Sacrifice Island (7 page)

They trudged up a path to the main road and flagged down a trike. Alex sat facing back, letting Jemma have the larger seat next to the driver. Alex handed him twenty pesos, and they were off, hurtling down the rutted dirt road, past bamboo buildings toward El Nido. Western standards of cleanliness did not apply here…half-stray dogs and cats sauntered through restaurants, flies landed where they pleased.

The small, bustling city of El Nido only comprised a few blocks, but it was vibrant and full of life and color. Myriad smells permeated the air—all the seafood one could imagine, pork adobo, curries, scents from a bakery. Underneath it all floated an undertone of less appetizing scents—sewage, unwashed bodies, gasoline.

Alex led them to a cozy bar and grill that specialized in seafood. Their table sat on the beach, plastic legs dug into the sand, and it looked out over lots of little boats like
Baby Roxanne
.

“It’s called a
Bangka
,” Jemma said.

“What?” Alex asked.

“Those canoes. They’re called
Bangkas
.”

They ate in silence for a bit. Alex ordered a pizza, which didn’t taste at all like pizza in New York. Jemma ordered fish
kinilaw
, a ceviche-type salad.

“Should we go back?” he asked.

“Yes, once we finish.”

“No, I mean back to New York. Have we bitten off more than we can chew?”

As it grew dark, she’d taken her sunglasses off, and now studied him from across the table. “We don’t even know what we’re dealing with here yet.”

“We’re dealing with something someone is willing to kill over.”

“We weren’t going to die on the island.”

“I’m not talking about that. Some sicko sacrificed an animal and nailed its carcass to your door.”

“Are you afraid?” she asked him. He found it hard to answer. He didn’t see things or feel things the way she did, but he knew they’d had their worst day of ghost hunting yet. This had always been something of a game to him. Fun. He’d read a meter and make extrapolations. They’d revealed a decades-old murder in England, and talked to girls who’d killed themselves because of a lecherous pedophiliac headmaster in Connecticut. He didn’t see ghosts, hear voices, feel chills.

“I want to be sure you’re safe.”

“So far so good.” Her weak smile didn’t convince him. She chewed on her lip a bit. “I’m not sure what we’re dealing with is even a ghost.”

“What else could it be?”

“A demon? I don’t know. I’d like to set up my instruments tomorrow, let them run overnight, analyze the readings, and then we should plan on an overnight.”

“And you think that’s a good idea?”

“How else will we know?”

A brash waitress cleared their plates while shouting something in Tagalog to a friend of hers down the beach. They paid the check. Alex chuckled at how fucking cheap everything here was.

“Let’s hit a bar.”

“Must we?”

“What better way to get a feel for the place?”

“Perhaps you should go…I can go back and work on the diary, the power’s on so I can do some more research online.”

“It would be fun…a drink? Loosen up?”

“No, not tonight.”

“You want me to take you back?”

“I’m all right. I’m not a child.”

He wanted to open his mouth, remind her of the dead bearcat nailed to her door. But she was right. She wasn’t a child. He offered, she declined.

“Are you going to go back to your cabin?” Alex asked. He didn’t like the idea of her being there alone.

He studied her. He never knew how far to push or when to let her go. Would her strange attire make her more or less of a target? He walked her to a trike, paid her way, told the driver where to take her. He wondered if he’d done the right thing as he went back to the bar. Wondered if he’d ever see her again…

Alex ordered a frozen piña colada and wandered over. He wondered for a split second about the ice, but figured the alcohol would kill whatever might be in it. He took his drink and went to watch the lights reflecting off the water.

“Excuse me?” An American voice, and not a vapid-sounding one.

Alex turned. The woman’s short, no-nonsense brown hair framed her face in a way that might be adorable, he couldn’t tell yet. Her eyes were big and brown, and she looked very young. He could tell she wasn’t, though, from the way she carried herself, and the more conservative cut of her clothes. Her T-shirt and capri pants were almost matronly by the standards of the bar.

“Is this seat taken?” She pointed to the plastic chair next to him.

“It is now. Please, sit.”

“I’m Karen Heath.” She stuck out a warm, dry hand, calloused from work. They shook. Alex introduced himself.

They danced through the customary “where are you from” conversation, he from New York, she from Minnesota. He discovered she worked for an NGO, trying to teach self-employed tour guides how they could conduct their business better for the tourists and better for the environment. She neared the end of her year here, and didn’t know where she might go next. Inevitably, she asked, “What do you do?”

Alex had a lot of fun with this question. “I’m a research assistant on a book,” he said.

“About what?”

“Hauntings. For this book, I’ve been to a haunted forest in Alaska, a school in Connecticut, a castle in England, and now a haunted island here on Palawan.”

“A haunted island? Where? Is that the one with the shrine?”

“Yeah, out past Helicopter Island.”

“Have you seen ghosts there?”

“Not yet. We got in yesterday. Today we went out for a few hours…”

“The morning doesn’t seem a very good time to see ghosts.”

“It’s not. That’s why we did it. Wanted to get a lay of the land without any distractions.” Alex couldn’t help thinking of being left there, and little dead bearcat eyes.

“We used to have a ghost in our house.” She leaned in as though she were confessing to killing a man.

“Yeah?” Everyone had their own ghost story. It was a great way to pick up chicks.

“A ghost cat. We didn’t have a cat, but all sorts of catlike things happened, stuff fell off high shelves, you know the sound when a cat startles and runs away really fast?”

Alex could think of a handful of nonspectral reasons for this, from small earthquakes to a rat infestation, but he held his tongue.

“Tell me more about the El Nido ghost,” she said.

“You know…it’s not super pleasant. I’d rather not.” Alex didn’t mean to pique her curiosity; he honestly didn’t want to talk about it. He expected her to press him, but instead she simply sat back on her bar stool, and changed the subject.

A Chinese woman, maybe twenty, appeared at the bar between them. She spoke in deliberate, heavily accented English. “Have you seen my brother Feng? He is Chinese, he is maybe eighteen? He wear a red shirt. I lost him last night.”

They both said they hadn’t seen him, and apologized. The girl frowned. “Sometimes he drink too much. Thank you.”

The woman made her rounds, and Alex noticed a lot of head shaking. No sign of Feng. Finally the woman had some luck with a couple of bikini-wearing blondes, one of whom pointed toward the door, then shrugged. The woman nodded, gave a slight bow, then followed the girl’s finger.

He and Karen kept chatting. She was nice…but off. He couldn’t put his finger on it yet. He debated needling her, getting her talking about herself, but decided he might like to get to know her in a more honest way. It started to get late, and his thoughts strayed more and more to Jemma.

“Um,” Karen asked shyly, “where are you staying?”

Alex grinned. “Vista Breeze,” he said. She smiled at him, then reached out and took his hand. She squeezed it.

Wow. Human contact. Alex tended to forget how much he missed it until he felt it.

“Are you going back to the island tomorrow?” Karen asked.

“I hope so…we’re having some trouble with our boatman.”

“Well that’s no good. Tomorrow’s my day off. I’ll take you guys out if you want.”

“Nah, we’ll make do.” He didn’t want to impose. Or endanger her. Though a little voice reminded him the biggest danger they faced yesterday was being stranded.

“I’m out on the islands all day every day. I know my way around. Even a haunted one.” She smiled, a clean, neat smile. Alex liked it.

“It’s too much to ask,” he said. “Especially on your day off.”

“Don’t worry about it. It’ll be fun. And I get to meet Jenna.”

“Jemma,” Alex corrected. She did that on purpose. He could tell from the way her lips moved. She liked him and she was jealous. Sweet. “It might be dangerous.”

“I carry a pistol. In case I run into any pirates, or anything I can’t otherwise handle. I’ve never had to use it, but it might make you feel better to have it along.”

Karen wasn’t afraid of the island, and she lived here. Maybe he was being stupid. Maybe they were onto something.

“Okay. What time’s good for you?”

“Whenever you want to go.”

“It’s your day off.”

“Is nine too late?”

“Let’s say ten.”

On their way out, they saw a crude missing-person poster stapled to a wall. A smiling girl, blonde hair, Marissa Mulchahey, last seen on the twenty-third.

10

Karen arrived on the beach at ten as she promised. She dragged her little motorboat ashore under ominous gray skies. Alex did a double take when he saw the name:
Lucky Daze.

Karen thrust out a hand to Jemma, who kept her arms folded over her chest. “I don’t touch people.”

“Sorry.” Karen turned the shake into an awkward wave. Alex went through introductions, and Jemma turned to tend to their gear. Her mouth made a straight line as they loaded their cases into the boat. Jemma picked up the ectometer’s waterproof Pelican case. She left the one with the microphones for Alex. She slogged out to the boat, ignoring the water that soaked her skirt. They brought nine microphones, which would be placed in various locations on the island and picked up the next day.

The waterproof gear, made for outdoor use, could be set up as usual, even in the rain.

Waves splashed up over the sides of the
Lucky Daze
, soaking their feet and the bottom few inches of Jemma’s dress. She dropped her head into her hands. She didn’t like Alex’s choice of a new boatman. When he asked her how she felt, she raised her head, shook it no, and dropped it back into her hands again. Alex’s stomach started to feel rather unpleasant as well.

Instead of motoring to the serene beach where Mr. Lucky had taken them, Karen tied up her boat at the concrete dock on the other side of the island.

“I thought it would keep your skirts drier,” Karen said.

“Won’t much matter when it rains.” Jemma helped herself out of the boat.

The island was a different place in the dreary gray light. The rain muted the green of the palms, and birds didn’t cry out to welcome them. This was a bad idea. A bad, stupid, awful idea.

Karen peered up at the sky. “It’ll pass. It will pour for a half hour, maybe, then blow by.” Karen headed down a little path, leaving Jemma and Alex to set up the first motion detectors on the dock.

Jemma aligned the height on the tripod, and angled the microphone so it picked up the greatest spread of noise. She kept her eyes on her work, sulky.

“This is still better than Mr. Lucky.” Alex punctuated with a smile, hoping to cheer her.

She ignored him. “I want to put the others by the gazebo, and near the doors of the building. Where else do you think? We’ve got another set.”