Free Black Tide by Del Stone Page B

and into the hardpack area between the island proper and the water to improve my footing, and when I looked back he not only was still there but was gaining on me, an escapee from a charnel pit gone irrevocably mad. My thighs began to ache. A knot was forming in my side. I did not know what was worse – the physical pain I was feeling or the horror of seeing this … this thing chasing me.
    Finally, I could run no more. The pain was too great. I could not take another step.
    The shoreline was littered with debris. I snatched up a board and whirled around, holding it before me like a knight prepared for a joust. DeVries slammed into the end of the board, nearly knocking it from my grasp, and reached out with flaming arms to grab me.
    His reach was short. Thank God.
    And I held him that way, as the fire cooked his flesh into sizzling black chunks and his screams of hunger and rage diminished to an inhuman croaking. I held him at board-point and felt myself crying as his tendons snapped and his muscles gave way to the flames and he dropped woodenly to his knees.
    I was still standing there as he burned to a crisp in front of me.
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    It was Heather who came and got me.
    She led me unresisting back up the beach. The smell of rotting fish had become cloying. By tomorrow the air would be unbreathable, unless the current continued to flush the kill toward the new pass. Scotty was gazing appraisingly across the water.
    He glanced at me as I joined them, then looked back at the shore. He said, ‘We have to do something.’
    I scratched my head. ‘I was thinking. The authorities should be moving into the area today …’
    â€˜We have enough food for two days,’ he interrupted me. ‘Enough water for a week. But it’s the light we’re hurting for.’
    â€˜We lay out a signal on the beach. An SOS, using some of the lumber that’s been washed ashore …’
    â€˜We have two flashlights left. That may give us another night or two. And there’s enough wood for a single fire.’
    He wasn’t even listening to me. I might as well have been talking to the smoke-dimmed sky. Clearly he had already made up his mind to do something, and it sounded as though he were trying to justify the decision to himself.
    â€˜I’m going to swim across to the mainland.’
    I felt a moment of shock, and then I found myself shaking my head and muttering, ‘No.’ Even now, in looking back on that moment, I can’t say exactly why I opposed the idea, only that I did. I felt an instant apprehension, and I can’t say if it stemmed from some hidden concern for Scotty’s welfare, or for our own, or what. Maybe I saw it as a usurpation of my authority. Maybe I was secretly jealous he’d thought of the idea and not me. But I found myself formulating objections, the first being, ‘You can’t swim that far. It’s almost a mile.’
    He pointed to the nearer shore. ‘That’s only about a quarter of a mile.’
    â€˜Yes,’ I said, ‘a quarter mile of dead fish and bloated animal carcasses carrying God alone knows what kind of pathogenic organisms …’
    â€˜I’ve had enough of your pathogenic organisms,’ he answered. ‘Look around you. All of Northwest Florida is a pathogenic organism.’
    â€˜What if one of the creatures in the water attacks you?’
    He shook his head, tendrils of his slicked hair swaying with the movement. ‘It’s daylight. You saw what happened to DeVries.’
    â€˜And once you get ashore,’ I countered. ‘Look at the shoreline over there.’ I yanked a finger southward. ‘It’s a solid mass of sand live oak and Spartina patens – er, saltmeadow cordgrass. Very dark. They could be hiding in there.’
    â€˜I’ll stick to the open areas. Once I get ashore I’ll find a telephone and call for help …’
    â€˜Who?’
    He stared at me,