The Montauk Monster (26 page)

Can Man shook his head. “Crazy would be keeping him on board when we have ladies and a child. You don’t worry. That one’s for my conscience to live with, not yours.”

Meredith looked back at him, her face ashen.

The woman lay on her rump, staring blankly out at sea.

“Can you get us to Connecticut?” he asked Meredith.

“If no one stops us, yes.”

The east end of the island was in flames. Montauk had become a crematorium.

Heavy clouds obscured the moon and stars. The fires of larger vessels dotted the black water. It was if they’d been dropped into a war zone. Thanks to the diminutive size of the boat and the oncoming storm that brought visibility down to zero, they slipped past the patrol ships and out into the open waters.

Just before the light of day, under a steady downpour, they pulled into a deserted marina in Fairfield, Connecticut. This time around, Meredith safely tucked the boat into a vacated slip. Exhausted, they got off the boat, their legs no better than those of a marathoner at the finish line.

Dalton found an old storage shed, climbed through the unlocked window and let everyone inside. It was cluttered with old traps, nets, poles and smelled of grease, but it was safe and dry and would keep them from prying eyes until they figured out their next step.

He lay against one of the clapboard walls, Meredith resting her head on his chest. Can Man and the woman, who in the light of day looked awfully familiar, huddled in the opposite corner. The boy, thumb firmly in his mouth, curled against Meredith. Dalton was the last to close his eyes, and when sleep came, it was mercifully devoid of dreams.

When he woke several hours later, he listened for the sounds of typical morning activity at a marina.

The silence was deafening.

Slipping out from under Meredith, he crept out of the shed.

Gunmetal clouds sat low and heavy in the sky. In the distance, thunder rumbled.

The marina was empty.

His stomach growled. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten. He wasn’t sure what he wanted more, breakfast or a cigarette. After what he’d been through, he didn’t think it greedy to find a way to have both. His wallet was still soggy, but he had forty dollars cash and a credit card. It was a short walk to the small convenience store just outside the marina parking lot. The owner, an older, rail-thin man who wore a jet-black toupee, barely looked his way as he rang him up. An earbud was plugged into his ear, whatever he had on capturing all of his attention.

Dalton left with a bag filled with buttered rolls, snack cakes, beef jerky, coffee, a pack of Marlboro and bottles of orange juice.

He forgot to get a paper.

What will they say happened in Montauk? There’s no way they can sweep this under the rug. Who can I get in touch with to tell the world the truth? Who can I even trust beyond my parents and the folks back in the storage shed?

There were so many questions alongside too many painful truths. Ripping off the cellophane, he pinched a cigarette out of the pack, lit it after three matches and inhaled deeply. It burned his lungs but also quieted the noise in his head as effectively as Sister Veronica, his trollish third grade teacher could shush a classroom of rambunctious kids.

He turned back to the store and picked up a
Daily News
,
New York Times
and
New York Post
.

The headlines made his heart stop.

T
ERROR
S
TRIKES
A
GAIN

H
AMPTONS
-M
ONTAUK
W
IPED
O
UT BY
D
IRTY
B
OMB

His hands shook too much to leaf through the soft pages. When he returned to the store for the third time, he finally got the owner’s full attention. The man eyed his uniform.

“You going out there, son?”

Dalton couldn’t get his mouth to work.

“I heard they were evacuating the coast here this afternoon. Storm winds might blow that toxic waste our way.”

The man continued to talk while he read the paper.

It’s all wrong! They’re lying!

“I knew things wouldn’t stop at 9/11. We just got deeper and deeper into that mess out there. The only way to stop those fuckers is to kill every one of them.” The man’s eyes brimmed with tears. “I mean it. We either do it right this time and end it, or we should just give them the keys to the damn country and let them have at it.”

It was apparent there was more he wanted to say, but he was too choked up to speak his mind. He pulled the earbud from his ear and went through a door in the back.

Dalton left the store in a daze. He wasn’t even sure how he made it back to the storage shed. Everyone was still asleep.

He knelt by Meredith, resting his hand on her knee. She stirred, eyes fluttering open.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s all gone . . .” The words trailed off. She reached her hand around his neck, pulling him close. The boy shifted in his sleep between them.

He lost parents, too. He watched them die.

Dalton placed a trembling hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“Oh shit!”

Can Man’s exclamation made them jump. He scampered to his feet, backing away from the woman. Through the pale light streaming through the window, Dalton saw blood and foam flowing from the woman’s mouth, eyes and ears. Her skin looked as if it had been removed, stretched, and draped over her bones like an ill-fitting dress.

Somehow, in the struggle last night, she’d been infected.

Can Man kicked the door open to let more light inside. He checked his hands and clothes.

“Did I get any on me?” he asked, his voice rippling with anxiety.

Dalton saw the mass of bloody foam caked in his hair. A finger of it oozed down the man’s cheek.

“Oh no,” Meredith huffed.

“You did,” Dalton said, pointing at the diseased plasma.

Tears sprang to Can Man’s eyes. He winced as the infected blood burned his skin. He wavered in the doorway, gripping the frame with both hands to remain upright.

“I don’t want to die like them,” he said.

Metal slid against concrete as Dalton reached for one of the gaffing poles. He looked over at Meredith and the boy. He took a deep breath. The boy, who had awoken, saw Can Man and the pile of flesh that was the woman. He instinctively closed his eyes.

“Please, help me.” Can Man eyed the pole, closed his eyes and nodded his head.

“I’m sorry,” Dalton said.

He thrust the pole into Can Man’s chest. Can Man lurched backward, gripping the pole. He took a few stumbling steps before tripping over his own feet. When he landed, blood spewed from his mouth, coating the dock.

Dalton grabbed Meredith’s and the boy’s hands, leading them out of the shed, careful to avoid the spreading pool of blood flowing from Can Man’s still chest. They walked down the deserted dock until he found a boat with an interior galley. Using the butt of his empty Glock, he broke the lock on the door and ushered them inside.

There were cushioned seats long enough to lie down on. “I’ll be back,” he said. Meredith started to protest.

He came back with the bag of food and drinks as well as the paper. No one, despite their gnawing hunger, was up to eating.

“You’ll want to read that,” he said. “Best work of fiction of all time.”

Meredith held a bottle of orange juice to the boy’s lips. He took a small sip, then lay on his side, closing his eyes. “What do we do now?” she said.

“We wait. If none of us are infected, we’ll have to find someone we can trust.”

Meredith asked, “And if we are infected?”

He reached out to hold her hand in his.

“We’ll have to find a way to tell everyone the truth.”

The boat rocked gently, lulling them to a sleep so deep, they didn’t even stir when the evacuation sirens sounded, emptying the entire county.

There are a few people I want to thank for making this possible. First, huge thanks to Gary Goldstein, a fantastic editor and one of the funniest guys I’ve ever met. Thank you, Carolyn Wolstencroft and Erin Al Mehairi, for making this a far better book than I could have done on my own. Also to top cop Dale Hughes, for his technical expertise, and Woody Woodward, for providing a home away from home to work on the book during a very difficult time—I miss Maine every day. Thank you to my superagent, Louise Fury, and her constant encouragement, and last but not least, to the skunk apes of the Everglades. Without them, this whole thing may never have happened.

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Copyright © 2014 Hunter Shea

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ISBN: 978-0-7860-3475-8

First electronic edition: June 2014

ISBN-13: 978-0-7860-3476-5
ISBN-10: 0-7860-3476-9