Duma Key

The response to this was clear, even at the bottom of the cistern. "Do you think you can reload fast enough to shoot all three of us?"

"No, Emery," Wireman responded. He spoke as if to a child, and his voice had firmed all the way. I never loved him so much as I did then. "I'll settle for you."

Now came the hard part, the terrible part.

I began unscrewing the cap of the flashlight. On the second turn, the light went out and I was in nearly perfect darkness. I dumped the D-batteries from the flashlight's steel sleeve, then fumbled for the first bottle of Evian. My fingers closed on it, and I poured it in, working by feel. I had no idea how much the flashlight would hold, and thought one bottle would fill it all the way to the top. I was wrong. I was reaching for the second one when full night must have come to Duma Key. I say that because that was when the china figure in my pocket came to life.

x

Any time I doubt that last mad passage in the cistern, all I have to do is look at the traffic-jam of white scars on the left side of my chest. Anyone seeing me naked wouldn't notice them particularly; because of my accident, I am a roadmap of scars, and that small white bundle tends to get lost among the gaudier ones. But these were made by the teeth of a living doll. One that chewed through my shirt and skin and into the muscle beneath.

One that meant to chew all the way to my heart.

xi

I almost knocked the second bottle of water over before managing to pick it up. That was mostly from surprise, but there was plenty of pain as well, and I cried out. I felt fresh blood begin to flow, this time running down inside my shirt to the crease between my torso and my belly. She was twisting in my pocket, writhing in my pocket, her teeth sinking in and biting and plowing, digging deeper, deeper. I had to tear her out, and I ripped away a good chunk of bloody shirt and flesh with her. The figure had lost that smooth, cool feel. It was hot now, and writhing in my hand.

"Come on!" Wireman yelled from up above. "Come on, you want it?"

She sank her tiny china teeth, sharp as needles, into the webbing of flesh between my thumb and first finger. I howled. She might have gotten away then in spite of all my fury and determination, but Nan Melda's bracelets slid down, and I could feel her cringing away from them, deeper into my palm. One leg actually slithered out between my second finger and my ring finger. I squeezed all my fingers together, pinning it. Pinning her. Her movements grew sluggish. I can't swear that one of the bracelets was touching her - it was pitch black - but I'm almost positive it was.

From above me came the hollow compressed-air CHOW of the harpoon pistol, and then a scream that seemed to rip through my brains. Below it - behind it - I could hear Wireman shouting, "Get in back of me, Jack! Take one of the-" Then no more, just the sound of grunting cries from my friends and the angry, unearthly laughter of two long-dead children.

I had the flashlight's barrel clasped between my knees, and I didn't need anyone to tell me that anything could go wrong in the dark, especially for a one-armed man. I would have only one chance. Under conditions like that, it's best not to hesitate.

No! Stop! Don't do th -

I dropped her in, and one result was immediate: above me, the children's angry laughter turned to shrieks of surprised horror. Then I heard Jack. He sounded hysterical and half-insane, but I was never so glad to hear anyone in my life.

"That's right, go on and run! Before your fucking ship sails and leaves you behind!"

Now I had a delicate problem. I had taken hold of the flashlight in my remaining hand, and she was inside... but the cap was somewhere in here with me, and I couldn't see it. Nor did I have another hand to feel around with.

"Wireman!" I called. "Wireman, are you there?"

After a moment long enough to first seed four kinds of fear and then start them growing, he answered: "Yeah, muchacho. Still here."

"All right?"

"One of em scratched me and it ought to be disinfected, but otherwise, yeah. Basically I think we both are."

"Jack, can you come down here? I need a hand." And then, sitting there crooked among the bones with the water-filled shell of the flashlight held up like the Statue of Liberty's torch, I began to laugh.

Some things are just so true you have to.

xii

My eyes had adjusted enough for me to make out a dark shape seeming to float down the side of the cistern - Jack, descending the ladder. The sleeve of the flashlight was thrumming in my hand - weak, but definitely thrumming. I pictured a woman drowning in a narrow steel tank and pushed the image away. It was too much like what had happened to Ilse, and the monster I had imprisoned was nothing like Ilse.

"There's a rung missing," I said. "If you don't want to die down here, you want to be careful as hell."

"I can't die tonight," he said in a thin and shaking voice I never would have identified as his. "I have a date tomorrow."

"Congratulations."

"Thank y- "