linger near this concrete-walled swamp. The pool is nearly two hundred
feet long and eighty feet wide, with a lifeguard platform in the center.
Currently, it was two-thirds full of collected rain. The black water
would be black in daylight, too, because it was thickened with rotting
oak leaves and other debris. In this fetid sludge, even the moon lost
its silver purity, leaving a distorted, bile-yellow reflection like the
face of a goblin in a dream.
Although I remained at a distance, I could smell the reeking slough.
The stench wasn’t as bad as that in the bungalow kitchen, but it was
pretty close.
Worse than the odor was the aura of the pool, which could not be
perceived by the usual five senses but which was readily apparent to an
indescribable sixth. No, my overactive imagination wasn’t overacting.
This is, at all times, an undeniably real quality of the pool, a subtle
but cold squirming energy from which your mind shrinks, an evil mojo
that slithers across the surface of your soul with all the tactility of
a ball of worms writhing in your hand.
I thought I heard a splash, something breaking the surface of the
sludge, followed by an oily churning, as if a swimmer were doing laps.
I assumed these noises were the products of my imagination, but
nevertheless, as the swimmer stroked closer to my end of the pool, I
broke into a run.
Beyond the park lies Commissary Way, along the north side of which stand
the enterprises and institutions that, in addition to those in Moonlight
Bay, once served Wyvern’s thirty-six thousand active-duty personnel and
thirteen thousand of their dependents. The commissary and the movie
theater anchor opposite ends of the long street. Between them are a
barbershop, a dry cleaner, a florist, a bakery, a bank, the enlisted
men’s club, the officers’ club, a library, a game arcade, a
kindergarten, an elementary school, a fitness center, and additional
shops all empty, their painted signs faded and weathered.
These one- and two-story buildings are plain but, precisely because of
their simplicity, pleasing to the eye, white clapboard, painted concrete
blocks, stucco. The utilitarian nature of military construction combined
with Depression-era frugality which guided every project in 1939, when
the base was commissioned could have resulted in an ugly industrial look.
But the army architects and construction crews had made an effort to
create buildings with some grace, relying on only such fundamentals as
harmonious lines and angles, rhythmic window placement, and varying but
complementary roof lines.
The movie theater is as humble as the other buildings, and its marquee
rests flat against the front wall, above the entrance. I don’t know what
film last played here or the names of the actors who appeared in it.
Only three black plastic letters remain in the tracks where titles and
cast were announced, forming a single word, WHO.
In spite of the absence of concluding punctuation, I read this enigmatic
message as a desperate question referring to the genetic terror spawned
in hidden laboratories somewhere on these grounds. Who am I? Who are
you? Who are we becoming? Who did this to us? Who can save us?
Who? Who?
Bobby’s black Jeep was parked in front of the theater. The vinyl roof
and walls were not attached to the frame and roll bars, so the vehicle
was open to the night.
As I approached the Jeep, the moon sank behind the clouds in the west,
so close to the horizon now that it was unlikely to reappear, but even
from a block away, I could clearly see Bobby sitting behind the steering
wheel.
We are the same height and weight. Although my hair is blond and his is
dark brown, although my eyes are pale blue and his are so raven black
they have blue highlights, we can pass for brothers. We have been each
other’s closest friends since we were eleven, and so perhaps we have
grown alike in many ways. We stand, sit, and move with the same posture
and at the same pace, I think this is because we have spent so much time
surfing, in sync with the sea. Sasha insists we have “catlike grace, “