Storm Surge (18 page)

“Worth,” Blake
said, “You and Moon go get it from the construction site.”

“Suits me,”
Montrose said. She got up and flicked on a light. “I’m getting’ tired of
sittin
’ here in the dark anyway.”

“You think we
should be putting any lights on?” Worth said.

Blake thought
a moment,
then
nodded.
“Should be
okay.
I doubt we’ll be getting any more visitors. Not after what
happened to the last group.”

“What about
our friends out there?” Worth gestured towards the outside.

“What about
them?” Blake said. “Chances are
,
they’re holed up.
They won’t be passing by.”

“If they do,”
Worth said, “they’ll know right where we are.”

A smile spread
across Blake’s face. “Fine,” he said. “Then they can come to us.”

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

The water was
ankle deep, but it tugged and sucked at them as they marched, head down, back
through the howling wind and rain. After finally getting dry and warm, it was
tough for even Mercer to force himself back out into the tempest. He wondered
if he’d waited too long, his reluctance to brave the storm again masquerading
as a desire to be prepared.

They’d
gathered water and canned goods, wrapped in plastic and slung over Sharon and
Glory’s backs in knapsacks improvised from table cloths. Mercer had taken a
giant meat-cutter’s knife and duct-taped it firmly to a long black iron pole
once used to hold up decorative torches for functions on the beach. He didn’t
for a moment think it was going to make much difference against a machine gun,
but it gave him a spearman’s reach in single combat. He slogged along, the
spear over his shoulder, eyes forward. Behind him he could hear the slosh of
the women’s steps. He glanced back. They had their heads down, shoulders
slumped. They looked utterly miserable. He looked ahead again, his eyes
searching for enemies, his gaze calm and level even as his thoughts seethed
like the water around him.

Sharon’s words
had unsettled him.
I really wish you were Max,
she’d said.
Me, too
,
he’d thought. He’d liked being Max. Max had a nice, if somewhat boring job that
at least took him outdoors in the fresh salt air and the sun. Max may not have
had any close friends, but he got along with everybody. Max had a quiet normal
life. “Is Max gone forever?” she’d asked, and when he saw the look in her eyes,
he’d wanted to say no. He wanted to be Max.
For her.

For most of
his adult life, what had kept him grounded was his own sense of certainty. He
knew the rules. He knew how he needed to live. And he knew who needed killing.

He thought
back to the foster home he’d lived in from almost three years, from his twelfth
to his fifteenth summer. His foster mother had been an older woman named
Earla
Suggs. Miss
Earla
, as she
insisted he call her (always being careful to add “ma’am” at regular
intervals), would have needed only the hat to play a witch at
Hallowe’een
. She was bony, beak-nosed, and
snaggle
-
toothed,
with a wild
unruly shock of gray hair she normally kept tied back. When she spoke, her
accent clearly revealed her origins in the Kentucky hills.

She had also
been the closest thing to a mother Mercer had known up till that time. She kept
him well fed, well clothed and made sure he got his schoolwork done. She tucked
him in every night and read him a chapter of the Bible as he drifted off. He
didn’t understand much of the words, particularly the long parts about who
begat who, but Miss
Earla’s
bone-dry twang had been
familiar and comforting.

One summer,
Miss
Earla
had gotten the summons to appear for jury
duty. She was a widow who lived alone; there was no one to watch him if she was
gone. So she took him with her. She sat him on one of the old dark wood benches
in the county courthouse and told him to be still and read his Bible. He did
it; had she asked him to crawl through broken glass he would have done it. But
when she actually was picked for the jury pool, he was too fascinated by what
was going on to pay much attention to the worn and cracked leather book she’d
left with him.

The case had
seemed open and shut. The Defendant, a young woman named Darla Steed, had cut
her husband’s throat as he slept, then called the police and confessed. Her
young defense lawyer had tried to put on evidence that the husband had been a
drunkard and an abuser, on one occasion beating Darla so badly she had
miscarried
their child. The judge, however, refused to
instruct the jury on self-defense; the man had been asleep, he insisted, and no
immediate threat justifying the use of deadly force. But when the jury retired
to deliberate, they were gone three hours before coming back and announcing
they were hopelessly deadlocked, 11 to 1 for conviction. The judge scowled and
sent them back in. Three more hours passed with the same result. The judge,
clearly irked, looked at the clock, which was getting on towards 6:00 PM, and
began, “I can’t ask which one of you voted which way…”

Miss
Earla
stood up. “Don’t need ta. I
din’t
vote to convict that girl, and I
ain’t
gonna
.”

“Ma’am,” the
judge said, “you need to…”

“Judge,” Miss
Earla
broke in. “That man needed
killin
’.”

“The law,” the
judge said, “does not recognize that as a defense.”

“
Ain’t
my problem what the law recognizes or don’t,” Miss
Earla
said.
“Right’s right.
And
that man needed
killin
’. Now if you’ll excuse me, I
got a young ‘un to go home and feed.” The judge threatened her with contempt.
She shrugged and told him, “Do what you
gotta
do, and
so will I.” The judge threatened to keep the jury there all night, all week if
necessary. “Do what you
gotta
do,” she said again. “I
ain’t
a-
gonna
send that
little girl to prison for
killin
’ a sorry so and so
like that, and that’s all there is to it.” Finally, the judge, through clenched
teeth, declared a mistrial. Miss
Earla
had just
nodded with satisfaction, swept down out of the jury box, and told him “Come
on, boy, we’re late for supper.” He had followed, her words running through his
head.

He needed
killing.

Something in
her face, her voice, her absolute certainty, had called to the boy who’d known
little certainty and little stability in his life. There were some people, he
knew deep in his
bones, that
just needed killing. Like
the people who had killed his parents.

Six months
later, Miss
Earla
was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.
Social Services took him away to another foster home the day she went into the
hospital. He never saw her again.

Mercer gritted
his teeth. He didn’t have time for memories. He didn’t have time for doubts. He
needed to be Mercer.
At least for a little while longer.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

The land rose
gradually as they walked north. Soon the water became shallower,
then
they were only contending with the mud. Mercer began
looking for a new refuge. Sharon had probably been right when she’d said that
the gunmen probably would set up their base in the old lighthouse.

Everyone who
knew anything about Pass Island soon learned the story of how the old ugly
structure had repeatedly withstood the worst nature could throw. It wouldn’t be
hard to turn the place into a fortress. So Mercer was looking for someplace on
the leeward aside of the island, high enough to stay above the rising water,
but far enough away from the lighthouse so as not to attract attention. He’d
stash Sharon and Glory there, with instructions to stay quiet and lay low. Then
he’d go hunting. He expected that his adversaries would themselves have gone to
ground, out of the weather. They wouldn’t be expecting anyone to be out in
this, stalking them. That would be their mistake. Hopefully, it would give him
some element of surprise. He was going to need all the advantages he could get.

He slowed a
bit and leaned forward, listening. Over the wailing of the wind and rain, he
thought he could hear the sound of a generator. Through the trees, he thought
he could make out the white sides of the Buchan house. He held up a hand
backwards, signaling them to stop. Sharon, head down, ran into him before she
noticed.

“What?” she
said irritably.

He started to
speak, but the noise of the wind made regular conversation impossible. He
leaned over to speak into her ear. She pulled back slightly, but then saw what
he was doing and leaned forward. “I think I’ve found where they are,” he said.
“Stay here.” He glanced up through the trees. He could barely see the top of
the lighthouse on its promontory.
Oh shit
, he thought,
if they’ve got
anyone up there
…he leaned back in.

“Get off the
road,” he said.
“Now.”

“What? Why?”
Sharon asked.

“The
lighthouse.
I
should have thought of it. They may have a lookout.”

Glory came up
behind her. “What’s going on?”

He took her
shoulder gently and pulled her in close so that the three of them huddled
together on a tight triangle.
“The lighthouse.
Someone
up there can see the road.
Parts of it at least.”

“I don’t think
anyone can see anything through all this fucking rain,” Glory said.

“You may be
right. But I’m not taking any chances. Stay under the trees if you can from now
on.” He thought again of the noise he’d heard. “Just wait here a second.” He
turned and moved along the side of the road, under the trees, his improvised
spear held out ahead of him. He came to the driveway of the Buchan house,
flanked by tall concrete pillars with an iron gate between. The gate was shut.
A chain and padlock lay in a puddle in front of it. Mercer moved slowly over
and picked the chain up out of the mud. A half link fell off of one end. The
chain had been cut. Mercer looked up at the house. There were metal shutters
over the windows, like the ones in Kathy-with-a K’s house. These, too were down
and fastened, but he could see a glimmer of light around the edges of one of
the upstairs windows. The familiar stuttering roar of a big generator came and
went on the rising wind. With the windows sealed and armored over, he didn’t
think anyone could see him from the house. It was more habit than anything that
caused him to slowly back away until the house was hidden from view. He jogged
the short distance back to where Glory and Sharon were.

“They’re in
the Buchan house,” he told them.
“Some of them, at least.”

“So where are
we going?” Glory said.

He raised an
arm and pointed down the road to where a crossroad intersected the main avenue.
“That way,” he said.

“What’s down
there?” Sharon said.

“A
friend’s house.”

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

In the lantern
room, Phillips closed his book and chuckled. “Not bad,” he said. “Not bad at
all.” He picked up the binoculars and stood up. He tried to scan the horizon,
but the glass walls of the lantern room were translucent with the water that
cascaded down from the roof.
The deluge outside cut
visibility even further.
There was no way to tell if anyone was approaching,
but he was willing to bet a fair amount that no one else would be insane enough
to try. He swiveled the glasses onto the island, looking for signs of movement
on the road. Here, too, his vision was obscured. He watched as a large gnarled
live-oak tree on the road near the lighthouse slowly began to go over, its
roots unable to hold it down in the rain softened soil. It seemed to fall
silently, what must have been a mighty crash muffled by rain and out-shouted by
wind. Phillips chewed his lower lip. Those trees looked centuries old. If they
couldn’t hold on…he looked over at the rifle leaning against the glass.
Destroyer,
he thought, and laughed softly to himself. He looked back outside. The gray
half light
was becoming noticeably dimmer. Night was coming
on.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

“Wow,” Glory
said. “This place is amazing.”

She had thrown
herself on a big leather couch in the living room. A massive flat panel TV
dominated one wall, the shuttered windows the other.

“Glory,”
Sharon said, “Dry off before you get water all over the furniture.”

Glory laughed,
sounding a little giddy with the relief of being indoors, warm and dry again.
“Gee, Mom,” she said, “After we broke in, you think they’re going to be worried
about me dripping on their nice leather couch?”

“Just get a
towel.”