“Like an eyeball on the gridiron.” Tom plucked his off the stick and pretended it was oozing out of his eye socket.
“Awful way to die.” Cindy hugged her knees. “Guy I knew, had an ice lab in his basement. He died like that. When he was cooking a batch it blew up in his face. Burned him down to the bone.”
“You see it?” Tyrone asked.
Cindy glanced at her hands, then nodded.
Tyrone frowned, his face looking ten years older. “Saw a brother die, once. Drive by. Right next door to me. I was eight years old.”
“I saw someone die, too,” Tom said.
Meadow sneered. “Man, yo gramma doesn’t count.”
“Does too. I was there. Does it count, Sara?”
“It counts,” Sara said. She gave up trying to find the source of the flash and smiled at Tom. “And let’s try to talk about something other than death for a while.”
“Damn.” Tyrone stuck out his tongue. “My shit is burned. Tastes nasty.”
“I’ll take it.” Cindy held out her hand, and Tyrone passed it over.
Sara bit into hers, careful not to drip any on Jack. The perfect combination of sweet and toasty. She loaded up another, then felt her neck prickle, like she was being watched. Sara turned around, peering into the trees. She saw only blackness.
“When is Martin coming back?” Cindy was drawing in the dirt with her stick, making no attempt to replace her lost marshmallow.
“He’s probably just beyond the trees,” Sara said. “Waiting to jump out and scare us again.”
“What if someone grabbed him?”
“Cindy, no one grabbed him. We’re the only ones on this island.”
“You sure?”
Sara made an exaggerated motion out of crossing her heart. “And hope to die.”
“What if he had an accident?” Cindy persisted. “Maybe hit his head on a rock or something?”
Sara pursed her lips. There was a slight chance, but it could have happened.
“Meadow, can you go check?”
Meadow made a face. “You want me to go in those woods so he can jump out ‘n scare the soul outta brother? No way.”
Sara sighed, and just for the sake of argument she let her imagination run unchecked. What if Martin’s little stunt really had gone wrong and he’d hurt himself? What if he’d fallen into a hole? What if a bear got him? There wasn’t supposed to be any bear on this island; according to Google, there wasn’t supposed to be any animal here larger than a raccoon. But what if Google was wrong?
She frowned. Her imagination had won. Even if this was a stupid trick on Martin’s part, Sara still had to go check.
“Fine. I’ll do it.” She got up, handed her marshmallow to Cindy, and dusted off her jeans, staring into the darkness of the woods surrounding them.
And the woods were dark. Very dark.
The confidence Sara normally wore like a rain coat fell away, and she realized the very last thing in the world she wanted to do was tread into that darkness.
“Tom, can you help me look?”
Tom shook his head. “He can stay out there. I’m not leaving the fire.”
“Ain’t got no balls, white boy?”
“Why don’t you go then, Meadow?”
“Hells no. At this particular time, Laneesha be holding my balls.”
Laneesha rolled her eyes and stood up. “Y’all are cowards. C’mon, Sara. We’ll go find him.”
Sara blew out the breath she’d been holding, surprised by how grateful she was for the girl’s offer. “There’s a flashlight in one of the packs. I’ll get it.”
She walked over to her tent and ducked inside. It was dim, but the fire provided enough illumination to look around. Sara cast a wistful glance at the double sleeping bag. She tugged her eyes away, then located the backpack. While pawing through the contents she removed a canteen, a first aid kit, some wool socks, a bottle of Goniosol medication, a hunting knife, the papers...
Sara squinted at them, staring at the bottom of the last page. Unsigned. Irritated, she shoved them back in. She eventually dug out the Maglite, pressing the button on the handle. The light came on. It was yellowish and weak—which annoyed Sara even more because she had asked Martin to buy new batteries and he’d promised to take care of it.
But he also promised to love, honor, and protect.
Putting the papers out of her mind for the time being, she left the tent and joined Laneesha, who was staring into the woods where Martin disappeared.
“You takin’ Jack?” Laneesha asked.
Sara looked down. She was so used to wearing the baby sling she sometimes forgot she had it on.
“He goes where I go.”
As a shower gift, Sara and Martin had been given a baby monitor. It was in a closet, unopened. Since giving birth to Jack, Sara hadn’t ever been more than fifteen feet away from him. And though putting Jack in his portable crib and letting Cindy or Tyrone watch him was a possibility, it was a far-fetched one.
“Besides,” Sara said. “If Martin sees I have Jack, maybe he’ll quit screwing around.”
They headed for the trees where Martin disappeared.
“If you run into any cannibals,” Tom said to their backs, “don’t tell them we’re here.”
“That’s weak,” Laneesha said.
Sara eyed the girl, normally cocky and busting with attitude, and saw uncertainty all over her young face.
“The story was fake, Laneesha.”
“That Plincer cat ain’t real?”
“He might be real. The name is familiar. But the way to make campfire stories sound believable is to mix a little truth with the lies.”
“How ‘bout all them cannibal soldiers, eating people?”
“Even if that was true, and it wasn’t, it happened over a hundred and forty years ago. They’d all be long dead.”
“So Martin was just joshin’?”
“He’s probably just waiting to jump out and scare us,” Sara said.
“Probly. That’d suck, but be better than someone grabbing him.”
Sara raised an eyebrow. That possibility was so far out she hadn’t even considered it. “Did you see someone grab him?”
“It was dark, ‘n he was right in front of that bush. Thought maybe I seen somethin’, but probly just my mind playing tricks ‘n shit.”
Now Sara was really reluctant to go into the woods. She knew the Confederate story was BS, but wondered if perhaps someone else was on the island. According to Captain Prendick, no one ever came out this far.
“That’s crazy,” Sara thought. “There’s no one here but us.”
There were over a hundred of these islands on Lake Huron, from the size of a football field up to thousands of acres. This was one of the big ones, a supposed wildlife refuge. But there was no electricity, and it was too far from the mainland for there to be anyone living here.
Other campers?
Sara reminded herself to be rational. Occam’s Razor. The simplest solution was usually the right one. Martin joking around made much more sense than unknown habitants, or coincidental campers, or old Warden Plincer and his ghostly gang of southern maniacs.
Still, they did have that radio the boat captain lent them. Sara wondered if her husband goofing off qualified as an emergency, because she was almost ready to contact Prendick and beg him to return.
“Let’s do this,” Laneesha said.
Sara nodded. Practically hip to hip, the women walked around the bushes and stepped into the thick of the woods.
They were watching. They were watching from behind the trees. Listening to words that made no real sense to them.
They smelled things. The woman smelled like soap. The thin girl smelled like mint gum. The thin boy smelled like sweaty feet. The baby smelled like powder and diapers.