Children of the Island

by Wright, T. M.

  GWEN: No, none at all, Doug, though, of course, the NYPD is just beginning its investigation and I would guess that leads are being turned up by the moment—

  Chapter 51

  At Bellevue

  Lenny Wingate noted the time on the admissions sheet, stood, and looked over the desk at the gurney. "Name?"

  "Marsh," said the attendant, and spelled it. "First name's John."

  A doctor appeared. "Is this the one from Central Park?"

  "Yes," the attendant answered.

  "Get him to OR 3; we'll have a look at him."

  The attendant nodded; "He's been babbling. Something about his dog."

  The doctor looked annoyed. "I don't care about his damned dog—get him to OR 3."

  Lenny said, "He's waking up."

  A short pause, then, "Mr. Marsh?" she continued. "Can you hear me?"

  "Of course he can't, Miss Wingate," the doctor cut in. "He's sedated."

  "My dog," Marsh whispered. "In the truck, my pickup–"

  The attendants wheeled him away; Lenny called after them, "Where'd you find him? What part of the Park?"

  "West Side," they called back. "Near the Amphitheatre. And he didn't have no dog, and he didn't have no truck." And they were gone.

  At The Stone

  Georgie MacPhail thought that maybe the ghost in the back room where he lived had followed him here. He was surely seeing something in this big, dreary place. Something that moved quicker than the eye could move; something that was as quiet as a cat sleeping; something that was dark, and blue-eyed.

  A ghost for sure.

  Maybe Hiram, or Handy.

  Maybe the ghost of some little kid that used to live in this building. And then died in it.

  Georgie thought that if there was such a ghost, it would make staying in The Stone a couple of days longer a lot more interesting. (And he thought that now that he had Mrs. Winifred Haritson to take care of—who'd begun complaining now and again about a pain in her belly—he wasn't really sure howlong he'd have to stay here.)

  He came to the junction of two hallways; he stopped, put his back to the wall, and took a small, frameless mirror out of his shirt pocket. (He was on the fifth floor of The Stone. He was doing little more than getting to know the building, because all buildings had their own secrets, and their own stories to tell. So far, The Stone's had been dreary stories that smelled vaguely of decay. And now with those creeps below taking over . . . but there was the ghost, too. And the ghost was promising, indeed.) He stuck the mirror around the corner—it had four inches of pencil taped to the back of it—studied the reflection critically a moment, and decided that the hallway was clear. He had found that the people who'd taken over here usually went no farther than the third floor, because that was the highest floor on which any of the old people had chosen to live. But he knew they were looking for him and so he was especially cautious.

  He turned the corner and started for Apartment 5F, three doors down. There were no lights here. The only light was morning sunlight streaming in through bare apartment windows and then filtering into the hallway through opened apartment doors on the right hand side of the corridor. Consequently, the corridor had a subdued, vaguely reddish blue and shimmering glow to if, as if the Northern Lights had been set loose within it. Georgie supposed briefly that the ghost he'd been seeing in The Stone in the last two days was probably just the result of the weird lighting, his anxiety, and his "bounteous 'magination," as his Uncle Nate put it.

  When he got to Apartment 5E, he stopped. He had heard someone talking at the opposite end of the corridor, near the opened elevator doors. He stiffened up, listened. The talking seemed to be coming from a distance, and there was a hollow, echoing quality to it, as if whoever was talking was doing it through a long, hollow tube. Georgie realized at once that the talking was coming from within the elevator shaft. He grimaced. For sure they were throwing someone else down it, maybe the big guy, Mr. Klaus, because he wouldn't knuckle under to them.

  Georgie made his way very quickly and very quietly to a spot just to the right of the opened elevator doors and stood with his back against the wall. He listened again. He heard someone cursing desperately, and someone else—Snipe, he realized—cursing back. He got down on his belly. He peered very cautiously over the edge of the shaft.

  He saw very little. It was an eighty-foot drop to the sub-basement level, where the bodies of Lou and the bag lady, Ms. Ida Cooper, languished. He could see them very dimly. He thought they were throwing off a strange, weak, yellowish-orange glow all their own, and realized at once that it was merely the morning sunlight making its way through a hundred bare windows, and half a hundred opened apartment doors, through a dozen opened elevator doors, and finally focusing down the shaft.

  He could also see that someone with a flashlight was making his way down the shaft wall. He imagined that whoever it was was using a rope, but he could see no rope, only the narrow, anemic yellow beam of the flashlight, and the suggestion of a large, dark form behind it. He heard then: "I'm gonna puke, Snipe. Really, I'm gonna puke!"

  Then someone laughed shortly—Snipe, Georgie thought—and shouted back, "Go ahead—puke! It won't matter none to them, will it?!" Then he laughed again, louder.

  The flashlight shifted around, and for just a moment Georgie saw that the guy repelling down the shaft wall—or attempting to—had something thin and metallic sticking Out of his back pocket.

  "Snipe, Jees," the guy pleaded, "I'm gonna fall if I puke. Jees, I'm gonna fall!"

  "You ain't gonna fall, pussy meat. We got hold of ya."

  Georgie moved back from the lip of the shaft. He saw the elongated beam of the flashlight play on the walls. "Hey, Snipe," he heard, "I saw somethin' up there. Hey Snipe . . ." And Georgie grimaced as the guy stopped talking in midsentence and vomited down the shaft.

  Chapter 52

  At Bellevue

  Jim Hart stared disconsolately at the man in the bed to his right. The bed had been empty just an hour before (the guy using it had been carted off mumbling something about Ba'al taking his pillow away), and Jim had thought it was too bad—the guy had been good company.

  This new guy, though, didn't look like he'd be good company at all. He was old, and flushed, and he looked very tired.

  The man's eyes fluttered open. Jim watched as he stared silently at the ceiling for a few moments, then turn his head toward Jim, blink twice, and say, "What is this?—Is this a hospital?"

  Jim nodded. "It's Bellevue."

  The man sighed. "That's where they put crazy people. I want my dog. I gotta have my dog."

  "We all have our little crosses to bear," Jim said, and grinned.

  The other man did not grin. "And what about Seth?" he said.

  "Is that your dog?"

  The man shook his head violently. "Seth is here! In New York."

  "And Rita Hayworth, too," Jim said.

  The man looked very annoyed. "You don't understand. Seth is here, Seth is in Manhattan . . ."

  An attendant came in. "You're awake, Mr. Marsh—good," he said. "Our Dr. Halloway would like to have a few words with you after breakfast, please."

  "Dr. Halloway?"

  "The head shrink," Jim said.

  "Just a few words," the attendant reiterated. "Then you'll be able to come back here and rest. You'll be pleased to know that we found nothing physically wrong with you, Mr. Marsh—"

  "He wants his dog," Jim interrupted.

  "Seth," Marsh murmured, "is here. In Manhattan."

  "Seth?" the attendant asked.

  "That's his dog," Jim said. "He can't live without him. I told him–"

  "Is Seth your dog, Mr. Marsh?" the attendant asked.

  "No, it's not my dog–"

  "I told him, no one dies in Manhattan. They die in Queens, and in Brooklyn, and The Bronx, and on Staten Island. But not here. Not here in Manhattan."

  "Yes," the attendant said, "we've heard all that, Mr. Hart."

  At Central Park: N
ear the Sheep Meadow

  Lenny Wingate had hoped there would be joggers here. She'd heard that the park was usually packed with them, even early in the morning. But not, she realized, this early, and she was nervous.

  The morning air was crisp and still. Occasionally she could hear the distant blare of a truck's horn from outside the park, but beyond that there was silence, and it added to her nervousness. She'd grown to mistrust silence in Manhattan. She'd grown comfortable with noise. She'd adapted.

  Her shift in Admissions at Bellevue had ended forty-five minutes earlier, and she had caught a taxi to the park immediately. The driver had almost refused to let her off—"You're not goin' in there now, lady!"—but she had insisted, and now was rapidly beginning to feel that it was a big mistake. The ambulance attendant had been right, of course. There was no pickup truck. And no dog. The guy they'd brought in merely had been reacting to the sedative. What could be simpler?

  She saw the pickup truck then, at the opposite end of the parking lot, a good hundred and fifty yards off. She saw it only dimly because it was roughly the same color as the trees behind it. She started for it. It was the only vehicle in the lot.

  At the Channel Three Newsroom

  Gwen McDonald said, "Hey, Al, look what Garvey sent down from the Tenth Precinct." She handed a sheet of yellow legal-size paper across her desk to Al Borlund, Assistant Producer. He glanced the sheet over, shrugged, and handed it back. "I always said jogging was dumb." He grinned.

  Gwen set to work on a rewrite of the piece. She looked up after a moment. "But three of them, Al? I know a lot of people turn up missing on this island every year, but—"

  "A couple thousand, Gwen."

  "Uh-huh. Still, this is pretty weird stuff, wouldn't you say?"

  He shrugged. "Lots of weird stuff goes on in Manhattan. And it's our job to sort it out."

  She rolled her eyes. "Sure, Al, whatever you say, Al."

  He grinned again.

  Lenny tried not to listen to the soft, scraping noise of her crepe-soled shoes on the parking lot surface because it seemed to echo slightly, and set her to thinking that someone was just behind her, or just to her right or her left, and was following her. She reached into her handbag and pulled out a long stickpin with the figure of a cat in yellow gold at one end. She clutched the pin as she walked.

  Her shadow, silhouetted in red, appeared to her left suddenly. The sun had risen at last. She sighed, relieved, and felt her pace quicken. She stopped. She was certain she'd seen movement near the pickup truck, beyond the line of trees in back of it, she guessed. Joggers, she told herself, and continued walking. She clutched the stickpin more tightly, and began thinking that what the doctor had told her about empathizing with the patients was true—it got you into trouble. She discarded the idea at once. She wasn't in trouble. She was nervous. A little scared, maybe. But she wasn't in trouble.

  She saw movement again near the trees in back of the pickup truck. She stopped, took a deep breath, then focused on the area where the movement had been. She saw the foliage move slightly in the whisper of a breeze that came up and died.

  She saw what she supposed was a bird hopping about on one of the branches—it was still too dark to be sure—and what looked like a tall man walking on a path beyond the line of trees. She sighed again. "Christ!" she breathed, and she got a sudden urge to yell "Hi!" to the man because he was obviously as crazy as she was. She controlled the urge. She kept walking.

  When she got to within fifteen feet of the pickup, she stopped again. She could see no dog. The truck looked empty. And if there was a dog, she asked herself, how could she be sure if it was friendly? What if it was some kind of trained guard dog? What if she opened the door and said her hellos and it leaped at her and sunk its teeth into her throat. What then?

  She'd talk to it first, of course. Through the closed window (she looked; yes, the window was closed); she smiled slightly. She'd talk to the dog, she'd soothe it, and then, when she'd assured it that she was a friend, she'd open the door. She'd owned dogs. She knew how to talk to them and how to size them up . . .

  She covered the remaining fifteen feet to the pickup very quickly and, surprising herself, put her hand on the door handle. She stopped, grinned self-critically, shook her head. "Oh no you don't," she whispered. She let her hand fall. She peered into the cab of the truck.

  It was empty.

  "Oh for God's sake!" she whispered. "Lord, lord . . ."

  And she heard a low, continuous growling sound from the line of trees just behind the truck.

  At the Channel Three Newsroom

  Al Borlund leaned over his desk and put the sheet of yellow legal paper back on Gwen McDonald's desk. "I've seen this, Gwen."

  She shook her head and held up another piece of yellow legal paper. "No, you haven't. You've seen this. This"—she fingered the other piece of stationery—"is brand new. It just came in."

  His brow furrowed. "Three more? Jesus!"

  "Not three more joggers, Al. Three gays. Over in The Ramble. Here, read it." She handed the sheet back to him.

  He read it. "Lover's quarrel," he quipped.

  "I'm going to use both these items, Al."

  He looked ill at ease. "Why don't we wait on it, Gwen? On the second one, anyway. How long have these people been missing?" he asked himself, then checked the piece about the gays. "Not even twenty-four hours," he answered. "Let's wait a while, Gwen. Another twenty-four hours. Okay?"

  Lenny climbed quickly into the pickup truck and locked both its doors.

  She began cursing herself immediately, in low, nearly inaudible whispers—her eyes darting from right to left but seeing nothing out of the ordinary. "Damn stupid airhead! Why the hell can't you mind your own business?! Damn stupid airhead!"

  She sat very stiffly in the middle of the bench seat, her arms straight and the palms of her hands pressed hard into the seat fabric. She noted that the seat felt gritty, and that she suddenly needed to get to a bathroom. She noted that the sun surely should be rising faster than it was, and she said to herself, "Why isn't it rising faster?"

  A sudden, sharp tapping at the driver's window caused her to scream shrilly. She turned her head sharply. The cop peering in looked very concerned. "Miss, can I help you, Miss? Is this your . . ."

  In one swift motion she reached over and unlocked the door. The cop opened it. "Is this your dog?" he said, and Joe leaped into the cab and began smothering her with wide, very sloppy kisses.

  She laughed joyously through them.

  Chapter 53

  At The Stone

  "You've been setting there like that for half a fuckin' hour!" Snipe called to Cheese, who was dangling halfway down the elevator shaft from a strong length of rope. The other end of the rope was being held by several of Snipe's other lieutenants; they were beginning to weaken noticeably. "So get a move on! You done your puking! What're you gonna do now, take a crap?"

  "It ain't been no half hour, Snipe. And I really did see someone up there." He shone the flashlight up the shaft again. "Way up there, Snipe. Near the top."

  "You get down there right now, pussy meat," Snipe growled, "or I'm gonna tell these guys here to let go; they're just about to, anyway, I hate to tell ya." He nodded at the guys holding the rope; they let it slip several inches. Immediately, a low-pitched screech rose out of the elevator shaft. Snipe looked down it again. "Okay, pussy meat?"

  Cheese began lowering himself once more, very slowly, with the utmost care. "It's goddamn dark down here; Snipe."

  "Well, you got the freakin' flashlight."

  "It ain't no good, Snipe."

  "Stop complaining. You're the one wanted to eat old lady's brains, so now you got your chance. And I'll tell ya, I hear one more word out of you . . ." He didn't need to say more.

  It was still a good fifteen feet to the bottom of the shaft.

  Cheese thought he could see better without the flashlight, so he turned it off. He looked up—though something inside him said that that was
a stupid thing to do—and the long, ever-brightening shaft rising above him made him queasy again. He closed his eyes, lowered himself a few more feet, then looked down. He could see Lou and the bag lady clearly. Lou had apparently hit head first because the side of his head was nearly parallel with his shoulders and his entire body lay crumpled in a roughly upside-down position in a corner of the shaft. His face wasn't visible; it was still too dark for that, and Cheese was thankful.

  The bag lady, Ms. Ida Cooper, lay in a more natural position, almost as if she were sleeping. She was on her side, her arms extended, so her upper arms covered her face. Her hands were clasped, and her legs were apart, as if she were walking and praying at the same time.

  Cheese chuckled nervously at the thought; his queasiness cleared slightly.

  And then the smell hit him. His queasiness returned with a vengeance.

  Death was nothing new to him, nor was its smell. He'd lived in the seamier sections of Manhattan all his life. He had seen people die. He had caused people to die. He had happened upon people who'd been dead a good length of time. But he had never gotten used to the smell. No one does. It is an overwhelming, nearly toxic, smothering presence that all but shouts that it is more than merely the smell of rotting meat, that it is a piece of Death itself floating about, getting into everything.

  Cheese could not help himself. He vomited again. The dry heaves. And he kept it up for several minutes, until exhaustion overtook him and he dangled at the end of the rope breathless and shaking and fully ready to let Snipe do to him whatever he wanted to do. It was then that he heard Snipe calling to him and he realized that he'd been calling for a long while.

  "I said, 'What the fuck are you puking for again?' Jesus, Mary and Joseph, you could jump on 'em from where you are."

  Cheese managed, "The smell, Snipe, Christ–"

  'Course they smell. They been dead for a couple days, now–"