dead reckoning.
After fifteen minutes the tenor of the whitecaps began to shift. Their height and ferocity decreased, and I knew we must be close. The throttle lever clicked into the one-quarter power slot. I turned on the spotlight attached to the side of the boat, scanned from side to side. My mouth had gone dry; my tongue stuck to gums.
“There.” Ben pointed into the murk.
My eyes barely detected wet black rock shining against the matte black background of the night. I nodded at him.
I forced the Purple to come about, drifted her through the gap in the shoreline and into a very small inlet, then dropped every anchor she had. The waves still battered us—no escaping that—but we were well-placed to weather the night. I could feel the anchors bite, and a breath escaped my lips.
I hadn’t realized I’d been holding it.
Ben didn’t need to ask. I answered before he could. “Now we wait,” I said, slipped past him, climbed shakily down the ladder and the stairs to get below. Carmen said something about taking care of our new arrivals. I mumbled my assent, pushed past her into the captain’s quarters, closed and locked the door behind me.
The bed beckoned. I swallowed a handful of ibuprofen tablets, and let the satin sheets swallow me up.
MY SLEEP WAS deep, but not restful. Dreams skittered furiously into and out of my head like tiny stones skipped along the surface of my mind, the ripples interacting, the images mixing into turbulent unreality.
Bars clamped down over my vision, and I was back in that Mexican holding cell from five years ago. My telling of the story to Carmen had left out the worst parts. I had excluded the cigarette burns and the tiny razor blades and the rubber truncheons across the soles of my feet until I cried and cried and would have told them anything.
In the dream, the jail cell was just as I remembered it except for a picture window in one wall. There had been no window in my cell, no light at all. Even if there had been, certainly there would have been a dirty alley on the other side of the brick.
I walked up to the dream window, pushed my face up against the bars. There was a meadow full of wild flowers in full bloom just outside. Snow-capped mountains loomed in the distance, and I could taste a fresh breeze.
Vise-like arms snatched me back from the window, pushed me to the floor, pinned me down. A thick cigar pressed ash-end first into my arm. I started screaming, scrambling away. Ben Hawking stood above me, a thick oily scar that he never wore in life lancing down his face and neck. He grabbed me by the wrist, pulled me to my feet, burned me again. Then he handed me the cigar, rolled up his sleeve, displaying the soft white inner side of his forearm.
He pointed at the spot. He wanted me to use it as an ashtray. He wanted me to burn him.
I puffed the cigar in my hand, sitting on the beach in Puerto Vallarta. Carmen handed me a freshly made Mai Thai. She wore a rose-colored string bikini, looked more beautiful than I had ever seen her. Horror dripped inexplicably down my spine. The Mai Thai transformed, suddenly a Bloody Mary. I looked again, and Carmen’s face had thinned until her cheekbones were blades. She grinned at me, and a red hole opened in her chest, clamped shut like a mouth, opened again and sucked wetly at the air.
Behind her sunset torpedoed the horizon, a slow-motion explosion in sickening tangerine. I watched it dance, the flames licking closer and closer until I could feel the heat on my face and hear the crackling of my fat. My face burst open; my sweet sticky juices finally ran clear.
I rolled over, clawing desperately at my face, cupping my hands to catch my insides and planning to stuff them back into my cheek. Something changed. My guts took on a dry quality. I looked down at them, and—
Sheets.
Sheets and a crumpled blanket soaked in sweat.
Carefully, I reached up to touch the hole in my face, but it had disappeared. The heat on me was real enough.
After fifteen minutes the tenor of the whitecaps began to shift. Their height and ferocity decreased, and I knew we must be close. The throttle lever clicked into the one-quarter power slot. I turned on the spotlight attached to the side of the boat, scanned from side to side. My mouth had gone dry; my tongue stuck to gums.
“There.” Ben pointed into the murk.
My eyes barely detected wet black rock shining against the matte black background of the night. I nodded at him.
I forced the Purple to come about, drifted her through the gap in the shoreline and into a very small inlet, then dropped every anchor she had. The waves still battered us—no escaping that—but we were well-placed to weather the night. I could feel the anchors bite, and a breath escaped my lips.
I hadn’t realized I’d been holding it.
Ben didn’t need to ask. I answered before he could. “Now we wait,” I said, slipped past him, climbed shakily down the ladder and the stairs to get below. Carmen said something about taking care of our new arrivals. I mumbled my assent, pushed past her into the captain’s quarters, closed and locked the door behind me.
The bed beckoned. I swallowed a handful of ibuprofen tablets, and let the satin sheets swallow me up.
MY SLEEP WAS deep, but not restful. Dreams skittered furiously into and out of my head like tiny stones skipped along the surface of my mind, the ripples interacting, the images mixing into turbulent unreality.
Bars clamped down over my vision, and I was back in that Mexican holding cell from five years ago. My telling of the story to Carmen had left out the worst parts. I had excluded the cigarette burns and the tiny razor blades and the rubber truncheons across the soles of my feet until I cried and cried and would have told them anything.
In the dream, the jail cell was just as I remembered it except for a picture window in one wall. There had been no window in my cell, no light at all. Even if there had been, certainly there would have been a dirty alley on the other side of the brick.
I walked up to the dream window, pushed my face up against the bars. There was a meadow full of wild flowers in full bloom just outside. Snow-capped mountains loomed in the distance, and I could taste a fresh breeze.
Vise-like arms snatched me back from the window, pushed me to the floor, pinned me down. A thick cigar pressed ash-end first into my arm. I started screaming, scrambling away. Ben Hawking stood above me, a thick oily scar that he never wore in life lancing down his face and neck. He grabbed me by the wrist, pulled me to my feet, burned me again. Then he handed me the cigar, rolled up his sleeve, displaying the soft white inner side of his forearm.
He pointed at the spot. He wanted me to use it as an ashtray. He wanted me to burn him.
I puffed the cigar in my hand, sitting on the beach in Puerto Vallarta. Carmen handed me a freshly made Mai Thai. She wore a rose-colored string bikini, looked more beautiful than I had ever seen her. Horror dripped inexplicably down my spine. The Mai Thai transformed, suddenly a Bloody Mary. I looked again, and Carmen’s face had thinned until her cheekbones were blades. She grinned at me, and a red hole opened in her chest, clamped shut like a mouth, opened again and sucked wetly at the air.
Behind her sunset torpedoed the horizon, a slow-motion explosion in sickening tangerine. I watched it dance, the flames licking closer and closer until I could feel the heat on my face and hear the crackling of my fat. My face burst open; my sweet sticky juices finally ran clear.
I rolled over, clawing desperately at my face, cupping my hands to catch my insides and planning to stuff them back into my cheek. Something changed. My guts took on a dry quality. I looked down at them, and—
Sheets.
Sheets and a crumpled blanket soaked in sweat.
Carefully, I reached up to touch the hole in my face, but it had disappeared. The heat on me was real enough.
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