Emergency sprinkler system.
Psycho Doc was flooding the magazine.
To drown him? Flush him out?
Either way, he was dead.
“A little unsteady on your feet there. Have you been drinking, F/X?”
The faint echo gave the voice a ghostly quality, as if it were coming from inside his head.
Fighting back the nausea, Finn pulled a small flare from its containment. Couldn’t fire it from here, too far to the opening. He’d only blast the inside of the magazine.
“Ha-ha, kidding. I know you’re not a drinker. No, you’re a claustrophobe, aren’t you, F/X?”
He strapped the flare to his side and began to climb.
Focus on the breath. In through nostrils, four, five…
“My gosh, the willpower it must have taken, plowing through all those training scenarios, keeping your little secret. But you still can’t stand enclosed spaces, can you? That’s why you’re always out on the sponsons and catwalks and not in your little bedchamber.”
Finn was nearly halfway up now. A little farther and he’d take the shot. At worst it would distract the target, buy him time to scuttle up the ladder and out.
“I put something in your little bedchamber today, F/X. A green jersey and goggles. They’d look good on you. Make you look a little like, I don’t know…a pollywog?”
Breathe out through pursed lips, pause, in through nostrils—
The voice started softly chanting.
“Pol-ly-wog…Pol-ly-wog…Pol-ly-wog…”
Finn froze.
Felt the color drain from his face, his jaw clench.
He scrabbled at the flare and pulled it free—
The voice picked up in pace and volume.
“Pol-ly-wog! Pol-ly-wog! Pol-ly-WOG! Pol-ly-WOG!”
His hands went numb and he felt himself starting to slip—the flare fell from his fingers, clattering down the ladder.
“Pol-ly-WOG! Pol-ly-WOG!!”
Finn jammed his arms and now useless hands through the rungs to hold him in place, his body dangling from the ladder like a broken shutter. His throat locked.
“Pol-ly-WOG! Pol-ly-WOG!”
He felt water licking at the soles of his feet, tickling his ankles.
“I know what happened in the gun closet that day, F/X, the day that made you what you are.
“Ray never shot himself, did he. When that handgun went off, it wasn’t in his hand, the way everyone assumed.
“It was in yours.”
A billion wriggling tadpoles came swarming up through the water, up through his gut, into his throat, all of them shrieking in unison with that leering voice…
Pol-ly-wog! Pol-ly-wog!
“You shot him.”
POL-LY-WOG!! POL-LY-WOG!!
“You killed your brother, F/X.”
POL-LY-WOG!!! POL-LY-WOG!!!
“You killed Ray.”