Lineage(76)

“What the f*ck were you doing?” Lance asked.

Andy heaved air in and out of his cleared lungs like an automated bellows. He then began to shake with cold.

It was only when Lance noticed his own teeth begin to chatter and his muscles go rigid that he felt fear enter his mind again. Hypothermia had begun to set in.



The ornate bathtub sat in the far corner of the bathroom off the master bedroom. Lance had only been in the room once before when he had initially toured the house. He walked across the dark threshold, trying to balance on wet feet as he carried Andy in his arms.

Andy made no movement to exit the tub as Lance set him into the cold porcelain. He shook uncontrollably, and Lance could hear his friend’s heels drumming and the muted machine-gun clicking of his teeth behind blue lips.

“Warm water’s coming, buddy, just a second.” Lance fumbled with the knobs in the darkness, and finally stood to flip on a light near the door. He didn’t want to flood the old tub with hot water and scald Andy’s freezing skin in the process of warming him up.

As he got the water conditioned to the right temperature, Lance tried to fight back the urge to climb into the tub and warm himself too. He settled for holding a hand under the lukewarm stream and shivering while he watched the rigor in Andy’s muscles loosen. The water crept up the tub’s side and Lance continued to increase the warmth by opening the hot valve further and further. Soon, Andy relaxed, his breathing became normal, and his lips lost their cobalt tint.

“You scared me out there,” Lance said, his voice overly loud against the white tile of the bathroom. Andy’s eyes remained closed and he gave no indication that he had been spoken to, although Lance could see the ridges of his pupils rolling beneath his eyelids. “Don’t worry, you’re okay. We’ll warm you up for a while and then get you back to bed.”

Lance gazed down through the rippling water, at Andy’s ankle. He stared for some time, waiting, watching. There were no marks on Andy’s leg, no bruises in the shape of fingers that would signify the tug of war Lance had fought in the lake.

Fought against what, exactly? the niggling voice asked. Lance shivered without the assistance of his lowered core temperature. His mind tried to show him the scene that had played out beneath the water again. The putrescent hand, somehow alive and gripping Andy’s leg. The struggle to pull against it. The way it slipped into the darkness of the drop-off like a nocturnal eel returning to its den.

“No,” Lance said. The word, meant to be forceful, came out as a plea. When denial failed in light of what he had seen, he tried to rationalize. He had been out of oxygen, flailing in the fist of panic. Fear had caused the hallucination and made it so real his mind believed it. Lance nodded to himself. It was plausible. Enough so that when the image came again, he refuted it and labeled it as a projection of trauma his mind had created.

“So many.” Andy’s voice startled Lance out of his internal struggle and he nearly fell back from the edge of the tub, which almost overflowed with water. Andy’s eyes were open now, his arms still resting at his sides.

“What?” Lance asked.

Andy didn’t move. His eyes focused on a blank wall over Lance’s shoulder. “There’s so many,” Andy whispered. His eyes closed and he seemed to drop into a deep sleep. Lance stared at him for several minutes, waiting for something more, but only the quiet of the house greeted his patience.

After assuring himself that his friend wasn’t going to die, Lance drained the water and toweled Andy off where he lay. After carrying him to the spare room, Lance deposited him into the bed. He drew back into the hallway while studying the sleeping form. The only sounds from the room were the familiar snores he had heard just before drifting into sleep earlier. As he walked into the small bathroom and turned on the shower, Lance marveled at how much had transpired since they had gone to bed a few hours ago.

The hot water rivaled any other sensation he had ever known, as it loosened his cemented muscles and the tendons, tight as fiddle strings, that attached them. He sighed as the adrenaline rushed away and left an immense expanse of exhaustion that threatened to slump him to the floor in a heap. His tired mind tried to revisit the events, but he shoved them away, unable to deal with anything further.

After drying off and falling into his welcoming bed, Lance had a few moments of contemplation before sleep dragged him beneath its veil. He spent them searching for a true explanation about what had happened and wondering what there were so many of.