“You never know. They can predict them all they want, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to do what they’re supposed to. Had it reached hurricane status yet?”
“I don’t know,” she said ruefully. “I wasn’t really paying attention. Yesterday was quite a day, if you’ll remember.”
They’d reached the fork in the trail. “You go your way, I’ll go mine,” he told her.
She nodded and started off.
The trails were actually really pretty. She didn’t know how many of the trees were natural and how many had been planted to give the feel of a lush rain forest. Great palm fronds waved over her head, allowing for a gentle coolness along the walk and, she noted, a lot of darkness and shadow.
The fronds whispered and rustled, and she felt as if the darkness was almost eerie, all of a sudden. There was a noise behind her, and she spun around, then felt like a fool. The noise was nothing more than a squirrel darting across a path.
Still, she felt as if she had come down with a sudden case of goose pimples, and then she knew why. David had told her not be alone.
And certainly not alone walking down an isolated trail.
She was suddenly angry. She’d never been afraid here before. She had enjoyed the solitude that could be found on the island.
But that had been before people started dying.
She quickened her steps, anxious to get back to Gil. “Hello? Anyone out here?” she called. There was no reply.
Birds chattered above her head.
She looked all around herself. Not much farther and she would meet back up with Gil.
She reached the farthest point, seeing the sand on the southern tip of the isle, and stepped off the trail to look around and call out. Nothing.
She turned back, noting that the breeze was growing stronger. In the shelter of the trees, though, she could barely feel it. The dive boat hadn’t gone out that morning, she thought, but pleasure craft had probably been rented out. She hoped all the guests were back in.
“Hello?” she called out again, and once more paused to look around. She quickened her pace, then stopped suddenly.
And it wasn’t a sound that had caused her to stop. It was a stench. A horrible stench.
And she knew what it was. The rotting, decaying, stench of death.
She started walking forward again, shouting now. “Gil! Gil!”
She started to run, and the smell grew stronger.
There was no denying it. Very near them, hidden in the foliage, something—or someone—lay dead.
“Gil!”
She nearly collided with him.
“What the hell is it?” he asked.
“Something dead,” she told him.
“Yeah…that’s what I thought. But where is it coming from?” Gil asked.
“It’s gotten stronger as I’ve come toward you,” Alex told him.
“Then it’s here somewhere.”
She stood still, surveying their immediate surroundings.
“Alex.”
“What?”
“Let’s get out of here,” Gil said.
“Gil, we can’t. We have to find out what it is.”
“Or who it is,” he said uneasily. “Alex, this is a matter for the sheriff.”
“No! Yes, I mean, but not now. I am not letting anyone else disappear.”
“What are you talking about?”
“We have to find out what it is, then call the sheriff. Gil, please?” Alex said. She took a few steps in the direction of a large clump of trees.
“Alex…” Gil said.
“It’s here,” she whispered. “There are a bunch of palm fronds on the ground, fallen leaves…and the smell is really strong. It’s here.”
He looked at her, then sighed. “All right. I’ll lift the fronds.”
“We’ll do it together,” she said.
They steeled themselves against the smell of death and set to work.
And after a moment, it was Gil who let out a sick croak of sound.
David had listened to the radio warnings and decided it was time to head back in. The water where they were was about seventy feet deep, and he’d snagged a few snapper. Zach, proudly, had speared his first fish ever, and it had been a beauty. Someone would be enjoying his catch tonight, one big beaut of a dolphin—or mahimahi, as the restaurants called it, afraid that otherwise diners would think they were serving big cuddly marine mammals.
They hadn’t taken the spearguns down this time; they’d just gone for a last look around. Far below them, a few outcrops of coral welcomed all manner of sea life.
David was just about to motion Zach back to the boat when he saw something that caused him to pause. Anemones could create the appearance of heads with waving hair, and that was what he was certain he was seeing at first. But then…
David thought there was something beneath the skeletal arms of the coral.
He surfaced, and Zach did the same, lifting his mask and snorkel. “We have to go back, huh?”
“Yes. Head on to the Icarus. I’ll be right with you.”
He watched Zach swim back to the Icarus, which wasn’t more than twenty feet away. Then, taking a deep breath, he jackknifed in a hard, clean dive toward the depths.
He reached the coral, saw the outstretched arm, and…
Horror filled him so completely that he almost inhaled a deadly breath.
There she was.