The raised drawbridge blocked their view of the eastern causeway, so Elna couldn’t tell what Rod’s men were doing. What if they decided to swim across the gap? Surely, they’d seen the Marine in the wetsuit do it. They knew it was possible.
“I was afraid this was going to happen sooner or later,” she said, thinking out loud.
“What’s that?” Malin replied.
“Some kind of invasion of the island by mainlanders. Can’t undo it, but somehow, I just have to keep things from spiraling out of control.”
She would have said more, but Prig stepped out of the service building then, leading three soaking-wet Marines. They’d all made it up from the water.
“That’s everyone accounted for,” Prig said, flashing his toothy grin at Elna. “They came at us with guns, hammers, fists, everything they had, and no one died. I call that success. Lead the way, please, ma’am.”
Elna had rarely felt so intimidated by a group of people, but she was determined to figure out what was going on. She had to get a handle on the situation, no matter how she felt. Steeling herself, she moved closer to Prig as they walked and finally cleared her throat.
“Sergeant, if you don’t mind my asking,” she said, “how did you wind up on the causeway in a fight with that militia?”
Prig made a little shake of his head, as if she’d opened a can of worms, then he gestured at the woman walking on his left side. She had black hair shaved close to her head, dark eyes, and a tense, unfriendly face.
“Specialist Alice Bowman, ma’am,” she said, as if making a formal introduction. “We’re United States Marines.”
“We gathered as much,” Malin said. “Mostly from the, uh, tags on your uniforms that say U.S. Marines. That was one clue.”
He started to chuckle, so Elna elbowed him in the ribs. Specialist Alice Bowman didn’t seem to take offense.
“What brought you to this island?” Elna asked. “This isn’t exactly the best place for a bunch of Marines to hunker down. We’re not rich in resources here.”
“We won’t be a problem,” Staff Sergeant Prig said. “Let’s get back to the island so we can strategize a bit. Don’t worry, ma’am. You won’t regret helping us.”
“I’ll have to take your word for it,” Elna said.
During the long walk back, she tried to probe them for a little more information, but they only gave her terse answers. Prig kept saying they would sit down and talk about it when they got to the island. If they were trying to put her at ease, it wasn’t working.
They finally caught up with the others just before reaching the end of the causeway. The Marines seemed to have inexhaustible energy. Even after fighting and fleeing from Rod’s men, falling in the water, climbing the drawbridge, and whatever else they’d gone through, not a single one of them seemed tired or worn out.
They all gathered in the street beside the Pasqualee Vineyard sign. The injured man, Antonio “Ant” Flores, hung limply now in the grip of Norman and a couple of Marines. Dr. Ruzka took the opportunity to adjust his bandages and tape them a little better. The other injured Marine, Katrina “Cat” Meadows, despite her massive muscularity, had her arm around the shoulder of another Marine now. Her hobbling had gotten considerably worse.
Let’s get these folks healed up, maybe give them the few supplies we can spare, and send them on their way, Elna thought.
“We can wait for Fish right here,” Prig said. “He’ll be along soon enough, once he gets the bridge up.”
“These injured people do not need to be standing around,” Dr. Ruzka said, turning to Prig with fire in her eyes. Of all the islanders, she seemed the least intimidated by them, though she was barely half the size of the largest Marine. “Selene and I should accompany them back to the guesthouse immediately, where we can treat their wounds properly.”
A third woman in the group had accompanied the wounded, but she stood off to one side now, holding the hand of the little girl. Elna judged the child to be not much older than three or four, and she was wide-eyed and seemed horrified by everything. She was also wearing a filthy shirt and tattered pajama bottoms that looked like they’d been scavenged from a dumpster. As for the woman holding her hand, though she was dressed in a Marine uniform, Elna thought it looked at least two sizes too big for her—as if it wasn’t hers.
“Ma’am, you ladies take the injured to your building,” Sergeant Prig said to Dr. Ruzka. “That’s a good idea. Archer and Mac here will go with you.”
“Archer” turned out to be Alice Bowman, the woman with the unfriendly face and black hair. “Mac” was one of the Marines who had fallen in the water, a young African-American man with a football player’s build. They stepped forward at Prig’s command.
“There’s a storage room we can use as a kind of field hospital, if need be,” Elna said, but her words scarcely mattered.
Dr. Ruzka and Selene were already walking away, leading the group toward the winding path that went up the hill. Norman and two of the Marines helped the injured as they followed after. Elna felt her words just sort of hover in the air for a few seconds before fading away. No one responded.
When the wounded were gone, that left the others standing together on the road. Prig strode past the sign toward the rocky shoreline. Another Marine moved up beside him, a muscly young man with a pockmarked face and greasy hair. As he stood there, he reached into a pocket and pulled out, of all things, a half-eaten pack of Mentos. He flipped one of the mints into his mouth with his thumb.
“What do you think, Spence?” Prig asked him. “We had a few hiccups along the way, but we’re here.”
“I think it could have gone a lot worse, sir,” Spence said, chewing loudly. “Those guys in the camp are clowns. Guns and camo shirts don’t make you a military. Still, we’re lucky they wanted us alive for questioning. There were a heck of a lot of AK-47s in the camp.”
“Let’s just hope Fish gets back in one piece.” Prig glanced over his shoulder, made eye contact with Elna, then spoke a little softer. “I know he thinks he’s invincible, but he’s not. None of us are.”
Elna found herself standing awkwardly beside the sign, wondering what to do next.
I’m not going to be a pushover, she told herself, giving Malin a stern look. I don’t care who these people are.
3
With Marines standing on either side of him, Malin felt like he was in the center of a vise, just waiting for it to slam shut. They’d been nothing but friendly and grateful thus far, but the strangeness of their presence on the island was a lot more intense than he’d expected.
But what else were we supposed to do? They’ve got that weirdo in the wetsuit climbing into the drawbridge motor like a spider. We couldn’t keep them out, and they were being shot at.
He let his forearm brush the cold pistol at his hip. Not that it did him any good. He wasn’t going to draw a weapon on these guys. They’d all moved to a rocky shelf east of the road just above the shoreline. Looking through the telescope, Elna said she could no longer see Rod’s men.
“Maybe they retreated back to their camp,” she suggested.
Maybe we should take the sloop and sail off to another island, Malin thought. A passing thought, of course. No place that he knew of was safer than the island, even with this group of outsiders now milling about.
“I see your swimmer,” Elna said, the telescope pressed to her eye. “He’s coming fast.”
She handed the telescope to the staff sergeant, the slightly goofy, white-haired redneck who went by the name “Prig.” He took it, gazed off across the bay, and grunted.
“Yep, that’s Fish, moving like a fish,” he said, the words chewed up by his Southern accent.
A moment later, Malin spotted the little blotchy shape cutting through the water like a knife. Indeed, their comrade was like an Olympic swimmer. He was moving fast, a couple hundred yards out but closing in. Malin stepped up on a higher rock to get a more expansive view of the bay.
“Hell, we wouldn’t
have made it out of that militia camp if it hadn’t been for Fish,” one of the other Marines said. Malin thought his name was Spence. The man popped Mentos like an addict, which meant he was always talking and chewing at the same time.
Prig made a subtle gesture at Spence that Malin read as “Stop talking. You’ll say too much.” Spence nodded.
Too late. He’d said enough to pique Malin’s interest. So, they’d come from Rod’s camp. What was the story there? How had a bunch of Marines found themselves in a ragtag militia camp? Questions for another time, perhaps, but if Elna didn’t ask, he was going to. They deserved to know the reason for the invasion.
Fish was close enough now that Malin could make out the strange pattern of stripes and swirls on his wetsuit. The guy had an impressive front crawl swimming style, though the big arm movements seemed like they must be exhausting. The dude had swum miles and miles back and forth from drawbridge to drawbridge and now all the way back to the island, and he hadn’t slowed down at all.
Impressed by this display of raw endurance, Malin only gradually realized that his eye had been drawn northward. He spotted what appeared to be a patch of dark water, as if somehow the deep green-brown of the bay had been discolored. Then he realized it had a distinctive—and familiar—shape, and that the tip of a dorsal fin could be seen breaching the rough water.
Malin immediately cupped a hand beside his mouth and shouted, “Shark!”
His sudden shout startled the entire group standing on the rocks. Prig stumbled to one side, as if Malin had tried to punch him. The others lurched or shuddered or swung around. Elna raised a hand, as if to ward off a blow.
Then she spotted the shark and her shout joined his. “Shark! Right there.”
The man called Fish was a couple hundred feet out now, but the shark was coming from the northeast, trying to cut him off before he reached shore. Malin wasn’t much of a shark expert, though years of surfing had attuned his gaze to notice and track them. This one seemed to be about fifteen feet long, though he wasn’t sure of its species.
“Fish, over your shoulder,” Prig yelled. “Look out!”
The swimmer broke stride just for a second, lifting his head above the water and looking back behind him. After a moment, he spotted the shark and made a little motion with his right hand, as if to shoo it away. Then he resumed swimming as he had before.
“Look at him, man,” Prig said, with a laugh. “He ain’t scared of that shark. He’s just coming straight on.”
The shark got directly behind the swimmer and seemed to lunge forward, its tail thrashing in the water. Malin could see it in his mind’s eye. It would grab Fish by the foot, drag him down into the murky water, and that would be the end of it.
This guy’s not brave. He’s an idiot.
But the shark turned suddenly to its right, circled around, and swam away.
“Too shallow,” Elna said. “The guy actually outswam the shark.”
The Marines began to whoop and cheer. Fish finally reached shallow enough water that he stood up, grimacing, and stumbled toward the rocks. He definitely had a swimmer’s physique, long and lean, all muscle, with a long face to match and a prominent nose. Out of the water, the strange striped pattern on the wetsuit looked even more like an optical illusion.
Didn’t do him much good, Malin thought. If he’d been swimming just a tiny bit slower, he would be a snack by now. Then again, who knew how many other sharks had stayed away.
It was clear that the man didn’t have a limitless supply of energy. He trudged his way through the shallow water, clambered up the rocks, and collapsed on his face with a groan.
“Get him, Spence,” Prig said, gesturing at the greasy-haired Mentos addict.
Spence tucked the pack of mints in his shirt pocket and picked his way down the rocks to Fish’s side.
“Sergeant Jim Grisham,” Prig said to Elna, gesturing at the swimmer. “We call him Fish because…well, you know why.” He then strode forward and clapped Fish on the back. “Kid, you just outswam a damned shark.”
“Just did my best, sir,” Fish replied.
“Belay that sir garbage, Marine. I work for a living.” Prig then turned to Elna and gestured with a little flip of his hand. “Mind leading us where the others went? This boy needs to rest.”
Elna seemed on the verge of saying something. She had a scowl on her face, though Malin could tell she was trying to contain her real feelings. Finally, she nodded and turned, stepping down from the rocks and starting up the road toward the guesthouse. As the group followed, Fish leaning heavily on Spence, Malin fell in beside the one called Prig. As staff sergeant, he seemed to be the highest ranked Marine in the group, so he would know the most—even if he might not be entirely willing to open up. Still, it was worth a try.
Elna’s either playing nice or trying to figure out how best to handle the situation, Malin thought. I’ll do some of the dirty work for her. I don’t need to be liked by these people.
“So, hey there, Sarge,” Malin said, trying to sound as friendly, and casual, as possible.
“No, no, call me Prig,” the man replied.
“If you insist. So, how’d you guys wind up on the bridge like that? The militia had you cornered. There must be an interesting story behind it all.”
Prig gave a weird little laugh, clearly forced, and hesitated a second before answering. “Yeah, you’re right about that. Things didn’t go exactly as planned, but Devil Dogs improvise. I’d like to say we didn’t lose a man, but we’ll have to see. They got Ant good.”
“Fingers crossed for Ant,” Malin replied. “So, how’d you get the militia on your tail like that?”
Prig gave that weird laugh again. “Let’s just maybe talk about that later. There’s some things I’m not at liberty to say.”
“It was a military operation then?” Malin asked. “Classified? Top secret? Spec-ops, maybe?”
To this, Prig said absolutely nothing. Instead, he glanced from Malin to Elna and back, then said, “How many people currently reside on this island?”
Malin might have answered—the population wasn’t some big secret, after all—but Elna gave him a sudden stern look. Don’t say a word. That’s what the look meant, he assumed.
“The population changes,” Elna said, after a moment. “It’s seasonal.” She left it at that.
Prig grunted at this. The folksy charm evaporated, and he fixed his gaze on the road ahead. Even the slightly goofy smile went away, leaving only a blank, grim expression that seemed to transform the Southern boy into a true soldier before Malin’s eyes. He decided to drop the subject.
When they reached the veranda at the front of the guesthouse, they found Raymond and Daniel seated quietly at a table. As they approached the front door, George Pasqualee stepped outside, looking shriveled as an unstuffed scarecrow in his vest and pants. Prig hurried forward to shake his hand, though it was a bit more vigorous than necessary. George winced.
“You’re the man who owns this place,” Prig said. Not a question. “Where did you take Ant and Cat?”
“Your injured friends are in a back room,” George said. “Come on. I’ll show you the way.”
For some reason, instead of going through the front door, George led them around the building, through the gap between the guesthouse and winery, and to a back door. Malin had never been through this particular door.
“So, this is a working vineyard then?” Prig asked. “You’re still growing grapes and producing wine?”
“We’re getting to that point, slowly but surely,” George replied. He fished a key out of his pocket and unlocked the door. “Your people are right in here.”
Prig, Spence, and Fish went first. Malin and Elna held back, trading another wary glance before passing through the door. As it turned out, the back door led to a dusty old storage room near the family hallway. A row of cots had been set up along one wall, and most of the boxes and crates had been pushed to the far side.
Dr. Ruzka and Selene were cur
rently seated on stools on either side of a cot, bent over the injured Marine named Ant. They’d removed his shirt and peeled back the bandages to tend to the gunshot wound. The other injured Marine was lying on a cot nearby, her hands tucked behind her head. They’d split the seam of her pants to reveal the wound, and it seemed to have been cleaned, slathered in some orange-red medication, and bandaged.
The woman and the little girl had found a space in an unused corner and sat down. They looked traumatized to Malin, and neither of them had said a word, except for the child’s occasional crying. Sniffy approached the child at one point. The dog looked like he wanted to be petted, but the child grimaced and turned away.
“So, what is this room?” Malin asked Elna, trying to speak quietly. “I’ve never been in here.”
“Just storage space,” she said. “It was crammed with junk for years, mostly stacks of empty crates, but I cleared it out the other day while you were out hunting with Norman. I figured we could use the space for something. Looks like this might be it.”
“I thank you for your help, Mr. Pasqualee,” Prig was saying. “You’ve got an impressive operation here. Is it just staff and guests on the island currently? No one else has come here?”
“That’s right, pretty much,” George replied.
Dr. Ruzka rose then, wiping her hands on a disinfectant cloth. “Fortunately, the bullet passed all the way through. Without access to the right equipment, however, I can’t confirm the severity of the damage. Doesn’t seem to have pierced a lung. He’s breathing normally. I’ve cleaned it out and stitched it up. That’s all I can do for the time being. He just needs to rest. We’ll have to monitor him for infection, of course.”
“Thanks for your help, Doctor,” Prig replied.
“That poor woman and child need to be fed,” Dr. Ruzka said, stepping out from behind the cot and pointing into the corner. “They are grossly undernourished. The Marine named Archer said they came from the militia camp. Is that correct?”
Island Refuge EMP Box Set | Books 1-3 Page 53