New Year Island
Page 65
The sorrow on his face sharpened. “She and Brent were alike in a lot of ways. More than either of them would have liked to admit.”
A shudder ran down Camilla’s spine. “I don’t think Brent was human at the end.”
“He was human,” Juan said. “All too human. He could have been any of us.”
The first rescue boats had reached the shore. She could see emergency personnel on the beach, carrying stretchers. She didn’t feel any great hurry to go meet their rescuers. For now, she was content where she was.
She traced the back of his hand with her thumb, and a sudden emptiness spread inside her. She looked away.
“What now, Juan?” she asked. “Are you going to disappear?”
“No,” he said. “I’m done running away.”
She squeezed his hand, blinking, unwilling to trust herself to speak.
“Things will be different for you, too, now,” he said. “You’ll be recognized anywhere you go. Celebrity will take some getting used to.”
She nodded, thinking of Avery. She would go see him as soon as she could. Maybe even today, if she could get away from the media long enough. She would hug little Avey and hold him tight—to reassure herself just as much as him that everything would be okay.
“We’ll have our moment of fame, and then it’ll pass,” she said. “But I’m not going to waste mine. I’m going to make something good come of it. I’m going to use it to help my foundation kids, and Veronica’s shelter.” She gave a sad smile. “I bet I can raise a lot more than ten million after this.”
Juan smiled grimly. “Interview with a double survivor: unkillable woman gets buried alive twice, defeats mass murderer, and returns to rescue orphaned children. I think you’ll get more money and publicity than you want.”
“Brent was wrong to single out survivors,” she said. “My kids are all survivors. Every person is a survivor.”
She felt Juan come alert at her side. A wide grin spread across his face and he said, “Some more than others.”
She followed his gaze past the ruined houses, to where a small figure in a gray hoodie was coming out of the storage shed.
Camilla’s heart leaped with surprised joy. “Brent lied.”
She hugged Juan hard, and he winced.
“Behind the false wall in the shed,” she said. “She was hiding this whole time.”
Natalie raised a hand in a shy little wave. Camilla waved back.
“Veronica had it right all along.” She watched Natalie walk away, headed toward the boats at the dock. “There’s the true survivor.”
The sun gleamed silver on the water. She leaned back against Juan, and together they watched the rescuers converge across Año Nuevo Island.
AFTERWORD
Thank you for reading New Year Island!
I would love to hear what you think. Please stop by my website www.pauldraker.com and send me an email. Or drop in at pauldrakerbooks on Facebook, or tweet @pauldraker and say hello. I'm usually able to answer pretty quickly. I love to talk to my readers by email, online, or in person. I'm an indie author, and you are the ones who make it possible. I am grateful and excited to hear from you.
As an independently published author, I don't have a big marketing department behind me. I don't have a publicist. I only have you, my readers, to get the word out. If you enjoyed New Year Island, please tell a friend. And please help out by writing a 20 word+ review at one or more of these sites:
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Reviews from readers really make a big difference for an indie writer like me. I would appreciate it very much. Thank you.
I've got another book coming out soon, too, and I'm pretty excited about it. It's called Pyramid Lake. It might even become the first book in a series if you, my readers, love it. I hope you do.
If you would like to be notified as soon as Pyramid Lake is available, please join my private email list. I won't share your address with anyone else. I won't send you annoying spam. I'll only use it occasionally to notify you when my own new books are releasing, or when I have some other really big news to share.
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I'm also thinking about creating an early reader's club and inviting some of my readers who sign up for email alerts to join. From time to time, I will offer the early reader's club ARCs (advance reader copies) of my upcoming books before they are available to anyone else. Or special editions of existing titles. It'll be a lot of fun.
Thanks for taking the time to read this afterword, too. I’m thrilled to hear from any of you, any time. Hit me up by email, tweet, or on Facebook and say hi.
Talk to you soon.
—Paul
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am indebted beyond measure to my fantastic editor, Michael Carr. He saw potential in an early draft of New Year Island, and was generously willing to help a new writer over the hurdles necessary to shape the prose into something readers might actually want to read. Working with an editor of Michael’s caliber is a dream come true for a writer, and it has helped me up my game substantially. Thanks, man! I owe you big-time.
I have also been very fortunate in having a couple dozen wonderful critique partners in my mystery writer’s critique group and my local writing group—so many excellent writers who gave unstintingly of their time and advice to help a newbie! I would humbly like to thank the following brave souls who gave up substantial amounts of time to critique New Year Island in part or in full: Tom S., Kirsten S., Carolina A., Brian M., Donnell Ann B., Bob A., Jane F., Alice G., Chas B., Ron V., Norma H., Mike B., MaryAlice M., Dorsett B., Andrea D., Mark S., Rosemarie S., Henya D., Aggie Z., Jeanne A., Misuk P., Tony P., Julie M., James C., Tom B., Joyce K., Kent S. Without your detailed critical feedback and encouragement this book would not have happened. Their feedback keeps me grounded and helps curb my excesses—yeah, I know… But seriously, you should have seen how I originally had it.
Donnell and Aggie, in particular, were kind enough to allow a new and untested writer into the groups they ran. I am eternally grateful for that.
Any technical mistakes (I’m thinking of the climbing scene in particular) or linguistic howlers that the reader stumbles over belong to the author alone. I’m betting those are also the places where I obstinately refused to listen to Michael’s guidance and adopt his well-honed editorial changes. Sometimes, you can lead a horse to water…
Finally, I would like to thank my wife, who was my first reader, and who works in the medical field. She planted the seed that grew into New Year Island. After almost two years of living New Year Island with me, I’m sure she regrets ever bringing up “survivor types,” but one day she mentioned how ninety percent of people freeze up or under-react in an emergency while a small minority somehow manage to beat the odds time and time again. I was fascinated. After researching the psychology of the “survivor personality,” devouring tons of real-life survival stories, and reading scholarly articles by psychologists studying the game show Survivor, I was left with three burning questions that sunk their hooks into my brain and wouldn’t let go. Two of those questions are answered by the fictional lecturer in Chapter 7.
The third—and stickiest—question grew into this book.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Paul lives in Palo Alto, California, with his wife and three daughters. An avid scuba diver, he has spent much time underwater in Palau, Yap, Honduras, Thailand, Hawaii, the Florida Keys, the cenote caverns of the Yucatan, the Caribbean, the Virgin Islands, Caicos, and the "Red Triangle" off California's coast. He also enjoys skiing, swimming, and windsurfing, and has had extensive tactical training in firearms. After one too many high-speed motorcycle crashes, he is no longer allowed to own open-class sportbikes, which is probably a good thing for him and everyone else.
Paul has worked in the aerospace/defense industry on a variety of classified and unclassified programs for the Navy, Arm
y, Marine Corps, and DARPA, ranging from strategic national missile systems to technology augmentation for small-team tactical infantry units. He has also led a Silicon Valley technology startup delivering massively-scalable custom Internet software to Fortune 500 clients including Hewlett Packard, and headed a leading videogame studio developing mobile games for top-tier publishers such as EA, Disney/Pixar, Sega, Warner Brothers, THQ, and Glu. He holds advanced degrees in electrical and aerospace engineering from MIT, Stanford, and U.C. Berkeley. This broad-ranging engineering expertise lends impeccable technical authenticity to his stories.
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to
Carolina, Madison, Kaitlyn, and Sophia.
My family lived, breathed, ate, and slept this story with me for a year.
Sorry about all the nightmares, girls.
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 by Paul Draker.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.
Mayhem Press LLC
380 Hamilton Ave #1319
Palo Alto, California 94301
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
New Year Island / Paul Draker. -- 1st ed.
ISBN 978-1-940511-02-3
Table of Contents
Title Page
Año Nuevo Island Map
PART I
Chapter 1 – Camilla
Chapter 2 – JT
Chapter 3 – Lauren
Chapter 4 – Brent
PART II
Day 1
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Day 2
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Day 3
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Day 4
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Day 5
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
PART III
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 100
Chapter 101
Chapter 102
Chapter 103
Chapter 104
Chapter 105
Chapter 106
Chapter 107
Chapter 108
Chapter 109
Chapter 110
Chapter 111
Chapter 112
Day 6
Chapter 113
Chapter 114
Chapter 115
Chapter 116
Chapter 117
Chapter 118
Chapter 119
Chapter 120
Chapter 121
Chapter 122
Chapter 123
Chapter 124
PART IV
Chapter 125
Chapter 126
Chapter 127
Chapter 128
Chapter 129
Chapter 130
Chapter 131
Chapter 132
Chapter 133
Chapter 134
Chapter 135
Chapter 136
Chapter 137
Chapter 138
Chapter 139
Chapter 140
Chapter 141
Chapter 142
Chapter 143
Chapter 144
Chapter 145
Chapter 146
Chapter 147
Chapter 148
Chapter 149
Chapter 150
Chapter 151
Chapter 152
Chapter 153
Chapter 154
Chapter 155
Chapter 156
Chapter 157
Chapter 158
Chapter 159
Chapter 160
Day 7
Chapter 161
Chapter 162
Chapter 163
Chapter 164
Chapter 165
Day 8
Chapter 166
Chapter 167
Day 9
Chapter 168
Day 10
Chapter 169
Chapter 170
Chapter 171
Chapter 172
PART V
Chapter 173
Chapter 174
Chapter 175
Chapter 176
Chapter 177
Chapter 178
Chapter 179
Day 11
Chapter 180
Chapter 181
Chapter 182
Chapter 183
Chapter 184
Chapter 185
Chapter 186
Chapter 187
Chapter 188
Chapter 189
Chapter 190
Chapter 191
Chapter 192
Chapter 193
Chapter 194
Chapter 195
Chapter 196
Chapter 197
Chapter 198
Chapter 199
Chapter 200
Chapter 201
Chapter 202
Chapter 203
Chapter 204
Chapter 205
Chapter 206
Chapt
er 207
Chapter 208
Chapter 209
Chapter 210
Chapter 211
Chapter 212
Chapter 213
Chapter 214
Chapter 215
Chapter 216
Chapter 217
Chapter 218
Chapter 219
Day 12
Chapter 220
Chapter 221
Chapter 222
Chapter 223
Chapter 224
Chapter 225
Chapter 226
Chapter 227
Afterword
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Dedication
Copyright