Zoo City - By Lauren Beukes Page 0,98
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 fucking 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 drag myself past him, deeper, grasping for Beno卯t, 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. Beno卯t'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 hello, 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 Beno卯t 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.
Beno卯t'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? Fuck.
We'll keep on moving, keep on cruising,
I tip his jaw back again, press my mouth down, inflate his chest with my breath. "Fuck you, breathe. Fuck you, breathe." Like we're some kind of obscene machine, a conjoined human bellows. "Fuck you, Beno卯t, 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?" 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 Beno卯t's sternum, fingers interlaced. Fuck it, chest compressions can't hurt, right? Only when I push down there is a horrible grinding sound in Beno卯t's chest, like his ribs are cracked. That makes two of us. "Good luck explaining that to your wife," I hiss at him. "Come on, you cheating shit." 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,