Forever Odd

FIFTY-EIGHT

EVIL NEVER DIES. IT JUST CHANGES FACES.

Of this face, I'd seen enough, too much, and when I spotted the giant, I thought for an instant-and fondly hoped-that only a corpse pursued me.

But he was alive, all right, and friskier than I. Too impatient for the swift current to bring him to the depth marker, he flailed, splashed, determined to swim toward me. I had nowhere to go but up.

My muscles ached. My back throbbed. My wet hands on the wet post seemed certain to fail me.

Fortunately, the inch and foot lines that measured the depth were not merely indicated with black paint on the white background, but were also notched into the wood. These features served as grip points, toe-holds, shallow but better than nothing.

I clamped the post with my knees and pushed myself with my thigh muscles even as I clawed upward, hand over hand. I slipped back, dug my toes in, clamped my knees, tried again, moved up an inch, another inch, two more, desperate for every one of them.

When Andre collided with the post, I felt the impact and glanced down. His features were as broad and blunt as a club. His eyes were edge weapons, sharp with homicidal fury.

With one hand, he reached for me. He had long arms. His fingers brushed the bottom of my right shoe.

I pulled my legs up. Afraid of slipping back and into his hands, measuring progress by the numbered notches, I inchwormed until my head bumped the ceiling.

When I glanced down again, I saw that even with my legs drawn up as far as they would go, so that I clamped the post fiercely with my thighs, I was only about ten inches beyond his reach.

He hooked his thick blunt fingers into the notched marks with some difficulty. He struggled to pull himself out of the water.

The top of the depth marker had a finial, like that on a newel post at the head of a staircase. With my left hand, I gripped that knob and held on as poor King Kong had held on to the dirigible-mooring mast at the top of the Empire State Building.

The analogy didn't quite work because Kong was below me on the post. Maybe that made me Fay Wray. The big ape did seem to have an unnatural passion for me.

My legs had slipped. I felt Andre paw at my shoe. Furiously, I kicked his hand, kicked, and drew my legs up again.

Remembering Datura's pistol under my belt, at the small of my back, I reached for it with my right hand. I had lost it along the way.

While I fumbled for the missing handgun, the brute surged up the post and seized my left ankle.

I kicked and thrashed, but he held tight. In fact, he took a risk, let go of the post, and gripped my ankle with both hands.

His great weight dragged on me so pitilessly that my hip should have dislocated. I heard a shout of pain and rage, then again, but did not realize until the second time that the shout came from me.

The finial at the top of the depth marker had not been carved from the end of the post. The ornament had been made separately and applied.

It broke loose in my hand.

Together, Andre and I fell into the flood tide.