44) I lay the men to rest, side by side, in the Date Garden. I put one stilled hand in the hand of the other. Carlos and his small friend. I name them Knights of the Short Straw. It is the least I can do after having done the most I can do, to them. I notice the night is temperate, the air fresh, as I climb the rope ladder to the deck. I am free. Of the pit. Here and now, I do not want any other man to die. I must avoid the balance of the crew, six, while making my escape. They must avoid me, I mean. I am pleasantly surprised to see lights on a nearby shore. A heavy chain is plunged into the water. We are at anchor! Perhaps we were never far from the coast. Perhaps we were never under way. It was all a trick of my guilty conscience, if I had one. Maybe next I'll wake up and my life hitherto will have been a miserable dream, but dreamt by a wonderful family man, or a gentleman about town, a dapper dresser, full of wit and insight, a man of bursting wallet, generous, too, often inviting complete strangers to dine and drink in fine clubs or bistros, or even in my own home, which is large, plenty of room for games of chance and chess, for singing and grand conversation, and a reading library of hoary volumes full of mystery and hate, violence, regicide and gloom, there would be numerous bathrooms for even the most discriminating evacuators, down every painting-lined wall. I'll stir from the four poster with only a dissipating vapor of stomach sickness to bridge the somatic divide. Nope. No dream.
Where is my backpack? I've found a suitable lifeboat but I cannot leave without my backpack. I don't go far. I almost trip over it after finding the lifeboat. The contents are largely useless so I needn't check for theft. Not much I could do if I found the brochures missing. Kill them all? I think not, not for brochures. Of them, they are pretty, they have neat, even folds, between each is boldly written detail about, and fine pictures of, waterfalls, ducks, horses, mountains and rodeos. One features 'Indians of the West'. An interesting group. What are they doing? What do they do? How curious these riders on horseback. With weapons. The woman, too, is armed.
I can ill afford to linger over them. I get into the little boat. There is a skill to the lowering I do not have. Progress is slow. Halfway down I worry more and more about the noise I am making. I nervously look hither and yon, waiting for the detection that will send more men to their deaths, when what should I see through the windows of the ship's control room: Dr. Creep in silhouette. The spider's body itself! He is talking to the crew, now he's gesturing a sharp meaning. Dr. Creep is here. He will think I am a murderer again and again. Too many times. I must get away, sever the apron strings. I cannot take seeing disappointment in his eyes, eyes made of smoke and the dust of ages. I have not looked into them, but I know he has witnessed monuments weather away, the miraculous becomes mundane in his hands, and, he made me, in his image. That is how I know him.
Time to row to shore and... North.
Goodbye, Doctor Creep.