First Thrills - Lee Child [102]
I pushed through the crowd.
And I saw what they saw.
Bodies. White, swollen, and bloated, and torn to shreds. They had been gnawed upon.
Eaten.
“Sharks,” someone cried. “The water is infested!”
“This was not a shark attack,” one of the older fishermen said. He shook his grizzled head, rubbing his chin. “This is not a shark attack. I’ve seen what the big fellows can do to a man left in the water. The bodies are . . . not missing any limbs. They’ve been chewed by something. But not a shark.”
As I stood there, Brent arrived at the docks. He pushed his way through the crowd until he could stare at the bodies. He became the color of burnt ash, and he turned around without a word, and strode back to his carriage.
I ran after him. I caught him at the end of the dock, grabbed his shoulder, and forced him to face me. He stared at me for a minute as if he didn’t even see me. I slapped him across the face, I was so scared and furious. “What is going on, Brent, damn you, what is going on? I went to the house. I saw what you did to Johnny, and I will not stand for it, do you hear me?”
He did then. The slap had angered him, but it had brought him back to the reality of the moment—and me, forcing the issue, in his face.
“Go away, Jules,” he said duly. “Go away, and lock yourself in your house. Better yet, take your father and go far, far away.”
“You have lost your mind, Brent. What are you going on about? What is happening?”
He hesitated, but then indicated the tavern on Main Street. He set an arm around my shoulder and led me toward it, and around to the benches that sat outdoors to where, in better times, many a fisherman and farmer had gathered together to drink beer and eat their noon meals.
Now, the area was empty, and he made me sit down.
Across from me, he closed his eyes for a moment as if gathering both his strength and his sense of sanity, then, he looked at me. “There’s something really wrong with Johnny.”
“What?” I demanded. “I know he has been at war. I know he might have been injured, I know that many men bear mental wounds, that they’ve seen things, but . . .”
“You saw the men on the dock,” he said. It wasn’t a question. It was a fact. “I’ve seen just a similar thing—before.”
“Go on,” I said, frowning, and truly puzzled. Maybe Brent had returned more damaged than any of us had imagined.
He let out a breath and looked at the moss dripping from one of the old oaks that bordered the small outdoor dining area. He didn’t want to look at me.
“It was at Cold Harbor,” he said.
I shook my head, still trying desperately to understand what he was talking about. I placed my hands on his. “Brent, Cold Harbor was a victory for Lee. I know that dead men are still dead men, and I know that more than two thousand of your own troops died as well, but—”
He looked at me, dead on. “Men die. It’s how they die that’s terrifying. We were near Bethesda Church, camped out there. Yes, it was a Rebel victory. But on the night of the tenth, there was a break, and two companies of Feds made it through the lines. We might have been slaughtered in our sleep, but Johnny was on guard duty.”
“So he saved your lives!” I told him.
Brent said, “We woke up and found them. At least fifty of them. Torn to pieces. Like the men on the dock. It wasn’t as if they had been killed; it was as if they had been eaten. I don’t know what happened; I never will. They were bloated from the sea, but they were . . . gnawed. Chewed. Eaten.”
I ripped my hands away from his and stood up. “Brent! You’re trying to say that Johnny did it, that Johnny . . . ate the men on the schooner? You must be insane! I’m telling my father what you said, I’m . . . Brent! You’re horrible, don’t you see that? How dare you imply that Johnny could . . . and where is Janey Sue? She wasn’t at the house.”
He looked up at me, startled. “What?”
“Janey Sue isn’t at the house,” I told him.
Ignoring me, he jumped to his feet, and he was gone down the street. I saw him reach his horse, and in his wake, the road