Terminal Island

Chapter Twenty-Two

EASTER PARADE



Circling the end of the pier out on the open water, Henry checks his injuries and finds nothing serious—the knife mainly slashed his coat. That was my favorite coat. Suddenly he notices a thick plume of smoke rising from around the coast, way back above the Casino.

“The condos,” Henry says.

“They’re burning the evidence,” says Arbuthnot. He guns the boat up the beach as near as possible to the Formosa Hotel and runs it aground. “This is where you get out.”

“Wait—what about you?”

“I’ve got a quick errand to run. Don’t worry—see to your woman and lock yourselves in. I’m going to call in the cavalry.” He hands Henry a revolver with tape on the handle—a .38 Special. “That’s a spare. Don’t hesitate to use it if you have to, then just get rid of it—it’s untraceable. Give me a push back out, will ya?”

In a few seconds Henry is back at the Formosa Hotel, bounding up the porch steps. Ruby is in the lobby, just hanging up the phone, and Henry is so grateful to find his wife still waiting, unharmed, that he falls to his knees before her and hugs her around the waist, pressing his face into her belly. “Oh thank God, thank God,” he moans.

“What? What is it?” she asks.

“We’re trapped here!” He starts barricading the entrance door. “They’re all crazy!”

“Who is?”

“Bunch of maniacs! They just almost killed me out there!” He breaks down, voice cracking. “Honey, I don’t know what’s happened to Moxie!”

“Nothing’s happened to her—she’s fine. Who’s trying to kill you now?”

Henry jumps up and grabs his wife by the shoulders. “What do you mean she’s fine?”

“Whoa. She’s still at Janet’s, having a high old time.”

“What?”

“Honey, I just spoke to her.”

“You what?”

“Yeah, I just got off the phone. They still haven’t left Janet’s house, but everything’s fine—the tram ran down and they had to recharge the batteries, that’s all. It takes a few hours. They apologized, but Moxie’s terrific—she’s having a great time. It sounds like a regular garden party over there.”

Henry feels like he’s cracking up. “Wh…are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. You had me worried out of my mind—I even called the police.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. I spoke to that woman deputy you told me about—she sounded a little busy, but friendly enough. She said they were understaffed because everybody’s at some local festival, but that they’re going to send a car around as soon as they can.”

Henry listens to this, incredulous. “What f*cking festival?”

“I don’t know. Some kind of wine expo outside of town—a big fall festival.”

“That’s bullshit! It’s bullshit!” Henry stamps around, ranting, “I’ve just been out there and it’s a Goddamn nuthouse. There’s a bunch of psychos running around in masks like it’s Halloween—I barely got away with my life! This is all some kind of f*cking game, the same as it was thirty years ago!”

Frightened by his outburst, Ruby says, “Henry—Henry, slow down, okay? I don’t understand what you’re saying. I know you’re upset, but sit back for a second and tell me what in the world you think is going on. And why.”

“Who the hell knows why? For money—for God or something. All I know is they’re doing it! I’m not making it up!”

“I believe you, but you’re going to have to stay calm, all right? For my sake.”

“Yes, okay, I’ll try…”

“For my sake.”

“Yeah, but Ruby, if you had just seen—”

“I know—shhh.”

“Yeah, okay, okay, but—”

“Shhh. Take a deep breath.”

“Hooo—okay, yup. I got it…”

“Relax…”

“I know…I know…phew.”

“We’re gonna get through this.”

“I’m trying, honey, really.” Henry wishes Arbuthnot could be here to back up his story. As it is, he’s afraid to show her the gun, afraid it will only freak her out more. “I think I’ve got it under control,” he says, head pounding.

“Good. You see? That’s better.”

“Ruby, just tell me something: When are they planning on bringing our daughter back?”

“Soon—within the next couple of hours.”

“Hours? No. You see?—no way. And you said the cops are supposed to be coming?”

“I think so. That’s what they told me. Probably any time now.”

“All right. Then let me ask you this: Have you seen or heard another soul today? Either outside or in the hotel?”

Ruby thinks about it. “No, because of this festival—”

“Stop! Stop it! Please!” Henry clutches his head as if to hold it together. “I can’t listen to this—it’s too much. I’m sorry, honey, I know you don’t mean it—you haven’t been out there. You don’t understand. You can’t. I didn’t used to believe it either, it seemed so impossible—I thought it was my imagination running wild. I wish I had listened to my gut, but I didn’t, and now it’s too late. But you have to trust me that we are in big trouble, major trouble, and—” Henry’s voice splinters “—and so is Moxie.”

Gently, Ruby asks, “What is it I don’t understand?”

Evil, honey. There’s evil, it’s real, and we’re up to our necks in it. “I’m not gonna—I just…I need us to be careful. If we’re going to wait here, we can’t sit in this lobby any more—we can’t see the street from here. I want us to go up to our room, lock ourselves in, and keep an eye out from up there.”

“An eye out for what?”

“I don’t know. Whatever comes.”

They carry their travel bags back upstairs and Henry barricades them in, shoving the bed against the door. Ruby doesn’t comment on this, watching her husband with worried sympathy. When she tries to turn the lights on, he snaps, “No! Leave it off.”

“Okay, okay—sorry. I just thought it was a little gloomy in here, that’s all.”

It is getting late. With the sun dipping behind the mountains, they can now open the curtains without going blind. Henry sets up a chair by the window and sits down to wait. From here he can see into the building directly across from them, but not all the way to the end of the street as he would prefer. For that he would have to be sitting out on the balcony in plain sight, giving himself away. His sniper training won’t allow him to do that. What he needs is a mirror.

He finds one: There is a large window across the way that is at a perfect angle, reflecting the lower part of the street. That’ll work.

“Do you want anything to eat?” Ruby asks, unpacking wine and olives and rolls and feta cheese.

“No.”

“You have to eat something. We haven’t had a bite all day.”

Henry absently accepts a paper plate and plastic cup from her and sets them on the windowsill. He can’t eat—his stomach turns at the thought—but he sips the sour merlot.

“You’re gonna make yourself crazy,” she says.

“S’not me that’s crazy,” he mumbles.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

After what seems like a long time, Ruby says, “It’s weird to have it be so quiet—the room seems empty without Moxie in it.”

Henry can’t bring himself to speak, throat tightening at the thought of his daughter. He nods stiffly, blinking tears.

“I miss her,” Ruby says. “But she’s okay, I know it. She has to be.”

Henry closes his eyes, nodding again.

Ruby nods back. “Of course she is. What could happen to her in a beautiful place like this?”

Evening settles in, the room and the street below filling with darkness. Henry’s whole focus gradually shifts to the reflection in the window opposite, which offers a thumbnail view of the lit intersection. This mirror image grows brighter and more clear as everything around it sinks into shadow. He stares deep into the reflection for any sign of movement, any furtive approach. Peekaboo, I see you.

Various situations play out in his mind, both good and bad. Best-case scenario: What if Ruby is right and that Janet girl were to just blithely return with Moxie, safe and sound as if nothing in the world was the matter? Oh my God—Henry doesn’t dare think of that: it’s tempting and cruel as a mirage in the desert. What if it’s the Sheriff’s Office, responding to Ruby’s call? Seems hardly more likely. The only help he’s expecting at this point will have to come from Arbuthnot—if anyone can take down this place it’ll be that guy. Henry wonders what he’s doing out there, if he’s all right. The memory of that nickel-plated .357 pressed to his head gives him solace—He can take care of himself.

But what if it is the police? Do he and Ruby just trustingly go down and let them in? They’ll be sitting ducks. Better to just hunker down and hope they go away. And if they break in, what then? Is he really ready to shoot it out with the cops? No. Face it—they’re at the mercy of these people. If the cops are part of it, then there’s no hope. There’s probably no hope anyway—if someone wants to kill them, where can they go to escape?

What about the hills?

“The hills…” Henry says.

“What?”

“Back up in the hills there’s this old abandoned mining camp—I saw it when I was a kid. If we can get out of town, we can hide there until help arrives.”

“Honey...”

Henry wearily interrupts her: “Look, I agree…for now. This is just in case, all right? Just in case we have no other choice. What if they don’t bring Moxie back? How long do you intend to wait?”

“Of course they’re bringing her back! Why wouldn’t they? Just shut up—I’ve had enough of your hysteria. You’re freaking out and you’re freaking me out, and I’ve had enough of it—I can’t stand it any more! My mother warned me that you were crazy before I married you. I’m beginning to think I should have listened to her.”

“Fine, I’m crazy, this is all in my mind—I’m having combat flashbacks. But just try to remember what I’ve said, that’s all I ask.”

“I wish I could forget it.” Ruby lays down under the covers and puts a pillow over her eyes. “I really do.”

Henry keeps watch. There is no activity, nothing happening outside, and after a while it becomes hypnotic, the square reflection across the way swelling as if drawing him into a tunnel, swallowing him in a buzzing cave of echoes. He feels weightless, slightly seasick, accelerating down a watery chute.

He is jerked back by a series of sounds—distant smashings and screams, then the low, ponderous beating of drums, punctuated by shrill explosions of brass: Bum…bum…bum…bum…BWAAAAAA-AH! Bum…bum…bum…bum…BWAAAAAA-AH!

Something moves in the distance. Henry catches his breath.

Deep within the looking-glass, a seething, phosphorescent mass like a molasses-thick wave comes into sight, surging forward under the streetlights, undulating and turning as if alive, a gigantic millipede at the intersection, gliding on thousands of legs around the corner towards the hotel. The window frame and the ceiling of the room are suddenly alive with jumping light and shadow—spotlights are shining up from the approaching host. Henry doesn’t dare lean out to see better; he must rely on the reflection…and the sound.

It is people. A big crowd of people carrying candles and lights, walking in silent ranks like a funeral procession. There are Boy Scouts and flag-bearers and businessmen and soldiers in uniform and a high school marching band. Between trumpet blasts, all Henry can hear is the shuffle of hundreds of feet on the pavement, a sound like water washing gravel…that, and the almost subliminal booming of the drums, so deep it resonates in his back teeth.

Henry says, “Ruby.”

She doesn’t respond, and with great difficulty he wrenches his attention off the opposite window. He is startled to find his wife standing right behind him, looking over his shoulder with bars of light and dark playing across her moon-blank face.

Unnerved, Henry turns back to the reflection. The crowd is halfway up the street, and now he can make out some kind of display at the forefront: a hideous, leering face with flames guttering in its eyes and mouth. Though he can’t see it very clearly, Henry experiences a primal shock of recognition and dread—he has seen that face somewhere before, much larger, cut in stone and bearded with rockweed. It is a fragment of his earliest and most primal fears—the ones quickest to be discounted in adulthood.

Oh my God…

What is that? What does it mean? Busting out in a cold sweat, Henry stares into the reflection, trying to pick out more detail, as if by squinting hard enough he can decipher the meaning of it all, that everything will become clear.

The end of the parade is in sight, a fleet of golf carts trailing the marchers. The leaders are right below the window, filling the street in front of the hotel. The drumming stops—now they are all just standing there. What are they doing? He can’t hear anything, doesn’t dare go out on the balcony to find out. All of a sudden it is the most imperative thing in the world to him that he be able to see.

Henry shifts around trying to get a better angle of reflection, and just as he thinks he has found the perfect position, the image is obliterated by whiteness—someone in the room opposite has turned on the lights.

“Not now, not now,” Henry cries, guts spasming with alarm. “I can’t see!” He cranes his neck in despair, unable to get a decent view.

In his panic he fails to see what is most obvious: a hulking, horned figure standing in the lit window opposite, staring across at him.

“We gotta…get out,” Henry says, his tongue gone thick and dry as a rubber eraser.

Why can’t he stand up? Moving causes his head to spin, and his face feels boiling hot. Something is wrong—something’s been wrong—but he has slid into it so gradually it seemed like a product of exhaustion and shock. Now he realizes he can’t think straight—he’s woozy and on the verge of passing out. Sweat trickles down his nose and it takes him two tries to wipe it, his hands are so far away.

“Honey—?” When he reaches for Ruby, needing her arm to lean on, he finds only empty air and collapses to the floor.

It is almost a pleasure to lay there, to let go—Henry doesn’t bother trying to get up. Not even when he hears the bed being shoved away from the door, and Ruby opening it to go out. A second later he hears the lobby door being opened and the shuffle of many approaching feet, the stairs creaking under their weight.

One, two, three flights, that unhurried squeaking and shuffling, and then they are on the third floor landing, flashlight-beams darting every which way as dozens of shadowy figures gather right outside his open door. Henry can hear them whispering, “Where is he?” They can’t see him because of the bed.

“I’m right here,” Henry says, voice slurred against the carpet. His eyes are drooping and he can’t find his gun. “Come and get me.”