Tales from Dargo Island: The Complete Trilogy (6 page)

I woke up late
the next night and didn’t even have time to shower before I was out the door
and in my truck. Imagine how loudly I yelled when I turned the key in the
ignition and the engine didn’t start. I banged on the steering wheel until my
palms hurt.

Christy was out
with her husband, so she couldn’t drive me to Dallas. I looked down toward the
end of the street and saw a familiar black car coming my way. It parked next to
me in the street and I rolled down my window.

“Ah, man, you
have to work tonight?” Estevan asked.

“Yes.”

“I guess you
forgot about my birthday party.”

I suddenly
remembered before he even finished the sentence I rolled up the window and got
out of the truck. “Sorry, man. I did forget.” Every year, we went bowling with
his friends. Since he lived down the street, he always picked me up around this
time. “My truck won’t start, though, and I need a ride to work. Can you take
me?”

“Sure.”

I hopped into
his car and he drove me to the rail station.

“You have to
take this to get to work every day?” he asked.

“Yes. It’s not
as bad as it seems. It only takes...five minutes.”

“Whatever you
say.”

Before I got
out I said to him, “We can hang out tomorrow, before I go to work. Sorry I
forgot.”

“No problem.”
He stared at the rail while he said this. He seemed distracted.

As I got on the
rail, I noticed the sky getting cloudy. The wind picked up dramatically. I sat
in my usual spot. Tack walked on a moment later and sat directly across from
me. I waved at him and he waved back, but he looked dazed. I’d never seen him
awake before.

“Rockne told me
you don’t want to live on the island,” I said, trying to spark a conversation.

He nodded.

“Why not? It’s
a great place.”

Tack shrugged.

“I’ve been
thinking of moving there,” I told him.

At first, he
didn’t respond. And then he burst into laughter. And then he stopped laughing
like someone flipped a switch on him.

“Are you
getting off when we get to Dargo?” I asked as the rail started moving.

He nodded.

The trip to the
island was the roughest yet. The waves were so big they actually slapped against
the windows. Since I was so focused on the water, I could hear the roar going
on outside. I tried not to think about it to drown out the noise, but I just
couldn’t.

I was shocked
when the rail stopped suddenly. I looked to both ends, wondering if a live person
operated this machine. “What happened?” I asked Tack.

Again he
shrugged, but he didn’t look worried.

“Does this
happen often?”

“Never happened
before.”

I groaned.
“That’s encouraging.” I got up and walked toward the front. The rail shook when
a large gust of wind hit us. I steadied myself before attempting to walk again.
I wasn’t all that surprised to find no one at the controls; it was automated.

What did
surprise me was that the control console looked like a touch screen. There were
pink buttons and levers on the screen, all of which I didn’t know how to use. I
reached for the “lever” on the right and it suddenly appeared directly in front
of me, like a hologram.

I pulled my
hand back and the lever went back to the screen. I looked back at Tack and said,
“Did you see that?”

He shrugged, of
course, but he was looking directly at me so he must’ve seen it.

I reached for
the screen again and the lever reappeared in front of me. I attempted to grab
the three-dimensional thing, expecting my fingers to go through it, but I
actually felt the lever, like it was solid. I pushed it up, and the rail
lurched forward a little.

There was
another pink lever on the left, so I reached out for that. It appeared in front
of me, so I pulled it and heard a click underneath the rail. The brake? I
pushed the other lever again and the rail moved forward, only faster this time.

The rail
started up again, slowly building speed.

I activated the
brake as we passed the waterfall and pulled into the station. Rockne was
waiting there. I stepped off the rail, and was shocked that Tack did the same.
He didn’t say anything to Rockne. He simply walked away from us. Rockne barely
noticed him, though; he was looking at the sky, off toward where I’d come from.
I told him how the rail acted up, but he didn’t seem to hear me.

“That’s weird,”
he said.

“What is?”

“See that red
tint in the sky?”

I did.

“It usually
gets like that when Nalke’s at work. He’s never been this close to us before.”

I suddenly
reached up to my neck. “Oh, no! I forgot the necklace.”

Rockne looked
at me. “Oh. That may be it.”

He said it so
casually. I felt more worried than him. “Did he follow me?” I asked.

“Probably, but
it’s only been a week since his attack, so he’s not at full strength yet. He’ll
probably forget all about this place by tomorrow.”

I felt a little
better.

That would
change later on that night.

I still
couldn’t believe I’d forgotten my necklace. It was because I’d woken up late
and was in a hurry. It must have fallen off as I was changing my shirt. I kept
looking up at the dark sky, waiting for Nalke to drop a tornado on me. Rockne
assured me that the nature demon couldn’t do anything to the island, that it
was protected by a spell similar to the one that hindered the waves on the cliff-side
highway.

I tried to
watch TV but couldn’t concentrate on the images. I tried reading that dumb book
I’d been working on for a year but that too ended poorly. I was thisclose to
getting rid of the thing altogether. As I tossed it in my backpack I thought I
saw something in the corner of my eye. When I looked out the window directly in
front of me, all I saw was the road and the mountains.

And then I saw
something to my right, on the other side of the gatehouse. It had looked like a
shadow on the street, like someone was walking away. I looked up at the
monitors to see if the cameras had caught it, but there was nothing there.

I went back to
looking at the TV since I couldn’t enjoy it. There was sitcom on, and the laugh
track was grating on my nerves. I hate sitcoms with “live audiences.”

I saw something
again, in my peripheral vision, on the other side. I looked quickly and just
saw a solid form step away from the sliding door. I jumped out of my seat, my
heart racing. I looked up at the monitors and saw the last bit of a shadow
disappear from view.

Someone had
just walked out of the camera’s sight.

I didn’t know
what to do. I tried to convince myself it was just Astrid paying a visit again,
but whoever—whatever—I’d seen at the door was a lot taller than her. I opened
the sliding door behind me and poked my head out but saw nothing, heard
nothing. I knew doing so was the stupidest thing ever and expected someone to
cut off my head at any moment, but nothing happened.

I closed the
door and crossed over to the other side of the gatehouse. This time, I simply
looked out the windows. Nothing. When I turned around to head back to my seat,
I saw the figure disappear from that door!

I screamed this
time.

Whatever had
been there had put its hands on the glass of the door. There was a slimy
handprint there.

I seriously
didn’t know what to do. It was three in the morning, and everyone was asleep. I
grabbed the phone and called Ernie. He was my supervisor, after all, and he was
nearby.

“Hello?” he
answered groggily.

“Hey, Ernie,
it’s Josh. Something weird is going on here at the Village. I think someone is
taunting me. He or she keeps circling the gatehouse, but I can’t get a good
look at them. They just left a slimy handprint on the glass door right by me.”

“Did you check
the footage on the cameras?”

I slapped my
head. “I forgot how to do that.”

“No problem.
Just right-click the mouse and select the ‘playback’ option.”

I did so and
found the cameras were motion-activated. Little green bars indicated recorded
footage. I selected the last thin green bar, and the video played.

“Oh, my god,” I
whispered.

“Josh? What is
it?” Ernie sounded worried, no longer tired.

“I have no idea
what I’m looking at,” I said as I watched the slimy, black creature look up at
the camera before disappearing out of view.

*
 
*
 
*

Ernie arrived
ten minutes later and examined the footage himself. He kept looking at the
slimy handprint as well. “We need to tell Rockne,” he said as he reached for
the phone.

After talking
with Rockne, Ernie hung up the phone and said, “Stay here. I’m going to
Rockne’s and we’re going to search the Village for that thing.”

“Okay.” The
thought of some creature wandering the neighborhood made me shiver. I couldn’t
believe it had been here with me. None of the sliding doors had locks, for some
reason, and it could’ve easily slipped inside and attacked me.

After Ernie
left for Rockne’s house, I stood watching the monitors. The TV was off and the
book put away; I couldn’t imagine even pretending to enjoy either. After thirty
minutes, I saw headlights approach from up the hill. It was Ernie’s truck. He
walked up to the gatehouse.

“We didn’t find
it,” he said as Rockne joined us.

I nodded. “Do
you think it’s still in the Village?”

“Absolutely,”
Rockne said as he watched the footage himself.

“Do you know
what it is?” Ernie asked him.

He paused the
recording on the creature looking at the camera. “An intruder.”

“Intruder?” I
asked.

“To the island.
I put up a two-part protective spell to ward off uninvited guests. The spell is
supposed to make the intruder want to leave the island immediately. But this
person stayed. That’s where the second part of the spell takes over.” He
pointed to the monitor. “The spell begins to damage the person’s body the
longer they stay on the island.”

“The only
person I saw come to the island was Tack, but he’s not an unwanted guest, is
he?” I asked, scratching my head.

“He isn’t,”
Rockne said. “But he may have brought someone who wasn’t invited.”

I shook my
head. “What do you mean?”

“One of Nalke’s
many talents is the ability to Hitchhike, which means he can ride along inside
someone. It’s the only way he can walk on land.”

“Like
possession?” I guessed.

“Exactly. He
may be Hitchhiking Tack right now.”

I looked at the
screen again. “Are you telling me that oozing thing is Tack?”

Rockne nodded,
still looking at the screen. “Hard to believe, isn’t it?”

“Is Tack going
to be okay?” I asked.

“Probably not.
I could heal him in the hot tub if I can find him in time, but the longer he’s
out there, the less likely it’ll work.” He looked at me now. “Though, I’m not
going to save him if Nalke’s still using him.”

He sounded so
cold at that moment. I shuddered. “What happens to Nalke if Tack dies?”

“He returns to
the sky with a vague idea of what he saw here. If he were at full strength, he
would remember. But, like I said, he’s still weak from attacking you and Shae.”

“If you find
Tack, can you drive Nalke out of him?”

“Maybe.”

The phone
suddenly rang, scaring all three of us. I answered.

And then I
listened, my eyes growing wider by the second. I looked at Rockne. “That was
Champagne. She said she saw something standing at her window.”

Ernie and
Rockne jumped into the truck and sped down the hill. This night was getting
crazier by the minute. I told Champagne help was on the way and then hung up. I
was glad Astrid hadn’t tried to see me that night. I couldn’t imagine her
coming across that thing—Tack—in the middle of the night. It would’ve been
terrifying....

Well, maybe
even worse than terrifying. Nalke was most likely using Tack to find her
anyway.

Over the next
twenty minutes, I got a few more calls from Victor and the Belles’ nurse
telling me they saw or heard something outside their homes. I called Ernie’s
cell and told him, and he and Rockne checked out each house.

I paced the
spacious gatehouse, noticing little things I hadn’t before. There was a
bookshelf in the far corner, next to the couch. I’d thought it held books but
noticed that they were audiobooks.

Before I could
check the titles, I heard a noise outside. I looked through the large windows
on my right, by the entrance lane. The wind blew the trees around me. I
returned to the monitors and searched for intruders. Though I didn’t know Tack
very well, I still felt sorry for him. I hoped Rockne would be able to save him
from rotting away entirely.

I also hoped
something would be done about Nalke. He was a dangerous being who had to be
stopped. I still didn’t get his agenda; as far as I could tell, he just wanted
to regain his full strength and keep on existing. Nothing wrong with that, I
suppose. All I wanted to do was live my life without interference, as well.

I wondered if
some kind of truce could be made between Rockne and Nalke. It seemed the only
way to fix things. I doubted Rockne would consider it after all the people he’d
lost in the war.

My nose started
bleeding, so I ran to the bathroom.

I heard a door
slide open.

I threw away
the bloody tissue and walked toward the bathroom door, putting my hand on it.
“Who’s there?” I asked.

No reply. My
heart beat so fast I thought it would explode. I closed the bathroom door, then
pulled out my cell phone and called Ernie.

“We haven’t
found him yet,” he said by way of hello.

“I think he’s
here,” I whispered, pressing my foot to the bottom of the door, which didn’t
have a lock.

The doorknob
turned. The door moved inward.

I pressed
against it, groaning. I was scared to death.

“Hurry back,” I
said to Ernie.

“On our way,”
he said quickly.

I put my phone
in my pocket and put all my weight against the door. I didn’t quite know what
Tack was capable of, or what Nalke was capable of in human form, but I did know
I didn’t want him touching me. I didn’t want to see him up close with his
oozing skin.

The door
stopped moving and a gentle knocking followed. “Josh?” a familiar voice called.

“Astrid?”

I opened the
door slowly and saw her standing there, looking confused.

“What are you
doing here?” I asked.

“I came to see
you. Why?”

“There’s
something in the Village and we think it’s after you. You shouldn’t be here.”

I grabbed her
hand and pulled her toward the door she’d come through. I figured Ernie and
Rockne would be there any minute; they could take her home safely. Before we
could get to the door, however, we ran into Tack.