by Ron Ripley
Mike Puller stepped back nervously, as did the others.
“Do your worst,” Dorothy hissed. “I’ve felt the sting of iron before, and it is no worse than that of a bee.”
“Not yet,” Shane said softly as if speaking to a lover. “Oh, not yet, Dorothy.”
Behind him, he heard Jillian speak.
“We give this to you,” the girl whispered.
Terror and pain, violent fear, all of it ripped through him. All of the horror Dorothy had visited upon her victims. The decades of living a nightmare denied salvation or damnation, pummeled Shane.
He grunted, remained on his feet, and absorbed all of it. Every shred of their experiences. It felt as though his blood burned in his veins, as if his lungs would explode, as though the bones would shatter. Shane tilted his head back and screamed, a long, drawn out sound which threatened to drown out the ocean’s great voice.
And then it changed.
The scream became a gasp, the gasp a laugh, the laugh a shout of triumph.
Dorothy stood in front of him, as real as the island beneath his feet.
“No,” she hissed, looking at her hands. “This cannot be. What have you done?!”
She remained silent as he lunged forward, grabbed hold of her, and dug his fingers into her flesh. She let out a shriek as the fingers pushed through the dress, through the skin, pierced the muscles and gripped them.
With a howl of savage glee, he ripped his hand back, tattering the muscles.
Dorothy tried to jerk away, but Shane didn’t let her. He wrapped his hands around her neck and squeezed.
She batted at his arms, grabbed a hold of one of his pinkies and pulled it back, the bone snapping loudly.
Shane bit back a scream, the pain immediate and intense. Stars exploded around the corners of his vision and she wrenched herself away from him. She looked for a way out, but the dead who had sided with Shane made a circle around them. The ghosts kept the two of them contained.
When Dorothy saw she had no escape, she let out a shriek of pure rage and threw herself at him, parts of her arm flapping grotesquely. Shane caught her, grunted at the effort to keep his balance and punched her solidly with his good hand. Something crumpled beneath the blow.
Dorothy’s fingers clawed at his face, a thumb catching his lip and slipping into his mouth. The vile taste of her curious flesh made him gag even as she tried to rip his cheek away from his skull.
Shane jerked his head back, threw his fist against her head again and watched as her entire jaw slid to the right. She stumbled and he caught her by the hair, jerking her head back.
Her throat was exposed and as she struck at him, each blow feebler than the last, Shane leaned forward, brought his hand up and began to dig his fingers into her neck.
Chapter 63: Disbelief and Rage
Amy had observed everything which took place between her great-grandmother and Shane. The permanently bald man had looked as though he would collapse, and then the unthinkable had happened.
Dorothy had taken on some sort of physical form.
Shane’s obvious scream of pain, and the way he had collapsed, had thrilled her. It had looked like he would succumb to whatever power Dorothy exerted. And then he hadn’t.
His screams of pain had become triumphant exultations.
And he had forced, somehow forced Dorothy to become real.
There, but not quite.
Exhilaration had filled Amy, and she had tightened her grip on the pry bar. Excitement raced through her as she prepared to watch her great-grandmother destroy Shane.
Yet the opposite had occurred.
Shane had attacked Dorothy. Had literally begun to rip her to shreds. Great chunks of the woman had been cast aside. Those few ghosts who had remained by her great-grandmother’s side had fled while those who had betrayed the woman remained behind Shane. All of them pulsed with some strange glow. Their hollow voices rose up in cheers and taunts. They called for Shane, encouraged him, and made certain Dorothy could not escape. Some pushed and kicked at her, and the air vibrated with their excitement.
When Shane bent Dorothy back and tore at the flesh of her neck, Amy froze with horror.
Numb, she watched as Shane let out a howl and he wrenched up with both hands.
Amy’s great-grandmother vanished completely.
With a silent rage Amy was spurred to action.
Raising the pry-bar above her, Amy ran forward and brought the sharpened end down, stumbling at the last moment. She slammed the tool into Shane’s right shoulder, knocking him forward.
Chapter 64: Gunshots in the Night
When Dorothy vanished, a collective sigh reached Shane’s ears. A second later, a terrible pain blossomed in his shoulder.
Shane staggered forward, stumbled and fell. He twisted as he landed and looked up. Through the windows of the keeper’s house, and around the sides, a light flashed. A curiously bright illumination. What the hell was that? he wondered numbly.
Then he saw her.
Amy had gotten free, and she held some sort of tool in her hand, the top of which was wet.
That’s my blood, Shane realized.
She charged at him, and he rolled to one side, lashing out with a foot. He missed her leg as she missed his head.
He managed to get to a knee, and then tried to push off the ground with his right hand. His wounded shoulder wouldn’t bear the weight. With a grimace, he slipped down, and he saw her raise the tool up for another attack.
I’ll have to meet it head on, he thought dully.
A semi-automatic pistol barked three times, muzzle flashes coming from the left.
Amy stiffened, took a step towards him as someone emptied the rest of the magazine into her.
She collapsed lifelessly to the ground beside him.
Shane looked at her body and thought, Thank Christ.
And then passed out.
Chapter 65: At the Dock
Marie made it to the Coast Guard’s dock only a few minutes after their patrol boat had docked. Chatter on the scanner had talked about a shooting on Squirrel Island, about a wounded male victim and a dead female assailant. The State Police were sending a boat out to process the crime scene. The Coast Guard was bringing the victim in to be transported to the hospital.
Marie pulled her car in beside an ambulance. All of the vehicle’s lights were on, the paramedics in the back.
She had put the car into park, left the keys in the ignition, and hurried to look in the ambulance. Both paramedics were in the back, as was a young woman. The young woman was holding Shane Ryan’s hand. He was sitting up on the gurney, shirtless, dirty, and bloodied. When he saw Marie, he nodded.
The paramedics glanced over, and one of them said, “We can’t fit any more in here, ma’am.”
Marie showed the man her badge and the paramedic shrugged.
“Are you okay?” Marie asked.
“Yeah,” Shane said. “They just started a morphine drip for the pain. I’ll be useless in about two minutes.”
“What happened?” Marie said, glancing at the girl.
Shane shook his head. “Later.”
Marie nodded. “Meet you at the hospital?”
“Sure,” Shane said, closing his eyes.
Marie turned to leave but stopped as Shane called out, “Hey, Marie.”
“Yeah?” she said, looking back at him.
“I will tell you one thing,” he said.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“No more favors for your family.”
Before Marie could ask him what he meant, the paramedics closed the door and the ambulance’s engine roared to life.
Chapter 66: Back on the Island
Shane stepped onto the pier and winced. The injuries from his fight with Dorothy were still fresh, only days old. He glanced back at the boat they had chartered and saw Courtney. She stood off to one side with her arms crossed over her chest. Shane knew she had a small piece of iron hidden in her hand. The pilot of the
small boat leaned back in his seat, yawned, and checked his phone.
Shane waved to Courtney and she smiled nervously as she returned the wave.
Sighing, Shane turned back to face the island, and started walking along the pier. By the time he reached the path up to the buildings, he could feel the dead gather around him. The air was cold, his exhalations a soft white cloud. He ignored both the lighthouse and the keeper’s house, walking around to the back. The door to the shed where he had stored the bodies of Courtney’s friends leaned haphazardly, the entire structure leering at him.
A shiver rippled through him, the air growing painfully cold around him as he came to a stop in the spot where he had destroyed Dorothy. The earth beneath his feet felt wrong, the grass a corrupted yellow stain amongst the vibrant green of the rest of the yard.
“Hello,” Shane said.
The air around him twisted, folded in on itself and opened and closed, and Ewan had stepped forward. Jillian was with him, the strangulation marks on her neck a vivid red in spite of her translucent nature. The boy had his pipe in his mouth, a wry smile on his lips.
“So,” Ewan said, “you’ve gone and done in Dorothy.”
“With your help,” Shane said. “I couldn’t have done anything without it. Without all of you.”
“Right and true,” the boy said, “but you were the one who faced her down in the end.”
“Thank you,” Jillian said softly, looking at him shyly.
“You’re welcome,” Shane said. He looked from Jillian to Ewan then said, “Will you all be well now?”
“As well as the dead can be,” Ewan said seriously.
“I can help you move on, if you wish it,” Shane said.
Jillian’s eyes widened hopefully, but Ewan’s didn’t.
“I, myself,” Ewan said, “am quite pleased to be here. To look out at the Atlantic, to drift through whatever life this is. There will be others though who might wish it.”
Jillian nodded. “I know I do, as well as my siblings.”
Shane looked at the tarp where the remains of the Noyes children were tucked away near the house.
He looked from Ewan to Jillian and said, “Thank you, Jillian, for your help.”
The girl blushed and for a moment her form lost some of its opaqueness. “I, thank you, Shane Ryan, my siblings and I would like to see what is beyond this island.”
“I hope you shall,” Shane said. “Good-bye.”
The two children said farewell and vanished.
Shane walked over to the tarp, picked it up and carefully carried it away from the house. He set the package down, pulled back the canvas and looked at the remains and swallowed dryly. From the pockets of his cargo pants he took a small bag of salt, a bottle of lighter fluid, and a book of matches. He scattered the salt over all of the bones, then doused them with the flammable liquid. When he finished, Shane stood up, lit a match, and dropped it onto the remains.
The result was instantaneous. A curious, light blue flame arced up to the sky. The fire was smokeless and burned quickly. Soon, nothing remained except ashes.
For a few minutes, Shane stood still, then he pinched the bridge of his nose, wiped his eyes and left the backyard. Long strides returned him to the pier, and then to the boat.
The pilot looked up disinterestedly from his phone and raised an eyebrow. At Shane’s nod, the young man put the phone away and started up the boat.
Courtney reached out and took Shane’s hand, gently pulling him down to sit beside her. She asked softly, “How did it go?”
“Well enough,” Shane replied. “They make me sad.”
She nodded, then said, “What now?”
“Now, we go home,” Shane said. “Which reminds me, where do you live?”
Courtney grinned. “I live in Manchester, over on the west side. A few minutes from St. Anselm College.”
Her grin slipped away and a nervous smile replaced it. “Do you think you might want to get together, maybe have dinner with me?”
“I’d love to,” Shane said, squeezing her hand.
The pilot backed the boat away from the pier and headed to port, the lighthouse a silent sentinel. Shane looked at it for a moment, until he saw Clark Noyes standing and watching.
Shane turned his head away from Squirrel Island and looked to the mainland.
Chapter 67: Coffee with Uncle Gerry
“How are you holding up?” Uncle Gerry asked, looking over the top of his coffee mug at her.
“Alright,” Marie said. She picked at a thread on the old sweater she wore.
Her uncle looked at her doubtfully.
Marie sighed. “I’m upset.”
“About your cousin?” he asked.
She nodded. “The fact that she was responsible for so many deaths, and she nearly killed Shane.”
“And how is the young Marine?” Uncle Gerry asked, dropping a hand down to pet the top of Turk’s head.
“One,” Marie said, grinning tiredly, “he’s not young. He’s in his forties.”
“Still young to me.”
Marie shook her head and chuckled. “Two, he’s okay. Healing.”
“Will you be seeing him later on?” Uncle Gerry said. “Perhaps for dinner?”
“No,” Marie replied. “I won’t.”
Her uncle frowned.
“There’s nothing between us, my dear uncle,” Marie said. “And, to be perfectly honest, I’m more than happy on my own. I’ve got a good routine. A good life.”
“He’s a good man,” Uncle Gerry said.
“Without a doubt,” Marie responded. “But I don’t want a relationship with him, and he doesn’t want one with me. Sure, we’re friends and I value his friendship, but it won’t move beyond that. He’s, well, he’s got too much baggage, Uncle Gerry. He’s too damaged for me. If I’m going to have a relationship, the person has to be okay with who they are. They need to have made peace with their past. Shane is almost happy with who he is, but he certainly hasn’t been able to put the past behind him.”
“I’m not saying he has to, or that he even should,” she continued. “I’m just saying he isn’t what I’m looking for in a partner.”
Uncle Gerry put his coffee mug down and looked at her silently for a moment. Finally, he said, “What you’re saying makes sense. And it’s a mature view. I do have one question.”
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Can I still be friends with him?”
Marie let out a surprised laugh, Turk’s ears perking up at the sound.
“Yes,” she said, smiling at her uncle, “of course you can!”
“Excellent,” Uncle Gerry said, grinning. “Now, tell me about the case you’re working on, the one about the body found behind the Holocaust Memorial downtown.”
Marie picked up her own coffee, took a sip, and started to give him the gruesome details.
* * *
Bonus Scene Chapter 1: Aboard The Thin Man, October 4th, 1893
Ewan McGuire was thirteen years old, though he looked younger, and he had been at sea for nearly two years. As the ship’s boy, aboard The Thin Man out of Norwich, Connecticut, he had plied the waters along the east coast of the United States. He was a fair hand at many tasks and knew all of the ship’s workings by heart.
On the morning of October fourth, he woke when Cookie called him to start the fire for the stove. The men would want their breakfast, and soon. Cookie was the new cook, a green hand from Hartford, a man who clung to the tiny shelves of his kitchen in the meekest of swells.
But he’s a fair cook, Ewan thought, yawning. And he feeds you day and night. He’ll get his sea legs soon enough.
Ewan left the comfort of his small hammock, tugged on his boots and dragged his feet into the galley.
“Good morning, Ewan,” Cookie said, his words pronounced with the tight crispness of a New Englander.
“It is,” Ewan said, yawning again.
“What’s in the skillet?” Ewan asked as he prepped the stove. He
laid in some coals, got the fire started and glanced over at Cookie.
“Potatoes and onions, a bit of bacon, and a couple of the smaller apples,” Cookie said.
Ewan’s stomach rumbled at the idea, and Cookie chuckled. The man pushed his gold-rimmed spectacles back up the bridge of his long nose and set the coffee to boil on the stove top.
Once Ewan had the fire lit, he sat back, took out his pipe and tobacco pouch, and started to fill the bowl. Cookie frowned at him.
“You shouldn’t smoke,” Cookie said shortly. “It’s a bad habit.”
Ewan looked over the bowl at Cookie as he lit the tobacco. He drew in several times, stopping once a healthy cloud of smoke curled up from both the briar and his mouth.
“Cookie,” Ewan said, “I enjoy your company, my friend, truly I do, but let’s not try and squelch the relief I gain from my tobacco.”
“It’s not relief,” the cook said sharply. “It’s an addiction. Best to cure yourself of it before you cannot.”
“I’ll take my chances,” Ewan said.
Cookie sucked his teeth at him and shook his head. Several minutes of silence passed as the man went about the galley. He gathered the different items he needed, leaning against the counter as he diced first the potatoes and then the apples.
The ship rolled suddenly, too far to starboard than she had been and Cookie cast a nervous glance at Ewan.
Ewan nodded. “The ocean’s a bit heavier than she was. Do you need any more here, Cookie?”
“No,” Cookie replied, his voice tight. “Um, what should I do, Ewan?”
“See the bar runs round the top of the galley?” Ewan asked, gesturing with his pipe.
“Yes,” Cookie answered.
“There’s a length of rope in the locker there. Loop her round your waist, then the other end round the bar,” Ewan said. “It’ll help to keep you steady. Do you have your knife?”
Cookie shook his head.
“Put it on,” Ewan advised.
Cookie frowned. “Why?”
“You may need to cut yourself free right quick,” Ewan said. “Best not to be tied to the ship should she go down.”