Cook seemed to be looking at something, following it beneath the fouled water with his eyes. “There,” he said. “Right there. Look! Can you see it? Can you see it?”
They did. It was a very big fish. Sort of a dirty, almost green-brown in color. Looked to be the same species as Jaws, only far larger.
“Gotta be twenty feet at least,” Fabrini said with awe. “Maybe thirty.”
“Fucking monster.”
“Shoot it,” Menhaus raved. “Just shoot it. You gotta shoot the goddamn thing, Saks. You hear me? You gotta shoot it!”
“I bet that baby could just about swallow a man whole,” Saks said, enjoying Menhaus’ discomfort. It was the little things in life, he knew, that gave you the most pleasure.
“He may have just bumped into us,” Cook said optimistically. “It may have not been on purpose. It’s possible.”
Saks laughed. “And it’s possible your mother might have raised some children that lived, but I doubt it.”
Cook gave him an acid look that could’ve peeled paint from a door. But as quick as it had appeared, it was gone. His face became lifeless clay again. “What I’m saying, Saks, is that there’s no reason to start shooting the thing. No reason to provoke it. It might just swim off.”
“Yeah, I’ll just bet,” Fabrini said.
“It won’t swim off,” Menhaus moaned. “Oh no. Not yet. Not just yet. Not until its belly is full.”
Fabrini made like he was going to slap him. “Knock it off with that shit, you goddamn pussy.”
“He’s stressed,” Cook said, defending him.
“Fuck you, too,” Fabrini told him. “I’m sick of the lot of you.”
Saks sat back with his arms folded over his barrel chest. He was
enjoying
this immensely. Cracks were beginning to form in their ranks. Sooner or later, if this kept up, they’d be at each other’s throats. Saks couldn’t help but smile.
“Now, now, boys, all for one and one for all. Remember?” Saks chortled.
“Piss off.” Fabrini looked very much like he wanted to hurt someone.
“Five men in a boat, “ Saks said. “Five men in a boat and not a broad amongst us. Life’s a beach and then you die.”
“Life,” Fabrini said. “Shit.”
For once, Saks had to agree with him. Life was shit no matter how you sliced it or how sharp your knife was. He’d had his share of hardship. Of pain. Of deprivation. He knew about life. Life was your old man getting killed in an industrial accident when you were twelve. Life was your old lady drinking herself to death and spreading her legs for every shitbag sailor with a bottle of vodka. Life was quitting school when you were sixteen and going to work in a hellhole foundry. Life was when your kid brother got knifed for his lunch money when he was ten fucking years old. Life was joining the Navy when you were eighteen to be a Seabee because you loved that old John Wayne flick and getting your ass sent to Vietnam as a joke. Life was pushing back the jungle with dozers for a Marine compound while gooks with Russian rifles sniped at you. Life was getting killed because you were digging latrine pits or drainage ditches or laying a runway. And life was payback, too. It was opening up on a gook patrol with heavy machine guns and watching those gutless slant-eyed shits dance like marionettes with clipped strings. Yeah, that was life, baby. And life was also years later in another goddamn jungle watching the only friend you ever had get dragged downriver by a crocodile the size of a Buick. Yeah, that was life. And life was being in a boat in the middle of a godforsaken, monster-infested ocean just this side of Hell with three guys who wanted you dead and a fourth who was too crazy to care either way.
That was life and life was just fucking peachy.
Saks shook his head, clearing it all away. “Hey, Cook,” he said. “You look hot, friend. Why don’t you jump in and have a swim with that motherfuck of a fish? Take your fishing line with you, maybe you can hook that bastard, fry his ass up in a pan. Fabrini’ll help you. He’s that kind of guy.”
But they didn’t even look at him.
Just at those fish, big and small, weaving around the boat, keeping an eye out for the gigantic shadow of something much bigger.
Cook could take it.
He could take it very well, thank you. He could take every ounce of shit Saks could dish out and keep coming back for more. Nobody could take more than he could.
He could take it and take it and take it.
But give it back? No, that wasn’t his way. Unless you wanted to count that little instance of him killing his father. But he hadn’t wanted that. He just hadn’t been given a choice. He didn’t want to kill anymore than any other sane person. Just like he didn’t really want to kill Saks. But, sooner or later, there might just not be a choice in the matter. He might have to kill him.
If I get that gun, he thought icily, then maybe. Just maybe I’ll do him out of general principles.
But it wouldn’t be in cold blood.
Saks would be given the chance to act like a rational human being. And there was the difference. Saks probably wouldn’t give any of them the same chance. Because deep down, Saks was not a civilized man. He was a crazy, bloodthirsty animal who drew his only true pleasure from the suffering of others.
And there was no denying that.
The big fish hadn’t come back and slowly the tension had drained out of everyone, drop by drop. But like sponges, they were still soaked full. Only getting out of that dead zone would ever really squeeze them out. The smaller fish were still around, though not as many now. They bumped the boat and fought from time to time, but other than that, it was quiet. Real quiet.
Slowly then, the men began talking again and especially after Saks ordered Menhaus to dole out some chocolate and crackers and a few sips of water.
“What’s the first thing you’ll do when you get home, Cook?” Menhaus said, shifting effortlessly back into denial of where they were and what they were facing.
“If you get home,” Fabrini said morbidly.
Saks laughed.
“Well, I’ll probably take a hot bath and have a good dinner and sleep for three days,” he said. “That sounds good to me.”
Menhaus smiled. “That does sound good. Me, I think I’m going to collapse on the couch and let the wife pamper me for a week.”
“Shit,” Fabrini said. “You guys got no imagination. Me, I’m going to get a bottle of booze and a couple whores and have me a good old time.”
“How about you, Saks?” Menhaus asked.
Saks smiled, all teeth. “I think I’ll reserve judgment. Some of us aren’t going home again.”
Although it was hard to tell what was night and what was day and how long of a duration either might be, Gosling posted his little crew in shifts of two hours each. Their job was to keep their eyes and ears open. Not only for danger, but for signs of survivors or land.
Because he was still holding out hope that there was land here. Had to be somewhere. There had to be land under all that oily water and it only stood to reason that sooner or later, some of it had to poke up and form an island or a continent.
This is what Gosling told himself.
This is what he was clinging to.
He didn’t know what was out there and what terrible forms it might take, but if he could get some dry land under his feet, he figured that they’d all stand a chance. A chance of living and just maybe, figuring a way out of this.
And maybe his hopes of this weren’t much, but it was the only game in town so he held onto it and held onto it tight.
“You guys kill me, sitting over there like that,” Saks said in a dry, raw voice. “Not talking. Not moving. Not doing a damn thing.”
“What’s there to do?” Menhaus said. “And, besides, maybe what we ought to do is be quiet. Crycek said-”
“Fuck Crycek,” Saks said. “He’s certifiable. Ain’t you, Crycek?”
Crycek did not say anything; he stared out at the fog and the water and weeds, maybe thinking things, but not saying them.
“Leave him alone,” Cook said. “What’s he hurting? What are any of us hurting?”
But Saks didn’t comment on that. At least not with his voice. But his eyes, well, they were saying things and they were the sort of things nobody wanted to hear.
“What?” Fabrini said. “We’re not allowed to just sit now, big boss man? What the hell do you want us to do?”
Saks laughed deep in his throat and it sounded like a low rumble of thunder. “Man, you’re slick. The lot of you. Slick as fucking oil. You think I don’t know what you’re whispering about over there? What you murdering bastards are planning? I know, trust me, I know everything.”
Cook put a hand on Fabrini, to keep him calm. “We’re not planning anything, Saks. All anybody wants is to go home.”
Saks licked his lips even though his tongue was getting dry. He looked at each of them in turn. He let his eyes hang on each man for a moment or two as if to say, lying bastards, I know what you’re thinking, I know, I know …
Then he grinned.
A huge, moony grin like a cat with a mouse. He started laughing. He kept laughing for several minutes. “Stupid dumb shits,” he cackled. “Don’t you know I’ll kill you? That I’ll kill each and every one of you mutinous goddamn dogs before I’ll let you lay a hand on me? Don’t you see that?”
Jesus, he’s cracking up,
Fabrini thought nervously.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” Saks ranted.
“Come on, Saks,” Cook said. “You’re being paranoid. Quit wasting your energy with this. For God’s sake, look where we are and what we’re facing … how can you act like this?”
“He’s right,” Menhaus said quietly. “We have to pull together.”
Saks had a confused, dopey smile on his face. He was humoring the lot of them.
Sure, guys, pull together. Let’s all pull together. All for one and one for all, eh? That’ll come in handy when you shitrats jump me and throw me to the damn fishies. Oh, and then you’ll laugh, you’ll laugh and laugh, won’t you?
Cook watched him and didn’t like what he saw. “Easy,” he said.
Saks kept shifting in his seat restively like there were splinters in his ass. “You guys better start using your heads cause old Saks is in charge and he’s a hard master. Goddamn, yes.”
“Please, Saks,” Menhaus said. “Just relax.”
Saks started laughing again. But there was even less humor in that laughter now than there was before. It was more like an insane cackling, rising up high and hollow like dead laughter in an empty room before becoming a low, evil chuckle. “You bastards. You assholes. You fucking shitbugs,” he said. “How stupid do you think I am? Don’t you see that I’m on to you? That I know your game? You’re not waiting for dark anymore, you’re just waiting for an opportunity, any opportunity. Any chance you can get to kill me. Oh, I see it in your eyes. I see it just fine.”
Cook and Fabrini looked at each other. Their eyes said volumes. Saks was starting to crack and there was no denying it any longer. The man was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
Menhaus studied his feet for a time, then said, “Why should we kill you, Saks? Christ, we need you. You’re the only one who can pull us through this. You’re the only guy here who has any sea experience. If you can’t save our asses, nobody can.”
“Yeah,” Saks said.
Something like that, coming from anyone but Menhaus, would have been greeted with a hateful outburst. But there was something harmless about Menhaus. Something almost brotherly. It was hard to imagine the big jolly man hurting anything or anyone. He seemed incapable. The sort of guy who was a sucker for kids and small animals.
Menhaus saw his opening and went for it. “I’m not a violent man, Saks. I’ve lost just about every fight I’ve ever been in. And most of ‘em I ran away from. It’s just not in me to hurt anyone. I don’t have what it takes. So when I tell you that I wouldn’t let these guys hurt you, you can believe me. If it comes down to that, I’ll warn you. And I’ll stand by you.”
Fabrini, whose brain worked very simply, looked like he’d been slapped. “What are you, Menhaus? Fucking crazy? This guy’s a psycho.”
“Shut the fuck up, Fabrini, or I swear to God I’ll kill you,” Saks snapped, his voice hot and electric.
Tendons strained in his neck when he said this. His eyes bulged. A vein throbbed at his temple. His face was the color of blood. He wasn’t fooling around and they all saw it now.
“What I said is-” Menhaus began, trying to undo the damage.
“What you said I want to believe,” Saks told him. “You don’t know how much I want to believe that. But I don’t know. I just don’t know. You’re either real sincere or real slick. I don’t know which.”
Menhaus was breathing heavy now. “I meant it, Saks. I meant every word.”
Saks stared him down. Maybe looking for something that would tell him it was all a lie. He found nothing.
“If you mean that,” Saks said, “then come over here with me.”
George watched that dead, misting sea and it almost felt like it watched him, too. You watched that graveyard expanse long enough, you started thinking of the sea as more than a natural force but as a living, breathing entity. Something sentient and calculating, a huge evil intelligence that plotted your death with inhuman patience.
And when you were talking about the sea George was watching, those ideas came to you real easy.
Like someone or something wants me to think that.
But he wasn’t going back there again.
That was Fog-Devil territory.
So George kept his mind busy by thinking of food, of drinks. Cigarettes. He was pretty sure he would’ve sold his soul for a can of beer.
He kept watching the sea and that’s when he saw … well, he didn’t know exactly
what
he was seeing. Something in the fog. Nothing gigantic or especially threatening this time, just, well a shadow or shape flitting around in the mist.
He looked and it was gone. But it had been there. Something had been there.
George swallowed, figured he was hallucinating. It wouldn’t have been the first time. You stared into that dirty fog long enough, you could see just about anything. Some things you wanted to see and others you’d rather not look upon. It was the nature of the fog, always slowing drifting and churning like the steam coming off a bubbling pot, but slower and thicker and almost curdled-looking.