I’m reading a book I found at Worner’s place called The Pagan Saints. It’s all about how the Christian practice of venerating saints is really just a way of syncretizing ancient beliefs into modern religions. There a lot of saints associated with dogs in here –
I’ve been reading these parts aloud to entertain my companions. There’s an illustration of St. Christopher represented in medieval iconography as having the face of a dog. I held this up for the dogs to see. Alphonse raised his head up and down like he was nodding. At that point, I put the pot away.
The most bizarre entry in the book was St. Guinefort, a greyhound who lived in France in the Thirteenth Century. According to legend, a hunter came home and found Guinefort sitting in the room of the hunter’s infant son. Blood covered the walls and dripped from Guinefort’s jaws. Overcome with grief at the loss of his son, the hunter shot an arrow through the dog’s heart. At that exact moment, the baby cried out from the cradle. The hunter saw that the child was unscathed. Under the cradle, the hunter found a dead viper. Guinefort had saved the child and been killed for it. This tale of canine martyrdom resonated with medieval Christians, who revered the dog for nearly a hundred years until the Church declared the practice heresy.
That’s an impressive dog — sainthood sounds appropriate to me. I wonder if any of my dogs would ever do anything so heroic. Hell, I’ve never done anything close, and my life is probably about over. It’s one thing to be un-heroic, but another to realize the time for heroism is almost up.
“You’re Culann Riordan, aren’t you?” asked the first officer, a short and stocky young woman wearing a polo shirt and baseball cap, both bearing the words Alaska State Trooper.
“Yes.”
Culann’s little rowboat floated next to the police boat, the bow of which rose about five feet above the water line. Culann had to crane his neck to see the officers. The second officer, a tall, middle-aged black man—the only black man Culann had seen in Alaska—tossed down a line.
“Please tie one end to your vessel, Mr. Riordan.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Mr. Riordan,” the first officer continued, “we have a warrant for your arrest.
You’ve been charged with statutory rape in Illinois, and we’ve been asked to extradite you. Do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“We’d like you to climb up onto our vessel. Officer Williams is going to help you, and we would like you to cooperate with us. Do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. Please climb aboard.”
“There’s something you should know,” Culann said.
“Why don’t you climb aboard so you can tell us?” she replied.
“It might be dangerous for you to be near me.”
“Are you threatening us, Mr. Riordan?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Get in the boat,” she said with such authority Culann found himself clambering aboard without consciously deciding to do so. Officer Williams pulled him up by the arm, and before Culann realized what was happening, he was face down on the boat bottom with his hands cuffed behind his back.
“Hey, Schuler,” Williams said. “Do you see that?”
“Jesus, what happened?”
“I count three.”
Culann still lie face down on the damp bottom. Williams yanked him up and
shoved him into one of the rear seats. The officer plunked a life jacket over Culann’s head and snapped it into place.
“What happened here, Mr. Riordan?” Officer Schuler asked.
“They’re all dead,” Culann said. “Not just them. The whole town. I’m the only one who survived.”
“How did they die, Mr. Riordan?” Schuler asked.
“I don’t know. It’s got to be some kind of virus or maybe poison. That’s why I’m not sure it’s such a good idea for you to get too close to me.”
“Thanks for the advice, Mr. Riordan,” she said.
“I’m going to call this in,” Williams said. He pulled his walkie-talkie to his lips.
“Dispatch, this is one-oh-five.”
There was no response.
“Dispatch, this is one-oh-five. Do you copy?”
Still nothing.
“Whatever it is, it seems to affect communications devices,” Culann said.
“You’re saying that there’s a virus or poison that breaks our radios?” Schuler said with a raised eyebrow.
“I know it sounds crazy, but there’s something weird going on here.”
“We better take him in and then come back to investigate,” Williams said.
“But we can’t just leave these bodies here,” Schuler replied.
“Okay, let’s fish them out.”
“Stay seated, Mr. Riordan,” Schuler said. “If you move, we’ll have no choice but to use force.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Williams sat in the driver’s seat and pushed down the throttle to bring the boat closer to Alistair’s rowboat, which floated about ten feet away. The engine sputtered and then shut down. He twisted the key in the ignition, but nothing happened. He went back to inspect the motor.
“Don’t bother,” Culann said.
“Please keep quiet, Mr. Riordan,” Williams responded.
Culann pressed his lips together and settled into his seat. He tried to guess how long these two had to live. They were half a mile from the orb, yet it still had managed to knock out the radios and engine. Culann wondered if he was somehow carrying the orb’s powers with him, like an infection. He reasoned that he had to be immune since he’d been the first to touch it and was still alive, but he’d seen too many people die to have much confidence in his own chances of survival.
Williams fiddled with the engine for a few minutes while Schuler kept watch on Culann. Then Williams gave up, and the two switched roles. After a few more minutes of futility, Schuler plopped down in the shotgun seat and stared out across the ocean.
“We’re dead in the water,” she said.
“May I say something?” Culann asked.
“You know, Mr. Riordan,” Williams said, “I’m really not interested in the child molester’s opinion. So why don’t you just sit there quietly while we wait for someone to find us?”
“With all due respect, sir, it would be better if no one finds us.”
Williams turned his head and spit into the water.
“Okay, Mr. Riordan,” Schuler said, swiveling around to face him. “Why is that?”
“Because anyone who finds us is going to die.”
“Because of the virus, right?” she replied with a wry smile.
“I don’t know what it is, but it seems to act like a virus. And I might be a carrier.”
“Don’t encourage him,” Williams said to Schuler. “I really don’t want to hear any more of his bullshit.”
“Sir, please just think about it for a second. Isn’t it an amazing coincidence that your radios and your engine would go out at the same time you found me? Not to mention the dead bodies.”
“There’s nothing coincidental about the dead bodies, you creep,” Williams snapped. “There’s not a doubt in mind that you are responsible, and I’m going to make sure you fry for this. You understand?”
“Okay,” Culann responded. “Let’s say I did kill them. That I somehow convinced four people to get in two separate rowboats and row halfway out to sea. Then they all died at once. I’m unarmed, and there is no blood. How did I do it? It would have to be something biological, something you wouldn’t want innocent people exposed to.”
“Four people?” Schuler asked.
“There’s one more, but she fell out of the boat.”
“Enough,” Williams shouted. “If you say another word, I’m tossing you over the side.”
“Lighten up, Williams,” Schuler said. “We’ve got an hour or two to kill before someone finds us. Just humor the guy.”
“I’m sorry, Schuler. I just don’t find mass-murdering child rapists all that funny.”
“Fine, but I’m going to talk to him. Like I said, we’re going to be here for a while.”
“Suit yourself,” Williams said, turning his back to Culann.
“So, Mr. Riordan,” Schuler said, “you think you’ve been exposed to something biological? Something that has also disabled our boat?”
“I know it sounds crazy, but you’ve got to believe me that there is something serious going on here. It’s not just these four people who are dead, it’s the whole town.”
Williams raised his binoculars to his eyes and stared across the water.
“Take a look at this.”
Schuler turned away from Culann and peered through her binoculars. She rose slowly without taking her gaze from Pyrite’s shoreline.
“That’s definitely another body,” she said. “What’s with all the dogs?”
“This thing doesn’t seem to affect them,” Culann replied. “But it killed all of the other animals on the island.”
“All right, you crazy son of a bitch,” Williams said, whirling around, “what did you do to these people?”
“I didn’t do anything, at least not on purpose. I think it was the orb.”
“The orb?” Williams said with a snort. “This guy’s nuts.”
“You can believe that if you want to,” Culann said, “but you have to understand that it would be very dangerous to bring anyone near me.”
Schuler turned slowly back towards him.
“What about us?” she asked. “Are we in danger?”
Culann sighed and said, “You’ll probably be dead by morning.”
“Is that so?” Williams said, drawing his gun. “Then what’s to stop me from killing you right now?”
“Put it away, Williams. Maybe he’s full of shit. Maybe there’s a cure.”
“This sicko killed a whole town and now he says he’s poisoned us. I say it’s self-defense.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No, all I do know is that he raped a little girl.”
“It was consensual, and she was sixteen,” Culann said.
“My daughter is sixteen.”
Williams pointed his gun at Culann’s chest. Culann had lived his entire life without ever having a firearm pointed at him. He was now looking down a gun barrel for the second time in twenty-four hours. It did not seem to him to be the kind of experience a person could ever get used to.
“Knock it off,” Schuler said. “If we really are going to die, wouldn’t you rather meet your maker with a clean conscience?”
“God would forgive me for ridding the world of this pervert.”
“Maybe, but you’re a good cop, Williams, and you’re not going to stop being a good cop just because you’re about to die.”
“Oh, fuck off, Schuler,” Williams said, sliding the gun into his holster.
“Okay, Mr. Riordan,” Schuler said, “since we’re going to die, what do you propose we do?”
“I don’t know for certain that you’re going to die. I’m still alive, after all. Maybe you’ve got the same immunity I have. But I don’t think we should risk infecting anyone else, which is going to happen sooner or later if we stay out here. I think we should row back to Pyrite. We can quarantine ourselves there and maybe figure this thing out.”
“What do you think, Williams?”
“I think you should have let me shoot him.”
“Come on,” Schuler said, “there’s obviously something going on here. If he’s right, I don’t want anyone else’s life on my conscience. Let’s row to the island and wait this thing out.”
“Did you ever consider the possibility that this might be a trap?” he countered.
“We have a fugitive here, and you want to take his advice and go to some secluded island where his accomplices are lying in wait for us?”
“Yes, if the alternative means infecting innocent people with this virus.”
“I’m still going to shoot this pervert.”
Rowing back to Pyrite took most of the afternoon. They didn’t want to leave Culann’s rowboat floating out in the middle of the channel to attract attention, so they tied it to the back of their vessel where they could tow it with minimal drag. They then needed to get Alistair’s boat. The police boat contained two long emergency oars they could use, but Culann presented a bit of a problem. If Williams and Schuler both rowed, they would have to turn their backs on Culann. Neither officer was willing to take this risk with a fugitive, even one whose hands were cuffed behind his back.
The only other option, then, was to have Culann take one of the oars while one of the officers watched him. But giving Culann an oar, which could potentially be used as a weapon, was not something either officer felt very good about. Williams reluctantly released the handcuffs and then immediately reattached them with Culann’s hands bound in front of his body. The cuffs hadn’t been loose before, but Williams cinched them as tightly as possible, cutting the flow of blood to Culann’s hands.
“If he so much as farts, shoot him,” Williams said.
Culann and Williams clumsily rowed the large boat over to Alistair’s rowboat while Schuler kept her eyes on Culann and her hand on her weapon. As they pulled up alongside, Williams eased himself down onto the rowboat. He nearly capsized trying to pull LaTonya’s body aboard. He rested her in a bent-over seated position across from Alistair and Julia, and then tied a line to the bow of the rowboat and climbed back onto the police boat.
They resumed rowing, and the boat lurched towards the shore with the two rowboats in its wake. Culann’s arms were tired from rowing out to sea the first time, and he struggled to keep up with Williams. In order to keep the boat from turning, Williams would periodically stop rowing to let Culann catch up. During these pauses, Williams would glare at Culann, who felt like a greenhorn all over again. It was slow going, but Culann was encouraged by the barking of the dogs of Pyrite, which grew in volume and intensity as the boat drew nearer to shore.
When they reached the pier, Williams grabbed Culann by the arm and yanked him over the side. Culann stumbled onto the planks, catching himself with his cuffed hands.
The gash in his hand throbbed. Williams jerked him to his feet and marched him to shore with Schuler trailing behind.
Schuler and Williams hunched over to inspect Margaret’s body. The dogs churned around them. Williams tried to push them away at first, but quickly gave up. The dogs seemed to Culann to have hopelessly contaminated the crime scene. The officers seemed to reach the same conclusion as they arose shaking their heads.
“How many more bodies are here?” Schuler asked.
“Thirty-two were dead this morning,” Culann replied, “and nine more died later in the day, including the three in the rowboat and Constance.”
Just saying her name caused an odd stirring in Culann’s stomach. It wasn’t grief and it wasn’t lust. It was more a simple appreciation for the grace and beauty that had briefly been in his presence. He didn’t understand the feeling and figured he wouldn’t be in Alaska right now if he did.
“I don’t know,” Schuler said. “I’m starting to think he’s telling the truth.”
Williams chewed on his lip for a moment and then said, “You may be right, but he’s still a disgusting piece of human garbage.”
“I think we need to trust him, at least as far as this virus is concerned.”
Williams turned his back and started walking towards Alistair’s bar. Culann stayed as close as possible to Schuler in case Williams decided to pull his gun out again.
Schuler stood still and watched her partner stalk off. The pack of dogs swirled around the two of them; none followed after Williams.
The three sat around the table in the bar. Alphonse rested his chin on Culann’s lap, but Culann didn’t pet him since he’d been warned about keeping his still-shackled hands in plain sight. Williams and Schuler each drank a beer from the rapidly warming cooler, which no longer received power from the conked-out generator. Culann eyed the beer bottles hungrily. He didn’t dare risk Williams’ ire by asking for one.
The officers had completed their sweep of the island and confirmed Culann’s casualty figures. As the number of dead bodies found increased, the level of conversation decreased. Williams hadn’t said a word in over thirty minutes.
Then he said, “We really are going to die.”
Schuler nodded. Culann doubted the two had much time left. He started thinking about what was going to happen after they were gone. He would be alone with thirty-nine dead bodies and innumerable dogs. His first order of business would be to do something with the bodies before the dogs started eating them.
“The bodies,” he said. “What should we do with them?”
“We’ll have to burn them,” Schuler said. “We can’t dig that many graves.”
“We can’t burn them,” Williams replied. “They’re evidence.”
“Evidence of what?” she asked. “Besides, anyone who comes around to dust for fingerprints is as dead as we are.”
“Well, if we’re dead anyway, the last thing I want to do is spend my final minutes dragging corpses around.”
“We can’t just leave them to rot in the sun.”
“Why not? You think anyone is going to give us a decent Christian burial when we’re gone?”
“I may not be able to bury you,” Culann said, “but I’m not just going to leave you.”
“Oh, that’s just great,” Williams said. “After I’m dead, a child molester is going to defile my body. I’d rather you just let me rot.”
“Fine,” Schuler said, “he’ll let you rot. I’m going to help him deal with the rest of these people.”
Williams stayed in the bar while Culann and Schuler went to work. They figured the simplest way to deal with so many bodies was to put them all in one of the shacks and set it on fire. They would need to choose one away from the view of the mainland to keep from luring anyone over. The problem was that the cabins furthest from mainland were surrounded by trees which could easily catch fire and set the whole island ablaze.
“What about your boat?” Culann asked. “We could probably stack everyone
onboard and light it on fire, like a Viking funeral.”
Schuler laughed and covered her mouth. Then she pulled her hand away and laughed again.
“I guess there’s nothing wrong with a little laughing,” she said, “since it’s going to be my ass on top of the pile.”
By the time the sun dipped near the horizon, which is as low as it would get for another few weeks, Schuler and Culann had loaded fifteen dead bodies, including Frank’s, into the police boat. Culann looked one last time at his cousin’s serene face before covering it with another body. They’d found an old wheelbarrow that made the task a little easier, although Culann couldn’t push it because he still had his hands cuffed.
Schuler said that she didn’t see the harm in letting him go, but Williams was liable to shoot him if his hands were free. Culann agreed with her.
“Do you think he might shoot me anyway?”
“I don’t think so, but who knows what a man’s capable of doing his last night on Earth.”
“Maybe I should keep my distance. Do you think it would be okay if I slept over at Frank’s place?”
“I don’t care. Which one is Frank’s?”
“The one on the end,” he said, pointing. “There’s some beer left in the refrigerator if you’d like to join me for a nightcap.”
“Drinking with a fugitive in my custody breaks about fifteen different regulations, but I don’t see the harm, under the circumstances. I might as well try to enjoy what’s left of my life.”
The two trudged down the road. Alphonse kept close to Culann while the other dogs orbited around. Culann held the door to the shack open for Schuler and Alphonse before squeezing himself in ahead of the other dogs who all surged forward to join them.
A floppy-eared pitbull and a big collie that looked like Lassie snuck in before Culann could wedge the door shut, but he managed to keep the bulk of the pack from overwhelming them inside. The others howled at the front door for a few minutes before plopping down in a great drowsy mass out front.
Schuler sat on Frank’s couch while Culann grabbed two beers from the refrigerator. He handed one to Schuler with his hands still bound.
“You want those off now?” she asked.
Culann glanced out the window to make sure Williams wasn’t around. When he saw that it was clear, he held his arms out. Schuler drew a small key from her belt and released the handcuffs. Two red lines rang his wrists.
“Free at last,” he said with a smirk.
“For now,” she said. “You know that if me or Williams lives through the night, we’re going to have to take you in. Plus, we didn’t check in like we were supposed to.
They are probably already sending more officers to look for us. It won’t be long before they think to look here.”
“Then they’re going to die, too. How can we stop them from coming?”
“We can’t. There’s a warrant out for your arrest, and this place is your last known whereabouts. The fact that two cops disappeared trying to find you is not exactly going to take the heat off. They’re probably going to send in the FBI or maybe the National Guard.”
“Jesus. I can’t be responsible for that many people dying.”
“You’re awfully worried about other people for a sex offender,” she said with a chuckle.
Culann had had enough of these types of jokes over the last few weeks, so he turned away from Schuler and sipped his beer.
“Lighten up, Mr. Riordan. Can’t you at least humor a dying girl?”
“Okay, fine. Just to be clear, I’m not a child molester and I’m not a pervert. I exercised some bad judgment with a girl who was sixteen.”
“Don’t worry about it. Hell, sixteen-year-olds are legal in Alaska. You should have just done it up here.”
“I suppose you’re right,” he said. “But isn’t Alaska the place you go after you screw up?”
“For some, I suppose. I was born here.”
“Fair enough. What about your parents? Were they running from something?”
“Probably,” she said. “I never met my dad, but I don’t imagine he was particularly law-abiding. He dragged my mom up here and then split about a month after I was born.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I got over it a long time ago. At this point, I’m a little more worried about dying.”
“You don’t seem that worried.”
“Now that we’re sitting still, it’s sinking in. It was better when we were hauling carcasses all over the island.”
“Maybe you won’t die. I can’t be the only one who’s immune.”
“Maybe,” she said. “You got any more beer?”
He sprang up and went to the kitchen. The dogs followed him. When he returned with two beers, they lay back down on the floor.
“So what is it about young girls, Mr. Riordan?”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“It was just one time with one girl,” he said.
“Okay, but is that the only time you ever thought about it?”
“No.”
“So what is it? You got a problem with girls your own age?”
“No, it’s not like that. I’ve dated plenty of women my own age. I don’t think it’s really got anything to do with how old they are. I just seem to have a hard time controlling myself around beautiful women. And some of them just happen to be a little young, that’s all.”
“You having a hard time controlling yourself around me?” she asked with a grin.
“No.”
“So am I ugly then?”
“No, not at all. I was just—”
“I’m just playing with you,” Schuler said, laughing. “It helps me keep my mind off the situation.”
Culann turned and faced her. Schuler was squat and muscular with thick hips; she had a cop’s body. But there was beauty in her wide brown eyes and mischievous smile.
He realized that he may never again get a chance to be with a woman again, and found himself excited by Schuler’s strong femininity. He leaned in to kiss her.
She cuffed him hard across the jaw.
“I think you got the wrong idea, Mr. Riordan.”
“Sorry, I just figured that you might want some companionship, under the circumstances.”
“That’s a very generous offer, but doing it with a sex offender in a dead man’s shack with three smelly hound-dogs staring at me is not exactly every girl’s fantasy.”
“I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I suppose I should be flattered. How about another beer?”
Culann fetched another couple of beers, and again the dogs followed him. Then the dogs outside began a calamitous barking. Schuler peeked out the windowsill.
“It’s Williams,” she said. “Put these back on.”
She tossed the handcuffs to Culann, who dropped them. He bent down and latched the cuffs on his left wrist. He pressed his right wrist into the other end, which clicked into place just as the door swung open. Williams stood in the doorway, dead drunk, with a nearly-empty Jim Beam bottle in his left hand and his gun in his right.
“Let’s go, Mr. Riordan,” he said. “You’re coming with me.”
Culann marched down Pyrite’s only road with Williams’ gun pressed against his spine. Schuler followed behind, pleading for Williams to put the gun away. The dogs cheerfully cantered along beside as if they were all heading to the park instead of an execution.
Williams led them to the police boat, already laden with corpses. He shoved Culann towards it and motioned for him to climb aboard. Culann took a long step from the dock onto the boat and then stumbled forward onto McGillicuddy.
“If this is where we’re putting the dead bodies,” Williams said, “this is where you’re going.”
“Knock it off,” Schuler said. “This isn’t funny.”
“I’m not joking,” he replied. “If we die tonight, then this sicko gets off scot free. I can’t let that happen.”
“If we die tonight, then it doesn’t matter what happens to him.”
“Of course it matters. There is good and evil in this world. Our job is to protect the good and punish the evil. He must be punished.”
“Not like this,” Schuler said.
Culann kept his mouth shut, afraid that anything he’d say might antagonize Williams beyond the point of no return. He was going to have to let Schuler plead his case for him and hope that she knew her partner well enough to talk him out of this.
“This is the only way,” Williams said.
“Be reasonable,” Schuler said. “He’s charged with statutory rape of a sixteen-year-old. You don’t get the death penalty for that. He’s going to be stuck on this island by himself. That’s like a prison sentence. He will be punished.”
“Bullshit. Rapists don’t just get a prison sentence. You know what a prison sentence would be like for this pervert.”
“That may be true, but we don’t even know if he’s guilty. All we know is some prosecutor in Illinois thinks he did something wrong. There hasn’t been a trial. He’s entitled to a trial.”
“Fine by me,” Williams said. “We’ll have one right now.”
He stepped forward and aimed the gun at Culann’s head.
“Did you do what they said you did?” he asked.
“Please, put the gun down,” Schuler said.
“I asked you a question,” he shouted to Culann.
“This isn’t right,” Schuler said. “Stop it.”
“You have three seconds to answer the question. Did you fuck an underage girl?”
Culann thought carefully about how to answer. He considered lying, although he doubted it would save his life. He figured that since he was probably dead either way, he might as well keep his self-respect. He was far from an admirable man, but he had a certain sense of honor, honor that he’d come to Alaska to try to win back. He didn’t want to go to his grave groveling for his life.
“Yes,” Culann said.
The sound of a gunshot boomed across the island and bounced off the waves of the sea. Culann clenched all of the muscles in his body in the hopes that this would somehow cause the bullet to miss him. He went numb, dropping to his knees atop two corpses. Then he exhaled and searched for the bullet hole.
It took him a while to find it. He felt his head, patted down his chest, and ran his hands over his arms and legs. Finally, he looked up and saw Williams crumpled onto the pier with a bloodstain spreading across his chest. Schuler holstered her weapon and bent down to check her partner’s pulse.
“Thank you,” Culann said.
“Don’t say anything,” Schuler replied. She looked like she was fighting to keep from crying. She straightened up, rubbed her eyes and turned her back on Culann.
“Just let me die.”
Culann awoke amidst a pile of slumbering dogs in Frank’s bed. He was sweating, and his handcuffed wrists ached. He crawled over Alphonse to get off the bed and then went to the bathroom. When he finished, he realized that the plumbing in Frank’s shack was run by electric pumps, which were no longer functioning. If he lived much longer, he was going to have to get used to life without running water.
Since the sink didn’t work, Culann had to rely on the contents of Frank’s refrigerator to slake his thirst. All he could find were cans of beer that were barely below room temperature. He choked one down and then set off to see if Schuler had made it through the night. He walked out of Frank’s cabin, not bothering to shut the door behind him. The last time he’d seen her, she’d gone into Alistair’s tavern, so that’s where Culann looked first. The dogs shook themselves awake and lolled after him. The sun hung in its usual position in the middle of the sky, giving Culann no idea what time it was.
When he arrived at Alistair’s, Culann found Schuler hunched over the bar with her arms wrapped around a whiskey bottle. He couldn’t tell if she was dead drunk or dead. The dogs began to whimper, which Culann knew wasn’t a good sign. He placed his hand on her neck. It was cold.
Schuler had saved him, and Culann was grateful for it. He vowed to remember her for the rest of his life, however short it might be. But he’d seen enough dead bodies recently that he didn’t dwell too hard on her passing. He had his own survival to worry about.
First, he went behind the bar and found a few bottles of club soda. He guzzled one and half of another. After a long belch, he started looking for the key to Schuler’s handcuffs. He searched her utility belt, which was a bit difficult because she was slumped forward, but he eventually found a small key in a velcro pouch. He pulled the key out and then realized that unlocking the handcuffs was going to be more challenging than he’d imagined. The cuffs held his wrists tightly together, and the keyhole was on the underside of the cuffs. It took a considerable amount of painful contortion just to get the key into position. Once he had it in the hole, his fingers were stretched so far he couldn’t twist the key in the lock. Twice he dropped the key and had to start all over. By the time he finally coaxed the latch to spring open, the cuffs had scraped away patches of skin on both wrists.
He sat down at the bar next to Schuler’s corpse to rest for a few minutes. He finished the second bottle of club soda and then took a swig from Schuler’s whiskey bottle. He had to get back to the entirely unpleasant task of loading corpses onto the police boat before the bodies decayed or got eaten by the dogs. Culann started with Schuler. Figuring they might come in handy, he first stripped off her binoculars and utility belt and laid them atop the bar. Since she was slumped over in her seat, it was relatively easy for him to position his shoulders underneath her body and pick her up in a fireman’s carry. His legs wobbled as he lurched toward the door, but he managed to slide through and deposit her into the wheelbarrow. He pushed her down the pier and then came upon Williams’ blood-soaked body. Culann cursed and then grabbed Williams by the legs and dragged him to the police boat. The slats of the pier didn’t make for a very smooth surface, and Williams was a large man. When Culann finally reached the end of the pier, he dropped down amongst the corpses and yanked Williams’ legs until his body slid over the rail and into the boat. Culann stripped off Williams’ gun and belt and tossed them onto the dock. Them he pulled himself up onto the pier and resumed pushing the wheelbarrow towards the edge, where he dumped Schuler on top of Williams.
Culann was already exhausted from the effort of disposing of two dead bodies all by himself. Plus, Schuler was a lot smaller than most of the men he’d need to grab. The prospect of repeating this task twenty-two more times discouraged him. He took another swig of whiskey and then grabbed little Marty off the far end of the bar. He figured the relative ease of hauling a child’s body might help him regain his confidence. It did, briefly, but then he struggled with Margaret, Carla and Genevieve, who’d all died close to the pier. Culann’s thighs burned, his arms felt numb, and he still had an island worth of dead fishermen to haul away.
The dogs didn’t help. They followed Culann wherever he went and encircled him as he walked. More than once he stumbled over the mutts while hefting a corpse. They also crawled over the dead bodies just when Culann started to pick one up. He’d shove one dog away, and then another would take its place. At one point he got so frustrated that he shouted, “Get the fuck out of the way,” which the dogs amazingly seemed to understand. The canine sea suddenly parted, opening a clear path back to the pier.
“Stay here,” he said, and just as miraculously, all forty-eight dogs remained where they were. They didn’t seem too happy about it, though. They stared at him, a sea of puppy-dog eyes, and they whined and shuffled their paws, but not one of the normally-unruly dogs followed him.
“Okay, you can come,” he said, and they bounded after him.
He hauled away two more fishermen and finished Schuler’s whiskey bottle before collapsing against the wall of Alistair’s tavern. He’d worked for what felt like two or three hours on an empty stomach, and now his body refused to move. After a few minutes, Culann crawled into Alistair’s kitchen and devoured half a loaf of white bread and several slices of American cheese. He washed it down with a couple of warm beers, which were hard to keep down. He realized he needed a way to keep his beer cold or he’d have a hard time making it by himself.
Taking a break from corpse-hauling to focus on his own needs, Culann devised a system of refrigeration that he was quite proud of. He tied one end of a short length of rope to the pier and the other end to a tapped keg. The keg had some air in it, so it floated up near the surface of the water. Culann had only to pull the keg over to him to draw a beer cooled to the fifty-degree temperature of the ocean. He sat on the edge of the pier and dangled his bare feet in the water while the keg cooled. He glanced to the side and realized he was just a few feet from where he’d chucked the orb. He imagined it resting on the silty bottom, beaming out those evil rays that didn’t harm him for reasons he still couldn’t fathom. The dogs, who were similarly mysteriously-impervious, piled around him on the dock or splashed around in the water just above the orb’s resting place.
Though he was worn out and a little sick from the warm beer and whiskey, Culann had seventeen more bodies to deal with. He stood up and noticed Williams’ equipment in the pier where Culann had left it. He figured it might come in handy, so he strapped the belt around his waist. He took stock of the inventory: pistol, flashlight (non-working), walkie-talkie (ditto), handcuffs, plastic gloves, a big Swiss army knife, pepper spray, and a billy club. He didn’t know how useful any of this stuff might prove, but the belt gave him a feeling of authority, even though there was no one here to exercise authority over. He decided to wear the belt as much as possible.
Suitably equipped, he pushed the wheelbarrow down the road to Worner’s cabin.
The dogs of course tagged along. While Culann labored to lug his friend’s corpse through the door, Alphonse snatched up Worner’s dead cat and ran outside with it. Two other dogs lurched forward and clamped their jaws on the cat. All three growled and shook their heads, tearing the cat to pieces within a few seconds. A few more dogs jumped in, and soon the cat was completely devoured. Culann realized the dogs hadn’t been fed in a couple of days. He’d need to do something about that if he didn’t want them going feral and attacking him.
He wrestled Worner into the wheelbarrow and then sat on the ground to catch his breath. He glanced out of the corner of his eye and saw four neat little rows of tall, green plants growing next to Worner’s shack. As he looked closer, he realized they were marijuana plants. He smiled at the idea of Worner toking away in his little cabin just beyond the reach of civilization. Although he hadn’t gotten high since college, Culann thought maybe he’d reward himself with some of Worner’s crop once he finished collecting the dead.
He loaded Worner onto the boat with the others and then headed over to Wal-Mart Jr. to see what it might have for the dogs. This was his first time in the store, which didn’t have much. It did have eggs and milk, though, both of which were already starting to rot. In another day or two it would be impossible to set foot in the store without gagging, so Culann loaded all of the perishables into the wheelbarrow and dumped them in the water down the shore, away from the pier and his floating keg.
Fortunately, the store was also well-stocked with non-perishable items, including several big bags of dog food. There was also a good amount of meat—steaks, ground beef, bacon, and fish—that would go bad soon, so Culann loaded it all onto the wheelbarrow and dumped it on the ground outside. The dogs swarmed in, tore through the packaging and gobbled it all up within a matter of minutes. Culann went back inside and continued his survey. He found a lot of canned goods, some packaged lunchmeats and beef jerky sticks, boxes of cereal, several loaves of white bread that wouldn’t stay good for very long, as well as a whole shelf lined with gallon jugs of water.
This last item made Culann realize that the island did not have a ready source of fresh water. Before disaster struck, he’d been able to wash his hands and flush the toilet at Frank’s place, so he figured there had to be a well, but he wasn’t sure how to find it or how to get at the water. Even if he did figure that out, he wasn’t sure the water would be potable. The dogs had probably been subsisting on rainwater left over from the storm, and he was going to need to get them something to drink soon. Four dozen dogs would go through the water in the store within a couple of days. If Culann didn’t figure out a way to access the well, he was going to have to kill the dogs.
It was becoming clear to Culann that simply surviving as the sole human being on an island in the Bering Sea was not going to be easy. There wasn’t enough food and water to support him and the dogs much longer. Even if the dogs were somehow out of the equation, he didn’t know how long he could live off canned peas and Spam. If he managed to hold out for the next couple of months, he would then have to contend with winter. The sun that didn’t set in summer wouldn’t rise for a two-month period in winter.
Nothing in Culann’s life had prepared him to survive in this climate.
These thoughts depressed him. He snatched a bottle of Jack Daniel’s from Alistair’s and headed over to the dock. Fog was beginning to creep across the water, obscuring Culann’s view of the shore. He hoped the fog would keep Schuler’s and Williams’s comrades from coming out to look for them, although he knew it was only a matter of time. He envisioned waves of death as people came out to investigate and then more followed to investigate the investigators. He also didn’t relish the prospect of being placed under arrest each time and having to finagle out of the handcuffs after his captors succumbed to the orb’s power.
Overcome with the hopelessness of the situation, Culann drank half the bottle and passed out on the dock.
Culann ate a breakfast of beef jerky and Tylenol, which he washed down with half a gallon of water. He then snatched a glass from Alistair’s and went to see how his keg refrigeration system worked. The fog had thickened considerably while he’d slept.
He had a difficult time locating the rope he’d tied to the keg, but when he did, he managed to pour himself a cool beer, which made him feel better. If he could keep his beer cold without power, he thought he just might be able to solve all of his other problems.
With renewed confidence, Culann resumed loading bodies onto the police boat.
He worked hard over the next few hours, stopping only to eat lunch. It took all of his strength and several glasses of beer, but he finally loaded the last body onto the boat as a light rain began to fall.
If he was going to keep the dogs alive, he was going to need rain-catchers. He scoured the island for anything that could hold water. He found three large pots in Alistair’s, several buckets in some of the cabins, a couple of old wash basins, and then he hit the jackpot with a plastic wading pool that had belonged to little Marty. He set these all out in a row out front of Wal-Mart Jr. and hoped it would rain long enough to fill them.
Having taken care of the dogs, for the time being at least, Culann returned to the police boat, which was full nearly to overflowing with dead bodies. Since the island had been powered entirely by generators, he had no trouble locating a can of gasoline. He emptied it over the people he once knew, perhaps the last people he would ever know.
Even with the heavy fog, Culann didn’t want to risk attracting attention from the mainland, so he unmoored the boat and took hold of the bowline. He pulled the boat along the pier until he reached the shore and then he walked slowly along the edge of the water, dragging the boat along with him. The island sloped off pretty quickly, so the water was deep enough that Culann could lead the boat all the way around to the western edge of the island from shore. It was slow going, but much easier than loading all the bodies had been. After an hour, the boat was completely out of the line of sight for anyone who may have been gazing across the water from land. Culann lit a book of matches he’d taken from Alistair’s and tossed it in the boat. Flames spread the length of the boat, and Culann could almost immediately smell the flesh of his friends catch fire. It was like burnt hair, but a thousand times stronger. He took a long pole and shoved the boat away. The wind was coming from the south, so it pushed the boat along the edge of the island. Culann sat on the grass, surrounded by dogs who all stared with him as the blazing boat slipped into the fog and was gone.
Culann fished out of his pocket an already-rolled joint he’d found in Worner’s cabin. He lit it, inhaled and immediately coughed. It had been ten years since he’d last done this. Worner’s place had proved a treasure trove because it also contained two shelves of books. True to his word, Worner had been the most well-read man in Pyrite.
Amidst volumes on horticulture, government conspiracies of various stripes, and the occult origins of the Third Reich, Culann had found a pocket-edition of Robinson Crusoe, which he now read on the dock, leaning against a couple of dogs who served as a backrest. Alphonse curled up next to him.
He took four or five hits and found himself very stoned. Maybe it was because he was out of practice or perhaps Worner had managed to engineer a particularly potent strain of cannabis. Culann laid the book down on his lap and took in his surroundings.
The drizzling rain was cool against his skin, and the fog seemed to thicken by the minute.
Between the fog and the dogs enveloping him, Culann imagined himself in the bosom of a great fluffy cloud. He pushed thoughts of death from his mind and concentrated on the utter tranquility of the now-deserted island.
He thought he saw an orange light off in the distance. Then it disappeared. He squinted his eyes and saw it again, a little larger this time. It seemed to be moving towards him. It flickered ever so slightly as it approached. Culann remembered fairy tales his Irish grandmother had told him about the will-o’-the-wisp that led disobedient little boys off into the darkness. As the light loomed larger, he heard the sound of oars in the water. Someone was coming.
I’ve never been very religious. As a good Irish boy, I went through all of the standard Catholic rituals, first out of fear of damnation and then just to keep my mom happy. Then I stopped trying to keep my mom happy. To avoid a conflict, I made a point to never be at my parents’ house in the morning of a day when church attendance was expected. That way my mom could plausibly assume I’d already gone. I’m sure she suspected the truth, but was kind enough not to force me to choose between lying to her and disappointing her.
Recent events, I suppose, should have tried my faith, if I’d had any. Or maybe they should have driven me back to God. No atheists in foxholes and all that. But I’m not really an atheist. That would require making a decision and taking a stand. I’m just a guy that would rather sleep in on Sundays.
Worner’s crazy books on Nazi witchcraft and four-legged saints have nudged me to consider the spiritual side of life anew. After what I’ve seen in the last few weeks, it’s hard to be skeptical of anything. Virtually everything I once believed about the world has been proven false. Maybe I can uncover a deeper truth, even if there’s no one for me to share it with.
Culann stood as the boat pulled into view. The dogs surrounding him whined nervously. He still considered the possibility that this was all a drug-induced hallucination, but it certainly seemed real enough. An eighteen-foot canoe cut through the fog. A lantern dangled from a pole at the bow. Just behind the lantern, a figure paddled off the port side. Another figure stood astride the middle of the canoe, pointing towards the shore. At the stern sat a third figure who paddled off the starboard side. As the canoe approached, the two paddlers pulled in their oars and allowed the boat to glide over to Culann.
“You?” said the standing figure in a hauntingly-familiar voice.
“Oh, shit.”
The Captain hopped up onto the dock in one step. The canoe barely rocked. His companions stumbled after him with considerably less grace. As the Captain approached, the dogs slunk away, leaving Culann to face him alone. The Captain wore his usual bomber jacket and aviator sunglasses. He was accompanied by a skinny Inuit teenager wearing jeans and a flannel shirt and a round little white kid in cargo shorts and a t-shirt.
The skinny one rubbed the back of his neck while the fat one surveyed as much of the fog-blanketed island as he could see.
“How are you still alive?” the Captain demanded.
“I don’t know,” Culann replied. “It doesn’t affect me for some reason.”
“The others?”
“They’re all dead.”
The Captain shook his head and said, “You shouldn’t have taken it from me.”
“I know that now. What is it?”
“It is something you have no hope of understanding, much less controlling.”
“Doesn’t it affect you?” Culann asked.
“No. I thought I was the only one. Apparently I was wrong.”
“What about them?”
The Captain shook his head. The two boys looked at one another.
“What’s going on?” the skinny one asked. “Are we in danger?”
Without turning to face him, the Captain replied, “You are both going to die.”
“Fuck this,” the fat one said. “Let’s get out here.”
He turned and headed back to the canoe. The Captain spun around and shot him in the back. The kid toppled forward into the water. The skinny one held up his hands and backed away. The Captain shot him in the chest, and he collapsed onto the deck.
The dogs howled behind Culann. He still wore Williams’ belt and had a gun of his own within inches of his hand, but he couldn’t bring himself to draw it. He’d never fired a gun in his life, so he was unlikely to win a shootout with the Captain. The Captain turned back around to face him, and the dogs instantly got quiet.
“They were going to die anyway,” he said.
“Maybe not,” Culann replied. “After all, you and I are still alive.”
“For now.”
The fog was now so thick Culann could see only a few feet in front of him to where the Captain stood. The Captain left his sunglasses on anyway. He still held the gun in his right hand, but he dangled it at his side. The Captain evidently hadn’t seen Williams’ pistol, which was covered by the hem of Culann’s t-shirt.
“Where is it?” the Captain asked in his booming, mechanical voice.
“I threw it back in the water.”
“Don’t lie to me. I know it’s close.”
“I’m not lying. It’s in the water. I can probably fish it back out again, but not until you tell me what the hell is going on.”
“You are not in a position to make demands, greenhorn. I found it in the middle of the goddamned ocean. You can’t hide it from me here.”
“I didn’t say I wanted to hide it from you. I just want to know what it is and what you are going to do with it.”
The Captain stood silent for a moment. Culann could read nothing in his impassive expression, but he could feel the Captain staring at him from behind those dark lenses. After careful consideration, the Captain raised his arm and shot Culann in the right thigh.
The bullet ran through Culann’s flesh like a sharp jolt of electricity. Aftershocks of hot pain coursed up and down his leg. Culann dropped to the deck and pressed his hands over the two clean holes on either side of his thigh. The dogs let out another chorus of whimpers, but they stayed back.
“Now that we understand each other,” the Captain said, “I’m going to tell you what you want to know. When I’m done, I’m going to ask you again where it is. Each second that goes by without you telling me what I want to know is going to mean another bullet. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Culann hissed through clenched teeth.
“Good. Now pay attention, because when the story ends, we’re getting back to business.”
“I first found it forty years ago. We were on a bombing run over Cambodia when all of a sudden my instruments stopped, and my engines went dead. We crashed deep in the jungle. I came out okay, but my DSO was killed, and my observer had two broken legs. I went to see if I could find some friendlies to help us.
“The jungle was totally quiet. I’d been in country for four years, and the jungle was always full of noise from insects, birds, monkeys, and all the other wildlife. When I climbed out of my plane, there was absolute silence.
“My compass didn’t work, so I just picked a direction at random and started walking. The jungle was dense, and I didn’t have a machete, so I humped it pretty slowly.
There were no bugs, which was really odd for the thick of the Cambodian jungle. After about an hour, I came upon an old temple in a clearing, right in the middle of nowhere.
“The temple was centuries old. It was built from cut stones that were now covered with moss and vines, but at one time it must have looked like the ziggurats in Sumeria.
The bottom half was like a pyramid with a big staircase carved into one side that led up to the top half, which looked like a Greek temple, with columns all around. This was a holy place, or the opposite, and I could feel power coming from it. Even though it was over a hundred degrees out, I was shivering.
“I had no idea where I was. I thought that maybe if I climbed to the top of this thing, I could get a better view of my surroundings. As I approached, these two dhole—which is some kind of gook fox—ran out from around the side of the temple and started growling at me. I shot one of them, which should have scared off the other one, but it held its ground, still growling at me, so I shot it too. Then I climbed the stairs to the top, about forty feet or so above the ground.
“The temple was full of bones. They were human bones organized into a couple hundred lines. There was one line of skulls, one line of femurs, one line of knucklebones.
Someone had taken the time to sort through a dozen or so bodies. And then I saw one intact skeleton set against the wall. As I moved closer, I realized that it wasn’t a skeleton, it was a man, and he was still alive.
“He was an old man, ancient, and he was completely bald and completely naked.
He was so skinny he looked like bones wrapped in old leather. He grinned at me when I approached and he didn’t have any teeth. He was sitting Indian-style with his hands folded in front of him like he was praying. I assumed he was some kind of hermit monk who’d gone crazy out here all by himself, which is probably the truth.
“It was sitting on the ground in front of him, and I realized he was praying to it. I walked closer to him, stepping one foot over the other on the narrow path between lines of bones, which I didn’t want to touch—bad voodoo.
“I asked him in Khmer where we were. He didn’t answer the question. Instead he said, ‘The Dog-God is here, and here he must remain.’ He seemed crazy as hell to me. I took a few more steps and asked him again where we were. Again he said, ‘The Dog-God is here, and here he must remain.’ I was close enough to get my first good look at it. I realized right away that this was what had caused that weird feeling when I first came up to the temple.
“I asked him what it was. He just shook his head. I bent down and looked at it close up and felt a surge of electricity run through my body. I tumbled back onto a line of bones. The old monk laughed his crazy laugh and said, ‘The Dog-God is here, and here he must remain.’ I hopped back to my feet and reached down to pick it up, and the old man’s arm shot out and grabbed my wrist. His fingers were long and skinny, and his nails were uncut. He had a hand like a vulture’s claw. He was so thin he couldn’t have weighed more than ninety pounds, but his grip was so strong I couldn’t pull away. I tugged and tugged, but he wouldn’t let go, and I couldn’t break free. Finally, I shot him, and that did the trick.
“I scooped it up and put it in my backpack. Suddenly I knew exactly where I needed to go. It was guiding me. I climbed down off the temple and headed out into the jungle. It took a day-and-a-half of rough going before I stumbled on a FANK base that had a few American spooks there who helicoptered me back to friendly territory.
“At this point, it was still a secret that we were in Cambodia, which I guess they were hoping would stay a secret if they went easy on those of us who’d gotten banged up over there. They told me I could go home if I wanted, and I said, ‘Yes,’ without really thinking about it.
“A day later, I was flying in a troop transport over the Pacific Ocean, headed for Eielson Air Force Base, near Fairbanks. We ran into some bad weather. The engines conked out, and we went down. There were twenty-five other men on board, and they all died. Those who survived the crash just started dying all at once. One kid was talking to me and he died in the middle of a sentence. He just slid into the water and never came back up. But it kept me alive. The only problem was that I had to let go of it to stay afloat in that icy water. I floated there for three days.
“Finally a fishing trawler found me. The crew couldn’t believe I’d survived. I made the navigator give me the exact coordinates of where we were so I could go back for it some day. I spent the next thirty years combing the seabed in this area. I could sense it, just like I can now, but the ocean is a mighty big place. I’m telling you this story because I don’t have the patience to search for it again.”
“Okay,” Culann said. “So this thing is a god? How does it work? How come I’m still alive?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you plan to do with it?”
The Captain glared at Culann.
“I’m just wondering,” Culann continued, “what it can do. I’m curious how you control it.”
The Captain scratched his cheek for a moment before answering, “I don’t know. I just know that I was able to find it in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It’s only a matter of time before I figure it out.”
As Culann listened to this, he was of course aware that the Captain did not want the orb so that he could bring about world peace. The Captain’s naked lust for power, power he didn’t even understand, was frightening for Culann to witness up close. Culann realized that he had to stop the Captain, even if it meant sacrificing his own life, which wasn’t much of a sacrifice since Culann was pretty sure the Captain was going to kill him anyway. At the very least, Culann needed to keep from revealing the orb’s location, although he doubted he could hold out for very long once the Captain started torturing him.
He still had Williams’s gun, which was still covered by his t-shirt. Even after Culann had been shot, he hadn’t dared draw his own weapon. He had very little confidence in his ability to hit the Captain before getting riddled with bullets. But as long as the Captain killed him, then Culann wouldn’t tell where the orb is. He had nothing to lose, so he went for it.
It took one second for Culann to pull his t-shirt aside, draw Williams’s gun from the holster, take hasty aim at the Captain, and pull the trigger. But it was a second that seemed like a lifetime. Culann was conscious of the cold, hard feel of the gun butt, the almost delicate slenderness of the trigger, the spark of electricity when the bullet leapt from the barrel. He was simultaneously conscious of the Captain’s superhuman response.
The older man’s stern face registered no surprise. He calmly raised his own weapon and fired. Culann could even see the tough skin on the Captain’s finger fold as it squeezed the trigger. As Culann catalogued all of these details, his mind also imagined two worlds. In the first, Culann’s bullet found its mark. In this world, the fog swallowed Pyrite, and Culann lived out his days amongst the dogs, forever cut off from the human race, which would never know how close it had come to extinction or that an alcoholic sex offender was the key to its salvation. In the other world, Culann missed. The Captain tortured him until he revealed the orb’s location and then killed him. The Captain unleashed waves of death and destruction on the civilized world until it granted him absolute power. He withered like the Cambodian monk over the course of many lifetimes, all the while exercising dominion over the Earth from a throne of madness. This was what was at stake.
And then the second was over.
For a man who’d never fired a gun in his life, Culann had aimed remarkably well.
But not well enough. The bullet whizzed past the Captain’s head, just missing his right ear. It was obvious that the Captain had fired a gun many times in his life. His bullet caught Culann in the right hand, splintering his knuckles and causing him to fling his weapon away. It plunked into the water and was gone. The dogs, obscured by the mists, whined sharply from over Culann’s shoulder. He survived the exchange but was now unarmed and suffering incomprehensible pain. He couldn’t bring himself to look down at the mangled hand he cradled to his chest. It wouldn’t be long before he told the Captain where to find the orb.
“You’ve got more guts that I gave you credit for, greenhorn,” the Captain said.
“But in three seconds, you’re going to tell me where it is, or I’m going to destroy your kneecap.”
The Captain stood over Culann and pointed the gun straight down at his knee.
Culann shot the Captain a defiant glare and then rolled over to his belly. He started to drag himself forward on his elbows. The Captain shot him straight through the back of the left knee. The bullet shattered Culann’s kneecap and sank into the wooden plank of the pier. The dogs’ whines and whimpers grew to full barking, fifty dogs voicing their displeasure all at once. But none dared to crawl out of the fog and confront the ruthless human who now dominated Pyrite’s last man. The Captain dropped down and kneeled on the small of Culann’s back. He pressed the barrel of the gun to Culann’s spine.
“If you won’t sit still,” he said, “I’m going to have to make sure that you can’t move. You’ve got three seconds to tell me where it is before I turn you into a paraplegic.”
“One.”
Culann tried to focus on the howling of the dogs. Anything except the three throbbing wounds that screamed at his brain.
“Two.”
Culann could sense the dogs behind him, chomping and slavering, craving the Captain’s blood. But they were held back as if by invisible chains. The Captain was somehow restraining them.
“Time’s up,” the Captain said.
The collective savagery of the dogs overwhelmed Culann’s mind. They seemed to be trying to communicate with him. They couldn’t overcome the barrier the Captain had erected. But their insistent howling seemed to be telling Culann that he could.
“Kill him,” he whispered, and with that, the invisible chains snapped. Alphonse leapt forward latched his powerful jaws on the Captain’s throat. Caught off guard, the Captain struggled to raise his gun in defense, but another dog chomped down on his arm.
The entire pack rushed forward, and Culann could feel the paws press off his back as the dogs fought one another to get at their prey. The Captain started to scream, but the sound died to a gurgle as his windpipe collapsed under Alphonse’s crushing bite.
In a matter of moments, the Captain was torn to pieces, which were in turn torn into even smaller pieces. Culann pushed himself up and rolled over into a seated position.
The viciousness of the dogs melted away as quickly as it had appeared. Their bloodthirst slaked, they now enveloped Culann in a blanket of wet tongues and wagging tails.
Culann crawled on his elbows all the way up to Alistair’s. The dogs licked his face with encouragement as he went. He pulled himself up onto a barstool, reached over to snatch up a bottle of vodka, and took a long drink. The liquor burned his throat going down, and he coughed. He pulled the Swiss army knife from Williams’s belt and flipped out the blade using just his left hand and his teeth, which was a struggle. He cut his jeans off so he could treat his wounds. He found a dirty bar rag, soaked it in vodka, and wiped away the blood and grime that covered his wounds.
The wound in his right thigh bled steadily, but didn’t seem serious. The bullet hadn’t struck any bones, so Culann figured his right leg could support his weight. His left leg was another story. His kneecap was broken into at least three pieces. He was going to have to figure out a way to rig up a cast. Even with a cast, he knew he’d be permanently crippled. His hand was likewise broken in a few places and would never be the same. He was going to have to become left-handed.
Before learning to overcome these permanent disabilities, Culann needed to stop the blood pouring from the bullet holes. He cut his jeans into strips, which he doused in vodka and used to bind his wounds. He sat on the barstool in his t-shirt, underwear, socks and shoes. He drank what was left of the vodka, which did little to dull the pain that reverberated through every cell in his body. He thought he might have better luck with Worner’s marijuana, but it was all back at the cabin. Then he had an idea.
“Alphonse,” he said. The dog rose from the floor and peered up at Culann with his cerulean eyes. The Captain’s blood stained Alphonse’s muzzle. “Go get marijuana.”
Alphonse spun around and charged out of the tavern. If Culann hadn’t been in such agony, he would have laughed. As ridiculous as it was, his strange power over the dogs might just allow him survive. A couple of minutes later, Alphonse returned with a baggie containing several of Worner’s already-rolled joints hanging out of his mouth.
Culann lit one of the joints with bar matches and then slid down to the floor. The dogs settled in around him, and he felt safe and warm. He puffed on the joint, and the waves of pain began to ebb, and soon his snores mixed in with those of the dogs, and the island was once again at peace.
The pain tore Culann from his slumber. He hastily lit another joint and took a couple of hits. The smoke burned his dry throat, and he coughed, which made his wounds throb. He dragged himself back up onto a barstool and then leaned over to grab a bottle of club soda from behind the bar. He drank it down and then finished the joint. The pain receded but Culann’s head was so muddled he doubted he’d be able to function. Simply staying alive was a struggle, and Culann realized he was going to need to be sharp to survive. He could treat his pain or he could think. He couldn’t do both.
“Alphonse,” he called out, “go next door and get me some food.”
As before, the dog snapped to attention and then scurried off to do Culann’s bidding. He returned with a loaf of white bread. Culann would have preferred a little more flavor, but was still amazed the dog had brought anything.
“Good boy,” he said, scratching Alphonse behind the ears with his good hand.
After eating a few slices of bread, Culann stepped gingerly off of the stool. His right leg could support his weight, although the wound in his thigh screamed when his foot hit the floor. He ordered the dogs to clear a path, and they dutifully complied. The barstool stood at just about the right height to serve as a crude crutch. Culann snaked his right arm through the seatback, careful to avoid putting any pressure on his shattered hand, and swung the stool forward a few inches. He hopped ahead on his left leg and then swung the stool forward again. Walking this way, he slowly and clumsily crossed the bar and made it outside.
The fog had receded while Culann slept. It still covered the water just off shore, but Culann could now see around the island. He hobbled forward on the stool, collecting things he would need to properly address his injuries. Between his inefficient locomotion and his drug-addled mind, it took him over an hour to find suitable items.
He started with his shattered right knee. He sat on a barstool and rested his right foot on another stool. He slid a thin piece of plywood, a yard long and four inches wide, underneath the leg. Using just his left hand and his teeth, Culann managed to secure the wood in place with duct tape. Frank and Worner would have been proud of him.
With his knee sufficiently splinted, he moved on to his mangled right hand. He dragged two stools together so that they were about six inches apart. He laid two foot-long dowel rods on the stools and pressed his right arm on top of them, palm up. He used the gap between the chairs to wind the duct tape around, fastening the dowels to his forearm. Then he raised his arm and delicately worked up to the hand. The dowels immobilized his right wrist, which Culann hoped would allow the hand to heal.
He’d found a push broom which he now turned upside down to serve as a less-cumbersome crutch. He took a clean sheet and tore it into strips that became fresh bandages. He wrapped another sheet around his neck like a cape to keep warm since he didn’t want to try pulling clothes on over his broken bones.
As the pot wore off, the pain returned. Culann struggled through it, vowing to lay off the drugs and keep his drinking to a reasonable level until he had the situation under control. His wounds were clean and the fractures set, so Culann was reasonably certain of his immediate survival. His longer-term survival—and that of the dogs to whom he now owed his life—was another story.
The next couple of days were hard for Culann. His pain lessened, but his injuries made challenges of even the simplest tasks. Alistair, Julia and Marty had lived in a room at the back of the bar, which Culann now claimed as his home. It was closer to Wal-Mart Jr. and the dock than Frank’s place. He kept supplies of water and food in his bedroom and on top of the bar. He’d fed the dogs a few bags of dog food, but knew the supply wouldn’t last much longer. Fortunately his rain-catchers had worked, so the dogs had water, at least for now.
He thought about a longer-term solution. The pipes coming out of each cabin slipped under the soil, so he couldn’t easily determine where they led. Eventually though, he found a water storage tank about a quarter-mile from the main road back behind McGillicuddy’s trailer. A large pipe coming out of it looked like it led down to the well.
There was also a spigot on the side. When Culann turned it on, water poured out onto the grass. He figured this was just what was left in the tank, but it was probably enough to make a difference until he found a way to get at the water below. He shut off the faucet and limped back to the shore.
Culann perched atop a barstool he’d dragged out onto the dock. He’d put in a full day’s work—or at least its equivalent since the sun still didn’t let him know whether it was day or night—so he smoked the last of Worner’s pre-rolled joints. It would probably be a good week before the pain lessened enough that he’d be able to sleep without marijuana. Worner had a couple of bags of dried weed in his shack, but Culann was going to have a hell of a time rolling joints with just his left hand. A little high already, he giggled at the notion that his continued survival depended on his ability to master the use of drug paraphernalia.
Fog still covered the water and obscured the sun. The fog seemed to be keeping people from coming to the island. Culann figured the orb had something to do with this.
It was as if the orb felt bad about all the carnage it had wrought and wanted to prevent any more. Or maybe it was Culann who was somehow creating the fog. But Culann didn’t know how long the fog would work. Sooner or later, people would row through it, and Culann would have to watch them die.
He glanced out at the water to where the orb rested beneath the surface. He thought about the Captain who’d been so sure he’d be able to control it. But to Culann, three decades spent obsessively scouring the seabed sounded more like the actions of a slave than a master. And why did the orb grant Culann the power over the dogs that saved his life? Culann had no illusion about his ability to control the orb. This thing was beyond human understanding, and perhaps it was the failure to admit this that drove the monk and the Captain to madness. It had given Culann the power to control the dogs and could perhaps give him further powers that would make survival on this island possible. But those powers would undoubtedly come at a cost. Culann resolved to let the orb be.
Alphonse licked Culann’s bare leg. He reached down and nestled his fingers in the thick fur atop the dog’s head. A handful of other dogs pressed forward for their turn.
Culann carefully lowered himself down to the dock and let the dogs envelop him.