I suppose it’s time for me to try to come to grips with why I’m here. I’ve had a lot of time to think about it lately. I’d say it comes down to a general weakness — I do what’s easy instead of what’s right. I drink instead of confronting my problems. Even now, I smoke dope to dull my physical pain, but this also keeps me from thinking about all of the things I’ve done.
My problem with the girls is… I still don’t quite know. I know enough about biology to know there’s nothing that unusual about being attracted to post-pubescent females who happen to be a little on the young side. But for some reason, I act on that attraction while just about every other civilized man in the world shows self-control. I wasn’t always like this.
I think it has something to do with being a teacher. I didn’t have these urges until I became responsible for other people’s children. It’s like my subconscious had to find a way to betray that responsibility…
No, that’s bullshit. I did this, not my subconscious. I’m a grown man and I acted consciously. I need to accept this responsibility and…what? How do I make amends for what I’ve done when I’m stuck on this island? I can take good care of the dogs, but that hardly seems proportionate. Besides, I was going to do my best with the dogs anyway (provided I can figure out a solution to the food situation). I need to somehow figure out a way to make things right with the universe, but that’s going to be hard when I have to struggle so hard just to stay alive. Self-preservation is a fundamentally selfish endeavor.
Culann sat on a stump on the island’s wooded western edge, gazing off to the horizon where the sky blushed with the first sunset he’d seen in six weeks. He sipped whiskey from the bottle while the dogs busied themselves urinating on the spruce trees surrounding them. Over the last month, Culann’s wounds had healed about as well as they were going to. His left kneecap had fused back together, though not exactly in the right shape. The leg could bear his weight as long as he walked with a cane he’d fashioned from a barstool leg. His right hand curled into a claw, but he could still use it.
He could even write, albeit sloppily, and had taken to keeping a journal in Alistair’s unused account ledgers. He figured it was a way to keep his mind sharp and ward off the insanity of isolation, at least for a time.
The color slowly bled from the sky to reveal the star-glittering blackness of night.
The return to diurnality reassured Culann, who’d feared the orb had permanently divorced him from nature in this fog-shrouded island. The setting sun told Culann that the world did indeed still turn. It also meant that winter would come.
Culann hadn’t seen a living thing die since the Captain had been devoured by the dogs. The power of the orb had kept humanity at bay. Culann had heard sounds and seen flashes of light from across the inlet, but his would-be visitors had undoubtedly been deterred by mechanical difficulties and the thick fog that suddenly appeared a half-mile from shore. Culann dreaded the day when some adventurous soul would row through the mystical barrier to certain death.
The dogs also worried Culann. They’d gone through almost all of the dog food he’d found at Wal-Mart Jr. He’d tried rationing, but the larger dogs shoved aside the smaller ones and ate their fill. Culann had to exert his control over the dogs to get them to share enough to keep them all alive. His own stock of food would keep him going through winter, but not if he shared any with this ravenous pack that grew less tame with each passing day. He was sickened with the thought that he’d have to kill some—most—of his only companions on Earth if any were to survive.
The return of night made him instantly tired. He would deal with the dog situation tomorrow. He finished the last of the whiskey and hobbled back to Alistair’s. When he was halfway there, a dog barked from behind him, then another, and then they all howled in unison. Culann turned back to investigate, stifling a yawn as he tottered through the forest.
When he reached the shore, he spied a light a hundred yards out. It danced up and down and then disappeared. The barking of the dogs echoed off the water. Culann ordered them to be quiet, and they complied. Culann heard the lapping of the waves, but no other sounds. He strained his eyes, focusing on where he’d last seen the light. The moon cast pale rays across the sea, revealing nothing.
“Hello?” a faint voice called out from the blackness.
Culann cleared his throat to reply. He hadn’t spoken to another human being in nearly a month. The dogs obeyed him whether he shouted or whispered, so he’d grown accustomed to speaking softly on the rare occasions he spoke at all.
“Stay away,” he shouted. “It is not safe for you here.”
“Please,” the unmistakably female voice replied, “help me.”
“I am trying to help you. Turn back now.”
“Please, everything went dead. My GPS won’t work, and I can’t see anything. If you don’t help me, I’m going to crash into a rock.”
All along Culann had feared visitors from the mainland arriving at the dock on the east side of the island. He hadn’t expected anyone to come from the open ocean to the west. He could just make out a small sailboat about hundred feet off shore. A slender figure leaned forward at the prow.
“This is your last chance,” Culann shouted. “Turn back before it’s too late. There’s a virus on this island.”
“A what?”
“A virus. Everyone is dead.”
“Please, sir,” the voice replied on the verge of tears, “don’t joke around. I’m going to die if you don’t help me.”
“You’ll die if I do.”
The waves inexorably drove the small craft to ruin. As it neared, the sailor came into view. She was petite, with curly hair that reached midway down her back. She wore a tight, long-sleeved t-shirt and high-cut shorts. She couldn’t have been older than sixteen.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Culann muttered.
“Do you have any lights?” she called out from about twenty feet away. “I can barely see the coastline.”
“I don’t have anything,” Culann replied. “The rocks are pretty bad on this side.
Turn right.”
“Starboard,” she corrected, making Pyrite’s sole survivor feel like a know-nothing greenhorn all over again.
He guided her along as best he could, which wasn’t very well. Her boat ground against some rocks neither of them could see. She let out a dainty curse.
“I’m going to have to swim to shore,” she said. “Do you have something to pull me up with?”
“I’ve got a cane. It’s only about three feet long.”
“I’ll bring a line with me and toss it up to you.”
She pulled her t-shirt over her head and stepped out of her shorts, revealing an athletic-cut bikini. Culann forced himself to look at the water. She dropped a white ring buoy into the water and slid into it. She kicked her way to the island until she reached the sloping slippery rocks that made up its western shore. A sheer cliff of about six feet separated the two of them. She threw a length of rope up to Culann. He reached out with his good left hand, but missed it. She gathered the line up and threw it again. He again missed the catch, but the rope landed on the ground at his feet. He scooped it up.
“Ah, hold on a second,” he replied. “I’m a bit injured. I better anchor this end first.”
He wrapped the end of the line around a tree trunk. He leaned back against the tree and set his good right leg. He gripped the rope with his left hand and clamped his clawed right hand behind the left.
“Okay, I am going to start pulling now.”
She couldn’t have weighed much more than a hundred pounds, but he was effectively pulling with just one arm and one leg. He pulled with his left arm, held the rope in place by gripping it overhand with his damaged right mitt, and then pulled again with the left. She pressed her bare feet against the slippery rockface and scaled the cliff.
When she reached the top, he grasped her hand and pulled her towards him. She tumbled forward, and the two fell to the ground, her soft skin pressed against his body. Her wet hair fell across his face. She smelled like cinnamon.
“Thanks,” she said with an appealing upturn of her lip.
He swallowed hard and then shoved her aside. He rolled to his belly and started pushing himself to his feet.
“Here, let me help you,” she said, sliding her thin arms around his waist.
“No,” Culann snapped, and she pulled away. He grabbed the trunk of the tree with his good hand and pulled himself up.
“Whoa, what’s with all the dogs?”
The pack churned forward to greet the newcomer. The dogs sniffed and licked and nudged so persistently that the girl nearly toppled back into the sea.
“Stay back,” Culann ordered, and the dogs halted.
“How many do you have?”
“There are forty-eight, although they really aren’t mine.”
“Whose are they?”
“They don’t belong to anyone anymore.”
She gave him a puzzled look but didn’t say anything more. He snatched up his cane and led her through the woods back to the once-inhabited part of the island.
“Thanks again for saving me,” she said as they walked. “It was so weird. All the electronics went dead at the same time. Must’ve been a short circuit or something. Do you know anything about electronics?”
Culann shook his head. He didn’t want to talk to this girl, this girl who tempted him with her nearly-naked body, this girl who would not be alive in twenty-four hours.
“Are you some kind of hermit?”
Culann smiled despite himself. He realized how he must look to her eyes: six weeks’ growth of beard, shaggy hair that reached his collar, limping along with the help of a jury-rigged cane which he gripped in a gnarled hand, and a policeman’s utility belt wrapped around his waist. He was thankful that his injuries had healed sufficiently that he could resume wearing normal clothes instead of simply cloaking himself in a grass-stained bedsheet.
“I guess so,” he said.
“Is that why you won’t look at me?”
“Come on,” Culann said. “Let’s get you some clothes.”
Culann was still alive, and he was confident in way that he hadn’t been with Constance and Schuler that he would continue to be alive, at least until winter hit. He was some sort of chosen one, although he had little faith in this Dog-God who’d done the choosing. He decided that this status had to have been earned, that it couldn’t have been just dumb luck that allowed him to survive when so many people, stronger people, were dead. He just didn’t know how he had earned it. He concluded that there must be some sort of cosmic Calvinism going on here, that he’d been born one of the elect and was only now discovering it. If that was the case, he needed to live a life, however short, of irresistible grace.
The girl emerged from Alistair’s bedroom wearing Julia’s bathrobe, which was far too large for her. Culann looked away from the exposed tanned skin of her neck and collarbones, and the brown curls that cascaded down her shoulders. He took a drink of club soda, having foresworn alcohol until the girl was gone.
“My name is Nereida, by the way.”
He nodded.
“Do you have a name?” she asked with a smile as she slid onto the barstool next to him.
“Culann.”
“That’s an interesting name. Does it mean anything?”
“It’s from Celtic mythology.”
“That’s cool,” she said, “My name comes from mythology, too.”
“I know.”
“I get it. You don’t like to talk. That’s why you live all by yourself out here.”
Culann nodded. It was simpler to have her think that he was some antisocial recluse than a man whose craving for a drink was surmounted only by his craving for her flawless young body. The less they spoke, the easier it would be for him to pretend she wasn’t there. Unfortunately, Nereida didn’t seem to care much for silence.
“Where did you get this bathrobe? Did you have a wife who died, and that’s why you’re a hermit?”
Culann couldn’t help but smile. “Yes, that’s it.”
“That’s really sweet.”
“Is it?”
“Oh, yeah. To be such a romantic that you can’t live a normal life without her.
She must have been very beautiful.”
“How old are you?” Culann asked.
“Thirteen.”
“Jesus Christ,” he said with a cough. “What were you doing out there all by yourself?”
“I’m trying to set the record for the youngest girl to sail solo around the world.
I’m doing a practice run from California to Alaska and back, and then next year I’m going for the record.”
“Are you serious?” Culann turned to face her. “What do your parents have to say about this?”
Nereida rolled her eyes as if she’d been asked this question a thousand times.
“My parents think kids are too overprotected nowadays. Everybody’s so afraid of child molesters and stuff that they hide their kids away and never give them the chance to grow up. If I can do this, I will accomplish more at fourteen than most people do in their entire lives.”
Her acorn-brown eyes sparkled when she spoke. She oozed ambition. Culann could see she was the type of person who was destined for greatness, if only she had more than one day to live. He shook his head.
“If you were my daughter, I’d never let you do anything so crazy. Think how awful your parents would feel if something happened to you.”
Culann’s words surprised him. For the first time in a long time, he’d forced himself to imagine how another person felt, to see the world through strangers’ eyes.
He’d stopped thinking about himself. Nereida stopped being some sea nymph sent to tempt him. She was a child, and he was again a teacher, a man entrusted with children and who was committed to shepherding them safely into adulthood. He needed to figure out a way to send her home to her family. Alive.
Culann and Nereida stood on the dock near Culann’s floating keg. The brief night had ended, and the sun again shone down upon them. Culann had ordered the dogs to stay ashore, so they stared impatiently at their master from land. Culann eased himself to a sitting position and removed his shoes and socks. He still wasn’t quite sure he could trust himself around Nereida, so he left his jeans and t-shirt on.
“What are you doing?” she asked for the third time.
“Just taking care of something,” he again replied.
Culann slid into the water, feeling the sharp cold devour him. If he stood on his tiptoes, he could just barely keep his mouth above the waterline. The water was too dark and salty for him to open his eyes underwater. He had a general idea where he’d thrown it, but feeling around the silty bottom with his toes was a hard way to find it.
“Can I at least help you with whatever you’re doing?” Nereida called down. “Not to be conceited or anything, but I think I’m a lot better swimmer than you.”
“No, stay there. This might be dangerous.”
“Dangerous? What are you doing?”
“Please be quiet. I need to concentrate.”
Nereida sighed and folded her arms across her chest. Culann shut his eyes and focused on the sand sliding over his toes. He narrowed his focus and felt the individual grains as he pressed his feet into the bottom. Then he concentrated on just one grain of sand at the end of his big toe.
“Where is it?” he whispered.
The grain of sand told him.
Culann hopped forward until his left foot struck the unmistakable surface of the orb. He took a breath and pushed himself beneath the surface, using his damaged limbs to propel to the bottom. He slid his good left hand under the orb and clamped down on it from above with his right. He strained against the water pressure above to wrest it from the seabed.
When his head broke the surface, Nereida had cast off Julia’s bathrobe and was preparing to dive into the water.
“Stay there,” Culann said with a gasp of exertion.
She scowled at him, but complied. He hopped back to the pier, just barely keeping his mouth above the surface, while cradling the orb to his belly. The extra weight slowed him down, and his eyes focused on Nereida’s undisguised expression of impatience as he made his way to her.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Just something I dropped. Now please stay back.”
He reached the pier, which stood a good two feet above the waterline. With one great surge, Culann kicked his legs and hefted the orb up and onto the pier before sliding back into the water.
“What is that thing?” Nereida asked, inching closer.
“Don’t touch it. I’ll be right up.”
With another surge, Culann shot up, grabbed the edge of the pier with his left hand, and pulled himself up so that his elbows rested on the planks while the rest of him dangled over the edge. He caught his breath for a few moments and then kicked with his legs and straightened his arms, but his right hand couldn’t bear the weight. He dropped back to his elbows and resumed dangling off the side.
“You need some help?” Nereida asked with a smirk.
“Yes,” Culann replied. “But please don’t touch the orb. I am not joking — it’s very dangerous.”
She cast a wary glance at the orb before crouching down and grabbing Culann under the right arm. He pushed with his left arm and kicked his legs while she pulled.
After a brief struggle, the two knelt on the deck, panting side by side over the orb.
“Now what?” she asked.
“I don’t know, but stay back.”
Culann sat before the orb as it rested on the dock. The symbols had once again changed. They’d formed into six stick-figures of dogs, like those seen in cave paintings, with triangular features emphasizing the teeth. He held his hands on each side like a fortune-teller with a crystal ball, massaging the ethereal etchings on its surface. Thick, gray clouds blew in from the sea, enveloping the sun. Nereida knelt a few feet away, craning to see what he was doing. Thunder rumbled all around them, and rain poured down. Culann focused all of his attention on his fingertips as they worked their way across the strange symbols covering the orb. After a few moments, he felt ten tiny jolts of electricity, one in each finger. The orb was listening. Culann just needed to figure out what to say.
“Okay,” he started, “let’s just get something straight off the bat. I’m not like the Captain.”
“Who’s the Captain?” Nereida asked. “What are you talking about?”
Culann ignored her and continued, “I am not trying to dominate you or harness your power. I just have a simple request.”
“Who are you talking to? Are you talking to that thing?”
“Please, I am begging you, don’t hurt her. Let her live.”
“Are you talking about me?” Nereida rose to her feet. “Are you some kind of fucking psycho?”
“Please,” Culann continued. “You spared me, you spared the dogs. Please, spare her. She is just a child. She has done nothing wrong. She is innocent.”
The electricity returned, stronger this time. It coursed through Culann’s fingers, up his arms, and into his brain. Pain drilled into the base of his skull and radiated through his head. Black amoebae swam through his eyes as if he’d stared too long at the sun. He gritted his teeth so hard pieces of enamel broke off his molars and fell into his dry throat.
The dogs bayed wildly from shore while Nereida’s fearful cries filled his ears.
The pain relented, and Culann hunched over the orb on the brink of unconsciousness. Nereida spun around and ran back to shore. She passed Alphonse midway down the dock. The dog continued towards Culann despite having been previously admonished to remain ashore with the other dogs who dutifully sat at the water’s edge. The dog stared with such intensity that Culann wondered if he was about to be eaten. The rain came down hard, slapping the deck with each drop. Alphonse stopped just before Culann, his eyes glowing like blue lightning, and opened his jaws.
“You would bargain with a god?” Alphonse growled.
“Holy shit.”
Alphonse bared his fangs but said nothing.
“You are the Dog-God?” Culann said after regaining his composure.
“I have many names. To the Egyptians I was Anubis, the jackal-headed king of the underworld. To the Greeks I was Cerberus, the guardian of the dead. The Aztecs called me Xolotl, bringer of lightning and death.”
“I am Culann Riordan, teacher of English.”
“I know who you are,” Alphonse snapped. “You want this child’s life. What have you to offer me in return?”
“Uh, my soul?”
“You must offer me something I do not already possess.”
“What do you want?”
Alphonse drew back his lips into a ferocious smile.
“I will tell you a story.”
“One of your philosophers once said ‘If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.’”
“That was Voltaire,” Culann said.
Alphonse growled from deep in his belly. Lightning slashed across the sky behind him.
“Sorry, continue.”
“This Voltaire was right. The gods are a human invention, but that makes us no less real. My power is nevertheless nothing compared to the power of human imagination, which managed to turn matter into energy after all. Even I, whose faintest growl is thunder, whose panting creates hurricanes, whose bite rends the sky with lightning, can only marvel at the awesome displays of death your kind unleashed at Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Chernobyl. It is the power of human imagination that gave rise to me soon after your ancestors dropped from the trees and began stalking the savannah.
Even as they slew the beasts around them, these early hunters observed the remarkable physical abilities of the creatures around them. One day, an ancient hunter saw a pack of wolves in the distance. The pack chased an antelope into a copse of trees where another wolf lay in hiding. The hunter said in a long-forgotten tongue that he wished to be as cunning as that wolf. With this first prayer, I was born.
“With each prayer, I grew stronger. For millennia, I was worshipped by your kind. I birthed the storms, ruled the underworld, guarded the dead.
“And then came Moses and Jesus and Mohammed. The old gods began to fade.
We clung to the last vestiges of our power until Voltaire’s followers convinced the world that there were no gods at all. The flames of my fellows extinguished one by one. I endeavored to control my own destiny. I vested all of my power into an object and dropped it from the heavens. A man was to find it and wield its awesome power. The others would fear this man. They would pray—to me—for protection. My power would grow until I became again as I once was.
“But Fate toys with the destinies of gods as well as men. The orb landed in the middle of the jungle. An old monk found it and carried it back to his temple. The other monks succumbed to its power, but the finder is always spared. I offered him enough power to rule your world. He refused it. He lived alone in the jungle for nearly two centuries, surrounded by the bones of his brethren.
“And then your people brought your fantastic war machines to the wilderness. One came close enough that I was able to reach up and pluck from the sky a man who hungered for power. I drew him towards me. The young alpha overthrew the old. Finally the orb was in possession of one who would use it. He could have marched across the continents, sewing death and fulfilling my plan. But instead he took the orb into one of those machines. The orb contained my power as the Great Growler, Lord of Thunder, and the lightning caused the machine to fall. The orb sank into the sea.
“But this finder had caught the scent. He hunted and hunted until at last I was found by you. As before, the young alpha did battle with the old. Your victory was…surprising. I’d have preferred you to have been defeated.”
“But didn’t you allow me to win?” Culann asked. “You let me control the dogs.”
“You are both finders and you both possessed the power to control my children.
The other held them back, but my children cannot change their very nature. A dog is, above all, loyal. My children could not ignore the command of you who care for them.”
“So you didn’t choose me, and I didn’t choose you either. We’re stuck with each other.”
“For now.”
“What if I decide to row you back out and drop you in the middle of the ocean?
How long will it be until someone finds you then?”
“You threaten a god?”
“I’m not making threats. I’m negotiating.”
“I do not fear you, finder. You must offer me more.”
“Well, you’ve figured out by now that I’m more like the monk than the Captain. I’m not going to walk the Earth allowing you to kill enough people that the survivors start to worship you.”
“You will not be the last finder. My time will come.”
“But what if you don’t have to wait? What if I can get people to worship you now — without having to kill anyone?”
“How would you do this?”
“The girl can do it. She is about to accomplish a great feat. She will become famous. In our world, fame is more important than faith. We can make her your prophet. But only if you let her live.”
Alphonse stared up at Culann for a moment, the dog’s eyes crackling with electricity.
“I accept your terms, finder, but you must understand what is at stake. My powers protect you here. You can use them to keep your people away. If this girl is to live, you will lose those powers. You must face the justice of your people.”
Culann paused to consider this. He’d sought out this Alaskan adventure as a means of avoiding the consequences of his actions. He’d viewed the challenges he’d faced as a sort of substitute punishment, but the law was unlikely to see it that way. He could escape into this life of adventure, but would have to sacrifice Nereida to do it. To save her, he would have to rejoin the world and be held to account for what he’d done.
“It’s a deal,” Culann said. “My freedom for her life.”
Culann found Nereida on the western edge of the island, where her boat had grounded. Rain continued to bombard the island. The dogs shivered behind him.
Alphonse, now back to normal, wedged his bulk up against a tree in the vain hope of keeping dry.
Nereida stood at the water’s edge, staring out to sea with her hands on her hips.
She’d left Julia’s bathroom on the pier, so she wore only her swimming suit. She glanced over her shoulder at Culann’s approach.
“Leave me alone, weirdo.”
“Sorry I freaked you out back there. I’ve been out here by myself for a while and I’m not used to talking to people.”
“Just leave me alone.”
“I will. All I want to do it is help you get off the island so I can go back to being a weird hermit.”
She turned to face him. “How can you help me? You don’t know anything about sailing or electronics.”
“That’s true,” he said with a smile. “Are you religious?”
“I’m Catholic,” she replied, her eyes narrowing. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Do you know about St. Christopher?”
“He’s the patron saint of travelers.”
“Right,” Culann said. “And you are a traveler in trouble. I may not be able to fix your boat, but St. Christopher can help you.”
Nereida stared at him for a moment. The rain poured down her face as she took stock of Culann’s words.
“It doesn’t work that way,” she said. “Saints aren’t genies — you can’t ask them to grant wishes. They just give you the strength to do things for yourself.”
“True enough. So why not ask him for strength?”
“Fine, I’ll pray to God for the strength to get out of this mess.”
“No, not to God,” Culann said. “You have a traveler’s problem. You need to ask St. Christopher for help.”
She rolled her eyes as if she’d grown weary indulging the suddenly-pious hermit with whom she was trapped.
“Here,” Culann said. “Take this.”
He reached into his pocket and drew forth a picture he’d cut out of one of Worner’s books. It was a medieval representation of St. Christopher, shown as a man with the head of a dog. Culann had sealed it in a ziplock baggie to keep it dry. He limped over to Nereida and pressed the picture into her hand. She squinted at it.
“Why does he look like a dog?”
“In the Middle Ages, people had a greater sense of the fantastic. Some people believed in a race of dog-men and that St. Christopher was one of them. But I think it works more like a metaphor. St. Christopher was as loyal and obedient to God as a dog is to its master. Also, as the patron saint of travelers, St. Christopher is like a guide dog who can lead people through danger. So people imagined him as a dog because he had these positive qualities that reminded people of dogs.”
“Whatever,” she said. “So you want me to take this picture and ask St. Christopher for help.”
“What can it hurt?”
“If I do it, will you leave me alone so I can figure out how to get my boat working?”
“You have my word,” he said, placing his hand over his heart.
“Fine.” She held the picture up in mock reverence. “Dear St. Christopher, please help me get off this island. Thanks.”
“Not like that,” Culann said. “You have to take this seriously, or it won’t work.”
“I think I’ve wasted enough time on you. Now leave me alone like you promised.”
Culann saw her acquiescence slipping away and with it her life. He needed to be more persuasive.
“Dogs,” he said, “line up.”
The dogs snapped to attention and trotted over. Twelve dogs stood abreast in front of Nereida in a perfect line. Twelve more lined up behind them, followed by two other ranks. All of their eyes trained on Nereida.
“Growl,” Culann commanded.
As one, the dogs growled. The collective rumbling drowned out the sounds of the rain and the waves. Lightning lit up the sky on all sides of the island. Nereida stepped back, tripped over a root and fell backwards. She sat on the ground, staring open-mouthed at the dogs.
“Look at the picture and ask St. Christopher for help,” Culann said before turning and heading back to Alistair’s. The dogs broke ranks and followed after him.
After Culann had walked about a hundred feet, the rain stopped and the sun shone down on him. He stopped and scratched Alphonse behind the ears.
“Thank you,” he said.
Nereida had asked for help from a particularly-canine St. Christopher, and she’d received it. The storm cleared, allowing her to swim back out to her boat. A gentle wind blew her to the mainland where she was able to replace her damaged electronic equipment. She sailed home to her parents, safe and sound.
Back on the island, the orb had disappeared. The dogs continued to regard Culann with affection, but they no longer obeyed his commands. The fog that had blanketed the island was gone. A trio of police boats soon motored across the water. They encountered no strange weather or mechanical difficulties.
The ensuing investigation made national news. Forty-six people were dead, and Culann was the only suspect. When questioned, Culann answered truthfully, which led many to suspect he’d be found not guilty by reason of insanity. In the end, prosecutors declined to charge him with the murders he was widely suspected of committing due to lack of evidence. Culann agreed to plead guilty to charges of drug possession and corpse desecration in Alaska as well as statutory rape in Illinois on the condition that all the dogs of Pyrite were given good homes.
The following summer, Nereida became the youngest girl to sail around the world. She was photographed holding the picture of the dog-faced St. Christopher, and she credited the patron saint of travelers for her achievement. She’d of course seen the media coverage of the lunatic captured on a remote island in the Bering Sea. Of all the bizarre stories she’d heard, she knew her experiences with him were the most outlandish of all. Though she pitied him for the unkind things the world was saying about him, she knew that telling her story wouldn’t do him any good, so she kept it to herself.
Culann smiled in his bright-orange prison jumpsuit as he watched the news coverage of Nereida’s impressive achievement. He would bear the privations and indignities of his incarceration and its aftermath with the sense of pride that he had finally done the right thing. With each of Nereida’s many remarkable public successes that would follow, Culann would again smile from a distance.