Solstice

by Lorence Alison

  It was tempting. I didn’t feel particularly loyal to Elena. At the airport, I might have cell service. The money in my bank account could at least pay for a youth hostel until my flight left … or, at the very least, I could sleep at my gate. On the other hand, I felt committed to following this mystery through—even if it meant sleeping out in the elements. After talking to Pearl, I was more convinced than ever that something with Eric’s death was very, very wrong.

  “Thanks,” I decided. “But I’m on the list for a later boat. Good luck, though. And I’m really sorry about Eric. It’s … unthinkable.”

  The two of them collapsed into each other, and more tears dripped down Pearl’s face. They staggered down the path that led to the water. I envied that they were leaving. I didn’t envy the emotional storm that would confront them when they got back home—all those questions, the painful funeral, a family now without a son.

  Sweat pooled on my back. I looked around the concert site. FoMo had finished up onstage—to tepid applause. As he stepped off, no roadies appeared to turn off amps or wind up cords. Now what would I do? I’d stalled again. Maybe I could try to find this other group of people Eric spoke to last night, but Pearl hadn’t given me much to go on—just a guy named James. Could I wander through the crowd, calling his name? Could I climb onstage and yell it through a microphone? All Jameses come forward! Is anyone named Kayla or Kylie?

  Suddenly the mood shifted. People stood straighter, spooked and alert. I glanced toward the stage, thinking a new band was coming on, but it was dark. I heard whispers around me and saw hands cupped around mouths. One by one, a rumor began to ripple: I heard gasps; I saw shocked expressions; one girl even looked like she was about to faint.

  I tapped a tall Asian girl on the shoulder. “What’s going on?”

  Her mouth made an O. Then she stood on her tiptoes and whispered in my ear. “Somebody died this morning. On the beach. Some people are saying his throat was slit.”

  Her friend shook her head. “No, I heard he was in pieces. Hacked up by … something.”

  My limbs turned to stone. All around me, Eric’s death was breaking news. Was it because of me? Had that drunk guy on the ground heard us … and repeated everything? And how had these rumors started?

  The news was spreading fast, whipping through the site like a line of dominoes falling over. I could see people whispering, then looking around in alarm. Soon enough, it would reach Steve … and Elena … and Zack. Elena would hate me even more. And the guys? What if Zack Frazier did something drastic to punish me for telling?

  I needed answers—fast. And suddenly it hit me. There was someone else who wasn’t on Zack Frazier’s side. I even knew where he lived—well, approximately anyway.

  Paul. I needed to find him.

  14

  I ONLY KNEW WHERE PAUL’S TRAILER was in relation to where I’d hidden the kayak on the shoreline—Zack had shouted out that he lived down a path not far away. So I made my way back to the site of Eric’s death, taking several wrong turns and slogging through a marsh to get there. The kayak I’d used was still nestled in the brush. The sand where Eric had lain was eerily vacant—smooth and flat, as though someone had combed it clean.

  The trail Marx had pointed to through the dunes for Steve to take was overgrown with thistle and other weeds. After walking through my fifth swarm of gnats, I was starting to get antsy. It was so silent here. Twigs snapped and cracked beneath me, sending my heart racing. I glanced around fearfully, realizing that if someone was following me, it was so wide open that I’d be a sitting duck.

  I took a few more steps forward, then noticed a small red structure one hundred feet ahead. I hurried for it, then halted behind a giant palm. In front of me was a cabin, weathered by age, with a satellite dish sitting crookedly on the roof. Next to it sat a yellow motorbike and a rusty pickup truck whose tires had been stripped bald. Farther from that was what looked like a firepit. And surrounding the perimeter was a booby-trap-like contraption of bells and metal objects strung from the trees. It seemed like a makeshift burglar alarm, perhaps alerting Paul if anyone was in his territory. I made sure to step over the low trip wires and avoid banging into any of the bells. Either Paul was terrifically paranoid, or he was really, really afraid of something in the dunes.

  My stomach gurgled, and I realized I hadn’t eaten since my snacks from the food truck hours ago. As I glanced up at the swath of sky, I was struck with horror. The sun was setting—soon it would be dark again. I had a feeling I wouldn’t be offered the luxury suite at Captain Marx’s tonight—not after fighting with Adri, and especially now that the rumor about Eric’s death had spread far and wide—and I was one of the few people who had known about it.

  A front porch light snapped on inside the cabin. I let out a little gasp and jumped back. Was it on an automatic timer, or was Paul in there? I pulled out my phone, praying that maybe this spot in the island would pick up a cell signal. Of course not.

  I pressed forward, tiptoeing across the scorched lawn and walking up the little house’s front steps. The door had big scratches at the bottom as though something with giant claws had once fought very hard to get in. Shaking, I rapped my knuckles on the wood. My heart was pounding so hard it was the only sound I heard in my ears.

  After a minute, the door hadn’t opened. I bit my lip, then knocked again. “Paul?” I called out weakly. “Mr.…?” I’d never been told his last name.

  Still no answer. What possessed me to turn the knob, I still don’t know, but that was what I did. To my surprise, the door was unlocked, and it swung open, revealing a surprisingly tidy little room. A single dish sat in a metal sink. The oven sparkled. A quilt lay over the back of a small couch.

  “Paul?” I called out tentatively. “Sir?” No answer. It was safe to assume he wasn’t home. Still, it felt very wrong that I was in his trailer. Paul didn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d take kindly to trespassing

  Yet something kept me rooted to the carpet. I looked around. The tiny TV had a small layer of dust on the top. There were stacks of newspapers on the coffee table, scattered papers. I glanced down at a thick book opened facedown. It looked more like a photo album or scrapbook than something that was professionally published, with a canvas cover and a handwritten title on the spine. A History of Unusual Deaths of Myla Island.

  My stomach turned over. Unusual deaths?

  I opened the book. On one page was a newspaper clipping from 1965; the article told of a man named Jacob Tretheway having washed ashore on Myla. It was presumed that he’d drowned, but there were “strange bite marks” on his legs, torso, neck, and shoulders. Beside the article was a black-and-white photo of Jacob Tretheway himself. He wore a long-sleeved plaid shirt and had his arms clasped at his waist. His eyes looked hollow, and he wasn’t smiling, but maybe that was just the style of pictures at the time. Jacob Tretheway, August 15, 1923–July 7, 1965, read someone’s wobbly hand-printed letters. Champion swimmer.

  Feeling my stomach roil, I turned to the next page. A handwritten letter was pasted on the left-hand side. Dear Annabel, I’m writing to tell you the bad news. It got Sidney. We tried to keep him safe, but there was nothing we could do.

  The letter went on to describe what Sidney had left to Annabel in his will—several acres of land, some money, a mahogany music box. An article from a Mylan paper was pasted next to the letter. ACCIDENTAL DROWNING ON MYLA ISLAND read the headline, and it went on to tell the story of how Sidney Robinson, thirty-two, had been found on the shores of the east side of Myla Island after a fierce battle with the sea.

  I looked from the letter to the article; it took me a moment to realize what was bothering me. In the letter, the writer didn’t say Sidney drowned—it said, It got Sidney. What was it? The ocean? Maybe it was custom to think of the ocean as an entity, in the same way sailors called ships “she”?

  The stories intrigued me—and also made me very uneasy—so I pulled out my phone and snapped pictures of the pages. But the sun was sett
ing quickly outside, and there wasn’t much available light to read by—I didn’t dare switch on a lamp. I had to get out of there. But as I moved toward the door, a flash of red off to the right caught my eye. I peered into the bedroom, seeing the edge of a neatly made bed. A red T-shirt was heaped on top of a bureau. It seemed familiar. The yellow logo on the front read EVEREST.

  My heart stopped. No. This wasn’t …

  I lurched for it. The mountain-peak logo Eric had displayed on his chest winked at me teasingly. What was Paul doing with this? I picked it up between two pinched fingers. There was something caked on the shirt, almost the same color as the fabric, thick around the neck and then around the hem. A sharp, metallic scent entered my nostrils, and I dropped the shirt in horror.

  Blood.

  15

  I DIDN’T REMEMBER leaving the trailer, but suddenly I was standing on the grass, breathing hard, repeating over and over to myself, “Oh my God, oh my God.”

  I could still smell blood in my nostrils. I could still see the thick red streaks along the neckline. I hadn’t seen the blood on Eric’s body from my hiding spot in the bushes, but then he’d been facedown. I’d only looked at the twist of his limbs, the lack of breakage. Why hadn’t I peered closer at his face? And where did all that blood come from?

  Paul?

  I replayed the scene on the beach in my mind. Solstice workers had found Eric’s body, and then Marx and Zack had come along, and then Steve had run to get Paul, presumably because he was their local contact and knew how things worked on Myla. Paul had acted surprised—and suspicious—but maybe that was a ruse?

  Though I wasn’t sure that made sense. Why would Paul hurt a Solstice guest? On the other hand, what was he doing with the T-shirt? I remembered Marx asking where Eric’s shirt was, then Zack replying that Eric probably wasn’t wearing one. If Paul hurt Eric, maybe he swiped it from him beforehand? Or, what if Marx and/or Zack knew full well that Eric did have a shirt, but it was so saturated in blood they stripped it off him so the police wouldn’t see it? And maybe they forced Paul to hide it for them. Maybe they’d muscled Paul into falling in line.

  Crack.

  The sound came from the north side of the property. The sky was almost pitch-black, and the dim light on the front porch barely reached to the bottom of the steps. I stood with arms outstretched, trying to make out a distinct shape in the darkness. To my horror, I saw a tall figure emerge through the trees. Paul. He clomped across the yard and up the stairs to the trailer. I stared down at myself, fully aware that the only thing really hiding me was the darkness. I held my breath. Tried not to move a muscle.

  Paul tried the doorknob and frowned when it easily turned. He whirled around, a suspicious look on his face. My heart banged in my ears. Did my eyes glow in the darkness, like an animal’s? Crickets chirped. The wind whistled. The night was thick and muggy, and I could feel the sweat seeping into my shoes. Paul scanned his yard for a long time, a scowl on his face. But then, finally, he opened the door, went inside, and slammed it shut.

  I hurled myself into the bushes, scrambling as fast as I could down the path. I needed to get far from that blood-soaked shirt. I needed to tell someone—though what, I wasn’t sure. That there was a conspiracy, I guess. That Paul was covering up something—which might reveal his guilt or get him to confess that Zack and Marx were monsters.

  Something stung my leg. My left foot sank in the sand, and my ankle twisted. Groaning, I limped on in the dark, using my phone’s flashlight app to dimly light my path. I listened for sounds of the Solstice festival, but I heard no thrums of a bass line, no pounding drums. After what felt like hours of walking, the stars glittering overhead, I finally found myself behind the giant food truck. The site was very close by, but the field was eerily dark. My heart lurched with fear. Maybe everyone had evacuated the island while I was checking on Paul. Maybe they were all dead, somehow, in some sort of chemical warfare attack. Steve. Zack. Elena. And now I was left here all alone. I’d never get home.

  But then I heard murmurs. The sound grew louder as I stepped away from the truck, and it built into a dull, scattered noise of a panicking crowd. And then there everyone was, rising up before me like zombies, in huge clusters on the festival grounds. I spied a pair of glowing yellow board shorts with the Solstice logo emblazoned down the leg.

  “Calm down, everyone!” the guy was yelling. “It’s just a power outage! No biggie!”

  I wanted to laugh. No one was dead. They were just drowned in darkness.

  A firework issued a high whine, popped into the air, and exploded into sparks. People cheered, and another one went up closer to the stage, flying dangerously close to the speakers. Someone had built a big bonfire, at risk of burning out of control. The fire glowed orange against people’s faces, and they looked almost savage and feral. Not far away, a cluster of people chanted what sounded like “Zack Frazier’s a fraud. Zack Frazier’s a fraud.” And behind me, from where I’d come, I heard a groan. I whirled around to see that the food truck was … rocking.

  “You got it!” a voice called. “Just a little bit more!”

  More voices sounded from behind the giant vehicle, and that was when I understood—people were trying to push it over. I jumped out of the way. The last thing I wanted, after all this, was death by food truck.

  I grabbed an arm of a tall guy in an Under Armour tee drinking a beer. “Why are they trying to knock that over?”

  “Haven’t you heard?” I caught a sharp scent of body odor. “They’ve run out of food. Not even those shitty cheese sandwiches. It’s mutiny now. Every man for himself.”

  I blinked. “But there’s got to be food somewhere.” The west side of the island could bring some, couldn’t they? I thought, too, of the sumptuous buffet laid out on Captain Marx’s boat. Why weren’t they helping?

  “I heard a rumor every act left, too,” the guy’s buddy, who wore a Rasta-style hat and long, fringed shorts insisted. “And they’re going to leave us here to rot.”

  “I’d rather be that dude who was found on the beach,” Stinky Armpits spat. “At least he’s over the worst of it.”

  A shrill screech sounded from the stage. Someone held a torch in one hand and a bullhorn in another; as I looked closer, I realized it was Zack himself. His voice didn’t really carry through the bullhorn. I pushed closer to the stage to hear what he was saying.

  “Hey, everyone!” Zack bellowed almost cheerfully, the torch throwing great licks of fire around his face. “We’re working as hard as we can to restore the power! And the next band will be on shortly! Greet the Solstice!”

  “Is he serious?” murmured a voice. “He’s still trying to put on the show?”

  “What show?” someone else said. “I thought there were no more bands left.”

  I stood on tiptoes and canvased the faces lit by the bonfire flames. Elena. I needed to find her, make sure she was okay. I needed to tell her, too, about what I’d found in Paul’s trailer. I whipped my head back toward the stage—I could climb up there and tell Zack first. But Zack was no longer there. It was like he’d disappeared into the ether.

  My stomach knotted with dread as I fought my way around piles of garbage, puke, drunk people passed out on the ground, and a second bonfire that people were jumping over, their bodies inches from being incinerated. Suddenly there was a booming crash behind me, and I turned just in time to see the food truck tipping over on its side. A hideous cross between a snarl and a cheer rose up. Then figures began to climb on and in the vehicle.

  “Wait!” a voice cried. “Get ahold of yourselves!”

  Steve. He stood by the semi that held our luggage. People were shaking it, maybe wanting to knock it down, too.

  Steve grabbed a guy’s sleeve as he tried to pry open the semi’s back doors. “What the hell are you doing?” he yelled.

  “We just want our luggage!” a guy was screaming, his face inches from Steve’s. “Stop holding it hostage! The revolution has begun!”

  “St
ep back!” Steve threw his body in front of the semi. Behind him, I saw a small, delicate-looking blond girl curled up on the grass. At first I thought it was some chick Steve had picked up at the concert, but then I realized—it was Elena. She looked so different from when I’d seen her this morning. Smaller. More fragile. Terrified.

  I ran toward her, my arms outstretched. Elena looked up just as I was approaching and made a little relieved bleat. We collided, shaking and crying.

  “I was so worried about you,” Elena whispered.

  “I was so worried about you,” I said back. I stepped away and looked her up and down. She looked strung out, almost. And she was shivering. “Are you okay? What happened?”

  “Nothing. I just…” She bit her lip. “This is bad, Adri. This concert. I don’t think it’s going to get any better.”

  “You just figured that out?” I blurted, despite myself. But I wasn’t trying to be snarky. I was just happy she was okay.

  Before I could say anything else, thunder crackled above. The mutinous crowd fell silent, and all heads tilted upward. Like a light switch had been flipped, the rain began to pelt down from the sky. It was so heavy and forceful, like giant balls of hail. And it was so cold with the sudden drop in humidity. The ground was instantly saturated.

  Everyone wailed. I tore my hoodie from my waist and draped it over my head, not that it served much purpose. Elena pulled down the bill of her ball cap; water dripped off the front. People ran for cover—except there was no cover save for a few tents the workers had set up the day before and the puny, pathetic customer relations tent by the path that led to the ferry. Fights broke out over tiny swaths of shelter. Two guys thudded to the ground in a muddy wrestling hold. It escalated quickly, and soon one of the guys was on top of the other, his hands clasped around his neck.