“Next time, let’s pick an island that’s a little more deserted,” Malin said. When she didn’t seem to find it funny, he quickly added, “Look, the boat is not that badly damaged. From the way the dad was talking, they probably want to head off as soon as they can. The kid needs treatment. If it’ll make you feel better, we can give them a little food and water for the trip.”
Elna bowed her head. “I don’t know what to do, Malin. Let’s talk it over with the others when we get back to the guesthouse.”
“They’ll just look to you for the answer,” he said. “The only bull-headed guy on this island was Garret, and he’s long gone.”
“Not long enough,” she muttered. “And not far enough. Don’t say his name or you might jinx it.”
A sudden crosswind sent frigid rain blasting against the guardhouse door. Malin turned, shielding Elna with his arm, as she reached for the door latch. They rushed inside, chased by the rain, and then Malin struggled for a few seconds to get the door shut again. Raymond and Daniel were curled up beside each other under the dirty blankets. The father had an impressive snore. It was like dragging a dull sawblade through a stack of wood shingles.
How can the kid sleep through that?
“Let’s give them at least another hour,” Elna said softly. “But we can’t stay here all day. Like it or not, they’ll have to walk again soon.”
Malin sat down, but he was soaked to the bone. He didn’t feel comfortable, and he couldn’t imagine sleeping like their guests. He leaned back against the wall beside the door, tucked his hands behind his head, and shut his eyes, listening to Elna as she quietly picked through the scrap piles and filled up her backpack. Even now, she was thinking about problems to solve.
4
After almost two furious hours, the storm decided to take a deep breath. Elna peeked outside and saw a break in the clouds, afternoon sunlight sliding over the island in rays. More dark clouds lingered on the horizon, however. They weren’t in the clear yet. Hoping to rouse their castaways, Elna dragged the backpack across the room, letting the scraps inside clatter loudly. The boy thrashed, moaned, and sat up, staring at her with bleary eyes. His skin was a sickly, yellowish color, and his eyes were bloodshot.
What disease is eating away at you, little guy? she thought. Are you going to be okay?
“We’d better wake your father and get back to the guesthouse,” Elna said. “Can you help me? I don’t want to startle him. He’s been through a lot.”
Daniel began shaking his father’s shoulder, and the old man finally groaned and kicked the blanket away.
“The water. The water,” Raymond said.
He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. Muttering something in Spanish under his breath, he sat up, pulling the plastic hood of his coat up over his head.
“Raymond, I’m going to introduce you to the rest of the island dwellers,” Elna said. “We’ll discuss your predicament and figure out what to do next. How does that sound?”
“Is it far away?” he replied.
“Up the hill. No, not too far.”
Raymond scrubbed his face with his hands. “I hate to leave the boat. It needs to be patched up. If anything happens to it, I don’t know how we’ll get Danny to the clinic.”
“You can’t do anything until the storm passes,” Elna said, “and you definitely can’t set off without a few supplies.”
“Fair enough,” Raymond replied. “Is the storm still going? It sounds quiet to me.”
“We’re in a lull. Let’s hurry up the hill while we can.”
She gestured at Malin, and he opened the door, revealing the still, gray world beyond. The military base was dotted with large puddles, but only a faint drizzle was coming down at the moment. Elna rushed outside, the crowbar tapping out a rhythm against her thigh. She beckoned the others to follow, dodging puddles as she passed through the old base and headed for the fence.
“Wow, this is your facility?” Raymond asked, hurrying to catch up with her.
“No, this is a former Army base,” she replied. “We’re slowly taking it apart for scrap metal and wood.”
“So this is, like, a private island, then?” he asked, suddenly perking up. “You must be billionaires or something.”
His son was struggling to keep up, already out of breath, so Elna slowed down, despite her own sense of urgency.
“Yes, it’s a private island, but, no, we’re not billionaires, sadly. Although, being a billionaire is maybe not as advantageous as it used to be. My grandfather bought it at auction decades ago, and it belongs to our family business: Pasqualee Vineyard.”
“Oh, you make wine, then?” he said.
“Well, we’re a vineyard so, yes.” Elna was trying her best to keep the frustration and worry out of her voice. She bore so many responsibilities these days, this almost felt like the straw that broke the camel’s back. But the poor castaways hadn’t done it on purpose. She couldn’t take it out on them, so she bit the inside of her cheek and kept it to herself.
They passed through the fence and started across the rocky ground. Elna looked back over her shoulder and down at the small sloop. It was firmly stuck against the rocks in the sand. It wasn’t going anywhere. If the waves didn’t beat it to pieces, it might even survive.
Good, she thought. These two will need it again soon.
She wanted to hurry and send them on their way, but she felt bad for wanting it. The specialty clinic this boy needed almost certainly wasn’t open. His treatments, whatever they were, almost certainly weren’t available. Raymond turned and looked with her.
“I feel like I’m abandoning my only hope,” he said. “Madre de Dios! What am I going to do? How could this happen? Why now?”
“We’ve all asked those same questions,” Malin said. “Believe me, friend, you’re not alone. I had a whole other life before the EMP. Sometimes, it feels like I dreamed it.”
“If I’m dreaming,” Raymond said, “it’s a nightmare, and I’m ready to wake up.”
The trail up the backside of the island was muddy and slick, and both Malin and Daniel fell along the way. By the time they reached the vineyard, they were covered with mud. The drizzle was slowly turning back into rain, so Elna ushered them toward the back door into the tasting room.
As soon as she stepped through the door, Elna felt a wall of comfortable warmth sweep over her. Orange light danced at the end of the hallway from the fire in the lobby. Quiet conversations echoed through the building.
“It’s nice in here,” Raymond said.
She looked back and saw that they were tracking water and mud into the room, but there wasn’t much she could do about it now. Rain had returned with a vengeance, kicking up a blinding mist that seemed to devour the vineyard. Malin shut the door.
“It’s looking bad out there,” he said.
And I didn’t have time to shore up the aqueduct, Elna thought, sourly, because of our unexpected guests.
Not their fault, of course. They hadn’t planned on being shipwrecked. Still, Elna trudged down the hall feeling defeated.
She found the rest of the islanders there. Selene sat at one end of the couch, picking apart some kind of herbs and putting the leaves in a bowl. Norman was on the other end of the couch, furiously working away at something. Elna couldn’t tell until she got closer that he was drilling a new hole in his only belt. Norman, like all of them, had lost some weight over their weeks on the island.
“Dinner’s almost ready,” Rita said.
Joe and Rita Dulles, their resident septuagenarians, were seated on the hearth. Rita was bent over a pot, stirring something that smelled like seafood. Almost certainly more shrimp. Elna wasn’t quite sick of shrimp, but she was getting close. Once she noticed the newcomers, Rita gave them a narrow-eyed look of suspicion, though she kept right on stirring. Joe grunted loudly, as if Elna had let some mangy animal into the room, and this caught the attention of Elna’s father, George Pasqualee, who was seated in a chair beside the couch. He rose
, wincing as he did, and came toward them.
“Well, now, Principessa, do we have some guests this evening?” he asked.
Her father was a wiry old man with a craggy face. Since he’d stopped shaving, he’d grown a generous white beard. A couple more weeks and he would look like an emaciated Santa Claus. He’d maintained a pot belly for many years, a consequence of his fondness for the family product, but it was quickly disappearing. His shirts were all baggy and loose now. Elna worried about him. Besides losing weight and gaining an unkempt beard, he just didn’t look healthy. Even getting out of a chair seemed to take a lot of effort.
“Castaways, technically,” Elna said. “Temporary guests, and not by their choice.”
As she ushered Raymond and Daniel into the warm lobby, she recounted the whole story.
As she was speaking, Norman got up and laid several towels across the couch cushions, then gestured for Raymond and Daniel to sit. They obliged, the boy practically collapsing as if he had almost no strength left in his legs.
“Are they sticking around?” Joe Dulles asked. He had a crackly, ancient voice, and he always sounded a bit surly, even when he was in a good mood. Elna couldn’t tell if he was annoyed or not.
“No, I have to get my son medical care,” Raymond said. “We can’t stay long. He’s very sick.”
Selene dumped the leafy contents of her bowl into a small sack and set it at her feet. “You’re in luck, sir. I’m the resident medic around here. Herbal therapy, mostly. I bet I can put together something to treat his condition. What does he have?”
“No, it’s not like that,” Raymond said, wiping his son’s muddy hands on the edge of a towel. “It’s a rare disease that needs specific medication. Herbs would only be like a Band-Aid. We have to sail soon. Once the rain is past, that is.” He waved a hand in front of his face in a way that put an end to the conversation.
You’ve already told us the roads are full of bandits and gangs, Elna thought. Where do you think you’re going to take the boy?
“Well, dinner’s ready, whatever the case,” Rita said. “Let’s move to the dining room.”
Elna didn’t have much appetite. A shame, because Rita had cooked up an excellent shrimp stew using some of Selene’s wild herbs. She filled her bowl anyway and forced herself to eat. Food was more of an obligation these days, one that she struggled to keep. If she had her way, she’d spend all day and night on her little construction projects around the island, neglecting food, water, bathroom breaks, and sleep.
“Did you happen to go anywhere near Santa Cruz?” Norman asked, pouring himself a cup of Elna’s desalinated water. It had a rather cloudy appearance, which troubled her.
Maybe I should filter it a second time, she thought, trying to imagine a better filtration system. If he noticed, Norman didn’t say anything about the cloudy water. He took a big drink and then sighed as if it were the most delicious beverage he’d ever consumed.
“No, sir,” Raymond replied. “We came from Sacramento, tried to take the 101 through Petaluma and Santa Rosa, but were forced west to the coast. My friends, you don’t know how bad it is out there. Police are overwhelmed, and they can’t keep the criminal gangs in check. It’s survival of the fittest.”
Danny stuck his lower lip out and elbowed his father in the side. Was he on the verge of tears?
This poor kid has seen some things.
“But you still want to get back in your boat and sail to Manchester?” Norman asked.
“No choice,” Raymond replied, patting his son on the head. “I have to do it. As soon as possible. If you could help me patch up the hull of my boat, I would find a way to repay you. Just tell me how.”
Elna’s father had mostly been stirring his stew. He raised a spoonful, but set it down again before eating it. “Well, no one’s going anywhere or patching anything this evening,” he said. “I strongly encourage both of you to sleep on it tonight. We can talk about it again tomorrow.”
Raymond scowled at his bowl of stew. He’d wolfed most of it down in about four bites. Clearly, the castaways had gone without food for a while.
“Fine then,” he said, after a moment, as if responding to a question in his head. “Daniel, you can make it one more night, can’t you?”
Daniel shrugged his bony shoulders. “I guess.”
“First thing in the morning, we’ll figure it out,” Raymond added. “One night of sleep with no wind or waves. We can do it.”
“Okay,” Daniel said glumly.
They ate the rest of their meal in relative silence. Raymond and Daniel finished first, and Elna’s father offered to lead them to one of the empty guest rooms.
“Pop, point the way to the bathroom first,” Elna said. “They’re still soaking wet and muddy. We should have a full bucket of clean water beside the sink, so they can wash up. Raymond, you have to stand over the drain and wash with a ladle and rag—baths are too wasteful.”.
“Thank you,” Raymond said, with a nod. “What about our dirty clothes?”
“I’m sure we’ve got some extra t-shirts around here somewhere,” George said, as he led them out of the room. “We’ll hang your old clothes up and let them dry overnight.”
They left the room, and Elna heard her father’s voice fading down the hallway. After a few minutes, George returned alone and sat down. He cleared his throat.
“I put them in the farthest room,” he said. “The wind is loud at the end of the hall. We should be able to talk privately, as long as we keep our voices down.”
“Pardon me,” Joe said. He’d finished eating and was helping his wife collect the leftovers, shuffling around the table on slippered feet. White-haired and bent, he still managed to get around the guesthouse with little problem. “Why do we need to discuss this privately? Are we planning something behind their backs?”
“This guy wrecked his boat, and he’s trying to head right back out on the water,” Norman said, “to sail to a city that’s probably overrun with criminals and thieves. That doesn’t seem smart to me, and we shouldn’t let it happen.”
“Well, we can’t restrain them,” Malin said, tapping his spoon against the edge of his bowl. “If they want to go, we have to let them go. This isn’t Rod Smith’s camp. We don’t imprison people for their own good.”
“They can’t go anywhere if they don’t patch up their boat,” Norman said. He dabbed the corner of his mouth with a napkin and belched. “And if we help them patch up their boat, we’ll be culpable for whatever bad thing happens to them when they set sail again. Don’t you think?”
“So, we’re just supposed to feed these people?” Rita said. “We can barely feed ourselves.”
“I really believe I can help the boy if his father will describe his medical condition,” Selene said. “There’s an herbal remedy for almost everything.”
“Let’s fix the boat and send them on their way,” Joe said. “Give them a few supplies and be done with it. Better for everyone. That’s what I have to say about it.”
The room got quiet then. Elna was so lost in thought that it took her a few seconds to realize every single person in the room was staring at her with questioning looks on their faces.
They expect me to tell them what to do, she thought.
She looked down at her half-eaten bowl of shrimp stew. She forced down a final bite as people kept right on staring. Then she took a sip of water, wiped her mouth, and folded her napkin on the tabletop.
“Everything doesn’t have an easy answer,” she said. “Let’s sleep on it. Maybe we’ll all think more clearly in the morning.”
And with that, she pushed her chair back and left the dining room.
Elna’s small, cluttered bedroom was in a separate hallway from the guest rooms, located close to the back of the kitchen. Her bed was positioned near the window, and even with the shade pulled, the wind and rain made a tooth-rattling soundscape. Elna tossed and turned for at least a couple of hours, pausing occasionally to stare up at the dark ceiling and cons
ider their predicament.
Her main goal since the EMP had been keeping the islanders fed and safe. Now, she was confronted with a couple of needy outsiders, and the distraction was almost too much. Finally, she pulled a sheet and heavy quilt over herself and rolled onto her side.
Willing her mind to settle, she gradually drifted off to sleep. Instead of rest, however, she only found awful dreams waiting for her in the darkness. In the most vivid of them, the whole island had been scoured clean, leaving only the old volcanic rocks, but as she wandered over the dead ground where the vineyard had once stood, Elna saw countless gray objects scattered about. When she stooped down to retrieve one, she realized it was a fragment of bone.
Dead. They’re all dead, she thought, running her hands along the ground and scattering bits of bone in all directions. The island was a cemetery all along.
She awoke from the dream suddenly, eyes wide in the utter blackness, shivering to the core of her being. Outside, the rain continued to drum away at the window. Elna sat up and turned, reaching for the window shade.
I have to see for myself, she thought, as she pulled the shade aside.
She wiped the condensation off the glass and pressed her face to the window. The world outside was too dark, with just a hint of moonlight hidden behind the clouds. Still, she stared. She just wanted to see one living thing.
Finally, she had to get up and pace the room, letting her fingers brush over familiar objects, reassuring her dream-addled mind that the guesthouse still stood. That she hadn’t failed. Not yet.
5
Elna wanted to eat breakfast fast, wolfing everything down in seconds, but Joe and Rita insisted on serving the meal in courses. And how could she refuse? The more they’d taken over mealtime duties, the more they had flourished on the island. It gave them purpose, and it had greatly improved their attitudes, so she forced herself to slow down and enjoy breakfast at the pace they set, even as impatience burned in her limbs like electricity.
Island Refuge EMP Box Set | Books 1-3 Page 27
