No Cherubs for Melanie (35 page)

He had a nagging feeling she was going to get away with it again, her conscience salved by the fact that she didn't actually kill him. Unlike her mother, there was no need to put him out of his misery. How strange, he pondered, that only two weeks ago he was seriously considering that suicide might be the only alternative to life
without Sarah, and now he had got over her, ironically thanks to Margaret, he wanted to live more than ever.

Saturday was lost to a delirium of frightening hallucinations and terrifying nightmares. As a finale, an aberrant vision of Sarah swooped down into the pit sometime during the evening, flying in on plucked wings. She was carrying Samantha — baby Samantha.

“Why did you leave me, David?” she asked accusingly.

Had he left her, he wondered, his lightheaded mind struggling to make sense. “I didn't want to, didn't mean to… When did I leave you?”

“You left me with the baby,” she said, holding Sam out to him.

He looked at the baby and saw a naked little girl — Samantha, his little girl. But she had grown. Still a baby, she had real little beasts with tiny pert nipples. He reached out to touch them but the flesh dissolved and he found himself touching the bare ribs. His clothes were awash with perspiration. His body and mind were on fire.

“Samantha,” he called, holding out his hands, beckoning her to him.

“Come to Daddy, Samantha.”

Sarah dragged her away. “This is George's little girl.”

“George's daughter? No that's impossible, it's Samantha.”

“Look,” she said, spinning her around. “It's George's girl.”

He looked. She was right, it wasn't Samantha, he knew what Samantha looked like, and this naked little girl was faceless. Then it dawned on him as he looked at the faceless girl: it was Melanie.

“It's Melanie,” he said, but Sarah laughed at him.

“Wrong again, David,” she cackled. “You don't know one girl from another.”

“Stop this. Stop this,” he shouted, and Sarah disappeared.

Relieved, he looked down, but the faceless baby was still there. “Sarah,” he called. “Sarah, you've forgotten the baby.”

Sarah's voice drifted out of the ether. “You look after her. It's your turn. It's time you did your share.”

Panicking, he picked up the baby, expecting to see Melanie. But it was Margaret. Margaret, who hadn't had a face when Melanie died. Margaret, her face unseen at Melanie's inquest and absent from her little sister's funeral. And Margaret, whose guilty, deformed little face had never been put into the frame of her moth-er's death. Melanie's face may have been missing from her sister's photographs, but it was Margaret's face that had been hidden from the real world.

Reaching out to feel the blank screen that substituted for the face of the child in his arms, his fingers sank into bland, gelatinous flesh. He touched off a ripple that expanded slowly outward, like the effect of a stone dropped into a pool. But not just any pool. He did not need to search his mind to know which pool.

“I'm sorry, Melanie,” he said, though no one would ever hear. But the faceless child heard, and the ripples stopped expanding and contracted, smaller, smaller, and smaller until they formed a perfect pair of rose-bud lips.

“Help,” whispered the lips.

He choked himself awake, his thirst-swollen tongue filling his mouth, his sweat-soaked body limp from fever.

“Water… Water,” he muttered, but he had no water and there was no one to hear his pleas. He started sinking back, saw Melanie's face swimming back into view and forced open his eyes, desperate to make the images
disappear. But Sarah was still there in front of him, although he knew she wasn't real. “What happened to Samantha?” he asked.

“Samantha's gone,” Sarah replied and slowly evaporated until only her mouth was left. Then her lips puckered into a goodbye kiss and vanished into the darkest corner of the pit.

It was Sunday and the island woke to the sound of voices. The world had returned, although Bliss, exhausted by fever, slumbered on the verge of unconsciousness and awaited death. But raised voices, close by, ate into his soporific senses. “Dave? Where are you?”

It's another dream, he persuaded himself, hoping to avoid the Herculean task of waking.

“He's not here,” someone shouted, apparently eliminating another thicket from a string of potential hiding places.

“What's that over there?” said another.

“Looks like a saucepan.”

“It must've come from the house… He's got to be here somewhere… Dave? Where are you?”

“Are you sure you're dreaming?” asked a voice deep inside Bliss's mind.

“We should have brought the dog,” said someone far outside his world, but the sound penetrated fuzzily into his atmosphere.

It's not a dream, he decided. It's Stacy. He tried to force his consciousness to surface.

“Dave? Hello? Are you there?”

Clawing his way toward wakefulness he fought to stand, but his legs buckled and he pitched headlong on to the pit's muddy floor. Fighting to haul himself upright he became entangled in the blankets and ended up
trapped in a muddy shroud. Realizing the urgency of the situation he bellowed, “Down here, Stacy!” Immediately he knew something was wrong. He would have sworn he had shouted — the effort had hurt his throat — but he hadn't heard a whisper.

“Help,” he tried again, screaming with a growing hysteria, but the silent forest above the pit turned a deaf ear.

“Come out, Dave, we're here to help.”

“Stacy, Stacy, I'm here,” he called, but not even a squeak escaped.

The voices were closer, and there were other noises. Noises he recognized — the noise of sticks being thrashed through the undergrowth in search of bodies. He had thrashed his way through thickets in many a murder case, though had never been the object of the search before. Wait until they are close enough to hear, he said to himself, trying to calm his impatience. Don't waste your energy.

But the voices were already fading. “He's not here,” said one.

“Where is he then?” said another.

Is that a woman's voice, he wondered. There were two voices, he thought — two at least.

Shout, now, he ordered himself, but his throat had closed. He fought to get up, knowing it was his last chance. If Stacy doesn't find me he'll go away.

“He's gotta be here somewhere,” called the woman.

It
is
a woman. It's Samantha, he thought with utter relief. “Samantha — I'm down here,” his mind sang out, but nothing came out of his mouth; he found himself mentally crying in frustration. “Samantha, Samantha,” he breathed, desperately trying to stand, to struggle out of the blankets. But even standing, what could he do? The ceiling was eight feet high. He had untied the rope
of blankets to keep himself warm; now he'd have to retie it, and they were wet and slippery. Working frantically, his lips miming, “Samantha… Stacy,” his numb fingers fumbled the knots. But the voices drifted away, exploring another part of the island, and he would have screamed in frustration if he could.

“Don't go away. Don't leave. Please,” he pleaded inside, and remembered a line from Margaret's poem “Hope fades fast but lingers long.” How long will I linger, he wondered. If I can't get out now, how will I ever get out? How long can I last — a day or two? The clotted brown bloodstain which had spread through his makeshift bandage told an ugly truth. If he didn't get out now, he never would.

“Come on out, Dave,” the woman's voice floated back through the barren woods and a thunderflash exploded in his mind.

That's not Samantha; she wouldn't call me Dave!

Nothing in his psyche wanted to believe the obvious. I must be dreaming, he reasoned. It can't be Margaret… It mustn't be Margaret. But the turmoil in his mind spun his thoughts so fast he was left wondering if he was even alive. That's why I can't shout, why they didn't find me, why my leg doesn't hurt anymore. Oh God. I'm dead.

You're not dead, he said to himself, trying to rationalize what was happening. But he was thinking through a layer of molten chocolate. Thoughts dissolved before they formed, murky images swam into view but never coalesced, and all the time a thin voice was telling him, “It is Margaret. She's returned to finish you off. Get to the beach, escape in her boat, leave her stranded on the island.”

With a dull throbbing in his leg and a feeling of lightheaded drunkenness, he hauled himself out of the
pit and lay on the woodland floor for several minutes trying to catch his breath. With his energy zapped he couldn't stand, and had to crawl toward the beach, conscious of the terrible row his body made as he slid through the dried leaf debris. It was no further than a kindergarten's three-legged race, but with only one leg it took him a painful ten minutes and, when he reached the cove, he got another jolt. It wasn't Margaret's boat, it was a float-plane laying at anchor just off the beach.

“Alice,” he breathed aloud, his spirits jumping. “Alice came back for me. Good girl.”

“Thank God,” he whispered and slithered down the short beach toward the water. He lay by the water's edge for some time, watching the unattended plane rocking gently just twenty yards or so offshore, worried she might somehow return and take off without seeing him.

Realization that something was wrong came as slowly as a Sunday train, and even when he saw what was coming around the curve he still refused to believe it. The plane was the wrong size, the wrong make, and the wrong colour to be Alice's, but he tried convincing himself that she could have had it repainted. When his mind rejected that possibility, he quickly switched tack and decided it was Alice's
other
plane.

“Dave — this is your last chance. Where are you?” called a familiar voice from the bush behind him and his heart stopped. It was Margaret. Now that he was out in the open he had no difficulty recognizing her voice, but he was trapped on the beach between her and the plane. And, in his haste to escape he hadn't re-covered the pit; she would have found his suitcase.

“Dave.”

Forced forward by fear he slithered into the water with no clear idea of what to do. The cool water soothed his leg and bore his weight, but the coldness
clamped his chest as he scrambled toward the plane with a vague notion of climbing aboard and escaping. But, working his way closer to the floats, he soon realized the impracticability of the scheme. He couldn't fly. The one time in his life that he'd found himself taking the controls of a plane in an emergency, he'd crashed. He wouldn't even be able to start the engine.

“At least you can stop them,” he said to himself.

How?

“Cut fuel line, the ignition wires, the control cables — anything. You've got the knife, for God's sake, he told himself, use it.”

Margaret's voice was gaining ground. “Dave. C'mon out. This is your last chance. Where are you?”

Swimming now, fighting against the drag of his useless leg, the splash of each stroke invited the zing of a rifle bullet.

“Dave!” she screamed, all patience lost. “I'll bloody kill you if you don't come out.”

Reaching the torpedo floats he hung on, waist deep in water, and risked a look back to the shore. She was there, on the beach, still shouting his name. With her were two men, two complete strangers, neither of them wearing Stacy's pear-shaped torso.

Ducking behind the float he watched as the men went to collect an inflatable dinghy that had been drawn ashore further along the beach. He'd not noticed the boat in his anxiousness to get to the plane and, realizing that if he'd taken the dinghy he could have got away, he could have cried.

Margaret was helping the men now as they dragged the small boat back to the water.

“Get aboard the plane and hide,” his mind was screaming as he pulled himself to the far side of the float.

What if they find me?

“It's a faster death than gangrene.”

Margaret and her companions were loading boxes into the dinghy, their backs to the lake.

“Now, quickly,” his turbulent mind overwhelmed him with panic. “Get aboard! Get aboard! Get aboard!”

Too late. The dinghy was headed his way and two faces on the beach were following its progress.

“They're Chinese,” he breathed, the final cog dropping into place as he trod water trying to work out how to climb aboard unseen.

“The annual eight billion dollar international trade in body parts of endangered species is largely controlled by the Chinese,” the environmentalist pamphlet at Toronto airport had advised him. Information which, at the time, he'd found as compelling as counting the number of Maple Leaf flags hanging from the rafters. But synchronicity had struck again.

They must be the dealers, he decided, here to purchase and collect bear parts. And possibly eagle parts, he thought sadly — Eddie's parts.

“Get aboard and stop them,” every nerve in his body was telling him, but just clinging to the float was draining all his energy. Climbing aboard would be Herculean. Anyway, he realized, just in time to stop himself wasting his energy, sabotaging the plane might not be such a good idea. It had been bad enough sharing the island with one homicidal maniac, he didn't need the company of another two.

“Get aboard and escape with them, then.” That makes more sense, he thought. Then his ears picked up the sound of paddle splashes. She's coming. Dive! Dive! Dive!

He dove, but his feverish lungs forced him back to the surface in a couple of seconds. “Don't do that again,” he lectured himself. “That was crazy, could have had a coughing fit.”

Heaving himself up, he peeked over the float. The dinghy was closing on him — Margaret and the cargo of boxes and bags. Fortunately she had her back to him as she rowed. The two Asians squatted on the beach awaiting her return. There's not enough room for all of them, he realized and dropped silently back in the water with so many ideas in his head they tripped over each other. Attack Margaret, get aboard, sabotage the plane, use the radio to send an SOS.