“It’s got fatigues on,” Fabrini said. “What the hell would a soldier be floating out here for?”
“Same reason we are,” Menhaus said.
“Maybe a troop transport went down,” Cook suggested.
And that got Crycek going on one of his conspiracy theories again. This one concerning the military toying around with technologies they did not understand like children with their fingers on remote controls, having no true conception of what doors they might be opening or what things or forces they might be waking up.
“What the fuck are you babbling about?” Fabrini put to him.
But Crycek just giggled. “Yes,” he said. “Yes.”
Fabrini looked to Cook for a translation, but Cook just shrugged. He knew very well what Crycek was taking about, of course, but he wasn’t about to launch into some half-baked diatribe concerning Crycek’s theory about the military trying to smash holes into other dimensions. Maybe it was true and maybe it just belonged up on that dusty high shelf along with the Philadelphia Experiment.
“All of you shut up,” Saks said. “Quit listening to that fucking monkeyskull. He’s crazy, that’s all.”
When they drifted close enough, Saks stuck his knife in the web belt around the soldier’s waist and pulled him or her or it to the boat.
“Menhaus, get your thumb out of Fabrini’s ass and lend a hand here,” he said. “The rest of you… stay put.”
Fabrini and Cook eyed him coolly.
Crycek grinned.
“What’re you girls staring at?” Saks said. “Find something to do. Go shave your pussies or something. Jesus Christ, what a bunch.” He shook his head. “Soon as our backs are turned, Menhaus, they’ll be pumping each other. Got that look in their eyes. It’s a big day for both of ‘em. Soon as Fagbrini gets home, he’ll be writing, ‘Dear Diary, Cook shot his load into me. It was the greatest day of my life since I blew Liberace.’ What a guy, what a guy.”
“What the hell do you want me to do?” Menhaus said, looking at the soldier’s corpse. “Jesus, what a stink.”
“Just hoist him up, bright boy.”
“Me?” Menhaus said.
“No, the gay midget in your pants. Yes, you. Maybe Sergeant York’s carrying something we can use.”
“C’mon, Saks, he’s rotten,” Menhaus whined.
“So’s Fabrini’s asshole, but that never stopped you before.”
Cook said, “C’mon, Saks, push that body away… it might attract something.”
“Yeah, we don’t want that,” Menhaus said. “We don’t want something coming for it.”
Saks scowled. “Just grab him under the arm. He won’t bite you.”
Fabrini laughed and shook his head. “Why don’t you do it, big chief?”
Saks features were cut by a knife blade smile. “Because I told Menhaus here to do it, dipshit. And like you said, I’m the big chief.”
Fabrini cracked a fart. “There’s one for you, big chief”
Menhaus saw it was a no-win situation. Pale as flour, he took hold of the corpse under the arm and lifted. It seemed to weigh hundreds of pounds. The flesh was spongy beneath the fatigue shirt. “Oh, God,” he gasped, breathing through clenched teeth, turning away from the sick/sweet stink of putrescence. “Oh my Christ… oh my God…”
The body was lifted a few feet out of the water, a great fleshy, waterlogged balloon. Its face had been chewed away by fish… or something like fish. Nothing there but a grisly hollow of bleached muscle and knotted cartilage. Lipless, skinless, it grinned with jutting yellow teeth set in withdrawn, shriveled gums the color of oatmeal. Water ran and dripped from the empty eye sockets and collapsed nasal cavity.
Saks paid no attention.
He felt along the huge, distended belly, ignoring the whimpering of Menhaus and the parasites that clung in twisting loops around the navel. His fingers found something and pulled it free. A gun. Sunlight winked off its cruel metal lines. Dread settled into the faces of Cook and Fabrini. A three-inch worm slid like a greasy noodle from the cadaver’s mouth, wriggling in the light.
“Oh, good God,” Menhaus said.
There was a sudden wet, ripping noise followed by a fleshy snap and the body slapped back into the water. The arm had pulled free of the shoulder joint. With a strangled cry, Menhaus dropped the limb and vomited over the side.
“You don’t need that gun, Saks,” Cook said.
“Oh, yes I do,” he said, grinning proudly, happily, like an old man who’d copped his first feel in years. “Nice, isn’t it?” He waved the gun around for all to see and admire. “A Browning nine millimeter auto. Nice weapon.”
“Shit,” Fabrini said. “Thing’s been soaking for days. It won’t shoot.”
Saks smiled and aimed the barrel just left of Fabrini’s head and pulled the trigger. The report was like thunder. Fabrini felt the bullet whiz by his temple. The shell casing hissed into the water.
“You stupid fuck!” Fabrini shouted. “You stinking stupid fuck! You could’ve killed me!”
Saks chuckled. “If I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead now.”
Menhaus just looked ill. Cook looked alarmed, hopeless. He knew very well that the balance of power had shifted even further in Saks’s direction. This was not a good thing.
“Big tough man with a gun,” Fabrini grumbled.
