The Island - Part 2, Page 2

  Chapter VII - The Station

  The storm raged all through the afternoon. The century old station trembled and shuddered, but held strong against the howling wind and the driving rain. Time after time, I stood near rain-streaked windows, sipped at coffee, and watched the storm-tossed waves crash into the island. Visibility ran no more than a mile or so. Beyond that, the clouds and ocean merged into one solid gray-black wall.

  The news of Zachary’s death cast a depressing pall over an already gloomy morning. Shock filtered through the room when I told them. Tyler slumped over at the long, low table where he’d been sitting and buried his head in his hands. Kelly sat with him, speaking in low tones until he finally straightened up.

  The tall blonde with Joshua’s group gasped and put her hand to her mouth. The rest sat in silence while I relayed what I’d found.

  Elsie rocked in her chair, her gray eyes peering at me over her wire-rimmed glasses, and glancing at Daniel from time to time. I stared at him too, thinking about the odd remark from the dock when he noted that Zachary made him think of bats. Something about those words hung just at the edge of comprehension, like I had a puzzle piece in my hand that didn’t fit, but should.

  When I looked up, Elsie’s gaze had turned into a frown. She reached down and pulled him closer, the move so obviously protective that it left me with more questions than answers. Barely twenty-four hours earlier, I‘d protested her plan to hitch a ride across the sound, noting that she hardly knew me. The sudden chill in her demeanor left me wondering what I knew about her, or better, what I didn’t know.

  The entrance to the life-saving station opened into a huge room that ran over half the length of the building. From walls paneled with rough-sawn pine to oak floors, the structure imparted a solid sense of strength as if the builders understood that it didn’t need to withstand a storm, but centuries of them. The main room contained little in the way of furniture. The few items that did exist looked strategically placed in an attempt to recreate an atmosphere of square-rigged ships and swaggering sailors. A pair of rocking chairs sat near the soot-blackened iron stove, matching those out on the porch in shape and design. A handful of stools occupied the far wall where a long, low bar divided the living space from the kitchen. A rough wooden table surrounded by another half-dozen ladder-backed chairs graced the center of the room.

  The walls bore equally sparse furnishings. A picture of an old woman sewing by candlelight hung near the stove. A wide, oil-on-canvas painting hung over the bar, the scene depicting Christ with his hands outstretched to calm rough seas. A glass lamp sat in the center of the table. More dangled from iron hangers attached to the wall, their globes still dark from whale oil burned in a time when the world not only accepted, but glamorized the commercial killing of earth’s largest mammals.

  Big picture windows ran across the front. With the storm raging outside, the weak light filtering through them faded before it reached the bar, leaving the kitchen area dark and gloomy.

  The rain fell hard for two hours or better. Bright streaks of lightning blazed through the clouds and arced toward the earth with such frequency and intensity it felt like God had turned on a strobe light and cranked it to the crazy setting. The wind also went insane for a while. Twice, gusts hit the station so hard that dust puffed from the walls.

  The gloomy start to the day kept most somber and quiet. I let that sit until the worst of the storm had passed and then told them about the president declaring martial law. I don’t think I could’ve elicited a stronger response if I’d poured gasoline on them and struck a match.

  Joshua stood up. The movement sent his bushy hair sprawling across his face. The beard forming below stood out dark and thick. I couldn’t decide if he looked more like a terrorist, or one of those kooky, doomsday fanatics who wandered around with wooden signs draped down both sides of their body.

  “Are you kidding me? They announce a ban on travel then basically say, if you try, we’ll shoot you?”

  “What do they expect us to do?” Jessie cried out. “Stay here?”

  I shrugged at them both. “I’d say that’s exactly what they expect. In fact, it sounds like they’re going to see that we do.”

  Even jittery Devon joined the chorus of voices rising in protest.

  “They can’t just leave us here. We’ll starve.”

  I raised my hands. “Whoa, slow down. We’re not going to starve. I have food.”

  “For how long?” he demanded, “Enough to feed us all until spring?”

  “Nooo,” I said slowly, drawing the word out deliberately.

  He rolled his eyes.

  “That’s what I thought. Then unless you’ve got some kind of plan, we’ll all be hurting in a few days. You know, like starving.”

  “Not unless you’re an idiot.” I told him. “For the next few weeks, that ocean out there will be brimming with about any type of seafood you can imagine. People wait months for the fish to start migrating. Starving should be the least of your worries.”

  His face turned red.

  “I suppose you’re going to tell me what I need to worry about?”

  I ran my hand across my face. I was tired, irritable, and had no desire to babysit the lot of them.

  “You have two specific worries. The first is the Fever. Odds are you won’t survive it. Just like the rest of us, you’re living on borrowed time. Before you die of that, you could die of thirst.”

  He looked incredulous. “Dude, this place has a cistern. We got plenty of water. I drunk some of it when we first got here. It’s good.”

  Even I heard the flat tones in my voice when I responded.

  “So tell me, how does the water get in the cistern?”

  “Oh wow,” he said mockingly, looking around the room for support. “It’s like, from the sky, man. Every time it rains we get water, and lots of it. Maybe you should look up the word ‘cistern’ some time. You know, in one of those big books called a Dict-shun-ary.”

  “Yes, cisterns fill with rainwater that flows down from a roof into some type of collection system, and then into a big holding tank,” I said quietly. “This same roof, by the way, is one that seagulls shit all over day after day after day. Mosquitoes and a whole host of microorganisms love standing water.”

  I took a deep breath.

  “Want to be a badass? Go right ahead. After all, slurping up a little fecal matter never hurt anyone, right?”

  I let the question hang before I continued. “If that water isn’t treated, in a week you could be spouting fluid from both ends of your body compliments of another entry in the Dict-shun-ary. You’ll find that one in the G section. Look for the word Giardia.”

  The red on his face deepened.

  “And that’s just the bugs. Is the roof made of asphalt? If so, then that water will have trace amounts of petroleum, mold, and a wide range of bacteria. Is it tin? If that’s the case, you’re looking at metals and chemicals used in the paint. Maybe even lead if the paint is old enough.”

  I shot a look at Elsie. “Ask her. She grew up here.”

  Heads swiveled in her direction.

  “People used to drink the water,” she said, and then paused. “They used to get sick too. He’s right. I wouldn’t drink it without boiling it or treating it some way.”

  “You made coffee and tea out of it,” he protested.

  She grinned. “Yes I did. The tea boiled. Coffee pots heat water close to 205 degrees, even that old percolator type. While that isn’t boiling, the stove top keeps it hot enough for it to pasteurize.”

  He seemed lost for a moment. When he looked back at me, his eyes carried a calculating look.

  “You said you came here to stay. What are you going to do for water? Does that boat of yours have some kind of filtration system on it?”

  Truth was, I didn’t have much of an answer for him. Equally true, however, I knew I could survive on the water the island had to offer if I had nothing else available.

  “
No,” I said. “Angel does not have a filtration system. My brain, however, does.”

  He looked confused. That seemed like a good place to leave him. I let my gaze drift across the faces. Some looked stunned, others expectant. Most stared at me as if waiting for answers. I sighed and glanced down the long hallway. A doorway pointed to the stairwell leading up. I turned and headed for it, figuring that checking out the second level would be more productive than arguing with him.

  Someone, the caretakers most likely, had secured the door from prying eyes. A rusty hasp stretched from just above the handle to the door jamb. A heavy lock looped through the retaining ring in a no-nonsense manner. I studied the setup for a moment, then pulled out a pocket knife and pried the brass pins out of the hinges on the opposite side. The door came loose as soon as I worked the last one free. After a few seconds of tugging and prying, the whole contraption fell to one side, padlock still in place. I left it that way and walked up dusty steps that creaked and groaned in protest.

  H.G. Wells imagined his time machine. Captain Kirk had the Enterprise and its warp drive. I simply needed to walk a flight of stairs to visit the past.

  The upper level once served as sleeping quarters with more than half of the floor devoted to rows of bunks arranged in a dormitory-style configuration. I counted six beds on each side, none larger than twin size, all arranged in such a way that the head faced the center of the room while the foot of the bunk sat under the sloped roof line. The setup seemed odd until I imagined jumping out of one in the middle of the night to race off to a watery rescue. Then I understood. Placing the beds that way probably kept a lot of heads from banging into the ceiling.

  The bedding, I supposed, had disappeared long ago, but the bunk frames, thin mattresses yellowed with age, and much of the furniture still stood in the open space. All of the items looked bulky and heavy, simple in design and perhaps some of them even handmade. Stacked between the beds were pieces that had most likely graced the bottom floor during the station’s active years. A pair of long, low tables, half a dozen pictures, more chairs, and piles of life-saving equipment at least a century old sat stuffed among the bunks.

  An antiques dealer would’ve drooled over the sight.

  Three dormer windows provided an uninterrupted view of the ocean. I walked across floorboards made from unfinished planks and gazed out the one in the center. The wind had dropped a good bit by then. The sea still heaved, and the rain still fell, but the violence had dissipated.

  Wood creaked behind me. I turned as Elsie materialized out of the dim staircase. She gave the room an appraising glance.

  “I’ve never been up here. When I was little, the men who ran this place would let kids play on the first floor, but shooed us away from the stairs.”

  I looked back out the window.

  “You can’t do this, Hill William,” she said.

  “Can’t do what?” I asked without turning my head.

  “You can’t be part of that group. Every one of them is looking to you for guidance.”

  I turned and shot her an irritated glance.

  “I have no desire to guide anyone.”

  She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter what you want. Perception is half the battle. You’re older. You know what you’re doing. More than anything, you’re a doer, not a talker.”

  Her face split into a humorless grin. “You drove that point home the instant you took your boat out to look for the boy. Someone has to make decisions. Like it or not, that’s you.”

  Elsie walked over beside me and looked out the window.

  “The storm is passing. Tomorrow, we’ll wake up to a bright and sunny day. If you want to know the difference between them and you, they’ll get up and start planning.”

  She looked at me with her gray eyes.

  “You already know what you’ll do.”

  “You’re right, I do,” I agreed. “I’ll take you and Daniel home. I haven’t seen any patrol boats out here enforcing the ban. I just need to avoid Sheriff Little.”

  She pursed her lips. “Maybe,” she said quietly.

  I opened my mouth to tell her there was no maybe about it when she abruptly turned and headed for the stairwell.

  “I brought a radio out of your boat. It’s about news time.”

  She shot me a sour look from the landing. “It must have been your father’s. It don’t look like something a person your age would buy. It’s got character.”

  I needed to ask her about that, why one moment she spoke perfect English and the next sounded like a lowland girl who’d never left the farm. Maybe I would, someday when I had the energy and cared about the answer.

  I stood in the deepening twilight for a long time, watching the restless ocean toss and turn through rain-streaked windows. Thunder still rumbled occasionally, and lightning flared in the distance, but the worst of the storm had slipped up the coast. Elsie was right. We would wake to a new dawn, one filled with light and warmth.

  “You need to come down now,” a voice said behind me.

  I jerked around, startled.

  A figure stood near the top of the stairs in a pool of darkness. Weak yellow light outlined the body like a faint and flickering halo. I craned my neck to one side.

  “Daniel? How did you get up here?”

  The question sounded stupid the instant it left my mouth. But, I’d heard nothing, not one creak out of the whining stairs.

  He moved slightly to his right, into the dim light slipping through the window. His eyes looked black and endlessly deep, like holes cut in his skin.

  “It’s about to start.”

  “What is?” I asked, confused.

  He stood motionless for a long moment, then turned and started down the steps, ghosting along without even the tiniest sound. His voice floated up the staircase, so soft I barely heard it.

  “The bad things.”

  I stared at the spot where he’d stood seconds before. The stairwell loomed in the faint light like an empty pit, a tall and rectangular slab of darkness two shades blacker than the shadows surrounding it. My first thought when I turned had been that someone below had lit a lamp, a candle, some type of flame-driven light source too feeble to wash away the coming night, but instead illuminate it. That proved not to be the case. The pale light disappeared with him. The thought left the hair on my arms standing on end.

  I took off after him. The kid was turning out to be scary with his talk of bats and bad things. By the time I reached the bottom, Daniel had crossed the room and sidled up close to Elsie. She saw me looking at him and frowned. The woman possessed a mind as sharp as a well-honed knife and a tongue that could cut just as easily. I’d watched her stand toe to toe with an armed man twice her size. Even so, I’d just about reached my limit. If she wanted to go a couple of rounds, I didn’t mind. I wanted some answers. The boy sitting next to her with his empty eyes had them.

  Elsie had put the radio in the center of the old wooden table. A pair of Coleman lanterns lit the room, no doubt brought in by the campers. Both of them hung over the bar, situated about ten feet apart and illuminated both the kitchen and the living area. Soft strains of big band music came from the radio, lending a depression-era atmosphere to the place.

  Everyone had gathered around the table. Some sat in the wooden chairs, other in stools pulled over from the bar. I made my way through them, focused on Daniel, ignoring the babble of voices rising around me. The old woman saw me coming and stiffened.

  Tyler stepped in front of me so suddenly that I almost ran him over.

  “When you go down to get Zack, I want to come with you.”

  I tore my gaze away from Elsie and the boy. Tyler looked despondent. Guilt and sorrow played across his face.

  “I feel, you know, like responsible for what happened. When I saw how much the wind had picked up, I went back to bed and left Kelly to talk him out of going.”

  I blinked, trying to switch gears mentally.

  “We’ll go firs
t thing in the morning. I’d go tonight, but we don’t have anywhere to put the-” I said, then hesitated, “you know, put him.”

  The music died away, ending with trumpets and rolling drums that reminded me of movies rife with flappers in wide-brimmed hats and smoky speakeasies. A soft-spoken man’s voice filled the sudden silence.

  “And that was the great Satchmo, otherwise known as Louis Armstrong, with ‘Basin Street Blues.’ We have the news up next and a lot of it. I’ll be right here with more hits of yesteryear when we return.”

  I put a hand on Tyler’s shoulder. “Come on, let’s get a seat and listen to the news.” He nodded and climbed atop one of the stools. I made for a chair near Elsie.

  The same woman who’d relayed the news earlier came on the air. She wasted no time.

  The CDC today released figures that officials are calling alarming and of epidemic proportions. A spokesperson indicated that reports are pouring into the agency and that at least 100,000 new cases of the Fever have been reported in the last 24 hours, with an estimated 10,000 deaths from advanced cases. Hospitals in the worst-hit areas have closed their doors to new Fever cases, citing limited resources and the danger to staff. At least thirty people were killed today while seeking medical attention by authorities enforcing the national travel ban that took effect at noon. Troubling reports of aggressive behavior also increased dramatically, this time with a twist. The disease appears to be attacking not only the areas of the brain that govern emotions, but also our perceptions. We have a report from Charles Ritchfield at our ABC affiliate in Raleigh with more on that story.

  A faint hiss poured out of the radio, replaced seconds later by a man whose voice carried that same Midwestern lack of accent common to news casters.

  Reports have flooded in today from at least a dozen states describing shocking and violent episodes with patients in late stages of the Fever. In Texas, a man broke free from his restraints and used the cord from the blinds in his room to strangle a passing security officer. He then seized the guard’s sidearm and went on a rampage, killing two nurses on his floor before being shot by security.

  Washington police found several bodies that had been dismembered, and left lying in pieces near the junction of I-90 and I-5. Authorities said the flesh on most of the separate parts appeared to have bite marks and large portions had apparently been consumed. During the investigation, officers shot and killed a man running down the middle of I-90, who they say approached them, coughing and feverish, telling wild tales of monsters chasing people down and eating them. Officers said he became combative when they tried to detain him, and refused orders to surrender. A police spokesman said that shots were fired when officers felt their own lives in danger.

  Similar reports erupted from Charlotte, one of the epicenters of the disease in the United States. Police say that gun battles flared up in dozens of neighborhoods overnight as residents fought home invasions from diseased intruders. A radio station in the city disputed at least some of those claims, airing statements from witnesses who insisted the attempted break-ins came from, and this is a direct quote, ’creatures right out of your nightmares.’ Officials are playing down such reports, indicating they feel the high fever associated with the infection to be generating not only aggressive feelings, but also hallucinations in those most acutely affected.

  This is Charles Ritchfield, reporting.

  The radio faded back to the local correspondent with barely a hitch.

  This morning, FEMA released a statement telling residents to stay home. Spokesperson Diane Freeman told ABC news that hospitals were already overwhelmed and many were unable to accept new Fever patients. She suggested instead that residents call 911 and let local emergency services respond as they were able. She warned that for many, there would be no medical service available and said residents should take all necessary precautions to secure their home and property during this time of trouble for the nation.

  The White House released a statement this afternoon calling on citizens to heed the travel ban and avoid putting additional pressure on authorities. The statement carried the president’s hopes that the disease would pass swiftly and his prayers for those afflicted. Also noted in the press release were plans to set up a nationwide system to deliver food and other supplies to cities and states. The directive indicated that procedures will be promulgated to state and local officials in the coming days.

  In local news, the first regional case of the Fever may have come from Nags Head today. EMT’s responded to a call from one Glenda Hawkins, a sixty-four-year-old woman located just north of the National Seashore boundary. Authorities say that Mrs. Hawkins had called in reporting shortness of breath, a persistent cough, and a rising fever. Emergency Services Director, Alan Woods, said that the most troubling aspect of Mrs. Hawkins case came from the question of how she was infected, saying that the woman insisted she had not been out of the county in months. Although she has not been officially diagnosed, her symptoms correspond to those noted with other fever victims. Woods said that other reports of the Fever springing up in isolated areas where none of the victims had previously traveled or been exposed to anyone who had, raised the specter of the disease having one or more animal hosts.

  And now on to other news.

  Elsie reached over and turned the radio off, leaving the room locked in a stunned silence. I looked around. Every face bore signs of shock.

  The tall blonde, whose name still escaped me, put her hand to her mouth.

  “Oh my God! They’re eating each other.”

  Denise, Joshua’s perennial ponytail girlfriend, shot her an irritated look.

  “They? This isn’t a question of us and them. Everyone here could be in the same shape soon. Did you hear what the radio said? ‘One or more animal hosts’—that means we can’t avoid it, even out here. It’s not like we have to be around sick people to get sick. No one knows which animal either.”

  She glanced at Devon.

  “Feel like drinking a little untreated water now?”

  His bony features turned pale.

  “If we’re not getting off this island, then we have a lot of work to do,” she continued. “We need a place where we can isolate the sick, not only to keep the disease away from the rest of us, but to keep them away from the rest of us. We need a clean water supply. We need a sustainable food source. We need some kind of organization, and we need it soon.”

  Joshua scratched at his growing beard.

  “I still don’t think they’ll leave us out here,” he said slowly.

  She glared at him.

  “Then who is going to come get us, the government? The police? Santa Claus? They have a lot more to worry about than a handful of people stuck out on a deserted island.”

  The girl turned on me. “What do you think, Mr. Hill?”

  I looked at Elsie.

  She smiled smugly.

  “Yes, Hill William, what do you think?”

  Frustration swelled inside. Not half an hour before, she’d pushed me to take a leading role. Now, she seemed determined to box me into it. I looked around at the individual faces. As young as they were, none lacked intelligence. I started to point out that fact and tell them they didn’t need my input to figure out what they should do. Somewhere in the mind walk of formulating the thought, the memory of the first time I’d gone sailing with my father surfaced. I hadn’t been stupid either. What I’d lacked was knowledge.

  Dad had left me to steer while he went below to straighten out the gear and food. The task seemed simple enough. Raise the sail, catch the wind, and drive. After ten minutes of making virtually no headway, I’d grown frustrated and called for him to come tell me what I was doing wrong.

  He’d stepped into the cockpit, looked up at the sails, looked back at the tiller and grinned. “You got her in irons.”

  My father loved such moments. While the boat inched along as much sideways as forward and barely moving in either direction, he’d launched into a long-win
ded explanation of sail dynamics and the physics of wind.

  His grin widened when he saw the confused look on my face.

  “It’s simple, William. The wind is pushing her one way. The tiller is driving her back the other way. It’s like hitting the gas in a car with the parking brake engaged. Let off the tiller some and let her gain some headway.”

  “But if I do that, we’ll go north, or at least north-east,” I’d protested. “We need to go east.”

  “Well, in figuring out how to get her going east, you’ll learn to sail,” he had said simply.

  The memory faded. I looked up. Every eye in the building stared at me.

  I gritted my teeth and nodded at Denise.

  “I think you’re right,” I said, and then turned to Elsie. “And I think that was a dirty, underhanded move.”

  She grinned. The rest looked confused.

  I didn’t feel like explaining. Instead, I rose and stretched. The day had been long, and in many ways, taxing.

  “I’m going to bed. Tomorrow morning, I’ll go down to get Zach. I’ll try and raise the Coast Guard, but I’m betting they’ll tell me to bury him here. Tyler will come with me,” I let the sentence trail off and waited for him to nod agreement.

  When he did, I looked across the table at the others. “Keith, Devon, you guys look around and see if you can find something we can use to dig a grave. There’s a cemetery over near the house closest to the dock. Pick out a spot and get started.”

  Joshua leaned back in his chair, his face thoughtful. Denise sat near him. Anger still played across her features, along with what might have been a sense of justification.

  “You two come with me. I have a jug of bleach on Angel. You can use it to purify the water in the cistern. If I remember right, the ratio for clear water is about a teaspoon per gallon. Elsie can help. She can probably tell you by looking at the tank how many gallons are in it. Just work out the math. “

  Kelly sat at the end of the table.

  “I’d like to come with you and Tyler in the morning.”

  I had no idea how Tyler would react when he saw Zachary’s body. Bringing his sister along might prove to the best decision of the evening.

  “That’ll be fine. I’ll come get you both when it’s time.”

  I pointed to the two remaining girls, the blonde and Jessie, the one who had taken up with Elsie and Daniel so easily at the campfire meeting.

  “You two, check out the rest of the houses. The Park Service probably has some equipment stored around here for maintenance. See if you can find anything like that. Take note of anything that might be useful. This place is a museum. We might be desecrating it to put things back into use, but the items on display are the same ones that helped people live here for 200 years.”

  I fought back a yawn and scratched at my head.

  “Tomorrow afternoon, I’ll take a couple of you to help ferry supplies from the boat to the station. We need to know what we have and how much.”

  I ran a hand across my face. It felt stubbly and dirty. I wanted to go to bed. Instead, I ticked items off on the fingers of one hand.

  “The rest of you can go through the stuff you brought. Let’s lay it all out and take stock. Call your families too. Keep them in the loop. With the disease, the travel ban, and all the weird shit going down, they’re bound to be worried sick.”

  Joshua looked up. “We haven’t had a working cell phone in two days.”

  “Ours are dead too,” Kelly agreed.

  “Elsie has one.” I said.

  She grimaced. “It’s on the boat.”

  I sighed. “I can charge your phones off Angel’s batteries if you have a charger. If not, I have one in the boat. Use it if you can. Either way, Elsie has a working phone. I have one. There’s no reason everyone here can’t call home. As for me, I’m going to find a place to bed down for the night. We have a big day tomorrow.”

  Voices broke out behind me. I left them to hash out the day’s events, and headed out onto the porch. The truth was, I had no place to bed down or bedding for that matter. Nor did I want to sprawl out with them in the big room. The duffel bag I’d packed so hastily that morning lay near the door. I sorted through the odds and ends and pulled out a jacket.

  After a miserable day, the night felt warmer and somehow comforting. Rain fell soft and steady with the runoff trickling down the gutters in a quiet little sigh. Across the dunes, the surf still pounded the beach, the waves roaring in, and then hissing when they retreated. The wind had died away to a gentle whisper. What little light existed, spilled out of the windows, and sliced through darkness so deep and profound it felt as if someone had walked through the heavens and bent down to pinch out the stars one by one. Beyond the edge of the porch, I could see nothing, not even the dunes I knew lay less than fifty yards away.

  I could hear them through the door, talking, arguing, their voices rising and falling. I didn’t want to go back inside. Whatever else the night held, it possessed two things the station lacked, silence and solitude. The urge to sleep on the porch hit me so strongly that I reached down and put my hand against the deck. Although the porch was covered, most of it had been soaked by strong winds driving the rain in at a slant. It took a while, but I finally found a dry spot near the very back where the porch ran up under the windows.

  Instantly, I knew that would be my bed for the night. I also knew I’d be going back to Angel. Both bunks had sleeping bags spread out across them. Dad had also stored a couple of emergency blankets in one of the forward lockers. I remembered seeing the sleeping bags while talking to the woman from Silver Lake.

  In her rush to get out, Elsie evidently hadn’t planned on spending the night. She and Daniel would need bedding as much as I did. The buggy still had enough charge to run the half mile, pick up the gear, and carry me back to the station. The thought triggered another idea. I’d need to grab the windmill while I was there. I had no idea how long it would take to recharge the batteries on the dune buggy. Even so, the buggy served as our only form of transportation. Any power generated overnight would be welcome come daylight.

  The thought of climbing aboard with Zachary lying in the cockpit had me hesitant even with the decision made. I’d never been skittish or one who believed in ghosts. But, the image of his eyes, vacant and staring, and his mouth stretched wide in a silent scream wouldn’t leave my mind. I didn’t know if the expressions carved in his features were natural for that type of death or not. I just knew, deep down, that the picture ingrained in my memory gave me the willies.

  Years before, I’d watched a diabetic friend give himself a shot in the stomach. He’d grinned when I winced, and then dared me to do it myself.

  “It’s easy,” he said, “just pinch up a roll of fat and stick it in.”

  I’d reached the age in life when the thought of eating my own excrement felt easier and less humiliating than backing down from a dare. I did it, but not before sitting there for a couple of minutes, sweating, moving the needle close to my skin before pulling it back, knowing it would sting like a bee when I shoved it in, knowing I’d eventually do it, but trying to work up the nerve to take the plunge.

  I felt the same way looking at the buggy.

  “What the hell is wrong with you, William?” I asked out loud. “You’re forty-two years old, too old to be scared of the dark.”

  Bright golden light spilled across the deck. Daniel stepped out of the station and pulled the door closed behind him. Darkness sliced back across the porch.

  He stood silently, facing me even though I couldn’t make out his features.

  “Jesus,” I whispered, too low for him to hear. “This is all I need.”

  “Hello, Daniel.” I said louder after gathering my breath.

  “Hello, Mr. William. You shouldn’t go to the boat.”

  Chills ran up my spine.

  “What makes you think I’m going to Angel?”

  I could barely make him out in the dim light from the win
dow behind me. He stood unnaturally straight, and still.

  He shrugged and thought for a moment.

  “If you go back, you will shoot him.”

  I rose from the floor of the porch.

  “Who?”

  “The man who died today,” he said quietly.

  “You say some of the strangest things, Daniel.” I told him. “Why would I shoot him? He’s dead. I’m not going back for him. I’m going because our sleeping bags are in the boat, because we need them tonight.”

  Daniel sighed.

  “He is waiting, Mr. William.”

  I stood there, staring at his outline. The door opened again. This time Elsie emerged. She reached out and pulled the boy toward her.

  “Go back inside, Daniel. It’s chilly out here. I don’t want you catching cold.”

  She waited until he turned and walked back through the door. Then she moved toward me.

  “You leave him alone. You hear me? There’s nothing wrong with him. He’s as good a boy as you’ll find.”

  “I didn’t say anything was wrong with him,” I protested. “But damn, that grandson of yours is creepy.”

  She stepped closer. Light from the window flared across her face. Her eyes glinted with anger. “You just remember what I told you. Leave him alone.”

  Something snapped inside.

  “And you remember this,” I said leaning closer. “I didn’t invite either of you to come out here with me. You came on your own. You don’t want him around me, then do your job as his grandmother and keep tabs on him.”

  I moved past her and headed for the dune buggy. “Call that blasted judge first thing tomorrow. I don’t give a damn about travel bans. I want you both off my back.”

  “Where are you going?” she called after me.

  I climbed into the buggy and backed it down the ramp. Shoving the gear shifter into forward, I looked back toward the porch. Her figure stood framed in the light from the window.

  “To get you a sleeping bag.”

  Chapter VIII - Bad Things