Diluvium

* for KJT *

New to the group, Louis Morton wished he was driving the airboat.  Although the youngest aboard the vessel, Louis was raised maneuvering airboats through twisting Louisiana bayous during fishing excursions and gator hunting.  Being reduced to a passenger bored him, but having a job in such troubled times was a godsend.  Louis kept his mouth shut as the craft zipped south.

Ray Armstrong pushed the airboat’s right hand throttle lever back, dropping the engine’s loud growl into a grumble.  Encased in a protective metal cage to keep tree and body limbs from getting mangled, the propeller stopped and the johnboat bobbed in Lake Pontchartrain’s mellow waves.  In the distance, parting dense fog revealed crumbling skyscrapers rising from the water like jagged teeth.

“There she is, boys.  America’s first great ruins: New Orleans.”

“Man, feels like forever and an hour since we shoved off from Slidell,” said Peter Bechet.  “We’d get there faster if you let me drive the boat.”

Ray ignored him.  “We got ‘bout 20 minutes before we’re in the Old Intercoastal Canal.  We’ll take Saint Claude into the labyrinth till we hit Esplanade, then follow it down to Bourbon Street.  Sticking to the wide channels till we hit the Quarter should be the easiest, most trouble free route.  In and out shouldn’t take longer than three or four hours, so look alive.”

“I’ve seen it in pictures,” said Louis, “but I can’t believe it looks so ominous...like gravestones.”

Peter laughed.  “Wait till we get in the labyrinth.  You’ll just love all the gators, snakes, and nutrias trying to nip a piece out of your ass.”

“Nutrias?” Louis rubbed his five o’clock shadow.

“River rats, kid.  Used to be able to find them everywhere, but when everything fell apart, they were hunted for food and their pelts.  Now they just exist in New Orleans.  Place is infested with them.”  Peter cracked his knuckles and leaned on the elevated airboat seat.  “Before Hurricane Katrina destroyed the levees and flooded the city’s streets, they would pay people to kill them.  Kept the population down or at least manageable.  Since the Great Flood, they’ve bred as fast as these damned mosquitoes.  Like all the damned Swampies living in the ruins.”

“What about Ponchie?” Louis asked, looking at the dark water.  “Aren’t the Swampies afraid of getting eaten?”

“Ponchie?  The lake monster?”  Peter asked.

Ray laughed.  “No such thing, kid.  Some idiots caught sight of some oversized river catfish and cried wolf.  Stupid superstitious nonsense, all of it.”  He paused, rubbing the silver charm shaped like a feather around his neck.  “The worst thing out there is the Swampies.  Well, them and the pollution.  The whole damn place went septic after the city went under and the pump stations were abandoned.  In the old days, the ground was too damp to bury the dead proper, so all the graves were above ground.  The corpses would cook to dust in the humid air, but when the water came, they mixed with the sewage and turned poisonous.  Not to mention the fresh bodies from all the poor souls who couldn’t escape the deluge.  Like there wasn’t enough garbage floating in those inundated streets.  Now all that’s left is filth, yet the people in the labyrinth thrive.”

“How are they surviving in there?  What do they eat?” Louis asked.

 “People like that eat whatever they want.  Nutrias.  Each other.”  Peter smiled, exposing a mouthful of yellow teeth peppered with tobacco.  “Mainlanders.”

Louis started to say something, but Ray pushed the throttle lever forward, reengaging the airboat’s engine.  He sat back in his seat, silently cussing his boss and longing to drive the airboat.  The fog-clad buildings grew taller as the trio approached America’s Atlantis.

Fifteen minutes later, outside the first row of skeletal trees and housetops poking from the water above Saint Claude Avenue, Ray cut the engine.  “This is your rookie run, so before we enter the labyrinth, there’re some things we gotta get straight, Louis.  This is a salvage run—people pay a lot of money for unique artifacts.  Stay away from mass-produced tourist trap bullshit.  If I catch you even looking at Mardi Gras beads, you’re Ponchie bait, get it?  We need the bizarre, something unique that screams Crescent City.  We’re not looking for quantity, we need quality.  You find the right piece, we can leave with one thing and have good month.”

Louis nodded.  “Gotcha.”

Ray placed his arm on Louis shoulder.  “Also, keep your distance from the Swampies—if we even see any.  There was always madness in Creole blood, but now there’s no law keeping them in line.  No job is worth your life.”

“Don’t let the old man scare ya,” Peter said, flashing his holstered revolver behind his jacket.  “If the yokels give us any problems, I’ll shut them up real fast.”

“Easy, Bechet.  We’re in and out, no static.”  Ray lit a cigarette.  “Look underneath us, boys.”

Peter and Louis looked over the edge of their respective sides of the airboat.  Through murky water, the rooftop of a sunken house was visible. 

“How deep is it?” Louis asked. 

“Here it’s about…seventeen—maybe twenty feet.  As we get closer to Canal Street, that number decreases.  New Orleans is…was shaped like a cereal bowel.  The Vieux Carré was built before the levee system, on some of the highest ground, so the French Quarter was better protected from the floodwaters.  Problem is the city is constantly sinking, even still.  Nothing could save it from the ever-hungry swamp.  The storms kept coming, the lake and Mississippi River kept spilling over, and the ground kept sinking.  They say in less than twenty years the Quarter will be totally submerged. Every year more and more of it is swallowed up by the bayou.”

Louis could not take his eyes off the submerged building, imagining bodies floating silent and graceful underneath the boat, like betta fish.  “Why did they ever build here?”

“Greed,” Ray said.  “It was an inevitable city in an improbable location built on unstable ground as a port linking the center of America to the Gulf of Mexico.  This waterlogged wasteland was once considered the jewel of the South.”

“How could they let it fall if it was so important?”

Ray was amused by Louis’s naivety.  “Katrina was just the beginning of the end.  Subsequent storms made the damage worse and repairs impossible.  People remaining in the city formed gangs and kept out any attempt at order that wasn’t their own.  Eventually the government—before fracturing after the Market Crash of ’13—decided it was better to just let the city sink than to pour trillions into a lost cause.  Since then the Swampies have done a decent job of killing each other off.”

“We gonna see any today?” Louis asked.

Ray shook his head.  “Doubt it.  The real danger is Uptown, on the other side of Canal Street in what used to be called the Garden District.  Lot’s of action there.  We’re sticking with the Quarter today.  It’s safer than Uptown, but it’s still a cradle of weird.  Guess in that sense nothing’s changed since the flood.”

Ray piloted the airboat into the buildings, careful not to hit the throttle too hard.  Excess wake slamming against the buildings could draw out unwanted creatures or attention.  Deeper into the labyrinth, the ground underneath was higher, elevating the tightly lined rooftops above the water level and creating a complex maze leading to Canal Street, former downtown New Orleans.  The fog thickened.  An occasional bird call echoed through the flooded streets, and, once or twice, something splashed nearby.

The path curved before hitting Esplanade, a wide channel intersecting Saint Claude.  Ray pushed the rudder lever forward, turning the airboat left.

“We’re outside of the Quarter,” Ray said.  “When we hit Bourbon, we’re on the hunt.  If you see a place you want to check or something interesting grabs ya, we’ll stop.”

After passing three submerged streets, Ray pulled the steering lever back and the airboat turned right.  When they entered Bourbon Street’s narrow mouth, he slowed the craft.  Debris was everywhere.  As the airboat passed, flotsam clinging to the buildings bounced in the wake; a branch stuck in a wrought iron fence broke free and drifted towards Canal Street.  Many of the windows were shattered, and broken strands of Mardi Gras beads dangled from what was left of trees and fleur-de-lis fence post tops tall enough to breach the surface.  The waterline swallowed most of the buildings’ lower floors, but the second stories were dry. 

“I like that one there, with the gallery.”  Peter pointed to an ironwork balcony supported from the ground by poles.  “I think we can get up there and bust it open no problem.”

“You ready, kid?” Ray asked. 

Louis nodded. 

“All right.  Peter, you climb up first.  Louis, you’ll follow him.  You two be careful.  Sometimes there’s razor wire or broken glass on those galleries used to keep out pre-flood thieves and hobos.  You don’t want to get cut out here.  I’ll watch the skiff, make sure we don’t get stranded.  It should easy street, but,” he patted the walkie-talkie on his belt, “shout at the first sign of trouble.”

“No problem, boss,” Peter said.

Ray steered the boat to the gallery’s support.  Peter grabbed one of the posts and tied off the airboat.  Grabbing the ironwork, he had no problem lifting himself over the handrail.  After climbing on, he jumped twice, testing the gallery’s strength.

“No glass and she’s sturdy.  Come on up, kid.”

Louis swallowed hard and scrambled up the ironwork.  Slipping on the handrail, Louis saw the sinister water and panicked.  He started to tumble, but Peter grabbed him and hauled him over.

“Easy there, twinkle toes,” Peter laughed.  “I’m not swimming after you.”

“I—I—”  Louis steadied himself on the handrail. 

“You two all right?” Ray called.

“Yeah, boss.  Kid’s fine.”

“Quit wasting time up there, boys.  Sun’s gonna set, and I don’t want to be out here after dark.”

Peter gave Louis a little push.  “You heard him, let’s pop open this tomb and see how she smells.”  When a shattered glass door on the far end of the gallery wouldn’t budge, he smirked and kicked through with his steel-toe boot.  He extended an arm to Louis, waving him in.  “Baptism by fire.  Ladies first.”

Louis swallowed hard and stepped into the darkness.  Overpowering mold enveloped his senses as he cracked a long glow stick; it burst alive, radiating neon green.  Behind him, Peter cracked another, and combined they provided enough illumination to begin scavenging. 

“Looks like this building was once a house, not some dive bar,” Peter said.  “Look for bedrooms—sometimes you can score some antique jewelry or some vintage clothing.  If you find any unopened liquor bottles, grab ‘em.  They go for big ducats onshore.”  Peter looked around the room.  “You know, it’s funny.”

“What’s that?” Louis asked as he poked around a leaning bookshelf. 

“Back on the mainland, people are fighting each other just to eat, to keep roofs over their heads, and we’re in this toilet, grave robbing so some rich asshole can show off to other rich assholes.  If no one ever told you life’s a sick joke, here’s the punch line, kid.  Us.”  Peter opened a desk drawer and smiled.  “Jackpot.”

“What is it?”

Peter waved a stack of magazines in the air.  “Nudie books.”

Louis chuckled.  “You’re not serious are you?”

“Hell yeah, I am.  After riding around with you two jokers all day, these lovelies will help clear my mind.”  Peter rested them on the desk.  “Let’s check that hall.  Think I see some light.”

Leading the way, Peter followed the narrow hall until it opened into a large flooded courtyard surrounded on all sides by narrow arcades decorated with intricate ironwork railings.  In the courtyard’s center, the top of an ornate cement water fountain surrounded by withered trees reaching for salvation with crooked fingers laced with dangling beads protruded from the stagnant, brown water.  Several mildewed statues watched the visitors with emotionless scrutiny as they surveyed the area.

“Looks like a winner,” Peter said, pointing towards one of the effigies, a woman with flowing hair covering her bare breasts with her left arm.  “She’s probably heavy, but I ain’t afraid to hoist her up.  I think she’s close enough to the railing for me to reach.”

“I think it’s too much.  How are we gonna get her on the boat?”

“Watch a master, kid.”  Peter hopped over the rail.  Supporting himself with one arm, he leaned over and rested his palm on the statue’s head.  He looked back at Louis and smiled.  “I know who will be in my thoughts later when I retire with that literature I found.”

He wrapped his arm around the statue’s neck and tried to lift her up.  “Damn, she’s a tough broad.”

Louis laughed.  “Told you.”

“Look, not another word outta—”

The water underneath Peter erupted as a large alligator sprung out, grabbing him with its jaws and pulling him off the rail, both vanishing in the dark water.  Louis, stunned, saw the dark water bubble brown and then red.  When reality sank in, he ran down the arcade, screaming.

His walkie-talkie crackled.  “What in the hell is going on in there?  If this some kind of joke, I swear this is the last run you two will ever make.”

By the time the message was over, Louis was on the gallery, panting.  He looked down at Ray and stammered, “A gator got Peter.”

Ray looked at the water stretching down Bourbon Street and sighed.  “Get in the boat, kid.”

“What?  We can’t just leave him.”

“There’s nothing…there’s nothing we can do.  That gator is sticking him under something so he can rot, gonna be dinner later.  Now, get in the boat before it comes out looking for dessert.”

Louis glanced over his shoulder before climbing over the gallery and taking a seat in the boat.  He looked up at Ray and frowned. 

“Don’t give me that look, kid.  You know the score out here.  And he knew the dangers of these runs better than anyone.  Death is always a companion in the Big Easy.  New Orleans is the city of the damned.”

“Hey, you two,” a voice called.  “Stay outta there.  Stay outta that building.”  Ray and Louis saw a man wearing sunglasses and a tattered Saints ball cap leaning over an adjacent balcony.  Brown dreadlocks fashioned with hemp knots dangled past his shoulders.  He spoke with a Cajun drawl, and around his neck he wore beads with plastic crawfish dangling from them.  “There’s a monster gator in there named Ole Gus.  He don’t like visitors much.”

“Unfortunately we’ve already met him.  He got one of my men,” Ray said, his fingers touching his pistol’s butt.

“That’s too bad,” the Swampie said.  “You both pirates, eh, searching for something to bring to the mainland?  I got things, pretty things.”

“What do we do boss?” Louis whispered.

“We get out of here,” Ray answered.

“I got booze,” the Swampie said, lifting up a bottle of Absinthe.  “Liquor you can’t find on the mainland.”

“What are your terms?” Ray asked.

“Truce.  I call truce.  I want a ride out.  You get me to solid ground, and I’ll show you paradise.  All the bottles you want.”

“You gonna help us load?” Ray asked.

“Help ya load, help ya drink ‘em.  Whatever ya need.”

“All right,” Ray said, “truce.  The bottles for a ride.  Let us up.”

“Ray, I thought you said—”

Ray hissed, adding under his breath, “Shut it, kid.  Follow my lead.”

The Swampie threw down a rope ladder over the balcony as Ray piloted the airboat towards him, throwing anchor when he reached the trader.  Ray climbed up the rope, Louis close behind.  When they got to the top, the Swampie extended a hand.

“Name’s Amos.”

Ray shook his hand.  “I’m Armstrong, and this is Morton.”

“Haven’t seen you two around these parts.  Most pirates stay away from this part of town.  I guess they think it’s been picked dry, but there’s plenty left.”

“So where’s it all at?” Ray asked, crossing his arms.

“Patience, mainlander.  Follow me.”  Amos led them inside, to what used to be a bar.  Illuminated with candles, all the tables and chairs were piled up in a far corner.  Amos spit as he led them deeper.  “Just a little farther back now.”

Amos turned and started for a door.  Before he was out of the bar, Ray drew his pistol, shooting him in the back.  Amos crumbled, gurgling. 

“What did you do that for? He called truce.”

“Look, kid, I told you about the Swampies.  There was no way he was getting on my boat and turning us into a feast.”  Ray leaned over and scooped up the absinthe bottle from Amos’s twitching body.  “This is a fine start, but let’s see what else this coon ass has.  Here, hold this.” 

Ray handed Louis the bottle and, gun still in hand, opened the door.  Light poured in.  “It’s beautiful, kid.  And dry.”

The door opened into a spacious atrium, built on the second story above the waterline.  The glass ceiling remained intact; thick fog swirled overhead.  Overstuffed sofas and stand up ashtrays lined the walls.  Another door stood at the far end of room. 

“Must have been some kind of parlor,” Ray said.  “I bet this was a brothel in another life.”

“Let’s get out of here, boss,” Louis said.  “I don’t like it.”

The door opened, and Louis and Ray gasped as a woman with short black hair that stood straight up wearing a tattered grey skirt and a dingy blue blouse entered.  Crisscross stitches ran across her forehead.  Bones and feathers hung from her ears, and three decaying rats dangled from a rope belt.  A wild-eyed opossum perched on her shoulder like a parrot, and it stared, unblinking at Ray and Louis.  Barefoot, she silently sized up the two men. 

“We need to get out of here, kid.”  Ray lowered his gun.

“Just shoot her,” Louis said. 

“That’s Queen Kami, head voodoo priestess.  Offing her is bad ju-ju.”

“Bad ju-ju?  I thought you didn’t believe in any of this stuff.”

Ray gave him a desperate look and rubbed the charm around his neck.

Queen Kami motioned with her fingers.  “I see you have stolen from me before.  Don’t you know what is mine always returns?  Drop your weapon.  Come.”

Ray laid his gun on the ground, starting for her.  Louis turned to run, but another, tattooed and shirtless Swampie blocked the exit.  Ray, following Queen Kami, was already gone.  Regretting ever taking the job, Louis followed, escorted by the Swampie.

Inside, the only light came from three black candles atop an altar in the center of the room.  Queen Kami forced Ray on his knees in front of the altar.  She circled to the other side.  The Swampie vanished into a dark corner, reduced to bloodshot eyes reflecting in the candlelight.  Bloodshot eyes never taking their gaze from Louis.

“Down, Gumbo,” Queen Kami said and the opossum sprung from her shoulder and vanished in the darkness.  Queen Kami looked at both men.  “You have come to my beautiful city to steal, to bring relics of our peaceful, carefree past to your war-torn, troubled present.  Have we not sacrificed enough to the swamps?”

Ray was frozen in place.  Something big crawled across Louis’s feet.

“That is the way of nature: balance.  Something given, something taken.  You have fed my pet but killed my subject.  Although I see the balance, it’s not what I call equal.  Now, you have my absinthe.  But what do I get in return?”

“We will give you whatever you desire, your majesty,” Ray said.  “I have connections and influence on the mainland.”

The Queen smiled.  “You offer nothing.  New Orleans is everything I need.  It provides me with shelter, with food.  My friends are my family, and they are all here.  You feel the need to steal our energy, our soul, but New Orleans is not a place you can have.  New Orleans is not a place you can take with you.  It’s a place you is, no matter where you are.”

Queen Kami took off the rotting nutrias from her belt and rested it on the center of the candles.  She grasped a silver chalice from the altar and raised it in the air, chanting softly.  She took a sip from the chalice, and the candles’ flames changed colors, from orange and red to pale blue.  Ray whimpered as she picked up a gleaming athame.  With a swipe of her hand, his throat was slit.  Blood spilled on the altar, covering the nutria.  As Ray slumped over, the queen rubbed her hands in the blood and began stroking the rodent.  The nutria’s exposed ribs began rising and falling, and its legs began jerking.  As the creature rose, an eye slid out of its socket.  The rat leapt from the altar and scurried off into the darkness.

“A life for a life,” the priestess said, “and food for food.  We are even now.  Go, child.  Take the liquor to the mainland.  Do not return.  Tell others not to return, or they’ll suffer.”

Louis fled, racing through the atrium and bar.  On the balcony, he climbed down the rope ladder and pulled anchor, firing up the airboat’s engine and retreating down Bourbon Street.   Down Esplanade, following Saint Claude to the Intercoastal Canal, all he could think of was escape.  The closer to reality Lake Pontchartrain became, the thinner the fog surrounding the skiff.  Finally, Louis was out of the canal, and a great weight lifted.  He looked at the full absinthe bottle and the empty seats in the airboat and laughed.  It all seemed so worthless.

He stopped the boat and looked back.  New Orleans was no longer visible— just endless, foggy water.  He sat back and started to fire up the engine when the skiff began rocking.  He grabbed the side of his seat as tentacles broke the surface of the water and raised high above craft. 

An oblong head attached to a long slender neck emerged, and six yellow eyes locked on Louis...