Page 63 of After Life
“Hey man. Doctor Weems, right?”
“Yeah?”
He offered me a small, tight smile. “I’m Cap. Hey.”
“Hey... Is she—”
He nodded. “Hey. Um, you know a kid named Enoch?”
“Enoch?” I muttered. “Uh, yeah. Why?”
He shook his head. “Fucked up shit, man. Stay here, okay?”
“I don’t think that’ll be a problem.”
He stood and started moving along the dark edge of the beach toward where Sandra and Ray-Don were raking the sigils into the sand, filling them with something from a large kettle-like container. I looked around to see Oscar stretched out beside me—we’d been moved and were near the thick ridge of seagrass at the base of the beach path. Oscar was pale and breathing, but again too still. “Oscar,” I murmured. “Please wake up. Please tell me it’s you in there. Please, baby?”
He made a small noise but was otherwise unresponsive.
Shouting rose from the beach, and I pushed to one side, straining to see what was happening. Cap had grabbed Sandra by the arms, pulling them behind her back and lifting her off her feet. Ray-Don swung at them, aiming for Cap but hitting Sandra hard enough to make her cry out. Cap tossed her to one side as easy as a puff of cotton and started kicking at the sand sigils. Ray-Don shouted wordlessly, rushing at him. Cap sidestepped, his voice carrying on the wind. “You got no right to my family’s book, you assholes! What the hell have you done?”
Sandra staggered up, grabbing one of the burning sticks and swinging it in an overhead arc that Cap easily ducked under, hitting her midsection with his shoulder. She went down hard, gasping on the sand, hands fluttering as she tried to catch her breath. Cap shoved to his feet and started dragging burning pieces of wood through the sigils, cursing as he moved. “Help me,” he shouted. I staggered up, lurching toward him to destroy the designs in the sand.
Something that felt like hands scraped at my face, so cold it burned. “Get away from him,” I shouted, not sure if I meant Sandra, Ray-Don or whoever was trying to claw at me and make me stop. I kicked at one of the deep-gouged lines and a howl went up. At first, I thought it was the wind, but more joined in and a tangle of voices emerged. So many it was hard to discern individual words. So close it drowned out all other sounds, the sheer volume making my ears ring even as I kicked at more of the sigil.
The howling was a raw and guttural sound as I scraped away the outer edges of the markings, dragging my cane across the smaller lines to obscure them. I wasn’t sure how much I’d need to destroy to make sure it would fail, so I kept going, my breath sawing in and out of my lungs as I tried to move faster. Cap shouted in pain as Sandra managed contact with one of the smoldering logs, the sound making me jerk my head up to see what was happening. Sandra shrieked, a sound of triumph and pain as she lunged at him. Cap was injured but fast, sidestepping her then bringing his leg up to catch her around the knees, sending her to the ground. Oscar’s body heaved weakly, like he was trying to sit up or even just take a deep breath. I went to his side, collapsing onto my good hip. There was no way I could be deliberate in my movements now. Everything hurt, and my panic was too great. “Oscar, baby, can you hear me? Listen, just hold tight, okay? Hold tight. We’re here. Please be in there, Oscar. Please? Let me know... Say something. Anything. Oscar?”
“Help me here!” Cap shouted, and I looked to see he’d managed to pin Sandra to the beach, but she was strong and fighting hard. I half-lurched, half-crawled toward him. “The toolbox,” he snapped, nodding at the metal box open where Ray-Don had left it. It was farther than I wanted it to be but needs must. “There’s rope in it. Under the top caddy.”
I didn’t know why Ray-Don had a bundle of fresh hemp rope in his toolbox, and I didn’t even want to being to imagine what he’d planned to do with it. I threw it to Cap, and soon Sandra was trussed on the beach before Cap moved to Ray-Don, securing him alike.
It felt like miles before I reached Oscar’s side again, afraid to move him, afraid of the incoming tide.
Afraid this was all for nothing.
Cap kneeled on the sand, chest heaving as he watched the waves pull the charred wood away from the shore. The clumped sand, soaked with blood, kerosene, and whatever concoctions Sandra had made, was dark under the cloud-covered sky the carved sigils no more. In their place was plain sand, looking for all the world as if a giant had reached down and scooped up great handfuls before throwing it back down. “I called the emergency folks before I headed over,” he muttered after an interminable span. “Said some people were tryin’ to kill a tourist. Didn’t figure tellin’ them the truth would get me very far.”
“You... you know the truth?”
Cap nodded. “I’m the last of the Tibbinses. This shit”—he nodded at the destroyed sigils, at Sandra and Ray-Don— “is why I left when I was sixteen. Lied ‘bout my age, worked some odd jobs, joined the Army... Never wanted to come back till I heard through the grapevine that Sandra Cochrane was obsessed with Jeremiah Tibbins. The first one, that is,” he said. “I’m the fifth one.”
“Seriously?”
“Mmm hmm.” He glanced up, squinting at the dawn-bright clouds still spitting rain. “Head’s up. This is gonna kick up a lot of sand right in your eyes.”
THE POLICE SEEMED PLEASED to be able to use their shiny new helicopter to arrest Sandra Cochrane and Ray-Don Jennings. Oscar had rallied and, for a horrifying moment, I wasn’t sure if he was Oscar. But he looked at me, and I knew. I knew he was in there, that he was real. And I buckled over my knees and sobbed until Cap patted me gingerly on the back and muttered, “Get it together. They think you’re on something, man.”
The cops asked a million questions, ready to dismiss it as some drug fueled hurricane party, but seeing Oscar’s injuries, and Sandra screaming how he was ‘hers’ and I had ‘ruined everything,’ led to the pair of them being taken back to the mainland. Ray-Don had muttered an admission about theft, about helping kidnap Oscar during the storm, and that was him gone.
Oscar refused medical transport, insisting he’d be fine with some rest.
“If you’re sure,” the young officer muttered, anxious to be gone from the weird people on the beach.
Oscar scrubbed his hands over his face, resting against my knees where I was sprawled on the ground. “Very sure. I just want to go back to bed for the next week.” He sighed.
“Might not be a bad idea,” the cop agreed. Cap went and got his truck, bringing it as close to the beach path as he could. Between the cop and him, they got Oscar up the path to the truck, me following at a slower pace.
The ride back to Honey Walk was quiet. A few people were already out, cleaning up after the storm, removing shutters and generally starting their day. Most of the tree branches and heavy palm fronds that had fallen on the road were already pushed to one side, but in a few places trees and limbs crushed roofs or stood jagged, broken in half but not completely severed. A few homes already had tarps over holes in their roofs, but more than one had a family outside looking stunned, staring at the damage left by Nelson. “I didn’t realize this many people lived here,” Oscar murmured. “It seemed like just Sandra, Ray-Don and a few others...”
