Chapter 8
Chapter
Eight
DARWIN
It’s incredibly disorienting to be woken up by someone yelling that there’s an invader on the island. Not that Matty used those words, but his panicked tone and the constant, repeated ‘someone is here’ immediately had alarm bells in my head screaming INVADER as if I lived in an earlier time.
Zephyr is not having any of it. I’m not surprised he thinks Matty is just rambling in one of his mad moments. But there’s something he’s not registering in his semi-asleep state. Matty came to find us. That man never leaves his room.
I push Zephyr off me, and he rolls to the other side of the bed with an irritated growl. Blindly, I reach for my phone and pull up the video feeds of all the docks and ways onto the island. I’m not surprised that I don’t find any movement at all.
Turning it around, I show it to Matty. “No one’s here.”
“They’re here,” he insists. “You have to make them leave before they find the bodies!”
“Okay, Matty. I’ll check it out,” I say with a tired sigh.
“No,” Zephyr says. “We’ll check it out in the morning.”
“You can’t wait for the morning,” Matty says shrilly. “There’s someone here, Zephyr. Someone who shouldn’t be here.”
I’m already sitting up in bed and reaching for the lamp.
“Stay in bed,” I tell Zeph. “I’ll be right back.
” Honestly, I don’t think much of it, either.
The ghosts are constantly telling Matty that they’re going to move the dead bodies, which is almost always the trigger for Matty losing his mind in a meltdown.
“The fuck you are,” Zephyr grunts and pushes himself up. “You’re not going alone.”
“It’s sweet that you’re concerned, but it’s not a big deal.”
“Why are you naked?” Matty asks.
Zephyr and I look at Matty.
“Because I was just fucking Darwin,” Zephyr deadpans. “What do you think?”
Matty’s face turns red, but then his head snaps to the left, and he looks down the hall. “Hurry!”
The urgency in his voice has my pulse increasing. What if there’s actually someone here? I pull on the clothes discarded on the floor and then wave Matty out of Zephyr’s room to lead the way with Zephyr on my heels.
We stop at the closet inside the west facing exit door, and I pull out a jacket for Matty. He slips inside. As he zips it, I pull a beanie onto his head. Zephyr shoves boots my way, and we both struggle into them.
“Hurry,” Matty urges, arms wrapped around himself.
“Maybe you should stay here,” I suggest.
“But you can’t see them. How will you find him if I can’t show you?” Matty answers.
I meet Zephyr’s eye, and he’s frowning. Maybe there’s some credence in what he’s saying after all.
Zephyr and I pull on hats and then grab a couple of No Face masks along with a pair of blades each and flashlights.
We’re alone on the island, and most of the nearby islands are abandoned in colder weather, but we usually choose not to use firearms if we can help it. They’re too loud.
“Lead the way,” Zephyr says as he pushes the door open and steps aside to allow Matty to take a step outside.
The island is still. It’s one of those very rare nights on Dark Island where there isn’t a rushing wind along the St. Lawrence River. The silence is eerie. The moon is bright overhead.
Matty leads the way into the forest with purpose. As if he knows exactly where he’s going. He takes turns and doesn’t pause to look around at all. It’s as if he’s following a path, but there are no paths within the forest on Dark Island. We’ve always made sure of that.
I know we’re getting close to the shore when I hear the water lapping on the surface. It’s quiet. Unhurried waves. Gentle and soothing.
“See?” Matty hisses and points at a boat.
Zephyr breaks free of the trees to get close to the small boat. There’s no motor. They rowed here. The beam of Zephyr’s flashlight highlights the telltale sign of who the boat belongs to.
“Chokecherry,” he grunts, and the three of us look to the water in the direction of Chokecherry Island.
Our boat club has four rival clubs in this part of the St. Lawrence River that we often race—Chokecherry, Grindstone, Carleton, and Wolfe. They’re our favorite competitors. Frenemies, if you will.
The double-hanging cherries that we often joke are a metaphor for low-hanging balls is the simplified symbol Chokecherry uses to denote their boat club.
In recent years, as the younger generation of boaters joins the club, they’ve gotten angry and poor-spirited.
They hate losing, but they suck at winning.
Our five boat clubs have had a long history together, and it’s always been healthy and fun.
For the last three or four years, we’ve been distancing ourselves from Chokecherry because they’re asshats and really poor losers.
However, I’m a little surprised that one of them would turn up on our island in the dead of night. They’re not near the docks, which is why my video surveillance didn’t pick them up. This boat is pulled up onto the shore.
“I don’t see any other boats or movement on the water,” Zephyr says.
“Hurry,” Matty whispers. “They’re at one of the broken buildings. There’s a door in there.”
Doors to the tunnels.
Zephyr turns. “Show us, Matty.”
Matty turns and begins walking us through the trees again. We’re moving quickly but as quietly as possible. Matty stops suddenly and yanks Zephyr toward him. He looks at the ground silently but warily and continues on without a word. Zephyr looks at me, eyebrows raised.
I swallow. No doubt there’s an old hole in the ground there that Zephyr nearly stepped right into.
We’ve tried to mark off the holes over the years so none of us accidentally falls down them.
There are stories that the island swallows people who wander into the trees. These holes are what take them.
“There,” Matty whispers, pointing ahead. “See the shadow of the building?”
I turn my flashlight off and wait for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. It takes a minute, but eventually, I see the shadow of the decrepit stone building. We’re about halfway to the tower if we’ve reached this building.
“Stay here,” Zephyr tells Matty.
Matty takes a shaking breath. I turn to face him and bring up my No Face mask to show him. He flinches. “Just us, right? The three of us are the only ones on the island. You know that. Which means if you see one of these masks, you’re safe. It’s one of us.”
He takes several deep breaths and nods. The No Face masks represent a lot of trauma for Matty. They’re the reason he’s here. The reason he’s haunted.
“Okay,” he whispers.
“Stay right here. Okay? We’ll come back to you.”
“What if you can’t find me?”
“I promise we’ll find you. We won’t leave you alone out here.”
“Alone with the dead,” he murmurs. His tone makes me shudder. Fuck’s sake.
I turn toward Zephyr. We pull the masks over our faces and creep as silently as we can toward the building. As we get closer, I hear movement. A shuffling of feet on fallen twigs and dead leaves. A scraping.
The No Face masks are pure white. There are eye holes and a small oval mouth hole.
If you think about the Halloween masks of the 1990s—the creepy-as-fuck masks—these are similar and yet not at all the same.
They’re featureless. Just a smooth surface that curves over our faces, concealing everything about our identities.
They also catch the light of the moon and glow eerily. Not going to lie, I’ve thought I’ve seen ghosts when I catch glimpses of the masks at night. Disembodied faces floating through the trees.
Zephyr grips my forearm and then surges forward. Somehow, he’s still silent, and then he has the guy in his hold. I’m guessing it’s a guy based on the tenor of his voice. Zephyr grips him by his hair and brings one of his knives to the man’s neck.
“Big mistake,” Zephyr hisses. “One you’re taking to your grave.”
“No. Please. I’m sorry. Please let me go.”
I catch the movement of his hand before Zephyr does and stop his blade swinging back toward Zephyr with my own. He screams and drops his knife, gripping his hand to his chest. Moonlight peeking in through the canopy of trees shows a bloody mess on his hand.
Zephyr hauls him along, and I follow, heading for the nearest well. There are half a dozen, which we’ve always mused suggests that someone had intended to build a small homestead here at one point. Or maybe there had been one here a hundred years ago that had been taken down.
I shove at the heavy cover draping the sides of the well while Zephyr holds our intruder. He continues to beg for his release, but it falls on deaf ears. We have no intention of releasing him. Not in freedom, anyway.
We’re not stupid. It’s unlikely that someone doesn’t know he’s here. Then again, it’s strange that he’d come alone.
As soon as I have the lid off, I join Zephyr, and together, we shove the man toward the well. He stumbles, his feet hitting the stone lip, and he tumbles forward. His screams echo off the stone as he plunges to the bottom.
We stand over the top and listen to him splash and sputter and continue to beg for his life. For a long time, we watch, though we can’t see much in the dark hole. Just the occasional movement when the moonlight hits him just right.
Zephyr moves to the lid and together, we haul it back into place. It dulls his desperate sounds to almost nothing.
“We need to take care of the boat,” I say.
“In the morning. We’ll just bring it into the trees for now. I’m tired, and now I have blood on me.”
His grump is cute. I don’t comment on it, but together, we head toward the dim light in the trees that tells us where we left Matty. He’s hunkered down at the base of a tree. His head snaps up, and he screams when he sees us.
“Easy,” I say, crouching down so he can see my face when I pull the mask off. “Remember, just us on the island.”
“Where’s the guy who didn’t belong here? They said you pushed him into the well.”
“We did.”
Matty shakes his head wildly. “No, no, no, no. He’s going to be a ghost. He’s going to haunt me, too.”
“I won’t let him.”
He’s still shaking his head. There’s a strange innocence about Matty when he’s beginning to sink into a terror-filled meltdown. I don’t think he’s shaking his head at me anymore, though. His face contorts, and he covers his ears with his hands and begins muttering under his breath.
I stare, unsure what to do. How do I help him? I look up at Zephyr, but I can’t make out his face in the darkness from this angle.
Turning back to Matty, I look around us, trying to catch any glimpse of the ghosts harassing him. Eventually, I decide that even though I can’t see them, they can likely see me. Which means they can hear me.
“Back off,” I say, keeping my voice firm. “Take a step back from Matty and shut up.” Matty looks up at me with wide eyes. “You need to show some fucking respect,” I continue and look around him. “Just because you’re dead doesn’t mean that you can harass him. This comes to an end right now.”
Matty’s lips part as he stares at me. The moonlight twinkles in his eyes. For a long time, he doesn’t look away from me. I’ve surprised him. Also, I think that might have worked.
“Matty?” Zephyr asks.
It takes Matty a minute to turn his attention to Zephyr.
“Was there only one intruder? Can you ask them—the dead—can you ask them if only one intruder came from the boat?”
Matty flinches. He looks around wildly and begins folding in on himself again.
“Back off!” I snap, and Matty jumps. “Fuck’s sake. One at a time. It’s a simple question. Yes or no. ONE of you answers the question.”
Matty is panting as he stares at me again. “Yes,” he whispers. “He says yes. Just one.”
“Good,” Zephyr says and offers Matty his hand. “Come on, doll. We need to get the boat into the trees, and then we’ll go back inside. Okay?”
Matty looks between me and Zephyr’s hand.
He nods and reaches for Zephyr, who pulls him effortlessly to his feet.
We keep Matty between us as we make our way back to the shore.
He helps us bring the boat deep enough into the trees that no one will see it from the shore.
Then we scruff up the beach so it doesn’t look like a small boat was beached there.
Finally, we make our way back to the castle in silence.
“Are you okay, Matty?” I ask.
He nods.
“Are they still bothering you?”
He shakes his head. “They’re… quiet. You yelled at them, so they’re quiet.”
“Maybe they need to stop being assholes, and I wouldn’t have to yell at them.”
Matty flinches. “They don’t like to be called assholes,” he murmurs.
“Call them as you see them,” Zephyr says. “The way they bully you is certainly the work of assholes.”
“Oh,” he answers.
I squeeze his wrist so he knows that we’re right here. He’s not alone. If he needs me to yell at his ghosts, so be it. If I weren’t so tired, I’d make sure he knows he can yell at them, too, if they become too much.
But I’m too tired. Between my days and nights of being fucked real damn good by Zephyr and now hunting a trespasser on our own fucking island while the moon is still high overhead, I’m dead on my feet. More than anything, I want to fall into bed and sleep for the next twenty-four hours.
Our footsteps are the only sounds as we make our way back to the castle. We peel off the outdoor gear we piled on, replace the knives and masks behind the hidden door to be dealt with tomorrow, and head back down the hall to the stairs.
Our shadows are long. Matty’s flashlight is the only illumination besides the moon shining in through the windows.
I don’t generally keep the lights on when I watch the castle.
With only one or two of us wandering around, it’s a waste of electricity and unnecessary since no one is walking the halls at night.
We head back to Zephyr’s room and once more, strip naked.
I crawl onto the bed. Before I can lie down, Zephyr shoves me sideways so I land on my back.
Tired laughter bursts out of me until he lands on me like a boulder and forces the air from my lungs, though I’m still laughing as I wrap my arms around him.
Finally. We can sleep.