Two Days Ago
I wobbled to my feet, nausea so severe the trees spun, circling and circling, and I stood for I don’t know how long until they mercifully slowed to a stop. I stumbled and Max held me upright. I reeled and fought the urge to vomit. My body felt like plaster, shattered into brittle shards and pieced back, held together with only the weakest glue. I could crumble at any moment.
Max must’ve seen the red marks on my neck because he ran his finger over them and I jerked away.
“Sorry,” he said. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
Ian Watkins rested at our feet, his body still, his skull caved in, a rock wedged in it. There was blood and other stuff and flies had already found the scent of death. I’d seen grisly images on the internet before, pictures from wars and horrors, but to be so close, so right here…this was no massacre a world away. This was personal.
Everything had changed.
I had changed.
Max’s voice pulled me from my thoughts. “We should get going.”
I looked at him, my friend who had suffered through the death of his brother, who had suffered the blame and guilt of not saving him, and I hugged him. He had saved me. There were no words. No amount of “thank-yous.” I would simply be forever in his debt.
“How did you know to come?” I asked.
“I got your message.”
I’d forgotten the voicemail I’d left for him telling him about my meeting. I never meant for Max to show. The universe rarely worked in my favor, but today it did in a big way.
Then I realized not only my debt to Max, but what I’d put him through.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“As long as you are, I’m fine.”
False bravado, I thought. No one kills someone and just walks away. I’d killed bugs as a kid, and even to this day, I felt bad about snuffing out their minuscule lives.
“I’m nowhere near fine,” I said. “But I’m okay.”
“That’s all I need to hear,” he said. “Let’s get you home.”
We walked toward the road and after my brush with death, I wish I could say the colors in the forest were sharper, the air fresher, but instead, I felt…numb. When I investigated the feeling further, I realized it wasn’t numbness at all; it was anger. Anger at how easily my life could’ve been taken; anger that I wouldn’t have mattered in the grand scheme of things. I could’ve blinked out of existence and the world wouldn’t have altered one iota. Aside from my parents and a few friends, most people wouldn’t have known the difference. What did that say about me?
That was about to change. I’d make sure of it.
Max assisted me the entire way home, supporting me, a ragdoll in his arms. When we arrived at Mr. Scronce’s house, I opened the door to find Theo and Sasha inside. Now it was my turn to be startled.
I said to Theo, “I didn’t know you were home. I didn’t see your car.”
Lifting a slat, he gazed through the blinds, his body coiled, ready to move at a moment’s notice. “I parked it in the garage. To hide it.”
Before I could ask from who Sasha added, “My dad—he’s been driving past every few minutes.”
I said, “I thought you were at school.”
“We left at lunch. You know how many kids are gone? Even the brown-nosers. It’s like a ghost town. It’s beyond weird.”
“Theo,” I said. “I think I know what’s going on.”
He and Sasha turned to me.
I told them about meeting Mr. Watkins in the forest, and how he tried to kill me. How the sheriff and Miss Lauer all had bloody noses. How Max saved me.
Theo said, “He’s dead? Mr. Watkins is dead?”
Max nodded.
“You’re joking. You have to be joking.”
The look on my face told him otherwise.
Theo blinked in incomprehension. I couldn’t read Theo’s thoughts, but he seemed to re-evaluate the skinny neighbor kid in front of him. Theo sat down, his body slumped, and then his mind kicked back into gear. “He was a guidance counselor. He was supposed to help us. What the hell is happening?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “Thanks for asking.”
“Sorry. I knew you were okay as soon as you walked in.” He paused, and then to appease me, asked, “Well, are you?”
“No! I almost died!”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Nothing.” I shook off my annoyance. Some things never change. I asked tentatively, “Have you ever heard of animal behavior infanticide?”
Max hadn’t heard my theory, either, so I explained. Theo seemed wary, his eyes squinting more and more with each passing second.
“I get what you’re saying, Ruthie, but the ocean’s been a dumping ground for years. If what you’re saying is true, then people on every river or coast would be going nuts. It’d be all over the news.”
I didn’t want to believe it either, but I continued to argue. “The chemicals have only been used once. Here. Right off Hemlock Island.”
“I believe her.”
I almost did a double take when I realized it was Sasha.
Theo was still unmoved. “What are you saying? Mr. Solomon ate…a fish? And he got…infected? This isn’t The Walking Dead. Stay in reality.”
Sasha didn’t even listen and asked me, “How do you think it spreads?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m guessing once somebody has it, it becomes contagious.”
“You mean, like the flu or something?”
I nodded. “How else can you explain Miss Lauer or the sheriff and Mr. Waktins?”
Our town was splitting apart and there had to be a reason. There was always a reason.
“I don’t know,” Theo said. “It could be anything. A virus carried by birds that suddenly made the jump to humans. An EMP wave. Or—who knows?—bad luck.”
“I don’t care if you believe me or not, Theo. The weirdest thing that’s ever happened on this island was the spill. We had an unnatural incident in a natural environment and this is about the most unnatural result I can think of.”
Theo continued to look at me with an impassive expression.
I said, “Does it really matter how it started? Something’s happening here. Now.”
Theo shrugged. “Guess not.”
“Let’s backtrack,” I said. “If it began with Mr. Solomon, who else was there? At the murder site?”
“Most of the town,” Max said.
Sasha said, her eyes widening with the realization, “Every adult’s probably been exposed by now.”
I thought a moment. “The sheriff. He’s been here. In this house.”
Theo pieced it together first. “Not Mom. No way. Not her.” He reached for the landline. “Dad’ll know what’s going on. He’s up on all this stuff.” He picked up the phone and dialed. “You’ll see. You’ll all see. It’ll turn out to be nothing.” Suddenly, his expression turned downward.
“What?” I said.
Agitated, he pressed again and again on the phone. “It’s dead.”
Max asked, “What about the internet?”
We raced into my room and grabbed my laptop. I turned it on, waiting. In the moments before the power came back on and the computer tried to find a connection, I found myself wishing like I hadn’t since my parent’s divorce. Please, God, please. But when the connection came up empty, the little logo spinning, still searching, I remembered how my wish didn’t come true the first time so why would it come to pass the second?
“Let me see that.” Theo grabbed the laptop to see for himself. “You’re sure it’s not the battery?”
“Battery’s full.”
Theo tried to play the calm, rational person. I knew it was an act, masking the fear underneath. “Now, let’s think this through, okay? Maybe they’re doing maintenance. I mean, it’s an island, there’s probably only one main server for the island. It must need fixing from time to time.” He added, “Right?” more as plea than a question.
“If Ruthie’s right,” Max said. “It means someone’s cut the lines. Like you said,” and he turned to Theo, “if there’s only one server, it’s pretty easy to access.”
Theo rubbed his head. “Why? Why would they do that? It. Doesn’t. Make. Sense.”
Sasha moved from Theo toward me. “What do we do?”
Theo’s voice was small, fading. “We stay here until Mom comes home.”
I knew he was worried about my mom. Worried what might happen to her. Or maybe, like all the war movies I’d seen, everyone wants their mother when they’re scared.
I said, “We can’t just wait and see what happens.” The truth is I had to do something. Sitting and waiting was like giving up. I’d done nothing most of my life, letting events wash over me, waiting for things to get better on their own. They rarely did. Then I thought of school and all the kids in it, unaware of the danger they were in, the danger surrounding them, the authority figures standing in their way. “We’ve got to warn them. The kids at school.”
Moments later, we were all in Theo’s car, I think for the same reason: purpose gave us a sense of meaning. We could make a difference. I’d been given a second chance at life, and I would sure as hell try to earn it. Theo’s eyes appeared in the rear-view mirror. “What are we going to tell ’em, Ruthie? I barely even believe it myself.”
“Start with a few of your friends. They’ll believe you if you tell them. Then they’ll tell the others.”
“What if you’re wrong?”
“Then it’ll seem like the biggest prank this island has ever seen.”
Max tried to inject some levity. “You’ll be a legend. And we’ll be expelled.”
Sadly, that would be the best-case scenario.