Chapter 20

What Do We Do Now?

Burke stood next to Jin’s parked SUV on Ocean’s Edge Road. Facing the vehicle, the glare of the sun reflected off the windows. He looked back at his own reflection and that of the trees behind him. He cupped his hands around his face trying to cut the glare in order to get a better look inside the vehicle. The doors were locked. Burke pulled his cell phone and tried calling Jin once more, hoping that perhaps he would hear the cell phone ring amongst the clutter of maps, coolers and various stuff scattered inside the vehicle. Or that perhaps Jin would have found his stupid cell phone by now and would answer his call. Unless Jin is actually ignoring my calls on purpose, he thought.

Bradley staggered on, dragging his feet on the forest floor as he walked through the woods with one bare, bloody foot. The other battered foot was clad in a filthy sock that now had holes in it, both shoes gone long ago. He occasionally shuffled his feet as he walked; his head and shoulders slouched forward, he dragged dead leaves, bits and pieces of green plants as they caught on his feet. He walked on unaware of any of these things. He walked past a cell phone that lay on the ground, as it rang just as the battery icon flashed red. He walked past it, ignoring it completely. The screen on the cell phone went black as the battery died.

A large deformed rat burst from the brush and stopped a few feet away from Bradley. The rat stood on its hind legs and sniffed at the air, before running off as fast as it had appeared. It left behind Bradley, who hadn’t acknowledged it and continued on his slow but steady shamble through the forest. The only thought left on his mind was the task of getting to his destination.

Burke swore under his breath. He needed to talk to Jin but had no way of reaching him. As he peered inside the SUV again, he noticed a large, opened map of Oakwood Island spread out on the passenger seat. It had a large red circle drawn in an area that was a short hike from where he stood. He had no way of knowing for sure, but his instincts told him that Jin had left the map there for him to see.

There also seemed to be clutter under the maps, but Burke couldn’t make out what that was. He did see Ziploc bags and other things. In the back seat were Jin’s hiking boots so Burke assumed he would be wearing his running shoes, perhaps. This was strange as Jin was not the type to go on a trek without the proper foot gear. There was an open backpack which seemed to contain all the folders Jin had been studying. In the very back of the SUV sat a pair of large red plastic gas cans.

The sound of traffic caught his ear. He stopped to watch a lady drive past him. He waited until he saw the vehicle disappear around the next bend in the road. Turning his back to the SUV and leaning against it, he pondered his next move. Out of habit, he reached for his cigarettes and Zippo with the intention of lighting up, but soon remembered he was leaning against a car which contained plastic canisters of gasoline and changed his mind. He could wait for a cigarette, he thought, as he watched another small car being driven by an old man drive past. He could wait a little bit, he confessed to himself, but not for too long.

Looking down at his feet and back into the SUV, he used his deductive reasoning skills and assessed that the hiking boots were probably a size 8. He looked down at his feet which wore a size 10 battered pair of dress shoes and sighed. He took his large plastic framed glasses off and began cleaning them with the hem of his jacket while he wondered what to do next.