Pym_ A Novel - Mat Johnson [49]
I followed Angela Latham’s eyes, saw nothing.
“Listen,” Angela mouthed, and this I tried as well. There was nothing to warrant the wide-eyed expression that had seized her face.
“Breathing,” Angela mouthed, and I knew that I was breathing very hard, not quite used to the level of physical exertion currently being demanded. Then, logic clicking into my brain, I stopped my breathing, or at least paused it for a little while.
But the breathing kept going.
Harder than my own this time, although fainter from the distance. Just beyond the next corner, the next bend, something was alive. Something was alive and breathing like a thing wounded, its gasps heavy and deliberate, broken up by occasional forced sighs. It sounds almost like a horse, I thought. That is what it reminded me of.
I stood there waiting for Angela to continue walking toward the sound, which she did not. It seemed that Angela had changed her mind about being the first to discover our big-footed prey. Nor did she appear to want to let Nathaniel engage with the unseen beast either. Me, she was willing to sacrifice, and she reached out and pulled my sleeve, giving a slight push in the small of my back in the direction of my destiny.
Never had my own footsteps seemed so loud. Fortunately, the closer I came to the source, the louder its inhuman breath seemed to boom. Turning the corner, I saw the beginning of the beast, a massive black form in the shadow. As I inched closer, I could see that whatever it was was sprawled out, legs before it as it sat leaning against an ice wall. Heading forward in my slowest gait, I could see its chest heaving in the shadow, shuddering from the effort. Then as I came even closer, I saw the creature push a massive hand into its side and remove a small, high-fructose-corn-syrup laden Little Debbie snack cake and shove half the thing into its mouth.
“Damn Negro, you about scared me half to death. Why you creeping like that?” Garth managed. I say “managed” because he had a good amount of pastry in his jowls at the time. Hearing his voice, Angela and Nathaniel came up behind me. Angela used her adrenaline-fueled energy wisely: by giving Garth a good unwarranted kick in his leg before turning around and stomping back in the direction of our starting point. Nathaniel offered a smile and a shrug before he followed her.
Leaning an arm over me for support, the huffing Garth let some of his girth onto my shoulders, and as I walked us out I was soon breathing as hard as he was.
“You’re weak,” Garth huffed.
“You’re fat,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, but I’m strong, see? I carry all this fat around every day like it’s nothing.”
Angela and Nathaniel were far beyond us. By the time I’d pulled Garth up and started moving, they’d made a significant distance. Even in the halls that didn’t turn for hundreds of yards, I couldn’t see the end of them. Despite the rustling, despite the considerably heavy wheezing of my boy, the massive silence of this cavern started to hang over me. It occurred to me, more so than before, that if the ice above us gave in to its own weight, we would be completely lost. Enveloped in the cold, the labyrinth returned to nothing more than the packed solid mass it was supposed to be. Just when I was really starting to feel the strain, Garth removed his arm and attempted to walk again unaided.
“Listen,” he said as he trudged along. “You laughed at me before, but let me tell you something: Thomas Karvel is down here, you know, in Antarctica. He’s down here, waiting all the bad shit in the world out. Just chilling, hibernating almost. This could be his hideout.”
“What the hell does that have to do with anything? Look: I’m sure the rich have taken off to faraway places to escape the poisoned reservoirs, the bombs, wars,” I acknowledged. “But it’s to places like Aruba. White sand, not white snow.”
“Naw, dog. Karvel, he’s too smart for that. This is a man that went from a nobody to a billionaire selling pictures. Pictures. No, Karvel’s down here, away from everything. Nuclear, chemical, suicide bombs,