grimesgirls: national treasures saved. Nathan stared at what he’d written and smiled. Patriotic. Proud. Words as pretty as dollar signs.
Wind from the open door caught the paper, and Nathan trapped it against the table. For the first time he noticed the darkness, the suffocating gray shroud that had come long before sunset. The plane was horribly late. He’d been so caught up in planning the magazine that he’d lost track of time. Jesus. The Gulfstream could be trapped inside the storm, fighting it, low on fuel….
The storm rustled over the coconut palms with a sound like a giant broom sweeping the island clean. Rainwater guttered off the tile roof. It was only five o’clock, but the darkness seemed impenetrable. Nathan sent Buck and Pablo to the landing strip armed with flares. He put on a coat and paced on the balcony of his suite until the thrashing sounds of the approaching Gulfstream drove him inside. He stared into the darkness, imagining that it was as thick as pudding, and he was truly startled when the explosion bloomed in the distance. Ronnie (Miss October three years past) tried to embrace him, but he pushed her away and rushed from the room. It was much later, after the rain had diminished to a drizzling mist, that he stepped outside and smelled the wreck for the first time.
Buck and Pablo didn’t return. The night passed, and then the morning. Nathan didn’t go looking for the boys. He was afraid that they might be looking for him. He hid his pistol and the keys to his Jeep, and he slapped Ronnie when she called him a coward. After that she was quiet, and when she’d been quiet for a very long time he played at being magnanimous. He opened the wall safe and left her alone with a peace offering.
Downstairs, he hid the yellow legal pad in a desk drawer that he rarely opened. He closed the drawer carefully, slowly, without a sound.
That was how it began, two days ago, on Grimes Island. Since then, the living had moved quietly, listening for the footsteps of the dead.
The Heckler was warm, and as Nathan reloaded it he wished that his talents as a marksman were worthy of such a fine weapon. He set the pistol on his dresser and went downstairs, fighting the memory of the purple-gray mess that Kara North’s forehead had become when one of his shots—the fifth or the sixth—finally found the mark.
That wasn’t the way he wanted to remember her. He wanted to remember Miss December. No gunshots, only Teddy’s camera clicking. No blood, only a red Santa cap. Sassy red socks. And nothing but golden-bronze flesh in between.
Nathan took a bottle of Cuervo Gold from beneath the bar. When it came to tequila he preferred Chinaco, but he’d finished the last bottle on the night of the crash and now the cheaper brand would have to do.
“I saw what you did.” Ronnie confronted him the way a paperback detective would, sliding the Heckler across the mahogany bar, marring the wood with a long, ugly scratch. “You should have asked Kara in for a drink, made it a little easier on the poor girl. That was a damn rude way to say goodbye, Nate.”
Nathan filled a glass with ice, refusing to meet Ronnie’s patented withering stare, but that didn’t stop her words. “She looked so cute, too, worshiping you from a distance with those big blue eyes of hers. Did you see the way she tried to curl her hair?” Ronnie clicked her tongue against her teeth. “It’s a shame what a little humidity can do to a really nice coiffure.”
Nathan said nothing, slicing a lime now, and Ronnie giggled. “Strong and silent, huh? C’mon, Nate, you’re the one who blew off the top of her head. Tell me how it felt.”
Nathan stared at the tip of Ronnie’s nose, avoiding her eyes Once she’d been an autumnal vision with hair the color of fallen leaves. Miss October. She’d had the look of practiced ease, skin the color of brandy, and large chocolate eyes that made every man in America long for a cold night. But Nathan had learned all too well the October power of those eyes, the way they could chill a man with a single frosty glance.
He pocketed the Heckler. He’d have to be more careful about leaving the gun where she could get at it. Coke freaks could get crazy. He poured Cuervo Gold into his glass and then drank, pretending that the only thing bothering him was the quality of the tequila. Then he risked a quick glance at her eyes, still chocolate-brown but now sticky with a yellow sheen that even Teddy Ching couldn’t airbrush away.
Ronnie picked up a cocktail napkin and shredded its corners. “Why her? Why’d you shoot Kara and not the others?”
“She was the first one that came into range.” Nathan swirled his drink with a swizzle stick shaped like the cartoon Grimesgirl that ran on the last page of every issue. “It was weird. When I looked into Kara’s eyes, I had the feeling that she was relieved to see me. Relieved! Then I raised the gun, and it was as if she suddenly realized….”
Ronnie tore the napkin in half, then quarters. “They don’t realize, Nate. They don’t think.”
“They’re not like those things on TV, Ronnie. You noticed the way she looked at me. Christ, she actually waved at me today. I’m not saying that they’re geniuses, but there’s something there… something I don’t like.”
Bits of purple paper dotted the mahogany bar. Ronnie fingered them one by one, lazily reassembling the napkin. Nathan sensed her disapproval. He knew that she wanted him to strap on his pistol and go gunning for the Grimesgirls as if he were Lee Van Cleef in some outré spaghetti western.
“Look, Ronnie, it’s not like they’re acting normal, beating down our walls like the things on TV do. We just have to be a little careful, is all. There are eleven of them now, and sooner or later they’ll all wander close to the gate the same way that Kara did. Then I can nail them with no problem. And then we can go out again… it’ll be safe.”
“Don’t be so sure.” He made the mistake of sighing and her voice rose angrily. “They didn’t fly in by themselves, you know. There was a pilot, a copilot… maybe even a few guards. And Teddy. That’s at least five or six more people.” Now it was her turn to sigh. “Not to mention Buck and Pablo.”
“You might be right. But who knows, the others might be so crippled up that they can’t get over to this side of the island fast, or at all. Or they could have been incinerated in the explosion. Maybe that’s what happened to Buck and Pablo.” Nathan looked at her, not wanting to say that the boys might have been someone’s dinner, and she pursed her lips, which was a hard thing for her to do because they were full and pouty.
“Hell, maybe the boys got away,” he said, realizing that he was grasping at straws. “Took a boat or something. I can’t see the docks from here, so I can’t be sure. It could be that they reasoned with the girls, tricked them somehow—”
“Are you really saying that zombies can think? That’s crazy! If they’re dead, they’re hungry. That’s it—that’s what they say on TV. And Kara North sucking a little spit curl doesn’t convince me otherwise.”
Nathan cut another slice of lime and sucked it, appreciating the sharp tang. It was the last lime on the island, and he was determined to enjoy it. “Maybe the whole thing has something to do with the crash,” he said, taking another tack. “I can’t figure it. I saw the explosion, but all the girls seem to be in pretty good shape. Kara was missing a few fingers and her hair was singed, and a few of the others are kind of wracked up, but none of them is badly burned, like you’d expect.”
“We could drive out to the plane and see what happened for ourselves,” Ronnie offered. “They can’t catch us in the Jeep.” She touched his hand, lightly, tentatively. “We might be able to salvage some stuff from the wreck. Someone might have had a rifle, maybe even one with a scope, and that would be a much better weapon than your pistol.”