Chapter 13
“Okay, just stick to the facts. Daisy is missing and someone—we don’t necessarily know who—fell off the waterfall on the first night. Don’t mention the changing videos, shadow figures, or a coverup, okay?” James said.
He wanted to be taken seriously, but he was also still hoping to write some sort of splashy investigative piece that maybe VICE would pick up, and he didn’t want the women to say too much and ruin his chances of that.
The medical tent consisted of a white banquet tent with plastic windows and fabric doors.
Inside sat four empty cots and a single desk where two people in white shirts that read MEDIC across the back watched something on a laptop together.
One of them was a Hispanic guy with close-cropped hair, and James thought to himself that even the medics on this island were good looking.
The other medic stood a head shorter and was heavily tattooed and beach blond.
“Can we help you?” the shorter of the medics asked.
“We want to get in contact with someone off the island,” Cassidy said.
“Who do you want to get in contact with?”
“The American embassy,” James said.
The medics exchanged looks and the blond one rose to standing.
“Why do you need to contact the embassy?” he asked.
“We’ve tried contacting security already, and I was told there is a central tent to contact the people running the festival, but I can’t find it,” James explained.
“Yeah, there’s no central tent for them. It depends on who you want to talk to,” the second medic said. “But why do you think you need to contact the embassy?”
“There was an accident the first night, up in the woods. I tried to make a report and was turned away and told that the Bahamian police were taking care of it, but I haven’t heard anything since then. Do you know anything about all that?”
Neither medic appeared to even hear what he said, their expressions remained so impassive. They didn’t share a look to confer with one another, either.
“No, we didn’t have any reports like that,” the first medic said.
“See!” Edie shouted, turning her head quickly back and forth to face Cassidy and James. “This is what I’m saying; no one reported it. He’s probably still back there at that waterfall.”
“Are you saying there was an unreported death at a waterfall on the first night of the festival?” the blond medic asked, finally stepping from around the desk to talk. The lanyard around his neck bearing a private company’s logo said he was Registered Nurse August Fielding.
“Yes, and now my friend is missing,” Cassidy said.
“Are those somehow related?”
“I don’t know. I mean, it also seems suspicious.”
Box fans whirred, blowing hot air around the small tent. James felt suffocated but wasn’t sure if it was due to the stuffy room or the sluggishness with which the medics addressed their concerns.
“Okay,” the second medic said, stepping forward. His lanyard was turned around so James couldn’t catch a name. “We’re going to need to get a statement from you, but we’ll get someone out to that waterfall to at least investigate that claim.”
He handed the three of them clipboards to fill out for their statements and left the tent.
The women took a seat on one of the cots to write down their statements, and James took a seat in front of the desk that August returned to.
A few minutes later, the medic returned with a security guard that James didn’t recognize.
“This is our head of security, Bill Peterson,” the medic said.
James stood and took Bill’s hand. He was an older ex-military looking type with muscular shoulders and greying hair and he reached out to Edie and Cassidy to give them quick pumps of their arms as well.
“We’ve made a call to the mainland to get some more people here, but in the meantime, he’s going to ask you a few questions.”
“I thought the head of security here was someone named Grant?” James asked.
“No, that’s incorrect. I am head of security.”
“And, I’m sorry I didn’t catch your name,” James said, reaching his hand out to the medic.
“Diego Lopez,” he answered with some hesitation.
“So, can you tell me what’s happening here? I’ve been informed there was an accident and now there’s a missing person?”
The three visitors briefly explained their concerns. Neither Diego nor Bill seemed shocked or interested in their story, and Bill stood with his thumbs hanging through his belt loops like he was listening to a boring bar tale.
“And whereabouts is this waterfall?” Bill asked.
“We can show you where it is,” James said.
“That won’t be necessary. If you tell me where it is, then we can take it from there,” Bill said.
“I mean … it’s not the easiest place to get to. I don’t think that it’s an official trail that we took to get out there or anything.”
“You can draw us a map that is your best guess of where this is, and we’ll take it from there,” Bill insisted. Diego handed James another clipboard from behind the desk where August sat clicking around on the computer, and James relented.
While James drew, Bill took down all their contact information, yet again, and told them all that they could go.
“Wait, that’s it?” Cassidy asked, hugging her clipboard to her chest.
“If we need to, we will contact you for more information.”
“What about my friend, Daisy?”
Bill looked irritated and the heat of the tent seemed to be getting to him. His face was beet red above the collar and he was visibly sweating. “If you give me a description of your friend, we’ll keep an eye out for her.”
“That’s it?” she repeated.
“Your friend is either on the island or she’s not. If you tell me what she looks like, we’ll keep an eye out for her, wherever she might be.”
Tears welled up in Cassidy’s eyes and her chin wobbled. She gave him a brief description: Daisy was about Cassidy’s height, white, blonde, brown-eyed. Bill rolled his eyes.
“I’m sure she’ll stand out here,” he said, but grabbed the walkie-talkie on his shoulder to repeat the description.
Diego collected the written statements, and Bill herded James and the women to the front flap of the tent. “Like I said, we’ll contact you again if we need to know anything else. Don’t go doing anything stupid, okay?”
Bill dropped the flap in front of them before James could respond to tell him they weren’t children. It fell heavily, folding Bill inside the tent, and ending their interaction. Cassidy wiped her eyes on her wrists.
“I didn’t even tell him about the kids spying on us,” she wept.
“Maybe you should,” Edie said.
“He doesn’t even care that Daisy is missing, why would he care that I think I’ve seen someone outside my villa and can’t even prove it?” she asked, starting to sob again.
“I think if you’re worried about it, you should tell him. If you don’t want to, then I will for you,” Edie said, putting a comforting hand on Cassidy’s back.
Cassidy lifted her red face to Edie and nodded. James rolled his eyes.
She didn’t believe you yesterday and now she’s your buddy. You can’t trust her, James thought, but he lifted the flap again to let them enter first.
All three men stood by the desk and looked over at the entrance when Edie and Cassidy walked through.
Something about the way the men looked at James and the women made James’ hair stand on end.
The eyes of these men all lacked something that James only thought of as humanness.
They didn’t look harried or irritated or even concerned.
They had the far-away indifference that struck James as so odd when he’d first asked if they’d heard about an accident.
“Can we help you?” Diego asked.
“We wanted to add something to our report,” James said.
“What report?”
James felt the need to physically take a step back from the question. He watched as Cassidy’s mouth fell open and Edie’s eyes widened.
“The report we just made,” James said slowly. “About the guy who fell off the waterfall and the missing girl.”
The medics and Bill exchanged blank looks, and James realized exactly what they all lacked in their eyes: recognition.
“You made that report today?” Bill asked.
“We made it just now, like a minute ago.”
“On the emergency line?”
“Yeah, it was on the emergency line,” Edie said, stepping forward and touching James on the shoulder. He wanted to argue, but those three blank pairs of eyes continued to stare through him, past him.
“Then you’ll have to call back on the emergency line and finish your report there. We don’t have your information, and they’ll be able to add whatever you have to say to your first statement,” August said.
“Okay, we’ll do that, then. Thank you,” Edie said, giving them a dazzling smile and gently pulled James and Cassidy back toward the door flap.
“What the hell was that?” James asked once they stood in the sun again.
“That was the same conversation I had this morning with Rose,” Edie said.
Cassidy nodded, but her chin wobbled as the tears started to come again. “That’s what it was like talking to Apricot about Daisy this morning.”
“What do you mean?” James asked.
“I mean they don’t remember us. They really don’t remember us. Rose didn’t remember you, Apricot didn’t remember Daisy, and they don’t remember us,” Edie said.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” James said.
“No, it doesn’t, but that’s what is happening.”
“We just got done talking to them, how could they not remember us?” James asked.
“How would I know?” Edie asked, throwing her hands down. “Maybe it’s something in the food or the water or something, but people are forgetting things, important things. I bet if you went back inside right now, they still wouldn’t remember you.”
James stood up to his full height, as if trying to physically face this argument. He didn’t say anything, but he did pull the flap open on the medical tent and stuck his head in. Cassidy and Edie stayed in place, and Edie wrapped her arm around her crying companion.
“Excuse me, do you remember me?” James asked.
The three men still stood in the same formation by the desk and turned to look at him.
“Excuse me?” Bill asked.
“I was just in here; do you remember me?”
The three men stared at him. “I think you must have been in a different tent. This is the medical tent,” Bill said.
James stepped back and let the flap fall shut. He looked to Edie and Cassidy with a cold determination in his face.
“Into the ocean. Now.”