“Shit,” someone murmured and I was pulled backward, my spine being scraped along something hard. I barely felt a thing.
Suddenly I was on my back, staring up at the moon and the two people peering over me.
“You’re going to have to give him CPR,” Maximus said to Perry as I continued to sputter.
Even in the moonlight, I could see her glare at him. She brought me upright and started pounding on my back, a rather crude version of mouth to mouth but it worked. The water flowed out of my lungs and onto the metallic flooring. I moved my head to look around. We were on a air boat driven by Maximus and in the opposite corner from me was a white-haired mound of limbs: Rose. Nearby the zombies were swimming for us, almost within reaching distance.
I couldn’t speak so I just pointed.
“I’m on it,” Maximus said. Just as the closest zombie latched his hand onto the side of the boat, we lurched forward and zoomed out of the way, leaving the zombie, the death, and the bayou behind.
We whirred away into the night.
“Are you missing part of your ear?” Maximus asked incredulously after a few moments.
And that was the last thing I heard. Once again, my body wanted to give up, my limbs becoming heavy, my mind shutting down like a tired old machine. Luckily I knew I wasn’t going to drown this time. I knew I was in good hands. I keeled over right onto the boat and made a note to thank Maximus when I woke up.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I was back on the goddamn row boat again. Back in the world of grey and monotony, of silky swamp water and huddled trees.
But I wasn’t alone.
My mother was on the boat with me, sitting at the end, a shawl wrapped around her. Her eyes were focused on the water, like I wasn’t even there. For once she didn’t look vaguely demonic. She looked as I remembered as a boy— a pretty woman with a lot of pain in her dark eyes.
It was weird being so close to her. I was still afraid, just as I had been when she was alive, never knowing what she was going to say or do to me. I didn’t know where we were, though I was going to assume I was inside the Thin Veil, and I didn’t know what rules applied. Was I dead? Was this my life now? Was she taking me somewhere in the row boat, someplace I’d never return from?
She began to sing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” again, her clear voice sending icy fingers down my spine. She sang the whole song, her voice carrying out over the water and coming back to her in harmony. I remembered that about her, that sometimes she would sing to me, when I wasn’t being terrorized of course. Only now did I realize that she’s where I got my singing abilities from.
“Declan, you have to go to sleep now,” she said kindly, still looking at the water.
I shivered at the uneasiness in the thick, grey air, at the blank look on her face. Should I say something to her? I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. She could strike fear in me like no one else could, even when she looked normal.
“Michael is in bed, he’s going to sleep, why can’t you? Why are you always so afraid, Declan? Did Michael say something to you? Is it me?”
I swallowed hard and looked over the side of the boat, to see what she could be looking at. There was nothing but water glinting under a sun I couldn’t see.
A sad smile came across her lips and she lowered her hand into the water, just brushing the surface. I had to imagine there was some younger version of myself in there, talking back.
“I’m sorry for what happened yesterday. Sometimes…sometimes I am not myself. I think it’s getting worse. But I still love you very much. You must know that, my son. I will always love you.”
I felt a lump get stuck in my throat. I nearly choked. My eyes were wet for some reason.
She went on, tears coming to her eyes too. “Please remember that. Remember this. Remember the good days when you look back. You were very much wanted by both me and your father. We will always be your parents. We raised you, it didn’t. You are our child and no one else’s.”
I had to say something. I had to know.
“What happened to you?” I asked her, my voice breaking.
She smiled again, still looking at the water. “Sometimes something very good can come from something very bad.”
“Was Michael the same?” My older brother had always been the overachiever, the sane one, the good son.
She didn’t say anything. Her face contorted in pain.
“Mother, is Michael the same as me?”
She closed her eyes and a tear rolled down. “I don’t even know your brother sometimes.”
What the f**k did that mean?
“Mom…”
“Be strong, no matter what happens to me. No matter what happens to your father. Be good. I know you have that in you, even if he doesn’t.”
“Who!” I yelled at her, the boat rocking beneath me as I stood up, trying to get her attention. “Who isn’t good? My father? Michael?”
She finally turned to look at me. Her eyes were now empty sockets.
“Go to sleep, Declan.”
And so I did.
***
“He’s coming around,” a woman with a heavy Louisiana accent said. “I’ll see if I can find her.”
I didn’t recognize the voice of the person speaking and was met with a spinning head and the strong urge to vomit, all before I even opened my eyes.
Please let me not be on a boat, please let me not be on a boat, I thought to myself. Also, no coffins please.
“Hey buddy,” I heard a familiar voice say. A heavy hand was placed on my arm.
I carefully opened my eyes, blinking hard at the stream of light that was coming in through a window. My eyes moved over to Maximus who was leaning over me, his red hair gleaming from the sunlight like some ginger halo.
“Oh god, am I in hell?” I asked, my throat feeling like it had been scraped with sandpaper. “Where am I?” Panic suddenly shot through me like an arrow and I made a feeble attempt to sit up, even though every single part of me hurt. “Where’s Perry?”
“She’s fine,” he said, pushing me back down into the bed. “The nurse went to go get her. She was so worried about you she wouldn’t sleep until they gave her a sleeping pill. I think she’s passed out in the waiting room somewhere. And if you can’t already tell, yes you are in a hospital.”
I groaned and tried to reach up to my ear. There was a lot of gauze wrapped around it and my head. “Fuck me, what happened?”