He just stared at the cup. “You’n answer his question,” he noted, the candlelight flashing on his scowling face.
Derrick glanced at Debra. She was paying attention to the entire exchange but had no words of her own. Then he returned to Omari. “I gon’ tell you on the drive, but we need to hurry.”
Derrick caught Debra reading him and saw the moment when she decided it didn’t matter what he was trying to hide. “A’you just hurry up and get to safety, hear me? I’n about to lose any of my boys tonight.”
Omari drank from the cup and passed it back to Derrick.
As they left, Debra gave Derrick a kiss and reiterated that they be careful. “Get where you going fast. The roads must be a menace.”
Derrick nodded in confirmation but shared no stories.
The three poured out of the house. Debra stood watching them descend the stairs and then closed the door behind them.
“Where we going?” Omari asked too loudly for Derrick’s liking.
“I gon’ tell you when we get in the car,” he whispered.
“Aye,” said someone. Not any of Derrick’s little group.
Derrick, Louie, and Omari didn’t move. They stood near the SUV, Derrick’s hand inches from the door.
“You’n hear me talking to you?” said the voice. Just then three men materialized from the shadow of an alley across the street. “Come here,” said the one at the front.
The street was dark, making it hard to see any faces. Derrick hoped this would be a blessing for their group as well. If he couldn’t see them, they couldn’t see him. And the last thing he wanted was to be recognized.
“We ’bout to leave,” Omari said.
“How?” asked the one at the front. “That vehicle working?”
“On foot,” Derrick said.
“Where?” The three inched forward. Derrick’s group didn’t budge.
Omari whispered something to Louie that Derrick couldn’t make out. Something about a gun.
One of the men, not the ringleader but the one to his left, lifted his hand. Derrick flinched instinctively.
A stream of hard light revealed Derrick’s group but kept the men in shadow. Light lined the ringleader’s left side like a sinister halo.
“I thought I recognize that car,” said the man to the ringleader’s left. “Thought the ambassador would be behind the wheel. What a surprise to find you.”
“We don’t want trouble,” Derrick said.
“Neither do we,” said the ringleader.
The third man, to the ringleader’s right, had been quiet the entire time. The light in Derrick’s face made it difficult, but he still strained to see what the man was doing with his hands. By the looks of it, they were tucked into his hoodie.
“If I use it now, we got the advantage,” Omari whispered to Louie.
Somewhere, a dog started barking, starting up a chorus of other dogs in the neighborhood.
“We just want to get into the car,” Derrick said.
“So it works,” said the ringleader. “Maybe a’you could give us a ride, too.”
Derrick watched the silhouette of the three men. He was sure now that at least one of them had a gun. His forehead itched again, the animal fear intensifying. He thought of all the people he had passed on the way. He did the math again.
“So you gon’ let us come, or what?” said the ringleader.
A few years ago, before the Ynaa, Savan had been a dangerous neighborhood. It still was, though the danger had lessened over the years since the Ynaa arrived. Derrick still didn’t like driving through Savan. Safer generally didn’t mean safer for him. It was part of the reason he hadn’t seen Louie in so long. He had feared for his own life.
Derrick adjusted his math, subtracting five from twenty-five thousand. “Okay,” he said. “You got any little nephews or brothers you want to bring along?”
“Are you fucking crazy?” Omari said under his breath.
“Yeah,” said the one with the flashlight. “I got some cousins nearby.”
“Let’s go get them,” Derrick said. “You three will have to drink from this cup. I’ll explain later.”
“Fuck this, I’m doing it,” Omari whispered.
“No,” Derrick whispered back.
“What going on out here?” yelled Debra from the doorway.
Derrick turned. “Shit. Go back inside, Mom!”
And then a few things happened at once.
The man with the flashlight turned his stream of light on Debra. Omari moved so quickly, Derrick couldn’t get a word out in protest, and then three shots whizzed past Derrick’s ears. Two somehow hit their impossible marks in the darkness. The ringleader screamed, and the man with the flashlight fell dead. And the third man, the one who had been quiet the whole time, fired his weapon.
Derrick had enough time to hear the sound of the first shot, and then just enough time to feel that last bit of hope he was holding on to disappear. The bullet stole the rest.
• • •
Hull Bay doubled as a beach and a docking area for small boats. The beach also had a bar, Hull Bay Hideaway, the name suggesting how difficult it was to find the damn place. Designed like a giant open shed, the bar had a high roof supported by thick wooden poles, some painted yellow and green. Around the property was a wooden fence, with vintage surfboards in various stages of ruin providing decoration near the entrance.
North-side Frenchies and expats made up most of the bar’s patrons. Jackson hadn’t been to Hull Bay in years, but now he found himself wishing he had. The bar lay quiet inside its fence, all the action happening on the beach.
Jackson could hear the excited chatter of a small crowd as he approached. He parked between two trucks that made his electric mini look like a child’s toy, and got out. He wouldn’t have noticed it if he hadn’t stopped to take one last look at his car. A small fighting-conch shell was stuck like some barnacle to the front of his hood. Little threads of light fanned out from the shell. He remembered when Derrick tapped the top of his hood with something hard. This must have been it.
Jackson marveled at the thing, realizing how little he knew about the Ynaa even after all this time—how little any of them knew. He hoped Derrick had made his way back to the ambassador. He didn’t expect him to be at the beach and had no way of contacting him, so he used hope instead. It didn’t seem an especially useful instrument, doing nothing to ease his mind.
You’re not safe yet, either, he reminded himself. The thought got him back on mission. He headed to the beach.
Jackson met a couple dozen people as he walked onto the concrete docking ramp that also served as the main entrance to the beach. The wide ramp descended into calm but surprisingly deep water at high tide. People were idling inches from the incoming surf. A few weren’t on the ramp, choosing instead to stand on the beach.
Jackson watched people’s faces, the half-moon and stars overhead providing some visibility. Everyone looked uneasy or upset. Some stood in stunned silence. A woman sat in the sand sobbing openly, comforted by the hand of an older man. Jackson assumed that she had already lost people, that many of the people around him had, too. There would be a lot more of that tonight.
“What’s going on?” Jackson asked a man standing next to him, a younger guy with short hair and a patchy beard. “Will there be rescue?”
“Boats coming in,” the man said. “Several are ferrying people off island.”
When Jackson asked how the boats were still operating, the man shrugged. “Don’t know. Just happy to get out of here.”
On the water, Jackson could see a small light blinking. Too far out to make out what it was yet, but he guessed it was one of the boats the man had just mentioned. Other boats of various sizes idled a few yards out from shore. Not as many as he remembered seeing the last time he was out here at night. Which meant some people had already
used their boats to flee the island. Smart decision. Good on them.
Next to Jackson, a woman flashed her phone light at the water, to reveal dozens of long, thin fish idling below the surface, near the dock, their eyes reflecting the woman’s light.
“Oh shit,” said the woman. “But what the rass is that?”
“Sharks,” said a teenage boy.
“They better come right up to the dock with those boats,” said the woman, “because me’n going in no water with no damn sharks.”
Jackson smiled just a little. More likely, the fish were barracudas. “Have they called for help?” he asked the man with the patchy beard.
“They’re being blocked,” a different woman said. “We don’t know how they doing it. Besides, America ain’t gon’ help us no way.”
“All right,” said an older Frenchie standing ankle-deep in the surf. “Men and boys, step forward.” He spoke loud enough to be heard over the chatter while not bothering to glance back at the crowd.
The crowd quieted. Men and boys, Jackson included, stepped forward.
“The boat should be here in a minute or so,” the Frenchie continued. “It seats about ten people, so I want a’you to form a line on the incline. When it comes, get in as fast as possible.”
Jackson and the rest of the men and boys followed the man’s orders. Jackson got the fifth spot in line, standing behind the man with the patchy beard.
“What about women?” asked the woman still flashing her phone.
A few people made noises of annoyance.
A man sighed. “They only killing the men. What you worried ’bout?”
“I want to stay with my family,” she said.
More groans from the crowd.
“Hush your mouth, lady,” said the man at the front of the line. “People trying to live and you over there making noise.”
“Don’t talk to me like that!” she yelled. “Arnold, you gon’ let him talk to me like that?”
One of the men in front of Jackson looked back at her sheepishly. “Please calm down, baby,” he said. “We have to save our son. Don’t antagonize these people.”
The woman chupsed her teeth but didn’t say anything after that.
Jackson could see the boat slicing through the water now. So close, he dared hope. He imagined himself on the other shore, safe and waiting. He imagined himself holding his grandchild in his arms in some future when the Ynaa threat no longer loomed over them all. The VI people would get back their island and pick up the pieces of their shattered lives. Because they had to. Because that was what they always did.
We tough people, the young folks liked to say. Island strong.
The ringing sounded far away at first. Then it was closer, like a train coming in at great speed. Jackson looked around. Several of the other men glanced around as well, confused and frightened.
Jackson felt his entire body tighten, pain pushing optimism out of reach.
“What—” he started to say. The rest of the sentence lodged in his throat. He collapsed on his side, his body trembling from wave after wave of some unseen force. Many of the other men collapsed, too. In the distance, he heard women scream.
From his vantage point on the incline, Jackson could see some new arrivals writhing in the sand, and women trying to drag some of them toward the water.
He became aware that the boat had arrived. When did it get there? Time seemed to be moving both fast and slow at the same time. His mind struggled. He started choking on his own tongue. He felt someone’s hands on him, the sensation far away from the loud pain throbbing through him. He could just barely make out that gentle touch as his body shifted under the pressure of the stranger’s hands. The hands rolled him over onto his back, and he could see delicate clouds and flickering stars and a man’s face hovering over him. The man’s fingers pushed between Jackson’s lips, exposing his clenched teeth. Had his jaw been clenched this entire time? His body sprinted away from him and then back again, like a wave breaking and pulling back out to sea. He was beneath himself now, trapped in the pain. He could do nothing to help the man with his objective or even to fight back.
The man’s fingers slipped along the soft flesh inside Jackson’s mouth. Then he leaned in and made a hawking sound, drawing something forth from the back of his throat and spitting it between Jackson’s parted lips. The slick mucous slid along Jackson’s clenched teeth, seeping little by little between the gaps. Even in the throes of pain, the experience almost made him gag.
The pain retreated, slow at first and then faster. Then Jackson regained control of his limbs. The noise of the world around him came back, and the canvas of stars above him warped back into focus.
“Can you move?” the man asked.
Jackson nodded, squinting away the tears in his eyes. He had not realized he’d been crying.
The man nodded back and got up, leaving him to his own devices. Jackson turned his head and watched the man go down the line of men, spitting in their mouths. The repeated action seemed fast and brusque compared to Jackson’s own experience with the man. He observed as some of the men regained their ability to move.
Jackson got to his feet and looked down the beach. People ran along the sand. Women, shoulder-deep in the water, lugged paralyzed men on their backs, trying their best to keep the shuddering, contorted faces above the surface. The boat bobbed in the disturbed water. Three men had already been hurled into the boat. The female boat pilot leaned over each man and spat into his mouth.
“Hey!” someone yelled. Jackson turned and saw the spitting man from earlier still working his way down the line. “Help me get some of these guys into the boat!” the man yelled.
Jackson sprang up. Picking up the boy behind him in the line, he carried him to the edge of the incline, passed him to two men in the boat who had regained their strength. Then he hauled a man to his feet. The man moaned, his mouth slack. Jackson repeated the pass and then turned to the next man in the line only to find him dead, leaking blood from his mouth and nose.
The man who had saved Jackson came toward him, with a man’s arm draped over each shoulder. The two limped toward the boat, propped up by the man in the middle.
“The rest?” Jackson asked.
The spitter shook his head. Jackson helped him get the two men into the boat. Then he and the spitter followed, finding their place among the passengers. The boat, a twenty-six-foot pleasure craft, was stuffed with eight men and six boys—well over capacity, but that didn’t matter now. The boat would not return.
Every so often, Jackson heard a voice on shore go quiet in midscream. The trees surrounding the beach bustled as shadowed figures ran under their outstretched limbs. Several bodies lay motionless on the beach—effects with no visible cause. Jackson’s fellow passengers stared uncomprehendingly at the shore.
The boat pilot started the motor. Jackson watched as the women in the water waded back to shore. One lingered to give her son a kiss on the forehead.
“Be safe,” she said, and the boy nodded. Jackson couldn’t see her tears, but he could hear the quiver in her voice. The woman pushed off from the boat and swam back to shore.
The men were all quiet as the boat turned in the water. Some looked around, others sat hunched over, staring at their knees. Jackson kept his eyes on the shore. The women sitting and standing on the beach watched them leave.
“Look!” said the boy beside him.
At first, Jackson didn’t know what he was looking at. Beyond the women, flickering lights grew brighter and bigger in the brush surrounding the beach. And then, all at once, the lights crossed the threshold from the shadowed tree line onto the sand, and Jackson knew exactly what he was looking at.
Glowing flesh.
One of the women turned and screamed so loud Jackson had no problem hearing it from the boat. After that, the women scattered in all directions along the beach.
The creatures didn’t pursue them. Instead, they walked to the water’s edge and stood, nine of them in a line.
No one on the boat made a sound.
Jackson had learned enough about the Ynaa through his conversations with Derrick to know that they were excellent swimmers. He was sure they could catch up with the boat if they wanted to. But the creatures didn’t budge from their position on the beach. They simply watched the overloaded craft as it pushed through the water. Why not pursue?
A possible answer occurred to Jackson. The order was to kill all the men on the island. Had the Ynaa decided to take this instruction literally? Mercy, Jackson thought, watching the Ynaa on the shoreline shrink to the size of action-figure dolls. They were showing mercy.
Jackson clasped his shaking hands together as the boat slapped over weak waves, and the dark mass of St. Thomas receded from view. Not so far off, the British island of Tortola lay in front of them, its interspersed lights glowing with the promise of power and safety. They would be standing on its shore before long.
“How are you feeling?” asked the man sitting next to him—the same man who had saved his life, who had saved so many of the lives on the boat.
“I’m fine,” Jackson said. “Better than most.”
“We lost a lot of people on that beach,” the man said.
“Lost a lot of people on the island,” Jackson added.
The man nodded. He didn’t say anything else. In the silence, Jackson listened to the whispers of other people in the boat. Some of the men who were hit hardest by the seizures—that was what Jackson had decided they were—had regained some presence of mind.
“You know what happened, don’t you?” Jackson asked the man next to him. “The seizures.”
“I do,” he said.
“You spit in my mouth.”
“To give you reefs,” he said, answering the nonquestion. “Reefs to kill the reefs already inside you. Inside everyone.”
Jackson recognized the term the Ynaa used for their smart cells. “Yeah, but spit?” he asked, making a face.
“Only way. Can’t command the reefs like the Ynaa can.”
The Lesson Page 21