Elizabeth Hand - Generation Loss

“I’m fucking great.”

“Did you kill him?”

“No.”

She began to sob. I whacked her with the butt-end of the boat hook.

“You want to go back and finish for me? Come on, there’s someone at Ryel’s house; we have a boat, if—”

“If what?” she wailed.

“If you keep your goddam mouth shut.”

I dragged her after me, still sobbing. For several minutes we stumbled along the road in almost total darkness, following the flashlight’s wan beam. Then I stopped. Kenzie stared at me.

“What is it?”

I killed the light and clapped my hand over her mouth. Beneath the rattle of wind in the trees and the crash of waves I heard another, fainter sound on the road behind us.

“It’s him,” I breathed.

Kenzie moaned. I found her hand, icy cold, and pulled her to the side of the road. I turned on the flashlight, just long enough to pick out a break in the trees, then moved as quickly as I could, feeling my way with the boat hook with Kenzie right behind me.

We struggled through a tangled hell of brush and whiplike trees, icy stones and frozen earth. My face burned where sleet slashed it; my right eye was swollen shut. Not that I could have seen much of anything. I listened for more sounds behind us but heard nothing above the rising wind.

I had no idea where we were but figured we couldn’t be too far from the road, with the smaller quarries between us and Denny’s compound. After a few minutes the trees thinned and I halted, panting. Kenzie drew up beside me as I leaned on the boat hook and fought to catch my breath. I strained to see something, anything, that might signal safety, finally gave up.

“Can you see?” I whispered hoarsely.

“I think there’s a light,” Kenzie said.

She pointed, and I could just make out a blurred point that might have been light, or maybe just a break in the trees. But I thought it was the right direction for Lucien’s house.

“All right. Here—”

I fumbled for her hand in the darkness, thrust the flashlight into it. “You take this. Stay right in front of me and don’t move too fast. Keep the light close to the ground and listen for me, I’ll tell you to put it out if something happens. Go on, I’m right behind you.”

She nodded then went on ahead, the flashlight’s beam so feeble that more than once I lost it among the wind-thrashed trees and underbrush. I followed her as best I could, lurching clumsily, my boots sliding across stones and fallen tree limbs as sleet lashed at my face. My feet were so numb it was difficult to move. I jammed the boat hook against the ground with every step, feeling my way in the dark.

There were fewer trees here but more rocks. Several times I tripped and nearly fell, catching myself with the boat hook at the last moment. The wind shifted again; the hiss of sleet against dead leaves fell silent. I breathed on my fingers, trying to warm them; then held my hand out, palm up, and felt a touch like another, colder breath. Snow.

Through the trees I saw a pale glimmer, like the moon but moving, slowly, resolutely: Kenzie.

Good girl , I thought.

I kept going, head down, when a thin wail drifted back to me. I looked back but saw nothing and staggered on toward the sound.

I found her standing at the edge of a large clearing, the flashlight turned so it blinded me.

“Put it down!”

She ignored me, just moaned and pointed the light into the clearing. I came up alongside her, grabbed the light and swept it across the ground. Snow sifted down, flakes fine as dust, but enough to leave a thin white tracery across several dark, humped forms. I handed the boat hook to Kenzie and walked toward them slowly then stopped.

Three huge turtle shells had been arranged in a rough circle. Each was so large that my hands, extended, would not have encompassed it. Instead of legs and tails, grayish shapes like driftwood protruded from the shells. Large white fragments were scattered where the heads should have been. I thought of tiny shells being crushed beneath Denny’s feet then bent and picked up a cusp of jawbone as long as my finger. Between two teeth, long white strands of hair were snagged, like fishing line.

I dropped it and stumbled to where Kenzie waited.

“What—” she began.

“Just go,” I said and pushed her. “Faster.”

We stumbled on across the island. Snow changed to rain again; the wind rose and fell. My heart felt like a fist pounding at my chest. Kenzie whimpered; I pulled her to me and held her, murmured until her voice stilled and I drew away, and we both moved on. We saw no further sign of Denny Ahearn, heard nothing but wind and then, gradually, a noise that I recognized as waves beating against rock.

“There…”

I pointed at a phantom light that seemed to waver ahead of us. I coughed, spitting blood, touched my swollen eye and winced. The light remained, and I began to run.

Ahead of us, Lucien’s house loomed into view. A single light shone from the kitchen.

“Toby’s there,” I said, but Kenzie had already raced ahead of me.

I staggered inside after her, locked the door, and turned to see Toby standing unsteadily in the living room.

“Cass?” His voice was thick. He looked down, saw the glass of Moxie on the floor, and reached for it.

“No.” I kicked the glass away. “We have to get out of here.”

I grabbed his arm and pulled him into the kitchen.

“Is that Kenzie?” He stared at her in disbelief, then at me. “What the hell happened to you?”

“Denny Ahearn happened.” I flinched as he reached to touch the corner of my eye. “Your harmless hippie friend.”

“Let’s go, let’s go.” Kenzie looked at us wild-eyed. “Why are you waiting ?”

Toby blinked, uncomprehending. “Kenzie? Were you—was she here? In this house?”

“Toby. We have to go. Now.”

He shook my hand from him. “Cass. You did this, didn’t you?” He didn’t sound angry, just confused and stoned. “You … drugged me, right? Like a roofy?”

“Yes! I’m sorry! I’m a shit! We still have to leave!”

He glanced back at Kenzie. “Jesus Christ.”

“It was bad, okay?” I said. “I’ll tell you when we’re on the boat. Right now we have to get out of here .” I pounded the door in frustration. “Can you sail that fucking boat or not?”

“I guess.” He ran a hand across his face. “I don’t feel too good, but…”

He looked at me, holding the boat hook like a lance, then at Kenzie’s bruised face. “But I guess I’ll take my chances.”

He put a hand on Kenzie’s shoulder and rested it there for a moment. “Come on. Let’s get you home.”

They went outside. I grabbed my camera, ransacked kitchen drawers till I found some dish towels. I used one to stanch my bleeding arm; with the other made a bandage for my eye. I bound it in place as best I could then hurried after them.

A stiff wind sent curtains of freezing mist up from the water’s edge. Toby and Kenzie had already dragged the dinghy into the shallows. I clambered in beside them, using the boat hook to push off as Toby rowed us out to Northern Sky .

“We’ll have to motor,” he yelled above the wind. “It’ll be rough. Kenzie, you better stay below.”

We boarded the sailboat. Toby tied off the dinghy and pulled on his foul weather gear, then turned to Kenzie.

“You wait below like I said, okay?”

She shook her head fiercely. I thought of the bound figure on the floor of that filthy shower stall. Toby started to argue, and I cut him off.

“Just give her a life vest. She’ll stay out of your way.”

Kenzie shot me a grateful look. Toby frowned.

“If you say so. Here—” He tossed a life vest at each of us. “You too, Cass. I need you to help navigate.”