A Pagan's Nightmare (25 page)

“Split up!” yelled MC Deluxe, whose toes had just touched bottom. He and Crackhead moved along as best they could in neck-deep
surf, pulling against the current, feet bouncing on sand.

Again the spotlight swept across the water. This time Lanny dove deep and swam for the marsh. Only then did he notice how
warm was the seawater. He surfaced and glanced behind him to look for Ned. No sign of him. The saltwater stung Lanny’s eyes,
and all he could make out in the distance was the inflatable climbing the next wave, on a beeline for the Former Donald.

Unable to spot Ned and fearing for his own safety, Lanny hid in the marsh. He parted thick blades and pulled himself into
the middle. There he crouched, making sure his head was below the top of the grass. Soon he heard yelling, a struggle… but
no gunshots.

He had just caught his breath when the spotlight beam came sweeping toward him. Lanny had once seen an escapee in a movie
breathe through a hollow reed, using it like a snorkel, but he had neither the time nor the light to search for hollow reeds.
He simply submerged himself in seawater and marsh grass, gripping roots on the bottom to hold himself under. The spotlight
passed overhead.

Buried under a foot of water, Lanny heard only an outboard engine some distance away. Then the motor shut off. Lanny waited
as long as he could, but he needed air. Finally he emerged between grass blades, inhaling in one continuous gulp. He could
not see the shore for the marsh, but he could hear the muffled shouts.

The spotlight swept toward him again. He feared for his own capture and went under. Seconds later he rose to get a breath,
and now the shouts were loud, and sirens sounded from the beach.

Lanny stood on his toes and peered over the top of the marsh. Two vehicles.

Now four! He saw the Former Donald being led into the back of a Jeep.

Again the spotlight swept across the marsh, and Lanny quickly went under. When he resurfaced, his heart sank.

Down the beach he heard MC Deluxe yell, “Loose me, man!”

From somewhere beyond MC, Crackhead shouted at his captors. “I never done no drugs. I never done nothin’ to nobody!”

The spotlight ceased its searching, and Lanny stood on his toes again. He saw only headlights from the Jeeps, and a steady
drizzle reflecting in the beams. No sign of DJ Ned. Then he heard doors slam, engines start. He didn’t know if Ned had been
captured or drowned—or both.

Lanny remained in the marsh grass for over an hour, until the first light of dawn crept upon Tybee Island. The shore was vacant
now. The Jeeps and the guards and his friends were gone, and Lanny struggled to free his feet from roots and mud. He pulled
away and waded out of the marsh, black mud in his sneakers, sharp cuts on his ankles. He sloshed through warm surf onto an
empty beach, where the many footprints gave evidence of a struggle.

He stood there dripping like a castaway, his head spinning from the sheer speed at which his circumstances had changed.
One
minute you’re on a yacht with your buddies in a red marble hot tub, the next you’re alone in wet clothes on an empty beach.

Lanny turned and gazed out to sea. Some four hundred yards away, the yacht and the Coast Guard cutter sat at odd angles to
each other. Small waves bumped against their port sides.

The sun had yet to emerge and the landscape was still murky when Lanny tromped across the beach and entered a sparse wood.
A few palms, some scrub brush, a picnic table. In the distance he heard traffic on a road. He waited in the woods until the
traffic passed, then he ran across the road and into a more manicured wood. All the leaves and sticks had been removed, and
the dirt had been raked. He found himself running across a mammoth lawn.

No, not a lawn,
he thought as he jogged.
I’ve stumbled upon another golf course.

Here in the early morning light, wet and tired and hungry, Lanny was welcomed by his old nemesis—
signage.
This one was small and square and wooden. It had a golf landscape painted in the middle, green and straight, with a pair
of white sandtraps etched on opposing sides of the fairway.

Hole #14, 527 yards

Par 7 for the Fortunate.

Par 2 for everyone else.

As was his desire, Lanny had arrived safely back in America. And though he missed his friends and hated that they’d been recaptured,
he had made up his mind as to his proper course of action. He would find some dry clothes, get something to eat, and resume
his search for Miranda.

Home, sweet home.

(a short little chapter dedicated to the capture of DJ Ned Neutral)

D
J NED WAS NOT CAPTURED
in the surf with the others. Nor was he caught on the beach or in the marsh. The portly music lover had fooled the zealots—at
least for a little while. As the guards sped through the waves during their wee-hour pursuit, Ned knew that he could never
out-swim their inflatable to shore. So he took the largest gulp of air he could hold, dove under, and began swimming along
the bottom—and out to sea.

At that moment, the guards had their spotlight fixed on the Former Donald. Beyond him, MC and Crackhead were spotted running
along the beach, and so the inflatable had passed right over Ned. He had heard the propeller buzz over his scalp.

Ned surfaced well behind the raft and back near the sandbar. He dove again and swam along the bottom until the tide pushed
him around the sandbar and to the starboard side of the yacht. He hid on the far side of the bow, just beneath the anchor.
He peeked around the bow and saw the Coast Guard cutter stranded on the port side, where two remaining guards waited for the
inflatable to return and pick them up.

Pressed against the yacht’s side, his feet sinking in wet sand, Ned heard the two guards board the yacht at the rear. Ned
looked up some twenty feet and saw the tops of their heads as they searched the bow. Finding nothing, the guards departed
and hitched a ride on the inflatable. The raft sped toward shore, where all the action was taking place.

Ned had witnessed part of all three captures. First the Former Donald, who was plucked from the surf;then Crackhead, who was
halfway up a palm tree when the spotlight found him;and then MC Deluxe, tackled in the sand as he sprinted for the woods.
Not that anyone caught MC from behind;the guards had the benefit of the Tybee Island Beach Police in bright yellow Jeeps.
These officers had shone their headlights into MC, blinding him as to where to run.

Alone then and wondering what had happened to Lanny, Ned climbed the rope ladder to hide out in the yacht. For the next few
minutes he toyed with the idea of starting the engines and trying to back the yacht out of the sand. But he knew the noise
would give him away.

Perhaps wait for sunrise,
he thought.
Wait till the beach is clear.

Ned went to the captain’s chair and peered out over the steering wheel. Over the bow he saw the first police vehicle leave
the beach. Then a second and a third.

Ned held a Cuban cigar, about to light it and celebrate his clever escape, when the guard who had hid in the supply closet
came out and slapped the handcuffs on him.

Ned dropped the cigar to the floor and mumbled a curse.

The guard led Ned to the bow, then spoke into a walkie-talkie and told his comrades on shore to come pick up a fourth escapee.
Ned saw the inflatable raft turn from the beach and motor toward them.

“Back to Cuba?” he asked the guard.

The guard nudged him to the railing, just above the rope ladder. “You got it.”

By now the rain had ceased, and the sky morphed from murky gray to murky pink. The pair stood there on the bow of Castro’s
yacht and watched the raft bounce toward them on the waves. While they waited, the guard checked Ned’s handcuffs for proper
tightness and asked, “Wasn’t there a fifth escapee with you all? Some construction guy by the last name of Hooch?”

“He drowned two days ago,” Ned said, looking as solemn as possible. “Tried to swim ashore near Boca Raton.”

“Oh… I’m sorry.”

DJ Ned may have been a slow swimmer, but he was an excellent liar. And he was certain that Lanny would have done the same
for him.

I
T TOOK THREE DAYS,
umpteen lies, and the charity of a long-haul trucker, but Lanny managed to hitchhike back to Orlando, where in the dead of
night he found his sage green Xterra undisturbed, still parked in the producer’s spot outside of Fence-Straddler AM Radio.

Only this time there was no one inside the station to answer the code word.

The lights were off, and Lanny did not even try the door. He simply waved good-bye to the charitable trucker and unlocked
his Xterra. All he had with him were the clothes he’d been given to wear—a
Got Religion?
T-shirt—plus his wallet and yesterday’s Savannah newspaper.

Atop the fold in the religion section—which made for practically the entire paper—was the headline:
Marvin and Friends Capture Four on Tybee Island!!

Lanny turned on his dome light and read for a second time how his four friends had been returned to Cuba. He was particularly
interested in the last sentence of the article:
One of the five escapees, Lanny Hooch from Atlanta, drowned in an attempt to swim to the mainland near Boca Raton.

Being a man without a country was bad enough—and being a man with a lost girlfriend was even worse—now Lanny was a man without
a life, at least according to the
Savannah Register

Lanny slept in his Xterra for over two hours. But it wasn’t normal sleep. For the first time since the zealot invasion, he
slept hard enough to dream….

Lanny had just driven to Miranda’s apartment to pick her up for a date. She came walking out of her door, smiling in a red
dress, her hair
pulled over one shoulder. He met her halfway up the sidewalk and they embraced. Then he walked her to the passenger door of
his Xterra and gently held her hand as she climbed in. Blissful, Lanny hurried around the truck and eased behind the wheel,
wanting to kiss her. But when he leaned across the console to meet Miranda’s lips, she pulled up short and spoke in a voice
of doom: “THOU SHALT NOT KISS BEFORE MARRIAGE, SAYETH MY TRUE LOVE!”

Stunned, Lanny retreated, wedging himself against his door. “But. . . but aren’t
I
your true love?”

“NEVER! MY HEART BELONGETH TO MARVIN!”

Lanny woke shivering in his Xterra, sweat dripping from his brow.

Dream over. Back to the nightmare.

After sunrise he drove once again out to Cocoa Beach and to Pelican’s Harbor Retirement Homes. His previous note still dangled
from the nails in the front door;the black leather travel bag still sat on the doorstep;and the penny, that shiny copper penny,
was still lodged in the tire tread of the beige Buick.

Beside the car Lanny picked up a rock. With great frustration he hurled it into the street. Then he shouted to the sky, “Miranda,
where are you?!”

Like a hungry bird returning again to an empty feeder, Lanny drove next to the Bluewater Marina.
If Miranda isn’t there, I’ll go look for her in Atlanta.

Skies were clear when he arrived in the parking lot, and he hurried across the oyster shells and down to the docks.

She wasn’t there, of course.

Neither were most of the boats. All but three had sailed away to parts unknown. Other than the
Saniti,
only
The Humbleness
and the
Formal on Sundays 2
remained in port.

Lanny gritted his teeth and stepped down onto the
Saniti.
From what he could tell, the cabin had not been touched, neither had the deck. This lack of additional clues forced on him
a new kind of anger, a resentment of his own life: He cursed the takeover;he
yelled again for Miranda;he spat into the water and kicked a bench. Finally he reached above both ears and pulled his hair.

Lanny sat on the dock for hours, his mind spinning further into turmoil. But by early afternoon too many memories plus too
many disappointments added up and caused him to flee. Off the dock he ran, yelling things unintelligible. He had become a
crazed man, and before he left the parking lot and hit the highways for Atlanta, he did something that befit the crazed.

From a neighboring Mazda, Lanny stole both a license plate and a bumper sticker. The car was covered with a rainproof tarp—which
made it a logical target. Lanny figured the owner was out to sea, hopefully for several weeks.

The license plate he took read CU N HVN;the bumper sticker read simply,
Repent of Bingo.
It tore at the edges as he pulled it off. He had some glue in his toolbox, however, and that was enough to secure the sticker
to his right rear bumper. Satisfied, Lanny stepped back and admired his new accessories. He figured these items were all the
disguise he’d need.

And he was proved right.

At the Cocoa Beach BP station, an attendant came out and inspected the rear of Lanny’s truck. He then shook Lanny’s hand and
said, “Thanks for stoppin’ by, brother. Today our low low price is only twelve cents per gallon.”

Lanny nodded in faux appreciation and pumped fifteen gallons into his tank. He wanted to punch the guy for calling him “brother,”
but Lanny was now a full-fledged poser, so he kept his cool and went inside to pay.

He felt no joy from being charged only a dollar and eighty cents for fifteen gallons—he’d become numb to any stimuli not directly
related to Miranda. In fact, he failed to notice that this was the first positive thing to happen to him since he and MC Deluxe
caught the dogfish.

A long journey to Atlanta lay ahead, so Lanny added a grape soda to his purchase. Fidgety and anxious to resume his quest,
he thrust a five-dollar bill at the cashier.

The young cashier boy rang up the total, glanced at Lanny’s five,
and said, “Sir, I need to remind you that you only have three more days to exchange your old currency for the new.”