Westport (Grays Harbor Series Book 1)

by James Bierce

  "What the hell is going on up there?" Larry asks.

  "Shh... He just went crazy all of the sudden."

  She glances to her right at the next street over toward the middle of town, and sees Sean walking by, in perfect view of her.

  "Let me down, now!" she whispers.

  "What is it?" he asks, lowering her to the ground.

  "Sean just walked by. He's right behind the store."

  "Shit, did he see you?"

  "I think its too dark."

  Larry grabs the radio again... "Jake, are you there?"

  "I'm here."

  "I'm gonna make this quick... Sean is on the next street over from us. We're gonna try to make our way back, but you have to get out of sight. Do you copy?"

  "Got it."

  "I can hear him in the store." says Beth. "Maybe we should take him out, while we have the advantage..."

  "Its too risky, he'd be able to see us. We need to get back to the boat and get the hell out of here."

  "We're gonna have to wait until dark to do that. There's nothing to hide behind between us and the docks."

  Larry looks around, then spots an old half-rotten pallet leaned up against the side of the store. "We can hide behind that."

  After informing Jake of their plan to wait until dark, and watching Sean stroll out of the store and in the direction of the marina, Beth and Larry are still hiding in the alley between the store and the house.

  "Its getting pretty dark. Do you think we should leave?" asks Beth.

  "Let's wait a few minutes longer, I can still see the houses on the other side of the street."

  As Beth glances over to the next block to see for herself, she notices something moving by the corner of the house. Without looking away, she hits Larry on his side to get his attention.

  "See it?" she asks, her voice barely even a whisper.

  "Yeah, but I can't tell what it is."

  "Its that kid from the house."

  They both watch as a man stumbles in front of the alley, walking as though he were stoned or drunk — then he stops and faces the side wall of the store. He just stands there, slightly slumped over, his feet occasionally scuffing the pavement, seemingly in an effort to find his balance. Then he starts to walk again, reaching out to grab the wall of the store as he passes by. Moving out of sight, they can still hear the dragging of his shoes as he makes his way down the road.

  "We'd better go now, before he comes back." says Larry.

  Walking as quietly as possible, they exit the alley and move out into the open ground in front of the store. The moon is just beginning to rise in the sky, making long shadows over the road between them and the waterfront. Somewhere down the street they can hear wind chimes moving in the breeze, creating a noise that hasn't stopped the entire time they've been in town. Annoying as it seemed only an hour ago, its proving to be quite useful now, masking their footsteps as they walk on the gravel driveway. As they move down onto the pier they pay close attention to the boats in the marina, trying to spot signs of activity from any of them — but they all look the same, dark and quiet. Finally, they reach their own vessel and enter the main cabin carefully and quietly. The room inside is pitch black.

  "Jake?" Beth whispers.

  "I'm here, on the starboard bench." he replies in an almost normal volume.

  "Have you seen Sean?" asks Larry.

  "Yeah, he's down on the other side of the marina, at the last dock."

  "What kind of boat does he have?"

  "Its about the same size as ours, maybe a little bigger than the one he had before."

  "Did you see a name on the side, or a make?"

  "It said 'Harbor Cruiser' on the side."

  "That's a make, and not a particularly good one for where we're going."

  "Can it survive on the ocean?" Beth asks Larry.

  "A dinghy can survive on the ocean when the conditions are right. We're just gonna have to hope things get worse."

  "Is he faster than us?" asks Jake.

  "I'm not sure, I've never run one."

  Jake can barely see the outline of his wife and brother-in-law as they sit in the chairs opposite of him. "If you look closely you can see a light in his cabin, really faint."

  "I can't see anything..." says Beth.

  "Here, take the binoculars."

  She reaches out in front of her and finds them, then searches the area to their left, where she can barely make out a glow coming from the boat, just as Jake said. She also sees something moving in front of it, like a silhouette. "It looks like a candle. I can see it flickering." She hands them over to Larry, then switches seats with him so he can get a better view.

  "So what's our plan? Do we make a run for it?" asks Jake.

  "He'd hear us, and as small as this place is he'd definitely get a shot off." replies Larry, still looking.

  "What if we wait a while, then sneak down and tie a second line to his boat?"

  "He'd still shoot us. This thing isn't designed for covert operations, everyone in town is gonna hear us start up. I don't know how in the hell he missed us when we came in."

  "What about a diversion?"

  "Like what?"

  "I don't know, maybe we could do something in town, like fire a gun."

  "You're forgetting about the people in town... I don't know about you, but after seeing one of them up close, I'd rather take my chances with your buddy here."

  "Well, that was my last idea. Feel free to share some of your own."

  "Hey, knock it off..." Beth responds. "We're not going to solve anything by insulting one another. Larry, do you have any ideas?".

  "No, I don't."

  "We have to do something, we can't just sit here. You know he's gonna see us when the sun comes up..." she replies.

  "What if we create a diversion on the pier?" asks Jake.

  Only in an attempt to please Beth, this time Larry sounds interested. "What did you have in mind exactly?"

  "We're gonna need something flammable."

  After waiting for more than an hour, they finally see the light in Sean's new boat go out shortly after nine-o-clock. At eleven, the nervous group decides that now is as good a time as any to carry out their plan.

  Shortly before leaving Hoodsport, Larry set a thirty gallon tank full of gasoline into the main fish hold, which sits under the stern deck. He's spent the last twenty minutes drawing fuel from it and placing it inside of a pair of smaller cans. Jake, dressed in his full armored uniform, has gone over his mental checklist seven times, and is about to go over it again when Beth taps him on the shoulder.

  "What can I do? I feel like I'm a spectator or something..." she tells him.

  "Larry will keep an eye on Sean, but I need you to watch the town behind us."

  "For people?"

  "Yeah, just let me know on the radio if they're coming down the dock. I'll take care of the rest." He walks out onto the stern deck, where Larry is tightening the cap on the last fuel can. "Are we ready?"

  "Ready when you are. You realize this is about a third of our gas, right?" asks Larry.

  "I guess its a good thing the boat runs on diesel."

  "Is that gonna be enough?" Beth asks Larry.

  "Its ten gallons, it'd better be enough."

  "It'll be fine." says Jake.

  With the fuel cans in his hands, Jake slowly walks down the wharf toward the last pier, while Larry takes his spot in the pilothouse — readying himself for a quick getaway. Beth watches her husband as he disappears into the darkness of night, then remembers that she has a role in this as well. She sits on the deck and watches the town above, letting her eyes adjust to lack of light once more. Within a minute or so her eyes do adjust, and reveal a pair of obscure figures moving around on the street that leads to the marina — but they don't seem to be getting any closer.

  Jake knows this plan is risky, and not just because he's planning to burn half the marina down. The layout of the marina makes it almost impossible to reach Sean without mak
ing at least some noise. It consists of a raised wharf, and from that the individual piers run perpendicular into the deep waters of the strait. While the wharf itself is secured firmly in place to pilings that are embedded into the rocky ground below, the piers float on the water, making room for the tidal action that can change the water level by as much as ten feet in a normal cycle. Both the wood decking and the polystyrene foam beneath it shift with every step, creating a squeaky groan no matter how carefully you move.

  Sean moored his boat at the end of the very far pier, a move that was no doubt strategic. It places him closest to the strait, and the farthest from the town — not to mention the fact that the dock itself was now acting as an early detection system. Sean is a lot of things, but stupid isn't one of them.

  As Jake steps down onto the last floating pier, he unscrews the cap off of one of the cans, then begins pouring its contents onto the decking as he continues walking forward. Although the deck is groaning slightly under his feet, most of the noise is coming from the water below, slapping against both the pilings and the polystyrene blocks that hold the pier into place. He trickles the gas out, making the first can last almost to the end of the platform. After opening the last can, he covers the area in front of the boat heavily, saving the last couple of gallons for the boat itself. Beads of sweat run down his face and back as he pours the liquid over the windows and decking of the cuddy cabin, listening carefully for any indication that he's been detected.

  With the last drop gone, he inches his way back in the direction of the wharf, being especially careful not to slip in the oily surface that now covers the entire dock. Only a few feet from the boat, he hears something behind him, a series of muffled thumps. He turns around and sees a light shining through the curtains of Sean's boat, and movement in front of it. For a moment he's unsure of what to do — should he make a run for it, or stick with the original plan? At this point neither seems a particularly good idea. Instead, he decides to compromise between the two by walking down the pier at a normal pace, all the while keeping an eye behind him for any sign of trouble.

  He only makes it about twenty feet when he hears the slamming of a door. When he turns around, he sees Sean closeup for the first time since their encounter in Poulsbo — a mixture of both anger and madness in his eyes. Sean is holding a gun, but its not his rifle — its a semi-auto pistol that's still hanging at his side. From his physical demeanor he doesn't seem like much of a threat, but the expression on his face tells another story, and Jake knows that its only a matter of time before he makes a move.

  Sean is armed with an expensive European-made pistol, capable of finishing someone's life with a single shot.

  Jake is armed with a wooden striking match.

  Making sure his feet aren't in the fuel, he tightens his grip on the match, knowing he only has one shot at this. In one fluid motion he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a box, then strikes the match on the side of it, throwing the burning stick as close to the boat as possible. Without looking back, he runs down the pier, feeling an intense heat following him, and noticing that the entire marina is now lit up in a bright orange glow. Almost to the halfway point he slips, landing face-first in the stream of gas that he'd left on the wooden planks. As he struggles to get up, he knows he only has a few seconds before the entire length of the pier in engulfed. Instead of standing, he rolls off the side and into the icy water below, a dampened sound of gunshots vaguely noticeable after he enters.

  Even underwater, the fire is burning bright enough to almost hurt your eyes, but Jake knows that the inferno will be short-lived. In just a couple of minutes the gas will have burned off, lifting the temporary veil he's risked his life to create. With some effort, he climbs onto the next pier, then runs to the wharf that leads to their boat. When he finally reaches the boat, which is already beginning to pull away, the first thing that catches his eye is the look on Beth's face. She doesn't look relieved to see him, or grateful that they're actually on their way to safety — her horrified gaze is aimed at the buildings of Neah Bay. He pulls her inside the cabin, fearful that Sean might still be alive to take a shot, and then he sees for himself what she's been staring at. The young man that Beth and Larry had seen, who seemed to be walking around in a trance-like state only a few hours prior, was now standing just inside the light of the fire, holding what appears to be two human heads in his hands. Although its hard to tell from this distance, it looks as though he's covered in blood.

  As the shock wears off, Beth begins to breakdown, crying and shaking uncontrollably.

  "Listen to me, we're going to be fine, we did it..." Jake tells her, trying to make eye contact. "Our plan worked, Sean is gone."

  "Jake, could you come up here for a minute?" hollers Larry from the pilothouse above.

  "I'll be up in a minute!"

  "Now would be better!"

  Jake sits his wife down in a chair, stroking her hair and kissing her on the forehead. "I'll be back in a minute, okay?" There's no answer from her, no acknowledgment that he's even there. Wrapping a blanket around her shoulders, he steps out onto the stern deck, seeing for himself the aftermath of his plan. The pier is still burning, along with part of the wharf, but the flames have diminished greatly, leaving behind scattered flares of light up and down the floating boardwalk. Its too dark to see any of the boats though.

  He climbs the ladder, then sits down beside Larry. "Beth is freaking out."

  "We can deal with that later, we've got a bigger problem." says Larry, pointing at a blinking light on the dash.

  "What is that?"

  "That's the water sensor in the bilge. It means we're taking on water — a lot of water."

  "What do we do?"

  "I need you to go down into the bilge and see what you can find."

  Jake practically jumps down the ladder, then rushes into the cabin where Beth is still sitting in the same place. He walks by her, brushing his hand against her shoulder as he passes by, then kneels down on the floor at the bilge hatch. Immediately after opening it he can hear the sound of running water, and two bilge pumps working to clear it out. He leans inside, shining a flashlight around on the walls. He can't see much below the waterline, which is about two feet deep by the looks of it, but what he can see are three holes in the side. The holes are at different levels, but otherwise they're identical — each one sharing the same size and shape, strikingly similar to a bullet.

  He pulls himself up, then uses his radio. "Larry, it looks like at least three bullet holes. There's quite a bit of water coming in."

  "Find a permanent marker and draw a line an inch or so above the waterline. That way we can keep an eye on it." answers Larry.

  "I'm on it. Any sign of Sean?"

  "Look to the stern."

  Jake puts the radio in his pocket, then walks across the cabin to the doorway. Several hundred yards behind them is a boat, and not just any boat. This particular boat still has flames licking across the top of the canopy.

  "He's still alive?" comes a voice to his side.

  Jake looks over to see Beth standing there, a look of clarity and focus back in her eyes.

  "For now he is."

  None of the Lockwood family wanted to get up. Even though they were unwelcome guests sleeping in a strange home, it was still a home with real mattresses, not the inflatable kind they were unfortunately getting used to. Before going to sleep the night before, Curtis and Sarah talked again about the prospect of living here — if not in this house, then perhaps another one nearby. In the end, they decided that the isolation and security of the cabin was unparalleled compared to what they'd seen closer to town — and considering the circumstances, the safety of their children meant far more than simple comfort. As rested as Sarah felt this morning, however, she was considering the idea of staying here again on the way back, only this time she'd sleep in.

  As torturous as it is climbing out of the comfort of an actual bed, they all manage to drag themselves out onto the street at daybreak, ju
st as they'd planned — but each one of them could feel the effects of their walk yesterday. Their feet are sore, their legs are heavy and weak, and feelings that range from tingling to sharp pains are running down their spines from the weight of their backpacks.

  Only twenty minutes into their walk, they reach Westport, and it quickly becomes obvious that the town has seen better days. The storm that had swept through only a few days before has decimated the trees in the area, and the damage is far worse here in town. The seemingly never-ending line of cars they'd walked past the day before had finally disappeared, leaving the town almost completely devoid of them. The roads are so littered with trash that in places they have a hard time spotting the pavement beneath. Here and there they can see bones scattered in the debris. Some of them are obviously human, some of them obviously aren't — and most of them you can't tell. Power lines are laying everywhere, forcing the family to walk around them carefully — all of them feeling somewhat foolish fearing a technology from the past. Beyond a few missing shingles on the roofs, the only damage done to the buildings themselves are the broken windows and glass-paned doors, giving the ground beneath their feet a slight crunching sound as they walk past. How much of the damage had been done during the evacuation and how much was caused by the constant barrage of weather they might never know, but seeing it in this shape was heartbreaking for Curtis. Relatively few of his childhood memories were made here, but almost all of the cherished ones were.

  The Westport he knew, the one he remembered as both a child and an adult, was that of a picturesque fishing village separating the blue waters of the Pacific, from the dark waters of Grays Harbor. The small peninsula its built on was used as a fishing source for generations of native tribes in the area, and unlike many of the towns along the west coast, fishing has remained its primary industry even in recent times.