We push on for several minutes, struggling on the steep hills and pitted asphalt.
The road levels off. I turn to Gwen. “Why are you helping us?”
“This may shock you to know, Phillip, but I care about Bill, too,” she replies in a tone that makes me look stupid for asking. “Besides, it’s good for me to do something; it’s better than sitting in the resort, slowly losing my mind,” she continues, her expression calm and self-possessed. “I can’t stop thinking about what happened to my parents, to our home and everyone I knew… I’m not like you. I haven’t completely given up hope that our parents and all the other people we care about are still alive—even if it’s only a shred of hope. In that way we are very different, Phillip. You do the sensible thing. When it is pointless to hope for something that is not going to happen you accept it… you move on. I’m the fool who keeps believing, keeps thinking that suddenly things can change.”
It is clear she refers to more than just the whereabouts of our families. For Gwen to be so transposed and self-aware is odd. It is unlike her. I want to tell her how much I admire her perseverance, long after other people would have surrendered. I want to tell her that she is not wrong or foolish for clinging to her dreams, but I do not get the chance.
“What is that glow in the sky?” Pamela calls our attention to a pulsing, orange light that fills the horizon.
It takes a few seconds for me to realize what I am looking at.
“Fire,” I say. “Rio Galera is burning.”
Chapter Ten
The ominous glow acts as a beacon, guiding us onward. The closer we get to our destination the brighter the glow. It illuminates the hillsides, turning the land an unsettling red. The smell of charred wood fills the air.
“Huh, what’s that light?” Bill rouses himself and struggles to rise.
“Something is burning,” Gwen answers in a soothing tone. “We’re taking you to a doctor. Lie down… conserve your strength.”
“Pamela! Where’s Pamela?” He tosses his head from side to side, anxiously looking for her.
In an instant she is at his side, stroking his face and murmuring, “Shhh, Bill, I’m right here. We’re heading into town to find a doctor for you. Rest, darling.”
The sound of breaking glass comes from one of the large vacation homes atop the nearest hill. In the crimson light, I spot the black outlines of two men furtively running from the back of the house to the front. They notice us on the road below.
“Looters,” I mutter, and prompt Pamela to get in front of the cart again. “Let’s keep moving.”
Unmoving, they stand together, looking down on us—silent, foreboding sentinels.
We proceed with renewed speed, and as we go, I check over my shoulder to see where the men atop the hill are. They remain in place. Perhaps the house they are no doubt looting is not worth leaving to harass us. Either way, I do not breathe easier until we are out of their sight.
As we near the town, women pass us—some with children in tow—heading in the opposite direction. They carry bundles of clothes and jugs of what I assume to be fresh water.
“Doctor. We need a doctor. Can you tell me where to find the doctor?” Pamela stands before some of the fleeing women, but they brush her aside and continue on their way.
We reach the final stretch of road that leads to the heart of Rio Galera. A section of the town—where tiny homes press tight to each other like captives in the hull of a slave ship—belches forth great jets of flame. From this distance, each burning home resembles a smoldering lump of charcoal. Fire floats into the night sky in rolling sheets and waves, filled with thousands of incandescent sparks caught by the updraft.
Scattered around the town other buildings burn, one of which I recognize as the office to support the airstrip. Nearby fires cast swirling shadows on the untouched façade of the white clapboard church.
The carnage brings us to a halt. Awestruck, we stand before the conflagration without speaking.
Gwen breaks our paralysis and points to a section of Rio Galera unscathed by fire. “The clinic—I spotted it on the way to the resort.”
Islanders pass us on the streets, none stopping to offer aid. The scorched hull of a burnt out car sends plumes of smoke billowing our way. Shadows skulk down the narrow alleyways. I hear a woman’s terrified scream, and from somewhere else the shouts of men fighting. I take the knife Gwen gave me and hold it with my free hand.
Even from afar, I can tell the glass doors and windows of the one level clinic are shattered. As we roll Bill up the cement ramp to the clinic, a gaggle of children clutching stolen goods dash through the shattered doorframe and vanish down the alleys.
Light from Pamela’s torch reveals a long hallway strewn with office supplies.
“Wait here,” I tell them, and then take the torch and enter the building. With the knife firmly in my grasp, I walk down the corridor, shining the torch light into the various rooms, all of which have the appearance of a building ravaged by a hurricane. Anything that could be broken is broken: computers, chairs, glass cabinets that just a few days ago likely held medical supplies but now are bare. As a macabre joke, vandals placed the clinics demonstration skeleton in a chair behind the doctor’s desk, seated upright, nonchalantly resting its skull on one bony hand.
I hurry back to Gwen, Bill, and Pamela. “Everybody’s gone. The clinic staff probably abandoned the place to protect themselves. The place is a wreck. Looters stole all the medical supplies.”
“No, no, no,” Pamela trembles. “What are we going to do?”
“Don’t worry, love,” Bill struggles to sit up. “I feel stronger now… getting my second wind.”
Pamela buries her face in her hands. “This is madness. Where are the authorities? Why don’t they put a stop to this?”
“I could be wrong, but I think we passed the police station,” Gwen looks about us warily. “It was burning to the ground. It’s not safe for us here. We should get back to the resort.”
Pamela grips the cart handle to prevent us from moving it. “No. No. We must get a doctor!”
Plaintively, I gesture to the vandalized clinic. “Pamela, the doctors are all gone.”
“They must be somewhere,” she insists. “You didn’t see their bodies in there, did you? No? Then that settles it. Someone here will tell us where the doctor is.”
“Even if we find the doctor what could they do for Bill without their supplies and the clinic looking like this?” Gwen asks.
Pamela hesitates as doubts shake her resolve, but then she stands firm and says, “You don’t know the supplies were stolen. Maybe the clinic staff removed all the supplies to protect it from the looters.”
Pamela is determined to scour the island for a doctor, and looking at Bill laboring to breathe I cannot fault her devotion. Gwen exchanges an uneasy glance with me, but we both know turning back without finding a doctor is not an option.
“Okay,” I agree. “Let’s make this quick.”
Backtracking, we propel the cart over the pitted, debris-strewn streets. Behind the shutters of a home, we glimpse the light of an oil lamp.
Pamela pounds on the doors. “Please, can you tell us where to find a doctor?”
I see movement behind the shutters—at least one person is definitely inside the home, but they do not answer the door.
“Please!” Pamela kicks the door. “Just tell us where a doctor is and we’ll leave!”
Gwen urgently taps my arm, and points towards a tall island man watching us from the shadows of a nearby building. On the other side of the street, another man also observes us with keen interest. My heart freezes when I realize they hold machetes in their hands.