Papers shuffle back and forth across the nurses' station. Tracy, zoned out on Thorazine, mutters and frets a little when Skinner tries to talk to her, and the ex husband settles in for the night. Time seems to be slightly off-track; minutes pass wavering by, and then hours. The police come and there's more talk, more papers, badges flashed all around the room, and eye-rolling nurses who finally tire of the whole thing and get on to their other patients.
Skinner leaves Tracy's room and goes down the hallway, passing the nurse, nodding to the uniformed police officer sitting in the chair he'd been sitting in earlier. The officer nods back, but it's more of a gesture with his chin to indicate where Scully went, and Skinner turns the corner to see her curled up on one of the cheap blue vinyl bolster arrangements that pass as sofas. She is asleep with her head braced between one of the bolsters and the wall, arms folded, legs tucked under her. Skinner bends down and carefully, with no more than a fingertip, lifts a strand of hair away from her cheek. Then he squats beside her, his wrists on his knees, big hands dangling. He just looks at her. She's asleep and it can't hurt anything. So he just looks.
It's very late. The hospital is silent except for the intake and outtake of breathing everywhere and the faint humming of some underground machinery. The tiles are cold. The walls are cold. The glass entrance doors are fogged from the outside heat pressing up against it. The hospital pushes out the city, a big impassive structure that keeps its screams to itself.
There's a movement in the hallway, and Skinner glances up just in time to catch a glimpse of dark cloth fluttering: was that a man in a long black coat slipping into Tracy Buckland's room?
He shoots up, thighs and calves screaming with surprise, and runs down the hall, his hard soled shoes sliding a little on the wet linoleum. He bursts into Tracy's room, banging the door against a chair so hard that it snaps back and almost hits him in the face.
No one is in the room. Well, Tracy is there, and in a chair by her bed, the ex husband, with his chin rising slowly from his chest, his dark eyes stupid with sleep. "Hunhh…?" But no intruder.
Quick check. No one else in the room. Skinner looks at the ex and says, "Did someone just come through here?"
"Don't," Tracy says. Skinner jumps as if she spit at him, though her tone is low and even. "Don't follow the dark man," she warns.
Skinner opens his mouth to speak but the ex is bending over Tracy and gently stroking her hair back from her head, the way a man might pet a dog. "Honey, the dark man isn't here," he murmurs. "He can't hurt you."
Skinner looks helplessly from side to side at the empty room. "Who?"
The ex looks apologetic . "She's got like this personal boogeyman thing. She saw that movie, 'Dark City,' and when something scares her she always thinks of that. I don't know why."
"I don't understand." Skinner wishes Scully were here. He's better at talking to people than talking with them.
"It was a movie with these guys in long black coats and big black hats. It was pretty stupid, if you ask me. They floated around. Big whoop. Like that's going to hurt you." He looks at Tracy, who watches Skinner steadily. "Scared the shit out of her, though. Said it was like something out of her nightmares when she was a kid. She's been talking about it all night, even in her sleep."
Skinner takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes. Tracy's gaze has fixed on the ceiling, or something beyond that. He knows he's not thinking clearly enough. Seeing things where there are no things, like her. Mustn't make a mistake. Time to cash in their chips and call it a night.
He goes into the hall, speaks softly to the guard, gets Scully awake. She's as drowsy and balance-impaired as a drunk. He takes her arm and steadies her as they go outside, into the belly of the oven-like parking lot. Usually it cools off by now, but this night can't seem to break its fever. There are insects buzzing in the bushes, and a tour bus fills the still air with exhaust fumes. Scully falls asleep as soon as he gets her into the car. Thank God it isn't a long drive, and the streets are relatively empty at that hour. For Vegas, anyway.
In the hotel there are the sounds of gaming, the constant repetition of slot machine tunes, the click of chips, the rattling whirl of cards being shuffled. Cartoonish voices chirp and bark and cry out for attention from every corner. And of course there are no clocks.
Skinner and Scully cling to each other like drowning victims dragging themselves to dry land. He takes her to her room, not Mulder's room. Her own room, her own bed. She mutters something to him and flops down on the big square chenille bedspread, her head missing the pillow by a few inches. She makes a feeble attempt to drag it down to her and then gives up. Too complicated. Maybe later. Her breathing deepens into sleep within seconds.
Take off her shoes, Skinner thinks. But he knows better. The man inside him says, no, don't you dare. So he sinks into a too-soft chair and tries to think of what to do next. But all he knows is what NOT to do. To make it all worse, Scully is singing in her sleep. Humming some kind of soporific lullaby. At first it's just a vibration of noise. But then in the quiet of the room it grows louder. Siren song. So lovely, that sound. So dark and deep and quiet and lovely.
Oh the rich, warm, sweet, red beating. Beating. Beating.
Skinner is not a man of metaphors. To him poetry has the stink of cheap whorehouse perfume. Only the clean zero sums of math make sense. Things you can touch and measure, dice that always fall within a certain set of numbers, predictable and safe. Things you can touch, and see…
Once upon a lifetime, when Skinner was twenty years old in a jungle of lush green and bright red, he floated up above the carnage, and if he had only flapped his arms one time, he would have found out once and for all if a man can fly. But he didn't want to know then and he doesn't want to know now.
This will not be an easy thing.
Accounts due, the rumor of that upcoming departmental audit, papers piled on his desk, reports that all require great attention to detail. Mustn't make a mistake. Things to do he can't leave undone. His office chairs are hot pink because while he was in Vegas, Holly redecorated. Yes, now he remembers giving her permission. There she is, on the phone, chewing gum and talking to Scully. Scully is coming to see him about Mulder. Scully, Scully, Scully. Disappearing around corners, half a smile in a mirror, a flash of Irish red hair. And those eyes, big and serious, looking up into his.
Skinner makes a sound like the breath of a swimmer breaking water, and finds himself staring at the lamp by Scully's bed. She twitches a little and makes a whimpering sound that breaks his heart because he can't cross the ocean of carpet between them to comfort her. He closes his eyes again and…
There's Tracy. She is standing in front of him, a finger over her lips signaling him to be quiet. She reaches out and takes his hand, her own fingers small and slim and gentle, a woman's touch. "Come with me," she whispers. "I want to show you something."
He lets her lead him from the motel room into a brilliant square of light that must be the front doors by dawn; the sun must be angling directly down on those glass doors…
They step into a dreamscape made up of red earth, brown and grey rocks. A little scrub vegetation. Holes here and there, dug into the hard ground, and those who dig going up and down ladders. College kids in Doc Martens and cargo shorts. Skinner recognizes the scenario: it's an archeological site. Tracy lets go of his hand and begins to climb backwards down a ladder into a hole. It is a terrifically deep hole, maybe ten or twelve stories and pitch black at the bottom. No way is he going down there.
It comes to him (as he is going down the ladder in a jump cut that conveniently eliminates his dislike of heights) that it isn't Scully humming, never was. It's harsher now, the sound all around him, and it isn't humming at all: it's buzzing. And it's getting louder. And then a scrabbling sound tells him they aren't alone in the pit.
oyster 13
