“You both will become sufficiently paranoid of each other. He’s going to accuse you of being ill and you’re going to accuse him of being ill. That’s when John will appear. Maybe San too. When you are both alone and at your weakest. If not them, then the rest of the lepers.”
“Why? What did we do to them?” My voice was becoming higher by the second.
“It’s about responsibility, my dear. No one has ever claimed real responsibility for what happened here. I tried to fix it but look what happened. They turned on me. They killed me.”
“I thought John killed you.”
“This place killed me. There are wrongs that need to be righted and these souls won’t rest until that is done. This place is too close to the black and white world. It’s the responsibility of humankind. It’s a shame it got passed on to both of us. It’s a shame for two 23-year olds. We were so young.”
That caught me off guard. How did she know it was my birthday? And what did she mean “were”? I swallowed hard and tried to concentrate on something else. The sopping wet sock inside my boot. The feel of the smooth arbutus tree bark that I had one hand against. The smell of rain, even though there was no rain.
“I’ll be seeing you on the other side,” she said with a quick smile that slid easily over her missing teeth. “One more time. I’ll have something you’ll want to know.”
Not if I can help it, I thought.
She looked down at her dress, tugged at the skirt of it, straightening out her bodice and walked timidly into the trees that led up the rest of the cliff, as if she was strolling off to church. I had no urge to stop her. I did have the urge to get the hell out of there as quickly as possible.
With Dex still watching me (seriously, OK, I’m talking to myself, get over it and get back to work), I scrambled down the cliff as quickly and carefully as I could. As soon as my feet hit the stones on the beach, I was off and running toward Dex at full speed.
“How’s it coming!? Let’s go now, shall we!” I yelled, coming to a stop in front of him, pebbles skidding everywhere.
He blinked hard a few times. He had been in the middle of removing the engine from the back. The tear on the left pontoon had been patched up and a million bandage wrappers littered the bottom of the Zodiac.
His lips formed to make words but nothing came out.
“What? You need help?” I asked, and bent over in front of the engine, working the vice back and forth, loosening it. As I did so, I kept my head down and said, “Yeah, I was talking to Mary. Not myself. Though I can tell you still don’t believe me.”
With a few yanks, the engine came loose and Dex was there, helping me lift it off the back of the boat and onto the beach.
“That’s fine. Thanks,” he said monotonously. I eyed him quickly. I could see he was having a battle in his head of what to think and what to say. Obviously he didn’t see Mary. It didn’t matter. We could deal with my apparent psychosis later.
“Are you ready?” I straightened up and tried to get the urgency across.
“Yeah, I think so,” he said. He lightly kicked the left pontoon. “Are you ready?”
“Fuck yes. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Dex gave me a quick (but noticeably wary) smile. “I’ll pull from the front if you push from the end.”
I moved into position behind the Zodiac, my hand placed firmly on where the engine used to be. He picked up the backpack and put it on his shoulder.
“Are you sure the Super 8 will stay dry in there?” I asked. I wasn’t sure if he had a special bag around it or if he was going to wear the backpack on his head so it didn’t get wet.
“It should be OK, as long as the pontoon holds out,” he said as he started to pull the front of the boat along. It moved awkwardly, like we were dragging a dead body. “The only thing I’m worried about is the film if…”
He trailed off and stopped pulling. He let go of the boat’s front. His face was awash with panic. For a second I thought he saw something in the trees behind me but after a quick look, that wasn’t it.
“What’s wrong?” I asked slowly. A sickly feeling started to creep throughout my veins.
“We have to go back.”
My eyes widened. No. No, no, no. This wasn’t happening.
“We are not going anywhere,” I said, half inhaling my words.
He looked terrified, to say the least, but he stood his ground. “No, we have to go back, Perry.”
“We have to go back? What the fuck, this isn’t an episode of Lost, Dex!”
“The film! I left the film cartridges in my other bag. I changed them over this morning. Without that film we don’t have a show.”