CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I came to with a throbbing, pounding head and in the most uncomfortable position. My legs were spread out in front of me, my back was propped up at an unnatural angle against a rugged, scratchy pine tree. My arms were pulled back behind the trunk and tied together. The rope went around my shoulders and waist a few times too. I couldn’t move if I wanted to.
I didn’t know where I was. There was nothing distinctive around me, just tall, overbearing trees with spindly limbs that swayed from the wind at the upper reaches of the canopy. The wind whistled around in here at an unrelenting pitch, the soundtrack of madness if I’ve ever heard one.
I couldn’t tell where north was, what end of the island I was at or what time it was. It was much darker than it had been earlier. Not quite dusk, but then again, it was hard to tell in a forest that did its best to block out what meager light there was from the dense clouds above them.
What had happened? My head ached at the thought. I was hit on the back of the head by someone. Or something. And then tied alone to a tree in the woods.
It was the same thing the Reverend had done to Mary whenever the supply ships would come in. Could it have been Reverend John who dragged me out here and left me for who knows how long? Or was it Dex?
No, I thought wildly. It couldn’t have been Dex. I know I thought he was plotting his revenge against me, but Dex’s revenge would always be more spiteful or ironic. Even humorous. He wouldn’t club me over the head and tie me to a tree. What would be the point of that?
Unless this was his way of “handling” me. I did bop him in the nose after all. And Mary did say he would be trouble for me. Maybe he thought this was the only way he could control me, to ensure I didn’t go running around the island causing trouble for both of us.
I just didn’t know. And sadly, I had all the time in the world to think about it. Part of me wanted to call out for him, for him to come running and save me. But then again, I didn’t know what side he was on.
I decided to call out for Mary. Maybe she could find me and untie me.
I called out her name. It sounded weird in the forest. The words sounded hopeless and dull like there was no echo at all. I also felt silly, calling out the name of a dead woman, hoping she would come by and help me. Is this what I’d become?
I called again and again. I tried not to show any worry or panic in my voice but that was hard to hide near the end. My throat was getting raw and I was really starting to lose it. What if it was John Barrett? What was he planning to do to me? How the hell was I going to get out of this one?
A strange sound rang out from behind a patch of tall ferns a few yards in front of me. The ferns shook lightly, back and forth. There was something in them. And I was powerless to do anything about it.
The sound came again. It was weirdly familiar. But not in a good way.
It almost sounded like…the coo of a baby. The wet gurgles and nonsensical noises that blabbering infants make.
In the dark murk of the forest air and the shadowy gulfs between the rampant ferns and nearby trees, a baby’s gurgle was probably one of the most disturbing things to hear. I hoped that whatever was shaking the ferns back and forth was a wayward bird or curious squirrel. Squirrels were smart, right? Maybe they’d be like a dolphin and save me.
I kept my eyes locked on the ferns. My body was poised and ready to run. If only I could.
The ferns shook again. The gurgle.
A baby appeared among the long green fronds, poking its head out like tiger cub and looking at me. I was right and for once I hated it. There was an actual f*cking baby in front of me. I had to blink a few times to make sure I was seeing what I was seeing.
It crawled out of the ferns, slowly but with an unnatural sense of self–assurance. I didn’t know kids enough to know how old it was however it was too young to walk but old enough to crawl with agility. Just not with that much agility.
It stopped a few feet away and cocked its head at me. I couldn’t breathe. This wasn’t about a lack of maternal instinct. This was the most terrifying thing I had ever seen in my life.
The baby was completely naked. Not even a diaper on her bottom. It had a schlock of ashy hair and wide blue eyes. The eyes looked at me with the curious intensity of a stranger. All my senses were wound up. I couldn’t look away.
Under any other circumstances, I probably would have felt motherly towards it. Where was the mother? The poor thing, all alone. A neglected, helpless, defenseless child. But I knew this wasn’t the case. In this place, nothing was innocent and the only thing helpless was me.
The baby sat back on its butt with an almost comical thunk and put its hands to its mouth. It seemed to smile at the dirt it was eating. It kept staring at me with those unnerving eyes, the eyes of someone older, knowing more than a baby ever should, thinking thoughts that I wouldn’t dare touch.
It let out a laugh of some sort and patted the ground like it was the top of a bongo. It seemed to enjoy itself. It was almost playing. A happy baby. That’s what every mother wants, right? Maybe it would just stay there. Maybe the mother would come by soon. Perhaps it was Madeleine at a younger age, and Mary was looking for her.
“Are you Maddy?” I managed to say ask, my voice sounding hollow.
The baby giggled a bit and smacked her knee with her hand. Maybe it really was Maddy. That thought brought a bit of calm to my nerves, helped settle the ill feeling I had at the pit of my stomach.
The baby cooed and smiled again, a big toothless, awestruck grin directed at me. She reached up to her face and wiped the area beside her eye.
A rectangular piece of her skin came away in her hands, a solid chunk that fell to the pine–needled floor, leaving a patch of a red, veiny wound on her face.
I was dumbfounded. Repulsed.
I wanted to vomit.
The baby picked up the piece of skin, oblivious to the gaping hole on her cheek, and threw the piece into the forest. Then she touched her forehead with the other hand.
Without much prodding by her tiny, chubby fingers, half of her forehead came loose like a dead, sticky shell and slid to her lap with a loud, messy splat. I could see fresh white bone beneath the bloody mess of her head.
I promptly threw up on myself. I heaved and heaved. The vomit lay on my chest and steamed up in the air. I couldn’t help it. The terror and unbelievable disgust was overpowering me to the point of no control.
The baby laughed at the piece of her forehead and started playing with it like it was a Tonka truck. Without prompting from her, the rest of her face began to peel like layers in an onion. First it was the other half of the forehead. Then it was the area beneath the nose. That part just hung above her lip like a red, pulsating moustache. Finally the lips and jaw went, leaving behind a miniature skeletal jaw that gaped and jostled with her wet gurgles.
I closed my eyes tight, trying to keep the sickness down, trying to keep the sight out of my head. I didn’t need to see any more. But for as long as my eyes were shut, my body tensed in my unrelenting prayer for this to be over with, the baby still cooed and laughed. I couldn’t unhear that.
And it was just as scary with my eyes closed than with them open. I peeked and saw the baby back on all fours, crawling towards me. Her face was still half on, the other half was on the ground behind her. The skin on her arms and legs began to slide off of her with each jerky movement, coming off like raw, sliced butcher meat.
This can’t be happening, I chanted to myself. This can’t be real. This can’t be happening. This can’t be real.
I shut my eyes again and hoped that it was a dream. Maybe it was a dream. Maybe I was crazy. If I opened my eyes again, maybe it would be gone. The cooing and noises had stopped.
I counted up to ten.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight.
Nine.
Ten.
I opened my eyes. The baby was right there, paused at my leg. Smiling at me. It gingerly touched my calf with its hand and then proceeded to climb up me like I was a jungle gym. Its rotting, putrid, oozing body coming up my leg, half skeleton face grinning, those wide, socket–rimmed eyes peering into mine with an indescribable intensity.
I screamed. I screamed and screamed and screamed until my scream was all I was, coming up through my throat and shooting to the trees. It hurt my own ears, it made my lungs burn, it made my body shake with an otherworldly terror, it made my throat bleed from the inside. I screamed and screamed and screamed inhuman sounds as this inhuman infant placed its bloody, dead baby hands on my arm, trying to ease itself up.
It was too much. My eyes rolled back in my head and everything started to fade away. I was so thankful. I could still feel the baby’s grip on my arm though, the little feet that tried to get footing on my waist like I was a climbing wall. Death couldn’t come soon enough for me.
“Perry!”
That was my name. It was coming from the outside. From somewhere.
I felt the tiny extremities let go and the weight of the child was gone.
I raised my head up in time to see the baby scampering off into the bushes on all fours, like it was an able–bodied gazelle. A human gazelle, after the lion’s feast.
“Perry!”
The voice again. I looked up and saw a tall, foreboding man standing in front of me. He had on a long black jacket, white–collared shirt and black vest. His face was in shadows but I was able to make out a blonde beard.
“Who are you?” I asked. My head slumped to the side. I had no desire to keep it up anymore. My eyes closed.
“What the hell?”
Hands were shaking my shoulders. They weren’t baby hands. They touched my face and pulled it in the opposite direction.
“Perry!” the voice was in my face now. I opened my eyes and saw Dex kneeling in front of me. Where did the other man go?
Dex looked at me, at the tree, at the vomit on my chest. I didn’t care. I just wanted to sleep. I just wanted to go very far away, away from thoughts and images and feelings and sounds. I was so tired. My brain was done.
My head slumped again, chin tucked against my collarbone. Dex muttered some things I didn’t understand and began untying my hands from behind my back. Once he was done, he lifted me up and with a groan, hoisted me over his shoulder. He was talking excitedly about something. Maybe it was more worry than excitement. Panic. It didn’t matter. I didn’t hear it. I went in and out of a delirious consciousness.
I think I passed right out for a while, because when I came too, I was looking down at the dark floor and Dex’s butt. I felt raindrops falling on my back, felt his shoulder digging into my ribcage, his arms around the backs of my legs.
“What happened?” The words came out slowly in a thick soup.
Dex slowed and then stopped. “Can you walk? Because I can still carry you.”
“Uhh, I think so,” I groaned. He gently lowered me to the ground and grabbed my arms before I fell over.
My head felt like it did after a bottle of red wine. Too heavy to keep up on its own.
“We can talk later. I just want to get us back to the campsite now,” he said. He didn’t sound good. I raised my head and looked at him. It was almost nightfall but I could still make out dull shapes and shadows in shades of grey. He didn’t look good either. His nose was purple and blue and twice the width as normal.
And that’s when it all came back to me. This morning. Mary. The punch. Being hit in the head. Being tied to the tree. The baby. Oh God, the baby.
“Did you hit me on the head?” I asked uneasily.
He looked shocked. “What…why? Who hit you on the head?”
“I don’t know, someone. You?”
He didn’t know what to make of that. He looked around him. I did too. We were in the glade, the dead heart with the dead trees and the suffocating moss.
“How did you know where to find me?” I asked, trying to cover up the suspicion.
“I was looking for you and heard you screaming.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. He ignored it.
“We have to get back, Perry,” he said determinedly. “We can’t do this here, now.”
I didn’t see why being at the campsite was any different, especially since he might be the person I should be afraid of. But the creepy, creaking noises of the dead limbs and the overgrown tangles, which that could hide many deformed and rotted babies, was overkill.
I nodded. He kept his hand firmly around my elbow and led me through the glade as quickly as he could. We were almost out of it, where the moss gave way to clean bark and the ferns turned into sprightly, berried salal bushes, when a hissing sound penetrated our eardrums.
The family of raccoons appeared suddenly. They headed down the path towards us, their figures dark, ominous lumps against the impending dusk.
We both stopped, statues in our tracks. The raccoons kept hissing and kept creeping forward. Though neither of us had a flashlight, their eyes glowed in the dark like luminescent ping pong balls.
I started to calculate how much space was between us and whether we could make a run for it around them when the two biggest raccoons lunged at Dex in a rabid manner, one leaping for his thigh, the other for his chest and face. >
We both screamed in unison. Dex fell backward from the weight and shock. I could barely see it but from his cries and their slobbering, violent growls and the sounds of clothes tearing and liquids being expulsed, I knew their intent was to eat him alive.
I looked at the other raccoons. They were eyeing me, the glow in my direction. I had a second to react. I turned to the right and made a grab for the nearest tree. I yanked and pulled and twisted the biggest most accessible branch all while Dex was screaming and writhing on the ground, trying to fend them off.
I pulled until the bark cut my hands and until it gave way with a satisfying snap.
I brought it in front of me just in time to see two raccoons making a frantic scramble for me. I whacked it across both of their heads, sending them flying a few feet, landing with a thunk like furry, ravaged golf balls.
I bellowed something like a battle cry and ran towards Dex, holding the branch high above my head like some demented warrior and brought it down on the crazy beasts. They yelped in pain, as did Dex, since I was hitting him too, but they didn’t let go. The sound of their teeth furiously making a meal out of his clothing, or him, caused the sickest, deepest panic within my heart.
I stepped back and took a proper swing as I had before, like a golf club, just another day on the driving range. It cracked against the jaw of the raccoon on Dex’s leg and within seconds I brought it across the body of the one on his chest. I might have been yelling the whole time, I wasn’t sure. It was just pure instinct.
The raccoons were still alive. I hadn’t killed them. I’m sure I would have cared in some other life but right now it didn’t mean anything to me. They were just as good as dead. But they did stagger off into the forest, all of them disappearing as fast as they had appeared.
I threw the branch to the ground and stood over Dex triumphantly, my chest heaving. He stirred, a good sign, and looked up at me.
“Can you make it?” I asked, holding out my hand for him.
He nodded and cried out as he took my hand and I pulled him up. I still felt oddly detached from him but I was glad to see he was still alive. Obviously, or I wouldn’t have gone so literally “to bat” for him.
We hobbled back together to the campsite, one mentally and one physically crippled camper coming right up.
* * *
Things back at camp weren’t any better. The wind was gusting more than ever, the kind that knocked over our coffee cups and made the picnic table creak uneasily. The sound of the surf was monstrously loud and within seconds of our arrival, the tarp above the picnic table came loose and was whipped away into the forest, crashing against the trees.
We made a dive for the tent. I ushered Dex inside, snapped up the lantern that was knocked over by the door and quickly went around to all the tent pegs, pushing them deeper into the ground with my boot. I hoped the tent would hold, I could almost see it wriggling out of the ground, desperate to come free. I picked up the heaviest pebbles I could find and started piling them on top of the pegs for safe measure. The wind came at my back like a battering ram.
I had done what I could. I removed my puke–stained jacket and threw it on the picnic table, hoping that any future rain would clean it. It took five seconds before the wind picked it up and tossed it away. I leaped into the tent before the wind could take me too, zipping it up behind me.
I put the lantern on the ground and looked over at Dex. He was sitting on top of the sleeping bag, shirt off and pant leg rolled up to expose the fresh wounds. The first aid kit was out and he was fumbling with it awkwardly.
“Hold on, let me,” I said, scooching over as the wind rattled the tent walls furiously. The noise was deafening.
I told him to lie down and try to relax. I looked down at the chest wound. It was on his left pec, a nasty looking slash that bled profusely. I looked away and focused on the shaking blue tent side. I took a deep breath and pushed down the waves of nausea that were still hovering around the surface of my stomach. I had dealt with a peeling leper baby, even though I dealt with it by passing out. I had to deal with this.
Dex was shivering, either due to shock or from being shirtless in the icy wind that managed to trail inside through the tent’s pores. I had to act quickly. I poured out a whole bunch of antiseptic onto a clean cloth and pressed it against his chest. He winced from the sting.
“Easy there, kiddo” he said through gritted teeth, his eyes closed, head back.
“Tables turned, hey?” I asked. He had to do something very similar to me in Red Fox. Now it was my turn to play nurse. “Maybe we should avoid all animals from now on.”
“Agreed,” he whimpered as I dabbed the wound clean. I applied some sticky yellow iodine and clean gauze and pad, securing it with a medical bandage.
“Do you have any clean shirts?” I asked.
He nodded, still in pain. “One. In my pack. It’s red.”
I went over and found it and slipped it over his head, careful not to touch the wound. He sat up and looked down at his leg.
“What are the symptoms of rabies?” he asked in a dull voice.
“It would be hard to tell with you,” I joked quietly and got to work on his leg. It wasn’t as bad as the chest, which was a relief, but it still looked pretty dirty and nasty. “I’d be more worried about tetanus. You’ll have to get a shot when we get back.”
Our eyes met at that. The thought of getting back home seemed almost impossible at this point.
“How are we going to do that?” he said.
I shrugged helplessly and finished up. “Anything else I can do for you?”
“Jack and a cigarette.”
I found the nearly empty bottle at the side of the tent and handed it to him while he brought out his cigarettes and tried to light one with his gold lighter. His fingers were shaking too much to catch a spark, so I took the lighter from him. I flicked it on and leaned over to light the cigarette that dangled from his twitching lips.
He kept his eyes on me while he sucked back and blew the smoke off to the side of him. Normally I would have objected to him smoking inside the tent but seeing the state he was in, I didn’t care. I was finding it hard to care about anything, really.
I took a sip of Jack myself, enjoying the heat it produced in my throat, and lay down on the sleeping bag, staring up at the ceiling.
After he had a few drags and my view was started starting to cloud over with smoke, he cleared his throat and began tapping his fingers nervously.
“What is it?” I asked sleepily.
“I don’t know where to begin,” he answered.
It was all going to come out. I knew it. I didn’t have the strength to keep things from him anymore. I didn’t even know if I could trust him but it wouldn’t make a difference. I knew he already thought I was nuts. I had nothing to lose.
“We need to get out of here,” he said, skirting the issue.
“That’s an understatement.”
“I tried to use my phone while you were gone. I think a text to Zach went through.”
I perked up and rolled my head over to look up at him. “And?”
“I didn’t hear back. Now the phone is dead. Charger is on the boat.”
Of course.
“So back to the plan,” I muttered. “Which is nothing.”
“I would have made a swim for it. But you kind of went missing.”
“Oh, so it’s my fault.”
“Jesus Perry,” he swore bitterly, flicking ash across the tent. He glared at me. “What is happening to you?”
“You tell me. Why was I tied up to a tree?”
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
“Well I don’t f*cking know! I told you that! I got hit in the back of the head. I don’t know who did it. They hit me and tied me up to the tree. I thought it was you.”
His shoulders slumped slightly and his eyes fell, looking soft in the flickering light of the lantern.
“Why would you think I would do that? How could you think that? You know I’d never hurt you in a million years,” his voice wavered a bit.
“Just mentally,” I mumbled.
“What?”
“Nevermind. So you didn’t club me on the head.”
“No I f*cking did not.” He shook his head to himself, looking pained and confused. His hands started to shake again, the dull glow of the cigarette tip buzzing like a spastic star. He closed his eyes.
After a moment of silence, he opened them and looked at me. “I know you hate me now after last night. Maybe you hate me for a lot of other reasons. That’s OK. You can hate me all you want. But I don’t hate you. I care about you. I’m on your side. We’re in this together now. I need, I beg you, please be honest with me. Please just tell me what’s been happening to you. You’ve been seeing ghosts. I know you have. You’re hiding it from me. Please, Perry, just tell me.”
As weirdly distant as I felt from him, as much as there was a current of distrust running beneath my skin, as much as I feared what he thought of me, there was still an ache in my heart that longed to keep on loving him. It was hard to pretend my chest didn’t hurt seeing him there, twitching, smoking, out of the loop, and wounded.
And so I told him everything. Starting from seeing Mary running through the woods, all the way up to when he found me tied up to the tree. He didn’t say anything the entire time and was watching me so intently that his hands started to shake again.
“That’s the truth,” I finished, out of breath from talking so much. It actually felt good to get it all out, even though I didn’t know what he thought or what he was going to do with it. “And now you really think I’m crazy.”
“You’re not,” he said quickly. “You didn’t tie yourself up to a tree. I didn’t do it. Someone else did it.”
“Random people on the island?”
“Maybe. Does it matter?”
“Why do you have such a hard time believing they are ghosts? After all you’ve seen, Dex, why is this so hard for you? You’re a damn ghost hunter!”
He laughed bitterly. “We may hunt them. But I haven’t found them yet. Only you have.”
“Then take my word for it!”
“I am! But I still think there is a more rational explanation.”
“There are no rational explanations! You won’t find them here. Nothing about what has happened to us is rational.”
“That’s because you aren’t rational.”
What? Once again, I was utterly flabbergasted by his choice of words and the sneakiness of his attacks on my personal character.
“OK Dex. I’m going to ask you now, what you think is going on. Tell me. I’d love to know what your mighty opinion is.”
“It’ll just make you mad,” he said, putting the cigarette out on the carton, burning a hole through it. He took out another cigarette, lifted it up to his lips. I tried to formulate what I was going to say without blowing a gasket.
CLUNK.
A solid whacking sound from outside the tent. We eyed each other suspiciously.
“What is–” I started.
CLUNK. CLUNK. CLUNK.
I grabbed the lantern. Dex scooped up the Super 8 and a flashlight. I looked at the camera with disdain as I undid the tent.
“Are you seriously still bothering to film this now?”
He looked at me as if I had two heads. “Yeah. I am. Missed an opportunity last night.”
Ouch. I pretended I didn’t hear that and climbed out of the tent and into the face of a minor hurricane.
The sound was still audible despite the howling, whistling wind and groaning forest. The clunks continued sporadically, coming from the beach area. Out here it was a loud, hollow sound, like someone knocking slowly on a heavy wood door.
I raised the lantern in the direction of the beach, the wind pushing into my chest and flinging my hair wildly around my face. It was too dark to see, the light didn’t reach that far. Dex walked past me, the camera rolling, the flashlight lighting his way. I had no choice but to follow.
We walked down the path and onto the beach. His flashlight searched the waves, an eerie beacon against the darkness. The waves were so large and angry that they would have been a crazy surfer’s dream, had they not crashed unevenly against each other and wiped out on the shore.
“What is that?” I heard Dex yell above the noise.
I came down beside him and looked in the direction of his light. It was focused on the rocky outcrop. There was something dark bumping up against the rocks, pushed into them by each incoming swell, producing the clunking noise. I squinted, trying to recognize the shape but couldn’t quite make it out.
A scraping noise to the right of us.
Dex whipped the flashlight in the direction just in time to illuminate a heavy block of wood that had been dumped on the shore by the waves, the scraping sound coming from the pebbles as they raked against the bottom.
We walked towards the object, slowly, uneasily.
It was at least seven feet long, solid wood, maybe a few feet high.
It was a coffin. A coffin washed up on shore.
Another scraping sound from in front of us. Dex brought the light over, the beam shaking in his hands. Another coffin plowed forward onto the beach, the stones spraying out towards us as the edge of the coffin caught the ground.
He brought his flashlight over the rest of the waves. I raised my lantern.
There were coffins everywhere we looked. At least eight, maybe ten coffins riding the waves, coming in towards us like the Grim Reaper’s surfboard.
Dex aimed the camera around frantically, not knowing where to focus his shot, until a flicking sound was heard. He lowered the camera. Film had run out. But the coffins kept coming.
He turned around and looked at me. There were no words to describe what we were seeing. But as scared as I was that one of the coffins may start to slowly creak open and a waterlogged body might rise from the grave, it was a relief to know that Dex was seeing this too. >
He walked over to me and grabbed my hand.
I was still annoyed but it wasn’t worth it anymore. Not with coffins that came crashing to shore.
“What do we do?” I whispered. He shined the light on the nearest coffin, the dark, wet wood gleaming under the light.
“We open them,” he said, wild–eyed. He let go of my hand and walked toward it. I was too terrified to move. I don’t know why I asked. Of course Dex thought opening the freaking coffins was the best course of action.
He tried to push the lid of the first coffin off. With his hands placed down, his body straining, legs out, trying to move the object against the weak lantern glow, it was almost a comical sight, like an exaggerated cartoon.
He managed to dislodge it after a couple of well–placed kicks to the edge. The lid splintered into two and went clattering off onto the pebbles.
He paused after noticing what he’d done. We made eye contact. And then he peered over the edge into the coffin. My breath froze in my throat, pure anticipation.
“Empty,” he sighed, putting his hand to his chest in relief, then wincing at the pain from the fresh wound there.
I took a step forward and held out my hand. I didn’t want to spend the evening turning over all the lids on every coffin that came ashore during the night.
He glanced at it, then faced the storming surf and the rest of the floating graves that were making their way toward us. I know he wanted more than anything to go back to the tent and get more film and record the rest of the night away. The filmmaker in Dex was never too far.
But I couldn’t handle it. We were done with this. It was time to put it to bed.
He looked back at my hand, saw my face, and relented. He reached out and I grasped his cold and clammy hand and pulled it along with me as we turned our backs to the coffins. We went to bed cold, wet and miserable, to the faint clunks and scrapes as the wayward coffins were delivered overnight by some unseen and menacing force.