Last Resort (22 page)

I collapse upon the rocks, my breathing shallow, my hands tracing the outline of my ribs. Dry sobs wrack my body. I roll over on the rock and stare into the sea. The white stern of Dawson Hartford’s wreck glows ghost-like under the turquoise waves on the side of the isle. The boat is approximately fifteen feet under. Crawling unsteadily back to my feet, I creep onto the rocks that ring the island. There are gaps in the rocks and the tide surges between them, bursting forth in geysers of white foam, drenching me. I wipe the water from my eyes and see part of the deck and the door behind the captain’s wheel that leads to the sleeping quarters. Perhaps there is canned food on the wreck. The open doorway leading below deck is forebodingly dark. A quick recollection of the ship layout proves I have the exact opposite of a photographic memory. Regardless of the risk that I will swim inside the wreck for nothing, exhausting what little strength I still have, there is no other choice.

Not wanting to lose another minute of daylight, I wade into the water between the rocks and dive for the wreck. The boat lies on its side. I grab hold of the captain’s wheel to propel myself through the doorway. My sudden entrance startles a school of fish hiding within. Because I have no goggles, everything is blurry. I open the nearest cabinet, my hands wandering everywhere since the visibility is so poor. It is empty. Aching for breath, I race for the surface. Growing weaker by the second, I dive again, proceeding farther than before. I open a partially closed closet and let loose a surprised burst of bubbles when a massive, purple moray eel slithers out. As I freeze, the eel—mouth agape and lined with fangs—snakes around my leg and up my torso. Done inspecting me, it swims off. The closet is too dark to reveal its contents, so I risk thrusting my hands in, praying another moray eel does not lurk within. I grab what feels like a steel can, and something rubbery and race to the surface for air.

I hold the can up to see what it is. Peaches, in heavy syrup, no less! My heart does a somersault. The other object I hold might be just as valuable in a different way: a single, black flipper. Quickly, I stash my prizes on Goat Island and hurry back to the sunken wreck. Rummaging blindly in the same dark closet, I grab what feels like the other flipper and a bulky object in bright orange. The object turns out to be a life vest. Back on the isle, I am so elated that I sit before my haul, rocking back and forth like a lunatic. With the assistance of a rock, I bash the can open, devour the peaches and slurp every ounce of the sweet, gooey syrup. The sugar rush refuels my flagging energy. I try the flippers on and stifle a thankful sob when they fit perfectly. I strap on the life vest and appraise the distance between Goat Island and the mainland.

The flippers and life vest should allow me to swim against the treacherous current. In another hour, the sun will be gone. Preferring to swim while I can still see, I leave at once.

I make landfall on Isla Fin de la Tierra just as night descends. I land on the opposite side of the mountainous ridge that encircles the resort. My heart aches with the knowledge that Gwen is on the other side of the ridge and I cannot immediately rush to her. Unlike the soft white sand on the resort beach, this side of the ridge has a coastline of slick, jagged rocks that lead to a wilderness of sharp edged grasses and scraggly trees. I stash my swimming gear and try to find a path away from the sea. Finding none, I push my way forth, but the tough terrain and darkness make progress too difficult to get very far. Complicating matters further, my injured calf throbs. I curl on the hard dirt at the base of a tree and sleep.

It is amazing how deeply I can sleep on hard soil with mosquitoes buzzing about when I am thoroughly exhausted. I awake at dawn, covered in bug bites and dusted with dirt and twigs. The jellyfish marks are no longer puffy and only the palest pink now, and my calf does not throb with every step, though I dare not put much pressure on it for long. I head inland, eventually finding a cracked and pitted road. A cacophony of birds fills the air. I cannot see them; a hedgerow separates us, but I can hear their excited calls and the dry rustling of their wings. I push through the hedge and hundreds of birds scatter. There are so many birds, flying in every direction that I cannot see for a moment. The birds clear away, and I realize what drew them all to this spot: a dead body. The bloody, shredded remnant of a garish tropical print shirt tells me this is Curtis’s body. Nelson is nowhere in sight. I pray he got away. I cover my mouth and gag. I assume Curtis is face up. I cannot be certain for his face is gone. Disemboweled, scraps of his innards litter the landscape. Dogs. I back away from the corpse, scanning for any sign of the loathsome hounds. I do not see the dogs, but they probably are not far from their kill. Remaining in the open countryside is far too dangerous. A two story dwelling sits atop a small hill about two hundred yards away. No doubt, Curtis tried to make it to the dwelling but could not outrun the pack.

The dwelling is too sturdy to classify as a shack, yet too derelict to classify as a house. I hobble over to the side door of the dwelling, making as little noise as possible. To my relief, the door is unlocked. The dusty wood floor of the dwelling creaks with every step. The interior reveals a large eat-in-kitchen. I slide the simple but sturdy rectangular table to the door to block it from opening. Cupboards and a chipped counter top line the outside wall. A manual water pump, like something from out of the Old West, stands next to the sink. A dusty, multi-paned window is over the sink. Looking out the window, I see a table set directly beneath the window outside the home, and beyond that a rusted car on cinderblocks, but no dogs. I work the pump. To my great joy, water pours out of the opening. I stick my face under it, mouth open, gulping the water down to the point that my belly starts to cramp.

Next, I turn my attention to scavenging food. The nearest cabinets hold plates and cups, but nothing edible. The owner of the house most likely did not live on the island, for the refrigerator is almost empty, and anything inside spoiled not long after the power went. There is a closet at the back of the room beneath the steps leading to the second floor. I open the closet and tumble to the floor as Nelson falls from the closet into my arms.

“Nelson!”

Several bite wounds mark Nelson’s arms and legs. I can tell from the brown, crusty blood that the wounds are old and likely not fatal, though he does appear to be in shock.

“Curtis, Curtis,” he gasps, eyes feverish and distant. “I tried to save him.”

I help him to his feet and he slumps onto a wooden chair

“Where are the dogs now?” I check him for further injuries and find none.

Dazed, Nelson does not answer me, so I shake him and call his name.

“The dogs? I don’t know,” he finally responds, his voice hoarse and frail. “They were everywhere. We ran. They got Curtis. I tried to beat them off. He kept screaming for me…”

Nelson closes his eyes and a shuddering sob hunches him over. Dirt and dried blood cakes a cut above his eye.

“Here, let me clean that cut,” I grab a dishrag lying on the counter and soak it with water from the sink.

I hear a deep growl and look up. The leader of the dog pack is right in front of me, face to face, standing atop the table on the other side of the kitchen window. I am close enough to see strands of saliva drip from its glistening fangs. Before I can react, the hound shatters the window and lunges for my throat.

Chapter Nineteen

Instinctively, as I fall to the floor I bring my hands up to protect my neck and thrust the thick, wet dishrag into the animal’s snapping jaws. In a blur of movement, the rest of the pack clambers onto the outside table and tries to follow the lead dog.

“The window!” I shout to Nelson.

Grabbing the nearest object—the chair on which he sat—Nelson jams it in the window frame, trying to keep the rest of the pack at bay like a lion tamer wielding a stool. I hit the floor, the ravenous beast atop me, and tuck my legs under it and kick it to the side. In a flash, the hound attacks again before I regain my feet. It catches me in my left buttock. I yelp in pain and grab a ceramic lamp from a nearby table. Turning, I smash the lamp over the hound’s spine. It has no effect. The hound releases my buttock and aims once more for my throat. Everything is a blur of snapping jaws and furious motion. Nelson yells something unintelligible. I hear what sounds like a thousand snarling dogs, and feel the hot breath and spittle of the hound on my face. I cry out. Wrestling the hound from my neck, it bites my shoulder, instead. If I lose my hold on the dog, I will die. I snaked the electric cord from the shattered lamp around the hound’s thick neck. I roll from beneath the hound, but instead of trying to escape, I immediately return and grapple the beast from behind. It snaps at my face, and I pull back on the cord, like a cowboy yanking the reins on a horse. The hound whips back and forth, snapping furiously, trying desperately to free itself as the cord clamps tight on its throat.

I lean back, digging my knees into the animal’s spine, using all of my weight to tighten the noose. “Die…you…mother…fucker!”

A hacking cough, and then a rattling gurgle emit from the hound. The head drops—the tongue lolls out. I realize I have not been breathing, and with a gasp, I laugh triumphantly. I grab the rolls of skin on the back of the dog’s neck, lift its head up, and slam it down.

“Help!” Nelson struggles to keep the other dogs from entering the kitchen.

I grab the square end table and jam it into the window frame, wedging it tight. The snouts and snapping jaws of the other dogs poke around the sides of the small table, but they cannot break through. The rest of the pack lacks the determination of their fallen leader. Realizing they cannot enter the kitchen via the window, they retreat, howling and barking.

I climb off the dog. Nelson kicks it, shrieking “Ha!”

I peer around the table wedged in the window. “They’ve encircled the building.”

“My God, your back,” Nelson exclaims.

I touch my backside and my hand comes back covered with blood. I feel faint. Nelson steadies me.

“You’re bleeding pretty badly. Drop your pants,” Nelson says.

I manage a woozy smile. “This is hardly the time or place.”

Nelson unbuckles my shorts and drop them down. The grimace on his face alarms me.

“What? How bad is it?” I demand.

“Let me get a wet cloth,” he says. “It’s hard to tell with so much blood.”

Nelson finds a clean washcloth and wets it with pump water. He dabs at my wounded buttock. To try to distract me from the pain he quips, “And here I was thinking I’d never have a young man’s ass in my face again.”

Nelson presses a dry cloth against my rear. “Here. Hold this in place. The good news is the punctures are not that deep. The bad news is you’ll probably have a scar. I’m afraid your career as a butt double in movies is over. My biggest concern is infection.”

He rummages through the lower cabinets.

“Aha,” he exclaims, and holds up a large bottle of light rum. “It seems a shame to waste this on your rear end, but this is 100 proof. We’ll use it to disinfect the wound. I’m not going to lie to you; this will probably hurt a little bit.”

He pours the rum on my injury. The pain is so sharp that I grip the counter and hiss through clenched teeth.

He reapplies the dry cloth to my wound. “That should do the trick. While I’m at it, let me put some on that hole on your leg. How’d you get that anyway?”

“Sea urchin.”

He dabs rum on the calf wound and offers me a swig from the bottle.

I pull up my pants and shake my head, declining the rum. “Not on an empty stomach. Let’s find some food.”

In the same cabinet where Nelson found the rum we discover cans of chili, boxes of dried cereal, and jars of jelly. We devour it all, mixing it into a horrendous new recipe and scooping it into our maws with our hands. I finish eating and take a deep gulp of the rum. All the while, the wild dogs outside serenade us with frenzied barking.

“How are we going to get out of here?” Nelson asks.

I stare at the dog carcass on the floor. “Help me carry that upstairs.”

I grab the thick folds of skin on the dead dog’s neck and Nelson lifts the back end.

“Now I know what they mean by the term ‘dead weight’,” Nelson grunts as we struggle to lift the dog.

Upstairs there are two small, sparsely furnished bedrooms. The room ceilings angle with the steep pitch of the roof. Before I entered the dwelling, I noticed a small upper balcony. Now, I open the window and climb onto it. Instantly, the encircling pack regroups beneath me. Oddly, even as they bark and pace back and forth, many of the dogs wag their tails, as though they cannot decide if they want to play or maul somebody.

I turn to Nelson. “It seems without their leader they don’t know what to do.”

I drag the dead dog over the windowsill and heave it onto the balcony railing. The moment the pack sees their leader they freeze, watching us with tense expectation. I clench my first and beat the dead dog’s ribs, shouting with each blow.

Pointing at the pack below, I holler, “Your leader is dead! I killed him, and I’ll do the same to you.”

I push the carcass off the balcony and it lands with a thud on the dusty, hard packed ground. Three of the dogs bolt fifty yards away, stopping to look back with their tails between their legs. Other dogs tentatively sniff the body of their fallen leader. The stunned silence from the pack is in stark contrast to their previous frenetic barks and growls. They look back up at me and I refuse to break eye contact, staring them down until each one of them looks away.

I climb back into the bedroom. “I believe I got my point across.”

We slide the table from the entrance and venture outside. Half the dogs have vanished, while the remainders keep a wary distance from us, heads bowed, tails between their legs.

“They seem almost tame without the lead dog,” Nelson notes.

I nod in agreement, and then pat the kitchen knife I tucked in the belt loop of my pants. “I’m glad we have this, all the same.”

There is a small, rusted shed not far from the main building. The sliding doors grate loudly as we push them open. The shed contains numerous useful items such as a gas canister filled with gasoline, a long spool of thick, nylon rope, pick axes, saws, hammers and other tools. We find a shovel and a pitchfork and begin digging a grave for Curtis. I am injured; Nelson is old; the noon sun blazes above. Those three facts slow, but do not halt, our progress. As we dig, we relay what happened to one another after Conner banished Nelson from the resort. Nelson explains how he wandered with Curtis; staying off the paved roads for fear that Action and his thugs would see them. As night fell, they spotted the home we are now in, but as they approached the building, the dogs attacked. I tell Nelson of Conner’s attempt to kill me, how I fled into the sea, landed on Goat Island and swam back.