“Either you’re with me or against me,” Saks said, aiming the Browning in the general direction of Fabrini and Cook and Crycek. “You’re either with me, Menhaus, or you’re with them. What’s it going to be?”
“Saks,” Menhaus said breathlessly, “come on now.”
He was directly in-between the opposing sides now. Saks was in the stern and the others were up near the bow and he himself was seated roughly amidships. This is where things got complicated and dangerous. If he went to Saks, the others would never trust him again. And if he stayed with them, Saks would think everything he’d said was bullshit.
“What I would like, everyone, what I would really like is for all this to stop,” Menhaus told them, trying desperately to sound calm and reasonable, but probably only succeeding in sounding like a scared little boy. Which was pretty much how he felt. “This can’t go on. It just can’t.”
Saks’s reply to this was to aim the gun directly at Menhaus. There was a deadly gleam in his eye. He looked very much like a man who wanted very badly to hurt someone.
He’s going to kill me, Menhaus thought.
“Get your ass over here now,” Saks said, “or get over there with them. If you’re with me, you’ll live to tell the tale. With them… you get the picture, don’t you?”
Menhaus looked around uncertainly. He was almost wishing those horrible fish would come back, even the big one. Or maybe that something even worse would come sliding out of the mist. At least then, they’d have a common enemy.
But he supposed they already did: each other.
“Don’t do it,” Fabrini said. “Don’t go over there. You get involved with that gutless shit, you’re going to be an accomplice to murder. Mine or one of the others. And you don’t want that, do you?”
No, Menhaus certainly did not want that.
“Don’t listen to that goatfuck,” Saks said. “He don’t know shit, Menhaus. Besides… look around you. All of you, look right fucking around you. You think we’re adrift in the Gulf of goddamn Mexico here? Well, we ain’t. Where we are there are no laws. It’s survival of the fittest. You come with me, Menhaus, I’ll keep you alive and I just might get your ass out of here. But you stick with them…”
“He’s talking nonsense,” Cook said. “We can only survive together.”
But he didn’t understand. Neither did Fabrini. It was the only way. The only possible way to pacify Saks.
Swallowing, Menhaus went and sat in the seat directly in front of Saks.
“You cheap fuck,” Fabrini spat.
Cook said nothing.
Crycek smiled, then pointed upward… as if that made a lick of sense. Then he nodded, thinking he’d made his point. But like most things with him, it was just too damn abstract.
They think I’m a traitor, Menhaus thought, but they just don’t get it.
“That’s the way,” Saks said happily. “Now we can both watch ‘em.”
Saks and Fabrini engaged in a staring contest. It lasted only a few minutes. The hatred between them was like a pall hanging in the air and it smelled of raw meat and gunpowder.
Saks smiled. “Well, I guess you boys are fucked,” he said.
Cook and Fabrini just stared, waiting for the bullets.
But as usual, Crycek looked like he was waiting for something else entirely.
“Which one of you should I kill first?” Saks said. “Which one?”
“Kill me,” Fabrini rasped, “you fucking pussy.”
“It’s not that simple, Fagbrini. Not that simple at all.” He patted Menhaus on the shoulder. “In fact, I’m going to let my pal here decide.”
“No,” Menhaus said flatly. “I won’t.”
“Yes, you will. If you don’t, I’ll kill you.”
The barrel of the gun was shoved into Menhaus’ spine. It was death and he knew it was death. He’d thought he could join Saks and pacify him. Keep him from killing the others, but it wasn’t that simple. He’d simply underestimated the twisted, sadistic turn of Saks’s madness. The man was so far gone now he just didn’t realize how crazy he was. Right and wrong had become vague concepts. And maybe, just maybe Saks wasn’t so crazy as Menhaus might have thought. Maybe he’d planned it this way all along. He only wanted Menhaus on his side because it fit into his plans. He had an unwilling participant now in murder.
“Well, old buddy, which one?” Saks asked, almost lighthearted.
Menhaus had no saliva left. Yet, he attempted to lick his lips. “This is insane, Saks. We’ll go to prison for this.”
Saks started laughing. “Christ, Menhaus! Look around! You see any fucking cops or jails or judges? No, we do what we want here. Frontier justice, eh?” The gun was pressed deeper into his back. “Now decide.”
Fabrini and Cook maintained their cold, hateful stares. Menhaus admired the both of them like he’d never admired anyone ever in his life. They were men. Real men. Real human beings. Scared shitless inside, but facing death bravely. Neither of them would ever stoop to doing what he did. They’d die first.
But they don’t understand, they just don’t understand. I did this to save them, I really did…
And he was right: they didn’t understand. They thought he was weak and selfish and empty inside. That’s what they thought and Menhaus knew there wasn’t a damn thing he could say to change their minds.
“Well?” Saks said.
“I guess Cook is the one,” Menhaus said in airless voice.
Cook just stared, unblinking.
Crycek started tittering. “All the little puppets in a row,” he said in a dry, ragged voice. “Doing what they’re told to do. You’re all so fucking stupid, every one of you. And especially you, Saks, you’re the dumbest little puppet of all. He’s out there, watching and listening, getting stronger as we get weaker. Only it isn’t a him, it’s a they, a them. Them ones hiding in the fog, they’re the ones that pull your strings and make you dance and you, you silly fucking little man, you let them! You let them! They own your mind, they make you walk and talk and hate and kill… you’re the stupidest one of all! The stupidest!”
“Shut your goddamn hole!” Saks ordered him, pulling the gun out of Menhaus’ back and aiming it right at Crycek’s staring face. Right at that sallow mask with the crooked, lunatic grin.
But Crycek just shook his head. “I don’t have to shut up and I won’t shut up! They already own you, but my mind is my own. They can’t get in my head because I won’t let them in there, won’t let them get fat sitting in their web sucking the juices of my mind dry!” He pressed the tips of his fingers to his temples. “I make my own decisions, do you hear? Not you and not them!”
“You’re goddamn nuts,” Saks told him.
But Crycek assured him that he was completely in control of his faculties. He dared Saks to shoot him, because he didn’t honestly believe that those bullets would kill him. “It might look like they did and it might look like I die… but will I? Or is it just something they’ve planted in your little mind? Is that even a gun you hold, Saks?” He started giggling afresh, wiping spit off his chin with the back of his hand. “Think about it, Saks! Go ahead, think about what I say! This might be your last chance! For all you know, for all you really know, you might be alone right now. Lost in this hungry fog all alone… and you just think we’re here. We might have all gone down with the ship… just ghosts, memories. C’mon, Saks, close your eyes, when you open them we won’t be here… ghosts..”
“SHUT UP!” Saks roared, unable to listen to that droning, insane voice any more. He could feel Crycek up there, in his head, like dirty fingers sorting around, making him think things and feel things, filling his mind with lies and doubts. “YOU BETTER SHUT THE FUCK UP IF YOU KNOW WHAT’S GOOD FOR YOU!”
But Crycek just giggled. “Can you feel them, Saks? Can you feel them up there draining you dry? Sucking your mind away?”
Saks was trying to sort it out, because none of it was true. It couldn’t be true. It was all madness what Crycek was saying. There was nothing out in that fog, no devil, no evil presence that ate minds. And… and in the boat, Cook and Fabrini and Crycek were there. They were not ghosts, because if they were ghosts that would mean that Saks himself was the crazy one. Talking to shadows. It would mean that he was by himself out there, that he was totally alone…
So Saks did what came natural to him.
He pulled the trigger on the Browning. The shot rang out and the bullet passed harmlessly over Crycek’s head. And that shut him up. It didn’t wipe that smirk off his face, but it sure as hell shut him up. The others weren’t saying much either, just staring with those sweaty, sooty faces. Accusing faces.
Finally, Fabrini said, “Nice try, Crycek. It almost worked.”
But you could see from the look on Crycek’s face that it had not been a ruse. He believed everything he had said.
“Next one goes right between your eyes, Crycek.” Saks had calmed now, but still looked a little confused. He put the gun back on Menhaus. “Okay… you said Cook and Cook it’s gonna be. You sure now?”
“I’m sure.”
Saks raised the gun and took aim.
And then Menhaus made his move.