Zoo City Part 54

I take a deep breath and dive down, reaching for my own lost thing. The tea-coloured blackness swallows me whole. The faint distortion of the lyrics, mixed with a terrible high-pitched squealing, accompanies me down.

Drive-by, drive-by

I clamp down on the panic, the claustrophobia and the vertigo of blindness, following that slender thread.

There is a rush of current. And something ma.s.sive sweeps towards me in the darkness. I can't see but I can sense its mouth gaping and I fight back the terror, the urge to thrash for the surface. Its h.o.a.ry tail sideswipes me as it brushes past, hard enough to crack a rib.

I have to be close. I have to be. I swim another couple of metres or maybe a mile, and bang my wrist against a rock. I grab it and feel the shape of it with my hands, like a blind woman reading a face. The rock face curves under. I follow it down and grasp a revoltingly soft hand. The flesh gives way under my grip. I can't help it. I scream into the water, expelling valuable air.

Get a f.u.c.king hold of yourself. I reach out for the hand again. It's pliable and doughy like wet bread, but I can feel a hard edge. Bone? No. It's a splint. Two of the fingers are bandaged together. Ronaldo. His face looms into view, bloated, unrecognisable. But this time I'm ready for it. I reach out for the hand again. It's pliable and doughy like wet bread, but I can feel a hard edge. Bone? No. It's a splint. Two of the fingers are bandaged together. Ronaldo. His face looms into view, bloated, unrecognisable. But this time I'm ready for it.

I drag myself past him, deeper, grasping for Benoit, terrified of what else might be down here in the black. I run my hand along a fracture in the rock, over a body jammed into it. I grope my way up, trying to find a way to identify it, to pull it loose. Tiny bubbles escape from a fold in the shirt, like little fish nibbling at my fingers. I touch plastic. Benoit's burns.

His arm is caught in the crack and I'm running out of air. Dark spots pop in front of my eyes. I brace my feet against the rock and ease his shoulder loose. It rotates obscenely under the skin, his arm flopping loosely from the socket. I pull again, hard, and he comes away. Only Ro comes with him. I kick out in blind panic as the bulk of the rotting bouncer drifts into me. My foot sinks into his stomach. A stream of thick bubbles erupts from between his lips, and his head flops back and up, his arms dragging, like a man called to the Ascension, the trapped gases sending him bobbing up to the surface.

I kick up after him, but I have the disadvantage of a cracked rib and 95 kg of my one-time lover in tow. The black spots have turned to bright sunflares. My lungs have moved beyond burning to the sear of napalm. And I break into the air and the music, gasping and choking. And it's not even nearly over.

Baby you can drive me crazy, drive me anywhere you please

Huron's voice carries across the water. "Kids, this is my friend, Mr Crocodile. Say h.e.l.lo, Mr Crocodile. He'd like to be your friend too. Your special friend. Because quite frankly, I'm sick to death of the thing."

But baby don't break my heart, baby don't tease

I drag Benoit to the rocks. Sloth tries to help, yanking at his shirt with his teeth. I heave him up, but his legs are still dangling in the water, the current wafting at his pants. I scramble out, crouch down beside him, shivering. I hadn't realised how cold the water was.

Benoit's not breathing. I tilt his head back, squeezing his nose shut with one hand, and press my mouth against his. Two deep exhalations. Then I push two fingers against the artery in his neck.

Sloth whines, seeing the blood seeping through his shirt. "Shut up, buddy."

Please. Please. I count out the faintest of pulses. One alligator. Two alligator. Thirty beats in a minute. That can't be good. And he's still not breathing. And he's bleeding to death.

One thing at a time, Zinzi. I have no idea what I'm doing here. If he has a pulse, do I do chest compressions anyway? f.u.c.k.

We'll keep on moving, keep on cruising,

I tip his jaw back again, press my mouth down, inflate his chest with my breath. "f.u.c.k you, breathe. f.u.c.k you, breathe." Like we're some kind of obscene machine, a conjoined human bellows. "f.u.c.k you, Benoit, breathe."

It's okay baby, just stick with me

"I don't want to," Songweza says in a little-girl voice from across the cavern.

I don't look up. Can't afford to.

"We all do things we don't want to sometimes," Huron says. "It's like a game."

"Like Blood Skies Blood Skies?" S'bu asks, his voice vague and distant, an echo of a human being.

"I don't know what that is," Huron snaps.

"It's a video game."

"Yes, exactly like a video game," his voice turned wheedling.

"Cooperative or non-cooperative?"

"Definitely non."

Baby it's a drive-by, drive-by, drive-by love

I place the heel of my palm against Benoit's sternum, fingers interlaced. f.u.c.k it, chest compressions can't hurt, right? Only when I push down there is a horrible grinding sound in Benoit's chest, like his ribs are cracked. That makes two of us. "Good luck explaining that that to your wife," I hiss at him. "Come on, you cheating s.h.i.t." Sloth puts a paw over my hands. to your wife," I hiss at him. "Come on, you cheating s.h.i.t." Sloth puts a paw over my hands.

"Okay, you're right. No compressions." I take a deep breath. Try to calm down.

Baby it's a drive-by, drive-by, drive-by love

"Here's a knife for you, Song. And one for you. Don't worry, they have spells on them. You ready? First to kill the other wins."

"Yaaa!" Song giggles.

We'll keep on moving, keep on cruising, journey through the Benoit's body heaves against me, his teeth smashing into my mouth as he convulses. I pull away as he starts to choke, coughing up a thin stream of water and vomit. I turn him onto his side. He doesn't open his eyes. Sloth looks at me expectantly, but I don't know if this is it, if this is enough. It's not like the f.u.c.king movies. Benoit splutters and dribbles, then takes a deep wet gurgling breath. And then another one, slightly less wet. He doesn't open his eyes. But it's enough. He's breathing.

You stick with me, babe You stick with me, babe

His arm hangs grotesquely from his side, but if it's broken, it hasn't torn through the skin. Maybe just dislocated. The tooth punctures that run in a ma.s.sive arc down the right side of his body from his collarbone to his groin are something else. I just hope the f.u.c.ker didn't puncture an organ. I tie his shirt round his side the best I can to stanch the blood, haul Sloth over to the wound that's bleeding the most, over his appendix, liver, spleen? Christ, why didn't I pay attention in biology?

"Push down with all your weight, buddy. Don't let up on the pressure. I'll be back as soon as I can." He might yet bleed to death. Might still drown from the water on his lungs. Might have already sustained brain damage. We need to get to a hospital. We need machines and doctors. I try to blank the fear as I strike out for the landing.

Be all right, be all right, be all right

The track fades into silence. And then starts right up again.

Song's giggles turns to a shriek of indignation. Unfortunately, now I can see what's happening as well as hear it. The cage is standing open. There is a mound of limp fur and intestines and downy brown feathers lying on the butcher's block. The plastic sheeting is slick with blood. The Aardvark's head dangles off the edge, its eyes gla.s.sy as a stuffed toy. The Marabou is holding a Toad down on the block. It croaks in loud desperate gulps, its mottled throat inflated like a blister. She raises the machete and chops off its head. Blood sprays up in a bright gush.

"By these deaths, bind them," she says, wiping the spray of blood off her face with the back of her hand.

The Crocodile is lying on the other side of the platform, its mouth gaping open. Song and S'bu are circling each other, no longer handcuffed together, working around the giant reptile, while Huron and the Marabou watch from the bottom of the stairs. Or rather he's circling her. She's standing there, pressing her hand to the deep gash in her arm. "Ow, what the h.e.l.l, S'busiso?"

"Die, Cthul'mite!" Sbu shouts, slashing frantically at her, video game-style. He slices her hands, her arms, as she tries to cover herself. She drops her knife. "Seriously, doos doos. Cut it out. You're hurting me."