“We can try it tonight.” Samantha said, suddenly alert. She stood up and began to pace back and forth hurriedly. I don’t think Samantha was used to this much discomfort. I think she felt it was unfair for someone of her social class to be subjected to it. Marsha, who had been sitting next to her, almost looked like she was going to hyperventilate. She started to fan herself with her hands.
“Hold your horses,” Jesse said. “First, we need to test it. And I don’t know who is gonna want to swim or boat across the bay as the guinea pig, ‘cause if it don’t work, you’re gonna be fried pork before you reach the other side. And we need to tell others about it. What about everyone else who’s stuck on this island? We can’t just leave them.”
“So we just sit here and die with them, is that it?” Samantha asked.
“No,” Jesse said. “We do our due diligence. We test your neighbor’s theory and we do our best to let the rest of the island know as well. There are more than just us in this room.”
“Whatever,” she said and shrugged resentfully. “When did it become my responsibility to care about everyone else on this island? You’re telling me there’s a chance to get off this island and you’re not willing to try?”
“He didn’t say that,” Marsha said.
“That’s right,” I said. “He didn’t say that. He just said we wait. We can test it out, try to let others know, and we can─”
I stopped mid-sentence at a terrible sound: something fell in the garage.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The way Jesse and I reacted must have looked completely ridiculous to everybody else in the living room. Something falling in a garage might elicit fear, especially to people who were in a situation like us, but nobody would have expected Jesse and I to respond the way we did.
We were both on our feet in a second, and Jesse had already pulled out his gun before he rushed out of the room. Marsha and Samantha both screamed, but I don’t think it was necessarily due to the sound of something falling in the garage; I think our reactions conveyed that something was wrong in a most serious way, and that terrified them.
I followed Jesse to the garage, and he barged right in. My wife stayed back with the others to make sure they didn’t follow, or even worse, open the front door and try to run away.
Fortunately, we didn’t see what most feared when we stormed into the garage. I had imagined that Drake had somehow gotten free of his bindings and had found something in the garage to use as a weapon. Maybe he would be standing in the middle of the garage with a saw in his hand; maybe he’d found something even more deadly.
But Drake hadn’t even come close to getting out of his fettering and had simply rolled into a box of Christmas ornaments along the perimeter of the garage and knocked it over. He wriggled on the ground like a worm, but it was clear that he wasn’t going anywhere.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Jesse lowered his gun and we looked knowingly at each other. We felt like we’d dodged a bullet, and we both knew that we had to get him out of there quickly.
We made brief plans while my wife kept the others back; I wasn’t sure what she was telling them, but nobody came into the garage, and the hysteria died down. Jesse and I made plans quickly. It was evening, and most likely, the police car would make its nightly trek up Second Street, the main thoroughfare through the island, and the officer would give her nightly admonitions to remain indoors, to remain calm, and not to make any attempts to leave the island.
Our mission was now twofold. We would deliver Drake to the Powers That Be and tell the police what Dominic explained to us. Everyone else would have to be told. We couldn’t just leave the island without making some attempt to notify the others, and I had no idea what was in store for us on the other side of the water. But not to make some effort to bring others with us felt inhuman, and even if it meant we had to wait until a narrower window was available to cross the water, then so be it. I wanted to cross the water with two things intact: my family and my conscience. If I could get across with those two things, I would be alright.
We decided to make our exit. There was no use of waiting until later. I was about to run inside to tell Madison when, suddenly, the garage door opened and Owen stepped in. His mom was right behind him.
“Dad, you brought that guy to our garage?” Owen asked. He looked completely disgusted, far more disgusted than he usually did when he walked in on Mom and me making out on the couch. “Are you kidding me? You’re kidding me?”
“You told them?” I asked Madison, completely ignoring my son.
“I tried, but I didn’t know what else to say,” she said. “I think Marsha just passed out. She completely hyperventilated.”
“Wonderful,” I said.
I heard Toby crying for his Mommy around the corner and the little girl, who had been so quiet up until then, began crying too. My greatest concern, however, was Darrel. I didn’t want Darrel to see him. I didn’t know what he would do or how it would affect him to lay eyes on the man who had murdered his wife. But it wouldn’t be good; I knew that much.
“We’re gonna take him to the police, okay?” I said. “We’re gonna go right now and take him to that police car that rolls through here every night. And we’re gonna tell them everything Dominic told us. They need to know.”
“This is crazy,” Owen said, looking down in awe at the gagged and bound figure of Drake. “I can’t believe you have him.”
“You need to watch over everyone here,” I told my son. Jesse left the garage to go into my office and get the duffel bag. “I’m putting you personally in charge, okay? You need to keep everyone calm and relaxed and keep an eye on everyone.”
“Dad, I think you should go see what that guy Klutch is doing. It sounds like people trust him. He might know something too.”
“Don’t worry about Klutch, okay? He’s not the police. He’s an obnoxious biker. We don’t need to get involved in that.”
“But Candice might be there. She might─”
“Forget about Candice,” I said. “You need to worry about your own family now, okay? Your brother’s depending on you, your mom’s depending on you, and I’m depending on you. Understand?”
“Yeah, Dad,” Owen said, shrugging. “I just think our neighbor’s kinda weird. How do you know any of that’s even true? It sounds like he’s just making it up.”
“Then that’s something we’ll have to see as time plays out,” I said.
Jesse came back into the garage with the duffel bag in his hands. He mentioned that everyone was fine in the living room and even Darrel, now aware that his wife’s murderer was in the garage, seemed at ease; surprisingly, Jesse explained, he seemed more at ease than the rest of the group and was even trying to relax and calm everybody down.
Jesse unzipped one of the bags, removed a nine millimeter handgun, loaded the mag and handed it to my son. Owen took it but looked at it incredulously before glaring at me in confusion. I’d seen that look on him just a month before when, while we were out to dinner, a waiter accidently put an empty wine glass in front of him as he poured wine for the table. The expression simply conveyed: Dad, am I allowed to do this? What do I do?
“Jesse will show you how it works,” I explained.
Jesse did a quick walkthrough of the handgun, and I watched silently. Drake, lying on the ground, looked up at me, and it made me most uncomfortable. I looked forward to getting him out of the garage.
“We’ll leave the guns here in the garage,” I explained. “Don’t let the others know they’re here. Not yet. Not unless you have to.”
“Are you sure you have to go?” Madison asked. “Are you sure you have to go now?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m sure.”
I knew what she was thinking. If the storm kicked up and started throwing down lightning bolts again, what would happen this time? What if I started seeing those weird balls of lightning, and what if this time, they did something far worse? I believed Drake’s story because I’d seen the genuine fear in
his eyes. If the storm had taken Hot-rodder, then it could certainly take me. I imagined one of those lightning balls enveloping me like a bubble and levitating me toward the clouds overhead. What a horrific way to die, I thought, and I hoped Hot-rodder hadn’t suffered much.
I wondered if it would have been less frightening if Drake had just shot him and killed him before the lightning took him.
“I love you,” I said and hugged Madison. She was on the verge of tears because she knew the risk of stepping out into the storm. She didn’t want to let me go, and I almost had to pry her arms off me.
“Come back quickly.”
“I will,” I said. I walked over to Owen and hugged him. “You’re in charge, okay? You’re almost a man now. Keep everyone calm, and more importantly, keep an eye out for anything wrong. Got that?”
“Yeah,” he said. He scratched his head and looked down at the gun that still looked awkward in his hand.
“I love you, Son.”
“I love you too, Dad.”
We opened the garage door, and as it rolled open, Jesse cut the ropes that bound Drake’s legs. We had several blocks to go, and it would be too far to carry him this time. He would have to run alongside us.
Outside, there was just a slight drizzle, and the street looked empty. The dark clouds still oscillated slowly above the island and flashed with lightning. If Dominic’s calculations were correct, that cloud-to-cloud lightning would soon become something far worse, only to be followed by fifteen minutes of silence. Hopefully we would be able to make it to the police, drop off Drake, and inform them of what we knew.
The garage door closed behind us, and Jesse and I began our trek to Second Street with Drake in front of us.
Even though I didn’t realize it until much later, and with much regret, something terrible happened while Jesse was explaining to my wife and son how to use the guns. Even though I wasn’t aware of it at the time, it seems to be the only explanation for the tragedy that happened later.
Around the time Jesse was giving my son a crash course in handgun use, I believe Darrel was standing just outside the garage door, listening. I can imagine him standing there, with his ear pressed against the door. He must have gone into the garage later, after my wife and son had gone back into the living room to join the others.
I can imagine him kneeling down beside the duffel bag, removing one of the other handguns, and hiding it in his pants.
That must have been when he came up with his plan, and maybe that was why Darrel seemed “better” from that point forward. He was, according to my wife, more helpful, more alert, and more present in the current circumstances. We attributed it to the notion that he had finally snapped out of the spell he was under, but in hindsight, it must have been because of what he planned on doing.
And one thing was for sure: none of us saw it coming.
Chapter Twenty-Five
We made our way to Second Street with Drake and kept him in front of us by prodding him with our guns. We hoped we didn’t cross anyone on the street, because we weren’t sure how someone would react if they saw us with him. What would they think? There were people out there who would probably want to take him from us and execute their own form of justice.
Nobody was out. The streets were as empty as ever, and we pushed Drake along in front of us. The wind had picked up though, and a slight drizzle was coming down. The air was humid and sticky, and overhead the clouds were a great, dark beehive of electrical activity. If Dominic’s theory was correct, it was about to get worse. Much of that cloud-to-cloud lightning would turn into cloud-to-ground lightning, and the storm would once again assault us. But at least this time, we knew when it would end. Just after eight o’clock, the sky would become a graveyard, and the clouds—dark, massive tombstones overhead—would cease to throw down their electrical spirit.
The window would open, and people would be able to get through. At least, they might be able to get through. It was possible, and my heart clung tightly onto that one hope. Even though we wouldn’t be able to test it tonight—there probably wouldn’t be enough time—we would certainly be there tomorrow, and we’d show up on the edge of the water with as many residents of Naples as we could.
We didn’t pass one person on our short journey, but we did hear one of Klutch’s ambassadors running through one of the neighboring streets, delivering the same message: “Klutch offers his protection! The big brick house by the fountain. He knows what this is! Klutch offers his protection!”
There were also voices in several of the homes as we passed, and I suspected that we were one of many homes in which neighbors had gathered together to pool resources and wait out the storm. I was confident of it. I could see candlelight in many of the windows, but almost never in two homes that were side by side. It amused me. Was it possible that the storm’s attempt to take things from us and turn us against each other had backfired? Wouldn’t that be the greatest of ironies?
Once we reached Second Street, we sat Drake against the edge of a building. It was a hair salon. Jesse and I stood sentinel beside him and looked up the dark, empty, silent length of the main strip and decided that we would simply camp there until the police car made its normal dinner-time rounds while warning all residents to remain indoors and to resist making attempts to escape the island.
We didn’t wait very long. Just as Jesse was checking his watch and letting me know it was closing in on five o’clock, we saw two lone headlights on the other end of the island begin crawling their way toward us; soon after, we could hear the same announcement that we’d heard the previous days: “All residents of Naples Island, please remain indoors until otherwise notified. Do not make any attempts to leave the island. All bridges have been destroyed by lightning. The lightning is striking anybody attempting to leave via water.”
As the police car neared us, I noticed the first of the cloud-to-ground lightning. The hot, humid wind picked up, the rain began to increase, and the lightning began to lash down from the clouds. The storm was heating up. If Dominic’s prediction was accurate, this would be the first of another wave of rain and lightning, and it would be worse than the last violent episode the previous night. I wondered if the lightning would take out homes this time, and if I’d see more of those weird lightning balls floating around. What would they take with them this time? If they took Hot-rodder, then those lightning balls would certainly take others.
Jesse and I stood in the street and waved, and the police car stopped about a block away from us. Its lights were flashing. I had buried my shotgun in the bushes nearby, and Jesse had pocketed his handgun, and we had done so because it wasn’t exactly inviting to see two gun-toting strangers standing on the corner of the street, waving; yet, it seemed the vehicle was still apprehensive about moving forward. I didn’t blame the officer. For all they knew, the crazy gunman was still running wild through the island, killing people.
The door to the vehicle didn’t open, and none of its windows slid down. It waited silently down the street as the sky filled with plumes of white light and peals of great thunder. Finally, we heard the woman’s voice through the P-A: “Please return to your homes. Remain indoors until otherwise notified.”
“We have Drake!” Jesse screamed, and I joined him.
“We have the gunman,” I cried and, nearly jumping up and down, pointed to the tied up figure leaning against the wall of the hair salon.
This was terrible. I hadn’t come all this way to have the police completely ignore us and assume us to be nothing but a couple of trouble makers.
But something we said must have gotten her attention, and I’m sure she saw Drake leaning up against the wall. From her perspective, I imagined that she thought we had brought someone wounded to her. The vehicle suddenly drove forward. The headlights were blinding. Another spotlight on the vehicle blinded us as well.
“Get down on the ground and spread your hands and legs!” the woman’s voice commanded through the P-A.
“What?” Jesse bar
ked. “Are you looking over here? We have the killer! He’s right there!”
“Get down on the ground and spread your hands and legs!”
“Are you kidding me?” he asked angrily.
“She doesn’t know who we are,” I explained. “Just do it. She’s just being safe.”
Grunting in disagreement, Jesse hit the deck along with me. I lay on the ground with my cheek against the wet asphalt as the rain came down. I heard the car door open and footsteps approach, and when I looked up, I saw the woman who would later introduce herself as Deborah Blazer. Two other people had gotten out of the vehicle with her. She was a tall, gangly woman with a fiery crop of short red hair. Her face was an asteroid field of freckles.
She slowly walked toward us with her gun drawn. The two other people remained behind her.
“He’s over there,” I said as she stepped near me.
“Who is he?” she said.
“His name’s Drake,” Jesse explained, lying beside me. “He’s the guy who killed all those people on the Fourth. That’s why we came here, to hand him over to you.”
She took a moment to register this and asked, “Who are you two?”
“Jesse Davidson.”
“Eddie Dees,” I said.
“Eddie Dees?” she asked. “The writer, Eddie Dees? I knew he lived here, but you’re him?”
“Yep, that’s me.” It felt strange addressing her while lying on the ground.
I’ve never been one to take advantage of my pseudo-celebrity status, and the fact of the matter is that being a writer hardly qualifies. It’s a strange profession; the imaginary people in your head are the ones who become famous. Most people couldn’t pick me out of a lineup, even those who’ve read the books. The characters are the ones people want to meet and talk to, not me. I’m just the boring guy who gets up early in the morning and sits at the computer in his pajamas.
I remember once, while on a book tour in San Francisco, my wife convinced me to “use my name” to get us past a long wait at a very nice restaurant she’d been dying to go to, and it did work. Somehow, miraculously, we were seated within minutes, but I felt bad about it after.
Storm Taken: A Supernatural Thriller Page 17
