The Island - Part 3

by Michael Stark

  I thought it over for a moment.

  “Alright, I’ll go along with that, if and only if, you’re up and clear-headed. Deal?”

  “Deal,” he said and glanced toward the station. “Now, how I’m going to get up there.”

  I jerked a thumb toward the shore. “You’re going to ride, just like me.”

  He craned his neck and frowned. “What in the world is that?”

  I grinned.

  “It is part golf cart, part lawn mower, and the only transportation we have except for walking. It’ll do eight, maybe ten miles an hour tops on a flat beach. With our combined weight and the fact that we’re heading uphill, I’d say we’ll do five tops.”

  “Beats the hell out of walking,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  The pain had gotten worse since I’d seen him that morning. The simple task of stepping across a foot-wide space between boat and dock left the man groaning. Sweat poured down his face, dropping off his chin to paint little dark specks on the dock. I offered him an arm, but he refused and hobbled toward the shore, swinging his right leg out and planting it like a pole before shifting his weight on it. Watching him, I had no idea how I was going to get him in the dune buggy. He solved that problem by half falling, half lowering himself into the passenger’s seat and using both hands to gingerly lift his leg inside.

  I drove right up on the ramp when we rounded the corner at the station. Elsie, Tyler and Joshua came out to greet us. The two men pulled Gabriel out and helped him through the door. I started in behind them. Elsie stopped me with a hand to my chest.

  “Might as well stay out here and get your nap. This won’t be pretty and will take a while. There’s nothing you can do but watch. If you do, you won’t like what you see. Just stay out here and get your rest. You’ll need it tonight.”

  I didn’t argue with her. She was right on all accounts. After seeing his muscles move in the putrid mass that had been his leg, I neither envied her, nor wanted to sit by and watch. On top of it, I was beat. Too many nights with too little sleep had finally caught up with me.

  Returning to the buggy, I pulled the hammock out of the rear compartment and tied it between two posts that sat in the shade. Tired didn’t describe how I felt. The little curved bed swinging gently in the wind pulled at me in the same way sirens had pulled at Greek sailors.

  As far as memories go, I remember crawling in it, but beyond that, nothing until Joshua shook me awake two hours later.

  The sun had crawled deep into the western sky by then. The grass in front of the station lay doused in cool shadows. The dunes at the edge of the lawn and the top of the station still gleamed in sunlight, but night had begun staking claim to everything else.

  Someone had draped my sleeping bag across me. The mix of cool air and warm covers felt absolutely wonderful. Joshua waited until I struggled upright before retreating to the station. I watched him go with bleary eyes and a mind full of mean thoughts.

  Daniel sat on the steps no more than ten feet away, watching me. His eyes carried the same flat, somber look they always carried. I waited for him to say something, to open his mouth and utter some prophecy of doom, or tell me just how shitty my night was going to be. After a few moments, he turned and looked back toward the ocean.

  The smell of dinner brought me stumbling inside, still rubbing sleep out of my eyes. A platter sat in the middle of the table, heaped with baked fish that Elsie had brushed with butter and garnished with lemon wedges. A mountain of fried potatoes occupied one side of the main course. I blinked when I saw the dish on the other side.

  “Where did you get the stuff to make a salad?” I asked the old woman.

  She swept her hand in a broad wave toward the section of houses below.

  “There are a lot of wild edibles out there if you know what to look for. I hope you like honey mustard dressing. It was the easiest type to make from the supplies you had.”

  “How’s Gabriel?”

  She spread her hands wide and lifted her shoulders.

  “I don’t know. I cleaned out the wounds as best I could, but it looks and smells rotten. I’m not sure if all the antibiotics on the planet would help him.”

  “How’s his fever?”

  “High,” she said. “I have no way of measuring it, but he’s on fire. He said he was going with you tonight. It’s a bad idea.”

  I let the comment slide. In truth, I expected he would be asleep. The man was exhausted, sick, and hurt. It had taken a fog horn to wake him before. I had no real plan other than casting off around nine p.m. Ocracoke sat six miles north, across an inlet infamous for its shifting sandbars, the same fateful waters where Blackbeard had run aground during what would prove to be his last battle.

  Angel could easily cover six miles in an hour as long as she had enough water underneath. I couldn’t rely on that though. If the crossing went well, I’d pass the lights marking the entrance to Silver Lake and ease up the shore until I saw the bonfire. At that point, I’d drop anchor and wait for midnight. Three hours gave me leeway that I might need if the boat ended up on a sandbar or two.

  Dinner went well. Jessie apparently didn’t like fish, but seemed to enjoy the salad and potatoes. Everyone else dug in. The heaping platter emptied quickly amid smacking lips and groans of pleasure. I ate two of the flounder myself.

  Elsie turned on the radio once everyone was settled. Christine Arapaloe’s familiar voice read off body counts and new estimates related to infection rates. The last vestige of national normality disappeared when she reported that funerals had been suspended across the nation. The military had begun preparing mass grave sites, for what some were calling a great cleansing of the dead.

  In some areas, no plans existed to remove bodies or even search for them. A new and growing trend painted an equally dismal picture of how far society had fallen. Empty houses in neighborhoods across the country, especially those suspected of being struck by the Fever, were being torched in increasing numbers by locals in an attempt to implement their own form of infection control. Authorities condemned the actions, but often were unable or unwilling to investigate the crimes.

  Hospitals had been ordered by military planners to refuse Fever cases. Thousands had simply closed their doors as the Fever swept through employees, decimating nurses and physicians to the point that the facilities could no longer render care. Although it had been busy issuing orders, the military seemed as frozen in place by the catastrophe as everyone else. Units were reporting high numbers of infections, prompting one general to suggest that patrols barely put in place might be curtailed for the duration. Hundreds of militias had sprung up in the past few days, with clashes between them on the rise. Two groups had exchanged gunfire the night before along the I-40 corridor at the borders of Texas and Oklahoma with one side accusing the other of chasing suspected Fever victims into surrounding blocks.

  An ABC report drew comparisons in Europe between the Black Death of medieval times, to the disease, suggesting that The Fever would not only eclipse the sheer numbers of the earlier pandemic, but might also surpass it in terms of percentages. The reporter followed that cheerless statement by noting in somber tones that thirty to sixty percent of Europe’s population had been killed by the plague. As if he needed to be just a bit gloomier, he also noted that the outbreaks had actually came in waves interspersed across several centuries

  As before, the last minutes of the broadcast had been relegated to what the copy editors clearly believed news of the odd and weird.

  In Texas City, a suburb of Houston, an explosion at a refinery had been reported after workers supposedly battled a horde of beasts that crawled out of the covers to underground wastewater facilities. Eight employees were confirmed dead in the ensuing blaze. Fourteen others were missing. Survivors reported seeing several workers being dragged down into the sewers by creatures described as six feet tall with long, barbed tails, and glowing yellow eyes. One man said their hair writhed as if it had been infested with snakes.

 
A woman in Maryland had called 911 to report that an ogre had just killed her husband. Dispatchers said the woman was distraught and indicated the monster had smashed his head in with a club the size of a small tree. No confirmation of either the killing or the monster was possible as the house proved empty by the time responders arrived.

  The woman on the radio paused. When she came back her tone had shifted. Drifting through speakers came the clear sounds of both incredulity and fear.

  For all you crypto-zoologists and end-of-time believers out there, this segment will surely lend precedence to your stance. A retired police officer outside of Crestview, Florida, who had been called back into service when the President declared martial law, was driving on a remote section of highway 90, just off the I-10 corridor when he came across several vehicles in what looked like a multi-car pileup. On closer investigation, most of them appeared to be National Guard transports, with two or three civilian vehicles interspersed between them. The officer, Calvin Jones, said that bodies were everywhere, and that many appeared to have been ripped apart. Shortly after calling in the incident, dispatchers received another call from Jones, who sounded alarmed and frightened.

  Officer Jenny Morrison, who was working the desk, said Jones spoke in hushed tones and said that he had spotted a hooded figure floating above one of the corpses. According to Morrison, he described it as being entirely shrouded in a dark, hooded robe and clutching a long, gleaming knife. The officer said the figure had red eyes and hands so white they had to be bloodless. Moments later, Morrison said Jones began cursing and yelling something about little demons rising from the corpses. She noted several gunshots, followed by the sound of the retired officer screaming. The transmission stopped abruptly. Investigators found Jones, in their words, gutted like a deer, his corpse hanging between two tree branches. No official explanation for the incident has been issued.

  “And I bet one won’t be,” her male counterpart broke in. “I never realized there were so many crazies in the general population. Maybe this disease is a type of genetic cleansing.”

  “I wouldn’t be so quick to jump to conclusions,” Arapaloe fired back in a voice that sounded tired and irritated. “Something is out there. Either that or this is the greatest mass hallucination event in the history of the world.”

  “Surely you don’t believe this stuff, Christine,” the man said mockingly. “We’re losing it. These stories just make it worse. Every little noise from now on will have monsters or the devil behind it. We’re creating our own supernatural folklore right now, just like people did when they lived in caves and needed to invent gods and goddesses to protect them. It is stupid.”

  “Maybe this jerk should come over here and see what one of these things can do,” Joshua spoke up from the opposite side of the table. “She’s right. Something is out there, a lot of them from the sound of it.”

  Denise waved her hand to silence him.

  Officials are estimating that several thousand people have been arrested or detained in violation of the travel ban. At least five hundred have been killed. Police note that violators are often armed and believe they are justified in moving their families away from Fever-stricken areas.

  The Centers for Disease Control reported today that the U.S. military has assumed control of operations. The statement, issued just before four o’clock this afternoon, was brief and indicated that the agency might suspend the policy of providing public estimates of infection rates and casualty counts. Critics pounced on the decision as censorship, while the military indicated the move would best protect citizens by reducing the widespread terror associated with disease symptoms.

  The news was not well received.

  As one pundit put it, ‘How am I better served by being dumb?’

  Private sources, however, had no issue with making public statements. The American Medical Association released grim predictions today, saying the U.S. could easily sustain one hundred to one hundred and fifty million casualties from The Fever and said the number could even be higher when associated factors were taken into account. When asked what he meant by associated, spokesperson David Morehouse ran off a list of potentially fatal issues that could arise from the general lack of medical care, including starvation, reduced sanitary conditions, accidents, armed conflicts and serious medical conditions that required frequent or constant attention.

  And in local news, the suspected case of The Fever reported yesterday has been confirmed. Sheriff Dwight Little said that the arrests he is credited with making yesterday may have prevented more deaths from the disease. The vehicle, driven by Alex Romer from Salem, Massachusetts, crashed during a high speed chase down route 9 with Little in pursuit. Romer was killed instantly. His wife and daughter survived the accident, but hospital officials indicate both have been quarantined after showing symptoms of virus. Donita Romer is listed in critical condition. Eight month old Chelsea sustained few injuries, but appears to be in the advanced stages of the infection. The hospital has implemented a full containment policy for both mother and daughter. Mrs. Romer is not expected to survive her injuries.

  The ascot man came back on once the news had ended.

  “Christine, what’s the official word regarding Sherriff Little? Is it possible that he could have been infected by these people?”

  “It’s not likely, Martin. The military commander in charge of this area, Lieutenant J. L. Davis, said that Little had followed all guidelines in making the stop. That included donning protective gear designed to stop viral and bacterial transmission. Little will undergo mandatory testing and a ten day observation period, but Lieutenant Davis said the odds of infection were virtually zero.”

  I turned the radio off this time instead of Elsie. Night had begun closing in. Weak, gray light seeped through the station windows. In half an hour, I would be bumbling around in the dark, and wanted to be aboard Angel before then. The rifle would stay at the station. I couldn’t navigate the crossing and hang on to it anyway. The thought of sitting defenseless in the back of the boat, surrounded by darkness, didn’t set well either.

  I had a plan to remove some of the uncertainty - one that involved mosquito netting and a cast net. I had both aboard Angel and hoped I could use the boom to fashion a make-shift tent to cover the cockpit. The setup might not stop the toothy little bastards, but they’d have to fight their way through it. At the very least, the covering should give me time to react.

  I rose from the table and stretched.

  “It’s time for me to get moving. I’ll take the buggy down. If all goes well, I should be back sometime between one and two. He’ll need the medicine tonight, so you folks should get some sleep. Tonight may turn out to be a long one.”

  Tyler pushed his hair out of his eyes. “We’ve set the watch so that Kate will be on duty when you get back. She’s a dental hygienist. That’s the closest thing we have to a medical person.”

  Elsie sat back in her chair. “I’ll be up too. I’ve given a few shots in my day.”

  “Let’s go then,” Gabriel’s voice sounded from the stairwell behind me.

  Chairs creaked as everyone turned. The man stood leaning against the doorway. In the dim light, he looked clean, comfortable, and casual. If I hadn’t seen him earlier and knew how sick he was, I would have been wondering why we were going in the first place.

  I sighed. “Stay here Gabriel. You need the rest. I’ll be okay.”

  The older man shook his head and studied the others seated around the table. After a moment, he gave himself a little push away from the door frame and hobbled stiff-legged across the room.

  “I’ll be outside when you’re ready,” he said over his shoulder.

  “Stubborn,” Elsie remarked behind me in a quiet voice. “You two should get along fine.”

  He opened the door and paused. When he looked back, he let his gaze sweep over the room, making eye contact one by one.

  “In my brief time here, it seems two or three people are doing most of the work while the
rest of you sit around moaning about what might happen tomorrow,” he said in a flat tone. “You can quit worrying. I’m dying. Take a good look at me because this is what’s coming.”

  Chapter XIV - Angels and Harlots

  Fifteen minutes later, I helped him climb aboard Angel. I dug out the nets and explained the idea to Gabriel.

  “Anything to keep those buggers off is good by me,” he said with a nod.

  We set about spreading the netting across the boom and securing it to cleats on either side. Twenty minutes later I stood in the stern trying figure out how I was going to drive. The inverted V we’d built not only drooped, but came down right on top of the pilot’s seat. After a couple of minutes pushing it off the back of my neck, I realized I’d have to sit in the floor to get any real protection from the setup.

  I ended up swinging the boom off one side and running another line from the mast to the little flagpole at the stern. Once we reset the nets, we ended up with an upside-down U instead of a V. The result gave us more room, but left the stern wide open. I sighed and looked at Gabriel, hoping the man had enough in him to truly be the eyes in the back of my head.

  By the time we were done, the sun had disappeared completely. The bay lay still and quiet as night descended over the island.

  “You were a little rough on folks back at the station,” I said once we’d settled down.

  He shrugged. “Giving up only has one outcome. I’d rather fight my way out than sit on my ass and wait for it.”

  Gabriel pointed across the dock.

  “We could have taken my boat,” he said. “That pilot house is better than this net.”