CHAPTER SEVEN
Now that D’Arcy Island was close enough to make out the little details, the nausea I was feeling down below was starting to creep up my throat again.
It looked like any other island that you’d see in the Pacific Northwest. But the strange part was, you knew it wasn’t. Even if no one had told me what had gone on there, the feeling of dread that washed over me, the animosity that just reeked out of the island’s pores, was unmistakable.
“I’m getting a bad feeling about this place,” I said to Dex while pulling my coat in closer. “You?”
“I will if you can’t keep your mouth shut for the next few minutes,” he answered, peering off the bow with intensity. I opened my mouth to say something back but decided not to. Dex was only that rude when he really had something to be worried about and I could see this was one of those times. So I shut my mouth, stepped away from the wheel by a few inches and followed his gaze.
From what I could see it didn’t look like much was out there. We were close to the island but not close enough to be hitting any rocks. But the water was rippling like a few opposing currents were working the surface.
“Hand me the maps,” he said, pointing at a bench where the charts that were flapping in the breeze were anchored under a couple of sailing books.
I leaned over and pulled them out, asking, “Want me to look at them?”
“Would you know what you were looking at?” he scoffed, eyes still on the water.
I brushed his attitude off my shoulders and picked up the first book, which was Cruising Guide. I flipped to the index and quickly looked up D’Arcy Island before Dex had the chance to bark at me to do so.
I found the passage on it and looked over at him. He put the boat into the lowest gear and we slowed down considerably. He squinted at the spread–out maps, which glared white in the sunshine, then examined the water between us and the island.
“What does the book say?” he asked.
“It says there are no good anchorages, only acceptable ones in the right weather. It recommends the cove south of the light, on the west side, and that we should use a stern anchor or something to restrict swing. It also says to be on the lookout for the kelp reefs and submerged rocks.”
“Yeah, got that right here,” he said, jabbing at the sonar. It looked like a bunch of dark spots on the screen but I trusted that Dex was reading it properly.
“So what, we can’t get to the island?” I asked. Maybe a bit too hopefully.
He eyed me carefully before saying, “Oh, we can get there. Just a few things to be mindful of, that’s all. Don’t get your panties all in a bunch.”
I glared at him and looked back at the book. It showed a happy photo of bright kayaks on a beach. It couldn’t be that bad, could it?
I looked up at the island again as we started heading further west and rounding a point. The lighthouse slowly but surely came into view.
Thankfully it wasn’t a lighthouse like the one me and Dex had met in, the one with Old Roddy on my uncle’s farm. It was just a tall white post with a light at the top. Below it, the cliffs sloped to the churning waters. Bill was certainly right about the riptides. Aside from the currents I could see squirming in the water around us, the ocean’s swell seemed to build around the island, creating frothy breaks and sprays as they met against rocks and pebbly beaches.
“Well, I’m just going to sit over here,” I said, gesturing to the bench. “If you need help, you know where to find me.”
I sat down and tried not to watch the progress of the boat with an eagle eye. I was freaked that we were going to run into some hidden reefs or get tangled in a kelp forest. I looked behind me at the Zodiac we were towing and thought if anything was going to get stuck, it was going to be that thing.
Dex was absorbed into complete concentration and rightfully so. As he watched for rocks on the radar and spied telltale currents up ahead, I looked over at the island. We were pretty much in the slight cove and the shore wasn’t too far away. I could make out the individual branches of the fir trees, the glowing green of the ferns nestled at the bottom sparkling in golden rays of sunlight, the smooth shapes of the rocks that made up the shoreline. Seagulls darted to and fro and with the sound of the motor at a minimum, I could hear the waves rolling the rocks in a rhythmic manner. It seemed so peaceful, so idyllic but…
Someone was watching us.
A face hidden in the leafy foliage. The grotesque rotting face of a leper, with rough, lesioned skin that matched the bark of the pine next to it. The eyes were narrow and black, the mouth open and fathomless. It was an expression frozen in terror.
I gasped, afraid to blink in case I lost sight of the monstrosity. I wanted to look away from the creepy, mask–like face but I couldn’t for fear of losing it.
“Dex,” I slowly squeaked out, not taking my eyes away.
He grunted, not wanting to be bothered. “Kinda busy right now.”
“There’s a creepy face in the woods, staring at us.”
He looked at me and then looked in the direction of my gaze. For the amount of time he stared at it, I was sure he could pick it out.
But he eventually turned back to me and said, “I don’t see anything.”
That was impossible. I could still see it.
“No, there’s someone there. Right in the ferns, where the trees start to come down further to the beach. Straight ahead, then to the right a bit.”
He looked again and I could see him shaking his head out of the corner of my eye. Annoyed and scared at the idea that it was only something I could see, I narrowed my eyes and tried to make sure that I was really seeing what I thought I was. It was a face wasn’t it? I looked below it and saw the outline of dark shoulders fading into the forest shade. It had to be a person. But it wasn’t moving either.
Dex put his hand on my shoulder and I jumped in my seat, eyeing him wildly.
“Hey, kiddo, there’s nothing there,” he said calmly, looking down at me. He removed his hand and went back to navigating. My eyes flitted over to the forest and now I couldn’t see it anymore. The face was gone and only the trees remained.
“OK! This spot should work, hopefully,” Dex announced loudly and thrust the boat into neutral. He poked me in the shoulder to make sure I was paying attention to him. “Can you hold the wheel steady and press this button here when I tell you to? It will be stop and go and you’ll have to hold your finger down to make it run.”
I nodded and got up, scooching over behind the wheel and making sure I could reach the black button that stuck out on a low panel on the boat’s side. The creepy feeling hadn’t left me yet but I was glad to be concentrating on something else.
Dex made his way to the front of the boat. I quickly stole a glance at the forest. It was entirely plausible that I imagined the whole thing. After all, it didn’t move even once and the lines and shadows of the forest could be molded into any figure of your imagination, like a Magic Eye painting.
“OK go,” Dex cried out from the bow, amongst the sound of clanking chains. I pressed the button, holding it down while the anchor lowered into the water. It didn’t seem like that hard of a job until the current began to tug at the wheel, making it shake underneath my hands. I tightened my grip and held it steady, while holding the button down with my other hand.
The wheel began to move even more under my hands, almost violently, like someone down below was pulling the rudder left and right. I put the weight of my boobs against the wheel for extra leverage, not able to let go of the button yet. But it was getting tedious. I was close to having to take my hand away.
“Let go!” Dex yelled, and I gladly did so, putting my other hand on the wheel to steady it. He ran along the deck towards me, not even bothering to hold onto the lifelines as he did so.
“The wheel is going crazy,” I explained.
“The currents are f*cked here.” He put his hand on the anchor button.
“Are you getting hold of anything?”
He frowned. “I should be. It’s a really sharp slope so I have to be sure.”
After a few moments of hearing the anchor motor purr, he let go with satisfaction and turned the boat off. He looked at my white knuckles at the wheel and smiled wryly.
“You can let go now,” he said. “We aren’t going anywhere.”
I did so. And the boat swung quickly to the left, away from the island. It was almost as if the island was giving it one huge push to stay away.
I almost fell over but Dex grabbed my arm quickly.
“You were saying?” I glared.
He sucked in his lip and looked back at the shore while the boat continued to spin like the second hand on a clock. He grabbed hold of the wheel and kept it steady. He glanced down behind him.
“There’s no stern anchor to keep us from swinging all weekend.”
“Does it matter if we aren’t on the boat?”
“Hell yes it does. The anchor is barely holding up front and this is a f*cking calm day, for this place anyway. Another hour of this and the boat will wiggle itself free. If we left, it wouldn’t be here when we return.”
So what he was saying is that we were f*cked. Oh well, time to call it day and go back to the marina. Nice try but not in the cards. I understood.
Oh, but no.
“Doesn’t matter, there’s an easy fix,” he said while my shoulders deflated. “Here, take the wheel.” >
I did so, shoving my weight against it. It was even harder now to keep steady than before. Just what the hell was going on in the water? It looked like a lot of commotion on the surface, but not enough to make steering as difficult as it was.
The image of sunken coffins slowly rising to the surface entered my head. I pictured fingerless hands coming out of the rotted caskets, skin peeling, bloated white flesh, reaching for the rudder underneath in the dark, green depths.
“Perry!” Dex barked. I snapped out of it and gave him my attention. He had lifted up one of the benches and was pulling out a long yellow rope out of a hidden storage area. “You hear me? Keep that wheel as still as you can, we’re in a good position now.”
The boat had done a 180 around the anchor and the bow was facing the way we had come in. I nodded and did as he said.
He came beside me and tied the rope around a metal hook thing, finishing it off in a fancy sailor knot, then opened the lifelines behind me and started to pull in the Zodiac.
“Where are you going?” I asked anxiously. I didn’t want him to leave me on this thing.
He kicked over a metal ladder and stepped down towards the Zodiac, jumping the rest of the way. He landed with a thud, the boat shuddering beneath him, but managed to stay upright and inside. He pointed to the cliff area. There was a lone arbutus tree that was jutting out of one of the rocks.
“I’ve got to tie us to that tree there,” he said, starting the small engine on the Zodiac like a finicky lawnmower. After a few attempts it roared, blueish smoke emanating from the tank, the propellers whirring violently.
“Do you have enough rope?” I asked. He nodded and adjusted himself on one of the pontoons.
He looked up at me. “Just hold it as steady as you can; otherwise, you’ll be leading me around. Make sure the rope doesn’t tangle. I’ll be right back.”
How many times had I heard that?
And off he went. The little boat straggled a bit at first and I could see Dex jerking the engine around, fighting off the current, but as soon as the boat picked up speed, it was smooth sailing.
I watched him, aware that the wheel was trying hard to be free of my grasp. There was no way in hell I was letting go for anything. The rope trailed out from behind the Zodiac and it looked like the spool of it at my feet was going to unwind sooner rather than later.
Just when the rope’s length was almost all used, Dex reached the rocky outcrop beneath the cliff. He killed the engine, leaped on land, climbed up over a few wet boulders and reached the tree. It made me nervous. It was obvious that he knew what he was doing and Dex could certainly be a little monkey at times, but seeing him scamper over those wet boulders, crashing waves beneath him, I knew it just took one wrong step for him to lose his footing and tumble backward into the sea.
This seemed like an awful lot of trouble just to visit this island. Why the government decided to make it a park was beyond me. How the hell did most campers get here anyway? No wonder there was rarely anyone here – half the people probably gave up. There was another island only a few miles away that had a dock and everything. The smart boaters went there; the crazy ones came to this hostile place.
Hostile was the most apt term. From the moment we saw this place, this feeling of GET OUT was running through my bones. I didn’t like it at all and all this trouble with the currents and the boat weren’t helping.
Dex got the job done though. He had tied the line around the tree as much as he could before there was no more slack and got back into the Zodiac. He started the engine, motored along loudly and within a minute he was back at the boat and climbing aboard.
He breathlessly tied the Zodiac back to the boat and said, “Now let go.”
I did so and braced myself for the swing. The boat moved over but stopped after a couple of feet, the rope straining tightly against the tree. I could hear the anchor chains from the bow rattling. But we weren’t going anywhere.
We breathed out a sigh of relief in unison.
“You’re not a bad skipper,” he said to me. “Maybe you should take up sailing after this.”
“We’ll see,” I said.
Now that that was all done, we climbed below and started organizing everything for our pilgrimage to the campsite on the opposite side of the island. We had two large backpacks each full of our personal crap, a small cooler that Dex had stuffed with food we had purchased on the way to the marina, a small cooking stove with propane, a long duffel containing the tent, pegs, mattresses and a tarp, two sleeping bags, two pillows, the large professional camera, the handheld camcorder, a strange old camera case I hadn’t seen before, an SLR camera, two large golf umbrellas, lighting boards, a small pack full of our ghost–hunting equipment and the like, Dex’s laptop…and a bunch of other crap.
“Uh, don’t you think it’ll be easier if we just left everything on the boat?” I pointed at all the junk. “It’s going to take several trips to the island just to take everything.”
“So it will,” he mused, gathering up his backpack. “Can’t forget the jackets either.”
He went to the forward cabin and pulled them out. They were real, proper sailing jackets. I knew they would come down to the knees on me. He placed them in my hands then noticed the look on my face. “What?”
“I’m just saying, maybe I should stay on the boat? That will at least cut down on bringing some stuff.”
“Are you getting cold feet?”
“I’ve had cold feet this whole time.”
“So you’re scared?”
“Yeah! It’s called Island of Death for a reason and it obviously doesn’t want us here.”
“Don’t be so dramatic.”
I felt like throwing the jackets in his face but just held his gaze steadily and with a stern eye. I could see the wheels working behind his brow.
“Fine,” he said, “if you want to stay on the boat tonight, that’s fine. Do whatever you got to do. But you know you still have to come on the island, bringing the rest of the stuff, and do all the damn filming we have planned.”
I nodded; of course I knew that. He did not look impressed with my decision though.
“Well, I’ll go do the first run. You stay here. Try not to wet yourself.”
He turned, gathering up as much stuff as he could and climbed on the upper deck. I sat down and opened the cooler looking for something to eat. It was way past lunch by now and the nausea that had killed my appetite earlier was gone.
I heard the sound of the Zodiac starting and through one of the portholes, saw Dex on it as he passed briefly outside, heading for the shore.
There was just enough food in the cooler for the weekend. We erred on the side of being cheap and having less to carry. As long as we had coffee, I was good. In fact, the two of us could live off coffee.
There was a strange poking feeling in the back of my conscious that was starting to make me reconsider though. Now that I was here, going to the island with minimal rations didn’t seem like the smartest idea.
I walked over to the galley and opened the tiny fridge and freezer. Empty, obviously.
I pulled open the cupboards up above and found a few boxes of half eaten cereal, several cans of soup, some canned vegetables, pasta sauce and an unopened box of Triscuits. That made me feel a bit better knowing there was food on board. No one said we couldn’t come back to the boat.
I grabbed the Triscuits and opened them. I doubted Zach would miss it and it was better than me nibbling at the food we were bringing to the island. I shoved a few in my mouth and walked over to the table.
A movement out of the corner of my eye made me stop. I slowly turned my head to the wall.
There was a hand on the outside of the porthole glass. A hand reaching up from the depths.
I screamed like hell, dropped the box and made a frantic dash for the stairs, pulling myself up them in a ragged, scrambling hurry.
I fell on the deck, scraping my knees on the pebbly surface, and scampered for the wheel, pulling myself behind it as if that was going to offer me some protection.
Dex had finished dropping the gear high on the beach and was walking back to the Zodiac. I couldn’t tell if he had heard my scream or not; it didn’t seem like it. I looked back at the cabin and let the sticky, eerie feeling wash over me. The cabin wasn’t the problem. The hand had been on the outside of the boat. Someone had to have been in the water, like they were trying to climb on board.
That thought made me want to vomit and having my back to the open sea was now becoming a problem. I stepped out from around the wheel and stood as in the middle of the cockpit as I could. I didn’t want to look on the sides of the boat; I was too afraid of what I might see.
I waited, standing as still as possible, hand on my chest, trying to hear anything besides the whoosh of blood in my head and the sweet, sweet sound of the Zodiac motoring back to me.
Well, that settled it. No way in hell was I staying alone on the boat tonight.
Within a minute, Dex was back and climbing back on board. He re–tied the rope, giving me a funny look.
“Are you OK?” he asked, coming over to me. “You look like you’ve seen…”
He didn’t finish the sentence.
“Can you do me a favor and look on the sides of the boat?” I squeaked. “The left side in particular.”
He appeared confused but did what I asked. He glanced over the left side. “What am I looking for?”
“There’s no one there?”
“No,” he said slowly. He walked over to the other side and did the same. “No one or nothing there either.”
He stopped in front of me and folded his arms. “What’s this about then? Saw another face?”
I could tell he wasn’t going to be very supportive, no matter what I said. “No, I didn’t see a face. But I’m definitely not staying on the boat tonight.”
He smiled wryly. “Decided you would miss me too much?”
“Something like that,” I answered.
A wave of suspicion clouded his eyes. I wasn’t sure if he was judging my sanity or what, but he didn’t say anything. Had it been the other way around I would have been bugging him to death but I guess that is where we differed. Well, that and the fact that I wasn’t a medicated nutter.
He let it go and I decided to as well. I probably just thought I saw a hand. Maybe it was a gull or something flying past, I don’t know.
We climbed back down and my eyes immediately went to the window. He was right in that he didn’t see anything. Whatever it was wasn’t there anymore.
Yet I couldn’t get the image out of my head. I know I saw a hand. I had seen it clearly. It was a greenish white, bloated and scabby. The palm had been open and pressed firmly against the glass, the wrist and arm leading down below out of sight, belonging to some… body.
Dex gathered the rest of the stuff. I supposed I should have helped but something was bothering me. I walked over to the window, heart in my throat, and peered closer at it. I moved my head around, trying to lose the glare from inside the boat and then I saw it. There was a very faint impression on the glass, like half a handprint. I could make out the lines where they would have snaked across at the top of the palm. It was fading quickly.
“Come look at this,” I commanded, no time to explain or ask nicely. To his credit Dex came right over, his head right beside mine, smelling like cigarettes and aftershave. I pointed at the mark on the glass, careful not to touch it myself. Not that it mattered, since the impression was on the other side.
“Look,” I whispered and looked at him to make sure he saw it, before the impression faded before our eyes. His eyes were locked like lasers. He saw it.
“It looks like an oil or heat smudge,” he said. “What is it?”
“It’s a handprint,” I said incredulously.
He frowned. It was all but gone now. “Are you sure? Did I touch the side of the boat?”
“No, not you. While you were on shore, I saw a hand come on the glass, on the other side, like this,” I put my hand on it to demonstrate. When I lifted it off, I too left a mark, albeit a full one.
“You saw a hand?” Now it was his turn to sound disbelieving.
“Yes,” I hissed. “I didn’t tell you because you wouldn’t believe me and then you said you didn’t see anything so then I didn’t believe me, but here it is.”
“Here it was,” he conceded. He rubbed his chin as we both watched the mark I left disappear, at a much quicker rate than the other one. I prayed that he believed me. I wasn’t crazy and I wasn’t making it up. There was proof and he saw it.
“I don’t know if that was a handprint,” he finally said. He looked at me carefully, obviously afraid that I was going to blow a gasket at him. He was on the right track but I managed to suck the explosion inside.
“It was a handprint,” I stressed through my teeth. “You could have given it a palm reading. Now what kind of f*cking ghost leaves a handprint?’
“The same kind that leaves a mark…” he said invitingly and reached over with his hand and stroked his finger slowly down the length of my neck, “… here.”
I shivered internally. Partly because I was remembering when Old Roddy had left bruises on my neck after our little altercation, partly because his soft touch was borderline sensual. That and the serious, almost seductive look in his eyes as he stared at my neck, like a vampire before its first meal.
“So what do we do?” I whispered, trying to not break the moment.
His eyes met mine. I wasn’t sure if he was thinking about ghosts. I was thinking about him running his wide tongue down my neck. Maybe that’s what he was thinking too. A weird heady tension was building inside of me and spilling out into the air. >
“We keep doing what we’re doing,” he said, his voice low and gravely. “And try and keep a camera on us at all times.”
He held my eyes for a few extra beats before straightening up and going back to the stuff. I eyed the glass again, feeling the tension dissipate.
“You believe me though, right?” I asked him, coming over to his side and bringing my backpack on to my shoulders. Please say you do believe me.
“I do, kiddo. If you say that was a handprint, then that’s what it was.”
“Thank you,” I said softly.
“Of course, it would be better if I had seen it too, or if you got it on tape but since we just got here, I’m going to take this as a sign of things to come. I’m sure this is only the beginning.”
He scooped up most of his gear, gesturing for me to take the cooler and the ghost equipment bag, and headed up the stairs. His words were not encouraging. This was only the beginning. We weren’t even on the island yet.