I was aware, somehow, of being watched, but not by the other men. Or by Ghost. Or, in fact, by anyone I could see. It was as if the watcher were inside, looking out through my eyes. Watching me work but also studying me. There was some dried blood on the back of my wrist, a few drops I’d missed when I’d washed in the seawater. I raised my arm — or, it raised my arm — and I felt my nostrils flare as I sniffed. As it sniffed. My mouth spoke a single word.
I can’t spell it or repeat it because the word did not fit into my mouth. It was too awkward, too strange, better suited for the construction of some other kind of throat. And even though it was a word in a language I had never heard before, I knew what it meant.
Savages.
I knew as surely as I know anything.
My hands returned to their work.
The day passed. Seconds into minutes into hours.
I don’t remember when I fell asleep. I don’t remember when the lights went out. I don’t remember floating away.
-8-
Ghost woke me up.
He nudged my face with his muzzle, whined. Licked my nose and mouth. Barked once. He did everything short of bite me.
I woke up.
It was still daylight. I blinked and looked at the sun. Low on the horizon. Sunset? No, that was impossible. We were on the wrong side of the atoll for that.
We…
I realized that I was in the RHIB with Top and Bunny. In the water of the entrance to the lagoon. Drifting, turning slowly in the sluggish current. Ghost stood over me, staring at me with frightened brown eyes. He barked again, loud and sharp, and it chipped away a big chunk of my stupor. I sat up.
Top and Bunny were groaning softly, turning over as they moved upward from sleep to that pre-wakefulness where dreams and reality have no perceptible difference. I looked at my hands, my arms, expecting them to be badly sunburned, or covered with cuts from the debris from when the aloe plant and trees exploded. I looked at my palms, expecting to see calluses and blisters from using those tools for so many hours.
But, no.
“… to Cowboy…”
A fragment of sound in my ear made me jump, and I looked around.
The second RHIB was out there five hundred yards from the beach. The line snaked over the edge of our boat and vanished inside the seawater until it reappeared over their gunnels. Another sound made me jerk and suddenly a helicopter rose from behind the trees. A big Seahawk painted with navy colors. It wobbled in the air, then it rose and moved away from the island.
I heard the call again. It was Captain Tanaka calling me from the USS Michael Murphy. Top sat up slowly and held his head in his hands. I looked at my watch. It was running again. The last time I’d checked it was right before we crossed the dead zone. It had been 7:19. I watched the digital timer go to 7:20. At first I thought that it was simply starting up again, but when we compared our watches to those of the chief on the RHIB and the chronometer on the ship, they matched perfectly. As if no time had passed.
On the beach, I saw a handful of people come out of the jungle. Coast Guard and scientists from the conservancy station. Wandering a little as if dazed, but finding their footing. They stopped when they saw me. We all looked up at the helicopter, and then one by one we turned and looked toward the southeast end of the island. We could not see the burned trees or the torn ground. Not from that angle. But I knew what we would find there.
Nothing.
Not a goddamn thing.
Only the scar on the atoll. Only the memory in our minds.
I stood up in the boat and ran trembling fingers through my hair, trying to understand it. Trying to convince myself that it had been a dream. I knew — absolutely knew — that we would not find sailors from any antique ships. No. Not anymore. I glanced over to the spot where I’d fought and killed the two Nazi agents. The sand was smooth and undisturbed, as if no foot had stepped there in many, many years.
So it was what? A dream? Some kind of shared fantasy? A hallucination brought on by forces as yet to be understood? Magic mushrooms blooming? Some kind of virus? Some freaky weather thing that affected our brain chemistry?
Somehow all of those implausible theories would find their way into reports filed by the different agencies and branches of service involved.
I knew different, though. We all did, though as the day wore on and the debriefings began, most of the people on the island said that they couldn’t remember. None of them were willing to say so while hooked up to a lie detector, though; and no one made them.
The thing that bugs me, though, and the item that anchors me to that little spit of land a thousand miles south of Hawaii is this: There are three dots of blood on the sleeve of my shirt. I had them tested. They’re not mine.
I knew they wouldn’t be.
We flew back to San Diego without saying much of anything.
I mean, what was there to say?
Back home Church asked us a thousand questions. So did Rudy. So did the navy. So did everyone. Everyone had questions.
But we did not have the answers.
Not then. Not ever.
POSTSCRIPT
The navy has since sealed off Palmyra Island. Access has been revoked for the Nature Conservancy and all other research organizations. Maybe that’s an overreaction. Maybe there’s nothing left. No threat, no weirdness, no nothing.
Maybe.
But, really, would you want to take that risk?
Jonathan Maberry is a New York Times bestselling novelist, five-time Bram Stoker Award winner, and comic book writer. He writes the Joe Ledger thrillers, the Rot & Ruin series, the Nightsiders series, the Dead of Night series, and numerous stand-alone novels in multiple genres. His recent novels include Dogs of War, the ninth in his bestselling Joe Ledger thriller series, and Mars One, a stand-alone teen space travel novel. He is the editor of many anthologies, including The X-Files, Scary Out There, Out of Tune, and V-Wars. His comic book works include, among others, Captain America, the Bram Stoker Award — winning Bad Blood, Rot & Ruin, V-Wars, the New York Times bestselling Marvel Zombies Return, and others. His books Extinction Machine, V-Wars, and Mars One are in development for TV/film. A board game version of V-Wars was released in early 2016. He is the founder of the Writers Coffeehouse and the co-founder of the Philadelphia Liars Club. Prior to becoming a full-time novelist, Jonathan spent twenty-five years as a magazine feature writer, martial arts instructor, and playwright. He was a featured expert on the History Channel documentary Zombies: A Living History and a regular expert on the TV series True Monsters. He is one-third of the very popular and mildly weird Three Guys with Beards pop-culture podcast. Jonathan lives in Del Mar, California, with his wife, Sara Jo. For more information, visit his website, www.jonathanmaberry.com.