The Island - Part 2, Page 3

The lights didn’t work. I flicked the switch back and forth a couple of times with no success. A string of curses rose in my mind. I gritted my teeth and pointed the vehicle in the general direction of the village, driving partly from memory, partly by feeling my way along through darkness so dense and black that even the white sand marking the path appeared as a thin, barely discernible line. Kelly and I had made the trip earlier in just a few minutes. I bumbled along for almost half an hour on the return. Even then, the quiet lap of water against the shore told me I’d reached the bay before I ever saw Angel’s outline.

  She’d drifted sideways during the storm and lay with her starboard side grounded against the sandy little beach that marked the last spot Zachary had stood on dry land. Dark water surged restlessly near her stern, not much, but enough that with a little sweat and a lot of muscle, I could probably float her free. An outgoing tide would leave her sitting high and dry - which happened to be fine with me. Any other time, I might have backed her out and dropped an anchor off the bow to keep her pointed toward the water. A stern line secured to something on the island would not only keep her straightened out and let her take any waves on her bow, but essentially lock the boat in place.

  Any other night wouldn’t have a body sitting eighteen inches away from the pilot’s seat, though. I knew nothing about the man I’d fished out of the water. I didn’t need to. The thought of climbing in next to a cold, wet cadaver made my skin crawl. If Angel sat beached the next morning, the chore of removing the body would be easier. Her abbreviated keel might leave the boat canted to one side, but not precariously so. Within hours, the incoming tide would flood the landing once again and lift her off the bottom.

  That scenario amounted to a death knell for sailboats with deep, fixed keels, leaving them laid out on their sides. Angel’s design, however, turned the situation into a boon rather than a boat-killing event. She might heel to one side a bit, but would be as happy sitting on dry ground as floating on water.

  With the storms gone, the night lay calm and still, with nothing but the tick of rain drops filtering through the trees and the muted splash of water against fiberglass to break the silence. I sat in the dune buggy for a long time, listening to every sound sliding through the darkness. Twice, the lonely cry of a shore bird echoed across the sound. Here and there, a fish jumped out on the water. The swamp hissed and sighed. Mosquitoes fluttered along my arms and face, and whined noisily in my ears. Nothing sounded strange or even the least bit unnerving.

  Not that I needed anything else weird to happen. Daniel’s spooky predictions and the flat tones that delivered them had already proved disturbing enough to keep a 42 year-old man looking over his shoulder.

  The longer I sat, the sillier the whole episode seemed. Zachary was dead. Zombies weren’t real and weariness ate at me. Neither the bedrolls nor the pillows would crawl out of the boat and walk up to the station on their own. The sigh that slid from my lips sounded tired and grumpy.

  I climbed out and walked over to Angel’s gunwale. Across, on the other side of the cockpit, Zachary lay where I’d left him, still wrapped securely in the plastic tarp. I pushed down hard on the edge of the boat to make sure she wouldn’t suddenly find water and scoot out from under me when I tried to swing myself up and in. The fiberglass remained steady and strong no matter how hard I shoved.

  At a dock, I could have stepped down and into the cockpit. With her hull grounded on the sand, boarding meant either leaping inside with the gunwale under my hand, or climbing aboard. Given her slick sides and few handholds, the word climb translated into scrambling up and flopping over into the seat. Dad had tucked a ladder underneath the cockpit that, when mounted in place, slung over the side and offered a more graceful entry. The fact that it remained stored under the seats inside didn’t expand my options any.

  I jumped.

  My feet cleared the gunwale by several inches. Even I was impressed.

  Angel shook, but didn’t rock, confirming the fact that she’d thoroughly grounded. I stood in the cockpit for a moment, staring down at the crumpled tarp, knowing what lay beneath, and honestly, not wanting to turn my back on it. Just the thought stirred the unsettling image of Daniel framed in the doorway.

  I swallowed to calm my nerves. I gotta tell you. When you’re looking down at the very thing some creepy kid said would come after you, turning your back on it goes against every survival instinct and pretty much every rational thought. The brain doesn’t just warn, it screams NO! with a back-clenching jerk of jittery nerves clamoring for you to get the hell away. Just the idea of turning around triggers an intuitive projection of how it would feel to be run down by something fierce, and hungry, something with huge teeth and long sharp claws.

  The movie makers know it, too. They know exactly how the thought of being ambushed and eaten alive strikes an internal chord. Find a horror movie, and inside it will be some idiot who wants to visit the haunted house even after two or three other people met a grisly death inside. Everyone knows he’s an idiot, but no one can stop watching.

  When he finds the monster and turns to run, viewers know he has seconds to live and the end won’t be pretty.

  Similar thoughts struck me as I stood in the cockpit looking down at the body. I could’ve come in the light of day. I could have brought others with me. But no, I’d set off on the darkest night I’d ever seen and headed down to the place the weird demon-child had just warned me about. I decided right then and there if life suddenly turned good and the disease burned itself out, I needed to move to Hollywood. Apparently, I possessed a promising future in the horror industry as the next gonna-die-dumbass.

  I finally turned, even though every nerve in my body screamed for me to jump back out and make for the station as fast as the little buggy could carry me. Instead, I stepped down into the confined space of the cabin and felt along the inside bulkhead for the switchbox I knew hung from the wall. When my finger ran into the hard wooden box, I felt for the top switch, counted down and flicked the third knob.

  Light flooded the cabin. Relief instantly washed through my body. The second most common way people die in scary flicks usually involves a scenario that includes three core elements: monsters, dark places, and dolts who can’t figure out that when people start dying it’s time to leave. Sooner or later, one backs into a cubbyhole to hide and realizes that the hungry beast is only inches behind them with claws bared and mouth drooling in anticipation. The light killed that notion. The cabin lay as empty and disheveled as it had all afternoon, but no killers waited in the corners.

  Sweat trickled down my face even though the night air had grown cooler. Emboldened by the light, I snatched up the sleeping bags and rolled them into a giant wad. Next, I dug under the starboard bunk and pulled out blankets my father had stored there two decades earlier. A drawer under the sink held a spare flashlight. I grabbed that too, thinking I could use it to light the way on the trip back. Gold flashed from the shelf above the sink. I leaned in for a closer look and saw the pack of cigarettes Elsie had opened earlier. Beside it lay the lighter she had used. The urge to light one up hit me stronger than it had in years. I stuffed both into my jacket pocket.

  My hands full, I shot one last look around the cabin, not wanting to drive all the way back only to realize I’d forgotten something. A poncho lay in the passageway beside the starboard bunk. I stared at it, wondering how it had gotten there.

  The mind wants order, wants what it perceives to fit in the natural progression of things it knows and understands. Mine told me the wind had gotten stronger. It told me the rustling behind me was nothing more than the breeze rippling along the edges of the tarp. Somewhere along the line, it put two and two together and prodded the conscious part of my brain to say, hey, the trees aren’t whispering, and there’s no wind sighing through the rigging. The only movement is behind you.

  Even with my mind buzzing the warning, it took a minute for the rational side to catch on. I spun around, still holding the gear
I’d come to retrieve, feeling every hair on my body stand straight up. Sweat broke out across my forehead and chills raced up my arms.

  The cabin light poured out into the cockpit, bathing the floor in a bright, white rectangle, but only partially illuminating the seat where Zachary lay. I could see half of his form easily. The night claimed the rest, the edge between light and dark drawn in a clean, straight line across the tarp.

  For a long moment, the scene looked exactly the same as when I’d clambered aboard. The rumpled heap covering the corpse blocked out half the view from the cabin. The rest of the cockpit sat empty. I couldn’t make out anything beyond the bulky shape of the motor hanging off the end. I didn’t waste time looking either. The sound that had crawled through my mind carried specific connections and none of them related to water. It sounded exactly like the dry rattle of plastic crinkling, of something moving underneath it.

  Every nerve in my body both screamed at me to run and yet seemed locked in place at the same time. Every inch of skin felt like it was trying to crawl away from whatever waited outside. I could hear myself breathing, the sound unnaturally loud in the close confines of the cabin.

  Zachary’s hand slid out from under the tarp and dropped toward the floor. The sudden motion sent me flying backward into the sink. The hard wooden edge dug into my back, gouging an inch-wide burst of fire across my skin. Fear isn’t the right word. Terror doesn’t come close. The sight of his hand dangling from the edge of the tarp, fingers motionless and pale, the nails long and dirty, scared the absolute beejeesus out of me. I knew that moment how he had died. He hadn’t gone easily or gracefully. The boy had fought with every last ounce of air in his lungs to right the kayak, to force his head back above the surface of the water, to breathe once more clean, sweet air. The evidence hung not five feet away in mud-clogged fingernails.

  “We-lee-um?”

  The rasping sigh slid across the dead air, dry and hoarse like it had been forced out of a throat wracked with laryngitis. I stood, blankets and sleeping bags clutched in front of me like a shield, desperately searching for an explanation. My mind wanted to believe the sound came from an oddity in the rigging and the wind, to believe that somehow the boat had turned just the right way for the breeze to truly murmur through the taut lines. It wanted to believe that, come morning, some rational and fully scientific explanation would leap out at me. I would point it out to the others, and laugh at the surprised and shocked expressions on their faces.

  “We-lee-um come out. I want play.”

  A stunned bleat of fear burst from my chest the second time it spoke, the sound stuck solidly between a grunt and a curse. Wind, even if it existed, might moan through the wires in a close approximation of a single word. No wind that had ever existed could produce an entire sentence.

  I stared as what lay beneath the tarp shifted. Something jerked sideways, and then bolted upright in the middle of what should have been the boy’s stomach. The tarp jutted straight up, crackling as it went, the sound like someone walking through dead and dry leaves. Whatever lay beneath it turned quickly, first one way then the other, as if scanning the horizon through the dense plastic, and just as suddenly flopped back down.

  Silence. Still and calm.

  Then a soft, hoarse whisper slid through the empty air.

  “We-lee-um come out. I want play forever.”

  “Holy shit!” I gasped, my own voice just as hoarse.

  The far edge of the tarp jerked. Zachary’s head shot up, the angle so fierce that bones crackled and crunched. Dead, glazed eyes looked back at me.

  “We-lee-um?”

  The voice came out of his mouth, the same horrible gaping hole in the bottom of his face that looked big enough to fit a softball. His head bobbled like a puppet, like God was having some fun and jerking on his strings.

  “Come play here.”

  I stood frozen in the cabin, with no options and nowhere to turn. I could run to the forward bunk, but on a twenty-three-foot boat, that meant putting another ten feet between myself and the apparition sitting in the back of the cockpit. The only other direction available was toward it.

  The boy’s face rose as if leaning back to yawn. His throat bulged and pulsed, growing thicker by the second until it looked like a fat white sausage stuffed so full it would split at any second. Bones cracked. Air hissed and farted out of the deep pit framed by his open mouth. Then, as if I needed one more thing to make me crap my pants, an ear emerged, long, skinny, and hairless.

  Another followed. Right behind them both came the bulge of something round and gray. Teeth flickered out of Zachary’s cavernous mouth, clattering across the cockpit floor like dice with roots tossed by the devil.

  I couldn’t breathe. I’m sure a hero would’ve taken up his sword and slain the beast dragging itself out of the boy’s cold flesh. All I could do was watch.

  Wide grinning eyes, with yellow where the whites should have been and dark slits for pupils, poked up next. Zachary’s lips stretched taut, pulling away from his gums until they looked paper thin. Just when it seemed the throat had to burst, a long crooked nose flopped loose. The rest of the face slithered out, slimy and wet, like a baby that had just passed its crown.

  “Just you, just me, we play,” the thing breathed in a long hiss, revealing row upon row of sharp, triangular teeth. It leaned forward, jerking the kayaker’s head back down amid the snap and crackle of bones ground fine, and puked pounds of torn flesh and organs onto the floor. Clotted blood and chunks of ragged meat spewed across the fiberglass sole.

  “Bats go upside down, We-lee-um. Like dead boys float upside down.” it rasped in its toneless voice.

  Zachary’s throat flexed and writhed as if packed full of wriggling worms. The skin stretched so impossibly tight that it seemed any second it would split wide open. A fat lump swelled at the base of his neck and worked its way upward. The thing struggled to free itself, and finally with a sigh, leaned forward and vomited another large mass, this one full of meat chewed into dark brown slivers. The tension in the boy’s throat relaxed enough for the thing to work one long, bony arm free. The look on its face came as close to sorrow as I believe possible on such inhuman features.

  “Supper gone. I hungry,” the creature moaned.

  I stared, dumbstruck as it slid another arm free. Both limbs dangled for a moment, long, thin and spindly. Gnarled hands, each with three long finger-like claws, clutched at the air. I stared at them thinking in an odd, stupefied way that the appendages looked like the pincers on a scorpion. It hooked its fingers at the corners of Zachary’s mouth as I watched and forced its body upward.

  Daniel’s warning echoed through my mind as I watched. “You’ll have to kill him again.”

  I glanced right and saw the butt of Dad’s rifle still mounted on the inside bulkhead that stretched back underneath the cockpit. Dropping the wad of bedding, I lunged for it and worked feverishly to free the gun from mounts designed to keep it secure in the worst of weather. My fingers shook and my heart pounded, but the hasps holding the rifle to the wall proved strong and stubborn.

  Outside, the beast gave a satisfied grunt. I looked around the edge of the hatch. Wings unfolded behind the thin shoulders and oversized head, rising high and wide. The thing flapped them experimentally, shrugging off grisly bits of flesh in the process. Imp, gremlin, goblin, demon – the labels bolted through my mind, each seeking a home on the ugly features, but none landed with any sense of satisfaction.

  The thing looked up and saw me standing in the cabin, horrified, but too stunned to move. It grinned again. Blood, thick and congealed, clung to the thin gray lips like little black gummy worms.

  I turned back to the gun, stifling a grunt of my own. Mine held no satisfaction though, just fear and frustration. Every time the thing moved the sound of bones cracking and skin stretching filled the air. I knew it was close to setting itself free and tried to steel my nerves for the task at hand. The back latch came free, suddenly an
d simply. I jerked on the rifle, literally prying the front latch out of the fiberglass.

  The weapon felt solid and capable in my hands. Dad had fitted a black, nylon bullet sock around the stock. Brass gleamed like gold from each of the six slots. I pulled a round free and fed it into the chamber, fingers suddenly calm, following a process he had ingrained in me year after year. Three or four times every summer, he’d packed up his truck, loaded me in the passenger’s seat, and driven up into the mountains for target practice. We never hunted, but we blew the hell out of bottles and cans.

  A heavy thump shook the cockpit. I stepped back to the middle of the hatch. The thing had finally freed itself. It rose out of the shadows, standing on top of what remained of Zachary’s chest. The feet stretched long and skinny, stuck at the end of bowed, knobby legs, and terminating in curved claws that clicked against each other when it moved. Its stomach hung fat and distended, bulging downward like an obscene beer belly. At most, the little gremlin-like creature stood maybe two feet tall, though the wings stretching out behind it looked twice as wide. The few hairs that stood out from the slick, gray skin jutted up wiry and thick.

  As improbable as the sight of anything that large and ugly crawling out of the boy’s mouth had been, the thought of it worming its way in seemed equally impossible. I fed the last round into the magazine and jacked one into the chamber.

  It looked up with yellow eyes and studied the rifle. Something like a grin split the imp-like face wide open.

  “I hungry,” it whispered.

  I brought the rifle up to my shoulder.

  “No, you dead,” I said and pulled the trigger.

  The thing flung itself sideways so incredibly fast the motion streaked a gray blur across the back of the cockpit. It landed on the opposite side, claws scratching at the fiberglass as it scrambled for purchase. Yellow eyes glared back at me, eyes full of anger, but no pain.

  I levered another round into the chamber and fired again, this time jerking sideways with it as it shot back across to the other side. The bullet passed through one leathery wing, leaving a perfectly round black hole.

  It howled in pain and rage.

  “Master kill you!”

  The distinctive ratcheting sound of the lever sliding back and slamming home another bullet echoed through the cabin.

  “I got one of these for him, too.”

  I squeezed the trigger again. Flame flared across the opening. The little imp-beast screamed in pain and flopped across Zachary’s body like a wounded bird. I worked the lever again.

  The creature jerked at the sound and threw itself into the air. I ducked as it swooped close overhead. The instant the gray, leathery body passed, I stepped out into the open cockpit, brought the rifle to my shoulder, and gritted my teeth in frustration. The thing fit no spot on the evolutionary tree I’d ever seen or even imagined. A zoologist might fawn and get all excited. I just wanted it dead. That opportunity evaporated the instant the beast passed over the cockpit roof. Dense, dark night swallowed its outline completely. The heavy whoosh of wings struggling for altitude grew fainter and more distant as the seconds ticked away. I squinted, rifle against my shoulder, but could make out nothing in the curtain of black ahead.

  I needed light. Inspiration dawned bright in my mind. I leaned over and flicked the switch that turned on a glaring floodlight at the bow. The bright beam shot out over the sound, highlighting murky water ahead, but not the sky. Still, far ahead light flickered off something moving high in the air. I raised the rifle, took a deep breath, and squeezed off another round.

  A scream split the darkness. Far ahead and away, water splashed. I leaned against the bulkhead, stifled my own panting breath, and listened. The seconds passed, dragging out for a minute or two. The only sounds that drifted in belonged to the night, the gentle hiss of a soft breeze stirring leaves in the nearby trees, frogs from the swamp, but nothing I could attribute to the thing that crawled out of Zachary’s body. The unknowns didn’t help my jittery nerves. I had no idea if the last round hit it or if any of the shots would prove fatal. That single splash could have come from a fish jumping or a bird diving into the water.

  Something squished under my sneakers. I looked down and saw the tripe the beast had regurgitated in order to squeeze out of the boy’s mouth. When I turned, what remained of Zachary’s body nearly made me add my own dinner to the mess in the floor.

  It lay deflated, not munched into bits, but flattened out in the midsection. The legs still retained their shape, as did the arms. Loose folds of skin lay between them. Even the bones were gone. The head lay canted to one side, supported by Angel’s gunwale as if using it as a pillow. A neat, round hole sat high on his forehead an inch or so above his right eye. I didn’t have to investigate to know that one of the bullets had pierced his skull.

  Another hole gaped near his navel. I remembered the head poking up under the tarp and wondered why the beast hadn’t just crawled out there. Grisly thoughts slid through my mind. Maybe the opening served as a blow hole. Maybe it simply chewed a spot through the flesh so it could talk to me.

  With the threat gone, the adrenaline surging through my veins left me weak and trembling. I needed to sit and give my body time to recuperate. I desperately wanted out of the boat, though. Worse, the thought of going back into the confined space inside the cabin left my skin crawling. At the same time, I had no choice. I needed the bullets tucked away in the galley drawer.

  By the time I made it to the buggy again, I struggled under a bulky and unwieldy load. I’d come for the blasted sleeping bags and was, by God, taking them back with me. Zachary, or what was left of him, lay under the tarp again. Aside from the bedding, I carried a flashlight, Dad’s partially used box of bullets, a long diving knife I discovered while digging out the ammunition, and the rifle.

  I’d intended to use the flashlight like a headlamp for the buggy, but left it switched off. The little vehicle’s electric engine made virtually no noise. Night clung just as heavily to the path on the way back as it had on the trip down, but I had no intention of advertising my position by burning a bright hole through the darkness. I let the buggy ghost along, silently, with the only sound coming from the faint whir of the motor and sand hissing under the tires.

  Admitting you’re scared is hard for anyone who has left childhood behind. It’s okay when you’re young. You’ve not yet reached the age when science has explained that the night holds no monsters and the terrors that stride across our imaginations are nothing but fairy tales. I was scared—not of the night, not of my imagination, nor of fairytales, but of a waist-high demon imp that liked to dine on body parts. I didn’t know where it went, if it kept flying or had circled back around, hoping to ambush me at an opportune moment. I drove with one hand and clutched the gun with the other. If the thing swooped down on me from behind or at some odd angle, I couldn’t be sure the barrel would be pointed in the right direction. But, I could sure as hell make certain the gun remained within reach.

  Fifteen minutes later, the station swam into sight as I cleared a stand of trees. Lights blazed from the windows. On the porch, I could see figures moving. Only then did I feel comfortable enough to set the rifle down in the seat beside me. My hand struck something rectangular and hard in my jacket pocket when I did. I reached inside and pulled out the pack of cigarettes I’d picked up in the cabin. The need for the harsh rasp of smoke and the calming effect of the nicotine struck like vicious hunger pangs in my gut. I let go of the wheel, wanting the cigarette more than I needed to drive.

  In my defense, I couldn’t run into much, maybe the swamp twenty yards to my left or the forested interior another 50 yards to my right.

  I took control again with time to spare, rolling the buggy up in front of the station about the time the swooning, tobacco-induced high swept over me. I made a show of gathering up the items I’d fetched from Angel while I waited for the dizzying sensation to pass. Elsie, Joshua, Tyler, and Kelly stood on the porch w
hen I turned toward the station.

  “Where have you been, Hill William?” Elsie demanded, clutching her jacket close about her body.

  Joshua glanced at her and then looked back at me.

  “We heard shots, three or four of them,” he said. “Where did they come from?”

  I grabbed the rifle and climbed out of the buggy. All four of them froze. I couldn’t see their faces. The yellow light spilling from the open doorway silhouetted their figures and framed each in a golden halo. I figured all of them were eyeing the rifle, though, and maybe rethinking a decision that placed them inside a building with an armed man they barely knew.

  “From me,” I said, even though the announcement seemed a bit anti-climatic.

  I walked up into the light.

  Tyler frowned. Kelly looked scared. She crossed her arms in front of her, big eyes shifting nervously as she tried to both look at me and track the weapon in my hand.

  Elsie reached out and took my arm.

  “What happened to you?”

  I looked at her, trying to decide how to tell people I’d just met that something like a gremlin just crawled out of a body not half a mile distant. They’d listen, mostly because I held a rifle. They’d also probably be figuring out escape routes and how to get away from the crazy man.

  I would.

  “Where’s Daniel?” I asked after a long moment of silence.

  She drew her hand back hastily and stiffened.

  “Why? What do you want him for?”

  “Get him,” I told her. “He and I have a talk coming, and right now is as good a time as any.”

  Elsie glared at me and drew herself up straight. The rest might feel like they needed to tiptoe around me and the Marlin, but not the old woman. I could have held a toothpick in my hand for all the attention she paid to it.

  “Now you listen here, Hill William-”

  “No,” I interrupted, “you listen. Either you’re going to get him or I am. He and I are going to talk whether you like it or not. You can sit in if you don’t interfere, but that conversation is going to happen.”

  Joshua stepped to her defense, moving between the two of us.

  “Hang on now, William. She’s his guardian. She has the right to say whether or not you can question him, which is exactly what it sounds like you have in mind.”

  I sighed. I had no anger in me. What lurked inside was cold and determined.

  “Joshua, move aside. If you don’t, I’ll do the moving for you.”

  “There’s no call for that kind of talk,” he protested.

  I felt sorry for him in a way. People like Joshua had spent their lives talking themselves from one point to another, through one problem after another. Most of them carried a sense of disdain for violent action. I didn’t care much for violence myself. Here and there, though, Virgil and a couple of unwanted altercations had demonstrated that nothing drove a point home quite so clearly.

  I reached out and took him by the front of his shirt. He made as if to draw back and pull away. I should have told him what working with wood and lumber does to a person. You don’t grow bulging muscles like the body builders. You grow the kind that makes things move when you take hold of them. Joshua did, move that is, all the way out into the yard where he landed in a wild sprawl of tangled limbs.

  For the first time since I’d met her, Elsie’s eyes showed fear. The determination inside turned to embarrassment. I started to tell her I had no intention of hurting her. Then I realized she wasn’t afraid of me. The fear in her face came from the boy inside—maybe not him, but what I would discover.

  “Go get him, Elsie,” I said as gently as I could. “The choices are gone. I’m going to talk to him. I’d like you to be there, but push comes to shove, I’ll talk to him myself. He knows things.”

  Tears formed in her eyes.

  “He’s so young, Hill William.”

  I nodded, trying to keep my face impassive despite the guilt piling up on my shoulders. I’d met loads of people in life who cried at virtually any provocation. Elsie didn’t strike me as the type. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. At the same time, I needed to know what else the boy saw.

  “I know,” I said finally. “But, I need answers.”

  Tyler spoke up behind me.

  “What’s going on, Mr. Hill? What were you shooting at?”

  I looked at him and sighed. It didn’t look like I’d be able to avoid describing the confrontation on Angel. I licked my lips and picked ground that didn’t make the concept of a demon-imp seem completely insane.

  “I think I know who, or at least what, is eating the people.”

  Kelly frowned, a confused look on her face. “What are you talking about?”

  I waved toward the station.

  “On the radio today, remember? When they were talking about finding torn-up bodies? I think I know what’s doing it. In fact, I think I just shot one of them.”

  The woman drew back, an incredulous look on her face.

  “What?” Tyler exclaimed. “Dude, you’re not serious. Where?”

  I hesitated, but had gone too far to backpedal.

  “I found it in the back of my boat, eating your friend,” I said wearily. Ignoring the stunned looks of disbelief on their faces, I laid the story out piece by piece. By the time I fell silent, Elsie’s gray eyes were wider than I believed possible. Kelly held her hand to her mouth as if trying to stem either terror or disbelief. I couldn’t tell which.

  Tyler looked sick.

  Joshua had pulled himself up with a groan, but even he stood motionless.

  “Why do you want Daniel?” Elsie finally asked in a small voice.

  “Because,” I said, “ten minutes before I left, he came out on the porch and told me not to go. He said, I’d have to kill him again if I did.”

  I saw the confusion on their faces.

  “Yeah, I didn’t understand it either until the thing was gone. One of the shots hit Zachary’s body.”

  I looked at Elsie. “That boy knows things he shouldn’t. I don’t understand how. I really don’t care how. What I do care about is what else he knows. That’s what I’m going to find out tonight.”

  I stared down at her.

  “Now are you going to get him or am I?”

  She stepped back, a trapped and defeated look on her face.

  “I will. Give me a minute with him, okay?”

  I nodded. Guilt swept through me again. Scaring little old women had never ranked high on my list of important tasks. I sighed and waited until the door swung shut behind her before turning to Joshua.

  “You know how to use this thing?” I asked, holding the rifle up. He looked uncertain.

  “It’s loaded,” I told him. “Just work the lever, point it at whatever you want to kill, and pull the trigger.”

  I paused and gave him a strained smile. “As long as that target isn’t me.”

  “This is unreal,” Kelly said as I handed him the gun. She stood with her arms crossed, eyes big and shining.

  “No, it’s quite real,” I told her. “I’ll take you down tomorrow morning. You can have all the reality you want.”

  I let my gaze wander from face to face. “Until then, we are on an all-night watch. I want two people at a time out here on the porch. Neither is to leave the other’s sight for any reason.”

  Tyler wiped hair from his eyes and hitched up his trousers. I wanted to ask if he’d ever heard of belts. Instead, I nodded at him.

  “Why don’t you go back inside and figure out the rotation. Get someone out here with Joshua. Two hours, two people, got it?”

  He gave me a thumbs-up sign. “Got it.”

  The door to the station swung open. Light spilled into the yard. Daniel stood framed in another golden halo, this one compliments of Coleman for sure.

  “Hello, Daniel,” I said.

  “Hello, Mr. William,” he answered, his voice as solemn and somber as a graveyard.

  The rest exchan
ged quick looks. Tyler motioned for Kelly to follow him and both disappeared inside.

  Joshua took up a station at the other end of the porch. I found a seat on the steps where I could see him. Daniel walked over, his feet bare and silent on the wooden planks.

  He sat down next to me and stared off into the night.

  “Grandma says you want to know what I know,” he said softly, and then turned toward me.

  “Where do you want me to start?”

  In my simple way of processing events, questions are like on-off switches. When they’re in the off position, you wander around in the dark. Flip them over, and like the coyote in the Looney Tunes cartoons, a bulb clicks on and sheds light on the answer.

  When Daniel asked me where I wanted him to start, the light that clicked on didn’t illuminate the issues. It just opened the door to another room filled with more switches and presented an equally thorny problem. Just how does one go about telling a six-year-old what the word prescient means or that the whole concept is absolutely weird?

  The door opened and Elsie stepped out. Daniel looked as if he wanted to go to her. For that matter, the old woman appeared just as ready to whack me across the head and let him. She kept her distance though. The smell of Johnny Walker swirled in her wake. I shot a curious glance at her and saw a mug in her hand.

  She wrinkled her nose at me and headed for one of the rocking chairs. I let her go and tried to focus on the boy in front of me. The effort proved only partially successful. Every time I opened my mouth, I could feel the old woman’s sharp gaze like a hand pressed against my back.

  “What I want to know is this,” I said slowly, trying to piece together my interaction with Daniel over the past couple of days and do it in a way that didn’t make me sound like I’d lost my mind. I ran down the events, one by one, feeling more like a police interrogator setting up a suspect instead of a man trying to coax answers out of a child. I can’t say I felt comfortable in the role, especially with Elsie sitting behind me.

  “This morning, you told me that Zachary reminded you of bats. When I was upstairs, you dropped in to tell me the bad things were getting ready to start. Tonight, you said that if I went back to the boat, I’d have to kill him again. Where is that stuff coming from, Daniel?”

  A furrow ran across his forehead as he frowned.

  “I don’t know. I just see things.”

  “Like what?” I asked, and then decided that specifics might be better than a broad brush. “Like this morning, why did Zachary remind you of bats?”

  He looked scared. He sat with his hands in his lap, nervously picking at his clothes. When he spoke he wouldn’t look at me directly, but talked off to the side as if he was afraid of what he would see in my face.

  “I saw a show on TV. It showed pictures of bats hanging in caves and said they sleep upside-down. I thought about that man when you were trying to find him. It seemed like he was sleeping that way too.”

  I licked my lips.

  “He was, sort of. He was hanging upside-down, but he wasn’t sleeping.” Even as I said the words, the thought struck me that Daniel had interpreted the image the best way he could.

  “What about tonight when you said I’d have to kill him again?”

  He pulled his arms tight across his chest and started rocking back and forth.

  “That one was bad. I didn’t like seeing it.”

  “Seeing what?” I prompted him.

  “That man looked scary. His mouth was big and open. It had ears in it and you were afraid. Then you killed him and he was dead again.”

  Chills ran up my arms. I licked my lips again. My mouth seemed as dry as a desert.

  “How did I kill him?”

  He pointed toward Joshua at the end of the steps.

  “With that gun.”

  I looked back at Elsie. She sipped from the cup. Her face bore no expression, but her eyes shone with disapproval.

  “This evening, when you mentioned the bad things, did they have big ears too?”

  He nodded. “Some of them.”

  “Some? What about the rest?”

  Elsie spoke up behind me. “Hill William, don’t you think that’s enough for the night?”

  I held up a hand to silence her.

  “What about the rest, Daniel?”

  He ducked his head and pulled his arms tight across his midsection again. He looked so tiny in the dim light. Even through his jacket, I could see the bony outline of his shoulder blades.

  He moaned.

  “Hill William!” Elsie cried. “He’s six years old for God’s sake.”

  I spun around to face her.

  “Yes, he is, and he’s keeping it all bottled up inside him. Do you think it’s best that he doesn’t talk about it?”

  “He does talk about it,” she shot back.

  “When?” I demanded.

  She hesitated.

  I looked back at Daniel.

  “Do you talk about the things you see?”

  He nodded.

  “When?”

  The boy glanced at Elsie. Fear stood out plain and strong on his face.

  “He tells me,” she said softly, “when no one else is around.”

  I stared at her dumbfounded.

  “Then you tell me. What else is out there? What has he seen?”

  She gripped the cup hard. Even in the dark, I could see her fingers turn white. She took a deep breath.

  “He says there are all kinds of things. He doesn’t know what they are. Some are big. Their bodies are green. They don’t wear shoes or many clothes at all for that matter. They carry very big knives. There are ugly things that slip through the woods at night. They’re hungry and when they look at people, their mouths water and their eyes glow red. “

  She waved a hand at the sky. “Some fly, some like swamps, some are little. He says there are so many that they look like the ocean with waves on it.”

  Elsie paused. “Can you and I finish this conversation? Daniel’s tired. He was almost asleep when you demanded that I drag him out here. I can tell you what he’s told me.”

  I leaned over and ran a hand through my hair. The day before, I’d have walked away from them both, making faces and humming the theme to The Twilight Zone under my breath. I’d come to Portsmouth to find peace, not the kind where world leaders get together, shake hands, and walk away promising not to kill each other anymore, but the inner kind. Most of my life I’d wandered with no real bearings, responding to the pressure of the moment rather than carving out my own road. It had taken the death of my father and a broken marriage before I’d been able to look back and see the wasteland of shattered promises, unrealized dreams, and wounded relationships scattered out behind me. Of all the tattered heaps lying along the path that led me here, to this island, the one I regretted most was the last two years of my father’s life.

  It wasn’t that I missed him, even though I did. It wasn’t that he’d always been right, because he was just as wrong at times as anyone else. I came here for peace, because he would have, because these last days on the island were as close as I could ever come to being near him again, and the best way I could say, I’m sorry.

  Instead, I’d landed neck-deep in more responsibility than I had before I left, with an eighty-two-year-old woman and a six-year-old-boy depending on me. The rest of them would get by. I didn’t doubt that Elsie would too if the disease spared her. The woman seemed as tough as leather, old enough to know the answer to most problems, and sharp enough to figure out the rest. Not only that, she’d grown up here. She knew the island better than I did, better than anyone else on it. She knew how to get food, how to make water, what to eat, and what to avoid. She knew when the fish would run, what types, and how to catch them. In some ways, our little band of castaways had struck gold with the old woman. She essentially functioned as a walking encyclopedia of everything Portsmouth. She would survive even if everyone else died.

  From what I’d gleaned off the radio and
news reports, no one had a built-in immunity for the disease. The malevolent little virus struck every segment, every age group, and every racial composition with the same deadly efficiency. If Elsie went down and Daniel survived, he would be my responsibility, at least until the crisis passed. Even though sitting in the same room with him gave me the willies, I couldn’t just walk away no matter how much I might want to.

  The boy sat rocking, eyes fixed ahead and staring. I didn’t know if that was his way of dealing with the stress, or if he’d ventured off into some alternate realm where he could peer into the future. A sudden and great weariness swept over me.

  I looked up at Elsie and nodded. “Tomorrow, after we bury Zachary, after you call the Judge, we’ll talk. Go ahead, get him in the bed. I’ll stay out with Joshua until his watch is up.”

  I ran a hand across my face, scrubbing at the stubble forming on my cheeks. “Then I’m going to crash and burn. I can feel it coming.”

  She rose, pulled the boy to his feet, and gathered him up against her. “I think you’ve done enough for tonight. I’ll get one of the others to come out and stand watch.”

  The woman started for the door with Daniel in tow. She paused at the threshold and looked back. “There’s a bathroom to the left when you come in. It ain’t much, but it’s got running water that’s gravity-fed from the cistern. You need to wash up.”

  Elsie’s lips twisted in an apologetic smile.

  “Sorry, Hill William, but you’re a bit ripe.”

  The thought of feeling clean came across as heavenly an idea as angels suddenly appearing overhead.

  A couple of minutes later, Denise walked out carrying a jacket. She’d let her hair down finally. It hung straight, reaching halfway down her shoulders. She waved and looked around.

  I pointed toward Joshua at the end of the porch.

  “He’s down there.”

  She turned and started for him.

  “You two come up closer to the door. I’ll be sleeping out here on the deck,” I called after her. “Don’t worry about me though. I’ll be out in two minutes once I lay down. I just don’t want you and him way down there away from everyone else. I want everyone close tonight.”

  I went inside then and found the bathroom. A cast-iron bathtub that looked old enough to have crossed the Atlantic on the Mayflower sat in one corner. A sink with a washbasin occupied the other side of the room. Right next to it, an honest-to-God toilet gleamed in the flickering light. The toilet and the sink made sense. The bathtub didn’t, at least not on a frequent basis. The cistern out back looked to hold 300 gallons at the most. I couldn’t imagine the luxury of using what amounted to a tenth of the water supply just to wash off the dirt and sweat.

  I learned quickly that a bath in the station contained no luxurious moments. The tub had one faucet and one knob. I stripped down, climbed in, turned it on, and nearly jumped out of my skin. Water came pouring out alright. Elsie had forgotten to mention how cold it was. By the time I stepped out, no more than a couple of gallons lay pooled in the tub and real shivers coursed down my back – not the kind from corpses sitting up behind me, but the kind where my teeth chattered and goose bumps scored every inch of exposed skin.

  Sleep came quickly, so fast I don’t remember my head hitting the rolled-up jacket I used as a pillow. I do remember the dreams. Sleep brought monsters, wild, menacing things that looked as if they’d been spawned in hell, vile creatures eager for the taste of flesh and slobbering drool from long gleaming teeth. They flew. They crawled. They marched and they swam.

  Cities burned and people died. Great battles raged across a scorched earth filled with the crumbling remains of life as it would never be again. Blood flowed in rivers, deep and red, and still they came, rising up from great, black holes ripped out of the ground. They came by the millions, twisted, ugly beasts that nature had never intended, so many of them that the earth disappeared beneath the surging bodies.

  And they all knew my name.

  “We-lee-um.”

  Chapter IX - The Others