A Pagan's Nightmare (11 page)

Lanny continued on toward the boats, board by board. When he reached the point on the dock where he could see the first dozen
slips, he was stunned to see a boat docked in the fifth.

The Miranda!
he thought to himself.

Lanny recognized its shape and took off running. “Ned!” he yelled over his shoulder. “Ned, hurry up. I see the boat.”

DJ Ned was only a few feet onto the dock, still negotiating the most heavily damaged section. His extra weight proved a strain
for the support posts, and the resulting ripples sloshed against the
Humbleness,
whose deck was covered in seaweed and driftwood.

Onto solid dock now, Ned jogged,
clomp clomp
in his size-twelve Adidas, down to where Lanny stood pointing at the rear of a three-level cabin cruiser.

The
Saniti
sat undamaged in the fifth slip, right next to the
Sanitized 2.

Ned pulled up beside Lanny and stared at the name—
Saniti,
as if whoever was changing the moniker got interrupted by the storm and had no time to paint the
z, e,
and
d.
Or had someone stolen the boat before some zealot could finish the alteration? Or—and Lanny savored this thought—had Miranda
recently docked the boat herself? Perhaps this very afternoon.

“I’m going aboard,” said Lanny, talking to no one in particular. He stepped down onto the boat without inviting Ned.

“I’ll, um… I’ll just wait right here,” Ned replied.

Lanny stood on the deck of the
Saniti
and turned slowly, observing details, searching for clues. After a full minute of tightlipped deliberation, he pointed to
the
Sanitized 2
in the next slip.

“See that, Ned?”

Ned turned and looked. “All the seaweed hanging off the side?”

Lanny turned and pointed the other way. “Now look at the
Humbleness.”

Ned turned and stared. “She’s covered in seaweed, too.”

“Exactly. But this boat I’m standing on has no seaweed. Which means—”

“It wasn’t docked here for the hurricane. It just arrived also.”

Lanny descended into the cabin. He searched the stateroom, noting the familiar nautical pillows that Miranda’s mother had
cross-stitched with blue anchors. He checked the tiny bathroom and saw a bottle of Pantene—Miranda’s favorite shampoo. He
looked in the
closet and saw nothing but a couple of T-shirts belonging to her father. No note anywhere. No sign of anyone. Yet the cabin
had been left unlocked, as if whoever docked the boat had departed in a hurry.

Lanny emerged from the cabin and frowned into the sunset. The sky was clear in the way skies are on the day after a hurricane,
as if Gretchen had sucked all the impurities from the air as she barreled north into Georgia and the Carolinas. Lanny’s shoulders
slumped in disappointment. “Nothing. No sign of her.”

Ned was a silhouette above him. “I’m really sorry, man. But look what I found.”

Lanny squinted up at Ned, who stood perspiring above him on the dock, holding a dead gull by the wings. “Nice bird, Ned.”

“While you were below deck I found it on board the
Choir Girl.”
Ned held the wings wide so that the gull’s head flopped to the side. “Think this is some kind of symbol—a dead bird on the
Choir Girl?”

“It symbolizes that you should wash your hands before dinner.”

After tossing the gull into the water, Ned pulled at his sweat-soaked shirt and noted with a frown how many feathers clung
to its side. “Any clean shirts in there?” he asked, pointing at the cabin door.

Lanny ducked back into the cabin. In seconds he emerged back on deck and flung a balled T-shirt at Ned. “Put that on.”

Ned pulled off his wet polo and slipped on the gray T-shirt, screen-printed with Pelican’s Harbor Retirement Home’s 2005 Shuffleboard
Champion.

“It’s a bit tight,” Ned complained.

Lanny paid him no attention. He climbed back onto the dock and motioned for Ned to follow him. “Seen anyone lurking?”

Ned hurried to catch up. “This whole marina is empty except for us.”

“That’s just plain weird.”

“We didn’t see a soul on the road from the airport, and no one here either. You’d think we’d have seen
somebody”

Lanny glanced left and right as he walked toward land. “Think all the zealots evacuated?”

“Air Traffic Control didn’t,” Ned replied. “That guy was one-hundred percent zealot. A purebred. Well, a gullible purebred.”

They left the dock and walked across the oyster shells to Ned’s car. Lanny paused at the front wheel and ran a finger over
a small crack in the windshield. “Good luck getting insurance to cover this.”

Ned climbed back into his yellow convertible, nodding as if he’d noticed the crack earlier. “If it comes down to a choice
between hurricane damage or religious damage, I’ll risk the hurricane every time.”

“Same here.” Lanny opened the passenger door and sat on a CD casing, which snapped under his butt. He tossed it into the backseat
without apology. “Make sure you drive with extreme caution. Zealots could appear anywhere, anytime.”

Ned stuck his key in the ignition. “I know a way we can hide. We can go to my station.”

“The radio station? But they’ll have already staked out the place.”

The Mercedes engine roared to life. “I’ll announce that I’m doing my talk show from Jacksonville. I’ve broadcast from there
many times.”

Skeptical of this plan, Lanny didn’t even offer a nod.
The world comes to an end, and I get paired with Mr. Optimist.

Along the coastal highway, the blacktop was covered in sand and limbs. To the sides of the road sat beach houses in various
states of destruction. Roofs missing. Windows blown out. A fishing boat impaled in someone’s living room. And the shingles…
Roof shingles lay everywhere, mixed with palm fronds, Mother Nature’s tossed salad.

At Lanny’s insistence, Ned drove him back to Pelican’s Harbor Retirement Homes. They found only the beige Buick in the driveway,
the black leather travel bag blown across the porch, wet and tipped onto its side. Frustrated, Lanny placed the bag back at
the doorstep and left a new note for Miranda.

8/20 7:50 p.m.

Just back from the marina to Look for you. Will resume search in earnest tomorrow.

Lanny

Then he went over to the Buick and stuck a shiny penny in the tread of the passenger-side back tire. When he returned here
again, he wanted to know if the car had moved.

Ned and Lanny drove swiftly on Highway 520, heading for Orlando. It was now 8:00 p.m., and the road was empty for the next
several miles.

“Don’t forget about my truck,” Lanny said as a reminder.

At the next exit, Ned pulled into the convenience store to let Lanny pick up his Xterra. They both feared being spotted by
hidden cameras, and each left skidmarks in his departure.

Lanny followed Ned out onto Highway 528, and proved himself a worthy tailgater. Soon he saw headlights in the distance, a
long stream of headlights from a long stream of vehicles, headed right for them.

“There they are,” Lanny said to himself. He honked to Ned and pointed. “I knew it. A whole platoon of ‘em. Back to kidnap
us and reclaim Florida for themselves.”

Ned veered off the highway, squealing tires as he sped up the next exit ramp, Lanny right on his bumper.

T
HE FIRST THING
that DJ Ned and Lanny saw upon arriving at Fence-Straddler AM was a handmade sign on the door:

No one found. Fled premises.

At first this produced in them great alarm, but they figured the smart move was to leave the sign for all to see—and to barricade
themselves inside the station. To accomplish this feat, Lanny employed his construction skills and his Craftsman cordless
drill. With great efficiency he installed two-inch wood screws through plywood and into the door frames. Then he crisscrossed
two-by-fours behind the plywood and affixed them with even longer screws. Three inchers. Even a few fours.
Ah, safer now.

Above him on the second floor, Ned simply locked the windows. He was not much for manual labor.

Secured inside, the men had food, drink, and access to the airwaves. They had been away from the mainland for three days,
however, and had no idea what had occurred in the States since that balmy Bahama night when Rose promised Frozen Jack she’d
never use a swear word.

The next morning Ned came out of the shower room wearing a Fence-Straddler AM T-shirt and blue jeans. Barefoot but clean,
he stepped inside the broadcast booth and began pressing buttons and testing the sound equipment. “Ever been on the air, Lann-o?”
he asked.

Lanny sat against the wall, a turkey-on-wheat in one hand and an IBC root beer in the other. “Nah, never had the chance.”

Ned lifted his mic high over the Plexiglass to where Lanny could
see it. “Wanna appeal to the country—or what
remains
of the country—about Miranda?”

Lanny let out a carbonation burp and said, “Absolutely.” He knew he’d sound emotional in his pleas.

First, however, he had to sit through Ned’s opening monologue.

Ned sat in his DJ chair and gripped his mic. “Mornin’ to the fruited plain. I hesitate to use
’Good
morning,’ just out of deference to all my friends along the central East Coast area. The aftermath of Gretchen is anything
but good, and residents are just now beginning to filter back in from the evacuation. Most will have weeks of rebuilding work
ahead. I’m DJ Ned Neutral, your eyes and ears for the aftermath, broadcasting from my secret booth here in Jacksonville.”

Ned pressed a button to begin a commercial. Then he summoned Lanny to the booth. “Lann-o, can you do voices?” Ned spoke quickly
and watched the clock. He had less than two minutes before he was back on the air.

Lanny stood in the doorway, gripping the frame. “I thought you were going to let me plead for information on Miranda’s whereabouts—”

“You can. But first I need you to pose as two non-religious callers.”

“Aw, man, I’m not sure if—”

“Just try.”

“What kinds of voices?”

“Slices of Americana. You go get on the phone at the producer’s desk, and I’ll hold up a sign for which voice to use.”

Lanny grew more hesitant. “I dunno, man.”

Ned grew persuasive. “C’mon! First voice can be your own. We need to fool the zealots into thinking more of us are left.”

Lanny slowly began to cave. “I just dunno if I can do voices that aren’t southern or—”

“Hurry, I’m back on the air in fifteen seconds.”

Lanny scrambled out of the broadcast booth and over to the producer’s desk just as Ned picked up the phone.

Ned adjusted his headset and watched the seconds tick off. Three… two… one.

“Ladies and gentleman, I realize that the bulk of my audience is nowhere near the Florida coast, and so you must rely on me,
DJ Ned, to fill in the blanks. I have two callers on hold, waiting to share their bird’s-eye view of the destruction. Is the
first caller there?”

Ned pointed to Lanny and mouthed “talk.”

Lanny held the phone to his lips. “Urn, yeah, Ned, this is Danny, and I was just down at Pelican Retirement Homes and the
place is a mess. Roofs torn off, cars smashed, limbs everywhere. Saw a bunch of churches destroyed too, though I don’t go
to church myself.”

Ned put his thumb and forefinger together and gave Lanny the okay signal. “Ladies and gentleman, that was Danny from Orlando,
who is one of our non-religious listeners.”

Ned stood in his broadcast booth and held up a note card to Lanny. The word
Boston
was scribbled on the card.

“We have on the line another victim of Hurricane Gretchen, this one a gentleman from Boston. He lost his boat in the storm.
Are you there, sir?”

“Yes, mah name is Lawrence Hoochinski and this morning after I pahked mah cah at the marina, I saw that my sailboat, the
Drink, Smoke, Cuss,
had lost its mast in the storm. It was half sunk in the marina. I’m just distraught over the scope of this storm damage.”

“And what are your immediate plans, Mr. Hoochinski?”

“What else?… I’ll probably drink, smoke, cuss, and watch a Red Sox game. Got to relieve the pain somehow, Ned.”

Ned gave an even more enthusiastic okay signal to Lanny before addressing the audience a third time. “Ladies and gentleman,
good people like Boston Lawrence have taken huge losses, and we should keep them in our thoughts and in our, um…
thoughts.”

Ned gave two thumbs up to Lanny before gripping the mic and resuming his ploy. “Ladies and gentleman, we’ve just heard from
two callers who sustained losses from Hurricane Gretchen. I’m here in Jacksonville and am going to open up the lines now.”
Ned winced as he said this. “And I hope to hear from some compassionate folks
who are willing to help, not from any more wackos who think they know how to turn hurricanes back out to sea.”

All five lines lit up instantly. Ned hesitated, his finger hovering above line 1. At the last second he reconsidered and pushed
line 4. “Welcome, caller! Who are ya and where are ya from?”

“Neutral, this is Estella, from Tampa, and I resent you calling me wacko. Those giant fans should be—”

Ned cut off the call and stared through the Plexiglass at Lanny, who could only shrug.

“What now?” mouthed Ned.

Lanny entered the booth and stood beside Ned. “I think it’s time for my plea.”

Ned rose from his broadcast chair and motioned for Lanny to sit. “Just don’t expect much.”

Lanny was nervous about talking to the nation, but DJ Ned promised to stay there beside him, a two-hundred-forty-pound pacifier.
Ned pulled the mic to Lanny’s lips.

Lanny took a deep breath and began.

“Hello, America. My name is Lanny Hooch, and I am searching for my girlfriend, Miranda Timms.” All five lights went dim. “She
was possibly last seen near the Bluewater Marina in Cocoa Beach. Her parents live at Pelican’s Harbor Retirement Homes, where
she was visiting from August fifteenth through the seventeenth. Miranda is twenty-nine and has long auburn hair and a slender
build. She works as a news editor in Atlanta and was supposed to have caught a, um, Detour flight home this past Monday at
11:45.”