FULL MOON ISLAND

by Terry Yates

  “I know.”

  “Then what’s going on?”

  “How the hell should I know? We were never taught that charred human skin might regenerate itself in med school. I think I would have remembered that particular day.”

  “What do we do?”

  “What can we do? On a normal day I would be yelling and screaming for doctors and scientists to come see what we’d discovered. I would be preparing to accept my Nobel. I would be getting ready to write my book, but as it is…a man healing himself is the least of our problems. We have got to get Lauren O’Hearley to a proper medical facility. There’s not much we can do for Mrs. Rogerson except to keep giving her morphine drips. Are the newborns still in the maternity ward?”

  “Yes,” Nurse Walling answered.

  “Well, it’s probably time for them to be with their mother for awhile. We’ll worry about him later.”

  Nurse Walling nodded and left to retrieve the newborns. Kyler looked down at the man.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  CHAPTER 7

  Kyler stayed with the John Doe for another fifteen minutes before walking out from behind the partition.

  “Is he okay?” Lauren O’Hearley asked him. Kyler liked this young girl. As quirky as she was, she seemed to be completely oblivious to her own suffering and genuinely concerned about others. He noticed that Michael Blum was about to say something snide to her about asking if a burn victim was okay, so he spoke up.

  “Believe it or not, Lauren, he seems to be doing okay for right now,” he answered, shooting a glance towards the Blum kid. As he had hoped, the boy closed his mouth.

  “Has anyone heard anything about the helicopters?” Rob Olsen asked. “We need to get my mother-in-law out of here.”

  “We need to get everyone out of here,” Kyler answered. “Sergeant, have you heard anything?”

  Sgt. Cohen’s radio had been next to his ear every free moment that he had.

  “I’m catching transmissions here and there but nothing concrete,” Cohen replied, the radio still next to his ear as he talked. “The communications must’ve been knocked out or else the airways are just too crowded. I’m catching snippets about the storm, but I can’t find out when or where it’s gonna hit. I heard something about the jet crash, but again…nothing that I can really understand.”

  “What about the helicopters?” Rob Olsen repeated.

  Cohen looked at Kyler.

  “I haven’t heard anything.”

  “Well we have to do something!” Olsen shrieked.

  Oh great, Kyler thought. Rob Olsen was going to be that guy you saw in every movie that falls apart during any tense situation.

  “There’s just not a lot we can do right now,” he told Olsen.

  “Besides, our daughter’s needs are a bit more life threatening at the moment,” Ariella O’Hearley piped up.

  Kyler couldn’t believe that she had just said that in front of Lauren. Noticing this, Lauren looked sleepily at him.

  “It’s all right, Dr. Kyler,” she said smiling. “We’re an honest family. We don’t keep things from each other. That way, there are no surprises when travesty comes.”

  Kyler stood mesmerized. Had he just heard an eleven-year-old girl use the word “travesty”?

  “Be that as it may, young lady. This is a hospital and a little decorum should be used, don’t you think? There are others here who aren’t as brave as you.”

  Kyler waited for some sort of reply, but Lauren simply smiled and closed her eyes again.

  “Forgive me, Doctor,” Ariella said in as much of an apologetic tone as she could possibly muster. “But it IS our way. We don’t keep things from each other. We believe in being open and honest with each other even in a crisis.”

  “Well, that’s all well and good, Dr. O’Hearley,” Kyler whispered, “but she’s only eleven and no eleven year old needs to know that they might…well…”

  “Die,” Lauren answered softly, her eyes still closed.

  “Yes…No! I don’t mean “die”. I mean…that…well, that that it could get worse if we don’t get you to Miami. That’s…what I was trying…to…uh…say.”

  “Yeah, well those helicopters had better get here soon,” Gringo Boots chimed in, a toothpick hanging from the side of his mouth. “Look out the window.”

  The crowd looked out the main entrance windows. It was completely black now and the wind seemed twice as strong as it had been just a few hours ago. Large, unrecognizable objects were flying through the air as if thrown by a very large unseen hand. As they watched, one of the newborns began to cry, breaking the trance.

  “Has anybody heard from my husband?” Shelly Dixon asked. She was lying nearly flat on her back with a baby still under each arm, a look of anguish across her face. Kyler was certain that she had seen some of the stares that the Olsen’s, Gringo, and even Burt Burns had given her. While Shelly was a natural blonde with piercing blue eyes, both of her babies had dark skin and small locks of black, curly hair protruding from their scalps. Their father was obviously African-American. Kyler had met the twin’s father on several occasions. His name was Marcus Dixon and he was a corporal stationed on the island. He had escorted his wife three times to the hospital. She had originally been Dr. Millard’s patient but he had given her over to Kyler telling him that he needed to get some experience with pregnant women. Kyler thought this a bit dubious but he really didn’t mind. He liked the young lady and her husband. Kyler put his hand on hers.

  “I’m sure Gen. Potts has him extremely busy right now. He’ll be along when he’s done.” Kyler had no idea where her husband was, but all he needed at that moment was another hysterical person in the hospital. Even the quiet ones seemed on the verge of hysteria except for Zora LeMarque. She was as cool as she looked. She stood quietly, her dark hair nearly covering her face. So she was a scientist. Kyler had seen many scientists on the island over the last three months but he’d never seen a scientist with a body like that. He would’ve remembered her.

  No one noticed as Samantha sidled up to Gringo. Even in the too tight nurse’s uniform, everyone was too busy worrying about the storm.

  “So you’ve come to your senses,” she whispered into Gringo’s ear.

  “What are ya’ talkin’ about?” He looked at her as if she’d just asked him if he had farted. “I’ve done no such thing.”

  “You just said that those helicopters had better get here soon.”

  “They better or it’s gonna be a helluva lot more difficult to find out what’s going on around here?”

  Samantha scratched her head. Trying to figure out Gringo’s logic always gave her a headache.

  “You still plan on staying on the island?”

  “Of course. We get the rest of these people on the helicopters first and then we’ll disappear before the last one comes. Everyone’ll think we got on one of the earlier ones, then before they know it…bam! We were left behind. We had to take cover in the military bunker and look what we discovered. Nuclear missiles! A real flying saucer! Who knows? We’ll sell the story…not too mention the great shots we’re gonna get of you straddling a missile or humping a flying saucer or who knows…maybe we’ll put a dead alien’s head between…”

  “Stop it!” Samantha had heard enough. Gringo seemed to get crazier all the time. “You forgot one thing, Baby,” she told him. “Sylvia.”

  “Sylvia? What about her?”

  Samantha sighed. “She’s my photographer.”

  “So?”

  “So…she’s lost her glasses. She can’t see six inches in front of her face without them. No Sylvia. No pictures.”

  “We’ll put her on a helicopter and I’ll take the pictures.”

  “You? You don’t know anything about photography.”

  “What’s to know? You line up your shot then push a button. Big deal. I think photographers are way overrated.”

  Samantha shook her head and moved over to Sylvia who had been standing by herself. She look
ed helpless. She rubbed her hands together nervously. She was a three pack a day smoker who couldn’t smoke, and it wasn’t like she could just step outside and puff on a Pall Mall. She was sightless and smokeless. To Samantha, she seemed even tinier than usual. She actually looked her age.

  Samantha put her arm around Sylvia who seemed to welcome the comforting arm, because she moved closer to Samantha and rested her head against her shoulder.

  “Nervous?” Samantha asked her, trying not to sound too concerned.

  “I need a smoke so badly right now,” she answered, her voice cracking from the phlegm in her throat breaking apart, as it will do when a heavy smoker goes longer than normal without a cigarette. “I could use my glasses right now, too. I can’t see a thing.”

  “I can’t help you with the glasses,” Samantha told her giving her shoulder a squeeze, “ but maybe we can sneak down the hall somewhere and take a few puffs. I could actually use one myself. Come on.”

  With her arm still around Sylvia, Samantha pulled the two of them away from the crowd and started moving slowly toward a hallway. Gringo spotted them and started to speak, but Samantha put her finger to her lips. She had been prepared to shush him. Gringo was one of those people who just didn’t understand subtlety. He would walk into a funeral and ask where the “shitter” was at full volume. She motioned down the hallway, pointed to Sylvia and pantomimed smoking a cigarette. Gringo stared for a moment, then turned back to the crowd.

  Once they were out of sight, Samantha and Sylvia began to walk faster down the hallway, Samantha holding Sylvia’s hand. It was bad enough that Sylvia couldn’t see, but she was further blinded by the dark hallway that they were walking down. The power was out in different parts of the hospital; some rooms and halls were dark while others were well lighted. Samantha didn’t know if they were conserving energy or what, but the light and dark effect mixed with the thunder and lightning gave the hospital that low budget movie creepy effect.

  They stopped at the elevators, which was far enough. They weren’t going any farther into the half-dark half-lighted hospital. Samantha leaned against the wall between two elevator doors while Sylvia pulled a crumpled pack of cigarettes out of her pocket.

  “Is that all you’ve got?” Samantha asked her noticing that there were only three or four cigarettes in the pack.

  “Are you kidding?” Sylvia answered in her usual burnt out vocal box voice. “I’ve got three more packs in my purse. Now as for a light.”

  Sylvia rummaged around in her purse. Samantha carried a large purse herself, but she was completely floored by the size of Sylvia’s. You could fit a Subaru in that thing. It was probably all that had kept her from blowing away when she and Gringo had found her. Sylvia began rummaging around in her purse. Samantha heard the sound of keys being moved around and the sounds of other necessary purse items, but she also heard things she had never heard when going through her own purse. There were “clonks” and “dings” and “thuds”.

  “Oh great…” Sylvia started, still feeling around in her purse. “I’ve got cigarettes but no lighter. That’s like shittin’ without toilet paper. Isn’t that just…oh wait…”

  With a smile that told Samantha that Sylvia had not only found her lighter but had found the greatest lighter that ever came out of a convenience store. She was beaming as she pulled it from her purse.

  “Ah hah…” she said, smiling.

  With the dexterity of Blackstone the Magician, Sylvia flipped a cigarette into her mouth, lit it and had taken two drags before Samantha’s had even touched her lips. Sylvia’s head went slowly back and a big grin spread across her face.

  “It’s the little things in life,” she said still smiling until she went straight into one of her coughing fits. After the fit, she took another drag and smiled another smile. Samantha took a deep drag from her cigarette. She hardly smoked. Gringo didn’t smoke either…well, he didn’t buy cigarettes. Gringo was forever the cigarette mooch.

  “I hope those God damned helicopters get here soon,” Sylvia said, breaking the silence. “This place is starting to get to me. Why’d we come here in the first place? It isn’t Tahiti. It’s not Honolulu. We didn’t have to come to this God forsaken island. We could’ve gotten these shots in Southern California.”

  Samantha took a deep drag and watched the flame for a moment. “Gringo thinks there’s some big secret on the island and he wants to find out what it is. He wants to sell the story and the pictures of me and whatever’s down there.”

  “Down there? Down where? And how are we supposed to take the pictures. I can’t see a thing!”

  Samantha thought for a moment, then decided that it was best not to tell Sylvia that Gringo was going to put her on a helicopter and send her to Miami. She doubted Sylvia would mind much though.

  “What time is it?” Sylvia asked trying to read the dial on her watch but having no luck.

  Samantha looked at her watch. “Seven O’clock,” she answered. “Those helicopters better get here soon or they won’t be able to get here at all. It’s probably still daylight in Miami but by the time they get here, it’ll be dark all over. That little girl and that jet crash survivor need to get out of here.”

  “Did you hear that crash?” Sylvia was no longer trying to read her watch. “It knocked me sideways.”

  “Us too.”

  “Was he the only survivor?”

  “That’s what everyone’s been saying.”

  “Jesus, how could anyone survive something like that?”

  Samantha was taking her last drag. There was still some cigarette left to smoke but she was starting to get that queasy feeling ex-smokers got when they hadn’t had one in a while. “I don’t know. I’m not so sure I would want to survive something like that.”

  Samantha began to wonder what her life would be like if she had indeed survived a jet crash with burns over ninety percent of her body. Daphne LeBlanc would drop her in a second. There were very few people that wanted a burn victim on the cover of their magazine. Gringo would be gone in a flash…unless, of course, there was some money to be made from it…and Gringo would figure out a way to profit from it because the chances of him taking up with another model were slim to none. Oh, he would try, she was sure. Gringo liked the finer things in life. Unfortunately he either couldn’t afford them or he managed to piss them away on games of chance trying to parley what he had into even more.

  “Did you hear that?”

  Samantha’s train of thought was broken by Sylvia’s question.

  “What did you say?”

  Sylvia shushed her, which was something that Samantha hated. Gringo was constantly shushing her and generally doing so in front of people.

  “What is it?” she asked Sylvia who had put her ear to the door of one of the elevators.

  “Listen.”

  Samantha joined her and put her ear to the steel door.

  “I don’t hear any…”

  “There!”

  Samantha listened harder thinking that possibly Sylvia’s nerves were getting to her. She started to tell Sylvia so when she heard a noise. It was faint but she distinctly heard something. It sounded like metal being hit against metal.

  “There it is!” Sylvia exclaimed almost excited.

  “Something’s probably come loose because of the storm,” Samantha told her.

  “You’re probably right. It’s probably a loose cable or something. Come on, let’s…”

  Sylvia had removed her ear from the door and Samantha was about to when she heard another sound. It was very faint. She wasn’t sure, but it sounded like a voice. Sylvia moved closer to Samantha.

  “What…”

  This time Samantha shushed Sylvia.

  “I hear something and it’s not a loose cable.”

  Sylvia put her head next to Samantha’s and the two strained to hear the sound. There it was again. This time both of them heard it. It was a voice and the voice was crying… “Help!”

  CHAPTER 8

&nb
sp; Kyler was in the middle of breaking up an argument between Gringo and Rob Olsen. Both were arguing over who should go first on the helicopters. Olsen thought that he, his wife, and Zack should escort his dying mother-in-law on the first chopper while Gringo was trying to get Sylvia on board first since she was blind as a bat. The two were nose to nose. Kyler and Sgt. Cohen had gotten between them and even Zora LeMarque was now trying to keep them apart. Kyler was about to scream at the both of them to “shut the hell up” when he heard running from the hallway followed by cries of help.

  “That’s Samantha!” yelled Gringo. He’d already begun to move toward the hallway when, from around the corner, came Samantha and Sylvia, the former holding the latter’s hand. Both stopped and doubled over panting.

  “What is it?” asked Sgt. Cohen moving over to the ladies and putting his hand on Sylvia’s shoulder who had collapsed to her knees completely zapped of breath. Sylvia shook her head unable to breathe, much less speak.

  Samantha was in a little better shape but not much. She leaned her back against the wall also trying to catch her breath. Gringo had moved next to her.

  “Take it easy, Baby,” he told her his hand on her back. “Here, bend down.” He forced her to bend over.

  Zack Olsen watched as she bent forward. He thought he was going to bust at the seams. He could only imagine what view Gringo was getting. God, for a short, stocky, apelike man, he had to be the luckiest man alive.

  “Someone…calling…for…help!”

  “What? Get outta here!” Gringo roared. “There ain’t nobody but us and a few soldiers left on the island.”

  “It’s true,” wheezed Sylvia letting go with a cough that could’ve drenched the island in mucus, phlegm, and saliva.

  “Where?” Kyler asked bending down next to Samantha. He was lost for a moment. Goddamn, he felt like he was in some sort of macabre Penthouse dream. There was a nurse in a tight uniform with blonde hair, a high voice, and had already rubbed her butt across his face when he was helping her into the building.