little too long. “You know what they say. Small world
. Especially when you’re stuck on an island.” With that, he laughs again, his over-large teeth and bright eyes flashing. “But back to your story.”

  “It started three weeks ago. We must have hit shoals, because we started going down. Seas weren’t friendly, so it was just me and some of the cargo that made it here. Small arms and medicine, mostly.”

  “Mostly,” he says, suddenly meeting my eyes.

  I look away, thinking of my rations. I can feel the blush rising under my tan. “So, what was your ship doing out here?”

  The corners of his mouth twitch into a smirk. “Scouting.”

  And now to hear which side of the war he’s on. “For what?”

  He leans forward, his arms resting on his knees. “Abyssi.”

  I jerk back, my hands flat on the sand as if I’m ready to spring. “You mean you went looking for those monsters?”

  He nods.

  “Why?”

  He’s still hunched forward, and he lowers his voice to a whisper. “We found a way to kill them.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Anything can be killed.”

  “Not by people. Not those things.”

  He sits back, and his grin is maddeningly condescending. “How do you know?”

  “How do you?” I’m on my feet now, pacing the tiny hut. “Have you actually killed one?”

  His smile withers at the corners. “This was our first attempt. It’s sound logic, though.”

  “I’m an engineer. Everything looks good on paper.”

  He shrugs, willing to leave me to my folly. But he’s watching me beneath hooded lids, and I’m taking the bait.

  “How’s it work?” I cross my arms snugly against my chest.

  He pauses and rolls his tongue, as if he has to think about this. “It’s not as complicated as you’d think. I hate to use the word ‘bait,’ but you need people to lure an abyssus close. Large livestock might work, too,” he says, looking thoughtful.

  “What else?”

  “The main thing you need is a light source. Not torches, though. They’ll follow torches, you know that, but you need something that’ll drive their blood up. Something bright and explosive.”

  My mouth is dry. There is a tingling sensation on my skin and a distant ringing in my ears. “Such as?”

  “Dynamite, obviously. That’s the best, if you have it on hand. Though waterlogging can be a problem.”

  My teeth throb, and I have to force the words through my clenched jaw. “And... as an alternative?”

  He laughs, and it’s the sound a wild dog makes in the night. “I suppose you just have to improvise with whatever’s lying around. Why, you have a suggestion?”

  My vision is starting to swim. I need to eat something.

  I sink to my knees, squeezing my eyes against the hunger and the nausea. “What happens after the explosion?”

  He takes a slow, deep breath through his nose. “That’s where it all gets a bit more theoretical.”

  I want to ask more. I also want to tell him to go to hell, to ask him what he did with my flare gun. But it’s getting hard to think around the hunger headaches.

  Lee leans in. “Everything alright? You don’t look so good.”

  “I need water,” I say, pushing myself to my feet.

  “Stay. I saw the spring on my way here.”

  A bucket sits against one wall. Even as I cast my eyes down, they flit to the bucket. Without a word, he picks it up.

  “I’ll get it next time,” I say, feeling a humiliating mixture of gratitude, shame, and hunger.

  “Just get some rest.” With that, he’s on the beach and headed inland with loud, shuffling steps.

  I wait until they’ve faded, and then I dig up my food stash in the corner. The hunger is just great enough to overpower everything else I feel about this stranger, this thief, walking a mile in the sun to bring me water.

  I dig away just enough sand to expose the painted top of the old munitions box. My hands are trembling as I pry the lid off. It takes a little more effort than I’d remembered. I reach into the box, but something is wrong.

  There are six rations.

  I take them out of the box, count them, re-count them, rearrange them, and count them again. There are six. There were seven. I’m sure of it.

  What I don’t know is how the stranger could have found my food, much less taken any without my knowledge. I’m frozen like this for I don’t know how long, kneeling over two identical rows of rations, when I hear a distant sound. Like birds. Whistling. My stranger is returning with the water, whistling.

  I devour one of the rations with the speed that only the desperately hungry can muster. I replace the remaining five and cover the box again, as if it matters. By the time the stranger returns, I’m huddled against the wall, steeling myself against the stomach cramps.

  He screws the bucket into the sand in the middle of the room and somehow manages to find a tin cup in one of the boxes stacked against the wall. As he fills it from the bucket and hands it to me, I’m so overcome with surprise at his solicitousness, and with the almost post-coital guilt and sluggishness of my hurried meal, that I wonder how I could have been so suspicious of this man.

  And then, he belches.

  He stifles it, modestly, behind a hand, and he gives me the kind of sheepish grin that would seem natural at a dinner party.

  But there it is between us, a mockery of my weakness and a taunting reminder of his ability to take what he wants from me.

  And like a kicked dog, I bury my face in the cup and murmur thanks.

  He settles back into the sand, sitting across from me. “Hard to believe you’ve made it on your own this long.”

  “Only three weeks,” I say. “Men have survived longer.” It’s another unhappy reminder of my frailty.

  But his eyebrows are raised, his lips pursed. “Three? How do you figure that?”

  “I’ve been keeping track.”

  He gives me a long, slow nod. The kind one gives to humor a child.

  “Here,” I say, setting my cup in the sand, “why don’t I show you?”

  “How about we just rest here.” He doesn’t meet my eye.

  “I insist.”

  I lead him around and to the back of the hut, a distance so short that it makes our mutual errand, and my purposeful stride, seem ridiculous. Some part of my mind registers that the scenery behind the hut has changed somehow, that boxes seem to be missing, but I’m too focused to give it thought. Leaning against the ramshackle wall is the lid from a wooden artillery crate. Twenty-two etched tally marks form a neat row along the top of the lid, and as my guest looks on, I add a twenty-third.

  When I step back to allow him to count for himself, he favors me with an unreadable glance. He flips the wooden slab.

  Short, scratched lines fill the other side of the lid. At the top, they begin in even, orderly rows, but progressing down, they degenerate into crooked, irregular scribbles.

  The stranger sucks his teeth.

  I’m speechless. I don’t count the marks, but I know there are dozens of them. Well over two hundred, at least. I wander away from the board and look at the sea.

  Lee follows, standing a few paces behind me. “If my plan works, we won’t be here much longer.” He gives my shoulder a gentle squeeze. His hand is cold and moist, like a dead fish.

  * * *

  In the shade of the hut, I fall into a heavy, dreamless sleep.

  When I awaken, night has fallen, and I can tell that I haven’t moved. As I stare at the canvas roof of the hut, I take a deep, bracing breath. I hear crackling. I smell smoke.

  Leaping to my feet, I dash out of the hut and behind it. Lee is standing there, a new bonfire at his feet and a sickening grin on his face.

  “I was just wondering if you were going to get up before I had to burn the shack down.”

  He’s started the fire with a heap of smashed crates and scrap, and he’s feeding it from another pile next to him. I recognize my tally board among
the sacrificial offerings.

  Falling to my knees and digging like a dog, I fling handfuls of sand into the fire. Lee tackles me again, easily, and he’s chuckling, but there’s seriousness in his voice when he speaks.

  “It’s too late for that. Take it easy.”

  “You’ll bring them here.”

  “I know.”

  “You’ll kill us both.” Even I can hear the hysteria creeping into my voice.

  “Not if we burn it fast enough.”

  There’s a frozen moment while my animal brain does the calculation. Then, I’m on my feet and ripping my shelter apart with all the strength in my atrophied arms.

  We finish in minutes, and it’s a grim reminder of how flimsy my makeshift home always was. By the time we’ve pulled the planks, crates, and canvas down, the fire is large enough for us to feed everything into it. Lee takes off running, and I follow him up the slope and to the edge of the grass. With the relative protection of distance and elevation, we turn back to observe our handiwork.

  The bonfire is a beacon in the night, and I suddenly realize how long it’s been since I’ve seen something burn like this. I also realize that I’ve just helped Lee destroy everything that has sustained me on this godforsaken island.

  With a glance at my face—it’s actually bright enough for us to see one another tonight—Lee seems to understand what I’m thinking, and he puts that cold-fish hand on my back again, just behind my neck.

  “It’s okay,” he says.

  I say nothing.

  “I had to bring one close. I had to be sure. We only have one flare.”

  I look up at him. “My flare.” It’s a plea. I’m too stunned, and too feeble, for anything stronger.

  He gives the nape of my neck a squeeze. “You’ve been sitting on that beach with the flare gun for the better part of a year. You were never going to work up the nerve to use it.”

  It’s an assault on my manhood, and however powerless I’ve felt in the last twenty-four hours, it’s a slap in the face to hear it from him.

  “Besides,” he says, “you were down to five rations. How much longer were you going to last, just waiting like this?”

  I spin to face him, and he takes a step back, his eyes wide and surprised. My lips part in a snarl, and his hand flies to his hip, perhaps to a gun or a knife. I don’t care. I prepare to spring.