The Sentinel (14 page)

We exit the chasm a minute later and arrive at a long sloping shoreline. The flat rock slants into the ocean at a slight grade, but it’s covered in large round boulders, smoothed over time by ocean, wind or glaciers. Maybe all three. I don’t really give a shit about how the rocks were formed, only that they’re blocking my view and would make a nice place for a killer to hide.

“Hold on,” Willem says. He scrambles up the side of the gorge wall and then leaps to the top of a tall stone. After only a few moments, he points and says, “There. I see one of them.” He climbs down and leads our charge through the stone maze.

We move fast, driven by the frantic feeling that people always experience when close to completing a goal.

“Here!” Willem shouts as we emerge from the stone maze and arrive at the ocean. The Zodiac is close to being claimed by the rising tide, but its engine is dragging on the stone shore. Willem charges into the shin deep water, takes hold of the Zodiac and drags it higher on the shore.

The water must be freezing, but he doesn’t complain. He simply sets to work, freeing the big motor from the back of the boat, which I can now see is torn to pieces on the bottom. One of the pontoons is deflated as well. I search the interior for supplies, but it’s either been emptied by Chase’s group of survivors, or claimed by the sea.

Chase bounces up and down, arms wrapped around his chest, nervously repeating, “Go, go, go.”

Willem grunts in frustration, shaking his hand. “I can’t get the bolts loose!”

Some instinctual part in our collective minds must be shouting at us to hurry up because we’re all getting panicky.
Stop
, I tell myself.
What would Dad do
?

The answer to that question is simple. Dad’s philosophy was basically,
if something doesn’t work, kick the shit out of it
.

I step inside the Zodiac and kick the wooden back hard. There’s an encouraging crack. “Chase,” I say. “Hold the engine. Willem.” I motion inside the boat. When he joins me, I count to three and we both kick the wooden back. It cracks again. Loudly. We repeat the kick three more times. On our fifth attempt, the crack sounds like a gunshot and Chase stumbles back—the engine clutched in his hands. He looks close to dropping it when Willem steps in and takes the engine from him. He hoists it over one shoulder and turns to me. “Let’s go.”

“That’s too heavy for you alone,” I say.

“That’s probably true, but I’ll feel better if you can shoot.”

He’s right. “Yeah. Sore arms are better than no arms.”

Willem and Chase stare at me for a moment.

“You know you have a sick sense of humor, right?” Willem says.

He’s right about that, too. And I’d like to peg that personality trait on my father, too, but the Colonel was rarely funny. Of course, Willem didn’t say I was funny. Nor did he laugh.

With a sigh, I lead the way back to the gorge where Eagon’s body awaits. We charge through the tight valley double time, but stop cold when we reach the stone spike where Eagon’s body hung.

That’s right.
Hung
.

He’s missing.

I’ve got my gun out, looking for targets. But the chasm is as empty as ever.
Did we imagine the body
?
Some kind of collective hallucination
? I don’t bother asking, nor do I think twice about continuing back toward camp, because high in the air, arcing over the gorge, is a bright red signal flare.

20

We stumble from the gorge, following Chase’s frozen bloody footprints, and spill out into the clearing. I have a clear view of the island’s interior from here, including most of the snowy peaks. I see two things simultaneously: first, the sky to the south is dark again, roiling with a storm that looks worse than the last. But in front of the storm is a sight that makes me cringe. Someone is running down one of the far hillsides. In fact it’s the very small mountain where I sent Jenny and Peach to keep watch. Judging by the speed of the descending speck, I guess the runner is Peach.

My mind races for explanations. They shot off a flare. So, they saw some kind of search and rescue effort. And now Peach is running to tell us. But is that the most likely scenario? It’s certainly the one I’m hoping for, but after seeing Eagon’s now missing cadaver, I suspect something dire has happened.

Willem steps up next to me. He’s still holding the Zodiac engine and is out of breath from moving quickly. “Do we…still need…this?” he asks.

I know he’d love to leave the engine behind. It must weigh a ton, but something isn’t right, so I disappoint him. “Hold on to it.”

“But the flare,” Chase says. He sounds hopeful and desperate at the same time.

Ignoring Chase, I raise a pair of small binoculars to my eyes and see a small red-suited woman more stumbling than running, down the snow-covered grade. Definitely Peach. Her awkward run and the way she keeps looking over her shoulder doesn’t look like someone excited about being rescued. She looks terrified.

When she trips and slides several feet, my fears are confirmed. A long red streak traces her path through the snow. I gasp and lower the binoculars. Chase snatches the binoculars from my hands and looks for himself. “Oh my god, it must have got Jenny, too!”

“We don’t know that,” I say, my voice sounding more panicked than I’d ever admit.

“That’s not possible,” Willem says. Unlike Chase and me, he sounds calm, but I think that’s mostly because he hasn’t looked through the binoculars. Before I can tell him so, he adds, “Whatever killed Eagon was here. It took his body. There’s no way it could be in two places at once.”

For a moment, his argument feels right. But Chase quickly shoots holes in it. “The polar bear could have taken the body. They’re notorious scavengers. If it’s meat, they’ll eat it.”

“And we still don’t know where McAfee or Jackson are,” I add.
Or if Peach can be trusted
, I think. I imagine her taking the knife from a surprised Jenny and stabbing her ample gut with the blade. How many thrusts would it take? Could Peach really kill someone? My instincts tell me Peach is innocent—of murder at least. So I make a mental note to not sound accusing when I ask about Jenny’s whereabouts, and strike off toward the center of the clearing.

Chase and Willem silently follow. I know Willem is exhausted from carrying the engine, and Chase from…being Chase, but it’s a straight flat shot to the Viking ruins. I look over my shoulder, see no danger behind us, and shout, “I’m going ahead.”

If either man wants to complain, they’re too out of breath, voice and opinion. I turn on the gas and sprint across the open field. I pass the Viking ruins thirty seconds later. They’re about fifty feet to my right. I can’t see Jakob or Alvin through the entrance, but I can’t see the tent, either. So I continue heading for Peach, who is running in a straight line across the plain, but not toward me, or the shelter.

As I get closer, I see her eyes have kind of a blank stare. “Peach,” I shout to her.

No reply.

She just keeps running.

I correct my course to intercept her and keep shouting to her. But her mind is gone. For a moment, I wonder if the bloody smear she left on the mountainside was actually her blood, but if she was bleeding that bad, I don’t think she would’ve made it so far, so fast.

I stop in front of her, shouting her name, and try to take hold of her shoulder. But the girl is an unstoppable freight train and keeps on moving, nearly knocking me off my feet. “
Peach
, stop!” I say, my voice offering a final warning. She doesn’t stop, and I don’t think she’s going to until she hits the ocean on the other side of the island, so I tackle her. I don’t want to, but what else can I do?

We hit the frozen ground together. I shout, “Peach, it’s Ja—” I catch a boot to my face before I can finish. She screams wildly and kicks, scratching at the air with her hands like something invisible is attacking her.

A large shape shifts through my periphery and I shout in surprise, jumping back. But it’s just Willem. “Fuck!” I shout. “How did you get here so fast?”

He doesn’t answer. He just catches Peach’s flailing arms in his hands and pushes them down to her chest. “Get on her legs,” he says to me.

She’s still kicking hard and my first few attempts to grab hold of her legs fail. I shift tactics and fall on her legs, letting my weight do the work. As her screaming slow, I can hear Willem whispering to her. “It’s okay. You’re safe. We have you.”

Part of me suddenly wishes I had a father like Willem. Kind and comforting, strong and trustworthy. Had it been the Colonel in Willem’s place, he would be screaming at Peach, “Suck it up!” or “Feed on the pain, girl! It will make you stronger!”

The kicking slows, and then stops.

Willem is no longer speaking.

I ease myself off, as does Willem. “She passed out,” he says.

“Is she injured?” I ask.

He checks her over. “Doesn’t look like it. No cuts anyway. She could have a broken bone, but I don’t think so. She was moving too fast for that. Still, we should be careful moving her.”

I see dark brown stains on Peach’s red snow gear. “That’s Jenny’s blood.”

“We don’t know that for sure,” he says. I shoot him a look that says,
cut the macho bullshit
, and he adds, “But yeah, it probably is.” He looks down at himself and sees some of the blood has been transferred to his jacket as well. He mutters something in Greenlandic, looks me up and down and says, “You’re clean.”

We stand over Peach, looking down at her young face. With her eyes closed, she looks peaceful, but I clearly remember the haunted look those eyes held just moments ago. They looked just like Chase’s when he arrived. I have little doubt Jenny met her end atop the peak I sent them up. But I can’t live without knowing for sure.

“Take her,” I say to Willem, before stepping toward the crest from which Peach fled.

A strong hand takes my shoulder and spins me around. Willem looks angry. “You’re not going anywhere.”

I yank away from him. “Jenny is out there.”

“She’s dead,” he says.

The words are so cold and harsh and without hope that they trigger something in me. My cool and collected façade cracks. “Fuck off!” I shout, and then take a swing. My punch connects hard with Willem’s cheek, but the man does indeed have Viking blood, so he just rubs the cheek and says, “You through?”

I’m not. With a shout, I kick out with my right leg, aiming for his waist. If I connect, it will knock the wind out of him and give me time to leave. But he doesn’t take the hit this time—he catches my leg and uses the momentum to pick me up and fling me.

I fall to the ground hard, but quickly find my feet. Willem stands between me and my goal, arms crossed. He’s stronger than me, and without a boat engine over his shoulder he’s probably faster, too. But I still have something he doesn’t. I draw the handgun and aim it at his chest. “Get out of my way.”

He doesn’t even flinch. Instead, he takes a step toward me. “Look behind me,” he says.

I glance. All I see is the small mountain.

Jenny
…

“Higher,” he says.

I don’t want to look, but my eyes move up. The storm is there, dark and brooding. Seeing the swirling clouds somehow opens me up to feeling the frigid breeze now tearing across the plain.

“You’re not going up there and you’re not going to shoot me,” he says.

His confidence pisses me off, so I aim the gun higher. “We can’t leave her up there.” Desperation has crept into my voice again, so much so that my voice cracks. The sound of my own frailty breaks through another, more deeply buried, emotional wall.

The gun lowers and then falls to the snow. I fall to my knees and Willem is there, catching me, wrapping his arms around me. I can smell Jenny’s blood on him. “She’s dead,” I say.

I can feel him nodding.

“And you’ll be dead if you go looking for her,” he says.

He’s right. I know he’s right. But it doesn’t feel right. Wouldn’t the Colonel storm up the mountain, shake his fist at the storm with a booming, “Fuck you!” and find his friend, dead or alive?
But I’m not him
, I think.
And I no longer need to impress him
.

Because he’s dead, too
.

Before I realize it, I’m crying into Willem’s shoulder. My body convulses with sobs, revealing months of suppressed mourning. I should have done this before, but there was no one to hold me then, no one to speak the words everyone needs to hear when a loved one dies.

“It will be okay,” Willem says, not knowing the source of my tears is much deeper than Jenny’s death.

I give a nod, lean back and feel my tears evaporate quickly from my cheeks. The wind grows stronger by the moment. “I’ll be all right,” I say.

“You two were close?” he asks.

With a shake of my head, I say, “My father died. His funeral was the same day the
Sentinel
left port.”

“Ahh,” he says, understanding.

I skipped my father’s funeral. If there’s an afterlife and he’s watching, I’m sure he doesn’t give a shit. But I apparently do. I denied myself any closure, or mourning. The man was an ass, but he was my father, too. Now that his harsh life lessons are helping keep me, and others, alive, I’m beginning to appreciate, and miss him, more than I thought possible.

A voice cuts through the wind, sharp and urgent. We turn to find Chase waving to us from the corner of the ruins. He looks urgent. When he points to the sky behind us, I remember why. The storm is coming. There is no more time for mourning.

With a sniff, I turn to Willem, motion to Peach, and say, “We can each take her under an armpit.”

“You going to be alright?” he asks.

His concern is genuine and appreciated. “Fine,” I say, though I’m not entirely sure that’s the truth. “Just don’t tell anyone I was crying like a little girl.”

He grins, “Done.”

We pick up Peach and drag her quickly to the shelter. Alvin, Jakob and Chase are there, waiting for us, but I don’t really look at them until after we lay Peach inside the life raft’s float. When I finally turn around, I’m greeted by fear-filled eyes.