Bad Men

But as he stood at the door, he became aware of a presence beyond the house.

No, not a single presence, but many presences.

“Who’s there?” he called, but he expected no reply. Instead, he thought he saw a shadow move against the wind, gray upon the white ground, like a cobweb blown, or an old cloak discarded. There were more shadows to his left and right. They seemed to be circling the house, waiting.

“Go away,” he said, softly. “Please go away.”

He closed and locked the door then, and checked all the windows. He took a blanket from his bed, wrapped it around his shoulders, and sat as close as he could to the dying embers of the fire. He thought that he might have slept for a time, for he dreamed of shadows moving closer to the great picture window, and faces pressed against the glass, their skin gray and withered, their lips thin and bloodless, their eyes black and hungry. They tapped at the glass with their long nails, the tapping growing harder until at last the glass exploded inward and they descended upon him and began to devour him.

Jack’s eyes flicked open. He could still hear the banging and for a moment he found himself unable to distinguish between dream and reality. Then he heard Maria

“Come in,” he said. “What’s wrong?”

She dropped the bags she was holding, then knelt down and hugged the boy close to her.

“I’m sorry for shouting at you, Da

The boy began to cry again, but at least he hugged her back. Maria

“We need to get off the island.”

“There’s no way you can get away from here until this snow thins out some more,” he said.

“We can’t wait that long.”

Jack said nothing. She understood that he wanted more from her.

“Da

The boy did not need to be told twice. He passed by the old man and headed for the couch, where he instantly fell asleep.

“I’ve told some lies,” she said when she saw her son curl up with his eyes closed. “My husband isn’t dead. He was put in prison. I betrayed him to the police so that Da

She opened the knapsack and showed Jack the wads of notes. His mouth opened slightly in surprise, then closed with a snap.

“I’m not sure how he got it all, but I can guess, and so can you. Now he’s here on the island and he’s brought men with him. They’re close. I heard shots.”

She reached out and took the painter’s hand.

“My car is dead, but you have a boat. I need you to get us away from here, even just to one of the other islands. If we don’t leave, they’ll find us and they’ll kill me and take Da

She paused.

“Or they may kill Da

The old man looked back at the swing door of the kitchen, beyond which the boy lay sleeping.

“You told Joe Dupree any of this?”

Maria

“He’ll help you, you know that. He’s different.”

“I was afraid, afraid that they’d put me in jail or take Da

“I don’t know enough about the law to say one way or the other, but it seems to me that they’d be a little more sympathetic than that.”

“Just take us off the island, please. I’ll think about telling someone once we’re away from here.”

Jack bit his lip, then nodded. “Okay, we can try. This all your stuff?”

“It’s all that I had time to pack.”

Jack took a bag in each hand, then kicked the knapsack and said: “You’d best look after that yourself.”

They entered the living room, Jack leading. Maria

All that she could do was stare impotently at her husband, even as Dexter frisked her and took the gun from her coat. He raised it so that Moloch could see it.

Moloch gri

“Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just not happy to see me?” Moloch asked.

He stepped closer to her and struck her hard with his right hand, sending her sprawling on a rug. She lay still for a moment, then crawled across the floor to Da

“You’d better make that last,” said Moloch. “You don’t have much time left together.”

Moloch stared at his reflection in the painting, his face seeming to hang suspended above the dark waves that the old man had painted, the twin arms of the outcrops like horns erupting from his head, almost touching above his hair. He moved on to the next, a watercolor filled with blues and greens, before returning to the first. The waves in this version were very dark, almost black, white peaks breaking through, like the pale bodies of drowning men. A sliver of moonlight cast a weak silver glow across the skies above. There were no stars.

“I like this one,” he said.

Jack, seated on the floor, his hands bound before him with a length of clothesline, peered up at the intruder. He was deathly pale, apart from a smear of blood across his cheek. In the murk of the room, the blood appeared black against the pallor of his face, creating a strange resemblance between the artist and the work of art before which Moloch now stood.

“You go away and you can have it for free,” said Jack.

Moloch’s mouth twitched, the only sign he gave that he might be enjoying the joke.

“Something I’ve learned,” he said. “You get nothing for free in this life. Although I can say, with some certainty, that if you fuck with me, money is never likely to be a worry for you again.”

Dexter stood behind the couch. The appearance of the woman and the money seemed to have concentrated Moloch’s mind some. He was no longer rambling. Dexter began to experience a faint hope that they might somehow get out of this alive. His hand rested on the back of Da

“Make him stop,” said Maria

Moloch walked toward the boy, who attempted to shrink back but found himself anchored to the spot by the force of Dexter’s hand. Moloch reached out and touched the back of his hand to the boy’s cheek.

“You’re cold,” he said. “If you’re not careful, you’ll catch your death.”

He glanced at Maria

“He doesn’t look much like me. You sure he’s mine? Maybe he’s something that you and that dyke bitch cooked up between you with a turkey baster. She’s dead, by the way, but I suspect you knew that already.”

Maria

“Actually, I got to tell you that a lot of people are dead because of you. Your sister, her husband, fuck knows how many people on this island, all because you were a greedy bitch who screwed over her own husband. You try that out for size, see how it fits on your conscience.”

He turned to Dexter.

“How long have we been here?”

“Ten, fifteen minutes, maybe.”

“We can’t afford to wait any longer for the others, but now that we have a boat a little closer to home”-Moloch kicked Jack’s leg, causing the old man to flinch-“it looks like I have some time to kill, in a ma