“You can’t imagine how much I want to believe you.”
Buzz put a hand out into the dark air before him.
“Then do it,” he said. “I’m standing right here waiting for you. Let go and fucking leap.”
They stared at each other. No sound but the wind and their own breathing. White clouds of mist floated out from their mouths and nostrils.
Sweeney moved first. He reached a hand deep into his right pants pocket and slowly pulled out a glass vial filled to the top with a murky pink liquid. He held it up between their faces and then brought it down and placed it in Buzz’s enormous hand.
Buzz’s whole body gave up a single tremor. Sweeney saw the biker’s chest heave and heard his respiration catch for a second. Then fingers closed over Sweeney’s hand and the vial. And then the biker pulled the pharmacist into a long bear hug that ended only when Nadia came out onto the dock carrying a cocktail tray.
Sweeney and Buzz unclenched and turned to the woman. With one hand, Buzz lifted from the tray an uncapped bottle of bourbon and with the other he picked up two syringes. He leaned over and kissed Nadia on the brow, passed the bottle to Sweeney, and said, “Mother, the prodigal has returned.”
Sweeney took the bottle, brought it to his lips, and guzzled. He handed the bottle back and said, “What would you have done if I’d walked away?”
Buzz smiled and raised the bottle and closed both eyes for a second while he took a long drink.
“I’m a father,” he said, “I would’ve done whatever was necessary.”
Nadia rested the tray on the dock rail, stepped into Sweeney, laid a hand on his shoulder, and kissed him on the cheek.
“You made the right choice,” she said. “You’ll see.”
Buzz took another hit off the bottle and passed it back to Sweeney, then he slung an arm around Sweeney’s and Nadia’s necks, pulled both into him, released them just enough so that they could walk as a threesome back inside the factory.
Lit candles were on several of the lunch tables in the cafeteria and they gave the room a warm glow that hid much of its dinginess.
“The boys won’t be back till morning,” Buzz said, lowering himself into a Buddha posture in the center of the room and slapping the floor next to him, indicating that Sweeney should do the same. “I wanted the two of us to journey out together this time. We’ll go give Danny the word. Together. I can’t wait to see his face.”
He handed the spikes back to Nadia and began to roll up a sleeve. “The Sheep cooked up this last batch for me before he left. But with the new meat you brought tonight, there’ll be enough for everybody when they get home tomorrow.”
Sweeney pushed up his sleeves and put a hand on Buzz’s arm.
“You’ll let me talk to Danny first?” he said. “There are some things I’ve got to say.”
“When are you gonna realize,” Buzz said, “that I understand.”
“I know you do, Buzz,” Sweeney said and then looked up to Nadia and nodded.
She got down on her knees between the two men. The candles lit up her face. She took Sweeney’s arm in her hands, lifted it, and brought her mouth down to the inside crook and kissed the skin. Then she found the vein she wanted, plunged the needle in, and thumbed the soup home.
The puncture bled a little when she removed the spike. Sweeney looked from Nadia to Buzz and back. Then his head snapped back and he sucked in a fast lungful of air and keeled backward. He stared up at the ceiling, his mouth open a little, his jaw slack, his eyes unfocused, and one foot twitching at the end of his leg.
Buzz looked down on him approvingly.
“Let’s go, darlin’,” he said and held out an arm, “I told you everything would work out.”
Nadia cradled his arm and poked it with a finger looking for a target. “Buzz,” she said, “I never doubted you.”
And then she jammed the needle into the side of his neck, an inch below his left ear. Buzz screamed but didn’t manage to throw her to the floor until she’d flooded him with enough soup to overdose a trio of Abominations.
Nadia landed on her back at Sweeney’s feet. She looked up at Buzz who was trying and failing to yank the syringe out of his neck, muscles already numbing up. Buzz tried to stand and fell onto his stomach. He tried to speak but his tongue was swelling, and all that came out was a soft and slobbery sound. He threw an arm forward and hit Nadia’s leg but he was beyond a grasp by now.
Nadia sat up and kicked the hand away. She waited another second or two until she saw the eyes were dilated. Then she got onto her hands and knees, crawled to the incapacitated biker, pulled the needle from his neck and tossed it into a corner.
She put her hand over the seeping wound and said, “We’ll take good care of you, Buzz. I promise that. And the boys will come to visit whenever they get a chance.”
Taking a breath, she shifted position and said, “You okay?”
Sweeney sat up slowly and pulled down the sleeves of his shirt. He eyed Buzz cautiously and said, “You’re sure it was enough?”
She took her hand off the neck, wiped her palm across Buzz’s back, and said, “He’s in Limbo. And he’s never coming back.”
It took about an hour to give the Harmony a mediocre wipe-down. They worked in silence and spent most of their time packing what Nadia said she needed from the factory. They crated a hodgepodge of equipment, left it on the dock, and sat down in the rocking chairs.
“Do I want to know what was in my spike?” Sweeney asked.
“Saline,” Nadia said. “And some food coloring.”
“And you’re sure you won’t have any problems with the others?”
“I can handle my boys,” Nadia said. “Even the dumbest of the bunch knows he needs me more than Buzz.”
Sweeney thought about this for a few seconds, then asked, “How long will it take us to get there?”
For a while, he didn’t think she was going to answer. Then she said, “I’d like to make it to Tampico by Sunday. But you know, you can’t really open up a hearse.”
And as if on cue, they heard engines in the distance and looked out across the ruins to see the Abominations approaching. Near the end of the line of bikes he spotted his Accord. And bringing up the rear was the hulking, antique hearse. Both vehicles were spewing black smoke but managing to keep up with the convoy.
“I can’t believe,” Sweeney said, “they got the hearse up and running.”
“That’s been your problem from the start,” Nadia said. “This is a talented family. We can fix almost anything.”
“You’re sure there’s room,” Sweeney asked, “for both of them?”
“There’ll be plenty of room,” Nadia said. “There’s a lot of space when you take out the casket.”
Then the engine scream got too loud to talk over and they sat in silence as the bikes and the hearse and the Honda fell into a semicircle before them, idling, rumbling. The bikers glanced expectantly from one to the other and then all eyes turned up toward Nadia and Sweeney. And the nurse and the pharmacist gazed down on this collection of freaks, overgrown children with the names of creatures, all of them looking as if they had been woken, too suddenly, from a sleep that was heavy with the odd logic of dreams.
Nadia leaned over the dock railing and let a small smile spread over her lips.
“Okay, kids,” she said, “it’s time to rise and shine.”
LIMBO COMICS 2.0: “Rising and Shining”
. . They came from the city of Quinsigamond, in the heart of the industrial rust belt, a land of bad dreams and rubble. They crossed the American continent in a southwestern arc, traveling in a convoy that fragmented and regrouped over a run of days and states. And they became a family in the way that only renegades can, by embracing their difference and taking the hard-line against consensus reality.