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The girl cleaned away the dried blood from my face with the damp towel before bottle-feeding me with a can of warm orange soda. As I guzzled the soda, I noticed she had already covered Mikey's head with a beach bag.
Once I had completely drained the can, I pointed towards Alvy with my lips: "Could you see if my friend's all right? You'll have to dig him out first-he's really sick."
The girl was padding toward Alvy when a noise distracted her; it had come from further down the beach. In the moon's luminescence, I saw a familiar tangle of hair and gangly legs. She saw him too. Her sarong of beach towels dropped to the sand. The boy had started to run.
"Get out of here," I barked at the girl. "Run and get help. Now!"
The girl didn't need to be told twice. She sped off towards the cover of the brush, kicking sand as she ran. Within seconds, the boy ran past me as well, silent except for a few measured breaths.
"Keep your fucking hands off her," I screamed. "I'm back here! I'm right here, you sick little fuck!"
But neither the boy nor the girl came back. I raged and struggled in my shallow grave, still unable to break free.
The next time I woke up, I felt the heat of sunlight on my face. But the sun was screaming.
I opened my eyes and was nearly blinded by a bright ball of fire. It was as though the sun had dropped from the sky and landed on the beach in front of me. But it was night-and the screams were coming from Alvy. His head was rocking back and forth in a blanket of flames, his skin already blistered, black and hissing. A short distance behind Alvy, I saw the boy, illuminated by the fire. A small jerry can dangled from his fingers.
"No!" I tried to scream, but all that came out was a dry whisper. My lips continued moving in a silent, incoherent fit of obscenities.
As Alvy slowly died, I was overcome by the smoke and the stench of burning flesh. The boy stood and watched for some time. In the flickering light, I could detect his faint look of boredom-before that hateful face disappeared in a wall of black smoke.
I wasn't sure how long I had passed out for-but when I awoke, the first signs of dawn were in the sky. I realized that I was facing heavenward; half of the sand had been pulled away from my living grave-and my hands were untied. To my right lay the girl, exhausted and clutching the hull of a broken toy boat.
As soon as she noticed that I was awake, the girl ran out of the small crater. In seconds, she returned with her tiny cooler, crammed full of juice cans and battered sandwiches. I wasn't able to eat the food, but swallowed the drinks she offered me. After a third can of pineapple juice, most of what I had drank came right back up again.
Despite the desperate look on the girl's face, we had to wait. She was in for a disappointment if she was expecting me to finish the digging. I was incredibly weak, and barely able to push the sand away from my legs.
Using the toy as a makeshift shovel, the girl resumed digging until I was free. Then all I could do was fumble on the sand, trying to coax the feeling back into my limbs. If our twelve-year-old sadist decided to return, I wouldn't have been able to defend either of us.
I tried to drink and eat a little more, as the girl and I stared out at the ocean. The sky above was overcast, but it glowed with a sickly yellow hue. Storm weather.
"Can you talk?" I eventually asked her. "Did he hurt you?"
I knew absolutely nothing about children. The girl could have been in shock or was simply unable to speak at all. The waves started to pick up, and she became agitated again, sca
Let's move.
Before we left the burial site, I armed myself with the jagged neck of a broken beer bottle and covered Alvy's head with a towel.
"I'll be back, Alvy," I told my oldest friend. "I won't leave you out here."
Even though I was exhausted, I felt almost high. Minutes earlier, death had seemed to be just around the corner. Now I had a fighting chance. I would have to go into hiding, without a doubt-Rody had co
Rather than risk being spotted on the beach, we walked under the cover of the tall grass, sticking to a well-worn path that snaked through the foliage. I let the girl lead, trying to keep up as best as I could. I was hesitant-and worried about being surprised along the trail.
Although the girl looked underfed, she had surprising energy, often ru
At one point, while the girl was far ahead of me, the brush became more tangled. I ended up veering off the path, taking an artery from the main trail. Before I knew it, I was back on the beach. The unmistakable hum of countless flies filled the air. Closer to the water, there were three dark mounds, each obscured by a thick cloud of insects.
I only recognized one of the corpses; all of them were buried neck deep, in a far-too-familiar ma
But I didn't say anything until I saw the wreck of the
Angelcake. The main fragment of the ship was imbedded bow-first in the sand, like a jet that had taken a nosedive. Smaller pieces of the wreck were strewn across the beach-including our illicit cargo; red and white pills dotted the sand everywhere I looked.
Whatever had happened to us, Rody wasn't behind it. And I was getting the feeling that the competition wasn't involved either. There was no decent explanation for any of it.
"This isn't real," I told myself . But then I felt that small hand grabbing my pant leg; the girl's wide eyes pleaded to me once again, urging me to move onward.
Back in the cover of the brush, we followed the trail up a steep incline. The grass and bushes started to give way to rocky terrain, with boulders the size of automobiles. Out of breath, I stopped and turned for a look back. From the higher vantage point, I saw that the "coast" was actually either the tail end of a narrow island, or perhaps a long strip of peninsula. The grassy ridge ran like a spine down the landmass, dividing two strips of beach. I had been a sailor for eight years along the East Coast, and none of this looked remotely familiar.
The girl's progress slowed considerably as she crept around the larger stones. The wind was stronger here, whirling between the boulders. As we came to the last cropping of rocks, I heard distant wailing; at first, I thought it was gulls. The girl immediately crouched down in a crevice of rock, motioning me to follow suit. The sound, on second thought, was too low-pitched to be birds.
"What is that?" I asked her, dropping to my knees. The girl put a filthy hand to my mouth; she was shaking, and wouldn't move an inch further. She pointed towards the opening at the end of the crevice. I crawled forward on my hands and knees, still unsure of what I was hiding from.
From this new vantage point, I could finally determine that we were on an island. The landscape declined sharply towards a rock-littered beach, much rougher terrain than where I had been imprisoned with Alvy and Mikey. The wailing had become much louder.