The Island - Part 2 Read online

Morning dawned as bright and sunny as Elsie had predicted. Warmth poured from the golden sun rising over the ocean and burned through the chill from the night before. I rose, stiff and cold, feeling as if I’d gone on a wild drinking spree. My back ached from lying on the hard wooden planks all night. My teeth felt as if they’d grown a layer of skin. I ran a parched tongue against them and grimaced at the thick, almost furry sensation. The taste in my mouth didn’t help either. Imagine sucking on old copper pennies and fermented milk for a couple of hours. That’s close, but still not quite as bad.

  Kelly and Tyler stood watch. Both looked tired and unkempt, as if they’d just rolled out of bed themselves. They sat huddled against the station wall with the rifle propped up against the siding between them. Kelly cradled a steaming cup.

  The thought of coffee sent me struggling upright with the blankets I’d brought from Angel the night before still wrapped around me. The coverings had somehow twisted themselves around my legs and body like long fuzzy tentacles while I slept and threatened to send me sprawling.

  She glanced over and watched me do battle with my bedding. I finally shrugged them off and celebrated my victory with a curse.

  “Damn things.”

  The girl grinned.

  “You look rough.”

  “I feel rough,” I agreed. My voice came out harsh and gravely.

  She waved her cup toward the door.

  “Everyone else is up. Elsie had breakfast and coffee ready half an hour ago. Last time I looked inside she was brewing a pot of tea and digging through one of our coolers looking for ice.”

  A faint smile twisted her lips. “I don’t know how much she found. Most of ours had already melted. She said you’d be unbearably grouchy and mean if you didn’t get your coffee and tea this morning.”

  “She’s right,” I grunted, “my body’s weird. I can go without food for days. But, take away the liquids and I’m useless.”

  I scratched at my face and squinted against the sun. “What’s for breakfast?”

  She made a face. “Not much. Between Joshua’s people and us, we had lots of oatmeal and Tang. They had the bottom end of a loaf of bread.”

  I winced. “So it’s mush and dry toast?”

  Kelly nodded. “That’s about the gist of it.”

  She lifted the cup.

  “There’s a bright side. At least the coffee is good.”

  The promise of caffeine, of managing a coherent string of thoughts that didn’t begin with a curse, sent me staggering into the station. The girl hadn’t exaggerated. The coffee was good. As for the food, it possessed one enduring quality. It knocked the edge off the hunger gnawing at my stomach. Beyond that, the best description I could offer skirted terms like boring, bland, and tasteless.

  Even so, that modest fare would be gone before long. I’d supplied Angel for a month, giving up luxuries for basics, figuring I could supplement my diet with seafood. I’d also planned for one person, not eleven. At best we might be able to stretch the food for a week with ten days as the absolute limit. The others brought little with them, mostly packets of dried food, oatmeal, some instant coffee, and drink mixes. Kelly’s group fared better. She’d laid out a dozen packaged meals, either MRE types or the freeze-dried camper fare that looked like it belonged on a shelf in a sporting goods store. Joshua toted in several empty coolers, highlighting the fact that most of their supplies had been depleted before the ban.

  I washed up in the bathroom afterward, shivering like I had the night before. Around the point that my privates started trying to crawl back inside my body, I made a mental note to look at the plumbing and water setup. Dousing your body with cold water is rarely a pleasant experience. Doing so when you’re already chilled is flat-out painful. I had no desire to repeat that process every morning, especially since the mornings would grow colder as fall headed toward winter. The only enjoyable part of the whole routine occurred when brushing my teeth. Cool and minty there worked wonders.

  Thirty minutes later, the entire group of castaways headed down to the boat. Everyone came. Elsie and Daniel rode in the dune buggy with the rifle stuck between them. The rest of us walked. Keith and Devon bore off halfway down to look for tools and to dig the grave. I almost stopped them, but the events of the night before seemed distant and removed from the bright light of day.

  The storm had strewn tree limbs and debris across the open field where most of the houses sat. Just up from the shoreline, lightning had split a tall live oak into jagged sections. Half of it still stood reaching toward the heavens. The other half lay broken on the ground, still smelling of ozone. None of that could wash away the sparkling clean feel of the air and sun. The town might need a bit of cleanup, but the morning had turned out absolutely glorious.

  Angel sat grounded high on the edge of the island with no water within ten feet of her. The little channel that led up to the beach had dried up completely, exposing a wide swath of thick, black mud. The only sand in sight clung to the edge of the shoreline in a thin strip. Everything beyond looked like goo poured from a witch’s cauldron and smelled about as bad.

  I climbed aboard first and wrestled the body into the cockpit floor with the tarp underneath. Moving Zachary proved difficult. It felt like trying to push two different sacks of flour with a rope tied between them, all while slipping and sliding in congealed vomit. He retained weight at the extremities, but had nothing in the middle except loose skin to hold the upper half and lower half together. When I’d finally maneuvered him into the cockpit floor, I pulled up the ends of the tarp like a sling.

  Tyler helped me lift him out, holding his end at arms length in an attempt to avoid the grisly bits of flesh and drool dripping from the bottom. Once we’d moved the body up into the grass, I took Daniel for a walk while the rest looked at what lay inside the tarp. We returned to white faces, some of which also looked nauseated.

  Elsie took Daniel and rode up toward the little cemetery on the opposite end of town to check on the gravesite. Nearly forty-five minutes passed before she returned.

  “They were still wandering around looking for a shovel. Then I remembered one of my customers talking about doing cleanup out here and saying they’d stored tools in the old general store,” she said as she pulled a stray bit of hair out of her eyes. “I took them down to it. We found shovels, axes, a pick axe, and hammers, quite a bit of stuff. We’ll have more hand tools than we’ll need.”

  “Well, at least we’ll have an abundance of something,” I said dryly and motioned for Tyler to grab the other end of the tarp. Joshua and Kelly stepped in as well. Between the four of us, we carried the body across the field and up into the little nook where gravestones a century old waited beside the new hole Devon and Keith had dug in the sandy soil. We laid him to rest in the shade of a tall white pine, amid a carpet of soft, brown needles. Devon and Keith, though red-faced and sweating, went right back to work filling in the hole.

  I watched them for a moment, then stepped back and eyed the layout of the cemetery. The new grave sat squarely in the expanse of open ground that Daniel highlighted on the trip back from the camp meeting. I shot him a look, feeling chills scamper up my back despite the heat.

  “Someone should say something,” Elsie remarked as they tamped the last bit of dirt atop the new mound.

  I glanced at Tyler. Kelly caught the look and shook her head.

  “Maybe later,” I told Elsie.

  She frowned as if she wanted to argue, but said nothing.

  I turned back to the group behind me. They were a young, but ragtag lot. All of them looked like a warm bath and some decent rest would serve them better than anything. Unfortunately, a warm bath might be a long time coming, and rest certainly would.

  “Keith, Devon, take stock of the tools at the General Store. Make a list of everything. When you’re done there, check out the rest of the houses. While you’re at it, look at the other cisterns. As of right now, clean water is sitting at the top of the priority list.”
/>   I pointed at Kelly next.

  “You and Tyler go back to my boat and start unloading it, food, clothes all of it. Joshua and Denise can help with the transfer. Grab everything that isn’t nailed down. Elsie, you take Daniel and the other two girls back to the station. Tally up items as they come in.”

  “We have more stuff in our camp too,” Joshua offered.

  I nodded. “Once you have the boat unloaded, move everything to the station. Keep the rifle with you. You see anything weird or run into any type of trouble, fire a shot. That will be our alarm bell.”

  He shot a glance toward the dune buggy. The Marlin leaned against the passenger’s side. “I can do that.”

  I started to turn when another thought clicked. “Oh, and don’t forget the bleach. It’s under the sink. We’ll need it to disinfect the water.”

  Elsie brushed her gray hair back.

  “Where are you going, Hill William?”

  “Down the beach,” I told her. “We passed three camps on the way up. The closest is only a couple of miles down. Those folks are going to need shelter too.”

  “You’re going to be alone. Why don’t you take the rifle with you?” Joshua asked.

  I shook my head. “No, it needs to stay here. We need some way of alerting everyone, and if need be, protecting everyone. I took a couple of knives off Angel last night. One of them is a diving knife.”

  He looked confused.

  “Think big—like a miniature sword,” I said.

  Elsie looked doubtful, but I kept going.

  “I’m going back to the boat. There are a few things I’ll set out for you that you’d probably not take on your own, but we’re going to need them. The same goes for stuff you find in the village. Bring everything back to the station.”

  I studied their faces. “We’re on our own now. We can’t leave. We can’t even try without running the risk of getting arrested or worse. So be thorough. The longer we have to stay here, the more we’re going to need.”

  Fear and uncertainty flitted across the faces in front of me. The fresh grave in the background highlighted a reality that ventured beyond simple survival. Grinding out an existence on a windswept barrier island would be difficult enough without any of the support mechanisms we usually took for granted. We couldn’t run down to the convenience store, or stop by the doctor’s office, or call the police. Every action we took could mean the difference between life and death. I could see that realization dawning on the people standing in the little grove of trees and graves.

  I left them and headed back to the boat. I took Keith’s shovel with me and used it to clean the mess out of the cockpit floor, tossing the slimy bits of flesh over the side. When the tide came back in, most of it would disappear, some eaten by fish and crabs, some simply washed away by the current. Angel needed a good scrubbing, or at least a good dousing. I didn’t have the time, though, and had no desire to slog through stinking black mud to fetch water.

  With that done, I set about gathering items I wanted back at the station. I pulled one of the batteries from under the forward bunk and set it on the cockpit seat facing the shore. Next, I took a screwdriver from the sink drawer and unscrewed the overhead light in the forward part of the cabin. I dug through the lockers until I found the little windmill Dad used to recharge the buggy. Beside it lay an electrical repair kit complete with extra wire, connectors, fuses, tape, and more.

  The station needed light. Joshua’s lanterns wouldn’t last forever. While Angel’s cabin light wouldn’t produce as much illumination, I could recharge the battery. I couldn’t refill the propane tanks.

  Back inside, I looked around, wondering what I’d missed. Honestly, I could’ve stripped her down to nothing and still needed a thousand different things. From one of the rear hatches, I extracted another of Dad’s inventions, this one little more than a box built to hold a spare battery. Twelve volt plugs mounted on the outside offered power stations like those inside a car. A pair of cables inside hooked to the battery posts and powered the plugs. He called it his Camper’s box, and used it for everything from recharging small electronics to running a DC television he’d had when I was a kid.

  Next to it, lying tucked up in the corner, I found a small first aid kit. That sent me flying back into the cabin where I dug out the bigger kit from a locker underneath the port side bunk. Although I’d stocked it well, the two of them combined still made for a pitiful collection of medical supplies. Eleven people depended on what lay inside those two plastic boxes. The thought made me sigh.

  Both cases contained only over-the-counter supplies and medicines. Still, we could treat fevers, general aches and pains, sterilize and bandage wounds, plus handle a host of minor medical conditions. I laid them out alongside the battery figuring that anything would be better than nothing.

  I also hunted down the rest of the ammunition for the rifle. I’d felt overpowered when I bought the extra box of shells. The feeling went the opposite way when I pulled out the unopened box. I wanted a dozen more, not just one.

  The last few items I pulled from the boat leaned more toward my hike down the beach. I grabbed a daypack and stuffed it with a water bottle I topped off from the boat’s supply. I added another bottle full of cold tea, some ham, cheese, and bread from the cooler, and after a moment’s consideration, the last flashlight aboard. The thought of needing the light prompted the addition of a cigarette lighter from the sink drawer and about fifty feet of 3/8-inch line I’d seen when hunting for the first aid kit. I didn’t plan on spending the night on the beach. At the same time, if I ended up stuck, I wanted a way to build a fire and construct some type of shelter. The tent I’d used the night we arrived lay inside one of the lockers, but the first image that rose in my mind when I looked at it related more to flimsy walls than shelter. After seeing the claws on the little devil, I’d rather scrape a hole out in the sand and tie thick branches together overhead as a cover than end up trapped inside a tent.

  That thought led to another round of even more feverish digging through lockers and bags until I found the cans of mosquito repellant. I didn’t know what else might slither or crawl through the night, but Portsmouth had garnered fame among its visitors for the healthy mosquito population it fostered. Twisted little demons from hell might want my blood. The mosquitoes would damned well have it if I ended up sleeping on the beach with no protection.

  Tyler, Kelly, and Denise had arrived by the time I’d finished. I pointed out the things I wanted them to transfer in addition to the food and clothing.

  “Take anything loose that you think might be helpful,” I told them. “Don’t cannibalize her or anything. Sooner or later, we’ll leave this island and may need a working boat to make the crossing, but feel free to raid the lockers.”

  I motioned back toward the inlet. “I left some containers on the dock yesterday evening. The big blue jugs have water in them, fourteen gallons of it. The small blue jug is kerosene. I used it for cooking and for a kerosene lantern that’s hanging inside. It doesn’t give off a lot of light, but it’s better than nothing.”

  Kelly waved a hand. “Don’t worry about us. We’ll get everything off, but we won’t strip it down.”

  I grinned. “Thanks. I had images in my mind of coming back to an empty hull.”

  Warmth poured down from the bright yellow sun blazing overhead. I glanced down at the stained cockpit and then shot a look toward the water still several feet away. The incoming tide would raise the level of the sound high enough to float Angel free in a couple more hours.

  “How about pouring a few buckets of water into the cockpit when you’re done,” I said with a grimace. “Just leave it and let it slosh around. It’ll wash back out through the drains in the floor.”

  I hated leaving them with that task, but needed it done before the stench of rot set in.

  “There are two coolers inside,” I said before they could dwell on the thought too long. “The one near the hatch will make breakfast better the next fe
w days. The other one is under the starboard bunk. It’s full of meat. Set them both out of the sun when you get to the station.”

  “We’ll be okay,” Denise insisted, despite features that paled when she looked over the gunwale. “You’d better get going. It’s noon already.”

  She was right. I had a four to six-mile hike in front of me. October nights came early on the island. The incident the night before had killed all interest in traveling after sundown.

  I grabbed up the daypack and slung it over my shoulder. After a last round of goodbyes, I headed up the hill toward the station. I still needed the diving knife and wanted to talk to Elsie before I left.

  Just past the tree split open during the storm, I passed Joshua heading the other way and grinned at the sight of his lanky frame stuffed inside the little vehicle. He rolled the buggy to a stop about twenty feet away, but I waved him on. Every distraction, every little task I took on ate away more daylight. He and I could chit-chat later.

  When I walked into the station, Elsie had the girls cleaning cabinets while she worked over several sheets of paper laid out on the table.

  “I’m separating supplies,” she said when I opened the door. “Food stocks go on one list, tools on another. I’m putting clothing, blankets, sleeping bags, and camping equipment on yet another.”

  She held up a final sheet. “This one will be all the miscellaneous stuff. If I need to break it down further, I will, but by the time you get back, I’ll have a good idea of what we have, and what we’re going to need.”

  I looked around. “Where’s Daniel?”

  She motioned toward the ceiling with her pen. “He’s upstairs rummaging around. We can’t just sprawl out in here every night. This place, as big as it is, will get cramped soon. Once we get everything here and stored, I’m going to put these kids to cleaning out the rooms on the second level.”

  Elsie peered at me over her glasses. “There are a couple of big rooms up there off from the dormitory that will make fine bedrooms. You boys can have the dorm room.”

  She paused and waited. I wasn’t sure why unless she expected me to argue over the sleeping space.

  “Girls need privacy, you know,” she said finally, “but I don’t know how we’re going to get by with one bathroom for all these people.”

  I frowned at her. “There’s not another upstairs?”

  She sighed. “Hill William, this place was built over a hundred years ago. It ain’t like houses these days where everyone has their own bathroom. Besides, water don’t run uphill. The toilet only works down here because the bowl is gravity-fed from the cistern.”

  I started, paused, and then scratched my head, confused by the jumble of needs and wants racing through my mind. “Did I mention the cisterns at the other houses?”

  Elsie nodded. “You did. I’m the old one here, remember? You’re too young to forget stuff that fast.”

  I ignored her, thoughts already racing ahead. “I’ve been wondering too, with this place like a museum, where’s the curator? Every museum has someone to watch over it. Where’s the ranger station?”

  She brightened. “I forgot about that. There is one, over near the marsh, not far from the old Pigot house. It’ll be empty. It’s only manned in the spring and summer.”

  The excitement that shot through me must have been evident.

  “Why?” she asked. “What do you think is over there?”

  “I don’t know,” I told her, “but, I’m hoping electricity and water—or at least some way of making both. I can’t imagine stationing rangers out here with a cooler and a propane lantern.”

  The old woman looked thoughtful.

  “Don’t worry about it right now,” I said. “We can check it out once we’re settled in here. You call the Judge?”

  Her head wagged from side to side. “Not yet. My phone is on the boat. I’ll have them bring it up on one of their trips and give him a call then.”

  I hesitated and shot a look at the girls in the kitchen.

  “Daniel said anything?”

  Elsie frowned. “About what?”

  I had to fight the urge to roll my eyes. “Well, you know about weird stuff that might happen later?”

  Her face turned hard.

  “No, he hasn’t.”

  Truth be known, Daniel was the biggest reason I’d stopped at the station aside from the need to collect the diving knife. The fact that he hadn’t wandered around uttering words of doom proved to be little consolation given the fact that he could do so the instant I started down the beach. I stifled a sudden irritation at the arbitrary nature of it all.

  “Alright,” I told her. “I’d better hit the road. Whatever else you do today, get everyone in here by dark.”

  I turned before she could reply and strode over to the door. The duffle bag I’d brought up the night before still lay propped against the doorframe. I strapped the diving knife to my belt and threw a folding lock-back knife into the daypack. I picked up the jacket I’d worn as well. Even though the day had dawned sunny and warm, night would bring colder temperatures. If I ended up sleeping on the beach, the jacket would prove invaluable.

  The word beach can paint the wrong picture of the strip of sand where island meets ocean on Portsmouth. At times, the edge of what amounts to jungle lies only a few yards from the high-tide mark, making passage by vehicle both tricky and dangerous at the wrong time of day. Walking it doesn’t present much of a problem, other than sometimes passing too close to the tree line and tempting hordes of voracious bloodsuckers out of the shadows.

  Still, beach implied the carefully maintained playgrounds that travel agencies liked to promote. I’d seen a dozen signs on my way to the coast, most of them filled with pictures of sleek women in tiny bikinis and miles of open sand. Little of that existed on Portsmouth. Here and there, the ocean front opened to wider expanses, but a good bit of it offered a tiny beach and a lot of swamp. Tidal flats left larger sections open, but that disappeared when the water returned.

  The station lay near the point of the island, at the juncture where protective dunes gave way to sea water and the inlet. I slogged across the low mounds of loose sand in a process that felt like trudging through molasses. The going eased considerably when I emerged on the hard pack fronting the ocean.

  As soon as I’d left the station behind, I stopped and changed out of the dungarees I’d been wearing, opting for a pair of shorts instead. The pants and socks went into the daypack. The tennis shoes stayed on my feet. The sand had a cool and inviting feel to it. I’d have been happy sitting and wiggling my toes in it for a while, but bare feet made little sense on a long walk. Unlike areas swamped with tourists, the beaches along the island sported tons of sharp shells and even broken glass on occasion. Either could slice open a foot and turn a good day into a bad one.

  The wind blew at a constant fifteen to twenty miles an hour, keeping me cool despite the heat cascading down from the blazing sun. Sea gulls rode the breeze, dipping, diving, and soaring while they searched for bits of food. Pelicans swept low over the waves, plunging in now and then to scoop up the small fish skittering along behind the breakers. Bluefish looked to be working the schools of bait fish as well, occasionally breaking the surface as they raced after mullet and shrimp.

  Early fall brought millions of fish by the island as they fled south to avoid the coming winter. Within a few weeks, the window would close and both the varieties and numbers would plummet. By early winter, sharks, sea trout, and redfish would be left as the main offerings. Once the biannual migration passed, surviving off the sea would become more difficult. We could, but not without working harder in weather that grew worse as the seasons progressed.

  I pushed most of the thoughts aside and concentrated on finding the camps we’d seen from Angel as we passed. If not for the two fishing poles mounted in rod-holders made of PVC pipe, I might have walked right past the first. The sight of them rising high above the sand, tips bending in rhythm with the surf led my gaze bac
k up the beach. A low-slung tent huddled just under the trees. A tarp stretched between the branches overhead provided shade and acted as a watershed. A man and woman lay on a blanket spread underneath. The woman looked to be asleep. The man rose as I approached.

  He came out bare-chested, wearing a pair of ragged blue jean shorts and picking his way gingerly across the sand in bare feet. Like Joshua, the man hadn’t shaved in a while. Elsie would never deem him Moses, though. The thin stubble forming on his face left him looking dirty and disheveled, not like a wild-haired prophet. The hairdo didn’t help much either. It hung long and limp, and carried that slick, greasy look of someone in desperate need of a bath.

  The distinct odor of smoke came with him, not wood smoke, but the burned tea smell of reefer.

  “Hey, Bud.”

  I nodded. “Howdy. Name’s William Hill. I came by here yesterday in a boat and saw your camp. I wanted to let you know that there’s close to a dozen people in the old town a few miles north.”

  He squinted against the sun and lifted a hand to shade his eyes.

  “We’re going to set up there until the travel ban is lifted,” I told him. “You’re welcome to come up. There’s plenty of room.”

  He looked back at his tent. The woman had risen to her feet. She was heavier than the man, shorter by a head and looked tired. She wore baggy blue shorts and a low-cut, sleeveless pink top that exposed deep cleavage between sagging breasts. She walked out in the sunlight, barefoot like the man.

  He waved in her direction.

  “I’m Jim. That’s Brittney,” he said in a dry voice. “I reckon we’ll stay here a while. We’re set up decent and the fishing is pretty good. What’s this about a travel ban?”

  I told him what I’d heard on the radio, everything from the ban to the threat of killing those who violated it. I told him about how the disease had been evolving over the past few days.

  I didn’t tell him a beast that looked like a creature spawned in hell had eaten the inside out of a body stored aboard my sailboat the night before. I wanted to. At the same time, I also knew my credibility would drop right off the edge of a cliff. As insane as the government’s actions might be, most could and would believe them. We might question, might grow angry and rebellious, but the system that demanded obedience had been set in place and finessed over the last two centuries. Every rebellion put down, every law that stole another freedom or channeled society into following a prescribed course, every social manipulation worked through school systems to change the hearts and minds of the next generation had not only created a society increasingly dependent upon government, but also taught it to obey and believe.

  That framework possessed dependable models, distinct lines drawn in the sand that defined what was acceptable, and what wasn’t. Generations of scientists and politicians who both taught us to follow and allowed us to scorn those who didn’t, strengthened those lines. He’d believe his government would kill him in order to keep him locked in place. In the next breath, he’d scoff at the idea of flying monsters feeding on the dead. The first could be a complete lie. The second could be the utter truth. The veracity of neither statement mattered. What mattered was a structure that allowed no room for heaven, hell, or creatures that might venture forth from either.

  I used every argument I could think of, tossed out the ideas ranging from empty houses waiting to be occupied, to water systems that would provide a dependable source of the precious liquid, to food stocks. None of it mattered. Jim stood firm on the decision to stay. I gave up at the point I saw him growing irritated and asked about the next camp I’d seen down the beach.

  He nodded and waved off toward the south.

  “Yeah, them people might be willing to join up with you. Got to tell you, though, the man is a real asshole.”

  Jim motioned toward the dunes. “There’s a road back there. It ain’t much of a road, no more than a wide path cleared out of the brush and full of ruts and holes, but he comes barreling up through there every day or two in a big Chevy, throwin’ sand every which way, and makin’ enough noise to wake the dead.”

  He looked at me as if searching for confirmation that the man did, indeed, sound like an asshole.

  “I don’t know where he goes,” he said eventually, “but a little while later, he’s bangin’ back down the other way. I went out to talk to him one day. He damn near run me over and then had the gall to cuss me when he went by.”

  “How many people are down there?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Don’t know. All I seen was him and a woman. They might’ve had kids in the back seat, but I didn’t see any.”

  “How far down are they?”

  “Two, three miles I reckon.”

  I glanced up at the sun. Maybe four or five hours of daylight remained. Three miles meant another hour’s walk at best. The incoming tide worried me. The high-water mark along that stretch of beach looked to run right to the edge of the dunes. If the water pushed me up into the loose sand, the walk back would take forever. Heading for the next camp would put me back at the station somewhere around sunset. The thought didn’t make me happy. At the same time, I had no idea when or if I’d make it back that way again.

  I couldn’t stop the disease. Bringing them to the town, however, might give them a fighting chance. The news constantly reinforced the idea that adequate care increased one’s odds of survival dramatically. I had no illusions about my ability to doctor the sick, but a comfortable bed and someone caring for you had to offer a better chance than lying on an open beach with thirst and a virus competing to see which killed you first.

  The woman cast uncertain looks my way, but not Jim. He seemed determined to ride out whatever life threw at him with a tarp, a pair of fishing poles, and what smelled like a bale of weed. I waved goodbye to the pair and left them standing on the beach. Each time I looked back, they stood in the same spot, watching me.

  Even though my path led almost due south, the coastline meandered in and out a good bit. I’d fished enough of the ocean to know that the little pockets along the beach formed points along the shore with deeper holes situated off to either side. The exposed shoreline indicated that a current ran offshore. Barely fifty yards out, a wide slab of darker water skirted the coast, pointing to a deeper channel that most likely served as a virtual highway for passing fish. I could imagine game fish like Spanish mackerel and blues racing through the deeper portions while flounder stalked the flatter sections.

  The thought vaulted my mind back to the reasons I chose the island as a potential last stop on life’s journey. The most memorable times with my father could be summed up in two concepts, water and fishing. Portsmouth incorporated some of the best of both.

  I looked out over glistening waves, curling blue at the bottom and frothing white at the top, and wished for simplicity, for a couple of days in the sand with a rod and nothing to do but feel the sun beating down, the wind blowing away the heat, and the hard tug of a fish on the line.

  A mile or so below the first camp, long, dark timbers poked out of the sand. The more I studied them, the more they looked like a skeleton, with one long wooden beam forming the backbone, and others running perpendicular like a fragmented ribcage. All of them ran back under sand still washed by the ocean. I stood, watching as a wave crashed ashore. It died in a massive jumble of bubbling froth twenty feet away and raced through the exposed timbers, tossing bits of salty foam in the air as it passed.

  Finding a shipwreck along the Outer Banks wasn’t difficult. Hundreds, if not thousands, of sunken ships littered the surrounding waters, including Blackbeard’s ill-fated Queen Anne’s Revenge. Some ran aground in storms. Others lost their way in the dense fogs that sometimes enveloped the coastline. More than a few had fallen prey to ruthless bankers who farmed the sea rather than fished it. Farther up the coast lay the town of Nags Head, a place that derived its name from unscrupulous types hired to tie lanterns around the necks of horses and lead them along the beach at night.
Passing ships mistook the bobbing light for the blinking signal of a lighthouse. Once aground they were looted and, if the stories were true, the crews sometimes killed.

  Running across a wreck on this lonely stretch of windswept beach seemed odd, though. I made a mental note to come back at some point and spend a while investigating the remains.

  The sun had wandered over into the western sky before I spied the next camp. The people had staked their tent near a break in the dunes and set it back under the overhang of the trees. A store-bought canopy, framed in aluminum, surrounded by mosquito netting, and topped with a blue Dacron cover squatted even deeper in the forest. A pair of reclining beach chairs separated by a white marine cooler sat inside. They’d built a fire pit between the two structures. Behind it, deep in the shadows, a white Chevy Suburban loomed like a beached whale. Long, whip-like antennas sprouted on either side of the vehicle. Beside the tent, a tiny American flag flew from a crooked tree branch that someone had broken off and shoved into the sand.

  A man strode out as I approached. He was big, standing at least two or three inches over six feet. He wore tan shorts, flip-flops, and a button-up white shirt, open at the collar with the sleeves rolled half-way up his forearms. He looked resolute and carried himself as if accustomed to making entrances. Where the earlier meeting carried the flavor of a greeting, this one screamed confrontation. He wasn’t coming to meet me as much as he wanted to determine my intent and establish his presence.

  I stopped and waited, adjusting the pack to shift the irritating shoulder strap to a new location.

  He pulled up five feet away, spread his feet out wide, and perched his hands on his hips. The man looked as if he’d just stepped out of the door of a beauty parlor. Every strand of hair had been snipped and razor-cut into obedience. His skin carried that unearthly brown glow of people who spent too much time in a tanning bed, so even and smooth it looked more like it came from a can than the sun. Even his fingernails looked as if he’d just finished a manicure session. Gray showed at his temples, putting his age in my mind a few years older than myself.

  “What can I do for you?” he asked in a loud, deep voice that carried a tone of authority.

  I knew I needed to choose my words carefully, but ended up grinning. The absurdity of a salon queen prancing on the sand like a rooster strutting his stuff came across as hilarious. I looked down the beach, trying to gather my thoughts and scrub away the image of barnyard confrontations.

  “My name is William Hill. I’m with a group of people situated up north at the old town of Portsmouth,” I told him when I had finally composed myself enough to look back. “You’re welcome to bring your family and join us. The old village is still in good shape. There are several abandoned houses. You can have your pick.”

  He crossed his arms and stared at me. I pressed on, despite the rejection in his face.

  “I don’t know how long we’ll be stuck on this island, but the weather will turn cold and nasty soon. The houses up there are strong and well-suited to the climate here.”

  I paused and then played what should have been the trump card.

  “There’s a dock up there too. I expect it will be the drop-off point for aid supplies.”

  He looked incredulous.

  “You want us to come join you?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t want anything. I’m simply offering. You can stay down here if you want. It’s nice now. Soon it won’t be.”

  He waved dismissively. “We’ll be fine. This is some of the best gear money can buy. That tent over there was made for Everest.”

  I nodded, glancing back behind him as if taking stock of his assessment. A part of me wanted to ask why he hadn’t dragged a fifty-foot motor home out on the beach. In fact, the words had formed on my lips when I realized he probably would have if the ferry allowed it. The tent must have been a huge step down for him.

  A woman emerged from somewhere behind the Chevy and started across the intervening strip of sand. She apparently liked salons as well. Her hair gleamed flawlessly in the bright sunlight, drifting down past her shoulders in luxurious brown waves. Not one strand of gray showed.

  The man shot a look over his shoulder and saw her coming. If anything, he drew himself up larger.

  ”Now if I may offer you a suggestion. You can keep moving. This is our camp.”

  She sidled up beside him and stared at me as if she had just discovered a new form of life.

  “Is he lost?”

  The man put his arm around her.

  “Don’t worry, baby. Mr. Hill was just leaving.”

  I let the sigh slide out. Six miles of beach housed a pair of hippies and two castaways from Wall Street. The situation didn’t look good for the home team.

  The better part of valor and common sense is usually to just walk away. A decade and a half in a suit and tie had drilled that lesson home. A friendly smile, a real attempt at understanding their problems usually went a long way toward smoothing out rough spots with clients and strangers alike. I knew that. I looked them over as I thought about the effort involved.

  I smiled at Baby.

  “Actually, no, I wasn’t just leaving.”

  I looked back at the man. “You asked me what you could do for me, yes?”

  Anger shot across his features.

  “It was a figure of speech. If you’re looking for a handout, you’ve come to the wrong place.”

  “What you can do for me,” I said, ignoring him, “is take Baby and scamper your stupid ass back to your tent.”

  I pointed to the sand. “This, Ace, is not your camp. This is National Seashore. At some point in the next few weeks, it will become extremely inhospitable.”

  A seagull cried overhead, pulling my gaze up for a moment. When I looked back, both still stared at me.

  “But, you hunker down over there with Eddie Bauer and enjoy yourselves. About the time you start freezing your pampered asses off, remember there’s a town with food and water a few miles north.”

  The anger turned to fury on his face. I didn’t think the woman would have looked more shocked if I’d pulled out my member and urinated on her feet.

  I turned before he could say anything and started back north. I’d wasted enough time and involved myself in a pissing contest with a man I’d known for less than two minutes. I had nothing else to say to him. I couldn’t change his mind. If I accomplished anything, I’d do little more than heighten the dislike between us and eat up more of the precious daylight.

  My response rankled more than his, though. I’d never tolerated jerks well, but I did know when to walk away from them. Somewhere between Tennessee and the coast, I’d lost my patience and didn’t seem capable of finding it again.

  The sun squatted low in the west when I walked across the dunes in front of the life-saving station. A warm glow already beamed from the windows. Tyler and Kelly sat out on the porch, the rifle balanced across the man’s knees.

  “How did it go?” Kelly asked as I approached.

  I shot her a weary look. “I found two of the camps. Both are staying where they are for now. All in all, it was pretty much a wasted trip. You guys eat?”

  Tyler shook his head. “Not yet. Elsie wanted to wait for you. She’s got it set up nice in there.”

  I slumped down on the porch beside them and took the rifle from him. “Go ahead then. Tell her to come out and sit with me while you eat. I want to talk to her.”

  “You sure?” Kelly asked. “We don’t mind waiting. It’s our watch. We’d have to wait anyway.”

  After Mr. Executive and Mrs. Trophy, the concern felt nice. The truth was, I was tired. I wanted a shot of whiskey, a smoke, and conversation with someone that didn’t start out as a confrontation. That thought almost made me reconsider. Elsie could be flat-out ornery sometimes. Still, she would appreciate the drink. I had questions for her as well.

  I waved them on.

  “No, it’s okay. I need to sit a while and rest up a bit before I go in.
And I need to talk to her. Tell her to bring some Johnny Walker with her.”

  Elsie came through the door a few minutes later carrying the whiskey and a dinner plate she used as a serving tray. Atop it sat iced tea and two shot glasses brimming with that sweet, amber liquid I knew would go down smooth and carry a delicious burn when it did. She set the plate on the little table between the two rocking chairs. I climbed to my feet and joined her.

  My thoughts may have focused on the whiskey, but I ended up draining most of the iced tea first. The first sip went down in a cool wave that spread through my chest. I followed it with another and another, until the glass was nearly empty. Elsie pulled an open pack of cigarettes from a pocket while she watched. She shook one free, lit it, and passed the pack and lighter to me. I followed suit and leaned back in the rocker, letting the smoke and whiskey burn their way through both exhaustion and aching muscles.

  The fading light brought cooler temperatures with it. Already, stars had formed against the evening sky. Off to the east, the rising moon carved a thin arc of light on the horizon. The voice of a single cricket ground a warbling chirp near the edge of the porch, the sound lonely and mournful. I couldn’t feel sorry for him. The cool nights might’ve killed his chances for love, but they’d also chased away the mosquitoes.

  Behind us, muted voices and the clink of silverware against plates painted the image of a family at dinner.

  “Kelly said you had no luck,” Elsie finally offered.

  “The beach held hippies and fleeing executives.” I told her. “I got the impression that the first set didn’t want to make the effort to move and the second set felt it beneath them. You call the Judge?”

  The ember of her cigarette flared briefly.

  “Yes. It took twenty minutes to get a line through. Every time I tried, a computer told me that all circuits were busy. There’s nothing he can do. Martial law pretty much strips him of his authority,” she said, the words coming out with little puffs of smoke. “He said a column of military vehicles from Fort Bragg pulled in not long after the ban took effect and set up operations in Morehead. Their orders are clear. People are to stay put.”

  She paused for a second.

  “A man come in today.”

  I glanced up, surprised.

  “Who?”

  She puffed on her cigarette.

  “He said his name was Gabriel. He’s older, maybe ten years older than you. He came up in an ugly boat with a little motor on the back of it.”

  She motioned toward the inside of the station.

  “Joshua and Denise ran into him while they were moving your sailboat back to the dock.”

  I puffed on my cigarette before I responded, weighing competing emotions. On one side, I no longer needed to worry about Angel spending another night aground. On the other, a new unknown waited at the dock. Given my trip down the island, I wondered where the new man would fit, hopefully somewhere between stoned and arrogant.

  I looked toward the door. “Is he here, inside?”

  She sipped at her whiskey before she replied. “No. He said he’d come up tomorrow and say hello. I don’t know how much fun that will be. He seemed cantankerous and mean.”

  I let that bit of information sink in.

  “How about the radio? Any news there?”

  “It gets worse by the hour,” she said in a quiet voice. “One of the commentators said that there were over 2 million active infections across the country right now and that the expected mortality rate ranges from 30 percent at the low end to as high as 60 percent.”

  “Jesus,” I whispered.

  She pulled on her cigarette again. “Finish up. Let’s go inside and eat. I’ll turn on the radio. It’s almost news time. Besides, I think you should rethink this standing guard business.”

  I looked over at her. “How so?”

  She wiped a strand of gray hair out of her eyes. “Well, we have two people and our only form of protection outside where they could easily be overwhelmed. I’d rather make the station harder to get into and keep them and the rifle inside.”

  I mulled her words over in my mind. She had a point. “We’d have to board up the windows.”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of shutters,” she said. “Like people used to use when the storms came—you know, so we could open them during the day and close them off at night. Think about it. Let’s go if you’re done.”

  I flicked the remainder of my cigarette out into the yard, watching the burning ember etch an orange arc through the darkness.

  Elsie huffed in disapproval. “I’ll fix us up a bucket with sand it in tomorrow.”

  I couldn’t help but grin as I followed her inside. The old woman had a way of making people feel like naughty little children.

  A single Coleman lantern lit the inside, pouring yellow light down across the table. One of the two remaining hams sat in the middle, framed by bowls of mashed potatoes, green beans, and corn. I wondered where she had gotten the plates and forks, and said as much.

  She waved her hand. “I had Keith and Devon break into a display down at the old General Store. We actually came away with several things we can use. I noted it all on one of the lists.”

  Her face brightened. “You need to look over those by the way. It’s not as bad as I originally thought. You had a lot of canned food and dry goods on that boat. That extra cooler has quite a bit of meat in it. We should be able to get by for a while if we catch some fish.”

  She made for an empty chair, her voice still rattling off details.

  “One thing I know for certain is that Hill William likes his coffee. You’d put eight pounds of the stuff on board. Between what I brought and the others had, we’re set for a couple of months if we limit ourselves to a pot or two a day. We might starve but we’ll be able to get our caffeine fix.”

  I let her comment slide, filled a plate from the bowls on the table, and took a chair across from her. The taste of the food ventured past good and into the realm of heavenly. Aside from burning it, there’s not much you can do to a spiral-cut ham to make it taste bad. Beyond that, the mashed potatoes had a creamy, buttery flavor that left me thinking about seconds while still working on my first helping. Somehow, the canned corn and beans ended up tasting like she’d just picked them from a garden. Elsie was worth her weight in gold, if not for the insight she had into living on the island, then for her ability to make magic at the cook stove.

  The conversation around the table carried an animated feel. People laughed, told stories, even a few jokes.

  Life seemed, if not good, then a sight better than just tolerable - at least until Elsie reached over and turned on the radio.