“That anyone bothers trying to keep track of time at all,” I answer. “I mean, what’s the point? Who cares? There are no hours, nor weeks or months. Hell, we don’t even have seasons here. The only thing we have is daylight and darkness.”
We take a few more steps, and then completely ignoring the point I just made, Nelson says, “Jonas has a calendar. He could tell us what day it is.”
“And if Jonas tells us that it’s Wednesday instead of Thursday will it make a damn bit of difference?” I retort a bit more sharply than needed. “It’s been what… a month since we lost all power?”
“Maybe a little under a month, I think,” Curtis reckons.
“OK, a little under a month, and since we lost power you know what?” I hold up my arm with the only working wrist watch at the resort. “I hardly look at this thing. There’s no reason. I get up, patrol till dawn, go to bed when the sun comes up, and do it all over again.”
Nelson looks thoughtful, and then says to me, “Young man, since you’ve lost all interest in time, can I have your watch?”
I pull my arm back. “Not a chance. Someday, I may need to trade this watch for a slice of bread.”
I am only half joking. Hunger is a constant companion; at least my cheekbones and jaw line look fantastic.
Our chuckles subside.
“The people who sailed for Barbados…” Curtis trails off. “Do you think they made it to Barbados?” He scans the sea as though anticipating their ship to appear at any moment. “We should have heard something from them by now. How long does it take for help to come back from Barbados?”
“Maybe things in Barbados are as bad as they are here,” Nelson suggests, though I detect a note in his voice that he does not believe it.
I think of Don and Amy, and then I recall Dawson Hartford’s warning about the radiation clouds hovering over the ocean. Grim thoughts fill my head, but I keep them to myself.
“So how is the night time patrol, anyway?” Nelson asks me, more to divert Curtis’s attention to something else than out of any real curiosity about my nightly vigil.
“Lonely,” I reply.
“But you have Bob and Dean to keep you company,” Curtis points out.
“I’d rather patrol alone.”
Bob, early fifties, as squat, heavy, and round as a cast iron chiminea, owns an Atlanta car dealership. Dean, late fifties, is similar in build to me—slim and not very tall—with coarse gray hair and a long roman nose. Dean is a systems analyst. I have no idea what that means.
“Come now,” Curtis chides. “They cannot be that bad.”
I roll my eyes. “Dean is an obsessive compulsive. He’ll fixate on something trivial that happened days ago, like why no one offered him salt with his noon meal, and talk about it incessantly. I suppose the stress of all that has happened to us causes him to find comfort by dwelling on little things. Whatever the cause, he’s a pain in the ass to be around. As for Bob, he’s annoying, too—constantly trying to suck up to Conner in the hopes that at his next feeding Conner will toss him an extra biscuit.”
“We have people like that on the day shift,” Nelson waves his hand before his face as though flicking away a fly. “So, during your lonely surveillance is there any sign of Action and his men?”
“Every once in a while I catch a glimpse of somebody on the other side of the lagoon. Island men, but once or twice, I think it was a woman. I can’t tell if they are one of Action’s gang or not. It’s hard to see unless it’s a full moon. It could be that they’re testing our defenses—seeing if we’re still on guard. Either way, after a while they wander off.”
The mood in the restaurant is as joyful as a child’s funeral. Men and women accustomed to a life of luxury hunch over their scrimpy meals or shuffle about with the enthusiasm of concentration camp prisoners. Robby doles out the first meal of my day: Less than half a cup of noodles, mixed with half a spoiled avocado and bits of some type of grilled sea creature. The noodles take the concept of al dente to a tooth-cracking extreme. In the kitchen, three sullen women prepare all the meals. Conner thrust the responsibility on them completely at random and it shows. Not all that long ago I would have dumped this food down the toilet; now I wolf it down.
Conner watches everything, seated on his rattan throne, making certain that no one gets more than the barest amount of food necessary for survival. Following Conner’s new rules, Nelson raps at the swinging door to the kitchen but does not enter. No one can enter the kitchen except the three cooks and Conner, who wears about his neck the only key to the storerooms.
One of the three women pops her head through the swinging door.
With misplaced pride, Nelson hands his skimpy catch of the day to the woman. “Dinner is served.”
Her expression is as sour as a bag of lemons. “I told you yesterday this type of fish is all bones. Considering what little meat we get, it is hardly worth the effort to clean and gut them.”
“A fisherman is only as good as what the sea provides,” Curtis wraps a supportive arm over Nelson’s shoulder.
The woman appears ready to say something else, but instead, shakes her head and takes the scrawny fish back to the kitchen. As Nelson and Curtis walk away, Curtis’s arm still affectionately upon Nelson’s shoulders, Conner watches with obvious distaste. Across the room, Gwen spoons some sort of broth into Alexandra’s mouth. Alexandra stares into space, her once long, sleek chestnut hair now a tangled mess.
I walk over. “Hey, Gwen.”
After seeing so little of her for the past three or more weeks due to our different schedules, it feels odd to strike up a nonchalant conversation with her.
Gwen smoothes her hair back from her face—a self-conscious gesture I find touching. “I must look like a mess.”
“You look like you always do. Beautiful,” I instinctively respond.
She touches the beard on my face and smiles. “I see you’re going for a rugged style.”
I blush. “Yeah, I’ve been meaning to shave.”
“Don’t bother. I like the whiskers on you.”
I glance at Alexandra. Gwen reads my questioning glance and explains, “Alexandra’s not well. She has good days and bad ones. This is not one of the better ones. I’m helping look after her.”
I nod to Conner. “Shouldn’t that be her husband’s job?”
She nervously glances at Conner and back to me. What is she afraid of? “Yes, well, Conner has his hands full keeping things together here.”
“Yeah, I know. He’s got to be on constant guard in case we mutiny for an extra can of soda,” not bothering to mask the contempt I feel.
“Phil,” Conner points to the exit. “Your patrol is starting.”
With heavy sarcasm, I hold my hands before my face, turning them over, and feigning amazement that I can see them. “Night patrol starts at dusk. It is still daylight.”
Conner grips the arms on his chair and leans forward, eyes squinting hard at me. Everyone else in the restaurant stop whatever they are doing. A pang of fear blossoms in my gut, but I swallow hard and stand my ground.
Gwen touches my hand.
“Phillip, please,” she softly says.
I scowl at Conner and mutter, “This is bullshit.”
I march out of the restaurant and head straight for the bungalow Gwen shares with Pamela. The back door is half-open.
I peek in. “Pamela?”
“In here,” she calls from the bathroom.
The bathroom door is open. I walk in. “You decent?”
Leaning over the sink counter, she looks in the mirror and slowly applies lipstick. “I don’t know if I’ve ever been decent, but you can come in all the same.”
I plop down on the edge of the marble bath, and then bolt up and pace the room. “I’m beginning to think we’d be better off taking our chances outside the resort. Conner is turning this place into a prison.”