Tim Curran - Dead Sea

And if he won… look out.

Cook wasn’t exactly sure when it had started coming apart for him. Maybe it had been coming on for a long time and maybe what they’d found in the other lifeboat had just kicked it into high gear. Because he was having trouble with that, having trouble with what he’d seen.

Blood. Those weeds had been full of blood. They’d been milking the poor bastard lying in the bottom. He was unconscious and beyond pain, but what if he was paralyzed or something? What if he had known what was happening, but could do nothing to prevent it? Was just too weak? Jesus, how long could the mind string itself together when parasitic weeds were sucking the blood out of you?

And I left him there, Cook thought, just angry and guilty and full of wild, self-defeating things he could not name. I left that poor bastard there… to be drained to a husk…

What kind of death was that? By the look of the guy, he’d probably already lost too much blood. Even if they cut him loose, he would never wake up. Cook tried to tell himself that, but it did not make him feel better. Because the least he could have done was to have killed the guy. Put a bullet in his head or drawn a knife across his throat… something.

But he hadn’t.

He hadn’t done a damn thing.

When he’d sliced through those damn weeds… and they’d bled, squirted hot blood over his hands… well, it had just been too much. And when he’d pulled those little suckers off the guy’s throat, that’s when things had snapped for him. The grim and shocking realization that those plants fed on blood, were designed by nature to leech things… it was just too much.

Even now, he could still feel the greasy flesh of those plants, the blood on his hands.

Saks was watching him.

Cook did not turn, did not have to. He could feel that hungry gaze on him, those probing eyes. Oh, yes, he could feel them just fine. Searching for a sign of weakness, something to take advantage of, to use and abuse.

Cook, feeling a raw heat in his belly, turned around and sure enough Saks was giving him the eye, that cocky grin on his face.

“What the hell are you looking at?”

That grin, growing, knowing it was on to something here. “What’s the matter, Cook? You seem a little touchy? Something eating you?”

“What could be eating me, Saks?”

“I don’t know, but something is. Playing the big boss man too much for you?”

Cook felt his lower lip tremble. “It’s too much for anyone, isn’t it?”

“Poor Cook. He just bit off more than he could chew.” That grin was so big now it was like a knife cut in Saks’s face. “Some guys just aren’t up to it, Cook. Some guys just don’t have it. And you, my friend, you don’t have it.”

“Well, maybe not, Saks, but who else is there?”

Saks shrugged. “Let me think. How about you, Fabrini? You ready to take charge here?”

Fabrini just looked from him to Cook dumbly, an almost bovine emptiness in his eyes. “No… no, I don’t want no part of it.”

Saks shrugged again. “Well, there’s always Menhaus. He’s a true pillar of fucking strength. And Crycek? Sure, maybe a crazy situation needs a crazy leader.”

Crycek ignored him.

Cook tried to control his breathing, felt like he was about to start hyperventilating. “Which leaves who? You, Saks? You?” Cook started laughing. “Saks, no offense, but putting you in charge is like putting a child molester in charge of a little boy’s school.”

“Fuck you mean by that?”

“I mean, you’re a goddamn zero. I mean you don’t have the guts for the job. Yeah, I’ve been watching you, Saks, and when the shit gets deep, you’re the first to run. All you care about is your own skin. You can play tough all you want, you can run those fucking intimidation games of yours until the cows come home, but it won’t change the fact… you’re weak. Inside, you’re soft and gutless and spineless and-”

“You shut your goddamn mouth!” Saks cried out, his voice echoing out through the fog.

Ah, now who was pushing whose buttons?

“Take it easy, Saks,” Cook said, feeling calm now. “We all know it, we all know you aren’t fit to run a fucking hot dog stand. But you know what? It always amazes me how gutless, stupid fucks like you always end up in charge. Just blows me away. But, you know what they say, shit always floats to the top.”

Well, there it was.

Saks’s invitation to take up his knife, lunge and cut. And he’d probably make a good show of it before Cook put a bullet in him.

Saks just sat there, eyes narrowed and filled with hate. But that’s all he really did. He sat there and stewed and made with the hard eyes. All bluster and blow, no thunder to go with it.

Fabrini chuckled. “Boy, you pegged old Saksy, Cook. You sure as hell did. Anybody smell something? I think Saks just shit his pants.”

Saks had his knife out then.

Maybe he could take it from Cook, but not Fabrini. No way. Not ever. He brought that knife out and his eyes went black and Fabrini brought his out and here it came, all those boiling black poisons were finally being lanced and Menhaus and Crycek weren’t about to get in the way and, the thing was, neither was Cook.

Not this time.

He had murder on his mind. As they said, it only took one rotten apple to ruin the bunch and Saks was rotten, all right. Just dirty and dark and seething to his core like something that needed to be cut out before it infected the whole body. So Cook was not going to intervene, he was going to let Fabrini kill him and if he didn’t, Cook was going to. Because he couldn’t go on day after day in this nightmare world with that asshole picking at everyone.

“Go ahead, Fabrini,” Cook said, his voice low and even. “Kill that useless fucking prick. You’ve got my blessing.”

That made Fabrini smile.

Something like doubt crossed Saks’s face. See, this wasn’t how it worked. Cook was the voice of reason and he was supposed to stop this, get in the middle of them, cool heads prevailing and all that. But Cook wanted it to happen. Really wanted it and that was the last thing old tough guy Saks expected. He was no stranger to violence. He did not back down easily… particularly when the odds were in his favor. He had been in knife fights before, but what he wasn’t liking was that Fabrini was young and strong and muscular. Had been pushed too far now and was beyond all the societal taboos ingrained in him that had stopped him before. He was capable of murder now and Saks knew it.

Fabrini was on his feet, the lifeboat rocking.

Saks stood up, knowing it was coming now.

“Bring it on, you faggot,” he said.

And Fabrini started to move, down low and stalking, knowing he had physical advantages here. Maybe Saks was experienced at this sort of thing, but he was pushing sixty, going to fat, and his glory days on the docks and construction gangs were far behind him now.

“What’s that?” Menhaus said. “Over there… what the hell is that?”

Saks did not look, but the others did. Fabrini included.

There was something there. Something that looked pretty much like a large patch of weed that had broken loose and was drifting… drifting right toward the lifeboat.

“Weeds,” Cook said. “Weeds.”

But even as the words fell from his lips, he wasn’t so sure. Weeds? No, this did not look like a harmless patch of weeds, in fact, Cook was thinking it looked like… well, it looked like a head of hair just beneath the surface. That was crazy bullshit, but that’s what he thought momentarily. Like the gargantuan head of a woman, her hair fanning out in every direction. If it was just weeds, then it was different weeds. For these were not the average creepers and stalks, leafy branches like kelp that made up the weed banks. No these hairs or tendrils or whatever in the Christ they were, were fine, were wire-thin and as that patch got closer to the boat, Cook was thinking that they looked much like waterlogged pasta, thin and reedy and pale.