Thicker Than Blood - the Complete Andrew Z. Thomas Trilogy - Blake Crouch [279]
The man was bearded, with a tangle of gray-flecked brown hair and guarded eyes. They shook hands. Steve tried to introduce his wife, but Andy didn’t seem interested in meeting her, so he took a seat, a little embarrassed. Andy’s wife, a young woman scarcely older than Steve, wouldn’t even look at him. She just stared off into the sound, nervously brushing her shoulder-length blond hair behind her ears.
"Glad to have y’all aboard," Charlie addressed his four passengers. "It’ll be a thirty minute ride over to the island, so y’all just sit back and enjoy. That’s my son, Luther, at the controls, so don’t worry. We’re in capable hands."
"Should we pay now?" Steve asked, reaching for his wallet.
"Nah. We’ll settle up later."
The old man sat down in the jump seat beside his son. He whispered in his ear, and then the motor growled to life and the boat lurched forward. Steve leaned back into the cushioned seat and put his arm around Kim.
The water raced by as they sped parallel to shore. Steve turned and watched the great stone house dwindling away. That gothic residence looked as though it belonged on a dreary English moor, secreting a gloominess that seemed out of place in the wet sunshine of this August morning.
The tiny figure of an old woman stood in the overgrown backyard, a baby in her arms. She waved to the departing boat. Only Steve and Kim waved back.
The petite blonde sitting across from them lunged for the stern and emptied her guts in orange-green ropes into the wake.
Kim reached over and rubbed her back.
"You okay, honey?" she asked.
The blonde nodded but was sick again.
The old man glanced back from the cockpit, grinning.
"All right there, Miss?" he called out over the groaning motor.
"I’m fine."
The old man laughed and yelled something about "sea legs" that was lost in the wind. The blonde returned to her seat and leaned her head against her husband’s shoulder. Kim and Steve looked away, back toward Ocracoke, quickly fading into nothing but a green smudge on the horizon.
They crossed the inlet, whitecaps just a few hundred yards east where the ocean and sound ran together. Fifty yards off starboard, thousands of cormorants congregated on a temporary shoal. They scattered as the boat passed by, filling the sky, squawking, some divebombing fish in the shallows.
Now Portsmouth loomed. Steve squeezed his wife’s arm and pointed to the approaching island. Kim nodded blandly as the abandoned structures of Portsmouth Village
came into view amid the scrub pine.
The blueness of the sky had begun to wane, to drown in its own heat and fade into an indistinct whiteness that was neither cloud nor sky, but a veil of humidity that is the fate of most afternoons in a southern summer.
The boat continued shoreward, as would a passenger ferry bound for Haulover Point. But before they’d neared the dock, where tourists are unloaded for their ventures into the ghost village, Luther turned the boat and guided it around the soundside of the island.
They were close to shore now, and as Steve stared into the impenetrable thicket, Kim fell mesmerized by their fellow tourists. The man and his wife seemed oblivious to the island and the sound. They stared out across the water, listless and burdened. She started to speak to them, but the boat turned suddenly and headed up a creek into the interior of the island.
Pines crowded the banks. She could smell them.
The creek narrowed.
The boat slowed.
Drifting now, a sappy branch passed overhead, and she reached up and pinched off a cluster of pine needles.
The motor quit.
Only the soft liquid rip of the bow slicing through the water.
In the darkgreen distance, she saw where the creek ended. There was a small dock at the terminus, a rustic shack behind it.
She slapped the side of her neck, came away with a bloodsmeared palm.
The first mosquito had found her.
Kim glanced again at the woman on