He carried the ax and saw toward the house. The pond was green, clear and cool-looking. He put the ax and saw on the grass, stripped off his sweat-soaked clothing, and cooled himself. Refreshed, he sat in the shallow water and bellowed for Gwen. She was still playing coy, refusing to answer, did not show herself. He grinned. He’d show her. He was not going in until she came out.
But it was boring to sit in the shallow water with the pulpy green things wiggling against his legs when he moved. There was another project he’d been neglecting, one which could be accomplished in the cool of the pond. He went to the garage, got hoe and rake, and attacked the water plants in his swimming area, cutting them below sand with the hoe and raking them out with the rake. They were tough, surprisingly tough, but he was strong, and his energies had been restored. A pile of the green stuff grew rapidly. He halted for a brief rest. White sand was beginning to show and he would have a nice little beach and a clear bottom area soon. Then he looked at the pile of green stuff.
“Jesus Christ,” he said under his breath. The stuff was alive. It writhed. It moved. It crawled. He’d never seen anything like it. It acted almost as if it were trying to crawl back to the water, but the effect was like looking into a bucket of green worms. “Jesus,” he repeated, cutting one of the wriggling pieces with his hoe. The severed parts continued to writhe.
At first she was dreaming. She’d thrown herself across the bed, bathing suit damp. Strangely, the clearing operation did not affect her, save for a dull, sharp, dull, sharp, rather minor pain. It was nothing compared with the mass destruction of the marsh, and the giant agonies of hundred-year-old oaks. It was, she concluded, a price they would have to pay. She was even able to doze through it, wishing he’d stop, but unable to come up with a solution which would serve to stop him without making him think she was going crazy. He would tire. He would stop. It wouldn’t last for weeks, months, as the huge pain had lasted. It was bearable.
But this. It devastated her; this dream was more horrible, more dreadful, and more painful than anything that had been done to them before. It was the ultimate horror, the nightmare which had been feared for hundreds of thousands of years. It was so terrible she couldn’t scream, could only writhe on the bed, a sensitive being in an agony which wouldn’t stop, couldn’t be conquered, even temporarily, by fainting.
Then it wasn’t a dream. It was happening. She tried to scream out, beg it to stop. Her muscles spasmed, drew her into a knot. She fought. “Stop it, stop it,” her mind screamed, every cell on fire, every nerve tortured. She struggled to the glass doors leading onto the balcony, saw him working again, killing, maiming, striking at the central sanctuary. “Oh, God, no,” she thought, still unable to scream.
Pain jerked her to the bare boards as she struggled onto the balcony and it left her weak. She pushed herself up, held to the railing for support, made it down the stairs, her mouth working, eyes wide, streaming tears, body jerking with the horrible pain.
“No, no, stop.” It was soundless. He wouldn’t even turn around. She fell and writhed on the grass.
George had lost his awe. Hell, they were just plants. There were millions of them in the pond. What if he did cut out a few? They were eerie things, funny. He wouldn’t have been a bit surprised to find that they had something to do with the complete lack of life in the pond, no fish, no frogs. If they did, indeed, as he thought, help keep the water clear, then he’d keep them. He’d rather have a clear, clean swimming place than a muddy frog and fish pond, but it wouldn’t hurt at all to expose some wading sand near the bank. Then maybe Gwen would swim with him.
He was working in calf-deep water, reaching out in front and dragging cut weeds towards him; he was getting ready to turn and stack the cut weeds onto the pile on the bank when the ax blade cut into his leg behind the knee, severing tendons and slicing through the joint to leave his left leg dangling by the tissue surrounding the kneecap. He fell backward with a splash, blood spurting. The second blow severed his right arm at the elbow. There was no pain, only the awareness of a heavy blow, but his eyes saw and knew, and he screamed hoarsely, a sound of ultimate terror, the sound of knowledge. His arm was gone, his leg gushing blood. The irreparable had been done, and he screamed his disbelief.
“Gwen?” he said, his voice trailing into another scream as the ax, bloody, sharp, and deadly, narrowly missed his left wrist and lopped four fingers off at the second joint.
Then he was crawling for his life, leg dangled, his arm gone, blood darkening the water. Gwen, his Gwen. Her fourth blow was weaker, the pain still there, but the initial strength of adrenal action gone. The blow laid open the calf of his good leg and glanced off the bone; but there were other blows as he moved more slowly, his eyes blurring and his life’s blood swirling out in arterial gushes into the clear pond.
She continued to chop, breathing in sobbing agony. The strap to her bikini top had broken. The small scrap of material hung from her neck, flapping with her movements. Water and perspiration and blood beaded her lower legs.
When it was over, when she had, with cold, logical reasoning stopped her hysterical sorrow, she worked steadily. First things first. First, all the water plants were carefully placed back in the sand, planted lovingly. Then the pain was eased.
George lay face up in shallow water. And toes up in shallow water. And fingers up in shallow water. And in small bits of finger in shallow water. And it was over. The dark clouds of blood released into the greenness were being dissipated and absorbed. To avoid dripping blood, however, she went to the house for large towels. He was quite heavy. One light tap with the ax on the almost severed leg lightened the load.
She placed him, in some approximation of order, in their bed, and stood looking down at him. “I am so damn sorry, darling,” she said. His open eyes screamed at her accusingly. She closed them. They didn’t want to stay closed.
She checked the pond again and washed the sands of the edge with water cupped into her hands. She stored the ax and saw in the garage. It was rapidly growing late; the sun was almost down. She crawled in the shallow water, moving her hands, stirring the settled blood and swirling it away.
“It’s time, isn’t it?” she asked, standing ankle deep in the water, the pulpy, green, replanted things caressing her bare feet and ankles.
She drove the M.G. into the garage beside the pick-up and closed the door. There was a full five-gallon can of gasoline for the power mower. She struggled into the house with it, doused the living room rug, went into the bedroom, and poured the rest on George. When she threw a match into the living room from the deck, the resultant whoosh singed her hair and pushed her back with a blast of heat.
She stood in the water, ankle deep, and watched. When the fire topped out, the ceilings and roof falling in a towering storm of sparks and flame, she had to go deeper. From there, just her head out of the water, hair floating on the clear green, she stayed and watched until she heard the vehicles coming up the road.
“Now,” she said. “Now.”
She submerged, swam underwater, deep, deeper, to the center of the pond, lungs beginning to ache, stars exploding before her open eyes. There was no light, but the darkness was friendly, familiar. In the deepest part, she reached down, found them, clasped them in her hands, and pulled herself down among them. Her body was buoyant and wanted to rise, but she clung, worked her arms, her feet, her legs down among the tangled, pulpy, cool water plants. They caressed her cheeks. They soothed her body. She was still wearing the bikini, bottom in place, halter loose. “Now,” she thought, and it was so beautiful that she wanted to cry. She exhaled. Bubbles erupted at the surface, unseen; She inhaled. Her body, no longer made light by the air it contained, settled slowly into the soft, thick growth.