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  I can’t stay here, but no way am I going back there.

  Wait.

  There’s Ray. Thank God there’s always Ray.

  I’ll go to Ray’s. Me and Rawson that I thought was my friend followed him home the night my smartass new best friend dropped his phone and we cut and ran. Ray came around the corner and scooped it up just as we went around the other end, so we laid back and followed him home. We were almost there when Rawson mumbled words I didn’t get and we had to turn back, but I think I can find the place.

  Rawson, you never know, but you can always count on Ray Powell. Him and me, we’ll find Merrill and when we do, boy, she’d better have a fucking good excuse. OK, at least he’ll have food. Plus, guys like Ray always get their phone or computer first because they’re so important; he’ll have one, if who or whatever’s doing this to us is handing them out.

  It takes way too long to find Ray’s place, these fucking white boxes all look alike. It’s scary outside and cold as fuck, which it always is until the sun starts up and like to roasts you on a spit. I have to hurry! I go running along, running along, searching for the one thing that makes Ray’s house different, he leaves his shutters open, like: nothing to be afraid of, nothing to hide, so I’ll know it when I …

  Holy fuck!

  One of those front doors bangs wide— Ray’s door! It’s like a smack to the head. Then a long and terrible noise blows out of the house in a mess of words. Words come rolling down the steps like rocks in an avalanche, and it stops me cold. It’s Father, bawling like Jonah, right after the whale yacked him up. My fucking father shoots out of Ray’s front door, whiter than death and shivering in his dead white scrubs which … Which!

  There’s a great big monstrous splotch on the front of his scrubs. Fuck, is that blood?

  When he sees me he lunges down the steps and smashes into me, going, “Don’t go in there,” as he shoves me back and back, all the way back down that walk leading away from the house. “Don’t go in there, in the name of God!”

  Fuck! “What is it, Father, stop that! Father, what?”

  He won’t stop shoving and he won’t say. “Bad, Edward. It’s bad.”

  “What’s wrong, what’s wrong?” I need to see, I’m scared to see, I don’t want to know, I’m slobbering-crazy because there’s something terrible in there and I don’t know what. “Ray? What is it? Where’s Ray?”

  He plants his big, flat hand in my chest like a STOP sign. “You don’t want to know!”

  My heart shrivels up. “Did you hurt him?”

  Dead eyes, the father looks at me with round, dead eyes. “No.”

  But he knows something I don’t know, and I want to kill him dead. I’m not asking, I’m telling. “What did you do to him.”

  “No.” He keeps pushing me back, back out into the street, and for the first time ever he isn’t shitty or pissed off at me, he’s something worse, that I don’t know the name of. “Just. No.”

  I run at the old bastard yelling “Shut up,” because I don’t want to hear, I’m flat-out begging because I don’t want to know, “Shut up, shut up, I need to know!”

  “No,” he says, and after all that, Father is so quiet that it scares the crap out of me. “You don’t.”

  And I can’t help it, I go, “You fucking motherfucking son of a fucking fartface fucking fuck…” It just comes pouring out; I hate him so hard that I run out of words because I don’t know how it happened and I don’t know who did it, but my friend Ray’s still in there, and he can’t help anybody now.

  I choke on clots of muck, I cough them up and I stumble. Father grabs me by the hoodie and yanks me back on my feet. I’m like to strangle and too fucked up to fight. At least I don’t cry.

  Then OMG Father, the great white Moses of Kraven island, Father turns into the great white Avenger. He shoves me with one fist jammed in the back of my neck, so I stumble down the street while he steams along until finally he whips me around and drags me instead. Then he goes running up front walks, yanking me up the steps while he pounds on doors to wake up the living, roaring to raise the dead. “Out, God damn you. Emergency!”

  “Let go. You’re scaring me!”

  No way. Everything my father is, everything he kept backed up inside him from the day his so-called people turned against him until today, rolls up in his throat and explodes into the street and I get that he’ll do anything to get them back.

  “Out,” he screams. “Out, in the name of Ray Powell, come out!”

  After weeks of silence my father is larger than life and bellowing like eight hundred trumpets, all Noah and Moses and every one of the Avengers on a stick, with me bumping along behind him like a stuffed toy, all hurt and no bones. Everything he had backed up inside him crashes and pours out in a massive, supercharged rant. It won’t matter how hard I kick at his ankles or try to wrestle out of the iron claw, he is monumental, and I can’t stop him. It’s awful and kind of like, regal. Like there are minions with drums and trumpets ahead of him, clearing the way.

  First nothing happens, but as we cross the next street, something does. Doors in front of us open to Father, and behind us, people straggle out into the fresh air in ones and twos, rubbing their eyes and blinking like something that just hatched. The next thing I know, they’re falling in behind my fucking father, who has turned into a walking war-trumpet.

  When the crowd forms up for real and Father’s sure they’re following he lets go of me and blasts off, hellbent for it.

  Control.

  Outside like this, on the loose for the very first time, he is his own loudspeaker, running along bellowing, “MURDER, YOU IDIOTS. MURDER MOST FOUL!” It’s weird and terrifying, watching them fall in with the others, gathering mass and thumping along with only the sound of their breath huffing and the thud of their feet. After all these weeks indoors, they would have followed him anywhere, which makes him yell louder as he goes:

  “SOMEBODY MURDERED RAY POWELL.”

  All their voices come back all at once: “Murder!”

  Then he goes, “AND I KNOW WHO.”

  And his fucking people are all, buddabuddabudda, thoughts feeding words so fast that all my back hairs rise up as it comes out in a chant, “He knows, he knows, he knows,” marking the beat to my father’s rant, as— like that!— ordinary citizens of Kraven island follow the Power.

  Father’s legs pump up and down like cranks on the wheels of a steam engine, chuff, chuff, chuff. Then, my God, my God, more neighbors, assholes who haven’t been out of their square white boxes since Day One come out and fall in behind him, tens and dozens of people I haven’t seen in weeks piling out into the fresh air with their legs going up and down, up and down like Father’s, marching along in their white scrubs.

  Then Father screams:

  “I SAW HIM.”

  And I think, Oh, shit!

  They all go, “saw him, he saw him, he saw him…” Another couple of blocks like this and he’ll have every one of them mashed up tight behind him chanting “theymurdered theymurdered,” and “hesawhim … sawhim sawhim…” which makes me feel extremely weird, as in, scared and excited all at once. Then he yells, “THERE’S A KILLER OUT HERE,” and holy fuck, everybody else starts yelling too, “there’s-a-killer-theresakillertheresakiller” making that scary engine sound that warns you, Here I come, get out of the way, and where ten minutes ago they hated him for what he did in the plaza, Father has gone all Moses and turned the whole mess of humanity into an engine of destruction, roaring along like a runaway train.

  They run through the streets thudding along all rhythmic and terrible, and the noise that comes out of them, WUH, WUH, WUH— sounds like killkill kill, although nobody’s actually said it yet; then we pull up short in the plaza and oh, shit! Father screams. “We have to get him!” and people I used to know turn into a murderous machine, blaring, “Get him,” louder and louder, over and over, “Gethimgethimgethim. Get him, get him!” until Father jumps up on the base of the flagpole and raises his hand l
ike a fucking prophet and, son of a bitch, they all shut up all at once.

  “Yes!” Father shouts, like some kind of Holy Roller, “It’s the Northerner!”

  And his people shout, “It’s the Northerner!”

  He’s so far into it that I get sucked in and dragged along, “First he tried to steal our island!”

  “Robberrobberrobber.”

  God, does it all pile up in them then, all the shit that’s come down since we ended up here, the heat, the cold, the stupid food and the fucking scrubs and whatever kept us all inside our stupid houses, even I was getting mad, we’re all yelling, “First he stole our island…”

  Father brings down his arm like a baton. “And now this!”

  So everybody is all, “And now this,” because they’re here instead of home and we are fucking sick of it. They are Father’s people now.

  Somehow Father’s made it up on big old Delroy Root’s wide shoulders again, but this time nobody is about to drag him down because Father is in charge and he is screaming, “THERE IS EVIL IN THIS PLACE.”

  “Evil in this place!” They are in it now, “evil in this place,” repeating, repeating, “evil in this place” while I go silent because there really is evil in this place, but it’s not what they think.

  Then the old man hoists himself higher so he is almost standing, rising to a screaming climax that splits me wide and strikes me in the heart because this is Father, and he did see us sneaking out last night, me and my new best friend. “There is evil in this place and evil did this. Evil killed Ray Powell and evil put us here. Last night I looked evil in the face and its name is…”

  In the intense pause that follows, I hear the sound of a hundred people holding their breath.

  Then Father splits the skies with it: “Its name is Rawson Steele,” and, God

  Rawson Steele, right now, even I believe.

  “Rawson Steele, Rawson Steele, Rawsonsteele…” The mutter runs through them like a tidal wave but there’s a careful fufufuh because, not counting Father last night, when me and Rawson walked right past him and out that front door and he watched without blinking, only Merrill knew that Rawson Steele is here with us in east buttfuck, and that doesn’t mean that the guy I thought was my friend actually killed Ray Powell, like, murdered the only real friend I ever had in my life and I didn’t know it— at least I think it doesn’t, but there’s no stopping Father now.

  Wrong or not, the mean old bastard raises that arm again and brings it down like the flag at a NASCAR speedathon, bellowing, “Are you with me?”

  And everybody except me is going huff-Huff-HUFF; they’re, like, inflating, getting big and loud enough to fill the space and overflow the desert beyond it with their huge and terrible: “YES!”

  20

  Davy

  Friday

  “Man.” Easy in bleached denim, easy in his life, Earl Pinckney stands on his front porch, watching his old friend wade in from the swash. Davy comes up the bank in one of Ray Powell’s golfing outfits, wet to the knees of Ray’s marine green cotton pants. “You look like shit.”

  Grinning, he gives Earl the finger but a blind fool would see that Davy has the shakes, and not because the water’s cold. It’s like bathwater out there in the swash.

  Earl gives him a minute before he asks, “What was it like?”

  “Empty. It was like the island died.”

  “You mean, they died?”

  “I don’t think so. Just— everything that they…” He can’t finish.

  “Say what?”

  “That they left behind.” He struggles to find the right words, but facts keep sliding around. “Like the soul of the island just— went out.”

  “’Od damn, Ribault.” Typical Earl, trying to keep the tone light. “So, what? Did we miss the rapture or was it space aliens?”

  “Don’t.”

  “You’re not going to explain, are you?”

  “I can’t!” Deaf, dumb and blind boy, David Ribault. Can’t think, can’t speak …

  “Dude!”

  Urgency rushes in to fill the empty space. A thought jump-starts, “I’ve got to…” and the sentence dies. It’s a fucking imperative, and Dave Ribault is standing here going mwah mwah mwah like a koi fish because he can’t choke out the words he needs to finish this one. He knows it’s: got to do something major, but exhaustion sneaked up and murdered his brain while he was out there drifting around in Ray’s skiff and he doesn’t know what it is.

  Whatever the it is, it’s important. No, essential.

  Knows: Got to do that— but he has no idea what.

  “You OK?”

  Or where to start, Dave Ribault, shaking his head like a wet coon hound. Arf. “I’m fine!”

  Earl gives him a long, hard look. Like a good nurse, his best friend says, “Let’s get you inside.”

  “Your mom won’t mind?”

  “Not much she does mind, being how she is.”

  “Shit.”

  “Pretty much.”

  As they pass through the front room, Theda Pinckney looks up from the sofa, beaming. “Hello boys. How was school?”

  “Same as it ever was, Mom.” Earl gives her a big smile and hurries Davy past. To Davy, she looks the same. “It was fine.”

  “Do you have homework?”

  “Not today, Mom. I did it in study hall.”

  “Man, I’m sorry.”

  “She’s happy, wherever she is.” Earl waits until he has Davy settled at the kitchen table. Slips a juice box in front of him. Waits for him to drink it and then waits a little longer for the sugar to kick in. He says, “Dude, they took your car.”

  “Say what?”

  “They damn-all cleared the island of everything that rolls and everybody that’s not from here. Won’t matter who you are or what you tell them. If you don’t have that great big Resident plate on your bumper, you’re screwed.”

  The sun goes on shining in on Earl’s kitchen table, same as it ever was. In the next room Theda Pinckney sits in front of her TV, rapt, although the screen is dark. “Fuck.”

  “They towed yours away last night and when they check the exit list and you’re not on it, they’ll come looking for you.”

  “The cops?”

  “Any yoohoo with a gun and a badge, given the way things are. They can’t get to Kraven island and they can’t go home, so they’re all over Poyntertown like white on rice. Packing, every damn one of them, scared shit and loaded for bear. It’s lame, but if they catch you, you’re screwed.”

  Right. Getting here took longer than he thought. Hours wasted in that skiff, drifting until it was safe to sit up and row, and it was never safe, going flat every time police boats chewed up the waves or he heard the vibrations of another plane; hours of idle frustration and the weight of lost time turn Dave into a blunt instrument. He stands with his jaw set and his fists tight. “Because?”

  But you don’t do Earl like that. He puts on his easy, Don’t ask me, I just work here face, going all Gullah on him all over again, translation, don’t fuck with me. “Dude, they got so many theories they ain-fuh takin chances. We in Red Alert.”

  Running ahead of the unknown, short on sleep and sick with confusion, Davy lets it all out. “Don’t do me like that, mofo. Just don’t!”

  Earl takes a good long look at him. “Shit, Dave. I’m sorry. You’re worse off than I thought.”

  “I’m OK.”

  “Have it your way. Now sit the fuck down and I’ll make you a BLT.” Earl glares until Davy backs into a chair. He slides a coffee in front of the refugee, fugitive, whatever this week has made of him and spends too long on the sandwich, making time for Davy to reconsider and regroup. He works silently, laying out crisp bacon on paper towel to absorb the grease; he toasts whole grain bread, washes the lettuce and slices his tomato while the bacon drains and assembles the sandwich with just enough butter and mayo to make it hang together. He cuts it neatly and sets it down in front of his friend.

  Davy’s gone off
somewhere inside his head, so Earl just starts. “I’m not shitting you about the theories. We got experts coming out our ears. Feds and psychics and shrinks are on it, PhDs in every known science in the mortal universe are studying this thing. They can’t stop sounding off and every goddam one of them has a different idea, fools theorizing 24/7, and they don’t know shit. They’re talking everything from mass hallucination to the Rapture— oh wait, same thing. Third-world conspiracy, Them ganging up on Us. Bad doings in some government lab. Plague, your people running off somewhere they won’t get it. Nobody out here knows what came down or whether the government is behind it or God or the Russians or fucking Martians, it’s crazy out there.”

  Pre-occupied, drowsing in the familiar, comfortable kitchen, Davy hears what the dog hears: blarg blarg blarg.

  Like a worried kid, Earl spreads his hand: How many fingers? “You in there?”

  “Back off, I’m cool.”

  “It’s crazy out there and we don’t know shit. We can’t rightly find out, either. TV’s out, phone towers are stone dead, something killed ’em and we can’t get a fucking signal, damn radio’s useless now. Signal jammers from here to east Jesus. It’s a security thing.”

  This brings Davy back. “How do you get your news?”

  “Any way we can.” Earl nudges the sandwich plate. “Eat, goddammit.”

  Dutifully, he picks up the BLT.

  “Governor thinks it’s third-world pirates, like in Somalia; he’s got ’em all up there in Columbia, state of emergency, you’d think it was World War Twelve. They’re sitting around in the state house waiting for the ransom note.”

  “Like you could kidnap a hundred people all at once.” Davy’s hands are sliding around with the sandwich, shaky, like snakes he can’t control. No surprise. He puts it down. “What do you think happened?”