Douglas Preston - Riptide

For a moment, all inside the house were paralyzed. Then Hatch and Bonterre caught Truitt's arm and eased him toward the living room sofa.

"Help me, Mal," Truitt gasped, grabbing his head with both hands. "I've never been sick a day in my life."

"I'll help," said Hatch. "But you need to lie down and let me examine your chest."

"Forget my damn chest," Donny gasped. "I'm talking about this!"

And as he jerked his head away from his hands with a convulsive movement, Hatch could see, with cold horror, that each hand now held a mat of thick, carrot-colored hair.

Chapter 43

Clay stood at the stern rail of his single-diesel dragger, the megaphone upended in the fore cabin, drenched and useless, shorted out by the rain. He and the six remaining protestors had taken temporary shelter in the lee of the largest Thalassa ship—a ship they had originally tried to blockade.

Clay was wet to the bone, but a feeling of loss—of bitter, hollow loss—penetrated far deeper than the damp. The large ship, the Cerberus, was inexplicably vacant. Either that, or the people on board had orders not to show themselves: despite boat horns and shouts, not a single figure had come on deck. Perhaps it had been a mistake, he thought miserably, to target the largest ship. Perhaps they should have headed for the island itself and blockaded the piers. That, at least, was tenanted: about two hours before, a series of launches had left the island, loaded with passengers, angling directly away from the protest flotilla toward Stormhaven at high speed.

He looked toward the remnants of his protest flotilla. When they had left the harbor that morning, he'd felt empowered with the spirit: as full of conviction as he'd ever felt as a young man, maybe more. He had been certain that, finally, things would be different for him and the town. He could do something at last, make a difference to these good people. But as he gazed about at the six bedraggled boats heaving in the swell, he admitted to himself that the protest, like everything else he had tried to do in Stormhaven, seemed doomed to failure.

The head of the Lobsterman's Co-op, Lemuel Smith, threw out his fenders and brought his boat alongside Clay's. The two craft heaved and bumped against each other as the rain lashed the sea around them. Clay leaned over the gunwale. His hair was plastered to his angular skull, giving his already severe appearance a death's-head cast.

"It's time to head in, Reverend," the lobsterman shouted, grasping the side of his boat. "This is going to be one humdinger of a storm. Maybe when the mackerel run's over we can try again."

"By then it'll be too late," Clay cried over the wind and rain. "The damage will be done."

"We made our point," said the lobsterman.

"Lem, it's not about making a point," said Clay. "I'm cold and wet, just like you. But we have to make this sacrifice. We have to stop them."

The lobsterman shook his head. "We're not going to stop them in this weather, Reverend. Anyway, this little Nor'easter may do the job for us." Smith turned a weather eye upward and scanned the sky, then turned to the distant land, a mere ghost of blue vanishing into the driving rain. "I can't afford to lose my boat."

Clay fell silent. I can't afford to lose my boat. That was it in a nutshell. They didn't see that some things were more important than boats or money. And perhaps they never would see. He felt a strange tight sensation around his eyes and realized, vaguely, that he was crying. No matter; two more tears in an ocean. "I wouldn't want to be responsible for anybody losing his boat," he managed to say, turning away. "You go on back, Lem. I'm going to stay."

The lobsterman hesitated. "I'd sure feel better if you came in now. You can fight them another day, but you can't fight the ocean."

Clay waved his hand. "Maybe I'll land on the island, talk to Neidelman myself..." He stopped, hiding his face as he pretended to busy himself about the boat.

Smith gazed at him for a moment with creased, worried eyes. Clay wasn't much of a seaman. But telling a man what to do with his boat was an unforgivable offense. Besides, Smith could see something in the Reverend's face, a sudden uncaring recklessness, that told him anything he said would be useless.

He slapped the gunwale of Clay's boat. "I guess we'd better shove off, then. I'll be monitoring the ten point five channel, case you need help."

Clay hugged the lee of the Cerberus, engine idling, and stared as the remaining boats headed into the heaving sea, the sound of their diesels rising and falling on the wind. He pulled his slicker tighter and tried to hold himself steady against the deck. Twenty yards away, the curving white hull of the Cerberus rose up, rock solid in the water, the swell sliding noiselessly past.

Clay mechanically checked his boat. The bilge pumps were running smoothly, jetting fine streams of water over the side; the engine was purring nicely, and he still had plenty of diesel fuel. Now that it had come to this—now that he was alone, the Almighty his sole companion—he felt an odd sense of comfort. Perhaps it was a sin of presumption to expect so much from the people of Stormhaven. He couldn't rely on them, but he could rely on himself.

He would wait a little before heading toward Ragged Island. He had boat and time enough. All the time in the world.

He watched the remains of the fleet head back toward Stormhaven harbor, his arms braced hard upon the helm. Soon, they were nothing but distant, ghostly shapes against a sodden background of gray.

He did not see the Thalassa launch that pulled away from the island, pitching and yawing, the outboard cavitating with each plunge as it struggled toward the boarding hatch on the far side of the Cerberus.

Chapter 44

Donny Truitt lay on the sofa, breathing more calmly now that the one-milligram IM dose of lorazepam had started to take effect. He stared at the ceiling, blinking patiently, while Hatch examined him. Bonterre and the professor had retreated to the kitchen, where they were talking in hushed tones.

"Donny, listen to me," Hatch said. "When did the symptoms begin to show?"

"About a week ago," Truitt replied miserably. "I didn't think anything of it. I started waking up nauseated. Lost my breakfast a couple of times. Then this rash thing appeared on my chest."

"What did it look like?"

"Red splotches at first. Then it got kind of bumpy. My neck started to hurt, too. On the sides, like. And I started noticing hair in my comb. First just a little, but now it's like I could pull it all out. But there's never been a touch of baldness in my family; we've always been buried with a full head of hair. Honest to God, Mally, I don't know how my wife'd take it if I went bald."

"Don't worry. It's not male pattern baldness. Once we figure out what's wrong and take care of it, it'll grow back."

"I sure as hell hope so," said Truitt. "I got off the midnight shift last night and went straight to bed, but I only felt worse in the morning. Never been to a doctor before. But I thought, hell, you're a friend, right? It wasn't like going to a clinic or something,"

"Anything else I should know about?" Hatch asked.

Donny grew suddenly embarrassed. "Well, my—it kind of hurts around my hind end. There's sores back there, or something."

"Roll to one side," Hatch said. "I'll take a look."

A few minutes later, Hatch sat by himself in the dining room. He had called an ambulance from the hospital, but it would take at least another fifteen minutes to arrive. And then there would be the problem of getting Donny into it. A rural Mainer, Truitt had a horror of going to the doctor, and an even greater horror of the hospital.