

### The Island

Part 1

by

Michael R. Stark

PUBLISHED BY: Michael R. Stark on Smashwords

The Island - Part 1

Copyright © 2012 by Michael R. Stark

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced without the author's written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

**Dedications** :

To Samantha, Ashley, Emily, Aleah, and Kaleigh--the angels who gave me reason to tell stories at bedtime.

And to Julie who patiently suffers through questions posed by an idiot.

## The Island

### Prologue

I'm not a doctor. All I can relate is what I heard, saw, and felt in the final days. Some of it came from verifiable news sources, some from rumor, some second-hand. My intent is not to create the defining document that traces the course of a disease, of a nation, even a world falling apart. I am simply telling my part in it.

The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta marked the month of December as the point where the disease mutated and crossed the threshold of human infection. At a time when people scurried through wintry streets farther north, toting packages and planning holiday dinners, the combination of a spring-like climate and dreadful living conditions in Central Mexico had been busy giving birth to a monster. The warm weather conceived the beast. The millions strolling through the streets gave it life.

It came to my attention in the middle of March, in a story that garnered maybe ten seconds on the radio I kept in the back of my shop. The day the story broke, dark clouds raced overhead, driven by an icy wind that whipped down out of the mountains to the north. Rain and sleet took turns spattering against the tin roof, the first in a gentle tick-tock that would have been soothing if it hadn't been for the wind rattling the windows in their frames. When the ice came to play though, the sound turned hard and brittle, like marbles spilled across a tile floor.

The announcer seemed more interested in the fact that authorities had first believed the death to be a homicide as the corpse was so bloodied and swollen it appeared the man had been beaten to death. After a dramatic pause, he continued with a "Not so!" and relayed that a medical examiner, whose name I cannot remember, had indicated he believed the cause of death to be a type of hemorrhagic fever—potentially a form of Hantavirus.

Case closed.

Hantavirus, we knew. The disease had been exposed to Western science during the Korean War. It had proven itself dangerous at times, deadly at others, but containable. I and the rest of the world moved on, focusing on things closer and more important, like a global economy that still faltered and only seemed to make progress in fitful steps, like the deal of the day on QVC, like which silly celebrity had shown the world her panties again or which had been indicted on a drug charge. To put it bluntly, not many noticed, and even fewer cared.

Over the next six weeks, the disease popped up in the news again and again, claiming victim after victim. By May, no one ignored it. The stories hit the headlines with increasing frequency, with newscasts ticking off names of the dead on a daily basis. The CDC put together a team and shuttled it down at the request of the Mexican government in hopes of containing an infection that still had no official name. A newspaper in Mexico City had coined the term _La Fiebre_ , which in English translated simply as The Fever.

The name stuck. While the medical examiner had initially leaned toward Hantavirus as the agent, rumors exploded not just whispering, but screaming more sinister names in that particular family of pathogens—words like Marburg and Ebola. The reality, as the world would eventually discover, belonged in the box marked "none of the above." The virus emerging from Mexico behaved like nothing science had ever seen, proving incredibly aggressive in the wild and mutating so rapidly in captivity that potential cures fell useless before they were ever refined. The disease promoted itself at first as a blood-borne agent. Somewhere along a relatively short timeline, however, the virus grew wings and learned to fly. Once airborne, infection rates soared as well, leaving streets eerily empty as residents fled the capital and hospitals rapidly filling with those who remained.

Even then, the rest of the world trundled on, paying bills, going to work, casting cautious gazes south, but mostly ignoring the situation. After all, the problem existed in another country and most still saw that as separate and containable.

Everyone felt sorry for them. Charities picked up steam with people donating to relief efforts everywhere as if the global consciousness recognized the threat and needed to act. Since it couldn't address the disease directly, the urge vented itself in the organizations that sent doctors, nurses, and medicines.

Oddly enough, tourism didn't suffer much for a while. Mexico City had never been the greatest of vacation spots anyway. Aside from a couple of world-class museums, the city lacked the pristine beaches of Cozumel and Cancun, the nightlife of Acapulco, or the sterile beauty and lazy villages of the western coastline. Abject poverty lingered a few streets away from glittering riches in the capital as it did in many Mexican cities. The difference boiled down to a lack of insulation. Vacationers could spend their entire holiday in a city like Cozumel, playing in the narrow stretch of white sandy beaches and glittering streets, without ever feeling the need to venture back into the poorer sections. Not so in the capital. With tourist destinations spread throughout the city, simply moving between them exposed visitors to poverty-stricken neighborhoods, horrible pollution, and one of the densest concentrations of humanity on the planet. Even tour guides recommended the capital be taken in small doses with vacation days partitioned between the city itself and outlying communities.

June dawned hot and sticky enough to make the thought of summer scary. Along with the heat came a rising cloud of voices calling for the closing of the border. Like many debates in the US, that one fell along political lines. Conservatives supported the idea, but their liberal-minded critics pointed out the fact that, as yet, no one outside of Mexico had shown symptoms of the disease. Th **e** war of words escalated during the summer with the left crying racism and bigotry while those on the right rolled their eyes at people willing to risk the lives of millions simply because the disease had originated in another culture.

Still, the fight expressed itself mostly in words at that point. Even though the medical community had started talking in epidemic and pandemic terms, The Fever was still largely seen as a disease relegated to _somewhere_ _else_.

By all accounts, the virus went global the last week of July. A Swedish national named Erika Jorgensen boarded a US Airways MD-88 on a return trip to Europe after a tour of Mexico. Newly married, Erika and her American husband, Chris Matheson, booked a honeymoon that began on the Baja side at Ensenada and ended at the Mayan ruins on the Yucatan peninsula. They spent a month in the country, visiting a host of cities on a cross-country jaunt between their arrival and departure. Witnesses aboard the plane later described her as flushed and appearing feverish with a constant cough.

Jorgensen and Matheson changed planes in Atlanta and after a three-hour layover, flew to New York City where they took a shuttle bus to a Marriott. They returned to the airport the following morning for a 7 a.m. flight to London where they again changed planes and flew to Stockholm to visit her parents. Two days after her arrival, Jorgensen checked into a local hospital. She died twenty-two hours later, her symptoms clinically identical to those suffering from The Fever in Mexico. Matheson never made it home to Kansas. Within a week, his fever climbed to 105. He died the following day, nearly 8000 miles from the laid back Midwestern town where he had been raised.

News outlets hit on the fact that Jorgensen hadn't even had time to change her last name, repeating the same blurb over and over as if to highlight the speed at which the disease could kill.

Officials downplayed the threat of infection at first. A tally of the flight rosters showed that on her flights alone, Jorgensen came in contact with more than 800 people. Even afterward, with hindsight applied in microscopic detail, no one attempted an official estimate on the total number the pair could have infected in their journey as the air terminals they used processed tens of thousands in the two-day travel period.

The next few weeks saw the disease explode, both in Mexico and around the world. At the point where Jorgensen headed home, fewer than 500 had perished and all of them south of the US border. Over the next two months, nearly 7000 more died.

Mexico no longer bore the stigma of the infected on its own. Adding to the death toll were 938 people spread among fifteen different countries and four continents. Profiles of Jorgensen presented a pretty twenty-three-year-old blonde who spoke halting English in a soft, shy voice. Nothing about her gave clue to the fact that she would become a modern-day version of Typhoid Mary. Nothing spotlighted the reality that Jorgensen would serve as the single vector linking not just countries, but continents, a vector through which more than two-thirds of the world's population would eventually cease to exist.

The news reports featured doctor after doctor, official after official. Some guessed at contagion rates as high as 80 percent, others as low as 40. Estimated mortality rates swung widely as well. In more developed countries with good hospitals and trained staffs, the death rate fell to as low as 26 percent. Where the quality of care suffered, so did the patients. East Africa reported a mortality rate of 80 percent. As it had in Mexico, the disease once freed, ran rampant. Unlike Mexico, it had found a host of billions. What no one understood was that we would all soon have the same basic quality of care regardless of the country we called home.

Emergency rooms, hospitals, and doctor's offices could only render effective care when the bulk of the population remained healthy. Once the beds filled, the halls filled, and when they were full, patients were lined outside, first on portable cots and finally turned away and sent home. Care became, at best, triage.

I finally gave up on the radio. The voices offered only gloom and doom. I wanted something that fit the mood of a few weeks sailing from port to port and camping on deserted islands. I wanted music with the feel-good flair of Jimmy Buffett bumming around the Bahamas in his flowered shirt and mirrored sunglasses, something that made me think of rum and fruit blended together in a tall, icy glass with a little umbrella sticking out of the top. The voices were clamoring for me to take notice when all I really wanted was a choice, a place where I might find some peace in the days ahead.

I knew people were scared. What I didn't know was that, by then, it was too late. The worst was yet to come and the disease only the beginning.

### Chapter I - Breaking Points

My name is William Hill. I'm forty-two. Like most people, I have a middle name. I've never cared for it though. My father insisted on William as it's something of a family name. Look back along my line and for as many generations as there are records, you'll find a William tucked away somewhere. When it comes to the moniker sitting in the middle, well, he liked history and folk heroes. The day might come when I'll shoot an apple off my son's head and live up to the legend. I doubt it though, seeing as how I'm about as accurate with a bow and arrow as a politician is with the truth.

This is the part of the story where you get to suffer. It's not that I want you grimacing while you work your way through, but what follows couldn't have happened without the background. So, that's where we're going.

I have no brothers or sisters, a fact I attribute to my father having celebrated his thirty-eighth birthday three days before I came into the world. He, of course, laid the blame at my feet for the lack of siblings, joking that after two years with me, he and Mom both swore off ever having another. I believed the story for a while, up to the point where I could put thirty-eight and eighteen together and realized how old he'd be at graduation.

At some point along the line came the understanding that I hadn't exactly been planned either. All joking aside, I guess one accident proved enough for both of them.

My dad could do anything. That's not stretching the truth, nor is it a son's blind adoration. Put anything broken in front of him, he could fix it. He'd never attended college and didn't even make it out of high school. Yet the man could quote Shakespeare and work differential equations. He carried a legendary status in the neighborhood. People brought him everything from personal problems to busted TVs and somehow, everyone went home with a smile. He fixed things for everyone. Everyone, that is, except me.

I can't remember when he started helping rather than doing. That's how far back he insisted I think on the problem and work at it before he'd step in. Most of the time, I felt like a dolt, like God had put something in his head that he'd mistakenly left out of mine.

Sometimes I actually hated him for it. I could go to any other kid's house, see him slip a chain on his bike or break some toy, and watch his father waddle out to fix it for him. My dad would hand me a wrench or a screwdriver or whatever tool he thought would do the job and then leave me standing while he headed off to his own projects. I learned quickly to at least attempt the fix myself before tracking him down. He never resisted or said anything when I did, but watching him work so easily through what had kept me baffled accomplished little except to highlight that feeling of not-smart-enough, like I stood low enough on the intelligence ladder that I needed to look up to see double digits.

Then came the Saturdays and weekends, the summers when he decided I could help him on his projects. I can't remember more miserable days. They lasted from breakfast to dinner, endlessly long days when other kids played, swam, watched TV, and generally acted their age. Instead, I mixed concrete or tore down a starter motor to change the bushings or framed in walls for a new addition on someone's house. The laundry list of projects had no end. When he checked one off, he started another and took his favorite assistant along for the ride. I didn't realize at the time that the work boiled down to Dad's way of teaching me to be a man. Even if I'd understood the intent, I'm sure the days would have sucked just as bad.

I also didn't comprehend that the time involved a higher concept, one that skirted his disdain for most social structures. John Walker Hill loved people, but carried a deep dislike not so much of society, but how it functioned. He saw most people as encircled by technology and products they were taught to use rather than understand. More than once I heard him express the idea that generation by generation we were devolving to a level where we existed like vultures, feeding off a few bright minds without ever learning to exercise our own. The value of that lesson didn't make itself apparent until much later in life. When I finally understood what he had given me in those years, what had been passed from father to son, I should have thanked him. I never had the chance. By then, we stood at odds on another subject, one too emotional to ignore.

My father also hated paying taxes. The words behind the lament varied from year to year, but the message and feeling behind it remained consistent.

"Damn it, Maggie," he would rail at my mother. "I'm paying these people to turn the country into a land of zombies and idiots."

At the same time, he insisted I join the very structures he so despised, advising me in no uncertain terms that I would walk the stages at both high school and college graduations and that, by God, he would be there to watch me do it.

I shouldn't make it sound as if Dad ruled with an iron fist or demanded all waking time be spent between work and study. He believed a well-rounded physical education necessary for a healthy mind. When I went through the sports phase, he sat in the bleachers and cheered along with the rest of the parents. About the time I turned twelve, he introduced me to an old man down the street who'd spent his life in a gym teaching both kids and parents everything from workout routines to martial arts.

He went by the name of Virgil and had to be at least seventy years old when I met him. He was totally bald and sported a perfectly white Fu Manchu mustache. The old man stood about my height, but looked thirty pounds leaner and wiry, like a snake. I'd seen him before, heard Dad talk about him, but never dealt with him myself. I'll get to Virgil a bit later, but suffice it to say that where my father took on the task of teaching me to be what he considered a contributing member of the society he shunned, Virgil taught me how to walk through it without being afraid.

At sixteen, the first real break with my father occurred—a good one. Up to that point, I'd functioned as the follower in virtually every aspect of our relationship. On a warm and sunny afternoon three weeks before school let out for the summer, I settled down at the kitchen table, grumbling and muttering curses under my breath, all of them directed at Juanita Whatley, my scowling and diminutive gnome of a science teacher. Homework assignments had fallen to a school-year low in my other classes, with most of the instructors as tired of grading the papers as we were of slaving over them. Not so with Juanita, or Wacky Whatley as we called her.

She stood maybe five feet tall, if that, wore a buzz cut that would have made any Marine proud and started the school year promising each and every one of us would learn to hate her. She was right. We did. She also promised that we would learn much more than physics.

On the first day, she sent chills through the entire class. Banging on her desk with a ruler and glaring out over the room, she uttered a prophecy that would have scared the hell out of anyone with a brain.

"By the time you leave, you will never look at a word problem with fear again."

She was right on that account as well. We had no choice. She bombarded us with them. Academic life under Wacky Whatley turned out to be a live or die proposition. You either learned to assimilate equations from wordy and rambling descriptions or you failed miserably. My father, of course, approved of her wholeheartedly.

In any case, I ended up in a chapter called "The Physics of Sound." We'd skimmed through that section earlier in the year. I can't remember what pulled me back to flip through the pages, but situated in the middle of a long and utterly dry narrative, unfettered by the usual scattering of Greek symbols that left many equations looking like hieroglyphics, lay a simple formula for calculating frequencies in an open pipe. Like a cartoon character, the idea that blossomed felt like a light bulb suddenly clicked on inside my head.

Two days before, I'd dropped a socket from my father's toolbox onto a concrete floor by accident and had been amazed at how that simple piece of steel sounded just like a tiny bell. The instant I saw the equation, the image of extra water pipes stored in the workshop transformed into a wall of music.

I took hacksaw to hand at the first chance. What should have tolled wonderfully soft notes, however, clanged and clunked. I scratched my head over the reasons and reworked the formula for each note, but came up with the same lengths. I remember staring at the paper, wondering what I missed.

The next day, after Wacky had dismissed class, I walked up to her desk with textbook in hand. She glanced up, managing to look both annoyed and curious at the same time. Neither emotion took me by surprise. Few possessed the courage to approach her unless they damned well had to. A student standing in front of her desk neither sweating nor summoned must have taken her aback. As for the annoyed expression, Juanita Whatley always looked pissed and ready to wallop someone across the head—if for no other reason than to knock the ignorance out the other side.

I laid the open book on her desk and told her what I'd tried to do.

"So you want to make wind chimes," she said and leaned back in her chair, her eyes narrowing into a withering look that primed the sweat glands even though I'd approached her on my own.

"You're close," she said finally. "Quit thinking about pipes though. Chimes are bells, even if they look like a pipe. Find a reference for casting bells. That should help with the dimensions."

I stumbled away, thinking I had the answer, thinking her words made perfect sense given the sound the socket had produced. I'd just spent months clinging to every word out of her mouth as if each carried a message straight from heaven. Finding a reference sounded simple. Nothing in her terse reply gave any indication that the search for answers might be a little more involved than hunting out the right section in my textbook. We didn't have the Internet in those days. It took another week of flipping through books at the local library to find what I needed.

I started building wind chimes that summer with basic materials, easy things I could buy at any hardware store since Dad didn't seem too happy with me chopping up his supplies. The shopping list consisted mostly of copper pipe that I could transform into bells and redwood planks I could use as base plates and strikers. The lure went beyond simply building them, even beyond the fact that I'd stepped into a world where my father had never ventured.

The real pull came from the wind, how something so simple, so natural could turn an evening on the deck into a musical interlude as complex and soothing as any set of notes crafted by man. I built them for sheer fascination at first, then for family, with my mother suffering through the trial stages. Her cherry trees sprouted chimes for a couple of months while I worked through pipes, notes, drill holes, and strings. By the time I had the sound and process perfected I'd filled every available branch and draped so many around the deck that they looked like a metal curtain arranged to block out the view of the neighborhood. A simple breeze sent the whole yard into a clattering frenzy.

She never complained, not once. Mom was like that. Where Dad would go off on tangents, rail at society, and yet happily solve problems for everyone else, Mom kept his world and mine on an even keel. She provided the foundation, the glue that kept us knitted firmly together as a family regardless of how far I wandered or Dad drifted.

Once I'd reached the point that the early efforts proved sufficiently embarrassing, I cleaned out her trees, leaving only a couple that she liked the best.

A year later, I put one together for a friend. He happened to live next door to a woman who owned a local hardware store. Two weeks later, he brought the two of us together. She offered a discount on the raw materials and a slice of the profits if I would supply her store.

My father was absolutely ecstatic with the idea. While my friends marched off to fast-food chains and clothing stores at the mall, I toiled away in his shed, turning out half a dozen a week at first. By the time I graduated from high school, I'd added ten more mom-and-pop building supply stores across six counties and commandeered his shop with jigs set for wood and pipe. I'd also reached the point where the volume kept me working constantly to fill the orders, churning out sixty to seventy a week with little time for any type of social life. Dad came out at night and worked alongside me, peddling the time off as yet another project related to his boat. Listening to him talk about sailing free and clear across wild oceans set fire to a dream of my own.

When I stared at my chimes, they looked and sounded as good as any turned out by a factory and that was the problem. Nothing set them apart except for the _Handmade_ and _Local Craftsman_ stickers slapped across the strikers. I didn't want to be a local craftsman. I wanted to work in precious materials, to turn the simple, wind-driven device into a work of art, to mesmerize, not only with haunting melodies, but also craft something so fine and elegant that even those who would never buy one, would long for them.

The idea stayed with me up through college, up to the point where I met Rebecca Hamilton. Becky was stunning, incredibly intelligent and for some reason that I never fully understood, wanted me. She also possessed a demanding side and quickly impressed me as the kind of woman who would not sit idly by while an unemployed woodworker-turned-artist built his reputation. I majored in business and minored in physics, a combination that fit well into the burgeoning plan to start my own company. They also fit well with her, just in another way. The double major proved equally suitable for life in a suit and tie. Becky set her sights on a master's degree in nursing. I ended up chasing corporate dreams as a project manager for a software vendor rather than the personal ones that kept me busy in high school.

Becky and my father never liked each other. We stayed together for fifteen years and for much of it, they squared off like fighters eyeing each other across a boxing ring. She saw him as a querulous old man, an Archie Bunker type, who had too many opinions and too little tact. He thought her flighty and uninteresting, remarking the first time he met her that she reminded him of a replica of a fine painting. She looked good, but beyond that, had little substance. In the end, both of their opinions proved true. He grew grumpier and more argumentative with each passing year. Becky's constant need for reassurance grated even before we married.

Dad used to say that life was a learning process. I ignored him for the most part, equating his vague, pseudo-psychological mumblings with the scores of hapless people who frequented the talk show routes. God knows, the TV offered enough of them—people who managed to come across as both tearful and fidgety while rationalizing incredibly dense decisions to one sympathetic host or another. I should have listened to him. Becky offered a few lessons that I could have avoided if I had, with the main one simple, clear, and infallible:

If someone doesn't like who you are, trying to change for them is rarely successful and doing so carries even more remote odds that you will end up being happy yourself.

He survived Becky by a year, a fact I attributed to an obstinate determination to outlast her. The doctors had warned him about his heart for years. Twice I'd been summoned to the hospital for what amounted to a death watch. Both times he emerged as ill-tempered as ever. It wasn't that the fight left him when Becky piled her belongings into a moving truck. He just seemed serene, as if he had reached the end of a long and difficult journey and could finally relax. As much as Becky and I needed to be apart, her leaving stung more than I cared to admit. With the barbs still flying between us, I had little desire to support my father's smug and suddenly pleasant demeanor, particularly since it rode high on my own discomfort.

Of course, I'd planned to deal with him eventually, except eventually never came. He died sitting on his deck, a half-burned cigar in one hand, a bottle of rum in the other, and a peaceful look on his face. I thought his heart had finally failed. His doctor said no. It appeared Dad had simply stopped breathing. Maybe he just ran out of fight. Maybe it was just his time. I don't know. We hadn't talked for weeks.

The breaking point for me came on a Sunday night, no more than a month after he passed. I walked through the shop I'd started in the same house I'd built for a wife I no longer had. My footstep echoed across a concrete floor that bore scuff marks from hard soled shoes and tread patterns from dirty tires, but not one ounce of sawdust. When Becky left, she left the house and the bills with me. I didn't mind. I'd spent months building a good part of it, including a version of the workshop. The saws were nearly as clean as the day I'd bought them, gleaming under the fluorescent lights like a scene from a Black & Decker commercial.

I stood looking at them, running my fingers across blades still shiny and sharp, thinking about my dad and the nights when he worked the teak rails on his boat while I sanded redwood. In a way, we were both building dreams. His was to sail the U.S. coast from one end to the other. Mine hinged on teaching the wind to sing for me.

The simplicity of those years called to me in a way I couldn't explain, but one I knew I needed again. I turned in my notice the next day, put the house my father had left me and the one I'd built for my ex on the market. They sold quick enough, even in a depressed market. I started shopping the day I signed the last of the paperwork.

I bought a piece of land in eastern Tennessee, an hour and a half from the hills of Western North Carolina where I'd been raised and where Becky still lived. The property ran along county lines between Washington and Sullivan and skirted a lake that snaked through both. A similar plot near the tourist and retirement havens that had blossomed in North Carolina would have cost three times what I paid for it. Situated four miles out from Interstate 26, the sprawling section with its tall firs and spruce trees looked like a scene reminiscent of postcards at Christmas.

That's how I ended up with a parcel of land straight out of heaven and how I heard the news at midday with sleet rattling off the windows like ice clinking in a glass. The set of bells in front of me had no buyer. The pipes had been crafted in solid silver, the notes driven by minors and the sound both clear and soothing. I'd cut the wood from American cherry stock, sanding and staining it to a rich luster so dark the surface looked like blood pooled under moonlight.

I never sold the chime. As far as I know, the bells still hang in the shop, silent and destined to gather dust rather than compose symphonies in the wind. I hate leaving chores unfinished. Time hadn't been on my side though. The Fever turned a lot of lives upside down, changing both priorities and plans for many. By the time I found an interested buyer, my outlook had evolved, migrating away business and art and toward simple things like a warm sun, a light wind, and time where I could reconnect with my past, where I could remember life before it became so complicated. Something inside needed those days again, days when I could walk in the house and find Mom in her apron washing dishes while dinner steamed on the stove, when waking hours meant hearing Dad bang away at one project or another out in the shed.

The question on my mind had nothing to do with what I needed to do to survive, but where I wanted to die. I'd suffered every respiratory infection known to medical science as a kid. With The Fever airborne, the options for survival seemed limited and gloomy. I didn't choose the island as a place to escape. I chose it because I'd gone there with my father the only time his boat ever sailed in saltwater.

He'd towed it into the driveway when I was fifteen years old after rescuing it from a barn in Ohio and walked around it like he had just pulled the _Queen Elizabeth_ home. My mom offered a noticeably cooler stance toward the broken-down contraption he'd dragged back home.

I could understand why. The boat was filthy, the rigging frayed, the sails limp, dirty, and full of holes. Water had gotten inside at some point, leaving most of the interior either rotted away or chewed by rats and mice. A quarter inch of dirt, hay dust, and manure coated the trailer. The unlikely mixture had dried brick-hard on the frame over the years and looked as if my father would need a jackhammer to knock it loose. Where shit and dirt failed to gain a foothold, flakes of white paint stained brown along the edges clung listlessly to a thick patina of rust.

None of that mattered to my dad. To John Walker Hill, the twenty-three feet of fiberglass and cloth encapsulated a life-long ambition to sail the coast of America. As long as I could remember, he'd kept boats around the house. Sailboats, motorboats, canoes: if it floated, Dad owned one at some point. He took them in trade, pulled them out of junk yards, and even bought one new now and then. Some had been bigger, some smaller, but none ever suited him. I'd grown up on the decks of a dozen different types of craft, most of which never made it out of the mountains. A couple of lakes, both within an hour's drive served as the proving grounds in his search for something big enough to haul him and his gear, versatile enough to sail coasts and bays, and small enough to hook up to the back of his truck.

"This is the one, Maggie," he had told my mom proudly. She 'd sniffed, wiped her hands on her apron, and pointed to the kitchen.

"Well, you can set sail after dinner."

Thus began another two decades of the boat mostly sitting. My father may have sailed her half a dozen times and only once in the ocean. The rest of his trips were relegated to weekenders on local lakes. The sailboat turned out to be everything he wanted. Dad simply never had the time or the money to take half a year off and go wander the coastline. That didn't stop him from rebuilding, resurfacing, repainting, shining, and polishing every square inch. By the time he died, the dilapidated old hull he'd dragged out of a barn gleamed bright enough to sit on a showroom floor. He named her _FantaSea_.

When he passed away, I had to go through his things. My father hadn't been one to leave chores undone or strings hanging. His will insisted that the house be sold and whatever contents I didn't want donated to charity or put up for auction. At the time, his last wishes came across as cold and unfeeling. It took months for me to realize how thoughtful they were. No one wants to put away the people they love or their memories. I'd have hung on to that house forever and never used it. He knew that.

The will—read by his attorney, a gaunt old man by the name of Gavin Franks—might have sounded heartless, but in reality saved me the anguish of letting go and the guilt associated with doing so.

What I found when I flicked the light on in his garage was an unnamed craft with a newly painted stern and a note in the cockpit. I hadn't spent much time with him in his last couple of years, the distance borne of emotions torn between a failed marriage and his unbridled happiness that the doomed union had finally ended. He hated my choice of profession and my choice of wife, predicting in his sometimes harsh but accurate way that both would suck and neither in a good way. While his prediction held some insight, he'd also spent a good bit of effort pushing the relationship toward that final cliff. I figured I had no reason to forgive or to make apologies. I kept waiting on him. I should have known better.

When you look back on choices, some you can recognize were the best you could make at the time. Some leave you wondering how you could have been so stupid. Distancing myself from him the last few years of his life, when it was obvious he had so few years left, fell into the less than intelligent category. Dad hadn't helped, but he was my father and a lot of good years stood behind those that seemed so miserable.

I stood in a cold neon light, looking at the envelope, afraid to open it, afraid I would either lose my composure completely or find another criticism echoing through my brain in his dry, rough voice. What I found was simple.

"She's yours **,** William. Take care of her and she will take care of you. It's bad luck to rename a boat. I figured mine has run out so I had _FantaSea_ stripped off. I know you always thought it a dumb thing to call a boat. Take her home and think of a good name. Remember the days on the lake. If you ever get a chance, put her in the big water. There is freedom left in life **,** son. You just have to reach out and grab it.

We didn't get along well the last few years, but you're still my son and I love you. Enjoy the boat. I spent a long time getting her ready."

I don't know if it was the sense of giving up that his words carried, of a dream unfulfilled, or the sudden knowledge that I'd never see him again that finally turned on the emotion. Maybe it was all three. Hours passed before I walked out of the garage and most of them filled with tears. I knew what I'd call the boat before left. I had a lot of angels around me. I leaned against the gleaming fiberglass with its new paint and cried for them all, for what I had lost, for lives torn apart that could never be put back together. By the time I walked out of the garage, I'd left enough tears behind to give the boat a taste of saltwater. Not an ocean of it, but enough to leave her decks shining and wet.

To an outsider, my choices after his death may have seemed angled toward an attempt to both reconcile the space between us in his last years and to somehow find approval when there had been precious little of it while he was alive. Half of that assumption held some truth. The rest, however, fell on barren ground.

I needed to reconnect with him, but I wasn't trying to find approval. I just recognized what he had seen in me all along—that William Hill was more like his father than he wanted to admit.

I don't want to make it sound as if he possessed some sort of precognitive ability either. Life is about training. Induction into society starts early in learning the basics of speech, reading, math, and simple etiquette like not pitching a fit at the dinner table and throwing your food in the floor, like not wetting your pants after you realize why the potty exists. About the time you start enjoying life, you get to start school, where they spend another twelve years teaching you not only higher concepts, but also instilling all the basics that will enable you to not be a square peg in the round hole that society provides for you **.** This is the important crap in life, like showing up on time to a place where other people tell you what to do, like obeying authority, like eating on schedules and finding someone to listen to your problems.

My father had been big on the authority concept, but he raised me to take care of myself. A decade and a half of wearing a suit and handholding clients paid well enough, but left me recognizing why he carried such a dislike not of people, but the structure that held us all together.

He and Mom had brought me into the world. Both were dead already. Mom died ten years before Dad, succumbing to a type of cancer for which neither hope nor cure existed. I figured I could spend the last days with them, even if all I had were memories.

Becky had driven away couple of years before. She had moved on. So had I. She ventured farther, acquiring a new husband, a new life, a new baby. I discovered Jayne, a sometimes girlfriend who came and went as she pleased. We did well together, but commitment proved a sore spot for both of us. She, like me, was still haunted by bitter feelings from a broken marriage and neither of us had any intention of venturing into another for a while yet. Our time together could be summed up in two sentences. We didn't fight. We had great sex. Beyond that, our time fluctuated between her staying with me a few days at a time and then fleeing back to her own house half an hour away.

The memory of the last few months with Becky still clung strong enough to not mind. Jayne had a lot of dark aspects about her, dark eyes, dark hair, and occasionally a dark mood. I let her come and go as she wished, choosing to let her work through her emotions rather than try and fix them myself. I would have brought her with me, but she said no with a skittish look on her face as if she could feel the ropes of another binding relationship sliding around her just from the offer.

So I went, on my own, with nothing but memories and ghosts of the past riding shotgun. I didn't set out to make enemies, but I did. I didn't set out to save myself either. I went because the island seemed like a good place to die.

I just didn't realize how good.

### Chapter II - Little Things

My first meeting with Sheriff Dwight Little didn't go well. I can't say that the second, third, or many of the rest did either—some of which I will admit, was my fault. I don't dislike people. I get along with most just fine. I'd never tolerated assholes or idiots well though, and seemed to have a particular gift for offending both. I wasn't sure where D. Little pegged on the intelligence meter. When it came to asshole though, he stood out like a searchlight on a moonless night.

I did have one thing going for me. I wasn't stupid. After all, he had the badge, the gun, and a mountain of law behind him. I had an old Dodge Durango, a twenty-three foot sailboat named _Angel_ , and a date with an island. Try and blend that together all you want. The mix is like oil and water. Nothing about any of it goes together.

According to the TomTom, I'd made it to the halfway point between Beaufort and Williston, two little seaside towns on the coast of North Carolina, when he passed me going the other way. That particular stretch of road hadn't changed much since the first time I'd traveled it twenty years before with my father. Despite two decades of highway taxes and road crews, it still held the same gritty sand dunes, the same spindly sea oats, and the same bleached-out asphalt baking even whiter in the hot sun.

The sailboat rode well behind me. Empty, she tipped the scales at 2,500 pounds. I had several hundred pounds of gear and supplies stuffed inside her, though. Add a fifteen-horsepower outboard, eighteen gallons of gas, twenty gallons of water, and three gallons of kerosene, and she sat half a ton heavier at least. Even then, _Angel_ still weighed in a good bit lighter than most boats her size. She sat high and perfectly balanced on a double-axle trailer nearly fifty years old that my father had kept in tip-top shape. The combination of the light weight and well-maintained trailer made the task of pulling her down the road simple and easy.

I looked down instinctively when the sheriff's car went by. The needle on the speedometer sat frozen at fifty, five miles an hour below the posted fifty-five, obeying a cruise control that seemed happy to be out of the mountains I'd driven through the day before. The car had almost slid behind the bulk of the sailboat when the taillights flashed red. I leaned out for a better look and cursed at the sight of it swinging around in a wide turn.

Rather than wait for the blue lights I knew would come, I tapped the brake and eased the Durango into a gentle curve toward the emergency lane. The boat and trailer followed obediently. My last hope, that some unrelated emergency had occurred at the moment he passed, died completely when I saw him angling off the road behind me.

The air streaming through the window had been cool and inviting on the road, but turned warm and humid as the Durango slowed. I pulled the vehicle to a stop no more that twenty feet from a road sign proclaiming Williston to be another four miles ahead, flicked the ignition switch off, and started digging in the center console for the registration slip and insurance card. Once I had them both, I half turned in my seat and reached for the wallet in my back pocket. I had no idea why the sheriff had felt the need to turn around in the middle of a deserted road and come barreling back to pull me over—not that it mattered. The demand for paperwork would be the first words out of his mouth.

I looked them over while I waited. The address on the license and the registration belonged to the house where Becky and I had fought our way into marital oblivion. I'd meant to change it for months. Tennessee frowned on bad addresses. Everything had to match: license, registration, and the county of residence printed in metallic letters on the tag. Mix any of them up and a traffic stop usually ended with your name written across a ticket and a hefty fine at the bottom. North Carolina frowned on misleading addresses as well, but never pursued the issue with as much vehemence.

The fear of a ticket hadn't been the driving reason for changing the address though. The words spelled out below my name carried the last official link to both Becky and my old job. Becky had left compliments of U-Haul and enough arguments to leave us both feeling relieved. I'd walked away from the job on my own, and in the process accepted something I had spent most of my life rejecting. I'd never held a disdain for the civilized world like my father had and never would. Time had taught me, however, that at the core of his arguments lay more than a kernel of truth.

Schools, even colleges to a lesser degree, are not designed to produce winners, but survivors. We're taught a profession, bundled into the workings of a career, but in virtually every case end up using our skills for someone else. A top tier exists and the battle to climb upward fierce. The majority never make it anywhere close.

John Walker Hill called it the Bee Hive, a busy little place where workers scurried, slaved and died while the ruling class grew fat and complacent.

"Think of it this way, William," he told me. "All your life you're trained to be a good worker bee. The moment you're born, the momentum swings toward steering your sleeping habits, eating habits, when and where you shit, all of it into socially acceptable molds. You're taught to do the right thing, work hard and pay your bills, all while the scoundrels who control the purse strings work out ways to either tempt more money from you or hold you upside down and shake it out **."**

I must have had a blank look on my face because he shook his head. "Just wait until you're in the working world. One day, you'll wake up and realize that most of what you make goes into paying someone else for the simple privilege of living. It's not the way life was meant to be."

More than two decades passed before I realized how honest and accurate those statements proved to be. I neither carried the grudges my father had borne nor resented the structure as he did. I understood why he had, though.

Movement flickered in the side mirror. The patrol car sat hidden by the outward curve of the boat's hull. I'd pulled _Angel_ nearly 500 miles with a dead spot directly behind me. If I hadn't watched the car ease off the road, I'd have never known the cruiser was behind me.

Seconds later, a monster strode into view. No, leviathan better described the apparition approaching in the side mirror. The man walking up the road in yard-eating steps had to be close to seven feet tall and easily went 300 pounds. Confirmation of his height came when he walked past _Angel's_ gunwale. I knew for a fact it sat almost six feet off the ground. When he glanced over in passing, he looked down.

I leaned out of the window for a better look and knew immediately where graphic novels erred. Artists liked to paint heroes and villains as larger than life, accentuating expressions, muscles, everything right down to size 24 shoes. The man closing in on the Durango offered the same study in extremes, from hands that looked big enough to palm a beach ball to a chest so wide it blocked out the road behind him.

The problem lay in the accessories. The sheriff might be massive, but the items he carried hadn't been fashioned in a land peopled by giants. The gun looked like a toy pistol stuck on his hip, not like a handheld cannon. The badge drew a glittering oval above his breast pocket, marking a tiny bright spot in what had to be several yards of the crisp brown cloth that covered his torso. Perfectly centered below the metallic shield, a nameplate scored a thin black strip just wide enough that the edges lined up with the outline of his shirt pocket. All three—pocket, plate, and badge—had been aligned with military precision. Mirrored sunglasses glinted from the shadow of a broad-brimmed hat like bright alien eyes. The hat, like the rest of the uniform, bore no awkward creases and looked as if it had just emerged from a rack at the dry cleaners.

The nameplate read _D. Little_ , the letters etched in neat white lines against a shiny black background. Another confirmation of his height came when he ground to a halt in front of me. I had to look up to see his face.

I studied the lettering above the pocket and shook my head. If I had been choosing descriptive names, I'd have gone for something that implied a little more mass after watching him approach in the side mirror. I don't know, maybe something like Mountain, or even a hyphenated Tidal-Wave. He turned, planted his feet wide apart and put his hands on his hips. The badge flashed on his chest like a signal mirror.

Other than a drop of sweat trickling down the side of his face, he stood like a statue, motionless, squared jaw so stiff and stern it could have been chiseled out of an exotic, amber-colored marble. He looked tanned, healthy, and pissed. The glinting sunglasses hid his eyes, but down below a nose that had been broken at some point in the past and never fixed, his lips drew a taut, angry line across his face. Everything about him screamed military, not backwoods deputy, from the flawless creases etched down his shirt to hair cropped close and neat.

Heat rolled in through the open window. The ocean lay cool and blue just across the protective line of rolling dunes. The roar of breakers smashing against the shoreline boomed dull and distant like far-off thunder, the sound tantalizing in its promise of windswept vistas and water stretching from one side of the horizon to the next. Behind the sandy little hills though, the scene reminded me of pictures of the desert, with bone-white sand running off into the distance, hot air rising in shimmering waves off the asphalt, and most of the greenery relegated to short, twisted shrubs that looked as if they hadn't seen rain in a year.

A quick glance either way showed nothing but empty road. I looked back in the officer's direction, my gaze ending up on a wide expanse of chest and that little black nametag.

I studied the _D_ beside _Little_ while I waited for the inevitable demand for me to prove who I was. As improbable as the last name was, that single initial gave rise to a couple of equally improbable thoughts to go along with it.

"Do, Dam." I mused out loud.

He leaned forward in a perilous imitation of the Eiffel Tower. "What did you say?"

His voice rolled forth in deep and liquid tones when he spoke, the kind of sound a smoker makes when he coughs, only it kept coming and forming words.

I blinked. "Sorry. That's an expression my grandma used when she screwed up."

His sunglasses flashed as he canted his head to one side, the blank expanse of glass both unsettling and unnatural. I leaned with him and felt better just seeing myself reflected in them.

"Do," I imagined him saying. "That's my name. Do Little, like the doctor. And my middle name is Dam. Cause that's what I do, Dam Little."

"Need to see your license and registration," he said in his wet voice.

I handed both over. Glints of blue pulsed in his mirrored glasses, reflected no doubt from the lights on top of his car. The thought of alien eyes fell away in favor of a flatlander version of RoboCop.

Beneath my ball cap, my scalp began to prickle with my own offering of sweat. Do Dam studied my papers with the intensity of a researcher poring over a papyrus scroll.

If it hadn't been for the badge and sheen of sweat beading on my forehead, I might have laughed out loud. The combination of my own subdued discomfort and that shiny piece of metal promising peace and safety for all reminded me just how close the edge lay between driving down the road with thoughts of wind filling _Angel's_ sails and riding down it in a police car with my hands cuffed behind me.

I swallowed hard and looked away from the nameplate and its tempting scrawl of letters.

The last fifty miles, driven with saltwater clinging to one side of the road and a dense swamp on the other had left the windshield crusted with salt, the surface a pockmarked graveyard of wings, yellow and green smears, all of it punctuated with bright streaks of red stretched long and thin like bloody exclamation marks. The splashes of color overlaying a lacy white patina reminded me of a painting I'd seen a few months back when Jayne had dragged me to an art show where I'd watched well-dressed and apparently intelligent people fawn over equally random splotches of color. The thought crossed my mind that I could probably open my own gallery simply by changing windshields every couple of hundred miles.

I closed my eyes and imagined them, pristine walls covered with black backgrounds and littered with hundreds of windshields, each curved glass sporting its own wistful title. I wondered what I'd call them. Maybe _Flight of the Mosquito_ or _Echoes of the Rainbow_. I decided I'd have to think on that one. The more self-absorbed and pretentious the title, the more likely some snobbish connoisseur would find meaning in the irregular patterns displayed in salt crystals and bug juice.

Wine, of course, would be offered at the entrance—not my beloved Carolina Red or Hatteras Red, but a vintage from France or Italy. Extended pinkies would probably need something with a foreign name to truly stir the creative juices. Anything less might leave them feeling as if they were looking at insect guts spilled across a windshield.

An ant scurried across the hood of the truck. Beyond Little, a stand of tall grass swayed in a wind that was not making it through my window.

The sheriff pored over my paperwork.

I sighed. Both documents combined offered less than a minute's read at best.

"Okay if I roll down the window on the passenger's side so I can let some air in here?"

He grunted, the sound like distant thunder rolling down a mountain valley. I took it as a yes and fingered the switch on the door. The air that slid through felt warm and sticky, but at least moved enough to push the sweltering heat away.

The sheriff finally looked up. He didn't hand my license or registration back though. Both looked tiny in his oversized hands.

"Mind telling me where you're going, Mr. Hill?"

I tried not to sigh again. The road sign in front of the Durango stood out like a cross mounted on top of a hill. Nothing else marred the lonely stretch of road and sand ahead. Two destinations printed in black stood out against a white rectangular background. One noted the four remaining miles to Williston **.** The second proclaimed Atlantic to be another twenty miles. I suppose I could have had another destination in mind, but not many. The road meandered up the swampy and nearly deserted coast where North Carolina embraced the Pamlico Sound. After a twisting, torturous arc around the eastern edge of a waterway big enough to be a small sea, the highway eventually led north into Virginia. No one in their right mind would take that route when fifty miles west, I-40 blazed a trail due north.

I pointed at the sign. "Atlantic, I reckon."

"You reckon?"

I nodded.

"Do you realize a travel ban could be issued soon or that the president could declare martial law in the next few days?"

I knew. Everyone knew.

"There may be a travel ban soon," I said calmly, "but there isn't one right now."

His mouth tightened. "DHS guidelines released two days ago warned people to avoid unnecessary travel."

I looked up. A pair of thin white lines crisscrossed each other, their edges crisp and clean as if God had drawn a giant X across the sky.

"The planes are still flying. I passed half a dozen Greyhounds on the way down," I said, keeping my voice even. "I've heard advertisements for cruise ships, travel packages to Disney World, even a plug trying to lure people to Branson, Missouri. Travel is still optional, Sheriff."

I studied his mirrored glasses and wished I could see the eyes behind them. "My presence on this road is not illegal—at least it wasn't when I pulled out of Morehead City half an hour ago. I've had the radio on since I left. It's been old rock tunes and commercials, but not one ounce of news. If there's been a change in the government's stance, the world hasn't heard about it yet."

I paused to catch my breath.

"So tell me, what did I do? According to the speedometer, I wasn't speeding. The tag on the Dodge is up to date. I checked the tail lights this morning. All were present, accounted for, and working."

He leaned closer to the window. Alien eyes or not, the anger was clear on his face. "You're on my fucking road, asshole."

I made a face. "Sorry, I must have missed that sign."

"What sign?" he demanded.

"The one that said this road belonged to D period Little."

His fingers tightened on the papers I had given him. I grimaced, watching as they crumpled in a fist that looked ready to come flying through the open window.

"Do you have family in Atlantic?"

I shook my head.

"Then why are you here?"

I jerked a thumb back toward the boat behind me. "I'm going sailing and probably fishing, too."

He stared at me as if I'd grown a second head. "There's nothing up there for you. Turn around and go home."

I shrugged. "I will, as soon as I'm done or the government comes along and says I have to."

Watching him regain his composure reminded me of watching a video of glass breaking in reverse. After a long moment, he held out my license and registration. I reached out to take them, but he didn't let go.

"Let's put it this way," he said quietly. "If I catch you in my district when the ban comes down, I will detain you in the county jail. And if they declare martial law, I'm going to remember how much of a pain in the ass you chose to be today. Is that clear?"

"As glass in a Windex commercial," I said. If anyone had passed in that moment, they would have thought we were engaged in a tug of war over a slip of paper. He wouldn't let go. I didn't either. The seconds dragged on, feeling like hours. Finally he released his grip.

"I know why you're here."

I squinted against the sun. "Yeah?"

He nodded. "You think you're going to run out to the islands and escape what's coming. I see a couple of you every day."

He leaned over and spat on the road, leaving a dark stain the size of a golf ball standing out against the weathered gray asphalt.

"You're fucking cowards. That's what you are. Want my advice? Keep moving. You might get by out there for a few weeks, maybe a month, but sooner or later you'll have to come back in. There's no water, no food, nothing out there. Atlantic is a small town. When you come back, I'll find you. Take my word on that."

He was wrong. I had nothing to say though. The man wanted a fight, a reason to throw me in the back of the cruiser and haul me off to jail. To argue would only prolong the situation and potentially give him the excuse he needed.

Instead, I held his gaze and waited. Rather, I should say, I stared up at him and waited. Little was anything but little.

He spat again and started to turn back toward his car. Halfway through the motion, he slid to a halt and looked back at me. "William Hill?"

I nodded.

"You don't go by Bill, do you?"

I shook my head, confused.

"No, why?"

His mouth twisted into a sarcastic grin. "Just asking. Bill Hill, now that would sound funny. That would get a man a nickname like Hillbilly."

"Ahh, gotcha," I mused. "No, I'm not Bill Hill or Hillbilly."

He did turn then and strode off in the direction of the car behind me. Leather creaked and the stiff material of his uniform crackled at the motion.

I knew better, but couldn't resist. Leaning out of the window I called after his retreating figure.

"Hey, Sheriff?"

He craned his head back toward me. "What?"

"Your first name isn't Dick, is it?"

I didn't wait for the puzzlement to turn to anger. The Durango growled to life when I flicked the switch. Leaning out again, I waved and shot him a grin. A few seconds later, an ocean of sand bisected by a thin line of asphalt swam into view in the side mirror. Little's figure disappeared moments later, hidden by the curve of _Angel's_ hull.

I didn't know at the time that I would be seeing him again soon. That meeting wouldn't go well either, nor would many of the rest in the months to come.

Chapter III - Elsie and Angel

Every time the road curved behind me, I glanced back to see if Little had decided he didn't need a presidential order to arrest a smart-assed country boy from the mountains. Twenty miles later, when Atlantic swung into view, I was still looking and sighing with relief each time the empty stretch of highway behind me appeared in the mirror.

The tiny collection of homes and businesses had never incorporated into a city. Some would call it quaint. Others would drive through without even knowing the minute splotch of life carved out of the swampy coastline had a name. Seeing the place for the first time felt like stepping into a time machine with the dial set back 200 years, but somehow dragging the present with you when you hit the Go button. Seventeenth-century houses still squatted on some of the side streets. Just as evident were mobile homes, satellite dishes, and four-wheel-drive pickups.

The state still touted commercial fishing as one of the main drivers for the coastal economy. In reality, the industry had been on its deathbed for decades, with declining catches and rising costs driving the smaller and more traditional operators out of business. Those that remained often found themselves at odds with residents, visitors, and conservationists over wasteful practices that littered the nearby ocean with thousands of dead fish. The most divisive of those practices carried the sanitized designation of legal discard. Explaining it would take a while, but imagine a net that holds fifty fish and a government that says you can keep one. The dead went back over the side to rot in the ocean. The system prompted howls of protest and demands for the state's Marine Fisheries Division to adopt new restrictions and better regulatory control over the fleets.

The area's economic lifeblood remained tied to the sea, but over the years, tourism had taken on a stronger and more vital role.

Ten miles up, the southern end of the North Carolina Ferry system delivered a constant flow of tourists and visitors. Where the state left off, capitalism took over. Another ferry, a privately owned enterprise based in Atlantic, serviced outlying islands not included on the state's route, namely Portsmouth and another set of islands farther south that included the southern Core Banks. Split by Drum Inlet, both were popular fishing and hard-core camping destinations, hosting nothing but miles and miles of empty beach. The Gulf Stream slid by not far offshore attracting both sportsmen and migrating fish. Twice each year, spring and fall, the ocean teamed with schools heading north as winter released its grip on the upper latitudes and south in the fall when cooling temperatures drove them back to more hospitable waters.

Vacationers, anglers, and tourists passing through the 200 miles of pristine beaches and quaint seaside towns, poured more than a hundred million dollars into the local economy every year. Those fighting the commercial fleets took inspiration in the rising dollars, hoping to supplant a dying industry with one more sustainable and one that left the fisheries relatively intact.

On a map, the Outer Banks looked like one long barrier island stretching from the northern end of the state to the southern end. In reality, the Banks were comprised of a series of islands. Heading south, the last stop for civilization occurred at Ocracoke. The remaining islands of the Core Banks had been designated as National Seashore and were officially uninhabited. The northernmost of those, Portsmouth, had been named for the town that had once thrived at its upper terminus. Hurricanes and changes in shipping lanes had doomed the community as jobs and money flowed elsewhere. By the early 1970's, the last inhabitants moved away, leaving the town and island empty. Soon afterward, the US government stepped in and took over the entire island. Workmen and park service officials descended, leaving the town restored and standing as a historic monument to a seafaring past.

A few fishing shacks run by the Park Service squatted at the southern end. In between lay twenty-two miles of open beachfront defended by high dunes and backed by mosquito-filled swamps. The only roads were the beach itself and a long, unpaved lane that ran behind the dunes. Driving on the island could be an adventure even if you did nothing else. On one side, incoming tides chased vehicles up to the dunes. On the other, drivers had to navigate a dirt road scored with ruts, water holes, and shifting sands that no one, not even the Park Service, maintained.

On a given day, Portsmouth could host anywhere from zero to more than a hundred people. Most came for the fishing and retreated to the mainland compliments of the Drum Inlet Ferry by nightfall, leaving campers with a nearly deserted island and nothing but the feel of nature, wild and untamed, as company.

Despite its name, Atlantic sat on the sound side of the islands. The ocean lay several miles farther east, across a treacherous body of water that ran as shallow as a foot in some places. Although a rough chop could build on the sound, the true menace lay in water depths that could vary from a few inches to several feet with little warning. Snags, shell beds, and wide strips of bottom barely under the surface pockmarked the crossing like booby traps for the unwary. In good weather, the crossing slid by easily enough. In bad weather, it could both beat you to a pulp and worry you into an early grave.

Core Sound had been the only place _Angel_ had ever sailed in salt water. My father and I spent a week drifting between uninhabited islands, fishing, and cooking what we caught on a Coleman camp stove with the Milky Way slathered across the sky like a thin and diaphanous veil. The days had been warm, the nights cool, and the relationship between us at its finest. We were father and son and both had learned to respect the other as men instead of just as family. The trip turned out to be both the best and the last time we spent more than a day together.

The Northern Core Banks had served as our base. A good many folks referred to the island by the old village at the northern end. Mention the Core Banks and a hazy image sprang to mind. Tell them you wanted to go Portsmouth and they knew exactly where you were headed.

The sheriff had been wrong. My marriage to Becky left a lot of scars and ill will, but even bad times can lead to good lessons. I'd suffered through enough infection control rants to know that barring a miracle cure, The Fever carried the potential to act as humanity's own K-T boundary, our own extinction-level event. Either way, a good many would die. My name had a decent chance of ending up somewhere on the official tally. I figured a few weeks of late summer sun, early autumn chill, fishing and solitude was as good enough a way to go as any.

While the plan might have sounded as if I'd turned into the hermit my friends had accused me of becoming when Becky left, the only person I could have brought with me was Jayne.

She had stood with arms crossed, her face expressionless while I packed the last few items into the boat. Even with our on-and-off relationship, I knew I was going to miss her. I also knew I was saying goodbye for what would most likely be the last time. Unlike the last few days with Becky, neither Jayne nor I were angry. We had no heated battles sitting behind us, no spiteful words. What we had was an easy, if somewhat guarded, acceptance of each other.

When I'd finally secured the last tie-down, I turned to what I figured would be an awkward moment. Final goodbyes are never easy. I can attest to the fact that they're much more difficult when neither of you knows what the next day will bring, or whether a week later, if either of you would still be counted among the living.

If she'd asked me to stay, I would have. If she'd wanted to come, I'd have opened the door for her, belted her in, and headed down to the nearest convenience store for the six pack of Mountain Dew I knew she would want. Neither option had presented itself. Jayne was the more skittish of the two of us when it came to permanency and commitments. Becky and I fought our way out of our marriage. Jayne's ended abruptly when her ex-husband decided to tell her about the woman he had been dating for eighteen months. I had scars. Jayne still carried open wounds.

"You take care of yourself, William," she'd said. Anyone else would have thought her face impassive. I'd learned, though. Jayne could weather a hurricane without batting an eyelash. She carried her emotions deep and well protected. The only clue lay in her fingers. They tapped nervously against her arms when I turned toward her.

"You can come with me, you know," I told her.

She shook her head. "No, you go. I believe in destiny and this is yours."

"And yours?"

A brief smile tugged at her lips.

"I'll let you know when I find out."

We talked for a while, but that's how I left her, standing in my driveway with her arms still crossed tightly across her midsection and her face betraying no emotion. Honestly, I'm not sure how much she had. Jayne tended to bolt anytime the relationship ventured toward getting closer. I let her come and go when she needed, but attachments grow when you spend that kind of time with someone, whether you want them to or not. Watching her disappearing figure dwindle away in the side mirror had cast a pall over the first few hours of driving. Part of me wanted to go back. Part knew she would be just as emotionless if I did. The situation contained no middle ground. Turning around would have screamed _closer_ to her and accomplished nothing except to send her scurrying home.

Even with two days of driving behind me, the image remained both strong and bittersweet.

I pulled off the road onto hard packed sand overrun by crabgrass and dug through the center console until I found the address of Morgan's General Merchandise. I'd originally called the Drum Inlet Ferry looking for long-term parking. _Angel_ would be my home for a while at least. If I beat the odds and came back, I'd need the Durango. I couldn't just leave it sitting on the side of the road.

After listening to my spiel, the woman on the other end had told me to call Elsie over at the store. The woman who answered identified herself as Elsie Morgan. She sounded old yet energetic over the phone, leaving me curious as to what she would look like in person.

I wasn't sure where one would leave an SUV and a twenty-two-foot trailer at a store. She cleared that up quick enough when she told me to stop by on the way in, that she would show me the back yard. It wasn't exactly what I had in mind, but in Atlantic, options and people were few. I didn't argue.

I also didn't need the address. Halfway through the contents of the console, I looked up and saw the large, clapboard building a hundred yards ahead on the left.

The structure looked to be stuck somewhere between a convenience store and a grocery store in size. A long, low porch built of cedar and pine crossed the face, covered by a deep overhang roofed with sheets of copper-colored tin. A pair of rocking chairs graced one side of the entrance way. Both sat empty at the moment, but would have looked just as picture-perfect if a couple of old fishermen had been rocking the day away and complaining about the weather. Ferns hung thick and bushy from the edges, gracing a central point between each of the posts supporting the roof.

Unlike many of the other buildings in the area that suffered from too much sun, too much wind, and too little paint, Morgan's General Merchandise gleamed brightly in the late summer sun.

The parking lot offered a testament to the clientele it served. The slots on the left side and front of the building were normal in size, accommodating both cars and pickups. Those on the right side stretched upwards of forty to fifty feet in long, narrow strips, laid out in such a way that anyone towing a trailer or boat could pull directly into one from the road. The exit looked just as easy to navigate. The Durango slid easily into one of those long, clearly marked slots with none of the vehicular gymnastics I had encountered in a dozen other parking lots on the way down.

I dug out a small leather bag stuffed with cash out of the glove box. I'd left Tennessee with a little over $9.000, separated out into different denominations. The sum represented roughly a quarter of what I had left from selling the two houses. I'd considered taking more, but somewhere in the back of my mind the mark carried a special significance. It took the better part of a week to remember why. Federal law required banks to report any transaction $10,000 and over to the IRS.

I had nothing to hide. I also had no desire to draw unwanted attention to myself. I had no idea what shape banks would be in if The Fever hit as hard as the experts had warned that it could. No one knew. Speculation ran rampant with some painting doomsday scenarios while others thought the situation as overblown as the fears that had surrounded the Avian Flu. The experts hadn't wasted time issuing their dire warnings then either, over what amounted to a virtual no-show of a disease.

Opinions swung widely, highlighting the real truth. No one had any idea what would happen. After listening to the debate rage back and forth, watching every news broadcast be dominated by panelists who offered little more than speculation, I, and the rest of the country, had been left with no clear picture of what the future might hold. The warnings grew throughout the summer, reaching a fever pitch in early September. I owned no crystal ball, but the overload of alarming predictions spawned an impending sense of doom that cast a shadow on every aspect of life. It clung to every thought, every decision like a black cloud squatting on the horizon that grew bigger and stronger with each passing day.

I slid three one-hundred-dollar bills from the stack, zipped the bag up and put it back in the glove box. Elsie had reckoned she would let me leave the Durango out back for five dollars a day. Three hundred gave me two months. By then, I figured the Fever would have run its course or, more likely, I wouldn't be around to worry about the vehicle.

The idea to head for the coast didn't surface until I ran across a series on one of the reality TV stations called _The Colony_. It too offered a perspective on disease run wild, one where the few survivors had been reduced to scavenging for food and spent their days battling looters and rival camps over dwindling resources.

I knew then that if _La Fiebre_ struck with any real force, the disease would only be half the battle. The rest would come from a shocked and terrified population severed from the support mechanisms that kept it alive and thriving. I had no desire to hole up in my house and shoot starving people. I remember wondering what Dad would do if he were still alive. The answer came instantly. I looked up at _Angel_ and knew in that moment that I would go.

Nine thousand would see me through if I lived and would easily pay for the few items I would need. My father had stocked the boat with gear. I had filled it full of provisions along with a scattering of both comfort items and things tied strictly to vices. I'd gone overboard on the latter, loading up a half-case of Johnny Walker Black, a few bottles of Captain Morgan, three bottles of Carolina Red, and a dozen cartons of cigarettes. I don't know why. I hadn't smoked in years and the last pint of spirits had taken me months to work through.

Even the whiskey stirred memories. Dad had often joked about being named after a fifth of scotch. With bottles clinking in the box when I loaded it aboard the boat, I'd stopped long enough to pour a shot and raise a toast to John Walker Hill and voyages, those done and those yet to come. The thought running through my mind at the time hadn't been centered on sailing or _Angel_ , but on the greater voyage I'd be facing when The Fever made it to the island.

When it came to the cigarettes, I hadn't smoked since my second year of college. I'd bought them at a gas station that had the prices posted near the pumps. I hadn't planned on ever starting again, but knowing death might come in a few weeks took most of the threat out of the Surgeon General. As a side benefit, if by chance the disease passed me over while decimating the rest of the population, the smokes might at least trade well.

I crossed the parking lot amid a swirl of memories, walking against a warm breeze drifting in from the west. I'd left Tennessee the last day of September, a time when the climate along the coast usually carried hot days and cool nights. With the seasons in transition, nothing could be taken for granted. A front sliding through could turn what felt like summer into a cold, wet reminder that winter lay just around the corner. At the same time, my one experience with Portsmouth had been in early October when the weather had seemed like a gift straight from heaven with deliciously warm days offset by nights chilly enough to warrant both campfire and jacket.

November would bring cold rains, driving winds sliding down from the north, and gray, storm-tossed seas. A few good days would remain, but the bulk of them would be gone. As fall progressed, the threat of northeasters also grew. I'd experienced both hurricane and northeaster. Trying to choose between the two amounted to sitting between the proverbial rock and hard place. Some might scoff at that idea given the press summer storms generated, but the largest waves ever produced by a storm had been recorded during a northeaster. Even worse, they could drag on for days, turning the ocean into a maelstrom of gale-force winds, monstrous waves, and clashing swells as wind and water battled over which direction the currents would flow.

The coast of North Carolina possessed a long and well-deserved reputation for bad weather. More than a thousand wrecks littered the coastline, lying in mute testimony to the strength and savagery of winter storms. The ship-killing equation contained more than one variable. Into the mix could be added the occasional hurricane that drew a bulls-eye on the thin string of islands and a daily potential for intense squalls. The combination of insane weather, steep waves, and strong currents had proven deadly, so deadly the area had been dubbed the Graveyard of the Atlantic.

I knew all of that, and still had chosen this place. Warmer and more accessible islands lay farther south. My father had loved the ocean and insisted on vacations along the coast when I was a kid. The constant trips, year after year, had left me with a decent knowledge of communities from North Carolina to Florida. While more appealing destinations existed, I put no money on the odds of making it to winter alive. If I did, I figured I could pick a nice day for the boat ride back.

I took the front steps two at a time, crossed the shade of the covered porch, and stepped into the store. The smell of cinnamon and apples struck me the instant I entered, the scent neither overpowering nor ripe, but rather hanging at the edge of the senses. The interior had been done completely in wood, with hardwood floors, pine walls, and ceilings giving off a rich, golden glow where sunlight filtered in through windows unadorned with blinds or curtains. A checkout station dominated the center of the entryway and beyond it, a cavernous interior seemingly too large for the building that housed it. Clusters of soft floodlights hung from a ceiling that looked to be at least twenty feet high. Along the walls, sliding ladders gave access to walkways above that separated goods arranged neatly below from storage bins on the abbreviated second level. The shopping aisles were neat and arrow-straight. A quick glance revealed everything from foodstuffs to copper pipe for plumbing. Near the back looked to be a feed and seed center, no doubt for the local farmers. The more I saw, the more General Merchandise aptly described the store.

A woman, who appeared to be in her late twenties or early thirties, looked up when I stepped inside. She had dark, shoulder-length hair, impossibly blue eyes, and angular features that, like many of Atlantic's buildings, had seen too much sun. Her face carried a deep tan spread across skin that looked leathery and hard—too hard for someone her age. In another ten years, the same skin would sport deep lines, wrinkles, and crows-feet that no miracle lotion could ever remove. She wore a sleeveless top, Capri pants, and flip-flops, all black. A quick glance revealed equally dark fingernails and toenails. A tiny glint of silver flashing from a pierced eyebrow completed the confusing blend of beach babe and Goth girl.

A small rack of over-the-counter medicines stood to the right of the cash register. A dozen different types of sunscreen crowded the bottom shelf. Given the weathered look of her skin, I wondered if she had ever picked up a bottle and read the back of it.

She offered a polite smile.

"Hi there."

I nodded. "Hey. I'm looking for Elsie Morgan. I'm William Hill. I talked to her a while back about a place to park my vehicle while I spend a few weeks fishing?"

I let the last sentence trail off into a question, hoping she'd pick up where I left off.

She opened her mouth to respond, but closed it quickly when a side door I hadn't noticed opened off to the right, exposing a small office beyond. The woman who stepped out looked old enough to be my grandmother. Her hair had gone past gray, into the solid white of someone old enough to have forgotten things I had never known. She wore it drawn back into a tight bun with wispy tendrils drifting down at the sides. Deep lines scored her forehead, complementing a spray of fine wrinkles at the corners of her eyes.

My grandmother passed away when I was six, leaving my memory of her tied to a few specific images. The strongest of them went back to her sitting in a rocking chair, shawl draped across her shoulders and breaking green beans fresh from the garden. Elsie Morgan carried the same distinctive blend of age and wisdom, needing nothing more than an ankle-length gingham dress to complete the picture. She had the shawl lacy, white and curled around her shoulders. The similarity in clothing ended there though as she wore a white blouse and gray slacks.

She leaned her head forward slightly and looked over wire-rimmed glasses trimmed in silver.

"I've been expecting you," she said and held out her hand. I took it. Her skin lacked the soft, silky feel that comes with many older people. Instead, her handshake came across strong and firm.

She studied me for a moment with eyes as gray as the ocean on a cloudy day. I had the uncomfortable feeling that she was as busy sizing me up as I had been a moment earlier with her.

Mirrors don't lie. We do, however. I'm not sure why, other than the fact that staring into a mirror over the course of a lifetime makes one too familiar with the features staring back at them. We tend to forget that first impressions are often dominated by the same characteristics that caricature artists use to create the cartoon portraits that are overdone, yet undeniably us.

When I'd left Morehead City earlier that morning, the mirror had shown me a stocky man in his early forties, who at five-ten was neither tall nor short, but stuck right on the average scale. A faded, moss-green ball cap sporting a logo for Stone Mountain, Georgia covered short, sandy hair that seemed at odds with the dark stubble forming on his cheeks. The face carried a slight tan, looked a bit scruffy, all of it framed by a strong, squared jaw. The shoulders stretched wide enough to hang a bag or two off them and not have to worry about either slipping off. I looked like I belonged on the beach. With the Jimmy Buffett T-shirt, cargo shorts, and tennis shoes, tourists off the ferry could easily mistake me as one of the locals.

With the old woman staring at me so intently, I shifted, as uneasy as I'd ever been in front of Juanita Whatley and wondered what I'd missed in the mirror. If anything set me apart, it had to be the eyes. Jayne had once described them as icy blue.

Elsie drew her hand back and pulled at the edge of her shawl. "You're the one going out to the islands for some fishing, aren't you?"

She didn't wait for me to answer, but looked over at the girl. "Tracy, hand me the day book underneath the cash register."

The girl fumbled for a moment and then passed over a small wire-bound book.

The woman flipped through it. "Yes, here you are. Hill, William, right?"

I ventured a smile that ended up feeling crooked on my face.

"Sorta. It's actually William Hill. But yes, I'm heading out for a few weeks. Fishing is usually good this time of year."

She pursed her lips.

"Your boat outside?"  
I nodded.

A pause long enough to border on awkward followed. With those old gray eyes so piercing and unwavering, it felt like she was looking straight through me to study something on the other side.

"Well, come on," she said eventually. "Let me show you where you can put it in the water."

I turned to follow her and found myself hurrying to catch up. Elsie Morgan carried some years on her, but none of them had affected her step.

She led me back out into the sunlight and across the parking lot. Instead of angling toward the back of the store, she headed straight for _Angel_.

"I haven't seen one of those in years," she exclaimed as she drew up beside the boat. "That's an Aquarius, a twenty-three footer, isn't it?"

I nodded, surprised that she knew the brand. The company that built them went out of business decades earlier.

Elsie twisted her lips. "That's a good one for bumming around islands, but it's not a heavy-weather craft at all. You're not planning on going far out to sea are you?"

I shook my head. "What are you, a walking encyclopedia of all things marine?"

She grinned, revealing straight teeth and a mouth full of them. "Hang around a place like this long enough and you'll see everything that floats, even if it was intended for a bathtub. Where are you heading?"

"Portsmouth," I said simply.

"Is that going to be your base?"

I lifted a shoulder in a slight shrug. "I don't have a set itinerary. A good part of the plan is to not have a plan. I'll find a narrow point on the island where I can park this thing off the back, and set up camp on the ocean side."

Out on the road, a police cruiser rolled by. I stopped long enough to make sure my favorite lawman hadn't hunted me down.

"If I get bored," I said, ignoring the curious look on her face, "I'll move. I imagine I'll move a few times. There's a lot of island out there, not to mention a few more above it and below it."

She pointed to a large, rectangular box lashed down on the pop-top hatch. "What's that?"

I grimaced. "That's my father's version of a dune buggy."

She shot me a questioning look.

"Dad had always planned on sailing the entire East Coast from Maine to Mexico. He wanted to write his own travel book. He knew he couldn't port a full sized ATV on the boat, so he took a blow torch to a golf cart and a lawn mower."

I paused and winced. "That's what came out of the marriage. The thing folds down to fit in that box."

The expression on her face went from questioning to dubious. "Does it work?"

"It does," I conceded. "I pulled it out and drove it around the house before I carted it all the way down here. It rides just fine, even though it looks odd and takes a while to inflate the tires."

She shot me another look full of questions.

I answered the most obvious one.

"The tires have to be flat for it to fit in the box."

"Ahh," she mused. "Your father spent a lot of time thinking about this trip of his, didn't he?"

"A good bit of his life went into it," I said with a nod. "I may get bored. I might get lonely, but he spent his time thinking about the long haul. I could sail her a thousand miles if I needed to."

She walked around the back of the boat, again pushing me to keep up with her. At the stern, she paused and ran her fingers across the word written in tall, blue letters.

" _Angel_ , now that's a nice name. Where is your father?"

I took a deep breath. "He passed away a couple of years ago."

Elsie looked thoughtful. "Is that the reason the boat is named Angel? I thought it might be for a girlfriend, but knowing the history, that would make more sense."

For the first time since we had walked out onto the asphalt, the sun felt hot. Jayne had asked me the same question. I lied to her. I don't know why. I don't know why I lied to Elsie Morgan either, but I did. The name was mine, personally mine. I realized that sticking it on the back of the boat for the world to see would prompt the occasional question now and then. I'd come up with a half-dozen plausible answers. I picked the one that seemed to fit the situation best.

"I figure, a man goes to sea, it's always good to have an angel along with him," I said.

The lines on her face grew deeper, but her voice came out soft. "So it is. I'll take that, even though it's not the real reason, is it, Hill William?"

The words came out in such a matter-of-fact voice that I began to wonder just how much Elsie knew about me. I scratched at my head, the sudden prickly feeling borne partly from being caught in a lie and the rest from a rising sense of irritation at the unwanted and unneeded scrutiny.

"You have me investigated or something?" I asked, trying to sound as if I was joking.

She waved her hand dismissively.

"I don't need a detective. A man going off on his lonesome right now with so much trouble in the world wouldn't have a wife when he got back and wouldn't deserve one. A girlfriend would have made sense, but for the same reasons, she'd likely be along. That leaves something else and you looked away before you answered."

I stared at her.

"I grew up on Portsmouth, but I didn't stay there. I spent twenty years studying expressions for a company that sold services to the FBI. You looked away and your eyes firmed up around the edges. That's a sign of pain and a need to avoid the question, which tells me it's a personal pain. So, I'll take your answer. It's good enough."

She rose up on her tiptoes and tried to peer over the gunwale. Fortunately, Elsie was too short and it too high. A frustrated look slid across her face. "From here, it looks like you're set for a while, but I can't see good enough to tell."

I said nothing. I couldn't decide if she was being nosy or simply curious. Either way, I was ready to move on.

"Well, hop in," she said about the same time the thought crossed my mind. "I'll show you where you can put her in the water."

Quick, like a bird flitting from one bush to another, she scurried toward the passenger door. I raced to catch her and barely beat her to the handle.

"Here, what's this?" she exclaimed and threw her head back. "Lordy, it's been ages since a man opened a door for me."

Laughter spilled out of the truck as I closed the door behind her. Shaking my head, I walked around to the other side and climbed into the driver's seat.

"You smoke?" she asked when I fired up the Durango.

I thought about it for a long second. The cigarettes I had brought with me still lay untouched in their cartons. Even so, the thought crossed my mind that Elsie Morgan just might not be able to stand the smell of tobacco. I had no desire to irritate her since she would be watching over my belongings, but the threat might move things along a little faster.

"That I do," I said.

"Drink?"

"Sure."

A satisfied look crossed her face. "Good. I can't stand people who act like they ain't got any bad habits. You know the ones I mean?"

I blinked. "I'm not sure I do."

She let out a sound that sounded like _hmmpfh_ , but didn't pursue the subject. "Why are you really going out to the islands, Hill William?"

Sheriff Little crossed my mind. I shot a compulsive glance at the side mirror. I could lie to Elsie about that too, but it didn't seem worth the effort. The woman was sharp. She'd see through it in a second.

"To die," I said.

She fell quiet for a long moment. Gray asphalt rolled beneath the Durango.

"How far is this place anyway?" I asked her.

"Just up the road," she replied. "It could be weeks, maybe months before The Fever makes it out here."

I smiled faintly. "I know."

She acted like she wanted to ask something else, but raised a bony finger instead. "Turn right up there. Go slow. The water ain't far."

I turned off on the side road that proved to be the entrance to a boat launch. Less than a hundred feet ahead sloped concrete trailed off into smooth, blue water. A long, low dock, the top barely a foot above water, stretched out beside the ramp.

I swung the Durango in a wide arc, pulling it around completely until the ramp lay behind me. Using the side mirrors, I eased the vehicle backwards, cutting the wheel deep at first to line up the boat with the concrete, then rotating it back in a gentler arc in the opposite direction. A few seconds later _Angel's_ transom hung over the edge of the water.

Leaving Elsie in the truck, I climbed aboard and raised the mast—a task that sounds simpler than it was. Swinging twenty-five feet of four-inch thick pipe from horizontal to vertical isn't easy, even if the thing is made of aluminum. One slip and Archimedes joined forces with gravity to turn the mast into a monster-sized sledge hammer. _Angel's_ transom might survive the impact, but the odds favored a crushed stern.

Fortunately, I'd learned that trick when dad had taken me out as a teenager. I slipped the doubled end of a rope around the mast and held it straight with one hand, while I hooked the forward stay into place with the other. I had a few more preparations to make, but from trailer to dock took about fifteen minutes.

Once I had _Angel_ tied up, I went back to the Durango and climbed inside. Elsie still sat in the passenger's seat where she had watched me launch the boat.

"If you want," I told her, "I'll take you back to the store before I unpack the truck. I still have quite a bit in here that I need to transfer over."

She looked thoughtful, but nodded.

"You got that thing set up fast. I've seen men piddle around with a sailboat for an hour."

I grinned and turned the ignition switch. The engine growled into life with a deep-throated snarl that breathed power. "When Dad and I came down years ago, he fussed over everything. I didn't think we'd ever get out on the water."

The old woman shot me a curious look, but said nothing. I slid the SUV into drive and rode the mile or so back to her store, thankful for the cool breeze flowing in through the window. It took about ten minutes to make the round trip. When I returned to the launching area, I pulled the Durango as close to the dock as possible. I would have loaded the last of the supplies if Elsie hadn't been with me. The thought of trying to hurry and then making the five-mile trip out only to realize I'd forgotten something, killed that notion before it ever gained a firm footing.

On the outside, _Angel_ was as functional as a boat her size and type could be. Two radios graced the interior. Dad had mounted a VHF unit just inside the hatch on the port side. A long, low berth ran underneath it, up to the cabinetry that housed the sink, a 12-volt plug, and a common FM/AM radio with a CD player. Outside in the cockpit, he had installed a Ritchie Marine compass. Beside it sat a Hummingbird fish finder and depth meter combo, also powered by the ship's battery. The final piece of the electronic puzzle came in the form of two GPS units. Neither had been designed for marine use. The small, backpacker's GPS served as an emergency backup. The main unit with the large display and night mode backlighting, I pulled from the Durango.

The motor carried an alternator, which charged the batteries when _Angel_ ran under power. He'd also installed mounting stations atop the pop top and the forward deck for two ten watt solar panels. A third means of generating electricity came in the form of a small windmill that could service both the boat and the dune buggy. I had never seen it mounted on either, despite the fact he'd had the thing for years.

Below decks, the space inside was tight and easily cluttered. With half her length dedicated to the cockpit outside, the actual living space inside worked out to less square footage than an average bathroom. The designers had packed as much as possible into the cabin, enclosing three separate sleeping areas, a sink and cabinet, and a tiny spot for what an enthusiastic seller would call restroom facilities. No one, not even a salesman on steroids, could call the accommodations luxurious.

The largest storage compartment on the boat ran back under the cockpit. Unfortunately, the factory had failed to provide any access to that area. Dad had rectified that problem by installing hatch covers in the cockpit that opened to the space below. I had no idea if or how he had tested the modifications, but Angel had remained dry inside while stored out in the weather and the latches seemed both solid and secure.

Despite having raised the mast, I had no intention of hoisting sail on the trip across. I wanted to make the crossing as fast as possible and had no desire to tack back and forth in fickle winds.

A good bit of the food I had packed consisted of dry goods with canned items relegated to meats and vegetables. A sixty-five quart Yeti cooler in the locker space underneath the starboard bunk acted as my fridge. I'd frozen all the meat inside before packing it, lining the bottom with ice, adding the frozen meat next, and covering it all with a final layer of dry ice.

The day-to-day cooler, the one I'd use for the first week, also bore the Yeti brand. It sat just inside the cabin, and held three bags of ice along with enough fresh food to see me through a few days at least. Still, I had no illusions. Even with the high dollar coolers I'd be out of ice within two weeks. That thought didn't sit well. I could deal with eating what I caught, but no way of storing it meant a constant search for food. Almost as dismal a thought revolved around tea. I drank gallons of the stuff.

The sigh that slid out of me every time I thought about it highlighted my frustration. Even with more expensive and complicated machinery that could provide the desired level of cooling, I'd need fuel. No matter how I looked at the problem, two weeks seemed to be the limit.

The final bit of transfer occurred from items up front in the Durango, my cell phone, the dash-mounted Magellan GPS unit, the cash from the glove compartment, along with a dozen other things I grabbed up at the last minute. _Angel_ probably sat three or four inches deeper in the water by the time I was done.

When I finished, I stood in the breeze, letting the cool air dry the sweat I'd built up carrying the supplies out to the boat. My mind roamed, worrying over what might still be hidden in some nook or cranny inside the Durango when I remembered the box of shells under the passenger seat. Dad had always carried a rifle aboard, a Marlin 30-30. If the caliber doesn't ring a bell, think John Wayne with a lever action rifle against his shoulder. I'd left it mounted on the port side when I'd worked on _Angel_ prior to leaving. A half-used box of shells lay inside one of the bunk lockers. I'd bought another before I left.

Finally satisfied, I drove back to the store, parking in the same elongated slot I'd used before. With the boat packed and the Durango empty, the itch to get underway ran strong. I killed the engine, took one last look around to make sure I wasn't missing something I'd need, and then climbed out and headed into the store.

Tracy still occupied the checkout station, this time busy with a customer. She glanced over when I walked in and pointed toward the little office.

"She's in there. She said to tell you to come on in when you got back."

I nodded, crossed the entrance way, and stuck my head inside the open door. Elsie finished stuffing a water bottle inside a day pack before she looked up.

"All packed and ready to go?"

I gave her a lopsided grin. "I suppose so. I keep wondering what I've forgotten. I'm sure I'll remember about the time I get to the island."

She swept her hand in a broad wave. "There's plenty out there in the store. Go wander around a while."

I shook my head. "I have enough for now. If I get out there and need something, I can always make a trip back in. It's not that far. With the motor, I'm guessing that I can make the crossing in an hour or so."

She slid her chair back and motioned to another just inside the door. "Come on in. Have a seat. Let's settle up on the money end of things. Give me your keys too. I'll have Tracy run you back down to the dock. She can pull your Dodge out back when she returns."

I fingered the money in my pocket. "You said five dollars a day, right?"

"That's what we talked about, yes," she agreed and then frowned. "I can cut that down for you though. Let's just say this whole disease thing is a bust and you end up coming back. How long you planning on being out there?"

I had set aside three hundred, figuring that within two months I'd know one way or the other.

"A couple of months at the most," I told her.

She looked thoughtful. "I grew up over there, born and raised not a hundred yards off the bay in Portsmouth. My father moved us to Wilmington when I was twelve. I have family buried in the old cemetery."

Her voice trailed off, but came back strong.

"I don't know you, Hill William, but I know people and I know faces. You're about as harmless as a toad frog."

I said nothing, unsure of how to take her comment and wondering where it was going.

"I'd like to go back and walk the town once more. Stop by the graveyard and see my people one more time, just walk around and remember things."

A calculating look slid across her face.

"How you feel about riding me over? I'll cut the cost of storing your vehicle in half if you wait until tomorrow, take me over in the morning and bring me back late in the day."

She raised her eyebrows and leaned closer, reminding me of a salesman trying to close a deal. "And I'll even top off your gas tank for the trouble. You don't have to worry about us either. Just drop us off and go about your business until it's time to come back."

Taken aback by her request, I still didn't miss the change in pronouns when she switched from me to us.

"You don't even know me," I blurted out. "This place is full of people with boats. Why do you want to ride across to what amounts to a deserted island with a man you just met? That's like some crazy story you read in the paper and wonder how someone could just go off with a stranger."

To my surprise, Elsie rolled her eyes. "Hill William, I worked with some of the best profilers in the business. I know a lot more about you than you think I do. You could get ornery if crossed bad enough or put in danger yourself, but you're a straight arrow. If I ride over there with you, you'll bring me back, even if you're cussing all the way."

She waved a hand in the direction of the window at the opposite end of the office.

"What other boats? This time of year that lot out there should be packed with pickups, SUV's, and four-wheelers. The fish are running, but the people ain't."

Elsie canted her head toward the road outside her window. "The ferry should be pulling out every hour this time of year. It's not. It's doing one run a day when it has enough cars to make a dollar or two. You're the only sure bet I got."

Knowing what I know now, Elsie would have probably won that argument had it run its course. She has a way of nudging people over to her point of view. Whether her maneuvering or my stubborn nature would have won that particular debate turned out to be a moot point because about the time I opened my mouth, a voice sounded behind me, an angry, snarling voice I'd heard a couple of hours before, standing outside my window telling me that the one thing I had done wrong was drive on its fucking road.

I turned, slow and careful. The sheriff stood near the cash register. His head barely fit underneath one of the cluster lights hanging from the ceiling. Another inch or two and he would have had to duck. The size didn't bother me much. The look on his face did.

D. Little had passed the point of simple anger. He towered over the magazine rack near the checkout stand, his fists clenched in rage. Unfortunately, his fury had a target.

Even more distressing, that target happened to be me.

Chapter IV - The Ride

"I told you to get the hell out of my town."

He spat the words out in a deep, rumbling growl that sounded like an earthquake had rocked its way through his body. Little looked like a mountain and talked like one too. His sunglasses hung from his right shirt pocket, aligned so as to bisect the badge above. He'd taken off the hat, revealing a massive forehead and a low, thick brow ridge. Dark eyes glared out from under heavy eyebrows as thick as my finger.

He looked mean and angry. I felt like David standing before Goliath, only I had neither rock nor sling to defend myself. He shouldn't have taken off the hat and sunglasses. Without them, even his size couldn't distract from the fact that D period Little was one damned ugly man.

I gave him a broad smile.

"Actually Sheriff, I believe the correct wording had something to do with me being on your road. As you can see, I have removed myself from it. In fact, I was just sitting here thinking that if Mr. Little dropped by, he would be most pleased to find me not on his road."

Little's face turned red, so red that if I'd been living in a cartoon world, steam would have shot out of his ears.

For a long moment, I thought he might say hell with it, pull his gun, and shoot me. About the time that idea had run its course, he did something almost as bad. He reached for the handcuffs at his belt.

"I've had it with you, Hillbilly. Turn around, and put your hands behind your back."

I stared at him.

"You're arresting me? For what?"

His hand went to his gun.

"I said turn around. Do it NOW!"

When you're in that spot, it's not worth opening your mouth again. Everything that comes out of you at that point would go on record as part of the resisting arrest charge he would tack on to the reason he invented for arresting me in the first place. Anything physical, even bumping into him when I turned would evolve into assault charges as well. He had me and he knew it. Even worse, I knew it.

I grasped for something that might ease the situation, not wanting to simply give in and be carted away in the back of his cruiser. I'd insulted the man's genitals though. No matter which route I pursued in my mind, all of them ended up right back at that one sore spot.

The lawman tugged at the button flap that held the pistol in its holster.

Elsie shot out in front of me.

"Here now, Dwight. What's all this? Why are you arresting my nephew? What's he done?"

Little's face turned even redder. The thought slid through my mind that I might just be missing the million-dollar shot. All I needed was a camera. I had the caption. I could see it screaming from the front cover of one of those supermarket tattle-tale rags. Somewhere below the celebrity divorces and just above the little Daily Devotion pamphlets would be my picture of Dwight Little sitting atop a caption that read _NEANDERTHAL FOUND!_

"Your nephew?" He ain't old enough to be your nephew, Elsie. Why you doin' this? He's just a bum running up the coast looking for an easy place to lay low. I'm telling you right now, this ain't it."

She put her hands on her hips. "He's my sister's grandson, you dolt. He come to take me over to the old home place. His grandma, MY sister, wanted some pictures of the house and the graveyard. She couldn't come herself. When I found out William was going to do it for her, I decided I'd ride along with him."

She turned to me. "Isn't that right, nephew?"

Elsie Morgan was not a tall woman. Standing in front of Dwight Little, she looked like a tiny, gray-haired doll. Her eyes glinted with humor, not the funny kind, the you're-stuck-with-me-now kind.

I smiled tightly. "That's right, Auntie. We were just talking about that as a matter of fact."

Little looked at her and then at me.

"You told me you didn't have any kinfolk in Atlantic."

I've never been a good liar. I don't know why they came so easily with Little.

"Well Sheriff, to be honest, I was trying to protect my aunt here. She's got some years on her and is getting frail. I didn't want any trouble for her."

Little looked like he was about to explode.

Elsie's voice split the sudden silence.

"Frail?"

I glanced down. She seemed mad enough to smack me. Fortunately, she vented her emotions on the giant behind her. She whirled around and stared up at him.

"Now you go on, Dwight. William here hasn't done anything to you or broke the law. Besides, we'll be out of your hair in no time. I was packing my bag when you come in."

"Elsie, damn it," he began.

"Don't you go cussing in my store, Dwight Little," she snapped, rising up on her toes. "You know I don't put up with that kind of language here. Now go on."

"But Elsie..."

"Am I going to have to call the Judge? I will if you keep this up. There's no call for you to be bullying him and no cause for you to be standing in the way of me going across to the island. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. You go arresting my nephew and the Judge will put him right back in here before you can get him out of the parking lot."

She raised a thin finger and shook it at him.

"Don't think I won't."

I've never seen a man deflate so fast. Little's face turned sullen. He looked over the tiny woman in between us.

"Make one mistake. I'll be there. That's a promise."

I'd always thought it funny how people walked when their pride was wounded and they needed to preserve at least a little dignity. The lawman's gait couldn't have been stiffer if someone had rammed a pineapple right up his rear.

Elsie waited until the door swung shut behind him before she turned to me.

"Call me frail again and I'll whack you with a rolling pin," she said and then smiled sweetly.

"You ready to go?"

I glanced out the side window. Little's car still sat in the parking lot.

"I reckon I am."

She offered a smile sweet enough to drip honey. "I thought so."

Elsie snatched up the bag she had been holding when I walked into her office. Leaning out, she called to the girl up front.

"Tracy, go out back and fetch Daniel. I need you to run us all down to the boat dock. Park his truck next to the shed when you get back. You can lock up then and take the rest of the day off."

Tracy's eyes brightened. "Yes Ma'am. I'll get Daniel and meet you all out front."

Elsie held up her hand. "Wait a minute."

She turned to me. "You got food on that boat?"

I nodded.

"Tell Daniel to grab a couple of sleeping bags while you're back there. We're going to need them tonight."

I stepped between them.

"Whoa, hold it right there. You said I was to bring you back. You didn't say anything about staying over."

Elsie glared up at me. "By the time you get us up there, the sun will be going down. I got no intention of riding across that sound in the dark."

"Where are you planning on sleeping?" I demanded.

"Your boat," she retorted. "It looked plenty big enough for me and the boy."

Little's car slid by the office window behind Elsie. I wanted to curse.

"And where do you expect me to sleep?"

She grinned. "Outside, anywhere you want—on the seats, in the dirt, on the beach. You have plenty of choices. Don't worry. We will take good care of your Angel."

The woman leaned to look around me.

"Go on, Tracy. Grab a pound or two of that new coffee on the way. I'll be wantin' some of that in the morning."

The girl's voice sounded behind me. "I'm on it, Elsie. I'll throw in a few more things if you don't mind. I know he doesn't have anything a woman would want."

I turned and watched her go.

"Who's Daniel?" I asked when she had disappeared.

"My great-grandson," she answered. "I've been planning on taking him over. Kids ought to know their history. Today might be the last chance I have. Come on now, let's get going."

"You said great-grandson?" I asked as she scurried past me. "I know I'm not supposed to ask, but how old are you anyway?"

She didn't even look back.

"Old enough, thank you."

"What about his mother? What's she going to say about you dragging him off like this? I don't want Little turning this into a kidnapping case. Lord knows he would."

She snorted and handed me the bag she had been packing. The weight of it told me she'd packed more than a water bottle.

"I have custody. That should tell you right there about his mama. Now take that out to the truck. We'll be out in a few minutes."

Daniel turned out to be six years old. He seemed tall for his age, but the truth was, I had no idea how tall or short a six-year-old should be. He had chestnut-brown hair that reached down to his collar and eyes that carried some of Elsie's gray. Where hers looked like chipped ice, however, his were darker like rain clouds brewing on the horizon.

He said nothing when she introduced him, but stood close to her side, face pale and expressionless, arms hanging limp at his sides. Something about his stance seemed odd, almost lifeless. I studied him for a moment trying to decide if he was autistic or perhaps had suffered some type of brain damage. I hadn't felt the urge to talk to Becky in over a year. I did then, wondering if she knew what conditions left someone looking like a zombie.

I offered him a smile. "How you feel about a boat ride?"

The boy stared at me, his gaze both unwavering and unsettling.

I glanced up at Elsie.

"He don't talk much," she said, reaching out to pull him closer. The move seemed oddly protective, as if she felt she needed to stand between the two of us. I started to ask her if he was okay, but decided I didn't want to know. The kid seemed odd from the get-go, like he belonged in a horror movie, something with a title like _Satan's Spawn_. I'd been roped into carting them across the sound in return for avoiding handcuffs and a free ride to the county jail. Spending a few hours with the kid wouldn't kill me. On the bright side, it didn't look like I'd have to deal with him whining or crying.

We piled into the Durango a few minutes later, Elsie and Daniel in the back seat, the checkout girl riding up front next to me. Thoughts of autism disappeared when we pulled up next to _Angel_. Daniel didn't abruptly turn into a normal six-year-old, but he did perk up considerably.

He seemed fascinated by the sailboat, his flat eyes suddenly alert and darting from one thing to the next as if trying to take it all in at once. He studied everything on her, playing with the lines, fingering the wooden tiller and running his hand across the compass dial. He saw me watching him and looked up with those somber eyes, holding my gaze as directly as any adult ever had.

"What do you think about the boat?" I asked him.

He ran his fingers along the gunwale, his face impassive and his gaze unflinching.

"It will keep us safe when we go to the island."

The words came out soft, yet matter-of-fact as if he hadn't been judging _Angel's_ sea-worthiness in general, but speaking specifically to the crossing. The tone, the phrasing, the manner in which they were delivered carried too much knowledge to be coming from a body that small. I stared at him, feeling as if I were looking at someone old and frail stuffed inside a child's body.

"Is that a fact?"

He grinned suddenly, showing too many teeth in the process. I stepped back, startled by the strange expression.

"Yes, it is."

Despite the warmth of an afternoon sun blazing overhead, I felt chills rise along my arms. Before I could ask him anything else though, Elsie popped her head up from the cabin.

"Well, Hill William, are we goin' or not?"

I tore my gaze away from the boy and saw Elsie standing in the open hatch. Her eyes flickered from me to Daniel and back again.

I nodded. "Yes, we are."

After unhooking the aft line from the cleat on the dock, I headed forward to take in the bow line. On a twenty-three-foot boat, that means I walked back up to the point the cabin rose out of the deck and then used a handrail to edge along the tiny space between the cabin and the sheer drop to the water. _Angel_ had lifelines. My father had called them idiot lines. When I'd asked him to explain, he'd retorted that only an idiot would rely on lifelines, that they should be viewed as a last resort rather than a safety net.

Daniel sat next to a recessed handle embedded in the cockpit seat when I returned from taking in the forward line.

. "Open that locker beside you. Grab a life jacket for yourself and one for your grandma," I told him. "Throw another out there for me."

Elsie's voice sounded from inside as I clambered back down in the cockpit.

"Who taught you how to pack, Hill William? This place is a mess down here."

I ignored her and looked at Daniel.

"And make sure she puts the thing on, okay?"

He said nothing, but rose and started working at the latch that held the hatch cover in place.

Satisfied, I made my way to the stern and settled into the fold-down pilot's chair. Removing the key to the kill switch, I thumbed the start button. The motor fired instantly and settled immediately into a smooth idle. A fifteen-horsepower motor on a boat _Angel's_ size would normally be like putting an electric trolling motor on a barge - which meant in most cases the vessel would be greatly underpowered. Sailboats were different animals though, where speed wasn't determined by the size of the motor, but the shape of the hull. A motor half the size Dad had picked could easily push the boat to its maximum.

I hadn't argued the point. I figured, the boat belonged to him. He could hang a jet engine off the back if he wanted.

When I eased engine into reverse, a bit of his stance became clearer. The boat slipped away from the dock with the motor at idle. Once she was clear, I shoved the gear shifter into forward, cranked up the throttle a couple of notches, and pushed the tiller hard to port. The bow came about instantly, cutting a deep arc and swinging her nose out toward the open sound. I left the throttle where it was, barely a third of the way to full and kept her swinging while I watched the compass. A couple of course corrections later, _Angel_ pointed north-east.

The moment the bow cut through the water, I forgot about Dwight Little's fury and Daniel's odd, knowing eyes. Neither could wash away the sense of freedom that came with pulling away from the dock, of shedding the trappings of society and leaving them behind. The world would keep turning. The people on it would continue to squabble over everything from land to taxes, to what some ate and others smoked. The debates, the blame games, and the finger-pointing would still rage. Even a deadly infection threatening to wipe the earth slick couldn't shelve humanity's instinctive need to gripe, complain, and hate. Some would undoubtedly die. Some would probably live. The only certainty I carried with me devolved to a simple belief that as long as more than one survived, the infighting would continue.

Along with the freedom, came a heightened sense of responsibility. The same society that offered all the ill-will, also offered protections—people like Dwight Little when he was actually doing his job and preserving the peace, like doctors and EMTs only a phone call away. I knew even as the excitement swelled that the farther I went, the more responsibility I bore, not only for my life, but of the two hitchhikers aboard.

I kept the needle on the compass centered squarely between north and east. Navigating on water had little in common with driving a car, where the course taken was determined by roads laid out in connections that looked like a giant spider web. Travel on water tended to be much more fickle, with wind, water, and weather conditions not only playing huge roles in laying a course, but often determining whether or not you could go at all. Unlike cars that travel on surfaces graded out for them, boaters also have to take depth into account. Water too deep rarely presents a problem. On the flip side, shallow water often equated to jittery nerves and cautious maneuvers.

History had littered both books and coastlines with shipwrecks where the fatal blow didn't come from giant waves, but rather running into the bottom, a fact driven home with a punctuation mark in personal terms on a trip with my father years before. We'd been coasting along in a lake situated high in the mountains of North Carolina. Just ahead, off to the starboard side, a small buoy marked a sandbar near the surface. A speedboat coming up from behind had swung right instead of left where deeper water would have carried them past us. Instead the boat had struck bottom about a hundred yards ahead, the impact ripping the motor off its mount. The two men inside had been thrown forward with one suffering severe lacerations after running face first into the windshield.

Elsie had commented on _Angel_ not being suitable for the open ocean. She wasn't. That fact played in her favor in the waters of the sound. The boat carried a keel that could be raised or lowered from a hand crank located inside near the sink. Keel down, her draft ran almost four feet. Keel up however, and she could float in a foot of water. Taking her into the deep swells of the open ocean wouldn't just be stupid, but borderline suicidal. She hadn't been designed to ply the seas. She'd been built to run along the coast and gunk hole in bays and estuaries. That she did exceedingly well.

A mile or so ahead lay a channel carved out of the bottom by the Army Corps of Engineers that sliced deeper water across the sound. Elsie wanted to go to the north side of the island. The cut ran directly across to the southern end where the flow of currents in and out of the inlet had carved a natural groove along backside of the island. We could take that route to the old village if we could find it.

With the keel up, _Angel_ might have been able to take a more direct northeast course. She could make headway in less than a foot of water, but the thought of trying to work my way across shifting sandbars with night closing in didn't set well. Nor did I want to be put in a situation where changing tides left us either grounded or me in knee-deep waves trying to push her out after she hit bottom.

The more I thought about heading north, the less I liked my options. The only bright spot I could find in the messy water ahead related to distance. If disaster struck, at least we wouldn't be bogged down miles from land.

Daniel stepped up into the cockpit and canted his head back toward the cabin, his life preserver firmly locked into place. Leaning out to look past him, I saw Elsie's diminutive figure clad in day-glo orange moving about inside the boat.

I pointed to the tiller.

"Want to drive for a while? I need to get the GPS and depth finder mounted."

As strange and mature as he seemed, I had no idea what type of response I'd get. I shouldn't have worried. Daniel quickly proved he still had some boy in him.

"Me? Sure, I'll drive."

I climbed out of the pilot's seat and motioned for him to take my place. Once he'd settled in, I passed over the tiller and pointed to the compass.

"See that red line? That's our direction of travel. Keep it halfway between north and east, or halfway between the N and the E."

I made my way over to the compass and put my finger on the dial. "Right here, that's where we want this tall red line to be. I'll watch for the buoys marking the channel. Once we get there, I'll set _Angel_ on a new course. You can steer some then too if you want."

He settled back and grabbed the tiller with an air of importance. I should have warned him. Tiller-steering doesn't take well to a heavy hand. The instant he pulled on it, _Angel_ swung abruptly to the left.

"Easy," I told him. "It doesn't take much and remember, the tiller turns the boat the opposite way. Push it left, she turns to the right. Pull it toward you, she goes left. Just ease her back now, slow."

I waited while he brought the boat back in line and nodded.

"There you go. See? It's not hard. Just watch the compass and you'll be fine."

He nodded intently, staring at the little red marker as if afraid it would disappear. I fought back a grin. The last thing I had to worry about was venturing off course. Daniel would fret over a degree or two of variation—at least until he realized that manning the helm was actually a chore. I watched him for a moment and then figured I'd better get busy while his interest held.

The GPS and the depth finder both had permanent mounts on the bulkhead outside the cabin. I set them in place, hooked up the power to both units and plugged the transducer cable into the depth finder. Both flared to life with bright screens, the GPS in full color, the other in black and white. The depth meter instantly noted a water depth of six feet and began running a continuous scan of the bottom drawn in a thick dark line across the gray background. The blips floating by marked fish swimming underneath.

The initial reading indicated that _Angel_ was making about five knots, surprising since the throttle was still stuck at about one-third.

With that done, I crawled back atop the cabin roof. The box containing Dad's chopped-down dune buggy had two straps running across it, securing it on either side to cleats mounted specifically for the task. I checked to make sure they were tight, then went forward and wound up the dock line I'd tossed on the deck earlier. I double-checked the head stay while I was there, taking an extra turn on the turnbuckle.

Satisfied that nothing would slide off or come crashing down on my head, I moved up to the pulpit and gazed out over the sound. We'd left just before noon. The high angle of the midday sun kept most of the glare off the water, with only occasional flashes marking the passage of the short waves. No more than fifty yards ahead, a green buoy marked the edge of the channel.

I turned and headed back to the cockpit. Daniel still sat with his eyes glued to the compass.

"The channel is just ahead. Start bringing her around to starboard."

He looked up confused. I pointed to the right side of the boat.

"That way, slow and easy."

_Angel_ swung around in a gentle arc, the compass needle sliding from north east to dead east as she turned. About halfway through the turn, the depth meter suddenly dropped to twelve feet. I climbed up on the cockpit seat and looked ahead. A heavy wooden post rose from the water about a quarter mile ahead. Above the high tide mark, a red triangle identified the next channel marker. I looked back at the green one we'd just passed and estimated the width of the channel to be a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty yards wide.

"Keep the red line on the E," I told Daniel, again using my finger on the compass dial to point out the new heading. He nodded and went back to staring at the dial. I sighed as I realized that I'd have to keep an eye out myself. The boy might keep the boat on course, but he would run over another vessel in the channel without ever seeing it.

"Aren't you going to put on your life preserver?" he asked without taking his eyes from the compass. I looked back at the one he had laid on the cockpit seat for me and grimaced. I hated the things.

"Everyone on a boat should wear them," the boy said solemnly.

Elsie stuck her head up from the companionway. "That's right. Everyone should, even you, Hill William. Now, how about I turn on some music and fix us some lunch?"

She looked up at me.

"I'll cut some slices off one of the FOUR hams I found down here. You need a better diet, boy. By my reckoning, fifty pounds of potatoes, six pounds of butter, and a sack of lemons make up most of your food."

"There's more than that down there," I protested. "The forward berth is full of stuff and there's a cooler full of meat under the starboard bunk."

She crinkled her nose. "I said most of your food. Yes, there's more, but half of what you're gonna eat is right there in them three things I said."

I spread my hands out wide. "Yeah, and those things go well with seafood. I wasn't joking when I told the sheriff I was going fishing."

She snorted and disappeared inside the cabin. A few seconds later, the Beach Boys boomed from the interior, all of them wanting to go to Aruba, Jamaica, and desperately pleading with a pretty girl to go along with them.

I don't know where she found the radio station, but the tunes rolling out of the cabin could have been advertised as solid gold from the seventies and eighties. By the time Elsie stepped up into the cockpit, Bob Marley had extolled the virtues of simple life with "Three Little Birds," and Creedence Clearwater Revival had everyone tapping their feet to "Down on the Corner."

The music washed away the somber atmosphere that had permeated the boat ever since we'd pulled away from the dock. I'm no singer, but the songs proved too catchy to stay silent. Even Daniel, who spent most of his time at the tiller looking like a figure from a wax museum, started swaying and bobbing.

Elsie passed up a plate full of ham and cheese sandwiches and a bag of chips. Once I'd taken them, she followed the food with a jug of iced tea I picked up in Morehead City earlier that morning. She cranked the volume down a few notches and then joined me and the boy in the cockpit.

The next twenty minutes or so is seared into my memory as one of the last best moments before the fall. The day could not have been better. Small cotton-ball clouds dotted an otherwise clear, Carolina-blue sky. Angel gleamed in the bright sunlight. The tiny waves on the sound glittered like diamonds, tossing shards of light from their shoulders as they passed. The temperature couldn't have been much over eighty, with enough wind to keep the heat down and the bugs away. Behind us, the mainland hovered on the horizon like a strip of gold with fall colors glowing in the late autumn sun.

I kept watch for the buoys while we ate and talked, nudging the tiller right or left as needed in order to cling to the narrow strip of deep water. Elsie had finally brought Daniel to life, regaling him with stories of her early years growing up on Portsmouth Island.

I could have taken a year of such days, even better, a lifetime of them. The same radio that crafted such a feel-good atmosphere, however, also took it away.

Just as I picked up the last bit of my sandwich, the music faded. The announcer, who'd been cranking out hits in a voice that sounded like he'd rolled a joint the size of Texas on the way to work disappeared, replaced by a woman whose crisp, clear tones sliced away the laid-back atmosphere. Where the DJ had blended feel-good music in a smooth voice free of worries, the woman had us all straightening up in our seats:

This is Christine Arapaloe. We have a news bulletin to pass on. Stand by please.

This just in from the AP: Overnight reports across the nation have been bleak, with estimates as high as 2000 people succumbing to The Fever in the past twenty-four hours. As many as 20,000 more reported to hospitals last night with symptoms consistent with the disease. California and Arizona still lead the nation in both infection rates and mortality rates. New figures show that the virus is gaining a foothold. New York, Georgia, Illinois, Ohio, and North Carolina have all reported sharp increases in the number of patients arriving in Emergency Rooms with the flu-like symptoms. Mortality figures from those five states represent a third of all deaths reported yesterday.

Officials believe the scattered nature of the Fever is related to airport hubs located in the affected areas. As of nine a.m. this morning, The Fever has been identified in 40 of the 48 states in the continental U.S. No official estimate of the potential impact has been released as yet.

Just minutes ago, CDC spokesperson, Ann Trankin, released a statement indicating that the disease may be evolving. Recent cases in California have shown a troubling increase in aggressive behavior occurring in the later stages of the infection. Hospitals in Los Angeles and San Diego issued guidelines yesterday advising that patients be restrained in their beds as the disease progresses.

Authorities are asking residents to stay home and to eliminate all travel that is not absolutely necessary.

A press release from the White House this morning indicated that the president will hold a news conference this afternoon at four p.m. to address the issue with the nation.

We will broadcast it live. Stay tuned here for the most up-to-date news.

Silence reigned for a long moment, both on the radio and the boat. Then the doper came back and introduced the Three Dog Night. I'd lost my taste for the music though. Elsie apparently had too. She rose and headed below. The radio clicked off moments later.

The Fever had been like a monster storm, clinging to the horizon for some time. The day Elsie and her grandson rode across Core Sound with me marked the day that the clouds opened. What rained down out of them wasn't water, but a version of hell on earth straight out of a horror writer's nightmares.

That day marked the beginning of the end. What no one knew in that moment was that within an unbelievably short period of time, at least half of the people standing next to them would be gone.

None of us knew we'd be more afraid of the dark than the disease either.

### Chapter V - Portsmouth

The southern end of the island appeared off the port bow an hour later, rising out of the blue water in a long, dark smudge that looked like an artist had taken charcoal to the horizon. Following the channel on the way across proved easy enough. Red and green buoys, spaced about a quarter-mile apart, marked the course. A bi-plane slid by overhead at one point, engine droning. I imagined the same waypoints looked like a dotted line drawn across the sound from pilot's viewpoint. Red noted the left or port side. Green marked the right. On the way back, the opposite would hold true, leading to the old sailor's term of "Red, Right, Return." The simple phrase told mariners on which side of the buoy they'd find deep water, and for the geographically dysfunctional, which way the bow should be pointed.

The inlet between Portsmouth and the southern Core Banks vividly demonstrated the shifting and fragile nature of barrier islands. Hurricanes had battered the narrow waterway, choking it with sand at times and carving out new paths at others. At one point, the label next to the tiny slice of blue connecting sound and ocean had moved several miles south after a series of storms redrew the coastline, erasing the waterway like a teacher swiping chalk from a blackboard.

The Core of Engineers had stepped in and dredged a deeper channel in firmer sand three miles to the south. I'd first seen the inlet in the early eighties. The passage had looked man-made in those days with the sides clearly marked and arrow-straight. I stared at the opening between sound and ocean as we approached. Time had softened the crisp lines into a more natural coastline with wind and water combining forces to round out the entrance and wear down the neat edges on either side.

Ahead, a concrete dock marked the point where the Atlantic ferry dropped off fishermen and campers. Beyond the scrub pine and stunted brush, a handful of tired-looking cabins sat near the dunes. I knew from my first visit to Portsmouth that they were used primarily by fishermen. The Park Service owned and operated the site which also contained a small shed where visitors could buy gas, water, and ice.

The thought brightened my day considerably.

"Hey!" I remarked, straightening up and craning out to look past the curve of _Angel's_ hull. "They have ice here."

Elise looked up with a frown.

"Yeah, so?"

I shot her a grin. "I just had a passing moment there where I almost fell to my knees to worship the god of fishermen and coolers."

The frown on her face deepened. She leaned over. "You okay, Hill William?"

I laughed.

"I'm better than okay. Ice means my tea will be cold and my glass will clink when I drink it."

She huffed and turned to Daniel. "The man is daft."

Ignoring her, I eased _Angel_ into the slack water well away from the dock and killed the engine. The instant the motor died, I raced forward and dropped anchor in less than six feet of water. Once the plow-shaped anchor hit bottom, I let out another twenty feet of line before I tied the end off. That extra line, called scope by sailors, would allow enough slack for the flukes to dig into the bottom.

With the sailboat tethered to keep her from drifting while I worked out the next leg of the journey, I headed back to the cockpit and checked the time. The little numbers on the GPS display indicated a passage time of one hour and ten minutes, marking the arrival at 1:08 p.m.

I'd downloaded charts of the entire island chain to an old laptop before I'd left Tennessee. Despite the early arrival, I didn't feel like celebrating just yet. The town of Portsmouth lay twenty-two miles north. With winter not far away, sundown would come by seven at the latest. At top speed, _Angel_ made a little more than seven knots. Simple math said we could make it in three hours. I didn't trust it. Picking my way through the sandbars and shallow water could easily double the transit time, especially if we grounded along the way.

My original plan also contained a visit to the abandoned village at the other end, but adhered to no hard and fast schedule. I knew a channel deep enough ran along the backside of the island for several miles. I figured I'd wander up that way sooner or later. The thought of trying to make the northern tip on the first day hadn't crossed my mind until Elsie invited herself along. I'd gotten us as far as my memory would allow. For the rest, I needed to look at the charts to see what lay ahead.

The laptop sat all the way forward, stored in the V-berth along with much of the food Elsie claimed I didn't have. The only place I could stand upright in the cabin was near the hatch, under the pop top. A toddler could probably walk through the rest, but no one else. That meant climbing across the gear I'd tossed in earlier, hunched over and trying not to bang my head on the ceiling. I looked at Daniel.

"There's a bag up in the bow, a computer bag right next to the shelves. Will you get it for me?"

He nodded and jumped down the hatch into the cabin, disappearing in the forward end of the ship faster than I could have made it to the sink. A couple of minutes later, he and Elsie crowded in close while I fired up the computer.

My first mistake became apparent the instant the chart appeared on the screen. We'd passed the natural channel running up the middle of the sound by a mile at least. A half-mile north of the position where we currently rested at anchor, the depth readings dropped to one or two feet all the way to the end of the island. The only water fit for passage lay behind us or out on the ocean.

Left to my own devices, the choice would have taken all of ten seconds to make. No one in their right mind would call _Angel_ a sea-going vessel, but the weather couldn't have supplied a better day to be on the ocean. From what I'd seen, I could've paddled a canoe up the coast. The water looked like a mirror laid out from one side of the horizon to the next. The wind ghosted through the rigging barely strong enough to swing the vane at the top of the mast.

Good water ran two thirds of the way up the core side of the island in a natural channel. Beyond that, we'd be picking our way through sandbars and marsh. We could run the entire distance close to top speed at sea. We couldn't in the sound. The longer I looked at the chart, the more it became clear that the ocean provided the only certain path to making Portsmouth by dark.

Still, I wanted Elsie to make the decision. With Daniel aboard, she had more at risk than I did. As captain, the ultimate responsibility for the safety of passengers fell on my shoulders. I didn't doubt _Angel's_ ability, but Elsie might. I thought it over for a long time before I pointed to the still water at the mouth of the inlet.

"In half an hour, water will be pouring through there. We can make it through now without much of a problem."

Elsie frowned and glanced toward the inlet.

I kept going, trying to get my thoughts out before she interrupted. "As best I can tell, the ocean is as flat as the sound. We can make it in three or four hours by running up the coast. If we want to stay in the sound, we need to backtrack about a mile and pick up the channel running up the middle. It will take us most of the way."

The old woman pursed her lips, her face thoughtful. "Most of the way gets us to what we used to call stupid water."

She looked up. "The water isn't stupid. People are for trying to go through it."

I nodded. "The last few miles would be nasty, for sure. That chart has depths of less than a foot across a lot of it."

I looked at Daniel as pointedly as I could before glancing back to Elsie. "I'll go either way. I think we can make it fine on the ocean side, but the call is yours."

She hesitated.

"The weather out here can change so fast you don't know what hit you until you're right in the middle of a bad day."

"I know," I said quietly. "I'm not worried about a storm slipping up on us. The air is too dry for that. It's the wind that has me worried. It's calm now, but out here you never know. Two hours from now, it could be blowing a gale."

I stopped long enough to let that sink in. "And we all know what that means."

"That we do," Elsie agreed.

I tugged on my ball cap and settled it lower to block out the glare off the water.

" _Angel_ can run in swells quartering off her bow, but choppy seas? Four or five feet is about the max I'd want to try over a distance like that. Anything more and we're in trouble."

She reached out and ruffled her grandson's hair. "What do you think, Daniel?"

"I want to go on the ocean," he said without hesitation. "The weather man said the wind would stay low until tonight."

"What weatherman?" Elsie asked him.

"The one on the TV this morning."

She looked up at me. "Well, there you go. The TV said the wind wasn't going to be bad. So, let's get going and do it while we can."

"Alrighty, mates," I said in my best pirate voice, "man your stations, cinch up your life jackets, and secure all loose items."

With the tide at dead low, we had to hug the center of the inlet to keep from grounding. Long sandbars ran out from the islands on either side like long, tanned fingers. Gulls and pipers picked along a shoreline fifty yards away. I kept the throttle just above idle and eased the sailboat through the still water.

Our timing worked out perfectly. Inlets act like a pressure relief valve, allowing water to slosh back and forth between ocean and sound. The moon's gravity drove that process in the form of incoming and outgoing tides. The water ahead looked slack in the thin ribbon separating the land masses. Any other time, the current would have been fierce.

I kept an eye on the depth meter. Less than five feet lay beneath her keel when we cleared the southern point. The place should've been crowded with fishermen, but only a few pickup trucks sat on the sand. I counted nine figures moving on the beach. All of them stopped to watch as we passed.

We kept a straight course out until the depth dropped to nine feet. I stepped down into the cabin at that point and pulled the release pin on the keel. It dropped with a satisfying thunk. _Angel_ straightened up immediately with the extra weight hanging below providing a much stronger center of gravity.

The water outside the inlet proved almost as calm as it had on the sound. Long swells, so smooth they looked oily, drifted in off the ocean barely a foot high and spaced far apart. As soon as the keel slid into place, I climbed back into the cockpit and shoved the throttle forward. The boat leapt as if wounded. The speed readout on the GPS quickly rose to seven and a half miles an hour. Even though the throttle still had a few more notches of power to burn, _Angel_ wouldn't go any faster. Physics insisted that she would have to ride her own bow wave to do that.

The bottom continued sloping downward, the water growing deeper and deeper as we left the island behind. The depth meter read twenty-three feet when I swung the boat into a turn that took us from a little north of east to due north.

Seven and a half miles an hour sounds slow. It felt like we were flying though. I'd let Daniel steer on the sound and saw no reason to change captains with the sea so flat. I told him to forget about the compass and just keep the island about the same distance off the port side. The depth meter had an alarm feature. I set it at ten feet and told the boy to cut the speed immediately if it sounded.

A few seconds later, _Angel_ heeled abruptly to one side as a low swell struck her nearly broadside. The instant it passed, she leaned heavily the other way as she slid down the back side of the passing wave.

Shock and fear washed over Daniel's face.

I grinned at him.

"It's okay. Steering out here will take a little more effort."

Looking out over the water, I pointed to the next swell. "Cut into that one and take it off the quarter rather than letting it sweep in from the middle."

I watched the wave with him.

"Just so you know, the boat will feel a little weird when we go through it, like she's huffing and puffing, but not going anywhere. That will pass once the wave goes by."

"Now," I told him when the swell was about twenty yards off the bow.

He pulled _Angel_ to starboard in a gentle arc. The wave lifted her easily and slid underneath with virtually no impact or heel.

"Now straighten us out."

The numbers on the GPS dropped each time he quartered a swell, and rose as we slid down the back of the passing wave. I sighed. The maneuvering would increase our transit time at the expense of making the ride smoother. How much more time was involved, I didn't know.

An hour later I had my estimate. We'd covered six miles with sixteen left to go. I headed below to tell Elsie. She'd retreated to the cabin shortly after we passed the end of the island. I found her on the starboard side bunk, fingers pressed against her temples. She opened her eyes as I approached.

"Something wrong, Hill William?"

I shook my head. "Just thought I'd let you know we're making decent time. We should be at the inlet in a couple of hours."

"Good," she said in a low voice. "That'll give us plenty of time before dark."

"You take anything for that? I have aspirin, Tylenol, Advil, maybe even a Goody Powder or two."

She sighed. "I never get seasick, at least not like other people. My head takes to pounding as soon as I get on the ocean. Nothing helps."

The lines at the corners of her eyes looked deep and strained.

"Don't worry about me," she said, "just get us there. That's the best medicine you can give me."

I searched for something else to say, but couldn't find any words that might offer any relief. Elsie was old enough to know how to treat her ailments and what worked best on most of them. If she needed to get there faster, I would do it if humanly possible.

I made my way back to the stern where I relieved Daniel at the tiller. Rather than seeming disappointed, the boy simply slid over and stared at me. Ten minutes later, the same flat, smoky eyes still watched me. He swayed in rhythm with the boat, leaning back slightly as _Angel_ climbed across a swell, canting forward when she slid down the other side. Occasionally, when a roguish wave sent spray arcing across the bow, he would flinch. Other than that, the six-year-old sat as still and quiet as a mannequin.

My mind worked through a handful of reasons. At first, I thought maybe he just wanted to watch me steer. That idea died after a couple of minutes. He didn't look at the tiller, didn't seem to care if the boat quartered the waves in the same way or if the ride was smoother.

From there, I ventured back toward thoughts of autism. What I knew of the condition centered on internalization. Daniel certainly seemed impaired when it came to social interaction and the constant stare could fall into the realm of repetitive behavior. At the same time, he seemed acutely aware of his surroundings and others. Not once had he seemed unable to communicate, but rather the silence came across as a choice.

No matter how I worked it around in my head, the kid just seemed odd. Elsie muted that impression somewhat by being constantly active, vocal on her opinions and quick to fill any gap in the conversation. When she was up, moving and engaged, I had little time to think about the boy. The longer he stared at me, the more I began to wonder if she'd adopted that type of behavior partly as a defense mechanism to keep attention on her instead of Daniel.

With too many avenues to explore and none of them producing answers, I decided to try and break the ice.

"You seemed pretty sure earlier when you said _Angel_ would get us to the island," I said and shot him a lopsided grin.

His eyes flickered as if his thoughts had been wandering and I'd jolted him back to reality.

"Yes."

The word hung in the air. I waited for an explanation, for him to offer insight into his certainty, anything. None came. I shifted uneasily. Social etiquette demanded that I not let the fledgling conversation die. At that point, I could have pissed all over social conventions and walked away without looking back. Truth was, I wanted him doing something other than staring at me.

I waved my hand toward the mast.

"Maybe someday, I'll take you out and let you sail her, maybe when I bring you and your grandmother back. How's that sound?"

He looked up and studied the tall aluminum pole as if noticing it for the first time. After a long moment, he shrugged dismissively.

"Grandma will come back. I don't know if you and I will."

"Sure, you will," I said, feigning a certainty I didn't feel. "This is a fine boat. She'll carry us back with no problems at all."

He grinned suddenly, the same abrupt and toothy smile that had sent chills scampering up my arms earlier.

"Not if the monsters eat you, Mr. William."

I pulled my gaze away from his face and glanced at the water ahead. _Angel_ took the light swells easily, her bow slicing through the glittering wavelets with barely a shudder. I couldn't say the same for my back. The eerie light shining in his eyes had the muscles clenching along my spine. I could deal with the words. From any other kid, the simple sentence would've generated a wry smile and reassurance that monsters didn't exist.

Not with Daniel. The smooth face of innocence that belonged on a child his age didn't exist. Other than the brief look of excitement when I'd let him steer, the boy seemed to have two states - either staring off into space like a zombie or uttering odd statements through a grin as garish as any that ever graced a Jack-O-Lantern.

Relief swept through me when Elsie's voice rose from the cabin. I swallowed the awkward response that had been forming on my lips.

"Daniel, come down here please."

He rose and walked away without looking back. I watched him go, the chills clenching the middle of my back and prickling along my scalp this time. He never returned. Half an hour later, I peeked down into the hatch. He lay next to Elsie. Both looked as if they were sleeping.

I left them lying and headed back to the tiller, happy to be alone and away from those eerie eyes.

Three times on the run north, we passed camps on the beach. A couple with a small child stood on the sand and waved as we passed the first. Beyond that, I saw no one. Other than a couple more campsites, nothing else marred the twenty-two mile run up the coast. The beach itself looked like a strip of sand clinging to a wild tangle of scrub pine and brush. I knew from my previous trip to the island that camping meant either waking up in the middle of the night with breakers pounding right outside the tent or dealing with hordes of bugs, most of which bit or stung. The island offered no alternatives. You either slept on the sand next to the ocean or headed back into the brush. .

Venturing behind the dunes at any time offered a hazard of its own. The swampy interior hosted millions, maybe billions of thirsty mosquitoes. Deer flies kept the smaller insects company and bit a hundred times harder. Where mosquitoes left their victims slapping every inch of exposed skin, the deer flies left them jumping and howling.

Every can of Deep Woods Off that I could find went into the cart when I shopped for provisions. I'd seen Dad come scurrying out of the bushes with his pants still undone and trailed by a dark, shimmering cloud nearly twice his size. The sight of him waving his arms like a madman and stumbling over his shorts had sent me rolling with laughter. The lesson stuck though. I had no desire to paint Blood Bank on my rear and serve up portions to the little insects.

We rounded the point at the northern end of the island at exactly four p.m. and slipped into the current of the incoming tide. The numbers on the GPS immediately jumped up a couple of notches to almost nine knots. Even though the depth finder still showed plenty of water underneath, I eased back on the throttle until our speed came in just under five knots.

Boats from Ocracoke had delivered tourists to the ghost town for years, occasionally dropping off campers, but mostly hauling visitors and ATV's across for an afternoon excursion. Somewhere up ahead lay the dock where they landed. The thought generated a confused blend of relief and worry. Any such facility would be out of the current and in calm water. Even so, I didn't know if I could tie up alongside or would need to anchor out from an abbreviated landing. The vanishing daylight didn't help. Glare from the low-hanging sun swept long shadows across the cockpit and offered a gentle reminder that night would be closing in soon.

I needed to get off the water and find a camp for the night. Even more, I needed our one and only form of transportation safe. Dad had planned on sailing her for thousands of miles, skirting rocky shorelines and countless hazards along the way. Not only would he roll in his grave if I put her in jeopardy now, I'd end up stranded with an old woman and a little boy. Neither proposition held any appeal.

I sighed and scanned the coastline. Even a sandy stretch of beach out of the main current would work.

I didn't have to wait long. The island terminated in a sharp point on the northern end. Just past it, a wide bay opened off to the left, curving inward like the back side of a sickle. Protected from wind and waves, the water inside looked like a sheet of glass. With an eye on the depth meter, I swung the boat toward the center, only noticing the small dock once I had the boat already headed in the right direction.

We'd barely cleared the point and slid in behind the lee of the island when the first mosquito landed on my arm. I swatted it away and dug in the locker under the pilot's seat for a can of Off. After spraying every bit of skin I could find, I turned to find Daniel standing in the hatchway. I tossed him the can.

"You'll need it. Make sure your grandma slathers some on too."

He looked doubtful.

"Whatever you miss, they will find. Trust me on that one. I saw a guy wake up one morning with a swollen band of flesh half an inch thick around his neck. He'd coated everything else."

The closer we came to the dock, the less it looked like an option. Short and stout enough to hold the ATVs the tour boats carried, the surface stood nearly four feet off the water. I didn't need a measuring stick to know that _Angel_ would stick past the end of it. The only way I might be able to line her up alongside without becoming a hazard to other boats, would be to plow her nose into the island.

The beach looked more promising. The gentle arc of sand curved around for a quarter mile at least. Thick patches of weeds choked the southern end. Just below the dock, a downed tree spread branches and snags at least thirty feet out into the water. I looked for a good spot and finally spotted an empty slice of beach fifty yards north of the dock where a thick pine marked the end of sand and the start of island proper.

The depth alarm squawked when we were still a couple of hundred yards out. Daniel jumped at the shrill tones. I gritted my teeth and hunched over the display, punching buttons until the unit fell silent. A moment later, the sound of the keel dragging bottom sent me scurrying toward the cabin to crank up the steel blade hanging below the waterline. As soon as it slid into place, I flipped the lever that locked it in the up position and headed for the bow.

Daniel sat at the tiller, his face as empty as it had been most of the day.

"Watch me. When you see me wave, kill the engine. The switch is right there next to the throttle. Turn it left. Got it?"

When we were about thirty yards offshore, I leaned out and waved my arm up and down. The engine died immediately. I let _Angel_ coast a bit more and dropped anchor in barely two feet of water. I paid line out to port until the boat had slid past and then looped the end of the rope in a quick figure eight around the forward cleat. When it caught, the sudden strain pulled her nose sideways while momentum pushed her stern around. As soon as her bow turned back toward the inlet, I undid the line from the cleat and let her slide backwards. Ten or fifteen seconds later, she grounded only a few feet from the shoreline.

I took up the slack in the line and secured it to the cleat. Racing aft, I grabbed another line from one of the seat lockers and looped it around the stern cleat. Taking the free end, I jumped off the back and tied it off to the pine at the edge of the beach.

Daniel stood in the cockpit, studying the shoreline. I wondered if he'd already started regretting his decision to come along. The strip of sand possessed few enticing features. Barely deep enough to call a beach, the bay looked like a trash dump. Bottles, jugs, bits of foam cups, torn sections of netting, and other debris littered the strand as far as I could see. Nestled among them, huge clumps of dead reeds and rotting grass painted a thick black swatch along the line where water met island.

"Well," I said under my breath, "we're here."

I didn't have time to consider anything else. Brush rustled behind me. I turned as a man and woman stepped out of the undergrowth. Both looked lost somewhere in their twenties.

The man waved. He stood close to six feet tall, had wild brown hair reminiscent of a Rastafarian, and a thick beard forming on his face. He wore frayed shorts cut from a pair of jeans. Time and the washing machine had left the edges raggedy at the bottom and laced with a white fringe that stood out against his deeply tanned skin. The light breeze drifting in off the ocean ruffled through a sleeveless white T-shirt that looked two sizes too big. His bare feet left a perfectly defined trail in the wet sand.

The girl wore a pink hooded sweatshirt, flip-flops, and what appeared to be a thin pair of man's sleeping pants. Despite the extra clothing, she looked cold. She'd pulled her hair back into a tight ponytail. Her face carried a pinched and worried look.

"Name's Joshua," the man said, walking forward and holding out his hand. "I guess you're stuck too, huh?"

I studied them both warily. On a city street, I wouldn't have given either a second thought. The brain expects social interaction in those situations. It doesn't on a secluded beach miles away from anything else. The pair stepping out of the bushes had triggered alarms on both the flight and fight sides of the fence.

Fortunately, sometimes reading people isn't much more difficult than looking them directly in the eye. His didn't waver or shift, and carried a sense of contentment.

I reached out and shook his hand.

"Stuck?"

The girl frowned.

"You haven't heard?"

"Heard what?"

She licked at lips that looked raw from sun and salt.

"The president banned travel this afternoon - all of it. If you can't get home by noon tomorrow, you are required to stay where you are. After that, no one can travel more than five miles from their present location. The government also instituted a curfew. Anyone caught out past ten at night will be arrested."

"That's not the word he used," Joshua broke in. "He said, 'detained,' like in a camp somewhere—and that's if they don't shoot you."

The look on his face festered somewhere between rebellion and fear.

I wanted to ask them why they were on Portsmouth in the first place. The news had carried threats of a travel ban for two weeks. Interstates had been virtually empty on my way down, perhaps in some degree from the constant warnings, but more so from the threat of the disease. The philosophical and _I'm-ok, you're-ok_ types could ruminate all they wanted about positive reinforcement. Fear proved a powerful motivator. Nothing drove the learning curve quite as succinctly as the thought of dying.

I wanted to ask them, but couldn't without enduring the same scrutiny.

"When did he make the announcement?"

The girl pulled her arms across her stomach. "About thirty minutes ago. The National Guard, police, Homeland Security, and FEMA are all mobilizing to enforce the ban. They're setting up distribution points for food and emergency supplies."

"You said 'noon tomorrow,'" I pointed out. "What happens between now and then?"

Joshua hitched up his shorts.

"If you can get home by then, you're supposed to go. At noon tomorrow, all travel stops."

He took a deep breath. "We heard that they're expecting a thousand people to be dead by nightfall."

I wiped at sweat starting to bead across my forehead. "They say how long the ban would be in place?"

His shoulders moved in a slight shrug.

"The government is estimating four to eight weeks, but no one really knows."

Something flickered at the corner of my vision. I turned to see Elsie standing in the stern with Daniel.

"We don't know if they're going to make us stay here," the girl said. "We're going to have a meeting up in the old town tonight. You're welcome to come."

"Who's _we_?" I asked her.

"There are nine all together, six in our group and some kayakers who set up camp on the lower end of town. There are three of them, two men and a woman."

She hesitated. "We've not talked to them yet. Joshua and I were heading down when we saw you coming in."

I pointed to Daniel and Elsie. "There are three of us. We saw a group down on the southern end. I counted nine there. We passed three camps spread across about fifteen miles of beach. I only saw people at one of them though."

The thought prompted another question. The point at the end of the island had been clear when _Angel_ had passed a few minutes earlier.

"Where's your camp?"

Joshua pointed back toward the ocean. "We're up under a willow at the edge of the beach. Like Denise said, we saw you pass. We thought we'd come down and say hello."

I nodded, trying to remember the stretch of beach just before the inlet. I couldn't. I'd spent the time focused on navigating the narrow waterway.

"When are you folks meeting?"

"Seven o'clock," he noted and turned to point up over the brush. "The old town is wide open. The houses are scattered around with a lot of room in between. We're going to setup a fire in the center."

I looked back toward Angel.

"Well, let me talk to them. They're local. I imagine we'll be heading back tonight. If not tonight, then we'll be underway before dawn in the morning."

The girl raised her eyebrows in a questioning look.

"I can get them home before noon tomorrow if we leave early enough," I explained. "We made the crossing today in about five hours. I don't think the woman will want to leave tonight. If not, we'll be at your meeting."

Joshua took her by the arm. "Sounds good. We'll let you get settled."

I watched them go, waiting until they had disappeared into the brush. When they were out of sight, I undid the line I'd brought ashore and headed back to the boat.

Elsie watched me approach with a frown. "Why you bringing the line back in? Who were those people?"

"Campers," I told her. "We need to talk, Elsie. The president issued a travel ban at his news conference. You have until noon tomorrow to get home. The only question is, are we going tonight or leaving early in the morning?"

Life is funny. A decision that seems sane and reasonable at the moment can look idiotic later. I knew how fickle the weather could be along this stretch of coast. Elsie knew better than I. We should have left that night, dealt with the darkness, and made the crossing back to Atlantic.

We didn't. Everyone was tired. Everyone wanted off the boat. She wanted to walk Daniel through the old graveyard and point out the family who had lived and died there. Elsie reasoned and I agreed with her, that we could leave early, make most of the run in daylight and have time to spare.

With the sun hanging low across the sound and a chilly wind springing up out of the east, the plan sounded good. To be honest, anything sounded more appealing than turning around and running the same stretch of water that we had just crossed. I hadn't slept much past five a.m. in twenty years. To me, the plan of action carried simple bullet points: get up early, make a pot of coffee, and do a full speed run back along the same route we'd followed coming over.

Six hours tops, I thought as I added up the times in my head. If we left by six a.m., I should have them on the mainland by eleven, and headed back before noon.

It seemed simple.

I hadn't trusted simple math. I don't know why I chose to trust a simple plan. All the decisions, all the points on a timeline that required the fates of three people to converge at exactly the right moment, had conspired to put me on the island with Elsie and Daniel.

In the weeks that followed, I often wondered if the gathering of the right people at the right time had been more than chance. By the time I learned the truth, I didn't want to know the answer. I wanted something I would never have again.

Freedom.

Author's note

This is the first installment of The Island. Parts of this story have been in my mind for years. Bits of it rose during story time, which at my house, was bedtime with kids in pajamas and Dad trying to figure out what the night's adventure would be. Usually that path took us somewhere with dragons, flowers, and tried to end on a positive note so they could go to sleep understanding why even ugly flowers need attention. The rest has been up there banging around for a long time, some of it inspired by an old TV show I used to watch as a kid. I'm dating myself somewhat here, but The Land of the Giants provided not only inspiration for some elements, but fueled a lifelong blend of mind walks.

When it came time to sit down and write it, the overall waffling point proved not to be the story itself, but the beginning. I didn't like starting in fantasy land. We all venture off into fantasy at times, but I needed a connection to reality. For me, that connection is a rock. Upon it are carved mysterious symbols no one has yet been able to translate. Legend holds that embedded in the lines and figures are directions for opening the Gates to the Underworld. I've seen the rock, visited it a time or two. You will too if you make it far enough in the series.

I also need to make some apologies in advance. The island depicted in this book is real. The descriptions in terms of basic geography are accurate enough. I haven't been since the hurricanes went through a few years ago, so I don't know what havoc the storms may have wreaked. The ghost town at the northern end does exist. The fishing shacks at the southern end exist. In between are miles of open beach, great fishing and absolutely wonderful camping. If you go, take everything you need. There are no stores, no real roads, no houses, and no electricity. The rule to obey is simple. If you don't take it, you don't have it.

The more detailed descriptions, especially of the town, well, they're not so accurate. In fact, the only claim to accuracy is that the buildings exist. Beyond that, I invented most of it. Don't rely on the story to provide a detailed tour of the old village. It doesn't. To those folks who have been there and feel offended, my apologies.

MS

