Odd Hours

the fact that Stormy and I had been dreaming our future together and, therefore, had been tempting fate.
    For whatever reason, as the rowboat initially eluded me, my frustration rapidly escalated into dread. I became crazily convinced that if I could not catch the boat and board it, the future we had dreamed together would never come to pass, and that in fact the death from which the boy had narrowly escaped would be visited instead on one of us.
    Because the boat was adrift and I was not, I reached it in due course. Aboard, I sat shaking, first with residual dread and then with relief.
    I suppose now that in swimming to retrieve the boat, I might have experienced a dim presentiment of the shooter who, a couple of years later, would take Stormy from me.
    Sometimes, I like to call into memory that day on the lake. The sky and the water. Safe in that sphere of blue.
    I tell myself that I can still dream our future into existence: the two of us on a new Earth all our own.
    Now and then, as we floated on our backs, the winglike motion of our arms brought our hands in contact beneath the water, and we gripped each other for a moment as if to say I’m here, I’m always here.
    The tugboat yawed, and the rubber bumpers squealed between the vessels, and from above and aft came a solid thud that trembled the deck.
    I slid off the radio operator’s desk and got to my feet.
    Having tumbled from his chair, the dead man lay on his side, his head twisted so that he faced the ceiling. His mouth hung open, and his eyes were like those of a fish on ice in a market.
    That I had never seen Stormy’s body in death, that in mercy she had been brought to me only as ashes in a simple urn, filled me with a gratitude beyond measure.
    Leaving the radio room, I knew the time had not yet come for me to venture above. Once the transfer of the nukes had been completed and the crates lashed down, once Junie’s Moonbeam sailed away into the fog, Utgard and Buddy would at once kill Jackie and Hassan. My best chance to succeed at this was to time my afterdeck appearance to that bloody moment.
    Opening off the passageway was one room I had not explored, the aft compartment on the starboard side, across from the radio room. I tried the door, found a light switch, and stepped into a lavatory.
    A red cross marked a white corner cabinet full of first-aid supplies.
    After pulling off my sweatshirt and T-shirt, I spread the wound with my fingers. I poured rubbing alcohol into the shallow gash.
    No stitches were needed. Bleeding, renewed by this attention, would eventually stop again.
    Leaving the laceration open to the air and the rub of clothing, however, ensured a continuous stinging that distracted me. I had to work at an awkward angle, and I might not have a lot of time; so I used no gauze, only wide waterproof adhesive tape to seal the cut.
    Stripping it off later, I would inevitably tear open the laceration. I didn’t worry about that, because if the time came for me to peel away the tape, that would mean I had survived Utgard and his crew.
    As I put on my sweatshirt, another heavy thud from the afterdeck shivered through the tugboat.
    Although I did not think anyone would come below until the work was done, I turned off the light and stood in blackness. Should the door open, I could shoot as he reached for the switch.
    The small lavatory had no porthole. The room would admit no thread of light around the door frame.
    I thought of the mirror in Sam Whittle’s bathroom, which had reached out to claim his lingering spirit.
    The lavatory featured a spotted mirror above the sink. I could not see what might be forming in its dark reflective surface.
    My usually fevered imagination could do nothing with this rich material.
    Real violence had come. More was pending.
    The door to ruthlessness that I had opened in my mind had not been closed. More than darkness and mirrors, I feared what could come out of that inner door.
    Heavier vibrations translating through the sea into the tugboat hull were proof that the transfer had been completed and that Junie’s Moonbeam was getting under way once more. We began to roll in the wake of the departing yacht.
    I left the lavatory and went to the aft companionway, moving counter to the deck to keep my balance.
    At the top of the stairs stood the door through which I had originally come below. A porthole provided a view of the long fog-swept afterdeck, which was still brightened by the halogen work lamp.
    Two