I guess I haven’t talked about the fog yet. Christ. As if living in the land of constant sunlight wasn’t bad enough, the whole island is surrounded by fog. Sometimes it stays back. Other times it rolls in and soaks everything. When it gets like that, I feel suffocated. It’s as bad as the dogs.
On top of that, I’m always hearing thunder. It doesn’t sound too far off, but I never see the lightning, presumably because the fog is in the way. I’m worried that lightning is going to strike one of the trees on the island and squash the dogs who are ceaselessly pissing on them. It’s odd, in light of all the dead humans I’ve had to deal with in the past few days, but the thought of even one dead dog really bothers me. I guess it’s because the dogs can’t understand what’s happening to them. Although the people who died were in the same boat. Maybe I just like dogs, which is a recent development.
Well, back to the fog. They say that people with old injuries can feel it when it rains. My injuries are new, but they are constantly throbbing as if to tell me that the weather sucks out here. Maybe if the sky cleared up a bit, I could go 24 hours without smoking pot. Which reminds me…
That feels a little better.
Oh, I almost forgot. The weirdest thing happened today. A fish — I don’t know, a trout or something — jumped out of the water and landed on the dock when I was working on the shore. As I said, I don’t want to see anything else die. It took me awhile to get over there, but it was still alive when I got there. I scooped it up and tossed it back in the water. Not thirty seconds later, the same fish (I assume, but who the hell knows?) jumped back up on the dock and slid across the planks and into the water on the other side. I waited for a good half-an-hour, but it didn’t come back. Weird, right? In hindsight, I guess I should have fed it to the dogs before they starve to death, but then I would have missed the completed trick.
By the time the ferry docked, the handful of Pyrite residents who’d remained ashore were already well into the Independence Day celebration. Dozens of dogs barked excitedly before charging forward to greet their masters. The crew of the Orthrus paused briefly to accept this gracious welcome before descending upon the beer tent. The crew arrived unannounced, so Alistair had to send a few guys back to the bar to round up additional provisions. Culann quickly downed his first beer and poured himself a second.
His time at sea had done little to diminish his thirst, but he’d earned this. He inspected the fat pink scar on his palm for a moment and then dumped his second beer down his throat.
He thought of nothing but refilling his plastic cup with more lukewarm keg beer.
Worner came over and draped an arm around Culann’s neck.
“Let’s see it, kid.”
“Oh, right,” Culann replied. “I’d almost forgotten about it.”
He crouched down and unzipped his duffel bag. Drawing forth the orb, Culann ran his fingers across the impossibly-smooth surface. The symbols were not as he’d remembered them. Had they changed? He recalled each one being a separate, quasi-geometrical shape. But now, they seemed to have grown together. Each shape had expanded to touch the symbols around it. The orb now contained a spiderweb of interconnected symbols even more perplexing that what Culann had first seen.
A crowd gathered around as he examined the orb. Word quickly spread of the Riordan boys’ daring exploits, and their two accomplices eagerly described their own roles in the heist. The other members of the crew who’d all been intimidated and mystified by the Captain’s silent authority admired the pluck of the lucky greenhorn who’d managed to outsmart him.
They passed the orb around, reigniting the debates about its origin. Culann had gotten enough of these arguments on the ship, so he snatched up his duffel bag and slipped through the crowd. McGillicuddy followed.
“Hey, greenhorn, come meet my wife.”
McGillicuddy introduced Culann to Margaret, a lanky woman with curly red hair who looked more like his sister than his wife. She smiled with her whole face as she pumped Culann’s hand.
“Well, it’s a real honor to meet such a celebrity,” she teased. “Only in Pyrite can you become a hero by stealing from your boss.”
“You’re right about that,” Culann said with a smile. “I’m glad I finally found a place with a moral code that aligns with my own.”
“Oh, yeah,” McGillicuddy jumped in. “I forgot to tell you, Margie. He’s not just a thief; he’s a pervert, too.”
Culann averted his eyes, but Margaret let out a series of deep belly-laughs.
“Is that right?” she said. “You should run for mayor.”
“Don’t let Alistair hear you say that,” McGillicuddy said. “He’s already salty with the greenhorn for laughing at him.”
“You think he’s still mad at me?”
“Probably not,” McGillicuddy replied, “but he’s a weird dude. It’s hard to know what’ll set him off. Just mind your manners from now on, and you’ll be fine.”
Culann’s first day in Pyrite seemed like a lifetime ago. He could barely remember his initial encounter with Alistair. Alcohol was certainly part of the explanation for that, but Culann felt like a different person now. He’d survived his ordeal and been reborn.
The life he’d led before the voyage faded into the background. This is exactly what Culann had been hoping for, and he owed it all to the orb.
Culann drank hard. The exertion of the last few weeks plus the nerve-wracking encounters with the Captain left him exhausted. It felt good to relax. He reveled in the curious esteem in which the Orthrus men now held him. They repeatedly toasted his courage and ingenuity, so he made frequent returns to the keg, always careful to speak courteously to Alistair, who showed no signs of holding a grudge. The burly barman was all smiles beside his wife, Julia, a sturdy-looking woman with camel-blond hair that ran down to her shoulders, and his boy, Marty, a mop-headed six-year-old wearing an oversized t-shirt that hung from his bony shoulders. The only child on the island, Marty appeared content to chase the many dogs around the picnic grounds. Other than Alistair, there was no one Culann felt any need to impress, especially since the few women in attendance were married and at least ten years too old for him.
And then he saw her.
She wore cut-off jeans that revealed long legs tanned by the eternal Alaska summer sun. Small, firm breasts pushed against a tight tanktop. Her crow-black hair was pulled back in a ponytail that accentuated her delicate neck. A few freckles dusted her pert little nose, and red lips curled up into a beguiling smile. She was beautiful. He had to go talk to her. He ran his fingers through his hair and headed towards her.
“She’s fifteen, Culann,” Frank said. “And she’s Gus’s daughter.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Stay away from her, pervert!”
Gus charged over from across the tent. He jabbed his right index finger in the air for effect. Culann held his hands up and stepped back a few feet. As Frank turned to intercept the enraged first mate, Culann spun around and headed back to the keg.
“What the hell is that?” Gus said when he saw the orb circulating through the crowd. “You bastards stole that thing.”
“Don’t worry about it,” McGillicuddy said with a slight slur. “That prick won’t know it’s missing.”
“Like hell,” Gus replied. “He’ll be on my ass about this, you better believe it. Give me that thing.”
Boos rained down on Gus as he yanked the orb from Margaret’s hands. The crew was still upset at being sent home early and wasn’t pleased to see Gus continue to take the Captain’s position. But no one tried to stop him either. The chain of command seemed to hold, even on dry land.
Worner elbowed Culann in the ribs and winked. Culann was sober enough to understand that they were just going to have to go steal the orb back from Gus. He took a drink and hoped they could wait until tomorrow.
When they’d arrived, country music had blared out of two large speakers set up on either side of the tent. Now only static came out. Worner tried to fix it, but he proved to be as skilled a repairman as he was a paramedic. Someone brought out another radio, but it too got only static. McGillicuddy surmised a power outage in Fairbanks which shut down all of the radio stations. The celebration continued without the benefit of music, and no one seemed to mind.
Culann spent the evening under the beer tent, casting periodic glances towards Gus’s daughter. Frank spent his night keeping Culann away from her and Gus away from Culann. As Culann drank, he grew bolder. Gus stood firmly at his daughter’s side, never once taking his eyes off of the greenhorn.
“Come on,” Frank said with exasperation. “Let’s take a walk.”
Culann had gotten drunk. He stumbled as they passed out of the picnic grounds and on to a trail into the woods, but Frank caught him. Frank swallowed his beer in one draught and tossed his cup aside.
“Just a peck on the top of the head, huh?” Frank said.
“What?”
“What really happened with Kat DeLuca?”
“It happened just like I said it did,” he replied before pausing to take a drink. “I just left out part of the story.”
“Well, you better tell me the whole story before Gus stabs you.”
“Okay. After I left DeLuca’s, Vic DeLuca called the police. They came by and asked me some questions, but at this point I hadn’t really done anything wrong. There’s no law against kissing a girl on top of the head. They just told me to stay away from Kat and Vic, which was fine with me, and they left me alone.
“So legally speaking, I had nothing to worry about. But after calling the police, Vic called my principal. What I had done was not illegal, but it was definitely unprofessional. The school has to be very careful about these kinds of things. So within about two hours of leaving DeLuca’s, I received a call from the principal telling me I was suspended pending an investigation. I wasn’t too concerned since I really hadn’t done anything, and they were still paying me while I was suspended.
“So basically it was just an extension of spring break. I obviously couldn’t go to DeLuca’s and thought it best to lay low while this thing blew over, so I stayed home and drank alone. I know there are more constructive things to do with my time, but I figured that under the circumstances, getting drunk by myself would at least keep me out of trouble. So that’s what I did for the next three days. Everything would have been fine, except…”
“Except what?”
“Kat DeLuca stopped by. She said she felt bad about what had happened. She said she told the principal that I hadn’t done anything wrong, but her dad was still pressuring the district to fire me.”
“You let her into her house?”
“Yes. In hindsight it was pretty stupid, but it was raining, and it seemed silly to stand out in the rain for appearance’s sake when there was no one watching. Plus I was drunk.”
“So what happened?”
“She kissed me.”
“You sure you didn’t kiss her?”
“Honestly, I didn’t. She initiated. But I didn’t stop her and I…”
“You what?”
“I had sex with her.”
Before he’d said this, Culann hadn’t realized how guilty he’d felt for hiding the truth from Frank. Even though it was alcohol that loosened his tongue, a surge of relief flooded through Culann. He was foolish to have thought he could achieve absolution without confession.
“Jesus, Culann. You can go to jail for that, you know.”
“It was a moment of weakness. I told her we couldn’t ever do that again, and we didn’t.”
“Did she tell on you?”
“No, she didn’t. But her dad had hired a private investigator to watch me. He got video footage of her coming into my house and then leaving half-an-hour later. Kat found out about it and called me. I left town before the police came back, which was only a matter of time.”
“So all of this ‘I’m-not-a-pervert-stuff’ has been bullshit.”
“You can think what you want, Frank, but it was an isolated incident.”
“Oh, yeah? Then how come I have to just about tackle you to keep you away from Gus’s daughter?”
“I’m not going to do anything to her. Is there something wrong with striking up a conversation with the only person here who’s not a smelly old fisherman?”
“You are so full of shit, Culann. I thought this whole thing was supposed to be some sort of therapy for you. You were talking about doing ‘something big’ so you could put all this behind you. But the minute we get to shore, you’re drunk off your ass and chasing after the only underage girl within a hundred miles. You haven’t changed at all.
This has all been bullshit.”
Culann didn’t respond. Frank was right. Culann had proved something to himself by surviving the voyage and wresting the orb away from the Captain. He’d proved that he was tougher than he’d thought and that he was not just bright, but clever. But so what?
Toughness and cleverness had not been his problems. It was all meaningless if his trials didn’t lead him to a different sort of life. The two walked silently in the murkily-sunlit night. Frank stopped.
“Where are the mosquitoes?” Frank asked.
“What?”
“The mosquitoes. This time of year we should be walking through a shit-ton of mosquitoes. I haven’t gotten bit once.”
It was true. Culann didn’t have a bite on him. The day before they embarked, Culann had learned to be careful talking outside to prevent bugs from flying into his mouth. Now there were none.
“Holy shit,” Frank said. “Look down.”
Culann couldn’t tell at first, because they blended in with the brown dirt road, but there were thousands, maybe millions, of dead mosquitoes lying in the road. The cousins crouched down. Every square inch of the road was covered with miniscule corpses.
“Did they spray for bugs?” Culann asked.
“Up here it doesn’t make any sense to. If you sprayed enough to put a dent in the mosquito population, we’d all be dead.”
“Weird,” Culann said before draining the last of his cup. “I’m empty. Let’s go back.”
“Okay, but stay away from Gus’s daughter. He keeps a knife in his boot, you know. A big one.”
Frank led the way back to the party. McGillicuddy was shooting off bottle rockets. As they approached the tent, a bird dropped from the sky and landed at their feet.
“Did that crazy son of a bitch hit a bird?” Frank asked.
Culann bent down and examined the bird, a gray- and white-striped sparrow. Its feathers weren’t singed and it showed no signs of injury, but it was surely dead.
“I don’t think so,” Culann said. “I guess its time was just up.”
They walked farther and found another dead bird on the walkway. On the path ahead, two dogs were fighting over something, something that shed feathers each time they shook their heads. Beyond them, in the clearing ahead, dozens of dogs ran around with birds in their mouths, shaking them savagely and tossing the carcasses around. By now the other revelers had caught sight of what was happening. They lined the edge of the tent and stared out at the field littered with dead birds.
Theories were of course posited.
“Maybe they got poisoned somehow,” McGillicuddy wondered.
“It’s all those oil wells up here,” his wife replied. “Alaska is being raped by those greedy bastards. Who knows what they’re dumping into the atmosphere? The birds could only take so much. This is probably just the tip of iceberg.”
“It’s not pollution,” Alistair replied, his eyes, unblinking, focused off in the distance. “At least not in the physical sense. This is caused by spiritual pollution. This is the hand of God. He is visiting plague and pestilence upon us to punish us for our wicked ways. If His vengeance is reaching all the way up here, the rest of the world must already be gone.”
A few people tittered at Alistair’s gloomy prediction, but the rest at least entertained the possibility they were facing something beyond worldly explanation.
Whatever it was, people were concerned for their dogs, happily romping through the field of death. The festivities came to an abrupt halt. The dogs and their owners retreated to the safety of their homes. Frank and Culann snatched a keg to take back with them
“Alphonse, come,” Frank shouted at the dog, who was busy chewing on a bird.
Frank called again, but the dog ignored him.
“Goddamnit, Alphonse. Come!”
Alphonse paused for a moment to scratch his ear with his hind leg, but then he resumed gnawing on the bird.
“Come on, Alphonse,” Culann said with a clap of his hands, and the dog suddenly cast aside the bird and trotted over to the cousins.
“What the fuck was that?” Frank asked.
“I guess he likes me now.”
“Yeah, well that makes one of us.”
The last time I’d seen Frank before coming to Alaska had been at his second wedding. He and I drank together at the Holiday Inn bar just outside of the hall where the reception was taking place. We were both drunk and not paying appropriate levels of attention to my date or his new bride. We reminisced about all the good times we’d had as boys, lamented how we’d grown apart and made false promises to spend more time together.
My date was Darlene, a girl I’d been seeing for about three months. She taught at the junior high school in my district, so we were acquainted through work but didn’t actually work together on a daily basis. This cut down on the awkwardness that I might have otherwise experienced after getting so drunk that night that I wet the bed. Darlene barely spoke to me as we drove home the next morning, and never spoke to me again afterwards.
Frank didn’t fare much better. One of the last things I remember about that night was seeing Alison arguing with him and wiping her mascara-stained tears on the white lace sleeve of her wedding dress. They would split up within six months. When my dad told me about their impending divorce, I vowed to call Frank and offer my sympathies, which I never did.
Culann awoke to Alphonse’s insistent tongue against his face. He pushed the dog away and forced his eyelids open. Frank was still out cold. Alphonse whined up at him.
Culann got up and pushed open the front door for him, but the dog evidently didn’t need to use the bathroom. Culann certainly did, so he shut the door and went into the tiny WC
for a long leak. He tried to flush the toilet, but nothing came out. After finishing, Culann almost tripped over Alphonse, who pressed against his leg as he returned to the living room.
“Frank, there’s something wrong with your toilet.”
He didn’t answer. Culann went into the kitchen, Alphonse clinging to his heels the whole way. Culann poured himself a bowl of Cheerios. Alphonse sat at his feet, staring up at him. Figuring he was hungry, Culann poured kibble into his dish, but the dog ignored it.
“Frank, do you want any cereal?”
He didn’t respond, so Culann ate the cereal dry with Alphonse lying over the tops of his feet. After finishing, Culann tried the radio again. Not even static came out.
“Hey, Frank, wake up.”
He continued to lie still. Culann reached over and shook his shoulder. No response. Employing an old trick from boyhood slumber parties, he pinched Frank’s nose shut. His face felt cold.
Culann jumped up and wiped his hand on has pants. He charged out of the trailer to look for Worner in the ridiculous hope that the piss-poor paramedic could somehow raise the dead. Alphonse followed closely behind. As they ran the quarter mile to Worner’s place, every dog in Pyrite began to bark. Those dogs that were outside and unchained followed, while the rest shouted encouragement to the others rushing by.
Not bothering to knock, Culann shoved his way into Worner’s shack. Alphonse and three other dogs crowded along with him into the humble living room. Worner lay face down on the floor, not moving. An orange housecat lay on its back beside him like an overturned table, its tiny pink tongue hanging from its mouth. The dogs whined up at Culann. He backed out into the road and dropped to his knees, stunned by the sights of Frank and Worner dead, and the realization that others were likely gone, too. He’d fled civilization to live with these rugged outsiders who died just after they’d accepted him.
Frank was the only person in his life he could rely on, and he’d grown close to Worner and McGillicuddy in their time at sea. Yesterday he’d imagined that they’d formed a lifetime bond through their adventures. Today Culann was alone in the world.
“My dad’s dead,” a small voice called out from behind him.
He turned and saw Gus’s daughter, looking every bit as beautiful as the night before. Her hair hung down to her shoulders. She wore a UAF Nanooks t-shirt that came down to the tops of her thighs. If she wore anything else, Culann couldn’t see it. Her eyes were puffy from crying. He rose to his feet.
“Worner’s dead, too,” he said. “And my cousin, Frank.”
She nodded. Culann walked over and put his arm around her shoulder. She fell sobbing into him. He inhaled the lilac scent of her hair and squeezed her tightly for a few moments, savoring her sweet vitality while contemplating the death around him.
“I’m sorry,” she said, pushing away. “I don’t even know you.”
“My name’s Culann.”
“I’m Constance.”
“Something bad has happened. Something big. We need to figure out how big.”
She nodded.
“I’m going to check each house. You can come with me if you want, but you might not like what you see.”
She thought about it for a second and then said, “I want to go with you.”
Culann extended his hand, and she took it. A tingling ran up his arm as her slender fingers clutched his hand. They crossed the street and opened the door to the cabin. Two dogs bounded out and joined the pack swirling around them. Inside they found a dead fisherman on a cot. Constance turned her head away.
“So, do you live out here year-round?” he asked, wanting to distract her from the horrors surrounding them.
“No, I live with my mom in Fairbanks. I don’t see my dad all that much.’
“What are you doing out here now? We were supposed to be gone for another week-and-a-half. How did you know we’d be back early?”
“I didn’t,” she replied with a smirk. “I thought I could get two weeks to myself by coming up before he got back.”
“Why would a girl your age need two weeks by herself?”
“It doesn’t really matter.”
The two worked their way from dwelling to dwelling, finding only dead fishermen and live dogs. Along the way, they stepped over dead birds, dead squirrels, dead raccoons. About a half-mile up the road, a woman slouched against the front door of her trailer. She raised her hand to her lips and puffed on a cigarette. Culann and Constance raced over, the dogs nearly enveloping the woman in their enthusiasm.
She looked up at them with blank eyes. It was Margaret McGillicuddy,
McGillicuddy’s wife, although she was drained of the effervescence Culann had found so charming the night before. He had a hard time recognizing her at first.
“Moses is dead,” she said.
Culann nodded.
“Neighbors are dead, too.”
He put his left hand on her shoulder, careful not to let go of Constance’s hand with his right. Culann explained what he’d found out so far, who he knew to be dead.
Margaret listened without speaking. She smoked her cigarette down to the filter and then lit another one.
“But if we’re alive, there’s got to be more,” Constance chimed in.
Culann was buoyed by the hopefulness in her voice. And she was right. Margaret stayed on her step, but Culann, Constance and the dogs found seven more survivors.
Alistair, Julia and little Marty had all survived. There was Simon Coughlin, an elderly man who ran the general store and appeared to be blind in his clouded-over left eye.
Culann recognized him as one of the silent old coots from Alistair’s bar. And there were fishermen’s wives. Genevieve Gordon looked to be about fifty years old. She spoke with a faint French accent and a not-so-faint slur. Culann guessed she’d responded to the sight of her husband dead beside her by cracking open a bottle. LaTonya Munch was a slight woman of about forty with a hooked nose. Carla Verig was the stoic Native woman who’d waved to Culann from her doorway on his first drunken stumble up Pyrite Avenue. She again wore her raincoat despite the sunny sky. By the time the group finished their survey, the pack of dogs following them had surged to around fifty.
A survivor’s meeting convened in the tavern. They gathered around the bar’s only table. The dogs, who had pressed through the doorway as they entered, now occupied virtually every bit of floor space in the bar. Alistair poured out a few shots of whiskey to settle the nerves. Even Constance had one. Culann had four.
Between the ten of them, they could account for every resident of Pyrite. Aside from Culann, every member of the crew of the Orthrus was dead. The nine other survivors were the only people currently on the island who had not served on the Orthrus.
Not a single dog had died, but every other animal wild or tame that had been spotted was dead. Moreover there wasn’t a radio, television, cell phone or two-way on the island that could receive a signal from the outside world.
“So what is it?” asked Julia, running her finger along her broad chin.
“It’s got to be a virus of some kind,” Carla said before averting her gaze and smoothing out imaginary wrinkles in her raincoat. She didn’t seem to Culann to be much of a talker.
“I still think it’s pollution,” Margaret said, her once-glimmering blue eyes now dull with grief. “Something in the air is killing us.”
“But then why are the radios out?” countered Simon in a croak that suggested he was even less used to talking than Carla.
“If a virus hit the mainland,” Genevieve responded with a whiskey-thickened tongue, “there wouldn’t be anything for the radio stations to send out.”
“My mom’s in Fairbanks,” Constance said. “Do you think she’s okay?”
“Of course she is,” Margaret said with forced calm. “Your mom is fine, and we’re going to get you to her as soon as possible.”
“Don’t lie to the child,” Alistair said with such forcefulness a vein throbbed in the side of his shaved head. “This is the hand of God. We all need to get ready for His return. Are you a Christian?”
Constance nodded her head.
“Good,” Alistair replied. “Maybe that’s why we are still alive. We are the saved.”
Margaret smirked and said, “I’m not much of a Christian. Besides, do you really think the pervert here is one of the saved?”
“What about the orb?” Culann asked to change the subject. “The orb that Gus”—he squeezed Constance’s bare knee to cushion the blow of hearing her late father’s name—“took from us last night.”
They had all seen the orb last night, even little Marty, and been drawn into the debates as to its origin.
“Why do you seek worldly explanations?” Alistair shot back. “The End of Days is clearly upon us. No other explanation makes sense.”
“But we don’t know that the orb is a worldly explanation,” his wife replied.
“Perhaps it is the implement through which the Lord is doing His work.”
Alistair massaged his thick neck in tacit acceptance.
“Julia has a point,” LaTonya said while placing her hand on Julia’s arm. “I don’t know whether this came from Earth or heaven. Or hell, for that matter. I’m sure it has something to do with what’s going on.”
Heads nodded in agreement.
“But why are you still alive?” LaTonya asked Culann.
““If you found it,” Genevieve said, “shouldn’t you be the first to go?”
“What kind of name is Culann, anyway?” Simon asked with a squint.
“Irish.”
“You sure it ain’t Russian?”
“Calm down,” Julia interjected. “We don’t know anything yet, so there’s no use throwing out accusations. Where is the orb?”
“My house,” Constance whispered, her eyes never leaving the floor. Culann gave her knee another reassuring squeeze.
Julia and Marty stayed behind while the rest, dogs included, trekked back to Gus’s cabin. Constance waited outside. The grizzled old bastard was in his cramped bathroom. His bare ass hovered over the toilet seat, and his face rested against the opposite wall. He’d keeled over in the middle of taking a dump. This was the sight Constance had woken up to.
The orb rested on the nightstand in the bedroom. Culann picked it up, once again marveling at its polished shine and sturdy heft. Glancing down, he saw that the symbols had changed once more. Now they’d formed into neat rows, mostly of interlocking triangles, with a few circles thrown in. With each change, the symbols seemed to Culann to be taking a more definite shape. He looked up. Everyone stepped back from him.
“You sure you should be touching it?” LaTonya asked.
“Probably not,” he answered, “but we need to figure this thing out.”
They walked out of the cabin and headed back to the bar. Culann held the orb, fingering its odd markings as they walked. After a few moments, a scream cut through the still air.
“Julia!” Alistair shouted, and he ran towards the bar as quickly as his bad leg would carry him.
The others raced after him, the dogs charging ahead. The people had to push the mutts out of the way to get to the middle of the bar, where Julia was performing CPR on Marty. Alistair gripped his son’s lifeless hand as his wife pressed down on the boy’s chest. The two struggled futilely to will their son back to life. Finally, they collapsed into each other, their tears pouring down on Marty’s body.
The others stayed back, but the pack of dogs pressed up against the grieving parents and their fallen son, seeming to swallow the fractured family whole. Then Julia rose up from the midst of fur and wagging tails, followed by Alistair, who held Marty’s body to his chest. He laid the boy down upon the bar, kissed his forehead, and turned away.
“We’re going to die,” he said.
It certainly looked that way to Culann. Up until now, the survivors had been assuming that they were the lucky ones, that whatever this was, it could not harm those who’d made it through the night. But Marty put the lie to that notion. Now they wondered who would be next.
It wouldn’t take long to find out.
“It’s suicide to stay here,” Carla whispered.
“She’s right,” Margaret replied. “We need to get off the island if we’re going to have a chance.”
“I got a boat,” Simon said. “All nine of us can fit, no problem.”
“Get us the hell out of here,” Alistair said, his voice choked with bitterness.
Culann wasn’t so sure they could outrun whatever this was, but he voiced his agreement nonetheless. Simon hurried over to his shack to get the keys. While the others waited for him to return, a concerted whining arose from the dogs in one corner of the bar. The humans went over to investigate and found Genevieve slumped forward onto the table. Considering how much she’d drank, she could easily have passed out, but Margaret felt for a pulse and shook her head.
“We got to get out of here,” Alistair cried. “Maybe it’s this bar. Everyone died indoors, right? We need fresh air.”
They all ran to the doorway, pushing dogs out of the way as they scrambled for fresh air. They stood outside panting in the humidity when Carla dropped to the ground in a heap, her straight black hair fanned out onto the grass. She’d been standing right in front of Culann, showing no signs of distress, when her legs buckled. Her face revealed no pain, no fear, no shock. She looked like she’d fallen asleep. But she was dead.
“God in heaven,” Alistair cried. “It’s the orb.”
“Yeah,” LaTonya added. “We have to get rid of it.”
Culann agreed. Nobody had dropped dead before they pulled this thing out of the sea. He took a running start and heaved the orb into the water. It plunked beneath the surface and disappeared into the blackness. Truthfully, though, the water could only have been about five feet deep, which didn’t seem nearly deep enough to Culann.
“I don’t want to die,” Constance sobbed.
Culann reached out for her and pulled her close. She pressed her head against his chest and he could feel her tears, hot and wet, soaking through his shirt. He rubbed her back and then rested his fingers on the exposed skin of her neck. Her soft hair tickled his knuckles.
“Simon should be back by now,” LaTonya said.
They all knew she was right and what that meant.
“Forget it,” shouted Alistair. “We’ll row across. It’s not that far.”
Down by the dock, they found two small rowboats. All six couldn’t fit in one, so they decided that Alistair would row one and Culann would row the other. Julia and LaTonya got into Alistair’s boat with him. Margaret dropped dead while they were trying to decide, so it was just Constance and Culann in the other boat. The dogs swarmed along the dock, howling at the last five humans as they pushed off into the water.
Alistair’s boat shot out into the water. Culann wasn’t much of an oarsman, and it took him a while to get the hang of it. Though it was a warm day, a cool breeze blew across the water. Constance shivered in her t-shirt. Culann gallantly removed his shirt and tossed it to her. She smiled, wrapped the shirt around her bare legs, and then fastened her gaze to her feet. The sun and the breeze felt good on Culann’s skin. He stroked harder, more smoothly, and started to catch up to Alistair’s boat. Constance lifted her eyes. He smiled at her, and she smiled back, and he felt like he could row forever.
Of course, he then reminded himself, he didn’t have forever.
They overtook Alistair’s boat about two hundred yards offshore. It wasn’t moving. An oar floated past. Julia lay huddled over Alistair, whose head rested in her lap.
He’d evidently died first. LaTonya’s feet were caught under one of the seats and the rest of her body leaned over the side of the boat. Her head was submerged, leaving her hair to float up to the surface like a bloom of brown seaweed.
“We are the only ones left,” Constance said.
She’d said we. Him and her. We. Culann felt a fluttering in his chest despite the cloud of death behind him. We may be about to die, he thought, but he was alive now. He leaned forward and kissed her.
“Eww, gross. What are you doing?”
“I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I couldn’t help it.”
“Are you some kind of pervert?”
“You just looked so beautiful.”
“My dad just died. We’re probably going to die. What is wrong with you?”
“Sorry.”
“Put your shirt back on. It smells anyway.”
She flung the shirt at Culann. Humiliated, he started pulling it back over his head.
He then felt the rowboat rock and heard a splash. He pulled the shirt down from in front of his eyes. Constance lay face down in the water. A cascade of tiny bubbles churned the water around her. He was alone.
The mainland was still a good half-mile away. Culann didn’t know if he’d live long enough to make it there, and he didn’t know if it would do any good if he did. He sat there for a minute, feeling the gentle rocking of waves beneath him. He could hear the faint echo of the dogs barking back on the dock. They were still alive and so too was he, at least for now, and he felt suddenly guilty for abandoning them.
As he pondered his options, he heard another sound from over his shoulder. He turned and faced the mainland. A motorboat was coming towards him with what looked like two people in the front seats. An overhead light flashed blue and red as the boat came closer. It was a police boat, and Culann’s little rowboat was clearly its destination. He pulled the oars in and waited.