"It just said goodbye to you personally."
Chiun looked straight ahead. "I do not believe so." The cab pulled onto the road and began driving in the direction of the Union Island International Airport. A few miles later Remo poked his head out the window and looked up.
With its great wings spread wide against the crystal morning sky, the blue macaw was an elegant creature. It greeted Remo with a squawk.
"No pet parrot!" Remo insisted, pulling his head in again.
"Of course not," Chiun answered stoically.
Remo saw the bird one more time, riding the updrafts a half mile from the airport. "See you, Chiun! See you soon!"
"Hear that?" Remo demanded as he hoisted the trunks from the cab.
Chiun went through the airport doors, ignoring him completely.
Chapter 45
The white sheet they draped over Dawn Summens was translucent. She saw it all as it happened.
They put her on a stretcher and placed her in an ambulance. The drive into town was surreal. She could hear the engine sound and the whine of the tires on the pavement. The dappled sunlight of daybreak made the inside of the ambulance look almost cheery. The paramedics were discussing her and she heard every word.
"She sure was a hottie," one of them said. "It's too damn bad."
"Yeah. What a bod. What an ass."
"And not a bad rack."
"I always wanted to see them puppies."
"What's stopping you?"
They parked and wheeled out the gurney. Wheeled her up a ramp. It was the front entrance to the museum of natural history. The great hall had become a temporary morgue. Bodies were lined up, sheeted and tagged, in neat rows. They laid her at a place of honor, in the front row, and because her head was locked in a slight turn to the right she could see, through her thin sheet, that a cadaver was laid out next to her. The sheet was oddly distended, as if the remains underneath were somehow malformed.
"Well?" said one of the paramedics.
"Nobody else here," the other one whispered. "Now's our chance."
Dawn Summens should have been repulsed, but instead she was relieved when the paramedics pulled off her sheet. Now was her chance. She fought with all her will to move. A twitch. A blink. Anything to show them she was still alive.
"Aw, her eyes are open!" one of the paramedics complained.
"I told you. I couldn't close them," the other one said. She saw them clearly. Could she move her eyeballs? "Cover her face at least."
"All right."
The sheet was draped across her face while the paramedics took a quick gander under her shirt.
"Mighty fine."
"She sure was a hottie."
There! Her finger! She had moved her finger! Hadn't she?
The sheet was draped over her entire body again and the paramedics left. Dawn Summens heard only silence. Through the veil of her cover she saw the sheet next to her move. From beneath it emerged a hideous black burned thing. Amelia Powlik grinned, which cracked more of the crust that had once been her face. She reached over and gently lifted the sheet from Dawn Summens's face.
"Hello, hello," Amelia sang quietly. "I know you're in there."
Paralyzed, unblinking, Dawn wanted to retch against the stench of scorched flesh and hair.
"Shouldn't have done that to me, Minister Summens," Amelia said. "Now I feel disinclined to be nice to you." The sheet dropped back over her face, and Amelia Powlik recovered herself.
Dawn's mind whirled. An hour passed, and the sheet next to hers didn't move again, and her confusion turned to doubt. Had she imagined it? Had Amelia really moved? Was it even Amelia under there?
The door opened and the police chief, Spence, came in carrying Dawn's handbag. He had a couple of his officers with him.
"There she is," one of them said, pointing right at her. "What were you thinking?" Spence asked her, then he went to the display case. He dragged on rubber gloves, then gingerly extracted the crumbling, battered Union Island Blue Ring Octopus out of her purse. He put it back on the rubber stand, where it belonged.
"It's all beat up," one of the officers said sadly. "Help me put the case back on," Spence said.
The three men muscled the heavy case up and over the display stand, then latched it down. All the while Dawn Summens was shouting at them, thrashing her limbs, blinking her eyes. But it was all in her head.
As the cops headed for the door they heard a moan. The three of them rocketed straight into the air.
"Holy shit!"
"Look!"
Chief Spence spoke sharply. "Get the doctor over here! Tell him we have a live one! Oh Christ, look who it is!"
The doctor arrived in minutes. The paramedics followed him in.
"Water. Drink of water."
"Doc, can I give her some damn water?" Spence asked. "She's been asking and asking."
"Yes, just a little." The doctor began working over her while Chief Spence dribbled water on her blackened lips. Soon they had Amelia Powlik stabilized and on the gurney. Dawn's efforts grew weaker, but she kept willing herself to make a sound. Take me, too! Take me, too!
They never heard a thing, and all of them left to accompany Amelia Powlik to the hospital.
Dawn Summens was alone again, with all those dead people and one dead, dried-up octopus. The Union Island Blue Ring stared at her through the glass with its shriveled black eye. The great hall was utterly silent.