Michael Koryta - Last Words

So bleed, then, and keep bleeding. Leave a mark on this world.

The first thing he was aware of was pain in his shoulders. The headache came second, and then a sense of motion. Mark opened his eyes and saw corrugated metal covered with a thin layer of crimson-tinted water. Snowmelt and blood.

The motion was the van’s — he could feel it swaying as it took curves — and the source of the headache was obvious, but the shoulder pain seemed fixable, the product of awkward positioning. It was only when he tried to shift that position that he felt the rope binding his wrists.

Someone reached out, put a gloved hand against the back of his neck, and said, “Stay down.”

He didn’t need that advice; he wasn’t going anywhere. The van bumped over something, then slowed, and a voice said, “Hood,” and Mark was lifted and a bag was jerked over his head. The fabric was coarse. Something was looped around his throat and pulled tight enough to cinch the bag in place.

Returning the favor, he thought, remembering the look in Ridley’s eyes when Mark had dropped that noose over him.

The bag smelled of something vaguely familiar, but Mark couldn’t place it. An earthy, pungent smell. So familiar, and yet he couldn’t locate the source in a mind that was swimming with pain and disorientation.

The van came to a stop and he heard the back doors open, and a rush of frigid air hit him. He was grabbed by his feet and pulled and then hands caught him under his armpits and lifted him easily, as if he were a child. His feet landed on uneven ground and he slipped and would have fallen if the hands hadn’t kept him upright. Nobody said a word. The only sounds were men breathing and a keening wind. It was unbelievably cold.

“Move those feet, bud. We’re walking.”

He did as instructed, moving his feet, although they weren’t particularly cooperative. He was being held by the back now; someone had a fistful of his shirt. They were walking into the wind, and he began to shiver. He wasn’t sure how far they’d gone — it felt like a long walk but probably wasn’t — when the same voice that had ordered the hood spoke again.

“That’s good. You’re all done. I’ve got it.”

Mark’s shirt was released then, and he stood alone, shivering, hands bound and the bag — What was that damn smell? — over his head.

“Let’s get to it,” Mark said.

“You in a hurry?”

Mark tried to identify some distinct quality in the voice. There wasn’t much of one, though. A man’s voice, not particularly high or deep, with just a trace of the South to it. Not the real South, not a drawl like Jeff London’s, but a hint of hill country.

“I’m cold,” Mark said.

“Not dressed for the weather. Should be glad you have that hood on. Cuts the wind.”

“Let’s get to it,” Mark said again.

“You in a rush to die, boy?”

“That’s what’s going to happen?”

The answer didn’t come in words. Something cold and sharp touched the base of his neck, just below the hood. The point of a knife, applied with just enough pressure to break the skin. A trickle of blood began to work its way down Mark’s collarbone.

“Still in a hurry?”

Mark didn’t answer. The point of the knife moved from Mark’s collarbone and sliced down. He could hear his shirt ripping. With his shirt cut, the wind found bare flesh. The blood felt very warm.

He was pulled forward, and his feet struck something unexpected. The snow was still there but the surface beneath was no longer frozen earth. Whatever it was flexed and bowed as if it was not designed to hold human weight. He shuffled forward, trying not to lift his feet, overwhelmed by the odd sensation that he was walking up and into thin air and that ahead of him the surface would vanish and he would plummet down. Like walking a plank.

“Stop there.”

Mark was happy to listen to that, because whatever he was standing on seemed progressively weaker, each step producing more give. There were metallic sounds that he couldn’t identify and then the hand was back on him and the voice said, “Big step now.”

Mark tried to take a big step but his foot found nothing but air and he started to fall and the other man caught him and pulled him forward with an effort and Mark fell to his knees on a floor. Out of the snow now but still very cold.

“Who brought you here?” the voice said.

“I’m going to tell you the truth,” Mark said.

That provoked a low, dark laugh. “I think that’s the way for you to do it, yeah.”

“But you’re not going to like it much, I’ll tell you that now.”

“Why don’t you tell me who brought you to town instead?”

“The same son of a bitch who sent you after me. So let’s not waste our time pretending we’re confused about that. Ridley called me, and Ridley called you, but only one of us is actually working for him.”

“Thought you were here for Sarah Martin, not Ridley Barnes.”

“I don’t care about Sarah Martin.”

“That’s disappointing to hear from a detective. You’re supposed to care. You’re supposed to solve the thing. Think you’ll be able to do that?”

“It’s not going real well to this point.”

“Don’t care about Sarah, huh? Don’t like Ridley and don’t care about Sarah. What in the hell do you want in this town, then?”

“Not a damn thing. I just want to go home.”

“Little late for that.”

There was a pause, a rustling sound, and then another stab of the knife, this time high on his arm, in the flesh of his biceps. Wait. No, that wasn’t the knife. It was thinner and sharper and went too deep with too little pain.

Mark got it then, understood from touch what he could not see, and said, “What did you just put in me?”

There was no answer. The needle found him again, the other arm this time, and though he tried to twist away from it, he succeeded only in falling backward as an unknown chemical joined his bloodstream, slipping through his body and carrying a black fog with it.

The black fog never lifted, but it had shades. For a time Mark thought he was underwater, in the dim depths. He was certain he could see a familiar reef below, and he knew exactly where he was: Saba National Marine Park. Lauren had reached the reef first — she always did, she moved like an eel. She had beaten him there, and that meant she was just to his left. He turned to his left then, eager to see her, and the water rippled like a curtain, and her face was there but hard to see. There was snow in the water now, falling fast and hard between them. He’d never seen snow underwater before. It was beautiful. Lauren was smiling at it, reaching out to catch one of the flakes in her palm, and suddenly Mark felt panic rising, because Lauren didn’t know anything about snow, she’d always lived among palm trees and warm sunsets and blue waters and she was not prepared for the dangers that lurked in harsh winters. That was his fault. He had not done enough to prepare her for that because she was never supposed to see it.

Mark said, “Baby, be careful,” and then something slapped him in the face and knocked the next words aside. He’d meant to ask her a question, but he couldn’t recall it now, and the snow was falling faster and the curtain of water was rippling like laundry on the line, and Lauren faded out of sight behind it all. Mark blinked and squinted and tried to find her but the snow was gone and then the water went with it.

He’d come to the surface.

No, that wasn’t right. He’d never left the surface. His feet were on the ground and his ass was on a chair. These things were real, tangible. It was as dim here as it had been underwater. Some source of light was coming from behind him, painting shadows on a wall of boards in front of him. There was something wrong with the boards. The boards were melting. He tried hard to think of what that might mean, and then he thought Fire and fear overwhelmed him, because he knew that if there was a fire then he had to run, but he couldn’t even get out of that chair.