Not human.
The ruckus I’d made was the clarion, the dinner gong. I might as well have shouted, “Come and get it!” while tinkling a comical outsized triangle. If I’d entertained even fleeting hope that these callers were reg’lar folks, their herky-jerky locomotion quashed it in a trice. I gathered up a few more cans—delicious refreshment could double as solid projectile, if need be—and mounted my bike. But I wasn’t sure where to go. I made a few quick figure eights around the parking lot, then made for the private boats. Many of those were missing, but a shoddy-looking motorboat was moored to the jetty. I stepped down into it, and when I didn’t go straight through the bottom decided I’d be a seafaring boatnik after all. I grabbed my bike and loaded it into the dingy little dinghy, then tested the motor. A few yanks on the cord and it sputtered to life just as the lifeless approached. Mazel tov!
I’d never steered a boat of any size before, but for a first-timer I didn’t do too badly. I managed to follow the basic course I’d remembered from all our trips on the ferry and within, oh, maybe two hours or so I made it to Ocean Bay Park, the dinky community we’d rented in.
We.
I remember the concept of “we.”
“We” was pretty sweet. I was part of a “we.” I had a wife. But guess what? She became one of those things right at the onset. On her way home from work she got bit. Well, more than bit. Consumed. I got a call from a cop who kept pausing to vomit noisily on his end of the line. He vomited, I wept. Then she came back and tore into the officer. Or at least I think that’s what was going on. It sounded crunchy and wet. He kept screaming until, well, until he stopped. It was a really moist call. I’m being flippant, but sue me. It’s all I have left. If I’m not flip about losing her I might just…
Anyway.
I might just what?
Kill myself?
That’s a laugh.
All I know is I heard her moaning before I got disconnected—moaning and chewing. I got the picture, even without the benefit of a camera phone.
So after ramming into the side of the dock—starting it up I could work out, stopping not so much—I got out of the boat, dizzy and nauseous. I lay there for a while gasping, trying not to hurl. I must have looked like a fish out of water. It was mid-October, still not too bad temperature-wise, but drizzling. A good alternative name for Fire Island would be Rust Island. Back in the day people would ride their bikes all over, but always these ratty, rust-speckled wrecks, and here I was with my almost top-of-the-line mountain bike. Like it mattered. But at the moment I felt annoyed that my precious bicycle was going to be ruined by the elements. Priorities, young man, priorities.
Fog was rolling in, obscuring everything. If there were zombies afoot I wouldn’t see them coming—or hear them. I hastened my pedaling and raced to our house. I say “our,” but really it was just a rental. And now that I was no longer part of a “we,” “our” seemed moot, too. I approached the dwelling that was little more than a shack and slowed as I heard footfalls.
Not human.
Deer.
Fire Island is rotten with these skanky, tick-encrusted deer. They’re not beautiful, cute, or charming. They’re the animal kingdom’s answer to skid row vagrants. Dirty, infested with chiggers and lice and all manner of parasites. Their ears look like warty gourds, festooned with ticks so engorged they look fit to burst. These deer root around the trash, knock over garbage cans, mooch for scraps when you’re eating outside. Where’s Ted Nugent when you need him?
I got inside, locked the door, checked all the windows and then collapsed onto the naked mattress and into a nightmare-rich slumber, assuming the island to be pretty much deserted.
I was almost right.