Experiment in Terror 03 Dead Sky Morning (36 page)

“How would that help? Isn’t it deflated?”

“Not all the way. It would be enough to prevent some water from seeping inside. Then we lose the motor. Leave it on the beach. We take only what we need from here. Just one bag between the both of us. You might have to lose some clothes, I don’t know. Go as light as possible. We’re going to get wet. It’s going to suck. But if we can use the Zodiac as a raft, we should be able to make it to be the boat. Use it like a boogie board and kick our way over. The wind has died. The swells aren’t too high. There’s only fog. I think we can make it.”

I pondered over what he was saying. His voice was optimistic but it still sounded like an extremely desperate attempt. I guess things were getting desperate. I didn’t want to spend another minute on this island and each second I was awake and past the frivolity of my birthday “festivities,” the reality of what was going on was sinking in fast. Just because everything was fine at the moment didn’t mean it would be fine in five minutes. Whatever tied me to the tree, whatever was out there and after us, they would come back.

“What about the coffins? They floated. Couldn’t we carry one across the island and–”

“Coffins are gone,” he said flatly.

“What?”

“Go and see for yourself,” he nodded at the tent flap. “There isn’t a trace of them. Vanished. Like we never saw them last night.”

“But,” I said cautiously, “you know we saw them, right?”

“I know.” He sighed, scratching at his beard. “Really wish I could shave this thing right off.”

“You could always do it
Crocodile Dundee
style with the hunting knife,” I suggested lightly.

He smiled. For just a wonderful second. It slowly faded from his lips, turning sad like his eyes. I wanted to apologize to him for the way I had been acting but I couldn’t find the nerve or the words. Maybe he was thinking the same thing. I wanted to crawl over to him and kiss him, scratchy beard and all, and have him make me feel like everything was going to be all right.

He picked up my backpack that was behind him and tossed it at me.

“I’ll give you ten minutes. Get ready and fill half of it with only what you really need to bring. Nothing heavy if you can help it. I’ll go clean myself up.”

He took the first aid kit and exited the tent, leaving me to wonder which clothes and items I was going to have to leave behind. My boots were heavy, but I wasn’t going to part with them. I’d be wearing them anyway. My beloved Chucks wouldn’t make the cut but I had more pairs at home. Neither would my yellow peacoat, my pajamas or my two other pair of jeans. I slid into my cargos (they were somewhat expensive), put on my favorite Alice in Chains tank top, my hoodie and a light leather jacket. I put some of my makeup in the backpack, thankful for the waterproof plastic bag it was in, and my own underused point and shoot camera and I was good to go. It was a shame to leave everything else but the sacrifice would be worth it if we could get off the godforsaken hellhole of an island. Hell, Dex would have to leave his tent and camping equipment and that wasn’t exactly cheap.

When I was done I brought the bag out of the tent and did a quick inspection of Dex’s wounds to make sure he wasn’t cheating himself.

“I much prefer it when you’re the nurse,” he said, wiggling one brow as I made him lift up his shirt. I did my best to ignore him. His self–bandaging job looked fine and he still had a lot of bandages and adhesive tape left over in the kit for the Zodiac repair job.

I quickly brushed my teeth and combed back my greasy, dirty hair into a tight bun and was good to go. The old Perry would have been wincing at being makeup free around a guy, but if this weekend taught me anything, it was that vanity was no longer ruling my life. And that raccoons were evil.

Dex filled the remainder of the backpack with the library books (“don’t want Zach to deal with overdue fines”) and the Super 8. I observed the campsite to make sure we weren’t missing anything.

He was right about the coffins being gone without a trace. The curve of the beach looked unblemished except for a few new pieces of driftwood and washed–up clumps of kelp. The fog looked like it had settled in even closer, like it was giving the island a frothy hug, but the color was light and airy and the wind was down to manageable gusts. It really was the perfect window to try and to leave through. We might not have another chance.

“Ready to go?” he called out from behind me as I stared at the beach.

I turned and nodded. I had a funny feeling it wasn’t going to work out quite as he hoped. It’s almost as if we couldn’t say goodbye to this place, despite how desperately we wanted to.

We walked as quickly as possible across the island. Despite the change in weather, the forest looked extra foreboding. The dead branches reached into the sky like skeleton arms, the shadows seemed to quiver out of the corner of my eye, and the moss looked less like vegetation and more like the green guts from an impaled monster. The last few days of rain had done a number on the ground, turning the trail into an obstacle course of limbs and mud that sucked at our feet. It got worse as we approached the glade.

At one point my foot went through the ground and the mud sucked me in all the way to my knee. Well, there went my expensive pants.

“Dex!” I cried out. I put my hands on the firmest part of the mud and tried to push myself off. “Little help?”

He stopped and came over, trying to pick up my hands while not getting stuck himself. He pulled at me but it only made my arms feel like they were going to pop out of the socket.

“Ow!’ I whimpered.

He bent over, wrapped his arms around my leg and started to pull me up that way. If I wasn’t starting to feel panicky, I probably would have laughed at the way we looked. He grunted and with a powerful tug, my leg came free with a huge suction sound. I almost fell face first into the mud but his arm shot out and brought me upright.

“I gotcha,” he said. We looked down at my muddy leg with interest. I could feel the cold sludge seeping down into my socks. Ugh.

It was an uncomfortable, uneasy walk the rest of the way. Adding to the discomfort of mud squishing between my toes was the horrible feeling that the Mary Contrary might not even be there. If it was somehow still afloat after yesterday’s storm, that would be a miracle indeed.

I watched Dex’s face as we got close to the coast. Between nervous chewing and the intensity of his pupils, he was probably thinking it too. If the boat was gone, we were pretty much dead.

I pushed the thought out of my head and told myself I would deal with it when I had to deal with it. It kept the terror in check.

As soon as we reached the coastal path, Dex sprinted forward a few steps to the treeline and peeked through the branches.

“Hallelujah,” he yelled.

I ran up and joined him. He put his hand on my back as I leaned over and peered through the spaces in the trees. The boat was there. It was a miracle.

We went back on the path and hurried along until we were on the beach and sprinting towards the Zodiac joyously. The Zodiac looked the same as we had left it, no further damage done, and though it seemed that the Mary Contrary’s anchor was no longer working and the boat was wriggling back and forth with the waves, the rope’s tether to the shore was still intact.

We looked at each other, both shining jubilant smiles.

“I think we can do this,” Dex exclaimed.

“Me too.” And I meant it. Maybe it was possible to say goodbye to this nightmare after all.

“We’re going to make it after all, kiddo,” he said as he reached forward and tipped up my chin. His fingers felt warm. I thought maybe he was going to say something else but we just stared at each other for a few beats, all smiles and unsaid words.

“OK, I’ll get started on the Zodiac,” he said, letting go of my chin and kneeling down to snap open the first aid kit. “Can you go check on the rope, making sure it’s not about to give? If you can tighten it or do another loop around the tree, then do it. We don’t want it floating away while we are making a go for it.”

I told him I could, bringing my eyes up to the cliff top. It didn’t seem like it would be that hard to get to and Dex had done it with ease the other day.

“You might want to wash off your leg first,” he said, eyeing the mud. “You don’t want to slip.”

That was true. Even though I didn’t want my calf and boots to be soaking wet, it was better than the mud.

I walked over to the water and tried to catch my muddied leg in the incoming tide. The waves on this side of the island were almost nonexistent compared to the east side, which made it seem even more likely that we were going to get our asses out of there.

I undid my boot and slipped it off. I reached over into the water to use it as a scooper. As I did so, I saw the reflection of a tall, menacing form standing over me from behind.

I gasped and spun around, almost losing my balance in the numbing surf. There was no one there. Dex was busy emptying out the kit and wasn’t even paying attention to me.

I looked back at the water and cautiously dipped in my boot. I carefully sloshed the water around, making sure the mud was coming out before I splashed some of the water on my leg. It was as cold as anything. I hoped when we launched the Zodiac, we would reach the boat quickly because being in the water for more than five minutes meant certain hypothermia. It was amazing I didn’t catch anything the other day and I was only in the water for a minute, tops.

I scooped up water once more and was about to re–douse myself when I saw the reflection again. My lungs seized in fright but I didn’t turn around and I didn’t make a noise. I slowly splashed the icy ocean on my calf while keeping my eyes focused on the reflection. Because of the waves, I couldn’t see it clearly but it was the same person I had seen briefly in the forest. Blonde beard, large frame, black jacket and white shirt. He raised his arms behind me and had a piece of roped rope spun tightly between his hands.

I screamed and whirled around, expecting for the rope to come down around me, but just as it happened before, there was no one there. Now I had Dex’s attention and he was looking at me quizzically.

“Cold water?” he asked, though from his tone I knew he thought it was more than that.

“Sure is,” I squeaked out. I pulled myself away from the water and sat back on the pebbles, quickly jamming my cold boot back on. My foot was sufficiently frozen now but I just had to deal with it. I tied the laces up as fast as my cold fingers would allow and got back to my feet.

Dex was still staring at me.

“How’s it coming?” I asked, trying to sound breezy.

He frowned. “It’s coming. You better go check on the rope.”

I smiled in response and started sprinting down the beach towards the cliff. I felt like we were running out of time and seeing that man’s reflection in the water just added to that feeling.

The cliff wasn’t as challenging as it looked from far away. It wasn’t that steep and was a gradual climb, save for a few places where I had to haul myself up onto the rocks and boulders. It didn’t take long for me to get to the top, where the yellow rope was clinging onto the arbutus tree for dear life, and the tree in turn was clinging on to the soil.

I looked down at the view, the spread of beach beneath me, Dex busy patching up the half–deflated Zodiac, the boat attached to the land only through a single twisting rope. The backdrop of the scene was the fathomless fog that seemed to lick at the sides of the boat from time to time.

I inspected the rope along its length and the way it was wrapped around the tree. Dex had done an amazing job the first time around because I couldn’t see a single weak point or fraying anywhere. As long as the whole tree didn’t give way, I think we were going to be OK.

“You’ve seen him.”

I jumped, my heart almost coming out of my throat, and looked behind me. There was a strange, murky shimmer in the air and Mary stood between the view of Dex and the beach, hands on her hips, looking strangely authoritative despite her wispy figure.

It gave me the creeps. It always should have given me the creeps but now that we were so close to leaving, I wanted to forget about Mary and everything else. Yesterday, talking with her, the whole thing seemed like some weird sort of trance I was sucked into, just like my leg was inhaled by the mud. Now I felt more in control, mentally, and ready to move on. I didn’t want to lose that again.

So I didn’t say anything to her. I just went back to looking at the rope, hoping that by ignoring her she would disappear.

She didn’t.

She took a step closer. “You’re not going anywhere, Perry.”

Just hearing her say my name was chilling, maybe even threatening. It didn’t really sound like a threat but I had to look at her to make sure. Her one visible eye through the glasses seemed innocent enough.

“Dex and I are leaving soon,” I said to her. “As soon as he is done patching up the Zodiac.”

“That’s what you think,” said Mary.

“That’s what I know,” I replied on the defensive, feeling anger rising through me.

“You’re starting to see John now. Soon your Dex will too.”

“The tall guy with the blonde beard?”

“Yes. That is John. The lepers will be next. Then Dex will believe you but alas, it will be too late.”