A Crying Shame (138 page)

She looked at Jon, touched his arm.
Yes,” she said.

 

The Links watched with an almost satisfied look on their apelike features as the large party of men—two to a boat—motored slowly deeper into the swamp. It was slow going, for in the deep swamp there were no channel markers. Anytime fishermen would mark a channel, the markers would mysteriously vanish, or they would be moved, and someone would have a tragic boating accident.

Sometimes the bodies were never found.

Deep in the swamp, the moss hanging overhead, snakes and 'gators watching from the gloom—as well as other creatures—Joe called the flotilla to a halt. It was very quiet. Using a CB, he ordered the party to split up, approximately twenty men, ten boats to a team. Stay in touch at all times, he cautioned them. If you contact the Devil's creatures, engage them, destroy them, and remember: we are doing God's work. Move out—and good luck and good hunting.

Joe and Doug would take the last team and move deepest into the swamp, to No Name Island, that odd-shaped upthrust of land almost in the dead center of the swamp.

But Booger and Ralph had warned the Links, and they were hiding, safe deep in the caves.

Only the maddened young males were waiting.

Watching.

The first team veered off to the west, the men ever vigilant, tossing their beer cans and soft-drink bottles into the water, leaving a trail of gum wrappers and sandwich wrappers in their oily wake.

A boat in the center of one team had to pull out, its prop fouled on something. The others passed slowly by; then the dark swamp swallowed them, the only memory of their passing the drone of outboards fading into the gloom. Waves gently slapped the side of the boat, then those dissipated. The swamp grew silent, seeming to close in on the men.

Noble Rousseau looked around him at the streaks of light filtering in past the vegetation, the thick water shrubs, and the hanging moss.
Sure is quiet in here,” he observed.
You really think we'll see any of them things?”

Mule Whitney glanced at him.
I reckon. I'd sure like to have me one of them heads. I'd mount it in my den.”

Those were the last words spoken by either of them. Their boat was suddenly capsized, the men tossed into the dark waters. So abrupt was the action the men did not have time to scream. They never really saw their attackers, knew only a slow choking death as they were held underwater by clawed hands until their lungs filled and their hearts, overtaxed, burst from the strain.

As Drs. von Pappen and Lewis had discovered, when they had cut into a Link's chest, that enormous cavity held a pair of lungs almost twice the size of a human's. A full-grown Link could stay underwater for eight minutes, a minute and a half more with practice.

And waiting by the banks of small upthrusts all over the swamp, the young maddened Links crouched patiently, listening for the sounds of motors. They smiled grotesquely in anticipation.

 

Who is your doctor in New Orleans?” von Pappen asked, studying a slide containing a smear of Linda's blood. He peered more intently into the microscope, carefully adjusting the magnified beam of light.

My father was, until he died. Neither Paul nor I ever went to another doctor. Why do you ask?”

Curious, that's all. When did your father die?”

Last year. Before he died, he ... gave me instructions to see only a Dr. Reneau for medical treatment. He was even firmer with Paul about it.” She bit at her lower lip; a sign she was extremely nervous.
I never really thought about it ... but that's rather odd, isn't it?”

The German shrugged.
Not necessarily. Perhaps your father simply places a great deal of trust in the man.”

There is something wrong with my blood, isn't there?” she asked, the words coming out in a rush, her voice breaking at the last.