There were still sharp pains in my arms, but my legs could have been miles away. A friend of mine had once lain on his arm for an entire day in a heroin-induced stupor-he lost use of the limb entirely. Taking the moral of that story to heart, I made a mental note to try and flex my arm and leg muscles at regular intervals.
"Do you know where we are?" I said, scanning as much of the shoreline as I could. My forced line of sight only let me look in one direction down the beach; the other half of the shore lay hidden behind my head. The beach curved sharply towards the ocean, ending in a rocky point about a mile ahead; further inland, the white sand gave way to rocks, scrub brush and a wall of tall grass. "Were either of you awake when they dumped us here?"
"Nope. They must have put us under with something heavy-duty," Alvy said; he was buried facing me, enabling him to view the other half of the shoreline. Mikey was buried slightly further inland, facing the ocean. "The sand doesn't look anything like the mainland-too fine. Could be one of the Carrier Islands, maybe… "
"Wherever it is, it's off the main drags," Mikey Burdy said, barely audible over the waves. "I've been watching the water since I woke up, and I haven't seen one boat."
I tried to recall my last waking memory. Alvy, Mikey, Thornton, Swayne and I were readying Rody's trawler-the
Angelcake-for a midnight run up the coast. The cargo was a few boxes of pills, nothing huge. So when Rody showed up right before our launch, I was immediately suspicious. But with Mikey and Thornton on board for "security," there was no chance of an easy exit.
I tried to stay on my toes during the run, but got distracted when Alvy came out of the hold with a large hypodermic needle sticking out of his neck. Before I could even react, Thornton's fist hit me in the temple. I was out before I hit the deck.
As the sun climbed in the sky, we kept quiet. I was beyond thirsty, and didn't want to waste a breath until I saw a boat. Then I would scream louder than ever.
For a few hours, Alvy occasionally hollered, hoping to catch the attention of someone further inland. Every time he shouted, the entire situation seemed increasingly hopeless. With the roar of the water and the high wind, we were quickly out of earshot. Someone would have to trip over our heads to actually find us.
Meanwhile, Mikey appeared to be resting his eyes, or asleep. He was another worry. A shark's head is still capable of biting you, even after it's severed from the body; I half expected Mikey's ugly lid to roll across the sand and tear into me with its teeth. If Mikey found a way out before we did, Alvy and I were both in trouble.
And then there was another part of me that was actually afraid of being found-afraid of seeing Rody, Thornton and Swayne walking across that beach, ready to finish the job.
There was no point in getting emotional about it: we were fucked.
The sun had reached its full height, heating the sand to a torturous temperature. I felt the skin on my nose and forehead slowly burn, and tasted nothing but sand on my tongue. Several death scenarios ran through my head: dehydration; blood clots; exposure during the night; or perhaps a drowning death after all, at the peak of a mid-summer storm.
"Jim," Alvy finally said, as he surveyed his half of the beach. "I don't believe it… HERE! OVER HERE!"
Mikey Burdy broke from his sleep, his eyes widening immediately. Although I couldn't see what had grabbed their attention, I saw hope in their eyes.
"Alvy," I said. "Someone's there?"
"Yes, yes… walking up the beach… HEY! HEY!"
Mikey Burdy and I both joined in with Alvy, screaming our lungs out with joy.
"It's okay," Alvy said. "He's coming, He's seen us."
At last, a long shadow drifted over the sand, covering my head in its cooling shade.
"My God, buddy, you have no idea how glad we are to see you," Alvy said, close to tears.
To my surprise, our rescuer stepped right over my head-a hairless set of legs in worn-out running shoes. It turned out that our stranger was no more than a boy, probably not even a teenager yet. His skin was baked brown from the sun, partially covered by a red bathing suit and a ratty old t-shirt. A mop of tangled brown hair obscured the top third of his face.
"Can you dig us out, little man?" I asked the boy. "Someone's played a nasty joke and left us out here."
"Dig me out first," Mikey suddenly jumped in. "My friends have sun stroke. I can help you dig faster."
"Don't listen to him kid-he's delirious," I snapped back. "Why don't you get one of us out? He needs medical attention."
"Christ you guys, be quiet," Alvy intervened, before trying a different tack. "My name's Alvy Fullerton. This is Jim Leach and Mike Burdy. What's your name?"
The boy didn't answer. Instead, he hovered over Alvy, staring down at him intently.
"Maybe he's French or something," I said.
"Kid, please, listen to me," Alvy said, ready to break down after an uncomfortable minute of silence. "We're close to dying here… dig us out."
The boy knelt in front of Alvy and picked up a handful of sand. Opening his fingers wide, he let the grains blow away in the ocean wind. Mikey Burdy had reached his limit.
"Are you fucking retarded?" he yelled, gnashing his teeth. "Stop fucking around and get me out of here. Now!"
The boy stood again, this time towering over Mikey's head. If the kid was scared or angry, I certainly couldn't tell. He was tough to read.
"I know you understand me, so I'll say this once," Mikey said, narrowing his eyes. "Use your hands, grab a stick or something. I don't care. Just know that if you don't start digging, I'm going to find you when I get out. I'll kill your family, and then I'll kill you. Very slowly."
Alvy and I were both dumbstruck by Mikey's stupidity. The boy casually walked away from us, disappearing in the tall grass behind the beach.
"Mikey, you fucking idiot!" Alvy shrieked, with an anger I'd never seen before. "If you've scared that kid off… HEY! COME BACK! WE'VE GOT MONEY… HEEEEEEEEEYYYYY!!!"
While Mikey boiled in his own blood, Alvy and I desperately scanned the scrub brush, searching for the boy. We continued to call out for help, hoping to coax the boy back to us, but to no avail. Alvy lost it.
"I don't blame him for taking off," he cried. "He's probably never seen such a bunch of rat-fucking-scumbags in his whole life."
"Alvy, relax," I said. Further down the beach, I could see the boy, emerging from the brush. "He's coming back. It looks like he's carrying something."
"It'd better be a shovel or a shovel-shaped stick," Mikey exploded. "Or I'll snap that kid's neck right on this fucking beach."
"No, no… it looks like… golf clubs."
Mikey was still breathing, but in shallow gasps that were becoming less frequent. His head was an island, surrounded by a shallow pool of his own blood. Every once in a while, he would let another one of his teeth dribble down his misshapen jaw.
"Is he still here?" Alvy blurted, twisting his head several times in either direction. He seemed to be in deep shock, even though the boy hadn't laid a finger on either of us.
I hated Mikey Burdy. I'd seen him kill close to a dozen people, and had spent the last few months worrying that I would be next. But Alvy and I had both begged for Mikey's life, while a twelve-year-old kid beat his head to a living pulp. Through the entire ordeal, not a glimmer of emotion crossed the boy's face. When the deed was finished, he tossed the rusty clubs into the ocean and slid back into the cover of the tall grass.