Echo Island

by Jared C. Wilson

  But then he realized if the man was still in the area, he certainly would have heard the loud creak of the door. He was probably already heading that way, which meant Tim didn’t have much time to make his escape. Every second spent with his stupid head sticking out the stupid door was another second of ground the man could gain on him.

  But maybe, Tim thought. The guy isn’t an enemy at all. Maybe he can help us. He’s in the same mess as we are, after all. Maybe he knows what happened.

  Or maybe he caused what happened.

  The latter suddenly seemed more likely.

  Tim knew he had to get back to Jason’s house, find the guys, and tell them everything. If the man posed a threat, only Bradley might be big enough to match him. Tim knew for sure he couldn’t defend himself alone.

  He pushed the door open wider, grimacing as the creak grew louder, an ear-splitting mechanical rasp that probably meant nothing to the employees on a regular day of routine ins and outs. But to Tim, it declared, “Come and kill me.”

  Bolting toward the woods, he crossed the concrete and jumped up to grasp the top of the cement retaining wall between him and the trees. Tim could be strong when he wanted to be. He strained to pull himself up, using his feet against the wall to push.

  Scraping his injured knee on the way up, he managed to clamber over the top and sprint into the woods. Stopping only once to catch his breath, he felt safely obscured by the brush. He panted, looking around. Finding his bearings, he realized he’d need to manage a fairly significant hike through thick brush to take the shortest route to Jason’s neighborhood. The longer route would be easier, and it would avoid areas closer to the main streets and town center.

  Long route it was.

  Tim had taken only a few steps when he heard a loud snap behind him, a big foot on a dry stick. Whirling around, he found his face buried in the broad chest of the bearded man, who promptly picked him up and slammed him to the ground.

  9

  WALKING

  Bradley looked at Beatrice, dumbfounded. “Your dad? Has the guns?”

  “Yes.”

  “Like, all the guns?”

  “I think so. It was one of the first things he decided to do once he realized everyone was gone.”

  Jason said, “Wait a minute. You said you were alone.”

  “I was. I mean . . . I am.”

  “You’re not alone if your family is still around!”

  Beatrice looked hurt. “He’s not my family.”

  “He’s your dad!”

  “Yes.”

  “Wait, wait,” Bradley said. “This is good. Right? He could help us.”

  Beatrice’s hurt turned to sorrow. “No. I don’t think so.”

  Jason touched her on the forearm, and she jerked back. “Don’t touch me.”

  “Hold on a sec. He can’t help us. And he’s gathering up all the guns on the island. What exactly is he doing?” Bradley asked.

  She held her arm against her stomach, holding it close with her other. “I don’t know. He’s not well.”

  “You must have some idea.”

  “I don’t know, I told you. I think he thinks this is some kind of end-of-the-world-type thing. He’s just as freaked out as you are. Only, you would not want to be around my dad when he freaks out.”

  Bradley shook his head. “This is some kind of nightmare.”

  “Where is he now?” Jason asked.

  “I don’t know. When he started getting strange again, I ran away. I don’t want to go back home. But my guess is that if he’s not out looking for supplies, he’s at home.”

  “Minuai Fields?”

  “Thereabouts,” Beatrice said. “Well. Unless.”

  “Unless what?”

  “Unless he’s looking for me.”

  Archer had lost all sense of time. He’d stared and stared at the contents of the green notebook until his eyes hurt. All his candles had gone out, and the pale light of the lanterns wasn’t helping much by this point. He needed daylight. Realizing also that he’d probably exhausted the limited resources in the historical society building, he decided to walk over to the town library.

  As he walked, green notebook swinging at his side, Archer began methodically searching all the files in his mind. What had become of the Voynich manuscript? Had its cryptic text really never been solved? That’s what he remembered, but it’s not like he’d stayed updated on the news about it.

  I really need the internet, he thought.

  His head was down as he walked, deep in contemplation, hoping some hidden reservoir in his mind might give up some forgotten information. He’d been lost in his own mind before, plenty of times actually, and often came back up for air with connections even he was surprised to already know. His mother had been fond of saying that the brain is like a plastic straw, and every bit of information is like a little, hard pea stuck inside. That is, until you put a new piece of information—a new pea—into the straw. Then an old pea pops out the other side.

  But Archer didn’t think of his mind like that at all. If it was a straw, it was nearly infinite. Every bit of information he put in, he figured, would stay in. He could find anything he’d read, seen, heard, or experienced at any time, given enough time to search for it.

  If he’d thought to look up, he’d have seen the sky was almost entirely clear now, a pale blue canvas with just three round clouds hovering above in a line like an ellipsis. Or like three white peas, perhaps.

  Archer reached the library. The front door was locked. Before he looked about for something with which to break the glass, he circled the building, checking the windows and the rear exit. The library was not large; it only served a town of five thousand, after all, most of whom were not regular patrons. Archer and his mother never found the books they were most interested in there, so they were always using the interlibrary loan process. The library seemed to specialize in nature and history books, and, of course, all the most popular genre fiction that brought in most of Echo Island’s thrifty readers.

  The back door was locked too. But Archer discovered a low window into the basement that was unlatched. After shimmying it open, he found that he was just skinny enough to slip through.

  The window was at the top of the basement ceiling, and the drop was more than he expected. He stumbled as he landed, falling over into a dusty shelf of cardboard boxes. The light streaming through the window did not provide much visibility, so with hands out in front of him, Archer felt along the passageway of shelves until he found the door to the stairwell.

  The main floor of the library was easier to see, thanks to the light coming in through the front windows. Again, a short row of desktop computers mocked him. Without thinking, he stepped over to their table and shoved one of them off onto the floor.

  That felt good.

  He headed to where the books he read as a kid on riddles and puzzles were housed, hoping books on codes and cyphers would be there too. Scanning the shelves, though, he came up empty. The library simply wasn’t large enough to include such obscure and esoteric subject matter.

  What else might help? he wondered.

  He surveyed all the nonfiction stacks, evaluating the subject matter by clusters, not exactly reading each spine. Nothing seemed related to the matter at hand.

  Everything important these days is online, Archer fumed.

  He came to the end. Six long rows of bookcases, and nothing that might help him crack the mystery text. Deflated, he sat down at the computer terminals and ruefully nudged the one he’d shoved to the floor with his foot.

  He opened up the green notebook to a random page and stared again.

  This has to mean something.

  Outside, in the world, his friends were attempting to solve the mystery in their own ways—not thinking about the notebooks at all. Archer wondered what they were doing and
if they were safe. One thing he did know: Only he was left to translate the runes. Only he had the capacity for this sacred work.

  Except that he didn’t.

  He couldn’t figure out why nothing electronic worked. He couldn’t figure out where everybody went. He couldn’t figure out the power station. And now he couldn’t figure out the stupid notebook. He closed it.

  It’s not a Voynich. It’s a MacGuffin.

  He sighed, kicked the computer monitor on the floor. He slammed the notebook shut and threw it back over his shoulder. The pages opened as it flew, the cover, the wings of a bird descending with a flutter to the floor at the base of the fiction stacks.

  He gazed out the window and finally noticed the sky was blue.

  We are alone, he thought.

  And then he remembered the cabin. Of course! If there were any bookcase that might help him decipher the mystery text, it would be that bookcase—the one from which he’d taken the notebook. The case was full of green notebooks. He and Jason had looked through some of them, but not all. The ones they’d inspected all contained the same indecipherable writing, but that didn’t mean they all did. What if the text had been written in multiple languages? What if one of those notebooks contained a key?

  He had to go back to the cabin.

  But when he bent to retrieve the green notebook from the floor, the spine of a different book on the bottom shelf caught his eye.

  Archer almost threw up. Coughing and sputtering, he slumped onto the floor and recoiled as if this book might jump out at him.

  It couldn’t be. Could it? It had to be a coincidence. How could he just happen upon this?

  With a shaking hand, he pulled the book away from its snug slot among its shelfmates. He laid it in his flat palm and contemplated it, in shock.

  It was a clothbound book, a brown cover with red stitching, certainly old from the looks of its design, but it did not appear to have ever been opened. And despite its color, the spine read in gold-stamped lettering: the green notebook.

  Tim had blacked out. And when he finally came to, slowly and groggily, his head was pounding. He was seeing stars, and his ears were ringing.

  It was dark. For a moment, Tim thought he’d been left in the woods right where he’d been attacked, perhaps left for dead, and now night had fallen. But as he gained a bit more of his senses, he could tell he wasn’t outside. The rough ground under his cheek was a scratchy carpet. There was faux wood paneling directly across from him, and as he tilted his head, he spotted the brown dust ruffle of a couch next to him.

  He could not move his hands. They were tied behind him. His feet were bound too.

  Now his eyes opened wide, and he craned to look every which way. He was in a narrow living space, a trailer home from the looks of the kitchen and the door, which lay about ten feet away.

  He thought of yelling but decided to listen first. Was he alone? He couldn’t hear anybody in the home with him.

  Still, he decided not to yell. The man might be just outside.

  Tim strained at his bindings. There was no slack at all. He thought maybe he could scoot himself forward, arching his back and pushing off with his bound feet against the floor. He pushed and arched, managing to scoot about six inches toward the door. His shirt caught on the floor and pulled up over his belly.

  The voice came from behind him. “Where are you going, fat boy?”

  Tim froze. He rolled over onto his back and looked down the length of his body. There, at his feet, sat a chair. And the large, bearded man was sitting in it.

  His head was a small boulder, it seemed, and above the start of his bushy black beard sat round, fleshy cheekbones, flushed discernibly red even in the dim light of the trailer. With a fist the size of a small melon, he lifted a long gleaming knife to his jaw and gently scratched.

  “I said, ‘Where are you going?’”

  Tim shut his eyes and began to cry.

  “No, no, no. Don’t do that, you big, fat baby.”

  Tim opened his eyes again, tears streaming down the sides of his face onto the floor.

  “Don’t you wet my floor, baby.”

  “Please, man,” Tim said softly.

  “Please what? Please what, now?”

  “P-please. Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?” The man was smiling, a great toothy smile from behind the wiry tendrils of his unkempt beard. “Don’t what?” he repeated, lowering the long blade of the knife from near his face toward Tim. “What is it you don’t want me to do? I might need some ideas.”

  “J-just, d-don’t.”

  Tim’s hands were underneath him, tied tightly at the wrists and now pinned between his back and the floor. His shirt still bunched up near his chest, his white stomach shuddered and heaved between his gaze and the blade of the bearded man.

  The man’s smile disappeared. He looked angry now. “What to do?” he said.

  Tim suddenly began to writhe, rolling back and forth onto his sides, kicking with his bound feet toward the man, narrowly missing the man’s shins against the chair. But he had already crawled too far to make impact. He kept kicking and flopping around. Then he started yelling.

  The man leapt to his feet. “No, sir!” he said, and he reached down to grab Tim by the shirt front. Yanking up, Tim’s head bobbed into the air and was met by a closed fist that cracked against his skull.

  Tim almost blacked out again, and as the man let go of his shirt, he fell back against the floor, his head smacking against the carpet.

  He was blinking, trying to stay conscious.

  “You’re gonna make me do something,” the man said. “Something I might not want to do. Not yet. You’ve got to help me, young man.” He sat back down in his chair.

  The knife was still in his fist, and the gleam of it caught Tim’s eye. Tim was shocked he hadn’t been stabbed.

  “What do you want?” Tim said.

  “Well, look,” said the man, and he promptly slipped the knife into a sheath that hung from his belt. He clasped his hands together as if praying. “You might have noticed this place got strange. Yes?”

  “I—”

  “You think it’s strange, right?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “Everybody’s gone. But I mean. Not everybody. I’m here. You’re here. And I know there’s more of you out there. So, first thing is, I want to know how many.”

  “How many?”

  “That’s what I said, son. How many?”

  Tim’s gut was just to tell him. There’s four of us. Give the man all three of his friends’ names, their addresses, their life histories, everything. But he knew he couldn’t do that. He had to think quickly. But it was hard. His head was pounding, and he felt like he might pass out again.

  “Stay with me, now,” said the man. “I have ways to keep you awake, ways you won’t like. How many of you are there?”

  “I—I don’t know,” Tim said.

  “How can you not know?”

  “B-because. Because there’s too many. I don’t know everybody. How many, I mean.”

  The man lowered his face and glared. “There’s a bunch of you?”

  “Yes,” said Tim. “Lots. I don’t know how many.”

  “Guess.”

  Tim hesitated. “I don’t know. Maybe thirty, forty.”

  The man looked skeptical. “No way,” he said. “No way. I’ve already been all over this island—if that’s even what it is anymore—and there’s no way you got thirty or forty people stashed away somewhere.”

  Tim doubled down. “Well, there is. Maybe more, I don’t know.”

  “Where at?”

  “On the island.”

  The man stood up now in a rage. He stomped on Tim’s right leg with fury.

  Tim screamed.

  “Shut your smart mouth and tell me the truth, son.
Where on the island?”

  “Th-the theater.” He had to keep the man as far away from the Royal Garden subdivision as he could, and the theater was the only building large enough to hold as many people as he had claimed were there.

  “The theater? Downtown? I looked. There’s nobody.”

  “No, no. They were there. I went out to get food. We were scared, not sure what was happening.”

  “And they sent you? The big, fat baby?”

  “Yes, me.”

  The man sat down again, shaking his head. “I guess it don’t matter,” he said. “Truth or not. We both know how this ends, right?”

  Tim looked down the length of himself again. The man’s left hand was back on the hilt of his knife.

  Bradley was cleaning up the remains of his makeshift bar from the George family table.

  Jason was staring at Beatrice. “Your dad is looking for you.”

  “I would imagine so.”

  “Why did you run away?”

  Bradley interjected, “Man, leave her alone. People run away. Everybody’s got to do what they got to do.”

  Jason waved his hand, as if wiping away Bradley’s interruption. “Should we . . . ?” He stopped.

  “Should we what?” Beatrice asked.

  “Should we be afraid? Of your dad.”

  Beatrice said nothing.

  Now even Bradley was staring at her, waiting for an answer.

  Finally, she spoke. “I don’t know what he’ll do. He was very unnerved by everything. Started talking about the end of the world or a possible invasion. I had to get out of there. So yes. I’m afraid of him. You should be afraid of him.”

  Bradley sat down. He was entirely sober now. “He’s got all the guns.”

  Beatrice said, “What do you think you could do anyway?”

  “I don’t know. But if he’s crazy and he’s armed to the teeth, it might be good to be able to protect ourselves, you know?”