The Wildman (36 page)

Jeff shook his head but didn’t say anything.

What could he possibly say?

Even though Evan had totaled his car, he was right. He had saved his life, and he was grateful for that.

“
We gotta get you to a hospital,” Jeff said after a long silence punctuated only by the steady sound of rain on the car and the two men’s heavy breathing. If anyone had seen the car, steamed up like that, they would have assumed a couple had driven out here to make out during the storm. Jeff found the sounds almost soothing, now that he was at least warm, if not dry.

He thought they should rest here first. Maybe sleep if they could. It was all too easy to imagine letting himself slip away into unconsciousness now, but a small, rational corner of his mind was telling him they had to get help if they both were going to live. He couldn’t get this far and then die of hypothermia.

“
How’d you do it?” Jeff asked, listening to his voice drag like an old-time record on slow speed.

There was another long silence. Jeff would have been convinced Evan had died if it wasn’t for the low, soft hissing of his breathing.

“
How’d I do what?” Evan finally asked. He kept his eyes closed and his head titled back.

“
How in the hell did you get to the mainland before either me or Ben?”

Evan snickered softly, his shoulders shaking loosely beneath his drenched clothes.

“
When he shot at me, when I was taking the boat, I dove into the water, hoping he’d think he had killed me.” Evan sounded totally exhausted. His teeth were chattering even though the car was as hot as a sauna.

“
I must’ve gotten disoriented in the dark, and once I started swimming, I figured I’d be better off staying away from the island.”

“
But you could have drowned. Christ, I can’t believe you didn’t drown. The water’s gotta be close to freezing.”

“
I thought I was gonna drown, too,” Evan said with a shrug.

Jeff patted the pockets of his raincoat, felt the bulge of his cell phone, and took it out. The light didn’t come on when he flipped it open, and the screen was half-filled with water, making it looked like a carpenter’s level.

“
No way this sucker’s gonna work,” he said as he clicked it shut and dropped it to the car floor.

Evan moaned and, opening his eyes to slits, indicated the glove compartment in front of Jeff’s knees with a feeble wave of his hand.

“
Mine’s in there,” he said. “Hand it to me.”

Jeff was stunned. He gave Evan a long, slow look before he leaned forward and opened the glove compartment. The cell phone was lying on top of a registration folder and some Dunkin’ Donuts napkins.

“
Why’d you leave it here?” he asked.

He didn’t like the faint stirring of suspicion he felt. As he closed his hand around the cell phone, he turned and eyed Evan carefully.

“
I knew it wouldn’t work on the island,” Evan said simply. “The reception’s shit out there, but sometimes it works here.” He held his hand out and shook it impatiently. “Come on. Give it to me.”

“
No,” Jeff said as he flipped the phone open and looked at the lighted screen. The battery was half-charged, and the signal strength indicator was showing three bars. It might be enough.

“
I’ll dial,” Evan said, sounding more insistent.

Jeff ignored him as he thumbed the button for the directory and saw the list of Evan’s contacts. As weak as he was, Evan made a grab for the phone, but Jeff turned away from him and thumbed the directory button down … and down … until he came to the names starting with the let
ter
F
. After
Feeney
,
Fecteau
, and
Fidler
, he saw an entry for
Foster
. He tapped the button once to get the information.

“
Give me the goddamned phone,” Evan said.

His voice was edged with agitation, and Jeff could understand why. Listed under
Foster
was the first name
Benjamin
and a phone numb
er with a Massachusetts area code.

“
What the fuck is this?” he whispered, but he kept his body turned away from Evan so he couldn’t see the phone’s screen.

“
What the fuck is what?”

Jeff couldn’t believe what he was seeing. His heart skipped a few beats, and in spite of the heat blasting from the air vents, his skin went deathly cold.

“You
knew
it was him,” Jeff said.

“Knew who was w
ho? What the fuck are you talking about?”

But Jeff could hear the lie in Evan’s voice. He was suddenly positive that, no matter what he said, Evan would deny knowing Ben Foster … or maybe he would insist this was a different Ben Foster.

“
So what was it? Were you in cahoots with him? The two of you planned this whole thing together?”

“
I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.” Evan said, but he was unable to hide the edge in his voice and the frantic look that lit his eyes when he opened them and looked at Jeff.

“
You knew all along he was Jimmy’s brother?”

Jeff’s body began to convulse as blinding anger filled him.

“
You knew all along, and—what? You brought him out there to the island so he could get his revenge on us?”

Evan stared at him, his eyes wide, his face pale.

“
He must have had an escape plan—a backup.” Jeff grabbed Evan by the collar and shook him hard enough to make his teeth clack. “Did he have another boat? Is that what happened? You both came over here to finish me off?”

“
No … No … It’s nothing like that. I swear to God. I never … I never even made the connection with his name. It never crossed my mind that he might be Jimmy’s brother.”

“
Bullshit!”

Jeff stared out at the dark lake and listened to his pulse, hammering in his ears.

“
You’ve lost it. You’re out of your goddamned mind, man. I swear to Christ, I never—”

“
You couldn’t have swum over here. The cold would have killed you for sure. I know what happened. He promised not to kill you if you gave up the rest of us? That’s it, isn’t it?”

“
You’re talking crazy.”

Evan was trying to sound calm, but Jeff could see the stark terror rising in his eyes.

“
In th
e dark—did you even know who I was? Jesus, were you trying to run
me
over instead Ben? Is that what happened?”

“You’ve lost
your mind. Exhaustion … exposure have really gotten to you. You have no idea what you’re saying, so look. Just calm the fuck down and give me the phone.”

Evan lunged at Jeff while, at the same time, reaching down to the floor and slipping his hand under the car seat. Jeff caught the motion, and he wasn’t surprised when Evan raised his left hand, holding a gun. Just as he was started to bring it around to aim at him, Jeff lashed out with the hand holding the cell phone. That instant, the gun discharged with a flash and a deafening thump that made Jeff’s ears ring. The passenger’s side window exploded, inches from his head.

“
You lying sack of shit,” Jeff shouted as he clenched his fist and drove it with every remaining ounce of strength he had into Evan’s face.

There was a satisfying crunch of breaking teeth and bone as Evan’s head snapped back hard against the headrest. A mist of blood shot from his nose like a spray gun, and his eyes rolled back to expose the whites. Trembling with fury, Jeff clenched his fist, cocked his arm back, and punched him again … and again … and again until—finally—Evan let out a low, gurgling moan and sagged back in the car seat. His head was cocked to one side, resting an awkward angle on the car seat. Blood streamed from both nostrils and the corners of his ruined mouth. His eyes were half-opened, but they gazed sightlessly at Jeff. The whites were an odd yellow shot through with tiny broken blood vessels.

Tears filled Jeff’s eyes and streamed down his face. He muttered something unintelligible, but what he said was punctuated by sharp hitches in his chest as he reached across Evan’s chest, snapped open the driver’s side door, and pushed him out onto the gravel parking lot.

Evan hit the packed ground hard and rolled over once before coming to rest with one arm draped across his chest. Rain pelted him as he lay on his back, staring sightlessly up at the night sky.

Jeff struggled to catch his breath as he stared at the motionless figure. He had no idea if Evan was alive or dead, but he didn’t care. His body was shaking out of control as he raised his bloodstained hand in the front of his face and clenched it into a fist. The blood sticking to his fingers made a sick, squishy sound. He knew his hand was broken. The pain reached all the way to his s
houlder.

I’ve gotta get help,
he thought, but he couldn’t find the strength to move.

It would be much easier, he thought, to close the door and sit here with engine running. Even with the passenger’s window blown out, he would either warm up or else the carbon monoxide would get into his bloodstream and kill him.

Either way, what did it matter?

Nothing mattered any more, as far as he could see.

They had started out five of them—five supposed friends—and now, only he was left.

Would the police even believe his story?

Or would they suspect he had been the killer all along who had lured these four innocents out to Sheep’s Head Island to their deaths?

And in the end, what would it matter?

He had already lost everything that mattered to him—his wife, his son, his life, if you could call it a life. He didn’t sell houses. He was a paper pusher and a money grubbing moron. Although everything that had happened on the island already seemed like a terrible dream, he remembered—for a short time—he had been really alive out there. The spirit of the night had filled him some strange energy … a power that made it all too clear that his life—until this weekend—had been empty … hollow … without meaning.

No one would miss him if died now, and he was content to know he had won. He had beaten Ben Foster at his high-stakes game, so even if he died now, he could die knowing he had won.

His hand was still trembling as he relaxed his fist and reached for the steering wheel. The effort was almost too much, but he managed to shift over to the driver’s seat. Evan’s foot was still hanging inside the car, but he kicked it out onto the ground.

The rain was still coming down hard. He watched with an uncanny detachment as his hand took hold of the gearshift and slipped it into reverse. He released the emergency brake and stepped down on the gas. The tires skidded on the wet gravel, but they found purchase, and the car crept backward. He snapped on the headlights and watched them wash across the slumped body of Evan Pike, lying in the middle of the road.

“
Goddamn yah,” he whispered.

His breath misted the windshield, obscuring his view for a moment as he backed the car around and shifted into drive. Then, stepping down hard on the accelerator, he squealed the tires on the gravel as he drove off into the night.

* * *

You could say it all ended when Jeff reached across Evan’s chest, opened the car door, and shoved him out onto the dirt road, but that wouldn’t be strictly accurate. Too many things happened afterward to make that particular event a clean-cut conclusion to this story.

Jeff lost any sense of time as he drove into the night, the car rattling and bouncing on the rutted dirt road. He didn’t have much—if any—awareness of where he was headed. All he knew was that he needed to find someone he could tell what happened and who might be able to help him. He also needed to get warm and put on some dry clothes and eat something substantial. Hell, even a Granola bar would do. If he didn’t eat soon, he was going to die … although that thought no longer held the terror it once had.

He was barely conscious when the car careened into the parking lot of a Rite Aid pharmacy in the town of Arden and screeched to a stop at an angle that cut across two parking spaces. One front tire was up over the curb, and he had just missed hitting a Rav4 parked nearby. After killing the engine, he opened the door and all but fell out onto the asphalt.

He was amazed he had made it this far.

His plan was to go into the pharmacy and get something to eat and drink. He had his mind set on an energy drink and Granola bar, but he never made it. Harry Shannon, the owner of the
Rav 4
, found him sprawled on the pavement with his legs still inside the car.

After the police cruiser and ambulance arrived and took him to the hospital, everything became a blur of bright lights and confusing sounds as dozens of people—doctors, nurses, orderlies, and policemen—hovered over him, asking too many questions. He had the impression he replied to each question in clear, sensible sentences, but then he began to have his doubts because the same people—or maybe it was different people—kept asking him the same questions, over and over again until he was ready to scream. Finally, someone shot him up with something, and he drifted off to sleep after being reassured that he was perfectly safe now.