Between Here and the Horizon (18 page)

“Oh god. We have to call somebody.” Without thinking I wrapped my arm around Connor and hoisted him onto my hip. He was way too big to be carried far, but I could make it to Amie’s room. She was still asleep, and barely roused when I scooped her up from her mattress. “It’s okay, sweetie. It’s okay. We’re going for a little ride. Shhh….go back to sleep.”

I took both of them with me back to my room, where I’d left my cell phone on top of Magda’s journal. “Who are you going to call?” Connor asked, anxiety causing his voice to squeak.
 

“911, bud. I’m just gonna call 911. They’ll know exactly what to do.”

Connor took the binoculars from me and rushed to the other side of the room, ripping open the French doors to the balcony. As soon as it opened, I could hear the wind howling outside like a wounded animal.
 

“911, what is your emergency?” The monotone voice crackling out of my cell phone startled me. This was the second time I’d had to make a call like this. Never in my life had I needed to call 911, and since I’d stepped foot on this island, I’d had to do it twice.

“A ship’s down. Off the coast of The Causeway. People are in the water. It looks like there’s some kind of fire.”

“The Causeway, ma’am? Causeway Island?”

“Yes.”

“Emergency rescue services have already been dispatched to the crippled ship, ma’am. Be advised, the coast guard is already on their way.”

“But how long until they get here? It looks bad. I don’t know how long they’ve got before the boat sinks.” My words were running together; it was a miracle she could even understand what I was saying.
 

“Any moment now, ma’am. Remain calm. If you require any further assistance, please call back immediately.”

“Thank you.” I hung up, not sure what to do next. I placed Amie, still sleeping, onto my bed and I went to find Connor out on the balcony.
 

“They’re going to drown,” he said, handing me the binoculars. “The waves are too big.” He was shaking, shivering so badly that his whole body was vibrating. “We have to do something.” The wind was tearing inland across the water, buffeting the cliffs below the house and racing upward, whipping Connor’s words away with them. I could hardly hear what he was saying. He was afraid, though. I could see the fear plainly in his eyes.

“Okay. We
will
do something. Come inside.”
 

Connor followed after me, helping me, leaning his body weight against the French door when I tried to close it. “Go to the cupboard in the hallway. Get all of the blankets you can find and take them downstairs to the front door. Can you do that, Connor?”

He nodded, waited for a second, blinked, and then ran out of the room. I collected Amie, along with the duvet off my bed, and I raced down the hallway after him. A second later, I’d collected a warm sweater for Connor from the chest of drawers in his room, and I was barreling down the stairs after him. “Here, put this on. Find your shoes. Bring Amie’s too.”

“Okay.”
 

He charged off again to locate his shoes, and I ran to the kitchen, still holding onto Amie for dear life.
 

Flashlight.
 

First aid kit from the cabinet above the stove.
 

Cereal bars.

A bottle of whiskey.
 

I stowed all of these items into a bag and slung it over my shoulder, then went and found Connor. Moments later, we were speeding out of the driveway in the Land Rover, Amie catatonic in the back seat, Connor with his binoculars pressed against the window up front. The sweater I’d found for him was far too big, like the person who’d bought it for him had accidentally purchased it three sizes too big. The cuffs were hanging down over his hands, and the hem was around his knees.

“Can you see the coast guard?” I asked him.
 

“No. The light’s gone out now.”
 

That wasn’t a good sign. If the ship had indeed been on fire, the fire wouldn’t just have gone out of its own accord. It would only have gone out if the ship had sunk, which was the worst possible thing that could happen. There was drag to consider. Depending on the size of the boat, and how far the people had managed to swim away from it before it went down, it would pull whatever was floating on the surface down with it.
 

The clock on the Land Rover’s dash read 2:48. Nearly three o’clock in the morning. The island should have been sleeping, but as I tore down the narrow, winding roads and raced toward the dock, lights were flickering on in the houses we passed one by one. Word was spreading. At the dock, a small crowd of people were already gathered, dressing gowns and slippers in some cases, while others had taken time to dress in jeans, shirts and coats before they dashed out of the door.
 

An ambulance that looked like it had seen better days was parked out on the pier, sirens probing out red and blue into the night, and a guy I hadn’t seen before was pacing up and down beside it, head down against the wind, talking into a cell phone that was pressed against his ear. “Stay here for a second, please,” I told Connor.

“But, Ophelia!” He looked dismayed.

“I mean it. Stay in the car and make sure Amie doesn’t wake up. Can you do that for me, please? Can you look after your sister?”

He was silent for a moment, mouth hanging open, but then he nodded slowly. “Will you come back right away?”

He wasn’t upset about missing out on the action. He just didn’t want me to leave him on his own. “I will. I promise. I won’t be gone for more than five minutes, okay? You see the clock here? It says two fifty-eight? I’ll be back before it says three oh-three, I swear.”

“All right, then.”

I got out of the car and slammed the door shut, hitting the lock button behind me. Scanning the crowd, I saw Michael, the guy I’d met at Rose’s party, talking to another guy who looked like he could be his brother. When Michael saw me, he waved, gesturing me over.
 

“It’s the Sea King,” he shouted. “Been floundering for the past hour. Storm rolled in from nowhere. A bunch of ships have been smashed against the coastline. Another ship further up the coast, a tanker, was crippled. Guard’s out there with them now, trying to prevent a spill.”

“But what about these guys?”
 

“They’re gonna get to ’em, they said. But pretty sure it’ll be too late by then.”

I shook my head, trying to understand what he was saying. “So the tanker takes precedence? How many people are on the other ship?”

Michael shrugged. The other man, about a foot taller than Michael with a gray speckled beard, pulled his jacket tighter around his body. “Usually tankers aren’t manned that heavily these days. Everything’s automated. Computers run the whole thing. Twenty. Maybe thirty max.”

“And the Sea King?”
 

“Even less. It’s just a fishing vessel. Fifteen guys?”

“So the coast guard
is
dealing with the ship with more souls on board.” It made sense. And the fact that the tanker’s hold was likely full of oil, worth an unimaginable amount of money and liable to cause a natural disaster if not contained, made it a no brainer. Still, it was criminal that the men off shore from the Causeway were being left to drown. “What are we going to do?”

“Nothing we can do from here. Jerry’s boat’s not built for weather like this. The only other boats on the island are even smaller than his. Tiny three-man fishing craft.”

Michael was clenching a bunch of keys in his right hand; it looked like the teeth of the metal was cutting into his fingers. “Fuck.” He turned around, eyes roving over the faces of the other worried people out on the dock. “This is crazy. We know those men out there. There has to be a way we can get out there to them.” No solution seemed to come to him, or to his friend, though.
 

“I have the kids in the car. Listen, can you let me know if there’s anything I can do to help?” I pointed back to the Land Rover, where I could see Connor’s pale, worried face over the dashboard.
 

Michael sighed, frustrated. “Sure, of course. I think we’re all gonna be stuck here like idiots, our hands tied behind our backs, but I’ll let you know.”

“Thank you.”

Back in the car, Amie was snoring and Connor was perched on the edge of his seat, knees up around his chin, sweater pulled down over his legs so they’d disappeared altogether. “What did they say? Is someone going to save them?” he asked.
 

“Yeah, bud. The coast guard’s on their way now. They won’t be long at all.” The lie was difficult to tell, since it was so big. No one was coming for the poor guys out on the water. No one would be coming until it was far too late. At that point, they’d be retrieving bodies, not survivors, and the inhabitants of the Causeway would have had to watch their friends and loved ones die.

******

Hours passed. Connor fell asleep against his will, binoculars still clasped loosely in his hand, and Amie continued to snore. I couldn’t have slept even if I’d wanted to. More men arrived carrying flashlights. Even more men arrived after that, carrying sea kayaks and what looked like wooden canoes. A couple of them tried to launch into the boiling ocean, but each time anyone tried they were cast back against the shore by the surging waves. At four, or maybe a little later than that, the sun began to rise, casting an eerie gray light across the beach. Even from the car, I could see how tired and hopeless everyone looked, faces pinched, foreheads creased into frowns so deep they looked now permanent.
 

Connor was covered in one of the blankets he’d brought from the cupboard in the hallway; Amie was tucked up snugly underneath my duvet. Strangely, I wasn’t cold, even though clouds of fog billowed out of my mouth every time I exhaled, and my hands had turned blue.
 

I was considering my options—to go home or to stay—when a rap on my window nearly startled the life out of me; Staring out of the window, straight ahead, out to sea, I hadn’t noticed Michael approaching the car, nor the large piping hot flask he was carry in his hands. I buzzed the window down, doing my best to find a smile for him.
 

“Coffee,” he said, as if it were some sort of secret password. “I figured you might need some.”

“Thank you.”

He handed the flask to me through the window, sighing. “The other ship, the tanker? It went down an hour ago. They only managed to pull two guys out of the water.”

“Oh god.”

“Yeah.” We both remained silent for a moment. And then he said, “It’s hard, y’know. It makes you angry. If they hadn’t gone to the tanker, if they’d come here instead…”

“No point in
ifs
, Michael.” He was right, though. Maybe if the contents of the tanker hadn’t been so valuable, the coast guard would have come to the Sea King first. Big oil companies held so much sway with the government.
Owned
half of the government. One word in the right person’s ear and all available resources could easily have been diverted to a lost cause, instead of a viable one.
 

“The sea’s calming a little. We’re hoping we might be able to get out there soon on some of the smaller boats. Until then, we’re just going to have to sit here and wait. Maybe it’d be better for you to get on home. Either way, whatever happens, people have died out there. With the current as strong as it is, the waves pounding the shore, bodies are gonna start washing up soon. The kids…” he said under his breath.
 

“You’re right. I should get them home. I just feel so…
useless
.”

Michael couldn’t quite look me in the eye. “You, me and everyone else standing on this dock, Ophelia. It means a lot that you came out, though. To the people of the island. Thank you.”

“Of course. I haven’t been able to do—”
 

A loud snarl of an engine cut me off, ripping through the air. Over the small rise behind the dock, a black truck appeared, charging toward the shoreline. I thought I recognized the vehicle, and Michael’s groan confirmed the identity of the driver.
 

“
Sully
. Perfect.” He clapped his hand against the side of the Land Rover. “I’d better go try and stop him from doing anything stupid,” Michael said. He didn’t sound too convinced that he’d be successful in his task, though. “I’ll see you later, Ophelia.”

From the sounds of it, he expected me to drive off and take the children home, but I didn’t. I watched as Sully’s truck careened down the slope and skidded to a halt, kicking a spray of sand and tiny pebbles into the air as the tires bit into the beach. He climbed out of the vehicle before it had fully stopped, hair wild, eyes wild, everything about him wild as he stalked toward the ambulance that was still parked on the pier. He broke into a run.
 

“Oh,
shit
.” Michael took off after him, running flat out, trying to cut Sully off, but it didn’t look like he was going to make it. I got out of the car, closing and locking it up behind me, thankful both the children were out cold, and I followed suit, racing toward the pier. Sully reached the ambulance a clear eight seconds before Michael, and he ripped open the driver’s door and pulled the guy who had been on his phone earlier out onto the wooden decking in a heap. I could hear Sully yelling long before I reached them.
 

“Fucking asshole! You’re meant to call me. You’re meant to fucking—” He stopped shouting to smash his fist into the guy’s face. The guy, crumpled in a heap on the floor, didn’t stand a chance. Sully landed three more catastrophic blows to his face with one hand, grasping hold of ambulance guy’s shirt in the other. The guy went limp, just as Michael barreled into Sully, taking him to the ground.

“Get off me, Michael.
Get. The. Fuck. Off. Me
.” Sully rolled underneath him, wrapping an arm around Michael’s throat, wrapping his legs around his waist and locking them out at his ankles. He squeezed, and Michael, still doing his best to try and pin Sully down, began to turn purple.