A growl stopped him in his tracks.
He turned and looked into twelve separate pairs of eyes.
The giggle died in his throat.
“You found me,” he said, a sinking feeling in his many guts. “I thought that Monkey meant trouble.”
Yes, they said. We’ve been searching for you.
“Following the infection eh? Clever. Hundreds of Wasps and I’ve never been caught. How did you know he’d find me?”
These are unprecedented events.
“I guess, I guess,” he mused, already resolved to his fate. He was old, after all. “I’m powerful you know. I could destroy you.”
The immune system, the white blood cells of the Wasp, didn’t budge. They knew a bluff.
A gurgle in his seventh stomach, the most sensitive of all, suddenly drew his attention back to the Waterfall. Something he didn’t quite understand, something as never before, was taking place.
“Do you feel that?” he asked, but the Wasp’s defence system could not be budged.
It is not our business. You are.
He sighed, resigned and forlorn. “At least let me observe what happens? I’d like to know. Consider it a last request?”
No.
“So this is it?”
Yes, the Tasmanian devils said as they surrounded the parasite. This is it.
47. A STING IN THE TAIL
CHRISTOPHER MCCONNELL AWOKE FROM HIS dream with a faint smell of dog shit wafting up his nose. He sat up, suddenly afraid he was laying in the offending mess, hastily checking his shirt and trousers. There were no faeces, just mild grass stains. Teach me to fall asleep in the park, he chided himself, distinctly relieved.
About him, London hummed, albeit at a lighter pace than usual. He tried to remember what day it was, but found himself failing. Must be a weekend, that combined with the sunshine would have emptied London’s streets. Not that these were empty of course, hundreds were still milling about, popping into cafés, browsing shops, yet it was quieter than usual.
And just what was he doing sleeping in a small park in the middle of town? McConnell rubbed his face trying to work it out. He didn’t think he’d been drinking, there was not a trace of a hangover in his system, though he did feel exhausted.
Lingering in his mind were the faint remains of his dream, already dissolving into nothing. Typical of dreams, it had told a story in which he’d been a player, yet not the protagonist. In the last fleeting moments he’d been given understanding, as if all characters had been allowed to share notes after the final curtain.
McConnell snorted, and shook his head. Typical dream nonsense, the illusion of understanding. It was similar to an LSD trip he’d had in his younger days. As the hallucinatory patterns on his friend’s face had swam and morphed, he’d become convinced that if only he could comprehend all those shifting lines at once, he’d unlock all the mysteries of the universe.
What bullshit.
Grinning bashfully, McConnell rose, still faintly alarmed that he couldn’t remember going to sleep in public, yet determined not to be seen as a drunk or lunatic. A newspaper fell off his chest. He glanced at it. Politics. “Disgraced Mayoral Candidate Alcott Still Missing”. No wonder he’d fallen asleep, that shit bored the hell out of him.
Out, beyond the children’s play area, a crowd had gathered under the shadow of an office block. There was something of a commotion, people talking in hushed voices, one or two lifting their camera-phones to take snaps of whatever held their attention.
He strolled to join them, keeping to the back of the crowd, yet positioning himself where he could peer between.
A dead body lay prone on the ground, face bloody and cold.
“Fucking hell,” he muttered.
“I just called the police,” said a woman by his side, shaking her head, yet keeping her eyes firmly fixed on the grim sight. “Selfish isn’t it? To jump off a building in the middle of a street? He could have landed on any one of us!” She looked up into the sky at the tall office block before them. “No way he could have survived. Not from that height.”
“Yeah…” he muttered, studying the familiar figure, something niggling at the back of his mind.
He doesn’t look like he jumped. If he did, why are his clothes wet?
A woman screamed and pushed through the onlookers, panic in her voice that made his heart sink. She collapsed on the ground next to the body, cradling it in her arms, her black hair spilling over the corpses face.
“Oh God, look at that,” the talkative bystander continued. “Do you think that’s his girlfriend? Sister?”
“Wife,” McConnell answered, somehow knowing.
“So selfish to leave someone behind like that. A real coward’s way out. I don’t see how anyone could ever justify such a stupid act.”
McConnell inched forward, pushing through the onlookers, curiosity driving him towards the terrible scene.
“Excuse me, Ma’am?” he asked as he got near. “The police are on their way, is there anyone I can contact for you?”
The widow turned her head to him, tears streaming down her cheeks and dragging mascara with them. He was close now, and saw the face of the man beneath her.
It’s him. The man I dreamed of. The monster who wasn’t.
“He was the sweetest guy,” she sobbed, and suddenly McConnell felt a powerful urge to protect this sorrowful woman. It wasn’t just pity or empathy at her loss, he would have felt the same inclination if he’d bumped into her in a coffee house; a part of him loved her. Not in a lustful or obsessive way, but as a life-long friend. Someone for whom he cared, and if pressed would gladly do anything for.
Stepping back, confused by the sudden swell of emotion for the stranger, he gave the widow space. She accepted it, laying her cheek back upon the body of her husband.
“All of you, back off,” he hissed at the bystanders, and to his surprise they complied. All signs of camera-phones disappeared, clearly out of respect for the grieving woman before them.
That was the Mariner. The Mariner and his Grace, McConnell thought, slightly giddy from the madness of it. How could I possibly know that? I didn’t even dream that! At least, not until the end, when I had that strange feeling of knowing everyone at once.
Turning his back on the tragic scene, McConnell struck away from the onlookers. Naturally, most in the vicinity were drifting over to look for themselves, the tragedy acting as a magnet. Yet one who wasn’t caught his eye. She sat alone on a bench, hands folded neatly before her, seemingly unconcerned with the nearby death.
“Heidi!” he cried, jogging towards her.
She started and looked up, confused. “Do I know you?”
Slightly perturbed, he came to a halt yards from where she sat. “Er… I… guess not. Do you not remember me?”
She looked at him, and for a moment could swear he saw recognition, yet this passed and she shook her head vigorously, pretty face marked with scratches as if she suffered terribly from eczema.
“I know it seems strange, but…” I know you. And it has something to do with that dead Mariner and a wasp and some devils and a waterfall and I want you to agree because otherwise I think I might be going mad. But he didn’t say any of that. Instead he finished, “you seemed so sad, I thought I would make sure you were okay.”
She gave him a thin smile. “I lost my daughter some years ago, when she was merely a toddler. She died. But it feels as if it only just happened. As if I only just remembered.”