Terminal Island

Chapter Twenty-Eight

PIT STOP



“This is—ah, God!—where my mother and I first set foot on the island,” Henry says, as Ruby works the brazen quill out of his hand.

He can barely remember how it used to be; there isn’t much left. Just a gutted building that must have been the seaplane terminal and a paved ramp to the sea. The ocean is wilder here, the stony beach more exposed to the elements. Without the arms of the cliffs to hold it off, there is a steady wind blowing—it’s what made it a good place to land a plane.

Sheer cliffs have given way to dark flanks of mountains set back from the shore. As the coastline has flattened out, the road has leveled off to meet it. Even if that boat were to circle the point and follow them here, stabbing with its spotlight, it could not touch them in the same way as before—they are firmly on dry land, no longer trapped and helpless as suspects in a line-up. The water is far out there. And it is not as utterly dark; the sky opening up has exposed a thin husk of moon, low in the distance and yellow as a clipped toenail. In any case, the boat doesn’t bother keeping up the chase.

“Where now?” Ruby asks, tying him off with a strip of her shirt.

“We just stay on the road. Somewhere along here it cuts inland and heads up into the hills. How are you doing?”

“I’m fine. I’m worried about you—you’re bleeding pretty bad.”

“It’s not so bad. I’m more worried that I cracked my head again—I’m a little woozy. As long as I don’t have to run so hard, I’ll be fine. Now at least there are places to duck if we see somebody coming.”

“I don’t understand why they haven’t already.”

“I think we’re past the range of those electric carts. Maybe they can’t scrounge up a real car.”

The road veers away from shore, so that now they are walking into a dark cleft between hills, with greater heights rising beyond. Just up the road, square white shapes loom into view—rows of trailer homes facing each other across the road. The buildings look abandoned, silent and unlit.

“Are those houses?” Ruby asks.

“Yeah.”

“Who lives out here?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen this before. But it looks like it’s been here awhile.” Henry can see dim shapes of personal junk between the buildings: shabby patio furniture and beach toys. “It’s some kind of shantytown. Maybe for the summer workers.” Thinking of the condos, he adds, “Or construction crews.”

“You think anyone’s still here?”

“I don’t know. Probably not.”

“Should we try knocking? See if we can find a phone?”

Henry feels a sense of unease in passing between that gauntlet of shuttered buildings, a strong hunch they ought to get through as quickly and quietly as possible. “No,” he says. “I don’t think so. Phone’s no good anyway.”

It is dead quiet in the hollow, more so the deeper they go, the shore breeze dying down as the road climbs inland. There is something peculiar about the houses: Each one has a large painted eye on its front door—a symbol familiar to Henry because of his superstitious grandmother, who carried an evil-eye medallion with her at all times. The eyes seem to widen and follow them as they walk.

Get a grip, Henry thinks. I’m still high.

Passing under the oppressive gaze of those houses, he walks in dread, expecting something to happen any second, every fiber of his body tensed for it—but even when it does he is caught unprepared.

Hooves. The sound of hoofbeats, and a glimpse of rushing whiteness between houses. Henry has the briefest impression of a huge, sunlike face staring at him through a gap, then it’s gone.

“Did you see that?” he says.

“What?”

“You didn’t hear anything just now?”

“No—what?”

“It looked like…someone on a horse.” He doesn’t want to say, It looked like someone with a horse’s body.

“Where?”

“Just keep walking.”

They reach the upper end of the village without further incident. The road lurches steeply upward, cutting through brushy mountainside and turning so that the buildings are quickly lost below.

Leaving that haunted vale, Henry feels almost euphoric, the sweat cooling on his forehead. Home free, he thinks. Just a little farther now—a little bit farther.

He’s glad Ruby didn’t know how scared he was; he wouldn’t have wanted to alarm her. She seems slightly out of it, probably in shock, but better that than screaming hysterical panic. Let her stay this way until they are somewhere safe, that’s all he asks. He himself is at his limit, almost delirious with exhaustion. If he sat down now he couldn’t get up again.

“Just a little farther,” he mutters aloud, mouthing the words that are repeating in his head like a mantra.

Ruby catches him off-guard by asking, “Is this the way to the dump?”

“I’m pretty sure. I forget how far, but we should be able to stop and rest in a minute.”

“Good. I think I’m running out of steam, baby.”

“Me too. We just have to get off the face of this hill and find someplace where it’s not so steep, where we can leave the road and duck out of sight.”

“I hope we find it soon.”

“I know. I’m looking.”

For now there is no choice but to keep climbing—the only level terrain is the road itself; above and below are rocky inclines that are either vertical or thick with impenetrable briars. The view ahead is not promising, a winding uphill grade that turns in endless switchbacks, weaving its way up through a pass in the mountains.

Though he has been here once before, on that long-ago garbage run with Christy and her father, Henry doesn’t recognize the place or recall anything useful about it. He has secret interludes of panic wondering what they will do if a car should choose this moment to come along. He keeps thinking he hears hoofbeats and furtive sounds in the bushes—the snuffling of rogue bison and wild boar; bloody-eyed animals around every bend.

Echoing his fears, Ruby says, “What do we do if a car comes by?”

“We’ll hear it a long way off—plenty of time to get out of sight.”

“Well, I think I hear one.”

“No, I keep imagining sounds too. We’re just dehydrated.”

“No, listen!” She stops and grabs his arm.

Frustrated at losing upward momentum, Henry stops to listen. Ice-cold adrenaline sluices through his rusty plumbing: Ruby is right—there’s a car coming! He can hear its tires squealing around every turn, a furious, seeking sound.

“Son of a bitch. All right, come on. Stay right behind me.”

There is no place to go but up. Without a rope, it is too dangerous to try climbing down in the dark—they could lower themselves into a situation where they can’t get back up again. The only way to leave the highway will have to be by scaling the right bank.

They are approaching a place where the road corners sharply at a fold in the mountain, creating a steep gully. The desert brush is thick, but Henry hunches low and shoulders through it. Gored by sticks, he manages to find what he’s looking for: a dry watercourse that forms a natural crawlspace beneath the scrub; a few inches of maneuvering room against the rocky slope, with woody roots and trunks of bushes as handholds. Difficult but doable—barely doable.

Ruby is right behind him, not complaining. The car is closer, just below now, and they can hear a thin squabble of raised voices over the engine noise—the sound of men arguing.

I ain’t goin’ up there, one protests—they see us and it’s our asses! You know what they—

It’s your ass if you don’t do what I tell you to do, says another.

“Go faster, honey,” Ruby says.

“I’m trying my best. Stay close.”

“I’m practically up your butt.”

Listening to the car approach, Henry slithers upward, trying to find passageways through the tangled undergrowth. It is not tremendously steep here, just a matter of being willing to crawl on your belly through sharp thorns and God knows what venomous creatures might lurking in a place like this. One scorpion or spider, one pissed-off diamondback rattlesnake, and they would be screwed. Ouch—they could be getting bitten and not even know it.

Topping a hump of stone, Henry drags himself onto a relatively level shelf of dirt, scooting aside to make room for Ruby. It is a little scrape, some animal’s wallow or a natural den under the close ceiling of sticker-bushes. They are not more than fifteen or twenty feet off the road.

“This’ll have to do,” he gasps, lying on his back with unseen things tickling his nose and a hard root in his kidneys.

“You sure?” Ruby plops down beside him, blowing hair out of her sweaty face. “I was beginning to think you were looking for someplace with patio dining and HBO.”

“I never promised you a rose garden.”

“Shh!—jerk. Here they come.”

It is two vehicles full of people: the same pickup truck that Henry saw at the condos, and a big white SUV with dome lights flashing—a sheriff’s car. The bushes strobe neon red and blue as the vehicles squeal around the curve, their lights spiderwebbing Henry and Ruby in scrolling shadow, exposing them in their huddled fear like illicit lovebirds caught in the act.

“Get down!” Henry snaps.

Feeling totally exposed, he and Ruby press flat, trying to appear as small as possible under the force of those penetrating colors, which pause as if staring right at them...then sweep past. The cars billow on up the mountain, leaving a fading red afterglow.

In a few seconds Henry says, “I think we’re in the clear.”

Both their bodies relax a little; they start breathing again. “What should we do now?” Ruby asks.

“I think we ought to stay right here for the night. Hopefully by morning the authorities will have arrived.”

“I was hoping you’d say that. I can’t move a muscle.”

“Me neither.”

Trying to get comfortable, Ruby says, “Did it look to you like there was a chase going on? Like one was chasing the other?”

“You mean a police chase?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Yeah…just wishful thinking. Ouch—scoot over a little.”

“I would, but there’s a tree in my back.”

“I feel like I’m sliding downhill.”

“You have to kind of wedge yourself in between the roots. Just pretend we’re camping.”

“If I was camping I’d have an air mattress and a sleeping bag. And I wouldn’t pick the side of a cliff to bed down on. This ain’t camping, bunnycakes, it’s sleeping rough. A dog wouldn’t even crawl in here to die.”

“Would you rather look for another place?”

Ruby thinks about it. “No.”

“Then try to make the best of it. It’s only an hour or so until dawn—this is just a pit stop. Try to rest.”

“I’ll try.”

Henry gratefully fades out, all of his aches and terrors sinking into the welcome oblivion of sleep.

With a start he awakens in darkness, feeling very wrong. Time has passed; he is freezing, covered with dew, his every joint and ligament rusted tight. His mouth is so dry he chokes on his tongue working up enough spit to swallow. The sky shows the faintest hint of pre-dawn, a slightly paler blue. His hand scrabbles in the damp hollow beside him, searching for his wife’s arm to check her watch.

Ruby is gone.

Henry thrashes around looking for her, vaguely remembering her scooting away to pee. She said she was going to pee: I’m just going to pee, she had said—then he was out like a light.

“Ruby!” he hisses. “Honey!” Skidding on his butt down to the road, Henry gets clear of the bushes and stiffly stands up looking for her. She is nowhere to be seen, the misty ramp of highway running vacantly up and down.

Where the f*ck could she have gone?

Wait—he sees something at the top of the road, not far away: Lights. A dim glow up the hillside. Ignoring the nest of agonies that is his rickety skeleton, he heads towards it. If they’ve taken her, he doesn’t know what he will do, but something.

Play it cool, he thinks groggily. Scope out the situation. Determine the enemy’s strength, make a plan, and carry it out.

He thinks of his drill-sergeant—Gunny Ranklin—shouting, You’re a mean motherf*cker, Cadmus! Yes, sir! Say it!—say you’re a mean motherf*cker! I’m a mean motherf*cker, sir! I couldn’t hear you just now—it sounded to me like you said you’re a sorry-ass cock-knocker! I’m a mean motherf*cker, sir! Come again? I’M A MEAN MOTHERF*ckER!

“I’m a mean motherf*cker,” Henry mutters, slogging uphill. He is alert enough to know he has to be careful about giving himself away, and that some form of weapon might come in handy. As he walks he collects some good-sized stones in his jacket pockets, and a stout stick which serves more immediately as a cane—he’s a wreck.

Approaching the light’s source, he finds that the main road peels off from a secondary dirt road, a chained driveway that disappears through thickets of sage and juniper. That’s where the light is coming from—it is the headlights of two parked vehicles, the same ones from before. They are deserted, their doors hanging open. A sheriff’s hat is sitting on the ground.

With the utmost of caution, Henry creeps ahead, ducking from cover to cover as the path levels and then begins to drop off into a kind of natural amphitheater, a sprawling crater surrounded by steep ridges. The peaks are dark against the gloaming rim of the eastern sky. At once Henry can see fire—a dying bonfire crackling in the clearing below.

The ground around it is trampled and littered with bones. Beneath the woodsmoke smell is a smell of rankness: human waste and something worse, like charred hair. There is no one in sight, but Henry knows that fire could not burn untended for long. In fact it has almost burned down.

Hiding in a stand of Christmas trees, waiting for someone to appear, something to happen, he stares at the fire pit, hypnotized by the glowering embers and blackening bones.

There is a sound behind him, a soft shuffle.

Henry turns, heart leaping at the sight of a huge, grotesque figure lurching towards him. It is the bison-thing, its shaggy head black and matted with blood, its shapeless, humped body gliding like a phantom on skirts of filthy pelts. As it comes it lets out a low, chilling moan.

Zagreus.

Henry reacts instinctively, responding not so much out of fear as out of relief. Not panic, not panic at all—the terror is all burned out of him. Every ounce of his being is primed for desperate action, even grateful for the chance at it. It’s what he came here seeking—some kind of violent resolution, even death. With Ruby and Moxie gone, he has lost his faith in happy endings.

Raising his stick, he leaps to meet the thing, swinging at its drooling red snout. The strong stick breaks with the force, and the big buffalo head twists and flops sideways, hanging precariously for a second before capsizing and dragging the whole costume off with it. Its wearer staggers back a step, naked and exposed in the waning firelight.

It is the burly, bald figure of Carol Arbuthnot.

The big man is drenched in sweat and blood, his mutely-pleading mouth a hideous black pit, an open wound in which there is no tongue to form words, only sickening yawps. The man’s hands have been cut off and strung around his neck, dangling there rubbery and white as something from a novelty shop, but the blackened stumps of his outstretched wrists offering horrible proof. His bulging, fevered eyes gape at Henry like cracked portholes into a delirium of pure dread; he looks insane or heavily drugged…or both.

Henry shrinks back in horror and disgust at those eager stumps pawing his face. In frustrated rage and pity, he strikes the man down with the hilt of his stick, knocking him unconscious or dead. The huge man drops as if he was propped up on straws.

“Shit,” Henry mutters, teeth chattering from adrenaline and damp cold. “Who died and made you God?”

He wildly swings around for other targets but there is no one. Just him and poor Arbuthnot. Yet he senses some form of attention, like the ghostly eyes of those houses before—perhaps the island itself, its mountains surrounding him like the fingers of two cupped hands. The hills have eyes. Needing to sustain his momentum or collapse, Henry gets a fevered inspiration:

He picks up the reeking bison head and puts it on.

It is just a stiff rawhide mask attached to a patchwork robe, with sewn-in bracing to give it girth and a big buffalo hump. The skins are heavy and foul as rotten carpeting. Arbuthnot is also wearing hoof-like steel-toed boots, but Henry doesn’t bother taking those.

Looking out through the animal’s flaring nostrils, getting the hang of moving in this thing, Henry thinks, Loyal Order of Buffaloes, unite! Then he carefully makes his way down to the fire.