Bad Men

  We move on.

  Did they tell you to keep watch for me?

  I told you I’d return.

  The last was repeated, again and again, over and over like a mantra.

  I told you I’d return. I told you I’d return. I told you—

  “Like I just told you, not me,” Shepherd said. He didn’t break eye contact with Moloch, but he was aware of the gun in the other man’s hand. Throughout their confrontation, Shepherd’s own hand rested lazily against the folding stock of the Mossberg Persuader that hung from a leather strap on his shoulder. He had jacked a load as soon as they’d landed and his finger was inches from the trigger. Shepherd did not know what would happen if he was forced to kill Moloch. He guessed that he would have to take out Dexter too. Powell could go either way, he figured. Scarfe didn’t concern him. Scarfe just wanted to get out of this alive.

  Moloch considered the other man carefully, then seemed to reach a decision.

  “This once,” he said.

  Shepherd nodded, and Moloch turned to Powell. Dexter, Shepherd noticed, had notched another arrow on his bow during the standoff. Shepherd wondered if it had been meant for him. We may yet find out, he thought.

  “You do it, then follow,” Moloch told Powell.

  “Shit,” said Powell, gesturing at Dexter, “it was this asshole couldn’t kill him, and now I got to go down there?”

  Dexter didn’t react to the taunt. In the space of a couple of minutes, four white men had managed to get in his face, each one in a different way: Scarfe had laid a hand on him; Powell had insulted him; Shepherd had almost forced Dexter to kill him; and a retarded man with an arrow through his chest simply refused to die. Faced with so many possible targets, Dexter’s wrath had simply diffused, briefly leaving him more puzzled than angry.

  “Just do it,” Moloch told Powell. “And quietly.”

  Powell sighed theatrically and removed his gun from its holster. He rummaged in the pockets of his jacket until he found the suppressor, then attached it to the muzzle. Moloch’s insistence on silence puzzled him. There was nobody out here to hear a shot, and anyway, even if someone was outside, the wind and snow would muffle any noise. Still, Powell wasn’t about to argue with Moloch. Like Shepherd, he found Moloch’s behavior peculiar, but he wasn’t going to risk taking a bullet in order to point it out.

  “How will I find you when I’m done?”

  “There’s a path through the forest. You’ll pick it up behind the tower. Stay on it and it will lead you straight to us. For now, we move on.”

  When he said the words, he looked puzzled.

  We move on.

  Shepherd said nothing, but his finger found the trigger guard of the Mossberg and remained there.

  “We’re not waiting for Carl Lubey?” asked Scarfe.

  “He’s not here and I want to get off the road and out of sight,” said Moloch. “In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re on a tight schedule. We’ll make for his place and take it from there.”

  “There’s a snowstorm blowing,” said Scarfe. “And you don’t know the island.”

  “You’re wrong,” said Moloch. “I know this island very well.”

  Scarfe shook his head in disbelief and looked to the other men for support, but they were already preparing to follow their leader. Powell, meanwhile, shot Dexter a look of disgust, then began to descend the rocks, toward the beach. Scarfe watched him go until Dexter grasped his arm.

  “By my reckoning, pussy,” he said, “you got no lives left.”

  Dexter released him and spit once into the snow by Scarfe’s foot. Scarfe shot one last look at the figure that stood among the waves before adjusting his pack on his shoulder and following Moloch, Shepherd, and Dexter across the white road that skirted the woods. He expected Moloch to stop and look at a map or check a compass, but instead he moved purposefully into the trees. Within minutes, the four men were heading for the center of the island on an old trail that wound its way through the forest. While they walked, Scarfe unfolded his map from his pocket and tried to read it, hampered by darkness and snow and wind. It was a struggle, but he eventually confirmed what he had suspected from the moment they had found the trail.

  It wasn’t detailed on the map.

  Somehow, Moloch had found an unmarked path.

  Moloch drifted. Sometimes he was beside Dexter, moving through a white forest, the snow melting on his face and hair. At other times there was no snow, just a harsh wind and frost upon the ground, and there were other men around him, dressed in furs and hand-stitched hides. Eventually, the two worlds began to coexist, like transparencies laid one upon the other, and he was both Moloch and someone else, a man at once known and unknown. Moloch was confused but not frightened by the sensation, for what he felt more than anything else was a sense of belonging, a feeling of returning. This was not home. This was not a place of solace or comfort. There was no shelter for him here, but it was the beginning. Here Moloch, or whatever he truly was, had flamed into being. Whatever else might happen here, he would at last reach an understanding of himself, and those torn pictures that had tormented him in so many dreams would reform themselves, enabling him to see himself as he truly was.

  He was coming to recognize that all this was meant to be. His wife was always going to flee here, and he was always going to follow. Men would come with him, for men had come with him before, because that was the way it had always been. It had been taken out of his hands and all that he could do was follow the path to its end, and to the final revelation that awaited him.

  It took Powell only minutes to half climb, half slide his way down the slope to the rocky beach. When he reached the bottom, he was breathing heavily, and his hands stung from the cold. His finger was almost numb as he inserted it beneath the trigger guard. He advanced to the shoreline and raised the gun, resting its barrel against his forearm.

  The man with the arrow through his torso stood in the water. The sea was just below the level of his chest, but the waves that billowed against him had no effect. He remained entirely still, his orange jacket glowing luminously in the faint light that somehow contrived to penetrate the dense clouds above. Powell could even see the point of the arrow, gleaming, just above the water.

  He’s dead, thought Powell. He’s dead, but he’s just too dumb to realize it. He’s like a dinosaur, waiting for the message to penetrate to his brain. Well, I’ll help it along. I’ve got an express delivery for him, going straight to his head.

  Powell sighted, then squeezed off two shots in quick succession and watched in satisfaction as twin puffs of red sprang from the breast of the figure among the waves.

  The man didn’t fall.

  Powell lowered the gun and waited. It appeared to him that the injured man had drawn closer to the shore. It looked like he had moved forward a clear five feet or more, as the water was now approaching the level of his navel. Powell took aim again and emptied the clip into the injured man. He thought he saw him buck slightly at the impact of the bullets, but that was the only sign Powell got that he had struck home.

  He ejected the empty clip, replaced it, then advanced into the sea. The cold was intense, but he shrugged it away. Instead he concentrated on the head of the man, moving toward him steadily despite the waves, and with every step he took he fired a shot. The last one struck the top of the guy’s head when Powell was barely five feet away. His chin lay against his chest, and no movement came from him. Powell could see the wounds left by the bullets, could even see something white glistening through a hole in the man’s skull.

  He’s dead now, Powell told himself. There’s something holding him in place—soft sand, maybe, or rocks, or even the remains of a boat—but he’s dead for sure. Whatever is anchoring him there, it sure as hell isn’t free will.

  At that moment, Powell became aware of a presence to his rear. He looked back to see a boy watching him from the shore. The boy’s clothing looked dated, and the waves worshiped at his bare feet. His skin was pale and he held his
hand to his throat, as if remembering some ancient hurt. Powell was about to speak to him when the dead man in the sea raised his head, a sharp clicking noise in his throat alerting the gunman to the movement. Powell slowly turned to face him, then rocked back on his heels, trying to steady himself against the twin impacts of shock and water. It was the dummy, but not the dummy. The distortion in his face—the drooping mouth, the too-wide eyes, the sheer strangeness of his features’ composition—was now gone, and the man before him was, well, handsome, and his eyes gleamed with newfound intelligence.

  Powell fumbled for a new clip, but the coldness and the damp caused his fingers to betray him and the clip slipped from his grasp and dropped into the sea with a soft splash. He looked down to follow its progress, then raised his eyes in time to see a huge wave rising up behind the dead man who stood before him. It lifted him off his feet and propelled him at speed toward Powell, his body riding the crest, carried forward like a piece of driftwood before it slammed into the gunman. Powell screamed as he felt the point of the arrow enter his chest, the dead man’s arms enveloping him, his face pressed hard against Powell’s, his mouth twisted into a smile.

  The wave broke over them and they disappeared beneath the sea.

  Carl Lubey’s home was already engulfed in flames by the time Macy reached it. She had seen the smoke rising and had smelled it on the wind, which caused her to speed up her progress toward the house. She made a couple of halfhearted efforts to get close to the front door, then gave up as the heat forced her back. Her main concern was the possibility that the fire might reach the forest, but Lubey had cleared his land of trees in order to allow space for his garden, thereby creating a natural firebreak. With luck, the break, combined with the heavily falling snow, would be enough to contain the conflagration. But somebody needed to be told about it, just in case.

  Macy took the radio from her belt and tried, for the third time since she’d left her vehicle, to raise someone on the system. On the first two occasions, the radio had been dead, clicking emptily just like the ignition in the car. Now, as she stood within sight of Lubey’s burning home, she could hear static. She brought the handset close to her mouth and spoke.

  “This is Macy. Do you read me? Over.”

  She tried again, using her call sign. “This is six-nine-one. Over.”

  Static, nothing more. She was about to replace the handset when its tone changed. Slowly, she raised the radio to her ear and listened.

  It wasn’t static now. Perhaps it had never been. It seemed to her that what she was hearing was an irregular hissing sound, like someone constantly adjusting escaping gas. She listened harder, and thought she distinguished patterns and pauses, a kind of cadence.

  Not static, and not hissing.

  But whispers.

  At the edge of the forest, Moloch and his men watched the sky glow above the tips of the trees. Their flashlights were dead and now, as they paused before the distant conflagration, Dexter took the opportunity to change the batteries, using the spares in his pack. Nothing happened. The flashlight remained dark.

  “Those batteries were fresh from the store,” said Dexter. Scarfe tried changing the batteries in his own flashlight, and found that it too remained dead.

  “Bad batch,” he said. “Looks like we’re shit out of luck.”

  He took his Zippo from the pocket of his jacket, lit it, then held it close to the map. His finger pointed to details.

  “I figure we’re here. Best I can reckon it, Carl’s house is over there.”

  He raised his hand and pointed toward the flames.

  “Since his place is the only one in that section of the island, that means—”

  Dexter finished the sentence for him.

  “That either we got a forest fire, which don’t seem likely, or right now Lubey’s house is just about the warmest place to be on this island. Explains why he didn’t make it to the rendezvous. A man’s likely to be distracted if his house is burning down around his ears.”

  “People will come,” said Scarfe. “The cops run the fire department. Dupree will be here soon.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Moloch, interrupting for the first time. He regarded Scarfe for a moment, until the smaller man’s mouth gaped in understanding and he looked away.

  Moloch traced his finger across the woods on the map.

  “We keep going, then take a look at what’s going on from cover. We need Lubey’s truck if we’re going to get out of here ahead of the cops. The fire will be our marker.”

  Dupree was looking to the east, where a faint red glow hovered above the trees. Larry Amerling stood beside him. The old postmaster’s house was nearest the station and he had heard the gunfire. Dupree had almost turned his gun on him, for Braun had headed into the forest only moments before and Dupree had been about to follow him when the postmaster had intervened. Amerling took a look at the body of the woman in the generator room. He emerged pale and gulping cold air.

  “We need to get some men over to that fire,” said Dupree, “but there’s at least one armed man out there, and probably more.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Something he told me before the lights went out. I want you to go and get Frank Macomber and as many of the fire crew as you can round up. The phones are out, so you’ll have to do it door-to-door. Make sure Frank brings a gun. Then I want you to come back here and try to contact someone on the radio. If you don’t get any results within the next half hour, then start sending up distress flares from the dock. We need to keep people indoors and off the streets as well.”

  Already Dupree could see some of those who lived off Island Avenue approaching the station house to inquire about the power cuts. Among them was big Earl Kruhm, who had a good head on his shoulders.

  “Earl can take care of that,” said Amerling. “Nobody’s going to argue with him.”

  “Talk to him,” said Dupree. “Make sure he understands that folks could be in danger if they don’t stay indoors. It shouldn’t be too hard to convince them, what with the blizzard and all. And, Larry, tell Frank and the firemen to stay out of the forest as much as they can, you hear? Make sure they keep to the trails.”

  Amerling nodded and went to get his car. He came back minutes later, just as Dupree was filling his pockets with shotgun shells.

  “Joe, my car won’t start. It’s dead.”

  Dupree looked at him, almost in irritation, then took the keys to Engine 14 from a hook in his office and tried to start the truck. It turned over with a click.

  “No radios, no phones, no cars, no power,” he said.

  “No help,” said Amerling.

  “It’s begun, hasn’t it?”

  “I guess so.”

  “I felt it out at the Site, but I didn’t tell you. I don’t know why. I guess I didn’t want to worry you.”

  Amerling managed a twisted smile. “Wouldn’t have made a difference anyway, but thanks for sparing my feelings.”

  “Macy’s out there,” said Dupree. “She was headed for Carl Lubey’s place before that fire started.”

  He felt a rush of concern for the young woman. He hoped that she hadn’t taken it into her head to do something stupid when she’d seen the fire. At least she didn’t seem like the type for futile heroics. He put out of his mind the terrible possibility that the fire and Macy might be connected, and that she might be hurt, or worse.

  “We stick to the plan,” he told Amerling. “Go door-to-door. They’re going to have to head for that fire on foot and do what they can once they get there.”

  He hefted the shotgun onto his shoulder and started for the door.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going after the dead woman’s partner. After that, I’m heading for Marianne Elliot’s place. I think she’s in serious trouble.”

  Amerling watched him go, but he didn’t say what was on his mind.

  I think we’re all in serious trouble.

  Time melted.

 
Scarfe felt it more acutely than the rest. They should have been at Lubey’s house by now, but instead they were still walking through the woods, and the glow of the fire was no longer always visible to them. Even Moloch seemed to realize it. He paused and stared around him, momentarily confused.

  “We’re lost,” said Scarfe.

  “No,” said Moloch. “We’re still on the trail.”

  “Then the path is going in circles.”

  “Powell should have caught up by now,” said Dexter.

  Moloch nodded. “Head back down the trail, see if he’s on his way.”

  Dexter left at speed and Moloch drew the map from inside his jacket. Scarfe, after a moment’s hesitation, joined him in examining it, while Shepherd leaned against a tree and said nothing.

  “We got on the trail about here,” said Scarfe, indicating with a finger, “and Lubey’s place is here. That’s fifteen minutes on a good day, twenty or more in weather like this.”

  “It has to be close. Maybe we passed it.”

  But when they looked up, the light from the fire was still ahead of them.

  “Makes no sense,” said Scarfe. He looked to Shepherd for support, but Shepherd was not looking at him. He was staring into the forest, his hands shielding his eyes. Moloch called his name.

  “I thought I saw something,” said Shepherd. “Out there.”

  He pointed into the depths of the woods. Scarfe squinted, but could see nothing. The snow was blowing in his face, making it difficult to distinguish even the shapes of the more distant trees. He could smell smoke, though.

  “It’s the fire,” he said. “Maybe you saw smoke.”

  No, thought Shepherd, not smoke. He was about to say more when Dexter returned from his brief reconnaissance.

  “There’s no sign of him,” he told Moloch.

  Moloch kicked at the newly fallen snow. “If he’s lost, he’ll find his way back to the boat.”