The Dead of Summer, page 15
I’m nodding, but then I’m shaking my head. The obstacles are too huge. How would we get to the mainland? There are boats in the harbor, but without keys or a crew, we’d be dead in the water. Literally. And the tides are notoriously hard to escape around the island.
Sam sits up suddenly.
“Maybe we don’t need to go get help. Maybe it can come to us. Wendy’s been trying to signal to that big boat on the horizon. She needs a radio, though. Where can we get a radio?”
We discuss our options. Clearly, there isn’t a working radio in the library, so we’d need to look in town. The wharf is the obvious answer, but it’s infested with weepers. We need to find something closer.
“Scuttlebutt’s,” Bash says. “Wendy’s got all those vintage radios behind the DJ booth.”
Now I’m sitting up, too. I just saw those with my own eyes, days ago. Elisa launches into out-loud thinking of how we’d get in and out of Scuttlebutt’s, but Sam and I are there to temper her ideas with the unfortunate reality that there’s no way we make it through the nightly fog. Plus, we have no idea what’s hidden inside the nightclub. Bash is back to zoning out, and I notice him rip a page from the history book. He folds it and pockets it. I let him.
We sit in silence, and the eerie noise of the night fades through the papered windows. Weepers are babbling in the distance, but there’s a new sound that tickles the inside of my ears. A harmonious din that I think must rise from the coral itself, like a vibration just at the edge of my hearing. I try not to think of it as singing, but my mind can’t help but find the cadence in the song’s swells.
“What I want to know,” Bash says after a long time, “is how do we kill this shit.”
All eyes turn to me, the only person here who’s taken care of an aquarium.
“Actual coral bleaches when the water is too warm for the algae that feeds it. So maybe we could try heat?”
“Great. Maybe Scuttlebutt’s has flamethrowers, too,” Elisa says. “What else?”
I go through the chemistry of my tank in my head, but it’s been so long and I can’t remember the actual names. “Acid would do the trick. Anyone got any acid?”
Bash raises his hand. “There’s lemon juice downstairs. We could mix it into water and put it into water guns or something.”
“Bash. Bashar. Come on now.” Elisa is already laughing through her scolding. “Are you seriously suggesting we save the world with lemonade?”
Bash shrugs. “When life gives you lemon concentrate …”
It’s his lilting smile that sets me off laughing, too, and once I’ve started I can’t stop. Laughing this hard feels insane, like choking on light, but this is a breath I am glad to give up. For the first time in a week I feel tears pricking the corners of my eyes, and I let them tumble down my temples as I lay my head in Bash’s lap. The others aren’t handling the absurd suggestion any better. Our laughing even earns us a testy shhhh from the nearby stacks, causing us to blow out our candle and bury our faces into our bundled clothing.
I fall asleep in Bash’s lap, one hand holding on to Elisa, the other on to Sam. I fall asleep with salt on my tongue. I fall asleep still smiling, with tears on my teeth.
Ollie-baby?
Wake up. It’s me. Where are you?
Are you looking for me?
Something has gone wrong inside my bones.
Ollie-baby? I can’t breathe.
* * *
I awaken beside the organ, curled against the window, my forehead pressed to the paper of the glass. The dream fades, but the heartache doesn’t. I had a dream about Gracie. She was calling to me. Why did the dream bring me here? The paper has peeled back. Through the gap I glimpse what’s become of the world outside the library, and I wonder, How could anyone survive this nightmare?
Clouds of fog twenty feet high drift down Main Street. Rashes of corals wrap the edges of buildings, street signs, and cars, throbbing with luminous pastel light. Barnacles bubble across the sidewalk like cobblestones. Several weepers are right where Wendy shot them down on the lawn, but their colors are dull now. A few other weepers sway over them as though curious, or in mourning, but their faces are looking up at the library, captivated by the lit tower.
I can’t help but look into each of their faces, searching their wide, unblinking stares for any sign of the people they used to be. Does the coral take everything? Can it infect a person’s soul?
I pull myself away. I’m ready to go back to bed when, steps from the window, I freeze. I rush back, peeling paper away until I can see more of downtown. My hands shake. Sometime in the last few hours, the winds have changed, and now the fog is drifting away from the rooftops.
In a solitary moonbeam I can see the topmost edge of Singing House.
And in the top-floor window, in our tiny apartment, a lantern has been lit.
I stare at the signal, not believing what I’m seeing. I expect the fog to swallow the town up again, but the wind stiffens until it’s howling through the gaps in the windows. The library creaks below the oncoming storm. A single glance at the sky—no stars, just a sheet of gray through which the moonlight barely drips—and I know that this storm is our chance to leave the library. Maybe our only chance.
I race to the teen room and silently shake the others awake. I show them the view of town cleared of fog.
“If we’re going to get that radio for Wendy, we need to go now or never,” I whisper. “It’s shine time.”
Elisa nods. Sam nods. Bash holds his own hand, and I think he’s going to vanish into himself again.
“Won’t Willy be mad?” he asks.
“Willy will be mad, but Wendy would be proud. She can’t keep this place afloat with the power of pretend much longer. We need a way to call for help,” I say.
Bash nods. Now we’re all in. We dress silently but hold our shoes in our hands as we sneak through the stacks and down the back stairwell. At the last step, we lace up our shoes, tighten our bandannas across our faces, and pull our goggles down over our eyes. When we’re ready, we ease open the door. The night is a perfect square of darkness beyond, smelling of salt and rain.
Hand in hand, we dive in.
* * *
The door to Scuttlebutt’s hangs on bent hinges, like a kicked-in tooth.
“Any other ideas?” Sam whispers as we examine the wreckage.
We could go back to the maritime museum, or search through a few of the vintage stores. The wharf is a risk, but not far, and of course we’ve considered hiking all the way to the boating supply store. All those would cost us precious time. No one wants to split up. We don’t know how long the ocean breeze will last, and none of us want to find out what happens if the prickle of rain turns into a drizzle.
Selfishly, I want to get to Singing House. If we get the radio quickly, then I’m sure I can beg the others into a detour back to the library. They saw the light in Singing House, too. If it was their mom, they’d do the same, right?
This is why I step into Scuttlebutt’s first, making the decision for all of us.
“Hello?” I whisper. If there are people hiding here, I don’t want them taking any shots at us. I hear nothing in response except the wind gushing through the empty wreckage of the restaurant, flapping up flyers and strewn napkins. Plates of festered food sit on the few tables that haven’t been thrown sideways. The floor is sticky, but with the blessed stickiness of spilled cocktails and beer. I risk a long, deep breath, smelling for the marine rot of the coral, but all I can detect is the oversweet tang of gone-bad orange juice.
We ease through the dining room, toward the club in the back. Wendy has it designed like the hull of a wooden ship, with curved boards bending the walls around a spacious, glitter-stained floor that normally shines with disco light. Like painted angels, figureheads from old ships hang over us, dripping strings of plastic beads and paper decorations left over from the Fourth of July. The air is denser. Sour. But the stillness is a relief. I try to tell myself the dark is our friend, that it means the coral likely hasn’t rooted itself in here. Bash and I head behind the bar to grab whatever water bottles we can find, but it looks like someone has already had this idea. There is, however, a large jug labeled LEMON JUICE. Bash holds it up. Victory!
“Guys!” Elisa whispers. “Look!”
Sam’s got Elisa hoisted up on his shoulders so that she can reach the shelves above the DJ booth. She’s pulled down one of the many radios. A newer-looking one toward the top that lacks the charm of the antiques, but almost certainly still works.
“Look for the power supply,” Bash whispers. “It should be with it. A little black box.”
Elisa feels around for a few more seconds and then shows Bash what she’s found.
“Does it work?” Bash whispers. Elisa wrestles the cords into the socket, and the radio lights blink on. She reaches for the dial.
“Wait—” Sam says, but he’s too late. Elisa cranks a knob on the device and a static cry stabs through the silence. She drops the radio in surprise, and Sam nearly drops her. There’s a scramble as they duck behind the DJ booth to find it, and somewhere in the chaos someone must bump something. The disco lights come on.
“Turn it off,” I whisper, but what’s the point? The radio is yelling something—“Commencing forensic operation”—and then it finally goes dead, the power cord wrenched from the socket by Sam.
We hold our breath, willing the silence to re-form, but from the door comes a gurgling hiccup. I scramble over the bar and close off the passage leading to the way we came in. In silent unanimity Bash, Elisa, and I agree on the back door. We used to prop it open (much to Wendy Pretendy’s annoyance) to make for an easy escape from Scuttlebutt’s on nights we snuck in. Now it will save our lives. We run toward it, but then Sam shouts, “Ollie, behind you!”
I duck just as a web of slime cascades over my head. A body, heavy with momentum yet utterly silent, twists after me. In disco light I catch only a glimpse of its mutilation—twitching urchin spines puncturing through spongy skin, all down the weeper’s bare back. More spines wrestle from their yawning mouth, sending a sticky lace of slime in my direction. I duck again, crawling backward across the floor. I try to get my goggles back on and only manage to rip them off.
“The lights, hit the lights!” Elisa cries.
Sam drags his hands over the controls on the soundboard. First, all the lights come up, and I briefly glimpse the wet maroon carnage that has infested the back walls of the dance floor. In response to the burst of light, a pulse heaves through the monstrous growth, and several human shapes shiver awake. Sam hits the board again, and the lights strobe a thrashing white.
FLASH.
FLASH.
FLASH.
“Back door!” I shout, pointing. “Go! Now!”
Before us, the weepers appear to jump through the light, teleporting through the flashes until they’re looming over us. A woman this time, her eyes smoothed over by a quivering bulb of jelly. She retches violently and a fleck of spit hits my cheek. I drop to the floor, scraping the substance away from my mouth and nose, fighting not to breathe even though my pulse is a greedy hammer in my veins. There’s no time to wonder if I’m dead. The weepers multiply, awakening one another.
FLASH.
Three weepers.
FLASH.
Seven weepers.
FLASH.
Too many slime-slick bodies to count, and now I can’t find my friends. It’s a dance break in slow motion, and unless I move fast I’m about to be twirling among them. Ahead, I glimpse the back door swing open with a bang. The weepers twitch toward the loud sound. I try to see who makes it out, but the crowd is thick now. All I hear is a scream—Elisa. I can’t get to her. Even a step toward the exit puts me in range of a weeper with long frill-like tendrils growing from their lips, whisking the air like tongues.
I duck into the DJ booth, landing atop a warm body.
“It’s me! It’s Sam!”
I grab his arm. “We have to do something!” But I’m pleading like a child. We’re the ones who are trapped. I reach up and bash my hand over the controls, searching for a way to douse the strobe light. Will it even work? Or once the weepers awaken, is it too late? I find a bank of sliding buttons and I pry them all the way down. The room sinks into black, finally, and the weepers slow in their shuffling.
“You did it,” Sam whispers. He’s shaking beneath me. Not crying, but full-body shakes that rattle his teeth.
“Did they get you?” I whisper.
“I don’t think so. You?”
I can feel where the globs of slime have soaked into my bandanna. I rip the cloth away, just in case.
“I’m good. We’re going to be okay. Just follow me, okay?”
We crawl from the DJ booth on our elbows. In the dark it’s impossible to tell where the weepers are until, like a slowly rising sun, the coral growths resume their eerie glow. A bloody-red light that makes it feel like we’re crawling through a giant’s veins. In a way this is better—we can see a path toward the exit. But it’s also worse—in their glowing stupor, the weepers cease their chasing and lock into a shivering formation among one another.
They seem agitated. Unwilling to go back to sleep. Except for the occasional twitch, they move slowly, fluidly, dreamily. I realize it’s only a matter of time before they begin to shed their spores, drowning us where we hide. I squeeze Sam’s hand. Time to go.
We take it slow. I lead, trying to both keep my eyes down while also looking where I’m going. Was the door dead ahead, or to the left? Sam keeps one hand wrapped around my ankle. Above us, the weepers sigh and whisper, but most are too transformed to be understood. Still, the sound of a sigh is utterly human coming from these monsters. As they make their familiar hum, chills rush down the skin of my back.
I pull us a few more feet, but suddenly I can’t feel Sam. I twist, but the wobbly legs of a woman peppered in polyps nearly trot over my face. I roll left, onto my side, and she misses me by inches. Another weeper crushes my hand, but I force myself not to cry out. I ball up against a patch of clear wall, cradling my knuckles, aware of the growths hanging directly over me. I have to keep going, but where is Sam? I scan through the forest of legs.
There! I spot him crawling on his elbows. He’s going in the exact wrong direction. Our eyes meet briefly and he mouths something, but it’s impossible to read his lips beneath his bandanna. He lowers it and tries again.
Go.
I shake my head. Absolutely not. Bit by bit I drag myself toward him until I’m forced against a pillar. He takes momentary shelter against a curved velvet bench. We have no choice but to stare at each other, waiting for some miracle to part the crowd enough for us to pass. Sam waves urgently, then points at his ear.
He’s telling me to listen.
I haven’t known Sam long—only days, only moments—but in those moments he has demonstrated an uncanny ability to hear the music just outside our reality. At first it was the music in my mind on the ferry, then it was the spontaneous composition I played for him at Singing House. If he hears something, I trust him. Going against every instinct, I close my eyes.
I listen.
Past the gasping, past the euphoric crying, past the sticky suck of clotted lungs, the weepers have a sound like nothing I’ve ever heard. From within the library, it sounded like a distant chorus, but within this closed room it’s closer to the howl of wind; dissonant, stark tones rubbing dangerously against one another. There’s a grittiness to it, too. I feel like if I listen any longer, the abrasive discord will burrow through my brain.
But I stop straining to hear. I stop trying to name the notes, or tune the song, or fix the composition. Instead, I follow Sam’s instructions. I just listen. I let the maelstrom of tones lift me up, chaotic and beyond my control, like a glittering wave pulling me from the sand. At first my mind kicks, like my feet trying to find the ocean floor, and I panic when there’s nothing there—this is just incoherent noise! No grounding bass, no certain rhythm!—but then I hear something miraculous deep within the voices: the cradle of a chord. It flits in and out of my ears as the voices creating it drift past one another in their individual études, but suddenly there’s a sense to the song. And I can hear it. And it’s music after all.
I open my eyes, knowing exactly what to look for. The chord is based around a lone weeper standing still in the middle of the dance floor, sustaining a long and meandering descant. The coherence depends on the weepers swirling around the center. As they drift, they slide through harmonies that briefly align, tangle, drift, and shatter, all in a loop that repeats itself. Sam hears it, too. He nods at me, counting through the sequence. Together, we step into the swirl. We stay low. We go slow. The dance is so intricate that I feel a weeper brush my elbow when I’m only a hair ahead, so I force myself to match their pace perfectly. Now that we’re moving with them, though, they don’t seem to notice us. Glee rushes through me, but I shove it down so that I can focus. This isn’t over yet.
And there’s one big problem left. As the weepers have calmed themselves, the air has begun to sparkle. The lullaby has begged the coral polyps open, and the fog begins to trail after the waltzing weepers. Sam and I squeeze to the floor, trying to stay within the sequence, but at this rate we won’t make it to the exit. At most, we have seconds of clean air left before the room is saturated.
By sheer luck I reach the door first, but I don’t run for it. I stand, scanning for Sam, but the air is blurry as the fog begins to fill up the room. I take one final breath, begging my brain for an answer. How can I show him where to go? I need a light of some kind. My hands dig into my pockets, finding the digital recorder. That will have to do. I start it up. The red recording light blinks. I wave it in front of me, hoping the motion catches Sam’s eye. If he runs for it, I’ll be ready. I’ll take his hand and pull him free, and we’ll be outside in no time. Safe, with the heavy back door slammed at our backs.
BREATHE.
My lungs are already aching.
