by Mark Lukens
Billy Toomer was stretched out on a dirty towel laid down on the deck near the bow of the boat. He had his shirt off and he was basking in the sun. He was lean, all bone and muscle, a man with a naturally high metabolism, Warren thought. Seagulls flew all around their boat, following them from the dock on the island and screeching in the air. Warren was waiting for one of the birds to drop a bomb on Billy’s chest, but the man didn’t seem too worried about it. Maybe he was sleeping off his beer buzz.
Shane stood by the railing for a moment by himself, staring out at the ocean in front of them, but then he walked towards the steps that led up to the pilothouse.
Harold sat by himself and stared out at the ocean. He had his large backpack with him at all times like he was afraid to be separated from it.
Laura stood by herself next to the railing on the other side of the boat; she stared out at the endless ocean, her blond hair blowing in the breeze. Nigel Cromwell made his way across the cluttered deck to stand right beside Laura.
Warren looked away from Laura and Nigel. He pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and opened it. He took out the worn photo of his daughter, Erin. He brushed his thumb over the photo and struggled to hold back the tears.
God, he missed her so much.
• • • • •
Kristen typed out a text on her cell phone, and then she stopped typing, frowning down at the screen. “I’m losing signal out here,” she told Nick who leaned back in his chair with his eyes closed, his sunglasses now tucked down into the front of his button-down Hawaiian shirt.
“Why don’t you take a break?” Nick told her without opening his eyes to look at her.
“But …”
“Take a break,” Nick insisted.
Kristen sighed and shut her phone off. She would restart it in a few minutes—maybe she would get a signal then. Before boarding the boat, she had changed out of her gray business suit/skirt and heels into a pair of jeans, a thin T-shirt, and the hiking boots that Nick’s people had packed for her. These weren’t her clothes from her house—they were brand new—so she assumed Nick had one of his army of assistants do some last-minute shopping for her in West Palm Beach. All of the new clothes had been packed neatly into a brand new suitcase and matching duffel bag, some designer brand that Kristen had never heard of before.
Obviously Nick wasn’t going to be much in the way of conversation right now. Kristen looked over at Laura. She thought about walking over there and talking to her since she was the only other woman on this boat, but Nigel had beaten her to it. He stood right beside Laura at the railing of the ship and they were talking.
Kristen looked back down at her phone. She turned it on again, hoping for a signal, but there wasn’t one. She shut if off again, wishing that she could get a signal out here so she could bury herself in her work and distract herself from the thought that she was going to spend two nights on Devil’s Island.
But most of all she wished that she wasn’t even here.
• • • • •
Laura stood next to the rusty metal railing, staring at the ocean. She heard footsteps approaching and then she saw Nigel right beside her. He stood there for a few minutes gazing out at the sea, but she could tell he was itching to say something to her. Then he looked right at her with a smug smile. “It’s beautiful out here, isn’t it?”
Laura smiled back at him and nodded. She looked right at Nigel as she tried to brush the hair out of her eyes; the constant wind was blowing her hair everywhere. “Yes, it is.”
“You’ve never even seen the ocean before today, have you?” Nigel asked her.
She could smell the alcohol on his breath even from a few feet away, yet he didn’t sway at all even though the ship was rocking back and forth on the waves.
“How did you know that?” she asked him.
“It’s what I do,” he answered. “I pick up on the slightest details that others miss. I can tell a lot about people in a few seconds, by what they say, their body language, their eyes.”
Laura nodded, suddenly feeling a little uncomfortable next to this man. She looked back out at the ocean. The color of the water was growing even darker the farther away they got from the island.
“That’s how I catch liars,” Nigel continued. “And hoaxes. And believe me, whatever hoax Nick Gorman has planned on this island that we’re going to, I’ll figure it out.”
Laura just nodded and stared at the water again. She couldn’t help feeling a little awkward and nervous next to Nigel. He was imposing and she felt like he was leaning into her space even though he really wasn’t that close to her.
She closed her eyes and let her mind reach out towards Nigel. Images popped into her mind like flashes on a film and she instantly felt fear and terror. In her mind, Laura saw a tall and very thin man standing at the end of a long dark hallway. The tall man seemed to be clothed in a long dark overcoat that was tattered and hugged his body. He wore a tall hat that made him seem even taller, and the brim of his hat kept his face hidden even deeper in the shadows. The tall man was just standing there in the darkness, the top of his hat nearly touching the ceiling, and his head was actually bent forward a little so the top of his hat wouldn’t scrape the ceiling. Laura couldn’t see the tall man clearly in this momentary flash in her mind, but she could feel the terror just from the man’s presence. She had no way of knowing how she knew this, but she was sure that the tall man was already dead. He was a dead man standing at the end of the hall …
Laura opened her eyes and looked at Nigel.
Nigel had seen the Tall Man before in his past, Laura was sure of it now. He’d seen him plenty of times. And now she had seen one of his memories, something that had terrified him as a child. But she couldn’t see everything … only bits and pieces. These were memories that Nigel Cromwell kept hidden deep down in the darkness of his memory, buried there and protected by walls of rational explanations that he’d built up over the years to explain what he’d seen as a child.
“Who is the Tall Man?” Laura asked him.
Nigel’s pudgy face went slack and suddenly pale under the bright sunlight as he stared at Laura in pure shock. But he recovered very quickly; that familiar pinched fake smile appeared suddenly on his jowly face. But he still couldn’t quite hide the surprise in his dark eyes. And Laura could still feel the fear coming from him like heat from a radiator.
“I … I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
“When you were a child, you saw someone called the Tall Man. That’s what you called him … the Tall Man. You saw the Tall Man at the end of a hallway.”
“How … how …” Nigel let his words flutter away into the ocean breeze, uttering a few sounds like he wanted to say something more but couldn’t form the words. For the first time since Laura had met him, he was tongue-tied.
Laura looked back out at the vast expanse of ocean in front of them. Nigel didn’t mind doing background checks about her life, and everyone else’s life, on his cell phone while they were in the airport lounge, but he sure didn’t seem to like it when someone dug around in his past—even if it was trapped in his own memories.
Nigel seemed like he wanted to say something, like he wanted to try to explain or rationalize what she’d just asked him. Laura could feel the frustration coming from him. But a moment later, he just turned and walked away.
“I’ll leave you to the view,” he said, but she could hear the tremor in his voice.
And now Laura was alone, just like she wanted to be.
• • • • •
Shane climbed a set of rusty metal stairs up into the pilothouse where the Captain stood at the wheel and instrument panel. The Captain puffed on an old pipe that jutted from the corner of his mouth. He was a short and compact man made of gristle, muscle, and bone. His face was like an ebony mask that had become cracked with weathered lines over the years. He never looked Shane’s way once as Shane entered the pilothouse.
“Ocean’s behaving herself t
oday,” Shane said after a long moment.
The Captain nodded. “So far,” he said in his Island accent. “But there’s a bad storm coming soon.”
Shane hadn’t heard anything about a storm coming, and he had checked before getting on the plane this morning. “But the weather reports said—”
The Captain turned his fierce eyes on Shane, interrupting him. “Weather man don’t live out here. He don’t know, does he?”
Shane just nodded, saying nothing. He looked away from the Captain and stared out through the dirty windows in front of him. The boat rocked and creaked along the waves, the motor somewhere below chugging along.
The Captain stared at Shane for a few seconds. “This island you’re going to, it’s a very bad place.”
Shane looked at the Captain; they locked eyes.
“The dead don’t stay dead there,” the Captain continued.
“What do you mean by that?” Shane asked.
The Captain shook his head and stared at Shane like he was staring at a doomed man. “I can’t say any more. You must be very careful when you get there. You must be very careful. That’s all I can say.”
The Captain looked back at the window, out at the calm sea, and he wouldn’t say any more.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Devil’s Island
The Captain docked the large fishing boat right up next to the rickety pier that ran almost forty yards from a cove at Devil’s Island out into the deeper waters. The boat hands brought the gear and equipment down onto the rotting floorboards of the pier, stacking up the boxes, camera cases, bags, crates, a portable generator, and red plastic cans of gasoline. They worked like an assembly line, and when they were done, they hurried back onto the boat. Shane and the others had grabbed their own bags and the sleeping bags that Nick had provided.
Kristen felt seasick as she stood on the rotting pier, watching the large boat rock up and down gently on the water. She swore she could actually feel the wood shifting underneath her feet from the waves lapping against the pilings that held the wood pier up out of the water. It was worse than being on that rusty old boat.
She looked at Nick and then at the others who waited on the pier.
The Captain stared down at them from the railing of his boat, not venturing down onto the pier at all. His mouth was just a slash in his dark face, his pipe hanging from the corner of it.
“Aren’t you going to help us carry our gear up to the Thornhill Manor?” Nick asked the Captain.
“This is as far as we go.”
“Our agreement was—”
“We’ve met our agreement!” the Captain snapped.
“How much extra do you need to help us with our gear?” Nick asked with a cocky smile.
“No amount of money,” the Captain answered. “This is as far as we go.” The Captain looked from Nick to the others standing near him and the stacks of boxes, cases, and crates. “I’ll be back in two days as we agreed. If you’re here on the dock, then I will take you back.”
The Captain walked away from the railing … the conversation over.
Kristen’s heart skipped a beat. If we’re here on the dock? What did he mean by that?
“Looks like we’re on our own from here,” Nick said and smiled at Kristen and the others.
“Uh … what did the Captain mean by if we’re here on the dock in two days?” Kristen asked Nick.
He just shook his head, dismissing her question with an annoyed smile.
Nick walked over to the nearest stack of plastic camera cases and picked up his locked wooden box that he’d set there moments ago. He had carried the wooden box down to the pier from the boat himself, guarding it protectively just like Harold was protecting whatever was inside his backpack. Nick set his wooden box down on top of another cardboard box of supplies and picked both of them up, cradling them in his arms. He looked at everyone with a beaming smile. “Everyone grab something and let’s get going.”
• • • • •
All of them hiked up through the same trail that John had hacked his way through only a week ago. All of them carried a box of gear and Billy and Shane carried the portable generator, each carrying a side.
Kristen carried a small cardboard box with her laptop balanced on top. She hurried up the jungle path to walk beside Nick.
“I still can’t get any kind of a signal out here,” she told Nick. “Nothing on my phone at all.”
“Then consider yourself on vacation for two days,” he told her.
“But I need my cell phone. What about The Boneyard film?”
“It’s being taken care of. You put Julie and Aaron on it. Remember?”
Yeah, she remembered. But she wasn’t as confident about their abilities as Nick seemed to be. Nick had changed drastically over the last year, his obsessiveness with his films had waned somewhat and it was replaced by an even more passionate pursuit of stimuli and discovery. And she knew what had changed him—his diagnosis.
“What about your doctor appointment?” she asked, ducking out of the way of a palm leaf hanging down from the jungle. “The second opinion you wanted. The test results?”
Nick stopped abruptly and stared at her, his smile faded away. “I already got the results.”
Kristen didn’t know what to say for a moment. “You … you got them? Why didn’t you tell me? What did they say?” She asked the questions but she could tell by the expression on his face that it hadn’t been good news. Nick’s true expression was a ghost under the façade of the confident smile that he presented right now.
Nick turned away from her and started walking again. Laura and Nigel had passed them as they stood there for a moment, working their way up through the brush ahead of them. The canopy of tree branches created a ceiling of green vegetation high above their heads, blocking out the intense light of the sun. Warren and Harold weren’t too far behind her and Nick on the trail, and Billy and Shane were bringing up the rear, lugging the generator up the steep hillside path.
“Consider yourself on a paid vacation,” Nick said over his shoulder as he began walking again.
Kristen hurried to catch up to Nick again.
“Have a little fun in your life,” Nick said as he walked, staring straight ahead, carrying the cardboard box in his arms. He was breathing heavily.
Kristen looked at Nick in a new light now. She had always thought of him as so vibrant, a tanned and lean man of health. But now his skin looked a little paler, a little grayer, his eyes a little weary, his muscle tone sagging just a bit. Was it just a trick of the sunlight that filtered down through the tree branches, or even a figment of her imagination, or was it something that she just hadn’t wanted to see before? She couldn’t imagine Nick dying … sometimes he seemed larger than life to her, immortal somehow.
“Have a little adventure in your life for once,” Nick added and Kristen swore there was an edge to his words, a meanness in his voice. “There’s more to life than just work, you know.”
“I know,” she said in a low voice. She wanted to change the subject, get her mind off of Nick’s cancer. She stared at the wooden box balanced on top of the box of supplies that he carried.
“What’s in that box?” she asked as she caught back up to him.
Nick walked along, fighting for breath in the thick, humid air. His face was already sweaty, his skin shining with perspiration.
“It’s a secret,” he told her with a smile.
Kristen didn’t bother pushing Nick further for an answer. She knew from experience that she wasn’t going to get him to reveal what was inside that box until he was ready.
A secret, he’d said. Perhaps whatever was locked inside that box was a clue to what he wanted so badly on this island.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Twenty minutes later they all emerged from the jungle trail and gathered at the edge of the thick brush, all of them staring at the large three story structure in the distance. The Thornhill Manor and its property were encircled by a spiked iron fence
that disappeared into the brush. The highest peak of the island rose up in the background far beyond the manor, and smaller hills stood on the other sides, surrounding this large flat valley that the manor had been constructed on.
Shane and Billy set the generator down for a moment, resting their arms.
Nick stared in awe at the building. “There she is,” he said. “The Thornhill Manor.”
“Home sweet home for the next forty-eight hours,” Nigel said.
Nick glanced at Nigel and then looked back at the massive structure in the distance. “Time’s a wasting. Let’s get going.”
They were on the move again. Billy and Shane picked up the generator, each grabbing a handle on each side. They all trekked through the weeds and tall grasses to the iron gates.
Nick pushed one of the gates open and it let out a squeal in the humid air. The insects, some kind of sand gnats, buzzed around their faces. From some distant area of the island, birds called out. Their cries sounded like warnings to Shane. And now that Shane thought about it, he hadn’t heard any birds or animals the closer they got to the Thornhill Manor. It seemed like even the wildlife here on this island stayed closer to the edges, closer to the water, avoiding the interior of the island like they knew instinctively that this place was bad.
The island you’re going to … it’s a very bad place. The Captain’s words echoed in Shane’s mind. The dead don’t stay dead there. He felt a shiver dance across his skin even though it was stifling hot and he was still sweating from his walk up through the jungle.
“Come on inside and let’s have a look,” Nick said as he picked up the cardboard box he’d been carrying with his wooden box balanced on top. “We’ll get the rest of the gear from the dock a little later.”
Shane watched Nick practically run towards the manor like a kid running towards a carnival. Nick rushed past a cracked and tilting fountain that was filled with black water, and then he bounded up the wooden porch steps up onto the wide and massive front porch. Nick stopped for a moment, inhaling a big breath, and then he erupted into a coughing fit, his legs buckling. He set his cardboard box down onto the floorboards of the porch, almost collapsing.
