The Island - Part 2 (Fallen Earth)

by Stark, Michael

  I started. “That reminds me. If you have time, get a couple of the guys to check out the other cisterns to see if they’re sealed off or open. We might be sitting on a pile of water stored around in different locations.”

  That thought triggered another that had been sitting in the back of my mind. “I’ve been wondering too, with this place like a museum, where’s the curator? Every museum has someone to watch over it. Where’s the ranger station?”

  She brightened. “I forgot about that. There is one, over near the marsh not far from the old Pigot house. It’ll be empty. It’s only manned in the spring and summer.”

  The excitement that shot through me must have been evident.

  “Why?” she asked. “What do you think is over there?”

  “I don’t know,” I told her, “but, I’m hoping electricity and water--or at least some way of making both. I can’t imagine stationing rangers out here with a cooler and a propane lantern.”

  The old woman looked thoughtful.

  “Don’t worry about it right now,” I said. “We can check it out once we’re settled in here. You call the Judge?”

  Her head wagged from side to side. “Not yet. My phone is on the boat. I’ll have them bring it up on one of their trips and give him a call then.”

  I hesitated and shot a look at the girls in the kitchen.

  “Daniel said anything?”

  Elsie frowned. “About what?”

  I had to fight the urge to roll my eyes. “Well, you know about weird stuff that might happen later?”

  Her face turned hard.

  “No, he hasn’t.”

  Truth be known, Daniel was the biggest reason I’d stopped at the station aside from the need to collect the diving knife. The fact that he hadn’t wandered around uttering words of doom proved to be little consolation given the fact that he could do so the instant I started down the beach. I stifled a sudden irritation at the arbitrary nature of it all.

  “Alright,” I told her. “I’d better hit the beach. Whatever else you do today, get everyone in here by dark.”

  I turned before she could reply and strode over to the door. The duffle bag I’d brought up the night before still lay propped against the doorframe. I strapped the diving knife to my belt, and threw the other, a folding lock-back knife, into the day pack. I picked up the jacket I’d worn as well. Even though the day had dawned sunny and warm, night would bring colder temperatures. If I ended up sleeping on the beach, the jacket would keep the cold at bay.

  The word beach can paint the wrong picture of the strip of sand where island meets ocean on Portsmouth. At times, the edge of what amounts to jungle lies only a few yards from the high-tide mark, making passage by vehicle both tricky and dangerous at the wrong time of day. Walking it doesn’t present much of a problem, other than sometimes passing too close to the tree line and tempting hordes of voracious bloodsuckers out of the shadows.

  Still, the word beach implied the carefully maintained playgrounds that travel agencies liked to promote. I’d seen a dozen signs on my way to the coast, most of them filled with pictures of sleek women in tiny bikinis and miles of open sand. Little of that existed on Portsmouth. Here and there, the ocean front opened to wider expanses, but a good bit of it offered a tiny beach and a lot of swamp. Tidal flats left larger sections open, but that disappeared when the water returned.

  The station lay near the point of the island, at the juncture where protective dunes gave way to sea water and the inlet. I slogged across the low mounds of loose sand and passed down onto the hard pack below minutes later.

  As soon as I had left the station behind, I stopped and changed out of the dungarees I’d been wearing, opting for a pair of shorts instead. The pants and socks went into the day pack. The tennis shoes stayed on my feet. The sand had a cool and inviting feel to it. I’d have been happy sitting and wiggling my toes in it for a while, but bare feet made little sense on a long walk. Unlike areas swamped with tourists, the beaches along the island had tons of sharp shells, and even broken glass on occasion. Either could slice open a foot and turn a good day into a bad one.

  The wind blew at a constant fifteen to twenty miles an hour, keeping me cool despite the warm temperatures and blazing sun overhead. Sea gulls rode the breeze, dipping, diving, and soaring while they searched for bits of food. Pelicans swept low over the waves, plunging in now and then to scoop up the small fish skittering along behind the breakers. Bluefish looked to be working the schools of bait fish as well, occasionally breaking the surface as they raced after mullet and shrimp.

  Early fall brought millions of fish and shrimp by the island as they fled south to avoid the coming winter. Within a few weeks, the window would close and both the variety of fish and numbers would plummet. By early winter, sharks, sea trout, and redfish would be left as the main offerings. Once the biannual migration had passed, surviving off the sea would become increasingly difficult. We could and would, but doing so would grow increasingly difficult as autumn aged.

  I pushed most of the thoughts aside and concentrated on finding the camp. If it hadn’t been for the two fishing poles mounted in rod-holders made of PVC pipe, I might have walked right past it. The sight of them rising high above the beach, tips bending in rhythm with the surf led my gaze back up the beach. A low-slung tent huddled just under the trees. Beside it, a tarp had been stretched tight between branches as a watershed. A man and woman lay on a blanket spread under the tarp. The woman looked to be asleep. The man rose as I approached.

  He came out bare-chested, wearing a pair of ragged blue jean shorts and picking his way gingerly across the sand in bare feet. Like Joshua, the man hadn’t shaved in a while. Elsie would never deem him Moses, though. The thin stubble forming on his face left him looking dirty and disheveled, not like a wild-haired prophet. The hairdo didn’t help much either. It hung long and limp, and looked greasy enough to be slick.

  The distinct odor of smoke came with him, not wood smoke, but the burned tea smell of reefer.

  “Hey, Bud.”

  I nodded. “Howdy. Name’s William Hill. I came by here yesterday in a boat and saw your camp. I wanted to let you know that there’s close to a dozen people in the old town.”

  He squinted against the sun and lifted a hand to shade his eyes.

  “We’re going to set up there until the travel ban is lifted,” I told him. “You’re welcome to come up. There’s plenty of room.”

  He looked back at his tent. The woman had risen to her feet as well. She was heavier than the man, shorter by a head and looked tired. She wore baggy blue shorts and a low-cut, sleeveless pink top that exposed deep cleavage between sagging breasts. She walked out in the sunlight, barefoot like the man.

  He waved in her direction.

  “I’m Jim. That’s Brittney. I reckon we’ll stay here a while. We’re set up decent and the fishing is pretty good. What’s this about a travel ban?”

  I told him what I’d heard on the radio, everything from the ban to the threat of killing those who violated it. I told him about how the disease had been evolving over the past few days.

  What I didn’t tell him was that a beast that looked like something spawned in hell had eaten the inside out of a body stored aboard my sailboat the night before. I wanted to. At the same time, I also knew that my credibility would drop right off the edge of a cliff. As insane as the government’s actions might be, most could and would believe them. We might question, might grow angry and rebellious, but the system that demanded obedience had been set in place and finessed over the last two centuries. Every rebellion put down, every law that stole another freedom or channeled society into following a prescribed course, every social manipulation worked through school systems to change the hearts and minds of the next generation had not only created a society increasingly dependent upon government, but taught it to obey and believe.

  That framework had dependable models, distinct lines drawn in the sand that defined what was acceptable, and what wasn’t. T
hose lines had been strengthened by generation after generation of scientists and politicians who both taught us to follow and allowed us to scorn those who didn’t. He would believe his government would be willing to kill him to keep him in place. He would scoff at the idea of flying monsters feeding on the dead. The first could be a complete lie. The second could be the utter truth. The veracity of neither statement mattered. What mattered was a structure that allowed no room for heaven, hell, or creatures that might venture forth from either.

  I used every argument I could think of, tossed out the idea of empty houses waiting to be occupied, to water systems that would provide a dependable source of the precious liquid, to food stocks. None of it mattered. Jim stood firm on the decision to stay. I gave up at the point I saw him growing irritated and asked about the next camp down.

  He nodded and waved off toward the south.

  “Yeah, them people might be willing to join up with you. Got to tell you though, the man is a real asshole.”

  Jim motioned back toward the dunes. “There’s a road back there. It ain’t much of a road, no more than a wide path cleared out of the brush and full of ruts and holes, but he comes barreling up through there every day or two in a big Chevy, throwin’ sand every which way, and makin’ enough noise to wake the dead.”

  He looked at me as if searching for confirmation that the man did, indeed, sound like an asshole.

  “I don’t know where he goes,” he said eventually, “but a little while later, he’s bangin’ back down the other way. I went out to talk to him one day. He damn near run me over and then had the gall to cuss me when he went by.”

  “How many people are down there?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Don’t know. All I seen was him and a woman. They might’ve had kids in the back seat, but I didn’t see any.”

  “How far down are they?”

  “Two, three miles I reckon.”

  I glanced up at the sun. I had another four, maybe five hours of daylight left. Three miles would be another hour’s walk at best. The hike would be easy. If I had a problem, it would be with the tide. The high-water mark along that stretch of beach looked to run right to the edge of the dunes. If the water pushed me up into the loose sand, the walk back would take much longer. Heading for the next camp would put me back at the station somewhere around sunset. The thought didn’t make me happy. At the same time, I had no idea when or if I would be able to make it back this way again.

  I couldn’t stop the disease. Bringing them to the town, however, might give them a fighting chance. The news had been adamant about the chances of survival hinging on adequate care. I had no illusions about being a doctor, but two people lying in a bed with someone caring for them, had to be better than two people out on a beach dying of thirst as fast as they were dying from the disease.

  I waved goodbye to the pair and left them standing on the beach. Each time I looked back, they stood in the same spot, watching me.

  Even though the coastline led almost due south, it meandered in and out a good bit. I’d fished enough of the ocean to know that the little pockets along the beach formed points along the shore with deeper holes situated off to either side. The exposed shoreline indicated that a current ran offshore, barely fifty yards out as a channel at least three feet deeper than the surrounding sand skirted the coast. At high tide, the sandy fingers of land jutting out into the water make for good spots for game fish like Spanish mackerel and blues. The flatter portions of the beach would be good for flounder.

  The thought had me wishing for a couple of days on the beach with a rod and nothing to do but feel the sun beating down, the wind blowing away the heat, and the hard tug of a fish on the line.

  A mile or so below the first camp, long, dark timbers poked out of the sand. The more I studied them, the more they looked like a skeleton, with one long wooden beam forming the backbone, and others running perpendicular to it forming the ribs. All of them ran back under sand still washed by the ocean. I stood, watching as a wave came crashing ashore. It died in a massive jumble of bubbling froth twenty feet away and raced through the exposed timbers, tossing bits of salty foam in the air as it passed.

  Finding a shipwreck along the Outer Banks wasn’t difficult. Hundreds, if not thousands of wrecks littered the surrounding waters, including Blackbeard’s ill-fated Queen Anne’s Revenge. Some ran aground in storms. Others lost their way in dense fog. More than a few had fallen prey to unscrupulous bankers. Farther up the coast lay the town of Nags Head, a place that got its name from unscrupulous types hired to tie lanterns around the necks of horses and lead them along the beach at night. Passing ships mistook the bobbing light for the blinking signal of a lighthouse. Once aground they were looted and, if the stories were true, the crews sometimes killed.

  Running across one in this lonely stretch of windswept beach seemed odd, though. I made a mental note to come back at some point and spend a while investigating the remains.

  The sun had wandered over into the western sky before I spied the next camp. They had staked their tent near a break in the dunes, and set it back under the overhang of the trees. A store-bought canopy, framed in aluminum, surrounded by mosquito netting and topped with a blue and white Dacron cover sat even deeper under the trees. It held a pair of reclining beach chairs separated by a white marine cooler. They’d built a fire pit between the two structures. Behind it, deep in the shadows, a white Chevy Suburban had been backed into the camp. Long, whip-like antennas sprouted on either side. Beside the tent, a tiny American flag flew from a crooked tree branch that someone had broken off and shoved into the sand.

  A man strode out as I approached. He was big, standing at least two or three inches over six feet. He wore tan shorts, flip-flops and a button-up white shirt, open at the collar with the sleeves rolled up half-way on his forearms. He looked resolute and carried himself as if he was used to making entrances. Where the earlier meeting had carried the flavor of a greeting, this one carried an air of confrontation. He wasn’t coming to meet me as much as he was coming to determine my intent and establish his presence.

  I stopped and waited, adjusting the day pack to shift the irritating shoulder strap to a new location.

  He pulled up five feet away, spread his feet out wide, and perched his hands on his hips. The man looked as if he had just stepped out of the door of a salon. His hair might have been a tad long, but every strand had been snipped and razor-cut into obedience. The tan he wore had been generated by the heat lamps in a tanning bed, far from the ocean. It was too even, too smooth and too deep to have come from the sun. His fingernails looked as if they’d just been manicured. Gray showed at his temples, putting his age in my mind a few years older than myself.

  “What can I do for you?” he asked in a loud, deep voice that carried a tone of authority.

  I knew I needed to choose my words carefully, but ended up grinning. The absurdity of a salon queen prancing on the sand like a rooster strutting his stuff came across as hilarious. I looked down the beach, giving myself time to both gather my thoughts and scrub away the image of barnyard confrontations.

  “My name is William Hill. I’m with a group of people situated up north at the old town of Portsmouth,” I told him when I had finally composed myself enough to look back. “You’re welcome to bring your family and join us. The old village has been maintained by the Park Service. There are several abandoned houses. All of them look to be in good shape. You can have your pick.”

  He crossed his arms and stared at me. I pressed on, despite the rejection in his face.

  “I don’t know how long we’ll be stuck on this island, but the weather will turn cold and nasty soon. The houses up there are strong and well-suited to the climate here.”

  I paused and then played what should have been the trump card.

  “There’s a dock up there too. I expect it will be the drop-off point for aid supplies.”

  He looked incredulous.

  “You want us to come join you?”
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  I shrugged. “I don’t want anything. I’m simply offering. You can stay down here if you want. It’s nice now. Soon it won’t be.”

  He waved dismissively. “We’ll be fine. This is some of the best gear money can buy. That tent over there was made for Everest.”

  I nodded, glancing back behind him as if taking stock of his assessment. A part of me wanted to ask why he hadn’t dragged a fifty-foot motor home out on the beach. In fact, the words were forming on my lips when I realized he probably would have if the ferry allowed it. The tent must have been a huge step down for him.

  A woman had emerged from somewhere behind the Chevy and started across the intervening strip of sand. She, like the man, could have just walked out from a beauty session. Her hair gleamed flawlessly in the bright sunlight, drifting down past her shoulders in luxurious brown waves. Not one strand of gray showed.

  The man shot a look over his shoulder and saw her coming. If anything, he drew himself up larger.

  ”Now if I may offer you a suggestion. You can keep moving. This is our camp.”

  She sidled up beside him and stared at me as if she had just discovered a new form of life.

  “Is he lost?”

  The man put his arm around her.

  “Don’t worry, baby. Mr. Hill was just leaving.”

  I let the sigh slide out. Six miles of beach housed a pair of hippies and two castaways from Wall Street. Things weren’t looking good for the home team.

  The better part of valor and common sense is usually to just walk away. A decade and a half in a suit and tie had drilled that lesson home. A friendly smile, a real attempt at understanding their problems usually went a long way toward smoothing out rough spots. I knew that. I looked them over as I thought about the effort involved.

  I smiled at Baby.

  “Actually, no, I wasn’t just leaving.”

  I looked back at the man. “You asked me what you could do for me, yes?”

  Anger shot across his features.

  “It was a figure of speech. If you’re looking for a handout, you’ve come to the wrong place.”