Latham's Landing (17 page)

“
His boss said he had already left for
vacation.”

“
Why couldn’t they get someone else to
fly the copter?”

“
Because only helicopters equipped with
two engines and an autopilot can fly at night,” Drake said
patiently. “This guy, Mac Ready, has the only copter like that. Be
glad that Lease has a brother here who was willing to rent us a
boat. Most of the local businesses here got flooded out two years
ago.”

“
Wasn’t that when they found those
other vehicles?” Bowman asked. “After the flood exposed them? From
those four college kids who went missing?”

Drake nodded. “This island is not a place you
go to in the dead of night. I have to agree with Lease on this one.
I think it’s better to wait until morning.”

“
And what if something happens to
her?”

“
She’s on a deserted island, it’s
unseasonably warm, and she’s got a boyfriend with her,” Drake said
meaningfully. “I think the worst trouble she’s going to have is an
unplanned pregnancy.”

“
Hey,” Bowman said sharply.

“
Sorry,” Drake said, raising up both
hands. He raked one through his hair. “Jesus Christ—”

“
And stop that, too,” Bowman said
irritably.

Drake widened his eyes, then rolled them,
looking away.

Lease appeared, a set of keys in his hand.
“My brother said we could take a boat, but we’re on our own. Do you
still want to do this?”

“
Yes,” Bowman said.

“
Alright,” Lease said, pushing past
him. “Let’s go hook up the trailer to your truck.”

“
Why not your truck?” Bowman
asked.

“
Because I’m coming back tonight,”
Lease said. He looked at Bowman squarely. “And I’m only doing this
because you said you’d put in a good word with the chief, and I’d
make detective.”

“
I said I would,” Bowman said. “I keep
my word.”

“
Good,” Lease said, hooking up the boat
trailer with a thirty-foot aluminum bass boat. The fading sunlight
gleamed off the dull metal of the huge motor attached to the
back.

“
But you’ll take us there?” Drake asked
with trepidation. “We have enough gas to get there and
back?”

“
I’ll drop you off in the shallows,”
Lease said, putting in some rope, a few life vests, and two extra
gas containers. “I’ll be back out tomorrow morning to get you.” He
held up a flare. “Light this by noon, okay? I’ll take that as a
signal.”

“
What about a radio?”

“
My brother said radios don’t work out
there,” Lease said in a subdued tone. “Now let’s go. Dark is
coming.”

Caroline sank down at the campsite tiredly.
Helter had repitched the tent closer to the shore, with a wall
behind them for security, near the foot of the main staircase, so
they could see anyone approaching. He’d made another fire for them
with fallen branches, and was heating up some soup on his small
propane stove. Cooper was sleeping near Barb, who had finally
stopped sobbing and was looking out across the water toward the
rapidly darkening shoreline.

“
Was it there?” Helter
asked.

“
Yes, her boat was still tied up and
floating, just like we’d left it,” Caroline said, but she did not
sound relived. “There was a figure on the dock, though.”

“
A man?”

“
Too short to be a man.”

“
A dwarf?” Helter joked.

Caroline didn’t answer. Helter finished
heating the soup, then poured some into two cups. He handed one to
Barb, who took it with a grateful smile. He took the other to
Caroline. “Sorry, I just have two. If I hadn’t planned on soup and
coffee at the same time, I wouldn’t have had two.”

“
Thanks,” Caroline said gratefully,
drinking the hot liquid.

“
Hey, save some for me,” Helter
chastised. “This is the last of the food stores.”

Caroline swallowed once more, then took the
cup away from her mouth and handed it to him. “Sorry.”

“
It’s okay,” Helter consoled. “Are you
okay?”

“
No,” Caroline said. “If I wasn’t dead
inside I’d be sobbing like Barb was.”

Helter put his arm around her.

“
Why do you believe me?” Caroline
whispered into his shoulder. “I thought you would shoot me out
there, when you were looking at me on the shore. Seeing my
snowmobile like that…it almost made me believe I was a
ghost.”

“
I believe you because you shot that
bird and it died. I shot it, and the bullet went through,” Helter
said. He swallowed the rest of the soup in the cup, then put it
aside. “We need to talk about why. No more lies.”

“
I had them blessed,” Caroline
admitted, summarizing her preparations for coming to Latham’s
Landing. She emptied all her pockets, producing several bundles of
dried herbs, a handful of incense, and two almost full boxes of
ammunition. “That was all I could fit in my pockets when I saw the
priest without being obvious. There were more herbs and incense
strapped on the snowmobile, but they’ve got to be mush by
now.”

“
So whatever is on this island is a
Christian evil,” Helter said, looking uncomfortable.

“
And you’re not Christian,” Caroline
surmised.

“
Not even close,” Helter
admitted.

“
The woman at the store said it wasn’t
so much the materials,” Caroline shared. “It’s the faith that they
are going to work. Ten years of Christian schooling had an impact
on me, even if I didn’t agree with a lot of what was taught. My
belief is pretty solid.” She paused. “Were you ever
religious?”

“
I believe in the church of me,” Helter
said, flashing a smile. “I’m the only one I have faith in, because
I’m the only one I can ever fully trust.”

“
They you’ll have to borrow some of
mine,” Caroline said. She reached beneath her clothes at her neck,
bringing out one of her rosaries. She took it off, then placed it
around Helter’s neck, and made the sign of the cross over
him.

He stood up. “I might as well go see if it
works. Give me one of your guns, I don’t care which.”

Caroline handed him her .38 handgun. “Where
are you going?”

“
Back to Barb’s boat,” he answered.
“She might have some supplies we can use. And I want to see that
dwarf for myself.”

“
There’s a cooler with some sandwiches,
and a lot of extra snack food,” Barb offered. “I planned to eat
lunch and dinner on the boat. Otherwise there are just extra
clothes, a radio, lifejackets, and stuff to make casts of
footprints in several totes.”

“
I’ll bring the food and the clothes,”
Helter said, with a nod.

“
Be careful,” Caroline called after
him. “That dwarf, or whatever it was, went into the water when he
saw me. He didn’t resurface.”

“
Thanks. I’ll watch for it.” Helter
looked at her, then at the fire. “This might be a good time to use
some of that incense. Can you give me a stick?”

Caroline dipped a bundle of herbs into the
fire, blowing on it to make it smoke, then handed it to him.

“
You asked what else Tina said,” Barb
uttered suddenly, fumbling for her micro recorder. She opened a
file and hit play.

“
It wasn’t the stairs that
creaked, or the way the lights never fully chased the shadows from
the corners. It was that sense of hushed anticipation, that feeling
of being not alone that filled you from the moment you entered and
built with each passing second, making your heart race.” Pause.
“You’ll feel it too, if you go there, Barb. As sweat breaks out on
your cool flesh, your only thought will be of what finale waits
around the next corner, drifting down on spider’s silent legs to
snatch you unawares before you can scream. I’ll tell you one more
time: don’t go there.”

Caroline looked up at Helter. “Watch
yourself.”

As Helter headed off into the darkness, she
threw some powder from a bag into the fire, saying a prayer that
the incense would work.

“
Can I have one of your crosses?” Barb
asked timidly.

Caroline handed Barb her second cross
necklace. “Here. Are you a believer?”

“
Let’s say I am now,” Barb said,
slipping the jewelry on.

Mac looked at his watch. Another hour and
he’d be there. Just in time for the sunset, if he was lucky.

Every time at the island brought some new
delight. And this time he’d come prepared, putting in a lot of work
to make this visit extra special.

Please let those two girls still be
there,
Mac thought over and over frantically
. Find a way to
keep them there for me.

“
That’s it?” Bowman said, staring at
the dark silhouette of the old mansion on the water.

Lease didn’t answer, busy backing up the
trailer with the boat into the water at the launching site. Drake
was helping direct him.

Together, the three men got the boat set and
then boarded. As they started off, the sun rapidly sank.

“
Hey, there’s a fire on the shore,”
Drake said, pointing to a small flickering flame near the front of
the island silhouette. “That’s got to be the kids.”

“
Maybe we can just pick them up tonight
and go home,” Bowman said in relief.

“
Nope,” Lease said darkly. “That point
is rimmed with rocks. My brother said we have to go to the back of
the island, where there’s supposed to be a granite dock. It’s going
to be a slow ride the closer we get.” He turned on a searchlight,
which cast some illumination in the spreading inky blackness, even
as it obscured the fire with its larger luminescence. “You may even
need to get out and swim to shore.”

“
But you could tie up to the dock and
wait,” Bowman said, uneasy at the thought of jumping into black
cold water. “We could go get the kids and come back to
you.”

“
No,” Lease said softly. “I’m not
staying there.”

“
You’re as much a coward as your
brother,” Drake accused.

“
Shut up,” Bowman said harshly,
glancing quick at Lease. But the explosion he expected from Lease
didn’t come. The guy simply stared ahead, his eyes locked on
Latham’s Landing.

“
Look, there’s a light!” Barb said
hopefully, pointing into the darkness.

Caroline looked, the small light rekindling
her optimism. “Is it a boat, or someone on shore?”

“
I think it’s moving.”

Caroline stood, trying for a better vantage
point. But it looked like the boat was heading past the island,
towards the back. “Maybe its fishermen headed back home from
further down the lake.”

“
I think the lake ends over there,”
Barb said, shaking her head once. “The guy who lent me the boat
said that there was nothing down there since the flood. That’s
where the bed and breakfast was.”

“
Then who are they?” Caroline said,
uneasy.

“
Maybe it’s the police,” Barb said,
standing up. “They had to see our fire. It’s like a
beacon.”

A cold feeling settled on Caroline. She
looked around in the gathering darkness. “The cops wouldn’t come
out in this, not for us.” She looked up at the house looming above
them, and the cold feeling suddenly grew stronger.

Last night there had been snow and ice, and
still, something had come to growl at them. It had left for some
reason. It would likely come again tonight. And there was no snow
now to impede its progress...no ice to slip on. Would it leave so
easily tonight?

“
Hurry,” Caroline said, grabbing Barb’s
arm. “Grab any wood you can for the fire, and bring it in close.”
She stood up and began grabbing every piece of driftwood she could
find, piling it near the fire.

“
Why?” Barb said, even as she began
working to gather driftwood.

“
Because whomever that is in the boat
might not be friendly,” Caroline called, piling more wood in her
arms. “And I’m already running low on incense.”

Helter grabbed the last of Barb’s gear,
including her two cameras. Slinging them around his neck, he picked
up the heavy cooler, then looked at the boat with longing.

Take it and go now. If you leave them here,
the island will let you go. If you stay, you’re going to die
destroying it. Because no matter what you do tonight, that boat is
not going to be there in the morning…unless it’s sunk in the
shallows.

Helter shook off his despair, dropped Barb’s
gear in a pile, then carefully pulled the boat up on shore to the
side of the dock, tying it with his rope to a dock piling.
Watchful, he headed back toward the fire on the shore, eager for
its light and heat while also hating its brightness.

We need it for protection. But it’s also a
bull’s-eye pinpointing where we are.

Helter snorted.
Like the island didn’t
know where we all were from the moment we arrived,
he thought
sardonically. Fire or no fire, faith or no faith, something would
come tonight. They would have to sleep in shifts, to make sure that
someone was awake all the time.
That meant him and Caroline.
Barb was no use, not in her hysterical condition. But at least
Cooper would bark to warn them.

The sudden whup-whup-whup of helicopter
blades directly above him made Helter stop and look up. The
helicopter’s searchlight shone down at him.