The Wildman

Chapter FOURTEEN

Helping Hands





The hull of the boat buckled and boomed like thunder as it wedged between two large granite rocks in a small, shelter cove under a stand of tall pine trees.

Jeff was lying facedown on the floor of the boat, his body bent at the waist over one of the seats. One hand was hanging over the side of the boat, dangling like fish bait in the churning water. His face wasn’t completely submerged, but the waves kept rocking the boat from side to side, sloshing water over his face. Barely conscious, Jeff listened to himself snort and sputter, mistaking the sounds for gusts of wind, blowing overhead. He imagined the water was someone’s hand, repeatedly slapping him across the face. It was just enough to keep him from pitching all the way down into unconsciousness.

Please … Just let me lie here for a while … so I can rest …

His mind was spiraling deeper into the darkness that waited to embrace him. If he could just get a little more comfortable, he thought, and if whoever was slapping him across the face would f*cking stop it, the worst of the pain would pass, and he would be released.

The sound the boat made, crunching against the rocks, reminded him of someone grinding their teeth. He remembered how Evan had done that when they were kids, keeping everyone in the tent awake into the night with the sound.

But Evan … he’s dead now … right?

But this wasn’t someone grinding their teeth. It was too loud for that. It was something else … something he should be paying attention to because if he didn’t—

I don’t want to die.

—if he didn’t, things were going to get a lot worse.

When a wave lifted the stern of the boat, he flopped forward, his face going under water again. A cold, stinging rush tingled the insides of his nose and throat. When he opened his mouth to tell whoever it was to stop grinding his teeth, icy water gushed into his throat, gagging him. Sputtering and spitting out stagnant lake water, Jeff rolled over onto his left side, wedged open his eyes, and looked up at the sky.

A solid mass of black clouds unloaded a dense spray of water into his face. Still coughing and choking, he slapped his face with both hands and struggled to orient himself. Events from last night—

Was it really only last night?

—rushed over him in brilliant flashes of terrifying images that seemed distant and unconnected to him, as if he were remembering events someone had told him.

An image of Tyler’s sightless eyes and pale, white face with a bib of blood spewing across his chest hovered in front of him … and Fred, sprawled face-down on the beach … and Mike being thrown back as the night exploded with a bright flash and an ear-shattering explosion … and trees … and darkness spinning against the night sky … and freezing wet … and stinging cold … and an insane run through the dark woods that were alive with strange sights and sounds and smells.

All of these images and more etched the night like acid, casting weird, shifting lights that threw sudden shadows, stark and terrifying.

Jeff saw Ben, his eyes blazing with fury, coming toward him like a snake, ready to strike, but suddenly he had the distinct impression he wasn’t looking at Ben. Drifting in the night, he saw other figures, fleeting and less distinct. Jimmy Foster stared at him with hollow eyes, cold and dead. He made a subtle gesture with both hands as though beckoning to Jeff, pleading for him to join him. He looked so sad … so terribly alone. He needed company on these cold, bleak, endless nights.

And then another figure appeared. A huge, black silhouette that seemed to be cut out of the night shifted in and out of focus until—finally—it assumed a huge, demonic shape that towered above Jeff where he lay. Red eyes blazed like angry coals, piercing him like lances. Jeff felt an odd duality as if—somehow—he had become this demon and was staring down at this pitifully fragile human lying crumpled in the bottom of a fragile wooden boat.

Some part of Jeff’s mind was aware that he was dying, but as much as he wished he could let go and embrace peaceful oblivion, he clung desperately to life, struggling against the darkness that swelled up all around him like a towering tsunami that was about to crash over him. With the last vestiges of life flickering inside him like the dying flame of a guttering candle, he raised his head and made a feeble gesture toward the nearby shore.

There were figures in the forest, too. He recognized his mother and father. Both of them stood in the deepest shadows of the trees, holding their hands out to him, waving him forward, urging him to join them. His mother smiled with a beatific smile.

“I’m coming,” he whispered in a raw, crackling voice that squeezed all the air out of his lungs.

When he inhaled again, the freezing dampness of the night filled his chest like a gush of cold water. Again, he coughed and sputtered, thinking it was possible he had already fallen overboard and was sinking down to the slime-covered bottom of the lake.

The lowering sky suddenly opened up, and a torrent of rain lashed against him. Each drop that hit his shoulders and back stung like a tiny bullet. Crazed with pain and fear, Jeff somehow found the strength to get up onto his hands and knees, and lurch forward. His legs slammed against the boat seat hard enough to make him cry out. His hands dragged across the wooden thwarts of the boat, leaving his palms bristling with splinters.

The boat heaved violently from side to side as he crawled to the bow. The dark slash of land in front of him was closer … so close, but Jeff couldn’t find the strength to get out of the boat and onto solid ground. His arms and legs ached and vibrated with exhaustion. He had been pushed well past his limit, and there was nothing to do now except let go.

Let go … fall asleep … drift away to where the pain and cold will be gone.

But he couldn’t let go.

He couldn’t give up.

Not after coming so far.

Even if all of his friends were dead, his efforts would be wasted if he surrendered.

He made pig-like grunting sounds as he heaved himself forward. The rocking boat made the sky and land pitch crazily around him. He’d stop every now and then, convinced he was already falling, but then—miraculously—he felt someone touch him. Strong, solid, warm hands slipped under his arms and legs and belly and lifted him.

Jeff looked left and right, unable to see what was going on, but all he saw was a dense, black smear. He could no longer distinguish land from water or earth from sky. He had no sense of direction. He was flying … falling … drifting … tumbling into darkness … He was swimming in the rain-filled sky … He was crawling through chest-deep water … He was scuttling like a crab over rain-slick rocks that scraped his hands and knees raw.

You have to make it … You have to make it, whispered a small voice in the deepest reaches of his mind.

His hands plunged into cold water, splashing his face and reviving him with a sudden shock. But he was so far gone, he had no idea if he was moving or lying still. The dark band of the shore in front of him appeared to be closer. The uncanny sensation of unseen hands lifting him and keeping his face above the water got steadily stronger.

His left hand clamped around something rough and round. It felt like a gnarly wrist, but whatever it was, it was immobile, and he held on with the last shred of strength. It must belong to whoever was carrying him toward the shore even though he couldn’t see anyone beside him.

The dark swatch of land drew steadily closer, but the world still shifted in a crazy twirl. He had the distinct impression he was motionless, and the land was sliding silently toward him. Whoever or whatever he was holding onto was cold and lifeless, as stiff as wood. It took a long time to realize that’s exactly what it was.

A gnarled piece of wood.

He was clasping a tree root that had grown out into the water.

It took more energy than he thought possible to muster, but he dragged himself forward another few feet until he was out of the water and on the beach. Clawing at the rocks and wet sand, he lurched forward, inch-by-inch. His legs were useless weights, dragging behind him, and he chuckled when a line from Dickens’ A Christmas Carol popped into his mind.

“I wear the chains I forged in life.”

Is that what my body is? he wondered. The chains I forged in life?

The gritty sand rubbed his hands raw, but he was past noticing any pain. He let out a resounding bellow before he collapsed, face first, onto the first solid land he’d felt in—

How long?

He had no idea. All he knew was that he had never expected to feel anything solid underneath him again.

You’re not home free yet, buddy, a voice in his head whispered. He was amazed how some part of him could remain so calm and rational sounding under such circumstances, but then again … maybe it wasn’t him.

Maybe one of the people who had carried him to shore was talking to him.

His mind and body were screaming that he was finished and would just as soon die where he was rather than suffer any more.

He was on land, but he had no idea where the dock and parking lot might be. For all he knew, the wind and waves might have carried him to the opposite shore or back to the island. He would die wandering in the dark until the cold and damp finished him off.

He patted his upper right thigh with the flat of his hand, but his body was so numb from the cold that he wasn’t sure if he could feel the bulge of car keys in his pocket.

What does it matter? … I can’t make it.

He’d never survive long enough to find his car and get out of here, and even if he did, how would he ever be able to drive? His arms were lead weights dragging him down.

Still, the sensation was strong that someone he couldn’t see was urging him on. As he crawled forward, he couldn’t believe his arms and legs actually worked. Someone or something had to be supporting him, dragging him away from the water’s edge and into the shelter of the trees.

Once he was under the tall pines, the downpour cut off as sharply if someone had turned off a spigot. Rain splattered as it fell, hissing as it swept in harsh gusts across the lake’s surface, but he was protected under the trees.

Waves of exhaustion rolled over him. All he wanted to do was lie down, curl up somewhere, and sleep. Yes, sleep. Every breath made his chest and back scream with agony. He was sure several ribs were broken along with half a dozen other bones in his body. The knife-sharp pulsing in his wrists and neck made him wince, but he could no longer feel his hands or feet. When he leaned against a tree truck and tried to pull himself to his feet, the sensation of being outside of his body and watching this pathetic attempt to stand returned, stronger than ever.

You can make it … You have to make it, the voice in his head or beside him said again, and Jeff actually felt a spark of hope that he was going to make it. He would because he was no longer in charge of his own body. Someone or something else was making him move. Like a puppet. An indescribable energy surged inside him and around him, making his arms and legs move.

The world was spinning around like an insane carousel as he hugged the tree and pressed his forehead against the rough bark. He was only dimly aware of the stinging pain and the blood flowing down his face, but the pain—like the hands he couldn’t see in the dark—pulled him closer to awareness of who he was and where he was and what he had to do.

He groaned as he steadied himself on his feet, determined to move forward. He had no idea where he was going or what he intended to do, and he was surprised he didn’t fall down after taking the first step, but—somehow—he kept his balance. He was crying as he made his way through the woods, continually bumping into trees and stumbling over unseen rocks and roots. Several times he fell but somehow found the strength to get up and keep going.

When he looked to either side, he still saw indistinct shapes, shifting back and forth, darting in and out of view as they tracked him. A few times, he caught the cold stare of eyes that burned with red fire as they watched him. He wondered if these were the ghosts … not only of Jimmy Foster, but of everyone else whose lives the lake had claimed. The hissing rain as it fell through the trees all but drowned out any other sounds, but he thought he heard several voices, whispering to him. He couldn’t tell what they were saying, but even if they were just inside his head, they drove him on into the night.

* * *

Was it pure luck, or did some force he was only vaguely aware of guide him in the right direction?

Jeff was too far gone even to contemplate what was really happening to him. It took him a long time standing there, swaying drunkenly on his feet, to realize that the dark mass of the launching ramp angling up out of the water was no more than a hundred feet in front of him.

That’s impossible, he thought with a soul-deep shiver.

It had to be an illusion … a hallucination he was having moments before he died.

Sometime in the spring, he thought, some fishermen or boaters or maybe a group of hikers would stumble across his body. His flesh would have rotted away by then. Crows would pick his bones clean and, in the warming days of spring and summer, maggots would feast on his remains until his bones were stripped clean. He shuddered to think that it would be a long time—if ever—before his body was identified.

And what about Ben?

Would he get ever off Sheep’s Head Island, or would he die out there, starving to death when winter came?

Or did he have an escape plan?

He sure seemed to have every contingency covered, so why wouldn’t he have a fallback plan?

But what if he didn’t?

Maybe he didn’t want—or need—one.

Maybe he came into the weekend with such confidence that he would kill everyone that he never intended to leave the island alive. If he wanted to kill them to get revenge for his brother’s death, once he’d accomplished that, what more would he have to life for?

Or maybe Ben had a terminal disease … Maybe that’s why he had done all of this in the first place, and he was content to die now that he had done what he’d set out to do.

In the end, what difference would it make?

How important, really, were any of their lives?

In the great scheme of things, he, Ben, Mike, Tyler, and Fred all counted for little … if anything.

No one would miss any of them for long. The world would go on just fine without them.

No … whispered the voice inside his head. You’ve got to get back … You’ve got to make sure people know who did this and why.

The thought galvanized him, stiffening his resolve to make it to the launching ramp and up to the parking lot where the cars were parked. There was no way his cell phone would work, so he would have to drive out of here. First, though, all he had to do was get to his car … get it started … and turn on the heater so he could thaw out.

He hoped it wasn’t already be too late.

His hands and feet were so numb they might as well have been amputated. As he took a few tentative steps forward, he was sure his legs would fold up, and he would fall down, only this time he wouldn’t be able to get back up.

I’ve fallen down and can’t reach my car.

It felt like walking on stilts as he started along the beach toward the launch ramp. He reached an open stretch of beach where there were fewer rocks, but he kept stumbling in the mucky sand and tripping over his own feet. Gritting his teeth to keep from crying out, he moved one foot in front of the other.

Left … right … left … right …

No matter how hard he tried, though, the launch ramp didn’t look to be any closer even after he had gone for what felt like more than a mile. The world seemed to telescope. He wondered why the figures in the woods—the ones who had carried him out of the boat and whispered to him, encouraging him—seemed to have abandoned him now.

Did they know he would find the strength to make it on his own?

Or had they deserted him because they could see he wasn’t going to make it?

The slow, dull throbbing of his pulse was making his head spin. Each pulse was weaker that the last. His knees buckled as a terrible pressure was bearing down on him. It took every shred of strength to keep moving forward.

The rain was coming down in a downpour. Visibility was cut to practically nothing as he slogged along the shore, staying close to the lake and taking advantage of any stretches of open beach. He staggered forward, no longer even sure if he was even headed in the right direction.

Is this how it all ends? … Is this how it all ends?

That simple question rose in his mind and kept repeating itself until it practically drove him insane.

He thought he probably lost his mind back on the island when he had those feelings of being in tune with something utterly supernatural. Or maybe on the boat, when he finally made it ashore on the mainland and was so far gone he imagined people lifting him out of the boat and carrying him onto land. There couldn’t really have been people or anything else out here to help him.

He was on his own, and he would do it on his own or else die.

“I’m losing it bad,” he muttered, and he laughed a high, cackling laugh as he slogged onward through the night, listing from side to side like a drunk. If anyone was out here tonight, he would scare the be-jezus out of them. They’d run off, terrified, instead of staying to offer help.

The wind blew strong off the water, carrying a chill Jeff knew would kill him before long. He vaguely remembered the dangers of hypothermia and, even if he’d had the right clothes—a waterproof coat and insulated pants, he wasn’t going to make it through the night unless he got to the parking lot and into his car.

But he didn’t think he’d make it.

The launch ramp still wasn’t any closer. Was he lying on the beach, staring at it and imagining he was walking toward it?

It didn’t matter.

It was lost in swirl of rain and the mist coming off the lake. For all he knew, he could have walked past it without even noticing it. He was so far gone he could have walked past a house with its light blazing and not recognized it for what it was.

But he kept moving forward, struggling to attune his senses to the night so he could once again experience that heightened awareness of what was going on around him. There were things in the night that most people never had the slightest clue about, but he had seen and heard and felt them.

But where were they now?

Why hadn’t they come to his aid now when he needed them most?

No matter how hard he strained his eyes and ears, all he could see and hear was the pouring rain as it cascaded from the sky in blinding sheets that masked even the slopping sounds his feet made in the wet sand.

At some point, he realized he was crying. Tears gushed from his eyes and ran in hot, searing streams down his face, mixing with the rainwater. His throat closed off, making it all but impossible to breathe. His face was as cold as marble, and heat radiated from the top of his head as if it were a furnace.

He hesitated, swaying on his feet, then took another few lumbering steps forward. Then he paused again. His breath billowed like plumes of smoke in the cold air before being whisked away. Every bone in his body felt as brittle as an eggshell. But he kept moving forward a few steps at a time until, moaning, he pitched forward and landed facedown on the sand. His head smacked against a half-buried rock, sending a spray of white stars streaking across his vision. When he raised his head and looked down the beach, the black slash of the ramp appeared through the mist.

His body was shaking out of control as he struggled onto his hands and knees, and lunged forward. He didn’t get far before his arms gave out, and he crashed onto the ground again, this time getting a mouth full of sand. Someone somewhere nearby let out a long, agonized moan. It took him a while to realize he had made the sound. He raised his head again and saw more clearly that the boat launch was in fact closer.

He had no idea where he found the reserves, but he got onto his hands and knees again and, after taking a long time to catch his breath, started to get to his feet. The world swung around him in a slow, sickening spin that lifted his stomach. The night was a smear of black against darker black, and rain hit his face like thousands of icy pinpricks.

Not far now … Not far now … he kept telling himself, but the boat launch might just as well have been the moon. The hard, black wedge of cement looked solid and real enough, but he expected it to dissolve into the mist as he took another few steps closer.

Not far now … Not far now …

He whimpered as he placed one foot in front of the other and then, holding his breath, struggled to keep his balance. The earth was spinning wildly out of control. He held his hands out like a man trying to keep his balance on a tightrope.

Not far now … Not far now …

Another step. Looking ahead, he saw that the dark shape rising out of the water was still there. If anything, it looked more solid … more substantial.

I can’t believe I’m going to make it, he thought, fighting a giddy rush of excitement that threatened to spill him over again.

But as he moved haltingly forward, step-by-step, a paranoid thought suddenly struck him.

What if I didn’t really make it? … What if I’m already dead? … What if I’m imagining all of this before I fade away? … What if none of this is real? …

But the cold rain lashed his face, and the mist blowing in off the water carried a strong fishy smell that snapped him back to reality—or at least his version of reality. He forged ahead, taking short, halting steps in time with his labored breathing.

To his left was the gentle upslope of land that led to the parking lot. There weren’t many trees, so he hoped he really was looking at the parking lot and not imagining it.

His legs trembled and burned with exhaustion as he turned his back to the lake and started up the slope. It seemed impossible to climb. His feet dragged in the sand, leaving behind deep, scalloped marks. Finally, somehow, he made it off the beach and onto the dirt driveway boaters used to back their boat trailers down to the lake. Rocks and gravel crunched underfoot.

It’s Hobomock … gnawing on the bones of his prey, Jeff thought with a deep shudder.

And I’m next!

The incline wasn’t very steep, but it felt to Jeff like he was climbing Mount Everest. He leaned forward, his hands outstretched in front of him, almost touching the ground for support. The mist obscured the cars at the top, and Jeff had another paranoid thought that—maybe—somehow—Ben had all of the cars towed or disabled in case any of them escaped from the island.

Just keep going … You’re almost there … Just keep going …

He trudged onward, grinding his teeth as he slid one heavy foot in front of the other. His shoulders slouched forward, and he lowered his head, imagining that he was a bull, charging up the slope.

But he drew to a sudden halt when he saw something shift in the mist on the top of the hill.

It wasn’t much.

Just a hint of motion.

It was there … and then it was gone in the blink of an eye.

He stood there panting heavily and trying to peel back the darkness and mist. After a terribly long moment, he heard the faint scuff of feet on gravel. He hadn’t moved. He knew he hadn’t made the sound.

Standing perfectly still, his heart racing as fast as a bird’s in his chest, he looked up the slope.

Maybe his foot had slipped and made the sound without him knowing it. Maybe what he had thought he had seen was the mist, thickening and thinning in the wind.

He waited, his body tensed. If he had to face any danger now, he didn’t have the strength to resist or run.

He was satisfied to die where he stood rather than face another challenge.

After a moment, his pulse began to slow. The chilly air no longer burned in his chest when he inhaled and prepared to continue up the hill. If he was going to survive, he had to get to his car now. Any more time spent in the damp and cold was a death sentence.

An amazing sense of relief mixed with disbelief that he had actually survived filled Jeff as he moved closer to the summit, but just as he was congratulating himself for making it, a voice spoke, filling the night.