Monstrous

by Thomas E. Sniegoski

  “Quite,” Doc Martin ruefully agreed.

  “Where’d my pants go?” he asked, looking at his naked legs and underwear.

  “Off.”

  “You?”

  Doc Martin shook her head. “Clara.”

  Burwell laughed, and then winced.

  “He’s still out there,” Doc Martin said.

  “Who? The kid—Isaac?”

  She nodded.

  “I doubt it.”

  “Clara said she saw him walking through her backyard.”

  “So.”

  “Nothing was bothering him,” Doc Martin said, watching as Burwell’s expression went from one of confusion to gradual realization before she continued. “She said that he walked right onto the path, and nothing tried to harm him.”

  “Why do you think that is?” Burwell asked.

  Doc Martin thought some before giving an answer. “I can’t be sure,” she said slowly. “But maybe it’s got something to do with whatever is going on inside his skull. Something to do with the bad radio.”

  Burwell moved and hissed in pain. “Jesus, this hurts,” he said.

  “Nasty wound,” she replied.

  “So you think he’s still out there—alive,” Burwell said.

  “I do.”

  “And you think that he has a connection to whatever it is that’s here and trying to kill us. . . .”

  “Maybe,” she answered.

  “Any idea as to where Isaac might’ve been going?”

  “We brought him out here to find the new transmitter,” Doc Martin said. “I think that’s what he’s doing.”

  Clara appeared in the doorway holding two paper plates with a sandwich on each. “I didn’t know what you want on them,” she said. “And then remembered I’m not a freakin’ restaurant, so I didn’t put anything on them.”

  Doc Martin took both plates and handed one to Burwell. “Thanks, Clara.”

  “Right,” the old woman grumbled, heading back into the kitchen for her own sandwich.

  “So what now?” Burwell asked, chewing his first bite of sandwich.

  “We eat our sandwiches and tell our gracious host how much we love them.”

  “I can hear you, ya know!” Clara yelled from the kitchen. “I might not be able to run the Boston Marathon, but I can still hear.”

  Doc Martin smiled as she bit into her own sandwich.

  “And then?” Burwell prodded.

  “Well, you’re not going anywhere,” Doc Martin said, using her sandwich as a pointer and directing his attention to his wound.

  “Yeah, I figured,” he grumbled. The bandage was stained a lovely shade of maroon. “So that leaves you.”

  Doc Martin slowly nodded.

  “So that leaves me,” she agreed, and took another bite of her sandwich.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Cody left the back room a few minutes later, slipping a Benediction Boat T-shirt on over his head as he came. She could see that he had placed a winter coat over his father’s damaged face. Snowy went over to him, tail wagging, and he scratched her affectionately.

  “Are we ready?” he asked, Snowy now sitting on one of his feet, tongue lolling as she panted.

  “Is there a boat we can use?” Langridge asked.

  Cody chuckled humorlessly. “Yeah, I can think of one that we can borrow,” he said. He went to the desk and fished around, pulling out a key, and then went to a wooden case hanging on a wall near the file cabinet.

  “Most of the bigger boats were taken out of the water for the season ahead of the storm,” he said, opening the cabinet door to reveal multiple sets of keys hanging on hooks. “But there is one. The owner had planned to sail her to Key West but got sick at the last minute.”

  Cody found the key and removed it from the hook.

  “We prepped it for the storm, and it’s sitting in its berth.” He gave the key ring a shake, making it jingle. “Let’s go to Boston.”

  * * *

  They gathered at the exit at the rear of the office.

  Cody stood, hand on the knob.

  “It’s berth twenty-four,” he said. “The Spanish Lady. Like I said, it’s been fueled up and ready to go since before the storm. We just need to cast off the mooring lines, and we should be good to go.”

  The tension was thick, and Sidney’s eyes kept going to the covered body lying on the cot. Snowy had been sniffing at it with great interest, but Sidney quickly pulled her back. She looked from Cody’s dad’s body to Rich and saw her friend barely able to keep his eyes open.

  “Hey, you good?” she asked, slapping his arm with the back of her hand. They were all listening now.

  “Yeah,” he said with a quick nod. “Just a little frazzled. Hopefully I’ll be able to rest some on the boat ride.”

  Sidney stared, not sure if she truly believed her friend, but what choice did she have at the moment? She was suddenly struck with an overwhelming urge to tell him, to tell them both, Rich and Cody, how much they meant to her, but chose to keep it to herself.

  “Ready?” Cody then asked. “Slip twenty-four,” he repeated. “On the right-hand side, about halfway down.”

  Langridge and Sayid had their weapons out again. Sidney held tightly to the metal pipe, which she’d grown quite attached to.

  “Go!” Cody said, pulling open the door and rushing out onto the dock. He waved them on in front of him. “C’mon, c’mon!”

  Langridge and Sayid ran past; Rich, as quick as he was able, behind them. Sidney and Snowy after that.

  Sidney was running, her dog faithfully at her side, when she looked for Cody. He wasn’t there. This was starting to become a habit. Though she knew that she shouldn’t, she stopped, turning to see where he was.

  He had lagged behind, watching as the birds that had been circling the marina office figured out that their prey was escaping. And there was something else now, something dark and flowing across the parking lot, between and over the cars still parked there.

  “Cody, c’mon!” Sidney called.

  The birds were coming—the smaller ones first, the little sparrows and wrens that zipped through the air like fighter pilots. One came at her face, and she batted it away.

  “Cody!”

  “Go!” He waved her on. He was at the fuel pumping station on the dock, fiddling with the levers. He removed a key from his pocket, opening up all the locks.

  She went to him, taking his arm. Snowy had begun to bark, warning them of the approaching threat.

  “Get to the boat, Sid,” Cody ordered.

  She saw that determined look in his eyes, a look that she’d grown to both despise and admire when they were dating, the look that told her there wasn’t a chance she could change his mind.

  He pulled the nozzle from the pump and pointed it away from her. “Go on,” he said. “I’ve got this.”

  The larger birds circled above their heads, as if checking things out before launching a full-scale attack. The living wave had made it to the top of the docks and was slithering toward them.

  She wanted to know what he was going to do, but there wasn’t enough time for explanations.

  “Don’t do anything stupid,” she said instead, then turned and ran with Snowy toward the boat.

  * * *

  His dad was once a smoker.

  Cody hadn’t really paid attention to it, but he remembered how his mother used to nag him to quit. Dad had always ignored her, but when she got sick, he’d stopped. There was no weaning, no tense moments of craving, he’d just stopped. One day he smoked, and the next day he didn’t.

  But he’d still continued to carry that silver Zippo lighter, and now Cody had it, taken from his father’s pocket where he’d known it would be.

  The birds swarmed above his head, growing thicker and bolder, testing his resolve by dropping down suddenly to attack. Cody was quick, using the metal of the pump nozzle to swat a few of the larger birds aside. He knew what he had to do to buy them the time they needed to get the Spanish Lady ou
t into open water.

  And he also knew how he was feeling about Benediction since the nightmare of the previous day. His island had been tainted, and he thought it might be best if the diseased version of what he loved went away. Maybe something that wasn’t blighted would rise up to replace it.

  It was something to think about, he mused as he ducked beneath the beak of a swooping gull. Cody pointed the nozzle and squeezed the lever, spewing gasoline at the attacking birds. Those that were hit immediately reacted, dropping to the wharf to flap spastically as they were choked by the fumes.

  He could see the wave of life now and was even able to distinguish the specific animals that made up the loathsome abomination spreading toward him. There were insects of every conceivable kind, as well as rats, squirrels, cats, dogs, and even chipmunks all mashed together into one, enormous nightmare thing.

  Yeah, he thought as he aimed the nozzle and squeezed, spraying a steady stream of gasoline down onto the dock. Maybe it would be best if it all was burned away.

  He flicked open the lid of the Zippo and lit the flame, carefully bringing it to the stream of gasoline. The fumes ignited first and then the liquid. Cody continued to spray the burning gasoline into the air, igniting the attacking birds, as well as the dock.

  Soon there was only fire, ravenously eating up all that it touched.

  And Cody smiled into the searing flames and choking black smoke, whispering to his father that this was for him.

  * * *

  Sidney and Snowy had reached berth twenty-four when the gasoline ignited.

  There was a rush of air followed by a blast of heat, which spun them both around on the dock to look back where they’d come from.

  “Oh my God, Cody,” she found herself whispering as she watched the flames leap into the sky, setting the attacking flock on fire and sending up billowing plumes of smoke that obscured the end of the dock from view. She was tempted to go back but . . .

  “Sidney!” Sayid called from the bridge of the yacht.

  She looked to him as he beckoned her to board and then back to the end of the dock, where the fire had begun to spread, and the smoke grew blacker and thicker.

  Had he actually done it, she was forced to wonder. Had he taken his own life over the sorrow that he felt for the death of his dad? She felt her resolve begin to crumble, her legs beginning to tremble. Sidney made a few stumbling steps toward the fire and smoke and stopped, her mind suddenly filled with flashes of memories of their times together. She remembered the first time that they’d talked, how he’d asked her out as his friends looked on and she’d said no, their first kiss after the Thanksgiving football game, his mouth tasting like beer, the night they broke up, the yelling and the tears . . .

  Sidney moved closer to the fire, her cheeks seared by the heat. She needed to know for sure if he was gone.

  Snowy whined beside her.

  “I know, girl,” Sidney said, turning from the fire and smoke. She had to get on board the Spanish Lady and head to Boston. There were too many lives at stake.

  But something caught her eye and she paused.

  She thought she saw something moving within the smoke, something that could have been . . .

  She stared for a minute longer, and just as she was convinced that it was merely a trick of the fire or shifting smoke, he appeared.

  His clothes and skin were filthy as he emerged, coughing crazily and falling to his knees in a gagging, coughing jag.

  Her heart leaped in her chest so hard she thought it might explode from her rib cage as she ran to him.

  “Did anybody ever tell you that you’re a stupid ass?” she asked, helping him to stand and practically dragging the choking young man down the dock to the waiting boat.

  “Yeah, you,” he gasped in between coughs. “All the time.”

  “Well that hasn’t changed,” she said, bringing him to the boat, where Sayid helped him to climb aboard.

  “Nice to know something hasn’t.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Isaac continued to walk through the overgrown path.

  The bugs and the animals under the control of the bad radio did not try to harm him.

  But the other signal, the one that sounded more and more like a voice, told him to go on.

  To continue.

  To come.

  He heard screams from somewhere nearby and stopped in the center of the path. Looking through the trees, he could see a house, its backyard filled with old automobiles, and he was reminded of his own home and how his mother used to like to collect things.

  Isaac smiled at the memory of his mother and her odd ways.

  Collect things . . . His sister had said it was a disease. What had she called it? Hoarding. Yes, yes, the word was “hoarding.”

  The screams intensified, and then Isaac gasped as the glass doors leading to the deck of the house shattered. A man tumbled out and over the deck rail, landing in a heap on the ground. Isaac squinted for a better look as the man rolled and flailed on the grass, flinging furry little animals away.

  Cats. Kittens really.

  Isaac felt a combination of sadness and fear, remembering his own feline companions, but also remembering what they had done to his mother when the bad radio had gotten into their heads.

  A woman stumbled through the broken doorway holding a tiny bundle in her arms. A baby. She was screaming, and as she ran from the deck, Isaac could see that her back was covered with small cats that ripped and dug and scratched.

  He had to help them.

  But as he stepped off the path toward the house through the trees, the voice echoing inside his head told him no.

  Isaac tried to fight it, to push it down, but it grew so loud, and it made his head hurt so bad that he thought he would be sick.

  He stumbled back onto the path, and the pain went away as the voice urged him on.

  Come, it said to him.

  Isaac looked back to the house, silent now.

  Come, said the voice, louder and more firm.

  He turned, his gaze on the path before him.

  Come.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  “I can make it,” Burwell said from the floor.

  “You won’t,” Doc Martin scoffed. “You’ll be nothing but a hindrance.”

  “You wound me,” the security officer said.

  Doc Martin chuckled as she sat down on the couch.

  “So, you two an item?” Clara asked.

  Burwell looked shocked.

  “Are you crazy?” Doc Martin said. “Business associates at best, and even that’s a bit of a stretch. The only reason I came along was to keep an eye on the boy.”

  “That turned out well,” Burwell muttered.

  “Yeah, and you didn’t do much better. How the hell was I to know he’d take off?”

  “Is the kid really worth the risk?” Clara asked from her wingback in the corner. “It ain’t no party out there.”

  Doc Martin nodded. “I think he is,” she said. “He’s a good kid, and I promised someone special I’d look after him. Besides, if he has some kind of connection to whatever’s causing the problems on this island, that could prove very useful. So, long answer short, yeah, he’s worth the risk.”

  The old woman nodded. “Okay, how’re you gonna pull it off?”

  Doc Martin sighed and shrugged. “I have to find a vehicle to borrow, and once I do, I’ll have to find Isaac.”

  Clara glared at her. “That’s it?” she asked with a tinge of disgust. “That’s your plan?”

  “It’s what I’ve got right now,” Doc Martin said.

  Clara made clucking sounds as she shook her head.

  “What?” Doc Martin asked. “You have anything better to contribute?”

  “The plan does suck,” Burwell agreed with the old lady.

  Doc Martin shook her head with exasperation. “Well I can’t just stay here,” she said. “I have to go and find him . . . I can’t leave him out there.”

  Clara pushed he
rself up from her chair with a grunt. “I’ve heard enough,” she grumbled as she hobbled through the living room and disappeared down the hallway, only to return a few minutes later with a shoe box in her hand.

  “Here,” she said, holding the box out to Doc Martin.

  “What?” Doc Martin asked. “Are you giving me a pair of comfortable shoes to wear?”

  “You’re pretty funny,” Clara said as the vet took the box from her. “Surprised you didn’t go into comedy.”

  Doc Martin lifted the lid from the box and gazed inside at several clips of ammunition and a gun. “Okay,” she said, hefting the weapon.

  “Nice,” Burwell said with a smile and nod. “Colt .45, old school, but effective.”

  “If you’re going out there, you’re gonna need to protect yourself,” Clara said. “Belonged to my husband. He brought it home with him after the war.”

  “Thanks” was all Doc Martin could say.

  “That’s quite all right,” Clara said. She dug into a deep pocket on her powder-blue slacks and produced a chain with a single key hanging from it. “This should help you too.” She tossed the key at Doc Martin.

  “Okay,” Doc Martin said as she caught it. “And this is for?”

  “Car in the garage. I don’t drive it anymore on accounta my age, but I still start it up every other day or so . . . should be workin’ just fine.”

  Doc Martin didn’t know what to say. Clara had begrudgingly brought them in, allowed them a place to stay, and fed them, but this level of generosity was surprising. Finally, she just repeated, “Thanks.”

  “Wasn’t usin’ either,” Clara said with a shrug as she returned to her chair. “And besides,” she added, lowering herself down with a loud groan. “The sooner you get out of here, the sooner I can be alone with handsome boy over there.” She made her gray eyebrows waggle as she cackled insanely.

  Doc Martin looked over to a nervous Burwell.

  “Might as well use that forty-five on me right now,” he said, and the veterinarian’s laughter joined with that of the crazy old woman.