Dead of Eve (19 page)

I watched the activity from the rooftop of an abandoned bait shop. At least twenty crew members loaded crates, greased and tightened mechanical parts and guarded the ramps. These weren’t the typical guards who once patrolled our harbors. These enforcements carried machine guns and reeked of malice.

An hour into my watch, two crew members scuffled on the ramp. They stood toe-to-toe, blades at each other’s throats, shouting. The closest guard turned toward the brawl, raised his gun and shot both of them.

Heart racing, I climbed off the roof and crept across the pier. Smuggling inside a crate before it was loaded would be safer, right? But, as I neared the container yard, I knew it wouldn’t be easier.

Shipping containers stacked three high and five deep in a labyrinth of aisles. A fork lift hauled away crates at random to load on the ship. How the hell would I determine which ones were going? I tugged on the doors of the crates I passed. All locked.

The scuffing of feet crept around the corner, followed by the waft of cigarette smoke. Shit, shit, shit. I pressed my body between two crates, and held my breath.

Still round the corner there may wait,

A new road or a secret gate.

J. R. R. Tolkien

“It’s the fucking sea pirates, man. They’re shutting down the exports—”

A succession of coughs rent the air and thickened the phlegm-caked voice.

“Christ, smoke another one,” a second man said.

The scrape of feet paused at my alcove. My lungs screamed for oxygen.

“I think I will.” A lighter sparked. “Besides, with fucking weather blowing across the Atlantic like it’s been, this’ll be the last ship outta here till summer.”

“What are they exporting now anyway? Last five trips were mostly grain, but there ain’t any farmers left to harvest the stuff.”

“Grain ain’t why these ships are still running, my friend. Weapons are the passport. But if you still want passage to Europe, I’ll get you on. You’ll have to pay your way in sweat.” The man coughed. Their boots crunched on the gravel and began to fade. “Gotta warn you, though. The few passengers crazy enough to travel…” His voice ebbed into the night.

After a long silence, I snuck back to the Humvee.

For the next week, I watched the sailors ready the ship. Day and night, they shot, stabbed and mutilated trespassers—aphids and men trying to board the ship. At the end of their shifts, they flitted off to a dingy pub, the wharf’s only establishment. The youngest man always split from the ragtag gang and traversed in the opposite direction. That was when my plan hatched. I followed him.

His stroll took us through the seaport’s barren streets, his red
Pet Shop Boys
T-shirt like a tail light in the gloom. The dilapidated buildings sat empty, ghosts of what was once the center of commerce. He veered off into a grotto and entered a boarded up retail shop.

In the back, I found a window with an exposed corner. Inside was a bare one room shop with a mattress in the center. Next to the mattress, a meaty, bald man waited.

The Pet Shop boy I’d followed accepted a firearm from Baldy, examined it and leaned it against the bed with a nod. Then his hands went to his waistband. A couple of tugs and his jeans and briefs fell to his ankles. What the—

Baldy grabbed Pet Shop boy’s nape and shoved him to his knees on the mattress. Then he freed a revolting purple erection and mounted him.

Something dark and loathsome tunneled its way to my womb. The something that was born in my father’s basement. I raised the carbine, but couldn’t move, my eyes glued to the spectacle. The pounding hips, the fisting of hair, both mouths wide open. I felt it in my thighs as if old bruises had resurfaced.

Pet Shop boy moaned. His eyes rolled back in his head. Was that what survival looked like? Trading sex for weapons, food…safe passage on a boat?

I lowered the carbine and watched the very thing I’d planned play out before me. The men collapsed on the mattress in a tangle of sweat and limbs. A few panting breaths later, Baldy collected himself and left.

My breath rushed out in a whoosh. Could I seduce Pet Shop boy in exchange for his assistance? What if more men visited? What if I threw up during the first intimate touch?

Turn around. Go back to the Lakota. Why wouldn’t my feet move?

The hunger to go east chewed at me. I had to find out what my dreams meant, what my children were telling me, who the Drone was.

For twenty minutes I stood there, fighting it, knowing the need for truth was forcing me to take impossible risks.

Vertebra by vertebra, my backbone girded for action. I tucked my weapons under the cloak and edged to the front. Then, with the pistol aimed under the folds of fur, I tapped on the door with my free hand.

It cracked open. A shotgun barrel and two wide eyes peered out. “Whatever you want, I don’t have anything. Please leave.” His British accent was as shaky as the gun’s barrel.

I slid back my hood enough for him to see my face.

He gasped, lowering the gun as he covered his mouth. Then he looked up and down the street and ushered me inside.

That was too easy, the kind of naiveté that was fatal. The next few minutes were even easier. I stuck to the truth about crossing the Atlantic, the dangers associated with boarding the ship and my need for help.

When I finished laying out my cards, I winked at him. “Got a name, Pet Shop boy?”

He looked down at his shirt and grinned. “Ian.” Squared shoulders and a raised chin joined his smile. “I’d be happy to sneak you aboard. I’ll keep you safe, I swear it. Anything you need. Anything.”

He would do that without anything in return? I didn’t think so. The more we talked, the more he smiled. His body hovered closer. His gaze grew bolder. When a yawn broke his smile, he said, “Stay the night. Share the mattress with me?” A tide of red washed over his cheeks.

To think this shy boy was groaning under another man an hour earlier. I should’ve been repulsed, but he was surviving. Same as me.

“I’ll stay the night.” I speared him with a look that could not be misunderstood. “To sleep.”

When he nodded, I joined him on the mattress.

He pulled blanket over us. “It’s been so lonely. Fate brought you to me. Can you feel this?” His hand swept from his chest to mine.

No, but I hummed in agreement and hid my annoyance with his easily duped heart. Worse was knowing I’d break it once I exhausted his usefulness.

He touched my cheek. I gripped a dagger hilt under my cloak, but forced myself to keep it sheathed. His finger trailed along my jaw and down my neck, searing my skin with every stroke.

I rubbed my wrists. No ropes.
I
controlled what was happening. “How long is the voyage?”

“Six days. I can stow you undetected. If I lock the crate like all the others, no one will know.”

Six days. What would keep him from second-guessing our arrangement during that time away from me? Would a tease be enough to keep the boy tight-lipped? When his finger tugged at the clasp under my neck and his eyes begged mine, I knew I would make him a promise I wouldn’t keep.

He bent over me with blue eyes sparkling and scrawny legs twisting in the blankets. “You’re so lovely. I want you. Please.”

With a hand on his chest, I put distance between us. “I’m nervous about the journey, Ian. We need to plan it out. Then, when we arrive safely, you’ll have me.” I held his gaze, despite the burning need to look away.

“Eh, o-okay.” He shut his eyes, opened them. “We’ll have such a blissful life together in England. We’ll live in my childhood home. You’ll see.”

I needed his allegiance until I reached my destination. So I nodded.

He wrapped his arms around me and dragged stiff lips over mine. I lay still, mouth closed, and tried to ignore the heavy breaths pushing over my face. Eventually, he read my resistance and settled on his side, folding himself around me.

For the next four nights, we plotted my ingress onto the ship, and each night I deflected his advances with the same promise. He adopted restraint with large hopeful eyes and flushed cheeks and my guilt over it grew like an ugly thing in my gut. So, in the dead of night, I held him the way his mother might have and wished I had more to offer than an empty pledge.

Ian and I slipped through the wharf and crouched behind a forklift next to the ramp. He scanned the jetty and the ship then turned to me, eyes flashing under the moonlight. “You know where to go?”

I nodded. “Where’s the guard?”

He pointed above board, port side. The guard stumbled under the illumination of a red light, and glanced around him before tipping back a flask in his shaking hand. The vacant ship and the guard’s insobriety were just as Ian predicted.

“Ready?” Ian’s voice hitched. Whether it was excitement or nervousness, I wasn’t sure.

When I nodded again, he gripped my nape and kissed me. In that flickering moment, I imagined he was Jesse and there was nothing else around us. I returned the kiss with equal passion. My tongue matched his and the heat from it filled my chest and traveled lower. When the vee at my thighs began to pulse, I pulled away. Ian reached for me again, his breathing heavy.

I stepped back. “Six days.”

“Six days.” He walked up the ramp to the ship and approached the guard, waving a flask and a pack of cards.

The guard turned his back on my hiding place. I ran on tiptoes up the ramp. Hugging the bulkhead, I stole through the main passageway. The port side ladder rattled under my boots, a knife’s throw from where Ian shared his flask with the guard.

I froze. Don’t look at them. Keep moving. Quiet, quiet. I steadied my breathing and climbed.

The swish of the tide and the groan of steel muted my footsteps along the upper deck. Crate after crate, the doors were sealed and locked. All but the one Ian had unlocked. The white cube on the end fit the description. Closer. Closer. The label came into focus.
Canpotex, #526
. Relief rushed through me as I closed the distance and squeezed inside.

Carbine in my lap, I leaned my head against the cold metal wall and waited. Sometime later, Ian slid the lock on the container into place. No turning back. The rest was up to him.

For six days, I avoided deep sleep and the night terrors it could bring. Exhaustion took its toll. I grew restless, trapped in a metal crate with my own waste. In a couple days, my depleted supply of MREs would introduce a new level of torment.

A stampede of pounding feet and irate shouting passed under my hiding place and dwindled toward the anchor-windlass room. The crew members were brawling again.

The frost soaked through my hair. My eyes ached from the abiding strain to see amid the black. I leaned against the container’s wall, clicked on the Maglite and unfolded Joel’s letter. The flimsy paper was damp. Crumpled from numerous spreading. Creased with clammy hands. I reread his counsels for the hundredth time to remind myself why I left my beloved companions to cross the Atlantic.

I ground my teeth. Why the hell didn’t Jesse say good-bye? Was his soul as lost and battered as mine? Even so, it wasn’t an excuse to behave like an ass. Screw him.

Two short horn blasts vibrated the crate walls. A breathy mariner announced our arrival in Dover Strait. The scurrying of sailors confirmed the voyage was approaching its end.

Several hours later, the ship halted.

When the door cracked the next morning, Ian rushed me with a pent up fervor. His mouth and hands groped.

I swatted him away. “Ian, please. A bath? And a meal?”

“Yes, of course. It’s just…I missed you so much.”

“Just a little longer. Go.”

Ian distracted the same sloppy sentinel as I crept down the ramp and put two shaky feet on England’s shore. I rubbed my chest. Why wasn’t I feeling pulled in any one direction? Where was that goddamn tug when I needed it?

The harbor spread layers of parking lots to the white facade of the hovering cliffs. Redolent of brine, the crisp air nipped my nose and watered my eyes. Carbine at the ready, I ran through the pier, darting in and out of alcoves, toward the shadow of the closest bluff. One building to go, I rounded the corner.