The Liger Plague (Book 1) (36 page)

The poxers poured out of the woods like ants, marching toward the beach. Tag couldn’t believe how many of them had appeared. There must have been at least a hundred poxers now making their way down toward his raft. They moved faster than usual and seemed to be chanting something that he couldn’t quite make out. He climbed inside the raft and fumbled with the oars. A shot went off behind him, and a headless poxer dropped to the sand. Cooper lowered the rifle and gave his raft a shove into the water, and he instinctively started to push off the sand with one of the oars. Cooper bolted toward the front gate and back to the safety of his house. Tag tried to insert the oars into the rubber hooks, but they were too small, so he paddled from left to right, muscling through the waves now breaking precipitously against the bow. Another gunshot went off just as a giant wave crested.

“Hey! Wait up, Tag!” Fez shouted, dodging between poxers and heading toward the shore.

Cooper stood near the gate, watching in surprise as the kid sprinted out of the woods and headed toward the beach. Lifting his rifle, he fired nonstop at all the poxers reaching out to grab hold of Fez. Tag plunged the oar down as far as he could into the choppy water, trying to keep the raft in place amidst the exploding stream of foamy water.

“Run, Fez!” Tag shouted, not quite believing that the kid was still alive.

“Don’t leave without me, Tag! Wait up!”

Fez dodged and weaved through the diseased stumbling toward the cove. The poxers’ guttural moans sounded more like words than anything else. Tag yelled for the kid to run faster. Fez pushed a poxer out of the way and then tripped over the body of another, sprawling face first in the sand. A poxer leaned over to grab the kid, but accompanied by the sound of a gunshot, Tag saw the poxer’s brain exploding in every direction like a watermelon blown to pieces. Fez scampered to his feet and started sprinting again until he arrived onto the beach. Cooper fired again and dropped another poxer who’d attempted to block the kid’s path. As soon as Fez’s feet hit the water, he dove into the surf and disappeared from sight. He popped up a few seconds later, stroking his arms up over his head and swimming out to the raft, making sure to dive under the incoming waves. Tag held one of the paddles out to pull him in, but as soon as he did, the raft started drifting out into the bay. He paddled back toward the shore until he was close enough to help the kid climb aboard. Waves tossed the raft all over the place, bobbing and falling, but somehow it managed to stay afloat. Fez pulled himself up and inside the raft and collapsed to the bottom, exhausted, breathing hard and soaked from head to toe.

“You little shit! You’re still alive,” Tag said happily, grabbing the kid by the collar and hugging him.

Fez stared up at him with a smile on his dripping face.

“I thought you were dead.”

“Thought wrong, Tag,” Fez said, gulping for air.

Another gunshot sounded behind them. Rocking up and down in the raft, Tag watched the water’s edge and saw Cooper standing on the shoreline, pointing the rifle at the mob of poxers converging on him. Cooper backpedaled until he stood nearly waist high in the ocean and fired his rifle until it clicked. So intent was he on helping Fez make it out of those woods, the old lobsterman had neglected to make it back inside his house. The first poxer caught up with him and tackled him into the water, and the others soon followed, ripping him to pieces. Tag started paddling frantically out to sea, not wanting to look back, hearing the anguished cries of the old fisherman being dragged underwater and torn to pieces. Fez took up the other paddle and started working opposite him, and together they moved through the swells.

The further out they went, the bigger the waves breaking over the bow of the raft. In seconds Tag was completely drenched, but he kept pumping his arms in order to steer the raft into the waves rather than get caught blindsided. They paddled until they were well offshore and totally engulfed in darkness. A chopper soared overhead, and he prayed the pilot hadn’t seen them. Tag paddled toward open water and faced the waves head-on so as not to overturn the raft. They paddled in a northeast direction, climbing up over the walls of water. Glancing back toward the mainland, Tag could see the faint lights along Portland as well as the Coast Guard vessel picking up Versa and his family.

Tag barked at Fez to paddle faster. Another chopper buzzed overhead, its beam of light flashing along the surface of the bay but somehow missing them. Luck was on their side as they seemed to be evading the chopper’s searchlight. A loud explosion sounded behind them, accompanied by a quick series of flashes along the island’s coast.

“How’d you manage to stay alive out there, kid?”

“Climbed up one of them trees and stayed there as long as I could. I was so hungry I could have eaten one of them poxers. Lucky I climbed down when I did or you would have left without me.”

“I’m really glad you made it, kid.”

“Me too, Tag. Any idea where we’re going?”

“Nope. Now that you’re here, I was hoping you could help me find a nice, out-of-the-way place to hide for a while.”

“I got the perfect place. Keep going in this direction, and I’ll tell you once we get close to it.”

Tag’s arms started to ache after fighting the turbulent water. The winds picked up the further out they went. He saw the Coast Guard vessel heading in their direction from the left and wondered if the Coasties had seen them. Despite the pain in his arms, shoulders and ear, he continued to paddle as hard as he could. The chopper circled around the island again, but at this point they were well out of quarantine range. More explosions blew around the island as they paddled up a rogue ten-foot swell.

The Coast Guard vessel cruised through the bay, keeping an eye out for any craft trying to escape the island. They’d gotten out just in time. The Coast Guard vessel moved between their raft and Cooke’s Island, blocking their view of Cooper’s house, which now resembled a speck in the distance. The boat was roughly fifty yards from their raft and much too close for comfort. Tag told Fez to stop paddling and duck low inside the raft. He lay next to the kid, riding the swells and praying that no crew members onboard had seen them. The beam of the lighthouse arced over their heads and then disappeared just as quickly. Tag peeked over the lip of the raft and saw the cutter flashing its headlight toward the island, believing they’d kept the perimeter safe. Had the Coast Guard looked just outside the quarantine line, they’d be sitting ducks.

Once the vessel passed and moved toward the eastern end of the island, Tag and Fez grabbed their paddles and started to row. The swells got larger, and the wind picked up considerably the further they ventured. It took considerable effort for them to paddle through each wave, but they didn’t stop for fear of being capsized and swept out to sea. The further they got from Cooke’s Island, the more confident Tag became that they would somehow make it out safely. Now they just had to survive the rough seas.

“So where are we going, Fez?”

“Rabbit Island.”

“Rabbit Island? Where’s that?”

“About two miles due northeast from Cooke’s. They call it Rabbit Island because it’s got a crap load of wild rabbits living on it.”

“Is it inhabited?”

“There’s one guy living on it, and he’s completely nuts. Thinks the world’s going to end any day now. Got himself lots of guns and won’t let anyone on the island he doesn’t know. Thinks he owns the place.”

“So how in the world are we going to make our way onto it?”

“My dad used to bring him back supplies from the mainland even though the guy doesn’t have any money. I guess my dad took a liking to him and even felt sorry for him for being so crazy. They went to high school together.”

“And he knows who you are?”

“I been a stern man on my dad’s lobster boat many times when we dropped off supplies for this guy. Hopefully he’ll still remember me.”

“Let’s hope so, or we could be in for a long night.”

Chapter 25

They paddled along in the dark, not quite sure which direction they were heading, but using the lights of Portland as their guide, although they receded far behind them. Fez appeared so exhausted that by the time the sun started to come up, he had passed out against the side of the raft. Tag felt delirious from all that had happened in the last few days. He was thirsty, hungry, exhausted and sore, and already he missed his family terribly. His shoulders ached so badly he could barely lift the paddle out of the water. They had drifted quite a ways out into the open ocean, and it seemed now that they had gotten stranded out to sea.

He shook Fez’s shoulder and woke the kid up. Fez opened his eyes and looked around in a daze, momentarily unsure of where he was. He sat up and stared back toward the mainland, now a faint skyline in silhouette. The clouds to the east radiated a deep bright pink. Tag could see the speck of choppers buzzing around like mosquitoes in the distance and the tiny toy Coast Guard boats encircling the island. They were far enough away now, but how long would it take before someone reported seeing the two of them floating around in distress?

“We must have drifted off,” Tag said.

“We drifted all right. Good thing it’s low tide, and there are some rocks still visible on the sand bars. I know just about every inch of these waters.”

“So you know where we are?”

“Yeah, no prob. Only thing is we got to row another mile back toward Rabbit Island without being seen.”

Tag sighed. “
Back
toward Rabbit Island?”

“Yup. Hope you’re all rested up, Tag.”

“Don’t worry about me, kid. How you feeling?”

“Never better after that quick nap. Let’s do this before the tide starts to pull us out again.”

They paddled back toward the mainland, aided by the swells at their backs. The closer they got, the better he could see the island Fez had been directing them to. It couldn’t have been more than twenty acres, and most of the island was covered with dense trees, making it the perfect place to hide for a short spell. They circled around, searching for the right place to bring the raft ashore. The shoreline appeared rocky and wild, filled with downed trees and sharp edges, making it difficult to land. Fez claimed that the hermit who lived on it used to take his canoe out to meet his father’s boat. On the eastern tip of the island, they jumped into the five feet of water and pulled the raft ashore. Waves crashed over their backs and dragged them dangerously close to the jagged shale rocks.

Tag pulled up next to a large boulder, fearing he might be smashed against the edges, and quickly climbed atop it. He held out the end of the paddle and pulled the kid up onto the rock with him. Once they were safely on land, the two of them pulled the raft up onto the boulder and then dragged it over the rocks until they arrived onto the main part of the island.

They collapsed on the beach once they’d secured the raft. Almost immediately Tag could see why it was called Rabbit Island. Hundreds of rabbits hopped around the beach and under the dense cover of trees, darting out from behind every shrub and bush. He wondered how such a small piece of land could support so many rabbits and how they could possibly survive the frigid winter months. Of course, with no predators, they had a carefree existence.

“Dude feeds them,” Fez said, anticipating his question. “One of the things my dad used to bring over was bags of rabbit food. You know what this guy used to say?”

“No.”

“Rabbit is rich, whatever that means.”

“That’s the name of a novel in John Updike’s Rabbit trilogy.”

Fez shrugged. “What else does the guy got to do but read all day? He keeps them rabbits like chickens. Says they taste like KFC once he’s done preparing them.”

“Yeah, I can see where having lots of rabbits would be a good idea if someone’s marooned on an island.”

“Got himself a little garden too.”

After resting for a few minutes, the two of them started toward the middle of the island. They made it only a few feet before they heard a voice shouting at them to freeze and put their hands up over their heads. Tag obeyed, looking around to see where the voice was coming from. They stood for what seemed like a long time, their hands up, waiting for the man to come out of the dense woods.

“You two are not welcome here!” the man shouted. “I have a fully loaded rifle aimed at your heads, so I advise you two to get back in your little rubber raft and get the hell off my island.”

“Your island?” Tag said, laughing. “And I suppose you have the deeded rights to this land?”

“Yeah, it’s called a Browning A-Bolt, asshole. Wanna see it up close and personal?”

“Don’t piss this guy off, Tag,” Fez said. “Not only is he crazy, but he’s our only hope of staying alive.”

“Listen to the kid, asshole. Get back in your boat, and start paddling.”

“Oggy! It’s me, Fez. We need to hide out here for a little while until things cool down.”

A few moments of silence passed.

“How do you know my name?”

“Me and my pops used to drop supplies off to you. Remember my dad, Roger Feswick? You guys went to high school together. And my pops never took one dime for all the stuff he brought to you, including the bags of rabbit food.”

Fez’s words were met with silence. Tag’s arms, rubbery from paddling, felt like weights from having to hold them up for so long. The only thing they heard was the sound of waves pounding into the ledges. After about a minute of waiting, they saw a lean, stringy man walking out of the trees, with his rifle pointed at them. His face was painted green, and he wore camouflage khakis and cap, under which was a head of greasy, long hair. No wonder he hadn’t seen the man hiding in the underbrush.

“You for real, boy?” Oggy asked.

“Yeah, I’m for real. We also got you that crank radio and the rabbit ears for your TV. My dad spent a lot of money buying all that stuff for you, so the least you could do is help us out.”

“What’s your name again?”

“Fez. And this here is Tag. We just escaped from Cooke’s Island.”

Oggy lifted his rifle a little higher. “It’s a huge government conspiracy to kill off its citizens,” he said, inching closer. “How do I know you two are not infected with that shit?”