Night of the Purple Moon (16 page)

“I can’t,” she stuttered. Her heart was beating so rapidly it was humming.

Eddie tugged hard. “Yes, you can.”

She dug her nails into his arm and shuddered as icy fingers of mist clutched at her face and neck. Light-headed and nauseated, she somehow kept shuffling her feet and finally they reached the cruiser. Eddie opened the car door and gave her a gentle shove. Abby suddenly felt trapped inside an airtight bottle. She struggled to breathe.

Eddie fired up the engine and raised the microphone to his lips. “Jordan, we’re leaving now.”

“Call when you get closer,” Jordan responded. “Let’s meet outside the bowling alley.”

Abby grabbed the mic. “Jordan, how did this happen?”

He didn’t respond.

She thought about his lies. He had told her the fog was lifting and he would remain on the jetty. Why had he left Emily and the kids in the first place? Abby exploded. “Answer me!” she screamed. “How could you lose them?”

Eddie pried the mic out of her hands. “Don’t worry, we’ll find them.”

Abby burst into tears.

Emily found Jordan’s shoulder and worked her hand down his arm. “Give me the radio,” she said. “I want to tell Abby what happened. It’s my fault they’re lost.”

His hand was empty, which meant he had the walkie-talkie in his other hand. Emily felt him pivot away from her to keep her from getting it.

“Emily, it’s nobody’s fault,” Jordan said. “The fog came in fast. Abby didn’t mean to yell. She’s frightened.”

Emily vowed to herself that she would tell Abby the truth at some point, but right now precious seconds were slipping away.

“Let’s keep looking,” she said.

Emily gripped Jordan’s left hand with her right hand and they both stretched their arms wide and swept their feet back and forth with each step forward, calling out the kids’ names. Eddie’s voice also penetrated the blinding fog. He reported his advancing position over the radio. “We’ve gone a quarter mile … half mile … I think we just passed the fishing jetty.”

“What if they left the playground?” Emily said.

“We need to check the docks,” Jordan said with an urgency that left a sick feeling in Emily’s gut.

They moved faster and bumped into a car, a mailbox. They stubbed toes on rocks and the curbstone.

They finally reached the wooden planks of the dock. The quarter-inch gaps between the planks served as milestones of their progress. Emily thought they were about halfway to the end when she kicked something small and familiar. “Wait,” she said and dropped to her knees.

Emily grasped the object. It was not quite as long and wide as her hand. She had only to pinch the tip of the shoelace for her heart to sink.

It was Toucan’s red sneaker.

Abby gripped the door handle. She regretted shouting at Jordan. It was the worst possible time to be angry—to do or say anything that might detract from their effort to find Toucan and Danny.

She also realized that he had not left Emily, Toucan, and Danny intentionally. Her brother had tried to stop Glen from taking
Sea Ray.
Jordan hadn’t known the fog was coming. She understood why he had lied to her.

But none of that mattered now. Everyone had to focus on finding the kids. They had jobs to do. Her job was to not be a burden.

The cruiser’s fog lights fired up a powdery spray of amber. Somehow, with zero visibility, Eddie was managing to stay on the road. Abby couldn’t see the headlights of the car behind them, only blue pulses in the fog.

The radio crackled to life. “We found Danny.” It was Jordan.

Abby choked out a sob of relief.

Eddie spoke into the mic. “What about Touk?”

A pause, then: “We’re still looking.”

Abby cowered against the door and bit down hard on her knuckle. Not even pain could draw her attention from the darkest of thoughts. When they reached Castine Lanes, Eddie climbed out of the cruiser. A cold wash of mist raised the hairs on the back of Abby’s neck when the door opened.

She watched ghostly faces light up blue and disappear, light up and disappear. Heads appeared to be detached and floating. Eddie barked instructions. “Hold hands. Stay together. We don’t need to lose anybody else.”

Abby wondered where Jordan and Emily were. They were supposed to meet the team here. They had Danny with them. Toucan was still lost, all alone. Maybe they were late because they had found her!

Then Abby heard Jordan’s voice. She strained to listen.

“Where did you find Danny?” Eddie asked.

“Near the docks,” Jordan replied.

Eddie cursed.

Abby’s heart was still free falling when Jordan passed Danny to her. She clutched the shivering boy and looked her brother in the eye. “Please find her.”

He nodded and then disappeared along with the others.

“Touk! Toucan!”

Jordan shouted out to his sister in the cavernous bowling alley. The flashlight revealed birthday confetti scattered on the floor, candle nubs, pins standing at attention in the thundering silence. Convinced Toucan was not here, he and Emily returned to the fog outside.

Jordan believed there was a good chance that Toucan had fallen off the dock and drowned. After finding her sneaker, they had searched every square inch of the dock. Jordan had gone to his belly countless times and scooped his arm through the frigid water like a dragnet.

Imagining her tiny body aching all over before numbness set in, Jordan screamed, “No,” into the gloom.

Emily shook him hard. “We
will
find her.”

Never give up, he told himself.

They checked the supermarket, the pharmacy, Aubuchon Hardware, every store along Gleason Street whose doors were open or smashed—easy entries for a cold and frightened toddler.

Jordan prayed they would find her at their next stop. The library was Toucan’s second home. Mom had pushed her there in a stroller to see Dad at his place of work. Abby had read to her in the kid’s section, and, more times than Jordan could remember, he had carried Toucan to the library on his shoulders. He hoped she had found her way to the library through the fog like a homing pigeon.

The books gave off a musty odor.

“Touk! Toucan!”

Jordan’s heart hammered in his chest as he waited for her to respond. He trained the flashlight on several stacks of books on a table, no doubt Kevin’s research. The library had become Kevin’s home away from home, too. He considered that thought was a good omen.

“Touk!” he shouted again.

Perhaps she had fallen asleep? Jordan let go of Emily’s hand and sprinted through the maze of stacks.

The library was empty.

“Don’t worry, we’ll find her,” Abby whispered to Danny who had not stopped clinging to her. He had yet to utter a single word. The fog and darkness cloaked them in a shroud. “Your daddy drives a truck. It’s a diesel, right?” She felt a little nod, or he might have just been swallowing.

Squeezing her eyes shut, Abby again prayed for Toucan’s safe return.

Eddie interrupted her, opening the door. Abby startled, thinking that God had finally answered her prayers. But Eddie had with him several of the younger searchers. “They’re cold and hungry,” he said. “I need to take them home before they get hypothermia.” Abby remembered that Toucan was only wearing a light spring jacket. “You and Danny need to go home, too,” Eddie told her. “I’ll return and keep searching. The fog should start to lift as the temperature drops.”

Abby didn’t want to leave, but she understood it was the best plan. Perhaps Danny, once he was in the security of his room, might settle down and remember something that would aid the search party.

Eddie transported them safely to the mansion. Before leaving, he grabbed boxes of crackers and bottles of soda for members of the search party, jackets and hats for Jordan and Emily, and a hand-held fog horn.

Abby carried Danny to her room and tried to put him in bed, but he wouldn’t unlock his arms from her neck. With him still clinging to her, she sat in her chair before the window, and soon he fell asleep.

Abby turned on a walkie-talkie. Part of her did not want to listen, did not want to know. She feared hearing the news, deep in her heart knowing that Toucan was dead. All that remained was to find her body. But she had to be brave. She had to listen. To turn off the radio now would be like abandoning her sister.

Voices crackled as the searchers called out their positions and repeated failings to find Toucan.

“I see stars,” Jordan said.

Abby checked the time. It was 3:30 a.m., the darkest, coldest time of the night. Peering out the window, she saw no stars, the fog still thick.

“I see ’em, too,” Eddie added. “The fog is lifting.”

“I can make out the jetty!” Kevin cried.

“Emily and I are going back to the docks,” Jordan said.

Abby felt Danny’s heart beating. Every beat, every passing second… did that increase the chances that they would find Toucan alive, or simply delay the inevitable tragic news.

An hour later the fog vanished. With visibility improved at the harbor, the radio chatter was non-stop. They should have found her by now. How far could a toddler wander? Abby thought that if her sister fell into the water and the tide carried away, they would never find her.

Sniffling, Abby stood and looked out the window. Danny, still holding onto her, murmured in his sleep. The horizon glowed orange and a thin veil of sea smoke lingered over the water.

She saw a car with a single headlight approaching from the south and thought it strange that one of the searchers would drive three-quarters of the way around the island to return.

She soon recognized the car. It was Toby’s Mustang. The car turned into the mansion driveway.

Abby’s pulse quickened. She had not seen Toby in more than two months. After Chad’s death, Toby and Glen had seemingly disappeared, and now, for whatever reason, his friend had motored away in
Sea Ray
, leaving Toby as the last standing renegade boy. There were few reasons for him to come here at this hour, and it offered Abby a glimmer of hope after the dark night. She thought that he had found Toucan, and he was bringing her sister home.

Her heart hammered in her chest as she watched the car pull to a stop. When Danny groaned, Abby realized how tightly she was squeezing him in her excitement.

Toby climbed out, walked to the passenger side, opened the door, and reached in.

“Thank you, God,” Abby whispered.

Toby cradled Toucan’s limp body in his arms. Touk had on only one sneaker. Abby realized that he was not bringing her sister home. He was delivering the body.

She shrieked, and Danny, startled awake, started wailing. Abby peeled his arms from around her neck and placed the boy on the bed. Then she flew down the stairs into the first floor shadows and flung open the door.

Against a backdrop of the rising sun and the ghostly mist hovering over the water, Toby looked like a mythical being. He cradled Toucan, taking slow steps.

A wave of grief washed over Abby and she felt her heart explode. The shattered pieces settled into the darkest part of her soul like snowflakes. She sank to her knees, inwardly tossed and tumbled by turbulence. She heard mournful sobbing in the distance and realized she was hearing herself.

“Your sister is fine.”

The voice, too, sounded far away.

Abby blinked and drew in a sharp breath.

“I would have brought her here sooner,” Toby said, “but the fog was really bad. I’ve been staying at your old house. I found her curled up on the porch last night. Somehow she walked there in the fog. I knew you’d be worried, but it was too dangerous to drive. She’s probably hungry. I didn’t have much to give her. Sorry.”

Toucan lifted her head in a sleepy daze. Abby accepted her sister into her arms and squeezed until Toucan cried out.

Toby shifted side to side, and his lower lip quivered. He looked so completely different from the boy who Abby had seen throw a beer bottle, the boy who would aggravate their teacher to no end.

“Come inside,” she said.

He shook his head. “I can’t find Glen.” His voice choked. “He’s been sick. Yesterday I went to check on him in his room, but he was gone. I started to look for him but then the fog rolled in. Abby, I’m really worried about him. I have to keep looking.” Toby’s eyes glistened as they filled up with tears.

Abby didn’t have the heart to tell Toby that his friend was gone, that he would spend his final hours sick and alone at sea. Now, more than anything, Toby needed someone to care about him.

“Come inside,” she said again and reached out her hand.

Perhaps it was her expression this time, or that Toby felt too weak to keep searching for his friend, or that he was finally ready to join them—he took her hand and entered the mansion without question.

Abby pulled the covers over her head and tried to ignore the dull ache deep in the pit of her stomach. She blamed it on food poisoning, although the others who had eaten peaches from the same can had not complained of cramping. They must have eaten only the good slices; she must have had a rotten slice. They were lucky, she was not.

Abby was thankful that her temperature was normal, because the combination of cramping and high fever would most likely mean the space germs had started their assault—the beginning of the end.

The glowing hands of her watch showed the time was 11:45 p.m. It was January 31, and the final seconds of the month were ticking down. Abby could not wait for the symbolic stroke of midnight, for the month to end, for her luck to change.

Every month since the night of the purple moon had seen its share of tragedies and horrors, but January had been one of the most depressing months for the Castine Island survivors.

The day before the CDC had delivered a sobering broadcast on the worldwide death toll and number of survivors in the United States.

“There are three-hundred and forty-two adults living in underground CDC complexes in Atlanta, Georgia,” the robotic voice reported in the most monotonous of tones. “Eight-hundred and thirty one U.S. Navy personnel are manning two nuclear-powered submarines. Three American astronauts, among a crew of fifteen, are on the International Space Station. The total number of American adult survivors is one-thousand one-hundred and seventy six.”