Terminal Island by Walter Greatshell

Author:Walter Greatshell
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: Horror, Comics & Graphic Novels, Fiction
ISBN: 9781597804370
Publisher: Pgw
Published: 2012-12-04T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

WE’RE SHADY ISLE

It is a low cliff—two or three feet high—but Henry lands hard on his face. If the ground wasn’t soft earth he could have fractured his skull. As it is, he is just rattled. He crawls to his feet, spitting a gob of blood and dirt.

“Fuck,” he says, checking his jaw. His voice echoes as if in a barn; the whole building is hollow inside, gutted. There are no condos, no separate rooms at all, just one big empty box. What is this? Remodeling?

Standing up, Henry closes the door to a crack and blearily peeks out. He can hear the jangling of the inner fence being unlocked and dragged open, and a gruff voice abusing the dogs. “Stay!” the voice says. “Stay, you whores!” The vehicle spurts through with a farting roar, and now Henry sees it coming down the driveway:

It is the same dirty-yellow quad ATV that he and Ruby saw at the Casino, and carrying the same two men. The one in the rear has a blue U.S. Postal Service mailbag slung across his back. They do not stop to scan the grounds, but move purposefully as if on an errand, following the service road downward to the lowest bank of condos. Henry loses sight of them. The dogs are nowhere to be seen—they must not have been released into the compound.

Thank you, dear lord, Henry thinks—not only for himself, but because of his foresight in telling Ruby to return to the hotel.

The last thing he would have pegged those guys for is mailmen. At least they’re not security or cops—at the moment he seems to be in the clear. It’s almost disappointing: For a second Henry’s mind had raced through the various scenarios of being caught, and all of them at least allowed him to vent his frustration at being forced to trespass like this…and now almost break his neck. It’s not like he’s in here for fun! He’d like to walk right out and flag those men down, demanding answers.

But somehow it just doesn’t seem like a good idea to reveal himself to them. Maybe if they were more official-looking and not so much like crazy yahoos spoiling for a fight. Especially if something illegal is going on here, they could be dangerous. After all, isn’t that what he came here to find out?

Henry makes the snap decision to see where they went, to discreetly follow them. If they’re really mailmen, maybe they went to an administrative office where all this can be neatly resolved. He’d gladly pay for the busted door. In spite of everything, he still dearly hopes there is some reasonable explanation.

Venturing out of hiding and down the stairs, Henry listens carefully for the giveaway racket of that ATV. On the next-to-last landing, he catches sight of the vehicle. It is parked on the sun deck of the lowermost block of condos, which are set on a concrete ledge directly overhanging the beach. It is the base of this platform that Henry and Ruby had first seen from the shore road below.

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