Latham's Landing (16 page)

Caroline and Helter jumped to their feet,
then hurried down to the shore. There was no one there.

“
Who screamed?” Caroline ventured,
looking back and forth. “We both heard it.”

“
Maybe the acoustics are out of whack
here along with everything else,” Helter said. He produced a cell
phone, punching in some numbers, then lowered it. “This doesn’t
work out here. I didn’t think it would.”

“
Wasn’t there a phone here?” Caroline
asked. “I read accounts of the one survivor this place had, some
girl named Tina. She said it worked intermittently.”

“
If there was, its long been turned
off,” Helter said. “People stopped coming here ten years ago,
except for the caretaker. And he’s been gone a full two years.” He
turned to her. “What else did Tina say?”

Caroline looked at Helter.
What if he
weren’t real? Ghosts could seem real in this place real enough to
masquerade as the living.
But his food had been real enough
last night, and so had his tent.

Helter turned, then caught her looking at
him. He slid his hand down over his gun. “You never did show me
your snowmobile.”

“
It sank,” Caroline said drolly. “But
I’ll show you where.” She set off, walking along the shore. Helter
grabbed his backpack, and the remains of his last sandwich, and
followed her.

Mac rose into the air, the joy of being free
for the rest of the weekend sinking into him, making him feel like
anything were possible. He leveled out, then cranked the rock
music, glorying in the open sky all around him, and the feeling of
being on vacation for the next entire week.

The best part, the VERY best part, was he’d
been given an extra girl for transport by his boss. Turned out
she’d tried to turn witness, and contact a cop. Good for
Collins—and everyone else with him, like Mac—she’d been caught
before she could escape with one of the shop’s books under her arm,
detailing all of the cash deals for the last six months.

This girl, Chung Lai….she was healthy. She
was a fighter. Maybe other guys didn’t like that in a woman, but
Mac did. He was ecstatic.

She was going to last
at least
a few
days on the island. He’d bet on it. So far, no girl had lasted a
full night on Latham’s Landing.

Mac glanced behind him at Chung Lai’s furious
eyes glaring at him, even gagged and hogtied like she was. He
smiled at her. “We’re going to have fun tonight,” he said
happily.

The other girl let out a terrified moan, but
Chung Lai just stared back at him, with a look that said she was
going to take his balls for a trophy.

It was going to be a real party…

His radio went off. “Mac, do you copy?”

“
Prick fuck, you had better not think
I’m coming back to work,” Mac swore, then clicked on the
transmitter. “I’m here, pal. What’s up?”

“
There are a couple of cops here that
want to go to the island. That one you fly over regularly, what’s
it called?”

A bolt of fear went through Mac, the first
one he could remember in a long time.
Why did the cops want to
go there?
“Latham’s Landing. They got a missing person or
something?”

“
Roger that. They say it’s an
emergency. Someone was snowmobiling and fell through the
ice.”

“
Bull,” Mac said easily, before he
thought. “That ice is thick. I see fishermen there all the time in
the winter, especially in January.”

“
Well, not this January,” came the
snickering reply. “There was some kind of weird thaw last night.
The ice is all gone. It’s like seventy degrees there or
something.”

Momentary panic flooded Mac. Warm weather
meant there might be people in boats on the lake. He had to be
careful going to the island in summer, because of the fisherman.
But they can’t come too close to the island. If they do, they
sink.

He forced himself to breathe.
The island
helps you, remember? It wants you there. You just have to be smart
about this.

“
Mac?”

“
I’m here,” Mac said quickly, thinking
fast. “I can’t cancel plans, sorry. I’ve got a girl who’ll be very
disappointed if we break our date.” He smiled back again at Chung
Lai, who glared back at him. “But tell me what happened. I’ll be
flying right past and can call in anything I see.”

“
Some people were snowmobiling on the
lake and ran out of gas or something. They’re on the island. The
police are involved because some car was found that belongs to a
guy who died.”

“
Murdered?”

“
Yeah, but that’s all solved. I think
this guy has a boner for the dead guy’s kid. She’s supposedly one
of the ones on the island—”

Mac lost the rest of what the guy said.
There would be a third girl. A third! He had never had such a
great hunt! Hell, there wasn’t room for a third girl in the
cockpit. He would have had to strap her to the bottom of the
copter, and then someone would see…but this was like fate, that
everything was falling into place. He just needed to keep the cops
away, until he could have his fun.

“
Mac?”

“
Look, I’ll tell you what I see when I
fly over,” Mac lied. “I’ll be there just at dusk, but I’ll get a
clear view.”

“
Good, I’ll tell the cops that. I’m
sure that ghost hunter who went out in a boat today can bring them
back. She’s the one that called the cops—”

A fourth woman. A FOURTH!
“I’ll keep
an eye out for her, too. What kind of boat?”

“
Thanks. It was a small motorboat.
You’ll see her car and trailer onshore if she’s there.”

“
Roger that. I’m out.”

“
Have a good vacation. Out.”

“
Thanks, I will,” Mac said pleasantly,
turning his attention to the sky before him.

Barb walked across the granite pad, looking
at the new construction in front of her.
Who the hell was out
here building on Latham’s Landing?

She walked inside the new construction,
looking for stored tools or signs of workmen. But aside from the
ladders propped against the roof and all the scaffolding, there was
nothing, not so much as a discarded coffee cup.

Her skin crawled suddenly, as if something
were watching her. Shivering, Barb hurried back outside. To her
surprise, the granite pad was not in front of her. Instead, she was
in a courtyard.

She must have gotten turned around inside
the unfinished building. There had been a lot of doors.

Here the grass was neatly trimmed, if brown
and dead. There was a fountain in the center of the courtyard, with
a stone seagull bursting out of a spray of water. The water in it
was running, clear and sparking in the sunlight.

God, she was so thirsty.

Barb walked up to the fountain, careful of a
few loose stones. She dipped her hands in, then drank the
crystalline cool water. It was like paradise after the long walk in
the hot sun.

Cooper also came up beside her, looking
anxiously at the fountain and whining, as if he thought it might
bite him. But after a moment, he also relaxed and began to drink
deeply of the water.

There was a shifting. The world seemed to
roll. Barb grabbed onto the side of the fountain, blinking her eyes
to stop the world spinning.

Cooper began barking, but his motions were
slow motion, as if the world was slowing down.
God, what was
wrong with her?
Barb shook her head to clear it and nearly fell
over.

There was a cracking sound. Barb looked up at
the fountain. The seagull was fracturing, as if something was
breaking out from the inside. She watching with terrified
fascination as a sharp black beak pecked its way out. There was
another rumble, as part of the seagulls body ruptured. A long black
wing flapped, its scaly limb tipped with three long black
talons.

This couldn’t be happening.

More of the monstrous bird emerged, half
crow, half bat. The head finally broke through, its long neck
swiveling to stare at her. Saliva dripped from its maw.

Cooper snarled, then a sharp pain lanced
through Barb, snapping her out of her fog.
Cooper bit
me.

Barb stumbled back from the fountain, letting
out a long undulating scream. Cooper got in front of her, growling
and backing, his hackles again raised.

The bird struggled hard, scrabbling at the
rock with its long claws, its head and left wing free.

Barb ran, weaving across the grass, Cooper at
her heels.

The bird gave one hearty wrench, and broke
free with an inhuman shriek and a burst of stone shards. Flapping
its bat-like wings, it dove after its prey.

“
Are you sure this is where you
landed?” Helter said for the fourth time, surveying the
shoreline.

“
Yes,” Caroline persisted, wading in
the water. She looked up at him. “This is where I saw the house
from. The long staircase was there, and I couldn’t see the
boathouse, so it has to be here.”

Helter looked down at her, impassive.

Caroline looked back at him.
He doesn’t
believe me. At this point, I’m not sure I believe me.

Helter turned and walked away from her,
striding fast towards the boathouse. Caroline watched him go in
curiosity, then went after him, horror dawning. She was running
when he pulled the grenade from his pocket and tossed it through
the boathouse window.

He turned and saw her. “Get down!”

The explosion blew the roof off, planks
spinning in all directions, most of them flying out over the water
in pieces. The boat rose up off the tracks, then burst through the
opposite side of the structure, cracking a pine tree and shearing
off branches. The momentum sent it crashing down the slope into the
water, where it rested, a huge hole rent in the side.

“
What the hell are you doing?” Caroline
screamed at him.

Helter ignored her, then went around the
remains of the shed and down to the rusty boat tracks, peering into
the water.

There was a loud screech of fear. Caroline
and Helter looked up to see Barb and Cooper barreling down the
slope with them. Some kind of huge black bird was after them,
diving at them. As they stared, the thing swooped down, its talons
extended. With a squawk, it laid open Barb’s shoulder, tearing
another scream from her.

Helter drew his gun and fired. The bullet
passed through the thing as if it weren’t there.

Caroline drew her gun, saying a prayer as she
aimed. Her bullet tore a chunk from the thing’s wing, spinning it
up in the air like a top. It faltered, then folded its wings and
dropped like a stone.

“
What the hell?” Helter exclaimed,
staring at Caroline. His attention quickly turned to Barb, as she
threw herself at him, clutching him and crying.

Ignoring her, Caroline ran to the black
flailing creature. The demon bird was flopping helplessly with its
good wing, trying hard to crawl away with its talons, looking at
her with hate. She put her gun to its head and pulled the trigger.
The thing let out a squawk as its brains splattered out, its
movements ceasing. It began steaming in the sunlight, melting into
a pile of goo with hisses like a flesh on a hot griddle.

Barb was still sobbing, and Helter was trying
to comfort her. But his attention was all on Caroline, his
expression one of mistrust.

“
Let’s get back to the supplies,”
Caroline said, casting a worried glance in the direction of their
camp.

“
No,” Helter said, subdued. “There’s
something you need to see first.” He pointed to the rusty tracks
down into the water. “Go look.”

Caroline kept her gun out, walking down to
the water’s edge. Feeling foolish, she holstered her gun, then
stepped into the water. “What am I supposed to see?”

“
Beneath the metal tracks.”

Caroline peered closer, her eyes suddenly
widening.
Her snowmobile was there resting in the mud and lake
stones, beneath the boathouse tracks…as if they had been placed
over it to hide it.

She stumbled backwards, spooked, out of the
water.

“
You’ve got to take us,” Lease said to
his brother across the counter of Lease’s Leases. He turned to look
at Bowman and Drake, standing behind him.

“
I don’t go to that island, not even
for you,” his brother said. “But you want to be stupid, go ahead.
You’ll get killed on those rocks like everyone else.” He turned to
Bowman. “If that girl is there, she’s dead already. You’re better
off waiting for her body to wash ashore.”

“
You’re a fucking coward,” Drake said
to him.

“
And I’ll live to enjoy that,” the man
replied. He turned back to his brother. “Take the boat or don’t.
But you wreck it and you survive, I’m going to want a new one to
replace it. Business is business.”

“
Fine,” Lease said, banging his fist
once on the counter. “We’ll just go to another boat rental place on
the lake—”

“
No one else would even consider it,”
his brother replied. “Even if they were open in the dead of winter,
which they aren’t.” He smirked. “You could always buy a boat, I
suppose.”

Lease walked behind the bar, then grabbed his
brother’s arm, pulling him into the back room. “We’ll be right back
after we discuss a few things.” He pulled his brother, already
protesting, out of sight.

“
Why couldn’t that damn helicopter
pilot just fly us there?” Bowman said, rubbing his eyes.