The Black Seas of Infinity (11 page)

It was then I had another idea. There was no
mini-mart here, but there was a garage, and it might have gas
containers, or at least something that could be used as such.
Replacing the nozzle, I headed back. The garage door was down, and
when I grabbed the latch and pulled up, it moved less than an inch
before hitting an internal lock and jarring to a halt. The handle
was a rusty steel T- bone, and when I tried to turn the lever it
wouldn’t budge. Wedging my fingers under the lip of the garage
door, I jerked up on it. The door hit the crossbar, creaking with
the strain. I applied a little more pressure, and the metal gave
way, buckling noisily on the inside as it shrieked upwards and
curled into a roll.

The gaping maw beyond was a black void,
lacking enough ambient light even for my eyes. Stroking the inside
of the doorframe, I felt nothing but a strip of wood, the metal
railing straddling it in a narrow ridge. I stepped in and turned to
face the wall, gently guiding my fingers up the rough concrete. My
hand bumped into a jutting piece of plastic, and with a flip of the
finger the garage came to life. A single bulb dangled on the end of
a long cord, a half-dismantled black muscle car commanding most of
the space. Its open hood entertained a huge air filter, the chrome
disc sitting atop a freshly painted electric blue big-block. A
couple of black hoses snaked out from under the gleaming Holley
carburetor, joining more tubes emanating from the water pump and
shooting straight back toward the firewall. Eight millimeter wires
flowed in perfect rows of bright red toward a distributor
protruding from the intake manifold. This was obviously the garage
owner’s project, in far better repair than the entire domicile that
housed it. Glancing around I saw not one, but two beat-up red metal
cans clearly marked “gas” lying against the far wall, along with a
few quarts of oil and a plastic tub of antifreeze. The latter was
buried amidst a greasy mound of cloth, a pair of crescent wrenches
jutting out. I brushed aside the rags, scooped up the gas cans with
my left hand, and grabbed the oil containers and antifreeze with
the other. Awkwardly juggling the slippery heap, I hauled them out
to the pump. Dropping everything in a chaotic jumble, I sorted
through the containers, flipping each one over and dumping out
whatever fluid was left inside. The whole mess oozed into a
swelling puddle of black muck, the morass slowly spreading across
the packed dirt. I washed out the containers with gas, the milky
fuel mingling with the black oil in glistening swirls. One spark
and I would be in the midst of a seething inferno. I filled the
containers, popped the trunk, and stacked them neatly inside. It
was more than enough to get me to NY. I replaced the nozzle,
climbed into the Mustang, and peeled out, diving back into the maw
of capricious blackness.

The rest of the drive was uneventful, the
dark sky slowly paling into a bluish gray. I stopped a few times,
pulling over onto the shoulder and digging through the containers,
refueling tensely as I glanced around for passing cars. The last
thing I needed was a visit by a good Samaritan.

I arrived at the dirt road leading up to the
cabin before the sun had fully risen. Jerking the Mustang onto the
trail, I was enveloped by shadows. The blanket of leaves tempered
the brightening sky, the foliage parting in rifts to let through
dusky rays of sunlight. The trees seemed thicker and older here, as
if New York had ancient secrets hidden in its shadows. A carpet of
fallen leaves covered everything in sight, venturing out onto the
road in small peninsulas, the landscape of organic debris sprinkled
with drops of early morning dew. Small rocks and detritus pounded a
constant drumbeat against the walls of the Mustang, the heavily
pitted trail pitching the car about and forcing me to slow down.
The cabin came into view, a darkly wooded log chalet set atop a
slight hill. The woods surrounding it cast long shadows over the
roof, the winter shedding burying the lodge in a patchwork blanket
of yellow and orange. The roof extended over a wooden porch, a
hammock hanging lank under the shade. The whole lodge looked turn
of the century, with its portico and balustrade made of aged wood
and its sidewalls rows of trunks, the bark still clinging to the
timber. I wondered how much history this place had known. It seemed
to exude an aura, not so much evil as ancient and faintly cryptic,
as if the premises had a story to tell. I had only been here a few
times, but already this cabin felt like home, a refuge from the
stressful anxiety of the past few days.

I circled around, climbing up the slight hill
and following the overgrown path of cobblestones to the red
generator hugging the back porch. The rear deck was less
substantial than the front, consisting of a small outcropping of
wooden planks shouldered by a few steps. The machine should be
full—all of this followed a blueprint I had formulated months ago.
I braced my foot on the tank and pulled the cord. Nothing. I pulled
again and it sputtered to life. Ascending the steps, I pulled open
the torn screen door and tried the knob, unable to remember if I
had locked it. No point out here. It opened with a creak, and I
stepped into a gloomy kitchen. Drifting particles of dust floated
in a yellow haze, caught in the shaft of light pouring through the
window over the sink. They seemed frozen in midair, flecks of white
inhabiting the empty space. I rounded the oak dinner table,
strolled down the hallway to the living room, and slowly lowered
myself onto the dark brown couch. It was seven in the morning, but
this body never seemed to tire. Even though I was sitting, the pose
seemed more an instinct. No slack was involved—that actually seemed
to involve more work.

I had what I’d always desired, but now came
the tricky part. How to use it. There was plenty I wanted to do. To
explore. But it would be difficult without a human face. I had
killed several government agents, so there would be people looking
for me. Although if any government got its hands on me, they’d
probably want to study me, not destroy me outright. That could be
an even worse predicament. I needed to get out of the US and into a
second or third world country, where the surveillance technology
wasn’t as sophisticated. I might be able to get away with more if I
had less hindrance. It seemed half the advantage to being in a more
developed country was the ubiquitous convenience. Stores on every
block catering to each individual need, advanced technology in
everything from medicine to electronics. But none of that was an
issue for me anymore. If I could get to South America, I would have
much more freedom.

I wanted to explore the vanished
civilizations down there. In my current state, it would be easy. I
just needed to make a little road trip and cross the border without
being noticed. By the time I was finished, the heat on me should
have died down, and I could conduct myself a little more openly. I
decided that would be the best course of action. I would take the
car down to the Mexican border and disappear. If I traveled largely
at night, within the speed limit, I should make it. My first
obstacle was to devise a method to get gas. I wouldn’t need many
supplies. Maybe if I went to a gas station, grabbed a bunch of
containers, and filled them… although everything about that would
look suspicious. How could I avoid prying eyes and dangerous
questions? That deserted gas station had been a stroke of luck, but
I knew better than to expect another one. Not to mention the
quantity of gas I would need to grab. I was stupid for not having
foreseen that and stocked up here, but hindsight is always
twenty-twenty.

I figured my best bet would be to don
clothes, wrap my face in bandages, and take bucolic routes the
whole way down, hoping to avoid detection. Maybe make a midnight
run to some local stations to steal some gas. I figured I’d wait a
week for things to cool down, then try my luck. I wondered if any
of my adventures had made the news. I switched on the small TV and
it crackled to life. But garbled static was all it showed. I
flipped the channels, but there was no signal. I didn’t have cable
hooked up, but I should at least have been able to get the local
news. The one other time I had tried in the past, a few channels
had worked. The “antenna” consisted of a mangled clothes hanger,
rammed into the stump of what had originally been a retracting
metal rod. I slowly twisted the hanger, but nothing changed. I
clicked the TV off and went to try the radio. It was a huge
antique, waist high and mounted into a carved wooden cabinet. I
turned it on, noticed the red button light up, and slowly turned
the knob. Nothing but white noise. Strange. I glanced over at the
bookshelf. It was beginning to look like I would be reading to pass
the time. I needed a distraction. I had bought this cabin as is.
The original owner had died, leaving the detritus of his old life
behind.

Crossing the burgundy rug strewn across the
floor of the rustic living room, I stooped and examined the
bookshelf. A Bible. A book on the guns of World War II. A complete
twenty-five volume set on aviation. A huge tan book entitled The
Volume Library. It was going to be a long week.

After a few hours spent looking over books on
“The Epic of Flight,” I decided to do some exploring outside. I
stripped off my clothes. They were unnecessary, and I didn’t want
to get them dirty in the woods. I strolled out onto the front
porch. The overhead awning sheltered me, the bright midday sun
drenching the landscape, bleaching out the rolling carpet of leaves
into leafy islands of brilliance. I descended the steps, scanned
the area, and on a whim, decided to head off to the right. There
probably was nobody within miles of the cabin, the woodlands
providing a soothing wilderness of isolation.

I spent a couple of hours walking through the
forest, passing groves of birch trees, outcroppings of moss-covered
rock, tangled nests of thick vines. I tromped onto an incline and
ended up climbing a tree-covered mountain. Normally, I would have
been forced to bend over with the effort and take frequent breaks,
but I felt fine.

Nearing the top, I spied a clearing with an
outcropping of boulders, their slate gray edges jutting up from a
blanket of moss and leaf. Surmounting the peak, I climbed a
straddling rock and looked out over a heavily wooded valley. My
cabin was off to the left somewhere, way down the mountain. I tried
to spy it, picking spots I thought might afford a view, and focused
my vision. Many of the deciduous trees were barren of leaves, but
with distance their sheer volume clustered together into an
inscrutable mass. My vision amplified with each new spot I chose,
focusing in and magnifying my view until I could see every tree
branch, the tightly wound limbs veiled in small clusters of fiery
leaves. I focused in and out of a few spots when suddenly I noticed
a small curl of smoke wafting up through the foliage. I
concentrated my vision, but couldn’t make out much in the muddled
battery of trunks and leaves. A haze seemed to be drifting
languidly up out of the verdure in what looked like the direction
of my cabin. A sense of apprehension mixed with annoyance gripped
me. Thoughts flickered through my head in a convoluted matrix of
analysis and deduction, sharp ephemeral signals pulsing in a
methodical comportment without elevating any corresponding organic
element. No racing heart or shortness of breath, just a clear-cut
sense of determination. I needed to get to my cabin as quickly as
possible. I jumped off the boulder, half-bounced and half-slid on
the leafy incline, and took off running.

I may have meandered around in my journey
atop the mountain, but I seemed to have no difficulty homing in on
the source of the smoke. I slipped and skidded as I ran, leaving in
my wake freshly torn trails of dirt as I descended, my feet ripping
through the leaves as my downward scramble degenerated into a
slide. Reaching the base of the ravine, I sprinted toward the
cabin, bobbing up and down in a smooth inhuman canter as I flowed
over gullies and small hills. My senses were heightened, in some
sort of tracking mode, and my body reacted accordingly, deftly
maneuvering between low branches, uneven ground, and ambient
debris.

Reaching a slightly steeper incline, a low
hill that I recognized as close to the cabin, I slowed my ascent.
The horizon line steadily lowered as I ascended the slope. I
expected my cabin to pop into view at any moment. Something else
came into view first, and I ground to a halt. A red Dodge Ram
pickup parked behind my Mustang. I glanced over at the cabin and
saw the smoke rising from the chimney. I had company.

CHAPTER VII

UNIVITED GUESTS

I measured my approach, moving stealthily toward the
front porch. Focusing my hearing on the cabin, I could make out
more than one voice. They sounded middle aged, in their thirties or
forties, and there were at least two of them. The voices came from
the kitchen, and it was clear they were drinking. At least one of
them was smoking. I could make out distinct inhalations between
gurgles of liquid.

“I think there’s some good hunting around
here, but we should go into town, stock up. The cupboards are
bare.”

“You wanna wait ‘til tonight? Probably not a
real good idea to let anyone know we’re here.”

“We can find a mom and pop joint. They
usually close up early, and it’s almost dark already. I think
almost everything here closes early up, streets in town should be
empty. Breaking into a place like that, if they even have an alarm?
Who’ll come?”

“I wanna go back for my girl tonight. We just
gotta wait for this guy to come back. I don’t know who he is, never
was here before.”

“Let’s go get some shit. These local places
are probably a good bet. We can be in and out, back here in an
hour. If that guy’s back, all the easier to deal with. He won’t be
expecting us.”