Nineteen

As he fell he thought about the town, scrolling through the dreary scenarios that flashed through his mind: the Arteses’ fish stand, how it was all packed up and headed out of town in the morning, along with his good friend. They were towing it to California the next day and staying with relatives there until the wildfire subsided.

As for Shay, she was headed for Alaska with her family. They had a vacation home there by the sea.

As for him, his thoughts ranged from his father to his mother, to the cabin, the empire he built: the cutting table, the generator, the freezer full of Ambercod—this hidden hole had bestowed everything on him. But before the week would be up, it would burn, and with it, the planks of the cabin would turn to ash, revealing the hole for the entire world to see.

He closed his eyes and unclenched his hands, darting down, knowing this was surely his last trip through the Earth. He spread his fingers and felt the hot rush of air on his face, pointing his body downward like an arrow.

Like Superman.

When he emerged from the hole on the other side, he stepped into the cool ocean air into a beautiful, serene night, and the first thing he noticed was the black man’s machine gun still glimmering in the moonlight, just beside his foot. He gave it a nudge with his shoe, lifting it a tad from its burial in the coarse, crusty sand, studying it solemnly in the moonlight.

Why not?

He bent over and lifted it up, then pointed it at the sea. He’d never shot a machine gun before, let alone even held one. It was heavy, and it was sinister. Aiming it at the horizon, he closed his eyes and pulled the trigger, expecting all chaos to break loose.

*Click*

But nothing happened.

It didn’t even work!

Must have been damaged by the sea, he thought, but then he checked by the trigger and noticed the safety was still on.

“Ah well,” he muttered with a sigh. “Probably just the same.” In a depressed haze, he dropped the gun to his feet and stepped over it, continuing his push down to the mesmerizing seashore.

Plopping down to the damp beach, he gazed into the darkness of afar and felt the continuous wind on his face. He kicked off his shoes and then lay back, staring absently at the beautiful, starry sky.

Was his father still alive? He hoped so. Where would he be hiding? What sort of quick thinking was he doing to keep everybody alive?

Tears formed. He tried to fight them off but there were too many to withstand. Waves of sadness rocked his body as a carousel of images paraded through his mind: his mother’s, his father’s, Shay’s, Flounder’s—all the people he loved and cared for, he tried not to weep for them all. He tried, but he failed.

As the tears streamed down his face, and as he closed his eyes, listening to the symphony of the rippling waves, he soon fell into a deep, sound sleep.

In moments, he was dreaming.

In the dream, his father drove a boat. It was a beautiful day at sea, and the two were anchored off some giant oil rig somewhere near the shores of South Louisiana, where they had fished before. His father was reeling in big fish after big fish, as Edgar cheered him on.

But then, suddenly, for some strange reason, Edgar noticed his father stop reeling. He looked over at him, and he appeared to be, in all of an instant, somewhat somber and downtrodden now, his eyes appearing glassy and dark, almost alien-like—almost possessed.

“Dad?” asked Edgar. “Are you OK?”

His dad suddenly didn’t look anything like himself at all.

Suddenly the small boat was adrift in the heavy breeze as his father took his hands off the wheel. With each moment, it moved further away from the coral-covered legs of the rig.

Edgar’s foot, dangling over the side of the boat, felt the warm water below. That’s when his father began to stare up at the clear blue sky.

“What’s wrong, Dad?” Edgar asked again. “Is everything OK?” His father said nothing, did nothing. He did not even look at Edgar.

Edgar put down his pole and stared worriedly at his father.

“Dad, is everything OK?” 

“Son,” sang his father, in a creepy, monk-like voice, almost like the monotone drawl of a zombie. “I ask you to consider this sea before you.” He nodded at the waters. “This is to be burned. I must burn it, for the cleansing.”

“Burn? You must burn what?” said Edgar, terribly frightened, looking out to sea. When he did, to his horror, he realized the boat was drifting on a thick, smelly, sludgy dark sheen.

It was oil. An oil spill.

As far as Edgar could see, there was nothing but a corrosive oil, the blackness engulfing them. With it, all manner of dead Ambercod bobbed up everywhere—all of them belly up and rotting.

“Buuuurrrnnnn,” chanted his father, lifting a large flare gun from his side, pointing it at the sea.

“No!!” Edgar screamed. “Dad! Don’t!”

“We must,” his father answered. “We must make a lake of fire. For the cleansing!”

“Noooo!” shouted Edgar, but suddenly, it was too late. His dad had pulled the trigger. The flare gun barked upward and a glowing, fiery thud dove into the sea. Instantly the ocean hissed and raged with a grand wall of fire, consuming Edgar’s leg that was still dangling from the boat. Fire seared like acid all the way up to his thigh, scalding him, torturing him—and although he screamed no sound emerged. His breath had been taken away by the pain. He reached out and felt for his thigh, patting it down, trying to put out the fire, but the fire only burned his hands. He was only left to whimper in agony and let it burn.

“Dear Lord,” prayed his father, oblivious to Edgar’s suffering, his head upraised to the churning clouds, his inexplicable glowing red eyes turned skyward in demonic reverence, “Please bless this cleansing.”

“Daaaaaad!” screamed Edgar. “You’re hurting me!!”

Flopping on the bottom of the boat alongside a heap of dead Ambercod, all covered in thick, black oil, Edgar squirmed in pain.

“It’s just a leg,” said the evil rendition of his father. “It is no sacrifice whatsoever in comparison to all the sins you’ve committed . . .”

That’s when Edgar woke up in a fit, but safely back on the island. For a moment, he thought he was OK, gasping at the beach air convulsing with the horror of his dream. But then, reaching down to his absolute and vexing dismay, he realized his leg was still on fire.

And so were his hands!

Was it another dream? A dream inside a dream? Kicking his leg, lifting it frantically from shore, he leapt to his feet like a spring, screaming in pain. Each time he reached for his leg his hands were electrified by another blast of cool, strange, electrification. Shaking his leg like a seizure now, he screamed again, turning painful circles in the sand and trying to shake off the fire. Only when he looked down and forced himself to endure the pain did he realize what was hurting him: a large, foreign-looking jellyfish that had wrapped itself around him in the night as he slept, washed in by the high tide. Through blurry eyes, Edgar glanced out across the sea and in the bright moonlight he noticed a million of them congregated by the shore of his island: an army of huge, neon-glowing jellyfish, illuminated by the brilliant white light, all huddled around the island in a spawning session.

Dizzy with pain, groaning in abject agony, backing away from shore, he bent over and defied his throbbing hands, pulling the tentacle away from his leg until finally, mercifully, the blob jiggled off and fell to the sand. Edgar stared down at it, wide-eyed in the nocturnal glow staggering backward toward the hole with an injured whimper. His leg was now fiery red, covered in furious, sinister-looking white blisters that speckled across his thigh in a single tentacle’s path. It did not look good. It was like a deadly tattoo.

After years on the ocean, Edgar knew that with such stings you had to get to the hospital quick, but being on the Indian Ocean as he was, there wasn’t a hospital around. Groaning in pain, mustering up all the strength he had in him, he limped to the hole and toppled over like a wounded soldier, dropping to his death. Before he could even pass the Earth’s crust, he slipped into an almost instant delirium from the venom that now coursed through his veins like battery acid.

At the Earth’s core, still trying to keep himself above the tide of consciousness, he knew if he missed the other side of the world it would mean another long fall, which would probably mean his death, with a jellyfish sting this severe. Blasting through the earth, he shined the wound with the flashlight and noticed his thigh was swelling, the blisters rising now, bubbling sinisterly. Dying slowly from a jellyfish sting and from thirst floating in the middle of the world: this was no way to go. He must stay awake.

He must.

__________

Surfacing in the cabin, straining to climb out with his leg almost doubling in size, pulsating right along with his panicked heart, each throb a hammer into his thigh, he stumbled out and moved over to the workstation to retrieve a bottle of Bragg’s Apple Cider Vinegar. It was something he used to clean the fishy smell off his hands after cleaning fish.

Back in Alabama, vinegar was readily available on beaches everywhere as the number one administrant for jellyfish stings. So, he looked down at the gnarly welt on his leg and whimpered. It looked something like being attacked by a wolverine. He closed his eyes and poured the entire bottle of vinegar onto the sting, which both cooled and burned him at the same time.

“Dang,” he uttered, trembling.

Then, pulling the bike from the corner of the room, he walked it out to the hillside and down to the brook, then up the hill to the trail. On level ground, he lifted his injured leg up and tried to mount the bike. It hurt so bad, like it might just split in two.

With his aching leg draped over the bike, he rested his swelling foot upon the pedal and took a rest.

Then, skidding down the hills, moaning with each bump, he steadied himself and made for Mount Lanier, forcing his bum leg to keep pushing the pedal down, no matter how bad it screamed at him. After all, it was only his life that was at stake.

Occasionally, when his leg would brush the frame of the bike, he quavered with agony, nearly toppling over.

Halfway to town, he finally lost steam. His vision blurring and his systems malfunctioning, his head throbbing wildly and his heart thumping erratically, he toppled over a curbside in the late evening sun, his cargo trailer crashing down on him mercilessly. He was two miles from Sunnyslope Hospital. Just two miles.

He closed his eyes for a moment and almost gave in to the fainting, thinking it might be the end, but who cared?

“Hey, bud?” came a voice from the street. “You OK?”

Edgar, forcing open his eyelids, gazed out. In an idling red sportscar by the curb, there was an older boy watching him—Edgar recognized the guy from school—a senior.

“No, man,” muttered Edgar, squinting. “I mean yeah, I’ll be OK.” Just above the sports car, the street sign said: Whippoorwill Court.

I live on Cherry Blossom Lane, Van Rossum had told him.

Cherry Blossom Lane was just two streets away.

“Thank you,” said Edgar, struggling to his feet and lifting his bike. “I’m OK.” The boy watched him with concern as Edgar gritted his teeth and climbed back on, forcing himself to pedal away and tackle the last remaining distance to Van Rossum’s house, steering himself through one last neighborhood and street.

In the delirium, everything seemed like a dream now—like a cartoon or a video game—but a terrible one, like the one he’d had about his demonlike father. Objects doubled, cars honked and screeched, slamming on brakes.

“Sorry!” called Edgar, waving them around.

Somehow, he looked up and saw the sign: Cherry Blossom Lane. He had made it! There, at the end of the road, Edgar crashed the bike into the lawn of the last house on the left, landing with a massive grunt, toppling into the brittle shrubbery. Standing, praying somebody would be home, he limped to the door and pounded it with a fist, leaning on the doorframe for support while trying to maintain consciousness.

Miraculously, Dr. Van Rossum was there, looking down on him like an angel.

“Edgar?” exclaimed the man, yanking open the glass door. “What has happened?” Like jelly Edgar slumped inside the threshold of the house, then collapsed onto the hardwood floor like the dead. Turning, looking up at his teacher, he pointed to his leg.

“Jellyfish,” he muttered.

“Loretta!” shouted Van Rossum over his shoulder. “Quick! Call an ambulance!”

Then, Van Rossum bent down to study Edgar’s leg.

“Jellyfish . . .” repeated Edgar. “Indian Ocean. Imdiam Oshtean . . .” and suddenly, his eyes rolled back into his head and he was gone.

Back in the fishing boat, back near the oil rig in south Louisiana, deep in another dream, the murky black water still surrounded him and stretched all the way to the horizon. It was just as thick, and still full of drifting carcasses. Edgar noticed a few dolphins now and even a sperm whale, all belly up from the sludge; but this time, there was no fire, nor any signs of his demon father, which relieved him. This time, it was only him and the thick black sea, nothing more, as his boat drifted aimlessly among the carrion, with no type of paddle or rudder to move him around.

Feeling a sense of urgency, Edgar looked down and noticed a rather large hole in the bottom of the boat, a big one, actually, that was letting in all the sludge. He leapt to his feet and dove for it, fretting as the corrosive sludge leaked unabatedly in, the liquid rising quickly to his feet and then up to his calves.

He leapt to the side of the boat and began to paddle the vessel frantically with his bare hands, trying to make progress to the nearest oil rig, but quickly, he discovered that it was useless. The boat was too big and his hands were too small.

Out of reach from the barnacled legs of the rig, Edgar’s tiny, wounded little vessel began to surrender itself to the rotting, oil-soaked sea.

And with it, he slipped down, too.

Into blackness.