Smoke, Chapter 4
Let me go.
Please, let me go.
I've done enough...
I've done enough...
...for you...
Scrubbing the infinitely filthy thing, all Penelope knew was that she had to keep moving.
She had become acclimated to the bottom of the sea, and the constant motion of her hands. She floated in an endless black, never experiencing pain, tiredness, or physical exhaustion. But there was still a kind of mental exhaustion from the monotony alone. She scrubbed, although nothing ever seemed to change about the massive, curved side of the thing; still, a painful strike at her back always let her know when she was flagging or working improperly. The creature kept a constant watch.
She had formed a sense of it now: the creature was about seven feet long, but very broad and slick. She sometimes felt it brush her as it swam around. It had two tentacles or antennae. Due to the darkness, she didn't know any more about its appearance, but she did know that it was a wicked thing.
She had completely lost track of time, but she imagined that it had probably been at least a week she had been down there. There was no sleep. She did not seem to need it, even though her mind screamed out for escape. She was also accustomed to sightlessness, more or less; and yet yearned near to the point of madness for light and vision. Why did I put my feet in the damn water? she asked herself for the thousandth time, feeling at the the something-caked, curved object to see if she had made any difference, then resuming her scrubbing. Why did I basically go up to this monster and say, "Hi, please abduct me?" She forced herself, however, to keep numb, for it was numbness that saved her from despair and thus lashes.
And then one night, Penelope sucked in water and could no longer breathe. She felt a long-forgotten sense of burning in her lungs. Her hands stopped moving. In a panic, she fought her urge to swim for the surface simultaneously as another part of herself fought to keep cleaning the thing as she had been trained. But she was spared the decision, because someone took hold of her and was moving with tremendous speed away from her barless prison. She had nearly blacked out, all the same, by the time they finally surfaced.
"Hand her to me! Quick, quick!" She distantly felt her body being passed from rubbery human hands to bare ones, then laid out on a towel on the slick floor of a speedboat. The sunlight was horrifically blinding. She winced and moved to cover her eyes, so someone laid another towel over her face. In an instant she was covered by blessed darkness and soft, dry fabric. Dryness! It was something she had not felt for so long. "OK. Let's take her back."
"I had to fight it," she heard someone gasp, as if coming out of a mask or heaving in air.
"Sh! Tell me later. ...are you alright?"
"I'm fine. I thought that might happen."
The other person scoffed. "You got lucky."
"I guess."
The tension of the disagreement faded into the roaring of the motor sputtering on, and then Penelope felt the boat kick across the waves, jostling her body gently where it lay on the towel. She felt as if all the energy had been drained from her. She had to urinate. She felt incredibly thirsty. She felt famished. And as all of these required some kind of vocalization or action, she addressed none of them except the desire to lie still and allow herself to be jiggled about by the motion of the boat. She focused on the sensation of her breath pressing against the fibers of towel and falling back against her skin, uncomfortably stuffy to her in the past but wonderful to her now. I'm breathing.
They half-carried her, staggering, out of the boat and up a dock in a neighborhood she did not recognize, to a large house with sun-paled wooden slats, and stretched her out on a worn brown sofa. They did not turn on any lights, and the sunlight filtering through the windows was just dim enough for her to begin to reacclimate her eyes. One of the people went out of the room. "Hello," said the woman who had taken hold of her on the boat. "I'm Georgie. What's your name?"
"Penelope," she croaked.
"Just relax, Penelope. We're here to help you. Would you like some water?"
Penelope nodded. Georgie bustled away, returning with a glass of cool water that she held out to Penelope's weakened hand. After taking a long, deep drink that nearly emptied the glass, Penelope looked more closely at Georgie. There were smile lines on her tanned face, crow's feet stepping beside her blue eyes. Her grey-streaked brown hair was tied back in a frizzy ponytail. She wore water-splashed blue jeans and a floral t-shirt. Penelope felt safe about her. She seemed genuinely kind.
The other woman walked into the room, changed out of her diving gear into a black tank top and cutoffs. Penelope could see a tattoo creeping over her left shoulder. "Well? How is she? How are you."
Penelope did not know how to answer this. It was like being asked this everyday question at a funeral, or after escaping across the border of a war-torn country. Instead of answering, she said, "What happened to me?" The woman started to reply, but Penelope interrupted the answer to her own question with a hint of hysteria: "How long has it been?!"
Georgie set a hand gently against Penelope's shoulder. "Shh, shh. Lie down. We'll explain everything."
The younger woman plopped down on the sofa beside Penelope's feet. "You got captured by an 01." She inspected the wounds-turning-scars on Penelope's leg. "Looks like it was about three weeks, but then, everyone heals differently with them."
"01??" Penelope peered down at her leg, having entirely forgotten about the injury.
Georgie cast a wry glance at her friend. "12:01 AM. I think Charlie told you a little about it." At Penelope's confused face, she added, "Charlene. The old woman you spoke to when you first saw it in the water."
"But what are you talking about? What happened to me?!" She rose up, and her body took this moment to remind her how badly she needed to urinate. She sheepishly added, "Can I use your bathroom."
The other woman half-laughed and held out a hand for support. "Come on."