Tampa Burn

THIRTY-SIX

Pointing to the groggy woman on the floor, I yelled to Dr. Santos, “Use surgical tape. Tape her arms behind her; after that, her legs. If she fights, use the hammer on her!” Then I sprinted down the hall and out onto the midnight upper decks of the moving freighter.

To the west, the moon was about to set. It was partially submerged on the horizon’s seascape and appeared as a golden island, fogged by low clouds. The ship’s wake caught shards of the light, so that the ship seemed to excrete a boiling, crimson wedge astern. The wedge rolled away from Repatriate in the form of slow, expanding waves, moving across a black sea.

I had the Glock in my right hand, the guardrail in my left, and ran down the steps two at a time. From outside, the lighting appeared better on the lower deck. I assumed C deck would be laid out just like D deck. There would be a hallway with doors, and each door would be identified by a stenciled word or two. I was desperate to find VISITORS QUARTERS, the cabin where the doctor had last seen my son.

Perhaps she was wrong about Lake. She hadn’t personally seen his body, so she couldn’t be certain he was dead. She’d only been told that he was going to be killed. Perhaps the insane man, Praxcedes Lourdes, had lied to her. There was still a chance that I might arrive in time to save Lake. I’d saved other people under tough circumstances, so how could fate not allow me to save my own son?

I told myself that such an unfairness was contrary to… something. Momentum. Order. Reason, maybe.

I was hurrying. I felt rushed and clouded by panic. I certainly was. Because I was running far too fast as I approached the watertight entrance into the ship’s house on C deck, and so was unprepared and vulnerable when the heavy steel door came flying open just as I tried to use it to stop my momentum.

I was lucky the impact didn’t knock me unconscious. As it was, it sent the Glock flying, jammed both my wrists, and knocked a gash in my forehead. I felt and heard a couple of joints or small bones pop in my right hand.

Broken.

The collision had knocked me to the deck, so I was looking up into the house’s bright lights when a huge man stepped out, paused, and then stepped over me. He looked to be wearing surgical scrubs that were wet in places, stained with some liquid- blood?-and he was carrying something by a handle. I realized it was a medium-sized Igloo cooler. The circular kind with a screw-on lid.

The big man said, “Watch where you’re goin’, you fuckin’ asswipe. Fuckin’ drunk merchant sailors are a pain in the ass.” Then he pivoted, as if to proceed on his way.

Hearing the voice, I knew.

It was my son’s abductor.

He wasn’t wearing a mask.

The moment Lourdes started to leave, I was on my feet, straightening my glasses. I lunged three long steps and grabbed him from behind. Grabbed him so violently that it nearly ripped the scrub shirt off him, and he dropped the cooler, which went banging down four or five steps to the next platform, slowed, then bounced down another flight.

He came whirling around in a rage, screaming, “Hands off, motherfucker!” and took a big, pawing swing at me that I caught with my forearms. “What is your problem, asshole?”

I ducked in close as he threw a couple more punches that missed, but he was so freakishly strong that they jarred me to the core. The shock of the punches made me unprepared for the bear hug that came next.

He was grunting, trying to squeeze the air out of my lungs, trying to crush my ribs, cursing into my ear with his sour breath, a terrible ether-stink about him, and I could feel vertebrae pop up my spine, and then maybe a rib or two.

I got my right hand free. It was already beginning to swell; had to be some broken bones in there. But it didn’t matter. Not now.

As he continued to squeeze, I felt a racing, chemical chill move through me that I have come to recognize. It is the sensation that accompanies pure rage. Rage feels no pain, so I could feel no pain.

In the human brain is a tiny region called the “amygdala,” a section of cerebral matter so ancient that scientists refer to it as our “lizard brain,” or “reptilian core.” It’s here, in this ancient, isolated cellular place, that the killer that is in us all resides. It is from here that a million years of genetic memory encodes us with a horror of spiders, snakes, and tight, black places that might rob the air from our land-breathing lungs.

Rage resides in that dark area, as well.

Its presence is signaled in me by the physical chill, followed by a surflike roaring in my ears… and then there is the illusion of a blooming redness behind my eyes that colors the world.

I rarely allow my rage to take control.

I did now.