14. In The Rearview
In The Rearview
Even after sixteen hours of sleep, Marlowe still felt like she’d been run over with a truck. She blinked the sand away from her eyes and dragged herself to the shower.
Her bathtub wasn’t clogged anymore after she drained twenty-three gallons of industrial acid.
The pipes loved it. She hoped.
Marlowe wouldn’t be around much longer to find out—a hospital two hours up north, nearly at the border, had returned her call to offer her an immediate position. It took five minutes to pack up her things from Mercy Hospital and two to interrupt the missed-shift blustering and say she quit.
She’d shoved her backseat full with the rest of her life, gingerly bracing her bruised shoulder against the door to close it. Once she left this town, she was never coming back.
There was only one thing Marlowe was missing.
Mud speckled her freshly washed Chevy as it rumbled through the woods, and the late-night breeze snapped at thick plastic tied in the box. There hadn’t even been any cops on the road tonight, which boded well for her sneaking Pike away.
After she collected Pike, she’d take back roads through the dense pine forests, avoiding any wandering law enforcement and making a straight shot to the great lake where Pike would be safe—drownings were common among the cliff-jumpers in that remote section of the lake and cops had declared anyone who crossed the road blockade to be trespassing.
But a little caution tape never stopped reckless people. Pike would be fed, and the lake was so large she’d never be caught.
Marlowe could almost imagine their disgustingly domestic future, all bare feet and fins and loon calls—a cabin on a forgotten corner of the lake, with a tub big enough for Pike.
Someday, mildew on ugly floral curtains and a lake-water flood in their bedroom would smell like home, and Marlowe could make paper boats from Sunday comics instead of Bible verses.
The truck tilted in soft loam and she accelerated and fishtailed around the copse of trees. Her tires would leave a scar behind her, but it didn’t matter. This would be Marlowe’s last time at Camp Atonement.
She hummed, powered by too many cups of grainy downtown-diner coffee and four cigarettes, the remnants of the latter piled in the ashtray next to her. Reaching for a fifth, Marlowe leaned halfway across the bench seat, fumbling with the pack.
The wheel drifted. Crushed and bent at an odd angle, her cigarette caught and she shook the pack with an irritated noise, leaning further over the passenger seat. It slid a half inch before bouncing out of reach. Marlowe glanced up.
A thick pine loomed in her headlights.
Marlowe swore and jerked the wheel to the side. Teeth clacked as the truck thumped across a fallen log and sideswiped a tree, branches shrieking across the metal.
She slammed on the breaks and her truck skidded to a lurching stop, tilting on two wheels. It crashed back on all four with a rusty wheeze.
“Jesus Christ.” The crumpled cigarette lay on the seat, free of the pack. Marlowe grabbed at it with shaky hands, foot still pressed on the brake. A wry laugh escaped her. At least she’d gotten to the lake in one—
Marlowe’s laugh died on her lips.
Blue and red lights bled across the dark water from the opposite side.
“Shit.”
Gears locked and protested as she jammed the truck into park and switched off the headlights. Muggy air dampened her bare shoulders as she stepped out into the night.
She searched the ripples, waiting for fins or a large splash.
Pike was out there.
And they had a boat.
Flashing lights shoved off the dock and motored steadily into the heart of the lake.
A vision of Heather’s half-eaten face—eye sockets bulging with snails, a catfish nested in her gaped mouth—surfacing next to the police boat drove a darkly amusing wedge into Marlowe’s mind.
They’d be done for.
Pike strung up like the shark from Jaws, Marlowe withering in prison, if she was lucky. It wasn’t an option. She had to get Pike’s attention before they did.
Marlowe didn’t have a dead body to bait them with this time, human or otherwise—she only had herself. But she wouldn’t leave Pike behind, even if her hand was never again forced by a supernatural bond.
Searchlights swept closer and faint chatter wafted toward her.
Marlowe skirted around the thick bulrushes, keeping low and careful along the bank as she scanned the lake’s surface. Pike had to be aware of the disturbance by now. But there was no sign of her.
The muted purr of a car engine accompanied red and blue lights drifting away from the lake.
Marlowe swore under her breath, hand tapping against her side.
There was a chance the cops had searched the perimeter of the lake already—but by the direction the cop car was moving and the spray of flashlights biting through the dark woods, Marlowe guessed they weren’t so lucky.
Staring at the inky water lapping against the shore, she could almost taste it in the back of her throat.
This time it wasn’t the lake-rot taste of Pike.
Marlowe could taste the mildewed, overflowed-river tang of the water in cabin 13, crawling up the bunk beds until she was stranded on an island of sleeping bags and paper boats.
Marlowe swallowed thickly. She wrenched off her flannel button-up and kicked off her sandals. The lake lapped at her ankles, her knees, her thighs. Pike wouldn’t come if she didn’t know Marlowe had returned. She had to trust in their final truce.
Mud shifted under her feet and water closed over her head when she slipped, burning up her nose until she surfaced with a barely-repressed sputter.
Summer of `72 was the last time she’d swum before this week, but Marlowe still headed in the direction of the lake center with flailing strokes just strong enough to keep afloat.
Lights from the boat skittered toward her and Marlowe filled her lungs before she ducked under. Piercing white lights flashed over her, then back, hovering where she’d been.
Marlowe’s chest tightened close to bursting with the effort of keeping herself under, hands hopelessly pawing at the water. Her head broke the surface as the light swept away. She treaded water, limbs already dragging and lungs not holding the amount of air she needed, leaving her lightheaded.
No fins sliced at her legs, no animal corpses chased her, and the lake was deadly silent apart from the boat slicing in her direction, lights sweeping a path in front of it. Marlowe had a terrible vision of Pike already being captured. Strapped to a trailer, eyes glassy and so very dead.
Marlowe dragged in another tight, desperate half-breath, readying herself to go under. The police light slowly crept across the ripples and lily pads. Her lungs already felt starved for air.
The searchlight snapped over Marlowe, blurring her vision with explosions of white as it shot into the sky.
In the haze, Pike twisted in midair, the boat tilted nearly vertical from her attack. Panicked shouts scattered across the lake. Pike landed with a great splash and the boat smacked the water.
A wave rushed at Marlowe, flooding her nose, her mouth. Bodies landed like heavy bits of shrapnel around the cracked hull of their boat.
Marlowe choked out Pike’s name as she floundered, striking back to shore and struggling to pull in air through her raw throat. She slipped underwater, clawing and kicking, knees popping and lungs empty before she resurfaced.
Someone screamed near the boat wreck.
Flashlight beams scattered, closing in on her parked truck.
To her left, fuzzy police lights flashed through the trees.
Marlowe’s legs burned and tangled in long mats of pondweed, and the distance to shore stretched into impossibility. Her curses came out more like prayers, answered with another choking mouthful of gritty water. She clawed blindly.
Scales. Fins. Marlowe could have wept.
Through her blurry vision, she caught a glint of teeth and golden eyes. Webbed hands circled her wrists and Marlowe only had time to inhale a sip of air before Pike dragged her under.
They surged toward shore, weeds scraping at her thighs until shells and roots twisted under her hands and Marlowe crawled ashore, choking and grasping at Pike, pulling her up with her.
Marlowe staggered up the bank and planted her feet, locking her hands around Pike’s, mumbling, half-pleading that they had to go. Gritting her teeth, she pulled, slipping through the muck. Pike’s weight dragged on her back and legs.
The police car rumbled closer, throwing lights through the trees.
Marlowe grunted and heaved Pike another foot. Their tail undulated and thrashed and Pike dug their hands onto the back of the Chevy, the truck groaning as it bore the weight of them for the second time in twenty-four hours.
Hands slippery on her skin, Marlowe locked her arms around her middle and lifted, knowing damn well if there was any time Pike was going to hinge her mouth around her head, it would be now.
The cop car sprayed pine needles and loam as it skidded to a stop, blocking Marlowe’s truck.
Marlowe swore.
They had to leave, now.
Cop cars were faster than her old beater, even if they could get around it. But faster meant lighter. Movable.
Marlowe slapped Pike’s tail, earning her a snarl. “Get in. Hold on.” Her hand came away with sticky slime and Marlowe swiped her hair away from her face and squared her shoulders.
A deputy launched out of the squad car.
Marlowe’s truck door shrieked as she yanked it open and vaulted into the front seat, jamming the key in the ignition.
The man shouted, pistol glinting in his hands.
A bullet snapped through the windshield and Marlowe ducked, glass shattering over her like hail.
Her truck coughed.
It sputtered and rolled once like it was already in the grave.
Then died.
“Fucking piece of shit, let’s go!” Marlowe slammed her hands on the wheel as another bullet ripped into the truck hood.
The key bent as she twisted it again.
Making a horrible noise, like she’d driven it straight out of a junkyard, the truck roared to life and smoke bellowed from under the hood. A third bullet nicked the side of her window. Too close.
Marlowe’s bare foot stung as she stomped on the gas, and the truck fishtailed, tires digging into the silt before they caught and the truck lurched forward.
She felt it instead of seeing it. A solid thud on the truck grill. A wet speedbump under the tires.
No more gunshots rang out.
Pike trilled from the truck box and a webbed hand slapped on the back window.
Marlowe floored it. Searchlights faded behind them and they careened onto the road, swerved behind a semi truck, then shot across the tracks to the roaring blare of a train horn.
The truck huffed and rattled but kept going as she wrenched the wheel down a gravel road.
Sticking her head out the window, Marlowe banged on the side of her door. “You all right back there?” Getting no answer, she chanced a look behind her.
Pike leaned over the side, tendrils whipping in the wind, lips peeled back in a venom-tipped smile deadly to anyone else.
Marlowe grinned and leaned to the side to dig out her last cigarette—this time she watched the road. “Of course you’re all right.” She dragged in a deep lungful of smoke and her nerves finally settled.
They were free, and Marlowe found she didn’t mind the heat of July after all. Heather was unforgiven and rotting at the bottom of Pike’s Lake, and cabin 13 crumbled in the pines like the rest of the camp would once news of the murders broke.
Resentment carved a resting place in the hollow of Marlowe’s ribs as Camp Atonement faded in her rearview mirror, and she was finally at peace.