Slow River

“Yeah. But the pay’s good: time and a half for the whole twelve hours.” Another yawn. “Gotta go. Those leeches sucked me dry. You’d think it was my fault things went wrong. ‘So tell us again why you think the glucose line malfunctioned, Cherry.’ Over and over. Jesus. And I hate it when they call me Cherry.” She reached to the side to cut the transmission, then stopped. “I didn’t tell you earlier, Bird, but I think between us we did a good job. It was hard to not tell them what you did. I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“I do.”

“Good, because it’s too late to change your mind without making me look like an idiot. I’ll see you at the beginning of the shift.”

No one had ever said to me before, See you later, at work.

Chapter 20

When Lore gets back to her suite after swimming with Sarah, she is exhausted and has the faint beginnings of a hangover. The light on her screen is red: she has a message. She ignores it. All she wants is a shower and several hours’ sleep.

She is climbing into bed when the phone chimes. It takes her a moment to recognize the family-emergency override tone. She drags the sheet from. her bed to wrap up in.

“Yes?”

“Lore… Lore…” The screen remains blank and whoever has called her is sobbing. “Lore…”

“Tok? Tok, is that you?” The screen suddenly flashes into color: Tok’s face is swollen and ravaged with grief.

“She’s dead. Those bastards. Oh, Lore, she’s dead…” He says more, but his tears thicken the words beyond sense.

“Tok, please.” Who was dead? “Take some deep breaths. Tell me-”

“She was trying. God, she was… She killed herself, Lore. Can you imagine that? Feeling so bad you don’t want to wake up ever again and eat breakfast, you don’t want to look up ever again and see tiny white clouds in the sky. Just wanting to forget. That bastard. She…” More weeping.

Lore’s heart feels so big she can hardly breathe. “Tok, who’s dead?”

Tok looks up, astonished. “Stella. She killed herself. She…”

Lore does not hear the rest. She is flooded with relief that it is not Katerine. Tok is looking at her. “Why? Why did she kill herself?”

“Because of what that monster did to her. Almost every night. She only started therapy six months ago, Lore. She was finally facing it. But then I think it just got too much, I think she looked ahead and saw this thing, this black swamp inside her, this cloud that looked like it would stain her life forever, and couldn’t face it. Well, I can face it. I’m going to make that monster pay. Come back home, Lore, wherever you are. I need you. We’ll do this together.”

Lore just looks at him, horrified. What is he talking about?

“I’ll contact you in a day or two, tell you where I am. I’m going to put a stop to it. This has gone on too long.” He reaches to the side and his picture blips out.

Lore stares at the blank screen, unable to move. What is he talking about? Stella is dead. What does he mean? Who is the monsters. A quick image of Greta and a locksmith glide through her memory. She shakes her head. Stella is dead. She has a sudden image of Stella and her friends standing around the net screen, drinks in hand, vying to send money to some amateur charity. Stella is dead.

She does not know how long she sits there, but when someone knocks at the door and she gets up, she finds she is stiff. She expects Sarah, and opens the door without checking the peephole.

Two masked figures burst in. One takes her arms and the other points something at her face. There is a funny smell, and the floor comes up to hit her.

Chapter 21

I opened my eyes again at eleven in the morning and thought it was the message tone that had awakened me. I was halfway out of bed before I realized it was the door.

Someone was knocking on my door.

This was the first time since I had lived alone that anyone had knocked. It made me think of Uruguay.

“Hold on.” I found a shirt, padded to the door. “Who is it?”

“Why, who’re you expecting’.”

Tom. Even so, I made sure both chains were fastened before I opened the door a crack. “I’m not dressed.”

“We don’t mind.” He held up his hand. I saw it was attached to some kind of string. “Brought you a present.” A leash. And a dog. A black, stocky-looking thing with a startlingly pink tongue.

“No. I can’t –”

“Don’t get your knickers in a twist,” he said cheerfully.

“He’s not to keep. Just to borrow for an hour or two every day, Can we come in?”

I opened the door and the dog dragged Tom in. “Sit down while I dress.”

“I’ll put the kettle on.”

“Fine.”

I went into the bathroom and showered quickly. I could hear the dog’s claws clicking on the floor as it padded about, sniffing things. When I came out of the bathroom, rubbing my hair, it sat down and panted at me. Its entire hindquarters shuffled back and forth as it wagged its tail.

I patted it cautiously on the head. It wagged harder. “It looks young.”

“He. He’s eight months old. His name’s Gibbon.”

“As in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire?”