Scared of the Dark: A Crime Novel

by Easton Vaughn

  He sighed and moved inside the tent. He kneeled next to Ruck and nudged his friend’s ribs. Ruck’s eyes shot open. He lurched up and let out a yelp, scooted back on his butt like a crab. It took him a moment to orient where he was and who was there with him. “James?” he said, touching his chest. “Jesus, you startled me. I thought you were the Grim Reaper.”

  “Put on some clothes,” Merritt told him.

  “Put on clothes for what?” Ruck said. “I’m resting. I’m tired.”

  “Don’t make me repeat myself.”

  “What’s wrong? You sound angry.”

  “I need to make a run back to the mainland. You’re coming with me.”

  Ruck inched forward again, the shift stirring his body odor. “Why don’t you take Will with you instead?”

  Merritt scrunched his nose to ward off the hot stink of Ruck’s breath. “You’re telling me how to run things?”

  “No…no…of course not.” Ruck shook his head. “I was just thinking—”

  “I’ll give you a minute to gather yourself. Throw some clothes on, like I said.”

  “James…” But Merritt had already stood to his feet, turned, and was walking away from the tent. “Do I need to bring anything?” he heard Ruck call out.

  He didn’t answer.

  The hot and humid day had coasted into a hot and humid evening, virtually no breeze, a swarm of bloodthirsty mosquitoes moving about the island with menace. Merritt settled against a tree a few yards from Ruck’s tent. His head continued to throb. He popped another pill, ground this one between his molars and swallowed the pieces, ran his tongue over his teeth to make sure he got them all. He took a deep breath and let his mind wander to the water he’d left behind at the beach. The water he’d stared at for almost an hour. It had shone like a mirror—winking from blue to green to apricot as the sinking sun reflected off it. A group of male pelicans had chased a lone female overhead as a mullet broke the water’s surface, splashing like a child in a bathtub.

  The island truly was remarkable, he told himself—reminded himself.

  “Okay,” Ruck said, joining him at the tree.

  Merritt glanced at his left wrist. A rubber Protection watch he’d picked up in the Bahamas for twenty bucks, the cheap plastic face cracked since a week after he’d purchased it. “Two minutes and twelve seconds,” he said. “I was charitable enough to give you a minute. We were in Fallujah right now both of us might be dead.”

  “I was in Fallujah right now,” Ruck said, smiling, “I’d want to be dead. You know I’m a lover, not a fighter.”

  Merritt flared his nostrils.

  “Oh, come on, James. You always talk as if I’m some weak sister, got no game with the ladies. Yin to your yang. I just tossed you a softball and you didn’t even try to hit it.”

  “People are talking about you moving your tent, and how much you’ve been sleeping,” Merritt said. “Some claim to have heard you crying.”

  Ruck shrugged. “Maybe so. You’d rather I was up and talking about all I’ve seen and done the past few days?”

  Merritt pushed away from the tree, standing to his full height, looming over his friend. “That a threat, Ruck?”

  “Shit, James. What’s come over you?”

  Merritt’s chest rose twice before he spoke further. “This’ll be a quick run,” he said finally. “Replenish our water supply. Grab a few other essential items. You’ll be back and asleep again before you’re missed.”

  “Don’t do that, James.”

  “What are you talking about now?”

  “Your voice,” Ruck said. “It goes flat when you’re…just don’t do that.”

  Merritt hocked phlegm, spat it, and moved toward the trail that would lead back to the beach.

  “Shit,” he heard Ruck mutter, and then the sound of his friend rushing to catch up.

  The pace was brisk, both of them slick with sweat and breathing heavily as the beach came into view.

  “My exercise for the month,” Ruck said, chuckling.

  Merritt hadn’t spoken in twenty minutes. He didn’t speak then either.

  The island had three boats. A 24-foot Carolina skiff that could seat up to fifteen people, plus two fiberglass johnboats fitted with center consoles and grab rails. Merritt hopped aboard one of the johnboats.

  “Not sure my stomach can handle that tonight,” Ruck said, nodding at the flat boat. “You know it rides wild as a bitch in heat.”

  Merritt started working at a knot of thick rope wrapped around one of the grab rails. It trailed outside the johnboat, ending in loops that were tied through the empty middles of a quintet of cinderblocks planted two feet deep in the wet sand.

  “Guess my opinion doesn’t matter,” Ruck said, and getting no response to that, added, “Why you bringing your rucksack?”

  Merritt freed the knot, tossed the coil of heavy rope toward Ruck. Ruck was slow to respond and the rope slapped him in the face and chest. He bent and picked it up, clearly embarrassed, and laid it down along the shoreline as the boat’s engine sputtered to life. He sighed and hopped aboard.

  Merritt turned the tiller portside and the boat eased away from the shore, headed off toward the right and leaving the island behind. “You know the story of Blackbeard?” he asked, once they’d been traveling on the water for a few minutes.

  “The pirate?” Ruck managed, and then leaned over the boat’s side, stomach muscles clenching, pinpricks of sweat dotting his forehead.

  Merritt nodded even though Ruck wasn’t looking in his direction. “His government name was Edward Teach. He anchored his boat in the inlet over there”—he indicated the spot—“Springer’s Point. A lieutenant by the name of Robert Maynard caught up with him and that was all she wrote for good ol’ Blackbeard. I believe the year was 1718.”

  Ruck sat up straight, took in a deep lungful of air. “You read all that somewhere?”

  “I did,” Merritt said, nodding.

  “You always did love to read. I never took to it. It always made me sleepy.”

  “Knowledge is power.”

  “I never took to that either…power.”

  Merritt frowned and studied Ruck a moment before continuing. “Maynard’s crew shot Blackbeard something like five times, cut him more than twenty. Decapitated him and threw his corpse in the inlet and hung his head from the bowsprit of their sloop. They sold his loot—sugar, cocoa, indigo and cotton—at auction.”

  “Savages,” Ruck said.

  “Survival of the fittest,” Merritt countered. “Oftentimes, you’re gonna have to be ruthless just to keep yourself on the right side of the dirt. It’s a fact of life.”

  “You’re trying to make me feel better about what happened with Candace?”

  “She caused her own fate, Ruck.”

  “What about the white boy in the BMW? He was trying to help Candace. He deserved to be beaten and held captive?”

  “Survival of the fittest,” Merritt repeated. “Don’t make him out to be anything but what he is…dangerous. He attacked Sheldon with hot water. Scalded him.”

  “When?” Ruck said, a rise of inflection in his voice.

  “While you were being Rip Van Winkle.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Ruck whispered.

  “It happened.”

  “Shit.”

  Merritt looked off over the distance of the water, the fast approaching mainland. “How long have we known each other, Ruck?”

  “Shit, I don’t know. I think you might’ve cut me off on the sidewalk with your Incredible Hulk Big Wheel.”

  Merritt smiled. “I remember, and you had a Big Wheel too didn’t you? Pink with flowers?”

  “Funny,” Ruck said. “Seriously, it’s been longer than I can remember. You’ve been a good friend.”

  “I’m sorry I got you into this mess,” Merritt said.

  “You’re not one for that kind of sentiment, James. I knew what I was doing. I made my choice…and benefitted plenty from it.”

  “You’v
e been loyal,” Merritt said, turning with his eyes gone hard to look at Ruck, “until lately.”

  Ruck swallowed, licked his lips. “It’s been difficult. But I’m with you, James. You have to know that.”

  Merritt cleared his throat, squared his shoulders. “Did you know this harbor was so shallow it wasn’t navigable until the Navy dredged it for ships in World War II?”

  Ruck swallowed again. “No, I didn’t know that. But listen…you’re doing a good job. You’ve had some tough decisions to make. I don’t envy you.”

  “The ride wasn’t so bad after all,” Merritt said, tapping his seat. “Calm seas. You worried for nothing.”

  “Did you hear what I said, James?”

  Merritt turned the tiller toward starboard side, guiding the johnboat left, toward land.

  As Ruck looked at him, Merritt set his jaw muscles churning, his unblinking eyes a slick of black oil. Ruck sighed and turned to watch the boat’s approach toward the mainland. A loblolly waited with a belt of heavy rope wrapped around its trunk, a loose end to tie to the boat’s grab rail for mooring. A path in the woods led to a ramshackle cabin hidden amongst a jungle of growth. A decade-old Mitsubishi Mirage, paint job faded in spots and flaking in others, but its fake registration up-to-date, would be waiting behind the cabin.

  “I don’t understand why we take this risk,” Ruck said. “Someone could discover the cabin. Or catch us tooling around in the Mitsubishi.”

  “Your man Shepherd’s planning,” Merritt said. His first words in the last few minutes.

  “Yeah,” Ruck said, nodding. “You can find a lot to criticize when you aren’t the one making the decisions. When I’ve been critical it isn’t just about you. It’s about Shepherd, you, anyone in command. Monday morning quarterbacking, no offense meant by any of it. You understand?”

  Merritt grunted, settled the boat, jumped out and grabbed the free end of the rope. “Let me secure that for you,” Ruck said, and this time Merritt handed the length of rope to him rather than throw it.

  Ruck wrapped it around the grab rail twice, was preparing to cinch the loops in a knot when he looked up and saw Merritt disappear down the path through the woods with the rucksack swinging along beside him. “Shit, James. Wait up,” he called. He hurriedly finished the knot, then rushed to catch up.

  They found the cabin undisturbed, the Mirage filmed with dust and bird droppings. “Traveling in style,” Ruck said.

  Merritt dropped down in the driver’s seat, the car sinking and groaning under his weight, and fished the keys, which were kept under the floor mat for safekeeping, out and placed one in the ignition. He raced the engine. Ruck settled beside him.

  Merritt left the property and pulled out onto a secluded road, giving the Mirage gas, the wind blowing hot against his face through his open window. He drove on into the night, a trail of dark road left behind in his rearview mirror.

  After two turns, Ruck frowned and sat forward in his seat. “You’re going the wrong way, James. Aren’t we going to the Walmart?”

  Merritt didn’t answer.

  “James?”

  Still nothing.

  “Your moods are starting to get to me,” Ruck said, sitting back hard and falling into his own quiet.

  Within minutes, Merritt turned off the road and down another. They passed a property that looked as if it had once been a farm, its vitality stolen by hurricanes and years of neglect, nothing left but rubble and useless tractor equipment rusted the color of communion wine. A mile and a half further and they passed two more properties with similar stories.

  “No point in paving these roads out here, huh?” Ruck said, a cloud of dust kicked up around them.

  Merritt said nothing.

  “You’re brooding,” Ruck said. “I apologized for what I’ve said. I admitted it’s easy for me to judge because I’m not in your shoes—and wouldn’t want to be. What else do you want from me?”

  Merritt slowed, turned down a dirt path that stretched just a few hundred feet, reached the end of it and pulled into the driveway of a small house—the only property on the road. The house sported cedar-shake shingles grayed by weather, a porch screen choked with vines, a light glowing from inside that did little to cast aside the darkness that seemed to permeate the place.

  “What is this?” Ruck asked.

  Merritt parked face-in, front bumper nearly plumb with the porch, headlights bathing it in a soft white light. A man stepped outside on the porch. The headlights—as bright as they were—didn’t make him squint.

  “Shit,” Ruck said, drawing out the word. “Dmitri? What’s going on, James? You know I don’t like these people.”

  Merritt turned his key in the ignition, eased his door open and moved from the car, the engine ticking like an old woman clucking her disapproval of today’s youth. He grabbed his rucksack from the back seat and threw the strap over his shoulder.

  Ruck watched as Merritt and Dmitri met on the porch and clasped hands. Dmitri was dressed in black camo pants, boots, a dark T-shirt straining against his biceps. His head and face both were shaved clean, his cheekbones daubed with black grease.

  “You missed the casting call for Full Metal Jacket,” Ruck muttered to himself.

  Merritt and Dmitri moved inside.

  “Shit,” Ruck said, shifting position in his seat, sighing, and then reaching forward to grasp the door handle. His knees popped as he made it to his feet. The rusty car door screamed as he opened and then closed it behind him. The porch creaked as he stepped on it. A symphony of sounds, wordless warnings for him to turn around and head back the way he’d come.

  He didn’t heed the warnings, stepped into the house, voices somewhere distant inside drifting to him and guiding his way. “Seven-shot magazine. Weighs twenty-nine ounces. The frame’s aluminum alloy…”

  Gun talk. Ruck licked his lips, his heart pounding, and moved to the rendezvous in the kitchen. There was a long wooden table in the center of the room, a candle burning from a position near one of its corners. Ruck almost suggested they move the candle away from the edge, lest it fall off and cause an ugly fire, but caught himself.

  “I think I’ve had my fill of Smith & Wesson,” Merritt was saying.

  “Fair enough,” Dmitri responded, pushing the handgun aside and pulling forth another, the table a chess board, the guns Knights and Kings and Bishops. “Heckler & Koch. Twelve-shot magazine. The barrel’s just under six inches long. This one runs heavy. Almost two and a half pounds. You’ll get some biceps work in just lifting it.”

  Merritt hefted it. “Civilian version of the SOCOM pistol, isn’t it?”

  Dmitri nodded.

  “I’m getting predictable in my old age,” Merritt said. “I like it.”

  “What is all this artillery for, James?” Ruck asked as he watched Merritt drop the gun in his rucksack. Six sets of eyes turned and looked Ruck’s way. Merritt. Dmitri. Four others like Dmitri.

  Merritt looked at Ruck. “Seen and not heard,” he told his friend, touching a finger to his lips.

  Several of the men laughed—Dmitri not among them—but in the light cast by the candle Ruck could see a tiny smile at play on Dmitri’s lips. That angered Ruck at the cellular level. “It’s time for us to go, James,” he said.

  “As many more of these,” Merritt said, turning back to Dmitri and indicating his rucksack, the gun within, “as you can scrum up.”

  “Give me a week, and we’ll be armed to the teeth.”

  “Four days,” Merritt said. “I want to get moving on this.”

  Dmitri nodded.

  “What’s going on here, James?” Ruck asked. “Why do you need these weapons?”

  Merritt pushed the rucksack aside. “The walkie-talkies?”

  “Two-way radios,” Dmitri corrected, pulling six from a sack one of his men handed him and laying them out on the table. “Range up to a mile. Ready to go right out of the box. You don’t have to worry about FCC licensing and fees, any of that crap.”

  “L
ooks basic,” Merritt said.

  “They are. Didn’t want you getting confused with a bunch of buttons, seeing how you’re all primitive and whatnot.”

  “You’re smelling yourself, D. Don’t get too cocky for your own good now.”

  “You ask a lot of us,” Dmitri replied, “and we get it done. My men are top-notch, and I lead them with aplomb. I’m proud of our effort.”

  Merritt nodded. “The paintball gun and pepper spray projectiles?”

  Another one of Dmitri’s men stepped forward with a different sack. Dmitri took it, fished around inside it and pulled out Merritt’s requested items. An oblong sphere canister. A paintball gun outfitted to hold the canister. “I won’t bore you with the specs,” Dmitri said as he handed the items to Merritt. “Load and shoot. Simple.”

  “Pepper spray projectiles?” Ruck called out. “What the fuck, James?”

  Merritt took the items and dropped them in his rucksack with the other things; his gaze never left Dmitri’s face. “There’s something you aren’t telling me.”

  Dmitri sighed, the first sign that he was capable of any human emotion. “I knew you would sniff me out.”

  “Tell me.”

  “We had a minor setback. It’s been handled.”

  “Do I even want to know?”

  Dmitri nodded at one of the men beyond Ruck’s shoulder. Ruck turned, watched the man open a door and descend into darkness. The kitchen faucet dripped in a steady drone. The ceiling fan turned slowly, a wheel of black stripes painting the ceiling thanks to the candlelight. Ruck’s mouth went dry. His heart hammered in his chest. Nothing about this scene made him feel comfortable. “We should go,” he said again, ignored by all as the stairs beyond the door creaked and Dmitri’s man reappeared.

  The man brushed shoulders with Ruck as he passed him. Dropped a dark duffle bag on the table.

  “Go ahead and open it,” Merritt said.

  Dmitri did so as Merritt squinted and looked inside the bag. “You had no other choice? You had to go this hard?” he asked.

  “It sent a clear message,” Dmitri told him. “He was stirring up emotions. Defiant motherfucker, talking all this racist shit like we were still in the 60s. When we moved to quiet him down a few of the others stepped up and made us break a sweat. It wasn’t good for overall morale. We had to send this message. The other sheep have all fallen in line now.”