Children of the Island

by Wright, T. M.

  She was listening to the house instead. Listening to it wheeze in the rain and grumble beneath her feet. And perhaps, she mused, that was what frightened her—the house. "You can't go around doing that anymore, Fred. It's unacceptable behavior." She stopped. She realized that the awful mood which had been gripping her only minutes earlier had dissipated. The fear had replaced it. She much preferred the fear—it was at least recognizable, although it would have been good to know what, precisely, she was afraid of.

  And then she wondered suddenly if she was afraid of the man she had seen. She forced herself to grin. There was nothing particularly frightening about naked men. If anything, they looked quite vulnerable, even silly (depending, of course, on the man).

  "Of course," she murmured.

  But this man—her grin vanished—had not looked at all silly. Not even in that downpour. He had looked very . . . honest.

  And very human.

  The creature sensed the emotion of others, even from a distance, with the same strength that other species sense a change in wind direction, or a rapid change in altitude.

  The creature felt the emotion of others—he tasted it, reacted to it. If the emotion was pleasurable, he enjoyed it. If the emotion was painful, he examined it, took it apart, tried to understand it. And if he could not understand it, he absorbed it, and experienced the pain himself; he cried out if the pain required it, wept if the pain required it. And then he understood it.

  For his kind, it was a process similar to digestion, or respiration. It happened. And controlling it was nearly impossible.

  The creature sensed the emotions moving around the house. For very brief moments, he could even see them as a kind of multicolored and very fine mist—here swirling and eddying about like miniature storms, there lifting lazily up, toward the roof of the house and finally evaporating. And all of it constantly expanding and contracting, as if it were itself a living and breathing thing. The creature took great pleasure in these momentary visions; his senses rejoiced in them.

  Elena, the other creature with him, newer to the earth, could not yet see what he could see. It was a process that took time to evolve.

  Jim Hart leaned, as if exhausted, with his back to the closed front door. He stared confusedly at Marie. "Marie?" he said. "What's the matter?"

  She was still at the table, hands wrapped around an empty coffee cup. She had obviously been crying. She looked up at him. "We've got to leave, Jim."

  He crossed the room quickly, sat next to her at the table. "I don't understand, Marie . . . What are you afraid of?" he said, because it was obvious—in the way her hands shook, in the way her voice quivered—that she was frightened.

  "This place," she whispered, "isn't ours anymore."

  Chapter 9

  On Staten Island

  Sam Campbell was saying something he felt was terribly profound, something his daughter, Marsha, should think about. He nodded at a bunch of kids playing Cowboys and Indians down the street. "They play Cowboys and Indians," he said, in his best observational tone, "the same way we did. Same sound effects, same rules. It's kind of interesting that there haven't been any changes." He paused. Maybe Marsha wanted to say something. She stayed quiet. "I remember," he went on, "I was playing it once. I was seven or eight. I was a cowboy, I think—not that it matters. It doesn't matter. And . . . I got shot. I was dead." He paused, memories trickling back. "But I wanted reality," he continued, a bit dreamily. "I mean stark reality. So I laid there, across this stump, my eyes and mouth closed—because I didn't know that people could die with their mouths and eyes open—for what seemed like an hour, at least, although it was probably just a couple of minutes." He paused again, reflected. "I was . . . carrying out the act of being dead, I think—as if death were something active, as if it were something for me to do!" He looked questioningly at Marsha. She looked questioningly back. "Do you understand what I'm saying, Marsha?"

  She smiled a big, toothy smile. "I like Cowboys and Indians very much," she said.

  He lowered his head briefly, and patted her small hand. "Yes," he said, "I'm sure you do."

  Joyce Dewitte was almost sure of it now—Ginger was dying. She had watched the other cat—a Siamese named Amber—die only six months earlier, so she knew the signs well.

  She stroked the cat, felt it purring softly under her fingertips, watched its half-closed eyes raise to meet hers. It would be another two weeks, maybe a month, then she'd have to bury it somewhere in the park. The hardest part till then, of course, would be in the watching, because she didn't have the courage to have the cat "put to sleep." She stroked it a little harder, felt the cutting edge of bone beginning its journey up, through the slowly dissolving fat and muscle. "It's not the leukemia virus itself, Joyce," the vet had told her. "It's the complications that ensue . . ."

  "Jesus, cat," she blurted. It was all she could manage.

  She left the apartment quickly and went to work.

  Chapter 10

  At the House on the Island

  "Of course this place is ours!" Fred proclaimed. "It certainly isn't his!" He nodded agitatedly to indicate the outside of the house, and the man he had been unable to find there.

  "Jesus," Marie said. "I didn't mean it literally." She stopped, looked confused. "Maybe I did. I don't know. We've got to get away from here. Now! That's what I mean."

  Fred had been leaning over, with his aims straight and his palms flat on the table. He straightened. "Damn it, Marie," he muttered. "Do you know what you're asking of me?"

  "Yes,'' she answered immediately. "I do."

  "At least it stopped raining," Jim offered, and he found that he was grinning vacantly. "We can light a fire, and dry our clothes over the stove, and then we can get out of here . . ."

  Fred interrupted, "Well it's too much, Marie. Too damned much! Don't you realize what that guy's done? He's challenged me. He's said as much as 'Come out and prove yourself.'"

  Marie said, "That's asinine. You're asinine!"

  The fine mist around the house had grown thick and dingy gray in color. It vaulted high above the roof of the house and rolled toward the water; the miniature storms whipped into a silent frenzy in the tall grass; the grass did not move.

  Seth watched without expression, his view of the mist a continuous thing because the emotions from within the house were so terrible now, and so strong.

  Elena touched him lightly; she felt a tingle start in the tips of her fingers. The tingle became a dim paralysis that coursed up, through her arm, and into her brain.

  Her other hand, lightly holding the wrist-sized branch of a tree, tightened involuntarily, in reaction to the emotion moving through Seth and into her. The branch snapped off. She groaned, as if in pain. "I want to kill you!" she screeched, because that, above all, was the emotion that was assaulting Seth, and so her, from inside the house.

  "I heard something," Marie said. She held her hand up in a gesture designed to quiet her brother. "I heard something," she repeated.

  "I think I heard someone scream," Jim said.

  Fred looked around quickly at the door. "Is that locked?" he said, more to himself than to Marie or Jim. He saw that it wasn't locked. He ran to it, threw the bolt, backed away, glanced at his sister. "The gun, Marie. It's in my pack. Get it for me."

  She hesitated only a moment, then said, "Yes, of course."

  Jim said nervously, "Why do we need a gun? We don't need a gun. Someone's in trouble out there . . ."

  "Shut up!" Fred hissed.

  Marie pushed herself away from the table, stood, went into the bedroom. Moments later she returned, a blue, snub-nosed Colt .38 in her right hand, her arm bent at the elbow, the gun pointing at the ceiling.

  "Bring it here," Fred ordered.

  She crossed the room to him, hesitated. His back was to her. He still was looking at the door. He stuck his hand out stiffly behind him. "I said give it here, Marie, goddammit!"

  He glanced around at her. She had straightened her arm; she was pointin
g the weapon squarely at his head.

  "Shit!" he whimpered, and fell to the floor. She fired, her aim on the closed and locked door. "Shit!" Fred breathed. "Oh shit!" She fired again, and again, and again.

  Jim found himself pushing the table over in his haste and panic, stumbling across the room to her, wrestling her to the floor.

  Seeing this, Fred snatched the gun from her hand and scrambled to his feet.

  She lay on her back, motionless, eyes wide. Fred, standing over her, held the gun pointed down at his side—she had emptied the gun into the door—and looked very confused. Jim had also rolled to his back; his eyes were closed lightly. "Jesus, God," he whispered, as if in prayer.

  Darkness brought the motionless, silent cold of an Adirondack autumn with it. You'd stuff most of your body into a sleeping bag to protect yourself from that kind of cold. You'd curl up into a fetal position to protect yourself from it. And, almost without fail, a stiff, uneasy sleep would come quickly.

  But Jim Hart was wide awake. He said to Fred Williams—in a chair on the other side of the living room, next to where Marie was lying in her own sleeping bag—"You think she'll be okay, Fred?"

  "She's an epileptic," Fred answered.

  Jim turned his head slightly to look at him. "I didn't know that."

  "She had a seizure, Jim."

  "Do you really believe . . ."

  "I don't believe it. I know it. Now go to sleep."

  "She never told anyone, Fred."

  "Would you?"

  "I'd tell my friends, Fred."

  "How do you know she didn't?" It was a sharp, two-edged question, and it hurt.

  Several moments later Jim answered, "From what I know of epilepsy . . ."

  "Go to sleep, Jimbo."

  "Go to hell, Fred!" But it was a tiny whisper, nearly too shallow for Jim himself to hear. He closed his eyes. He thought that somewhere, some time, in the last twenty-four hours, his life had taken a distinct and unpleasant turn. He didn't know exactly where it might be heading now, only that it would be impossible to go back.

  Chapter 11

  In Manhattan

  Winifred Haritson was in a tunnel. Today, it led from the Social Security Office on West 39th Street, over to Broadway, to Third Avenue, Second Avenue, and finally to her apartment building. It snaked through the building's lobby, to the elevator, up to the fifth floor, down the corridor, and to her front door. It ended there.

  Winifred Haritson despised the tunnel. It suffocated her, it made her deaf, and speechless. But it was a necessary tunnel. It protected her because no one could really bother her in it, though they tried. Sometimes they called filthy names at her, sometimes they touched her, prodded her, tugged at her purse, or her umbrella (her present umbrella was the second one of the year; the first had been yanked away from her in February by someone dressed in a tattered Santa Claus costume). She didn't care about the names (she let them slide past) and her purse rarely contained anything valuable, and what, after all, was more valuable than her life? If they really wanted the purse they would take it, so why resist too much?

  She dug far into the pocket of her coat for her keys. She found them—they had fallen through a hole in the pocket and into the lining of the coat—squinted at them, chose the right one, pushed it into the lock.

  "Hey, Mrs. Haritson!" she heard, from outside the tunnel. It was a young man's voice; she thought she recognized it in a vague, uncomfortable way. She turned the key in the lock, eyes straight ahead, on the elevator.

  "Hey, Mrs. Haritson!" she heard again, much louder and coarser, so the walls of the tunnel shook and threatened to fall. She moved as quickly as her old legs could carry her, in small, shuffling steps, across the lobby. "I'm talking to you!" she heard. She hurried toward the elevator. She felt a hand on her shoulder, but just briefly.

  "Get out of here! Now!" she heard. It was Lou, the superintendent, stepping in between her and the boy. The walls of the tunnel strengthened. She grinned very slightly. "And if I see your face around here again," she heard Lou say, "I'll make it uglier than it already is!" She heard running feet. The elevator doors opened. She stepped in, heard them close behind her. She would have to call Lou up later and thank him.

  Chapter 12

  Fred and Jim and Marie were asleep when Seth and Elena first appeared in the house. It was early morning, an hour before sunrise, and the rain had started again. Here and there, sleet mixed with it, like a random fall of whitish-gray, ash; it melted nearly as quickly as it settled to earth.

  The exhaustion caused by tension and by panic had brought sleep first to Marie, then to Jim, and at last, telling himself that it would only be for fifteen minutes, Fred nodded off. He still was in the chair, next to his sister, who was on the floor. His chin was down on his chest, and he was snoring in a loud, rasping, and unpleasant way. He had shoved the .38 into his right-hand pants pocket (it had remained warm from firing for quite a while and, nestled next to his thigh, felt like a small, quiet animal; it had comforted him).

  He was not accustomed to sleeping in a straight-backed wooden chair, so when his brain told him it was time to roll over, he fell from the chair very quickly and heavily and hit the floor with a huge, resonating thud. His weight jammed the grip of the pistol hard into his wrist.

  He woke suddenly and in deep pain, screaming harsh, spittle-laden curses.

  And, at once, Seth, standing at the other side of the room, screamed and cursed too, followed almost instantly by Elena, beside him. It was an immediate, uncontrolled response—the blessing and damnation of their kind, and only with immense mental effort were they able to quiet themselves.

  Though too late.

  Marie had been dreaming. She was in a cocoon, she was hot, and blind, and could feel, just beyond the cocoon's skin, that something was waiting for her to emerge, something that was very hungry. Her brother's scream had sliced into that dream like a knife.

  And she woke screaming, too.

  Jim had awakened before Marie, just as Fred had hit the floor, but before his screams had started. And in the few seconds since then, Jim had lain rigid and frightened, with his eyes wide open and his bladder threatening sharply to let go.

  He had also heard Seth's scream, and Elena's.

  He forced himself to turn his head slightly so he could see the entire room. Fred had stopped screaming—he was holding his wrist and uttering low, guttural curses. Marie had covered her face with her hands; she wept quietly.

  And fifteen feet away, near the room's south wall . . . (Seth realized the man's eyes were on him. He merged instantly. Elena followed) . . . nothing. A wall, a window. The steady, hard rain beyond it. A pair of soft, almost invisible shadows shimmering in the near darkness.

  Nothing.

  "Fred?" Jim managed, his voice much too low and quiet. "Fred?" he said again, louder. "There's something in the house with us."

  Fred continued cursing. He made no indication that he heard what Jim was saying.

  Jim sat up very slowly.

  Fred said, mostly to himself, "I broke my fuckin' wrist!"

  Jim pushed himself halfway to a standing position. He felt movement around him, as if the air itself had become animated. He pushed himself quickly, confusedly back, away from the movement.

  It ended.

  "Fred?" he said, and looked over at him. "Something's . . ." And he saw the two shadows there, around Fred.

  Fred screamed—a loud, high-pitched, ludicrously falsetto thing that caromed off the walls of the house and set Jim's ears to ringing.

  Fred was clawing madly at his flannel shirt with his one good hand.

  "Jesus Christ!" Jim breathed, because blood soaked the front of the shirt. Fred pulled hard at it; the buttons popped and sprayed out across the room; the shirt fell open. Fred grabbed the bottom of his freshly bloodied and ripped T-shirt, pulled it up to his chin, and looked down at his chest. In awe, he fell silent.

  From across the room, Jim stared—disgusted, fascinated, disbelieving—at th
e narrow, jagged gash that ran diagonally across Fred's chest, from near his left armpit to just under his left nipple.

  Chapter 13

  In the Bronx

  "Hey, Mr. Ghost!" Georgie McPhail called, and squinted into the darkness of the back room. "Hey, Mr. Ghost!" he said again. He had decided, on his previous visit to the room, that the ghost was a man. He had no hard and fast reason for this decision; it was just a guess, and now he was testing it.

  Mr. Baum, the janitor, was at his sister's house for the day. "She's damn sick, Georgie," he'd said, not looking at all distressed, Georgie thought. "And I got to tend to her, ya know."

  So, Georgie felt safe enough—no one but the janitor cared about the back room.

  "Hey, Mr. Ghost—you wanta talk?!"

  He thought he saw the ghost then, in the middle of the back wall, shivering and shaking. "Hey," he asked, "what you scared of? Nothin' to be scared of."

  He thought that the ghost's name might very well be Hiram or Handy. He had no hard and fast reason for this, either, only that they both sounded like terrific names for ghosts: He tried them out. "Hiram?" he said. "Handy?" And he paused. Nothing. "Hiram Handy?" he went on, and he supposed that the ghost shivered more violently. He grinned. "Hiram Handy?" he repeated, as if hoping for confirmation that that was, indeed, the ghost's name. He thought the ghost was shivering more violently.

  Georgie backed out of the room, reached behind himself, opened the door. He hesitated. "I got to go to work now, Hiram Handy," he said. "But I'll be back for sure. Then we can talk."

  Chapter 14

  In Manhattan

  He called himself "Whimsical Fatman" (though he wasn't at all fat), "Whimsy" to his friends, and they numbered in the dozens. He was fifty-seven years old, penniless, white-haired, and he smiled almost constantly.