Dennis Lehane - Shutter Island

He came out of the woods and ran along the shore, and just before he reached the dock and would’ve left himself exposed to anyone running back to the ferry, he cut hard to his left and ran into the water.

Jesus, it was ice. Teddy had hoped the heat of the day might have warmed it up a bit, but the cold tore up through his body like electric current and punched the air out of his chest. But Teddy kept plowing forward, trying not to think about what was in that water with him—eels and jellyfish and crabs and sharks too, maybe. Seemed ridiculous but Teddy knew that sharks attacked humans, on average, in three feet of water, and that’s about where he was now, the water at his waist and getting higher, and Teddy heard shouts coming from up by Cawley’s house, and he ignored the sledgehammer strokes of his heart and dove under the water.

He saw the girl from his dreams, floating just below him, her eyes open and resigned.

He shook his head and she vanished and he could see the keel ahead of him, a thick black stripe that undulated in the green water, and he swam to it and got his hands on it. He moved along it to the front and came around the other side, and forced himself to come up out of the water slowly, just his head. He felt the sun on his face as he exhaled and then sucked in oxygen and tried to ignore a vision of his legs dangling down there in the depths, some creature swimming along and seeing them, wondering what they were, coming close for a sniff…

The ladder was where he remembered it. Right in front of him, and he got a hand on the third rung and hung there. He could hear the men running back to the dock now, hear their heavy footsteps on the planks, and then he heard the warden:

“Search that boat.”

“Sir, we were only gone—”

“You left your post, and now you wish to argue?”

“No, sir. Sorry, sir.”

The ladder dipped in his hand as several men placed their weight on the ferry, and Teddy heard them going through the boat, heard doors opening and furniture shifting.

Something slid between his thighs like a hand, and Teddy gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on the ladder and forced his mind to go completely blank because he did not want to imagine what it looked like. Whatever it was kept moving, and Teddy let out a breath.

“My car. He blew up my fucking car.” Cawley, sounding ragged and out of breath.

The warden said, “This has gone far enough, Doctor.”

“We agreed that it’s my decision to make.”

“If this man gets off the island—”

“He’s not going to get off the island.”

“I’m sure you didn’t think he was going to turn your buggy into an inferno, either. We have to break this operation down now and cut our losses.”

“I’ve worked too hard to throw in the towel.”

The warden’s voice rose. “If that man gets off this island, we’ll be destroyed.”

Cawley’s voice rose to match the warden’s. “He’s not going to get off the fucking island!”

Neither spoke for a full minute. Teddy could hear their weight shifting on the dock.

“Fine, Doctor. But that ferry stays. It does not leave this dock until that man is found.”

Teddy hung there, the cold finding his feet and burning them.

Cawley said, “They’ll want answers for that in Boston.”

Teddy closed his mouth before his teeth could chatter.

“Then give them answers. But that ferry stays.”

Something nudged the back of Teddy’s left leg.

“All right, Warden.”

Another nudge against his leg, and Teddy kicked back, heard the splash he made hit the air like a gunshot.

Footsteps on the stern.

“He’s not in there, sir. We checked everywhere.”

“So where did he go?” the warden said. “Anyone?”

“Shit!”

“Yes, Doctor?”

“He’s headed for the lighthouse.”

“That thought did occur to me.”

“I’ll handle it.”

“Take some men.”

“I said I’ll handle it. We’ve got men there.”

“Not enough.”

“I’ll handle it, I said.”

Teddy heard Cawley’s shoes bang their way back up the dock and get softer as they hit the sand.

“Lighthouse or no lighthouse,” the warden said to his men, “this boat goes nowhere. Get the engine keys from the pilot and bring them to me.”

HE SWAM MOST of the way there.

Dropped away from the ferry and swam toward shore until he was close enough to the sandy bottom to use it, clawing along until he’d gone far enough to raise his head from the water and risk a glance back. He’d covered a few hundred yards and he could see the guards forming a ring around the dock.

He slipped back under the water and continued clawing, unable to risk the splashing that freestyle or even doggie-paddling would cause, and after a while, he came to the bend in the shoreline and made his way around it and walked up onto the sand and sat in the sun and shook from the cold. He walked as much of the shore as he could before he ran into a set of outcroppings that pushed him back into the water and he tied his shoes together and hung them around his neck and went for another swim and envisioned his father’s bones somewhere on this same ocean floor and envisioned sharks and their fins and their great snapping tails and barracuda with rows of white teeth and he knew he was getting through this because he had to and the water had numbed him and he had no choice now but to do this and he might have to do it again in a couple of days when the Betsy Ross dropped its booty off the island’s southern tip, and he knew that the only way to conquer fear was to face it, he’d learned that in the war enough, but even so, if he could manage it, he would never, ever, get in the ocean again. He could feel it watching him and touching him. He could feel the age of it, more ancient than gods and prouder of its body count.

He saw the lighthouse at about one o’clock. He couldn’t be sure because his watch was back in his suit jacket, but the sun was in roughly the right place. He came ashore just below the bluff on which it stood and he lay against a rock and took the sun on his body until the shakes stopped and his skin grew less blue.

If Chuck was up there, no matter his condition, Teddy was bringing him out. Dead or alive, he wouldn’t leave him behind.

You’ll die then .

It was Dolores’s voice, and he knew she was right. If he had to wait two days for the arrival of the Betsy Ross , and he had anything but a fully alert, fully functional Chuck with him, they’d never make it. They’d be hunted down…

Teddy smiled.

…like two-legged dogs.

I can’t leave him, he told Dolores. Can’t do it. If I can’t find him, that’s one thing. But he’s my partner.

You only just met him .

Still my partner. If he’s in there, if they’re hurting him, holding him against his will, I have to bring him out.

Even if you die ?

Even if I die.

Then I hope he’s not in there .

He came down off the rock and followed a path of sand and shells that curled around the sea grass, and it occurred to him that what Cawley had thought suicidal in him was not quite that. It was more a death wish. For years he couldn’t think of a good reason to live, true. But he also couldn’t think of a good reason to die, either. By his own hand? Even in his most desolate nights, that had seemed such a pathetic option. Embarrassing. Puny.

But to—

The guard was suddenly standing there, as surprised by Teddy’s appearance as Teddy was by his, the guard’s fly still open, the rifle slung behind his back. He started to reach for his fly first, then changed his mind, but by then Teddy had driven the heel of his hand into his Adam’s apple. He grabbed his throat, and Teddy dropped to a crouch and swung his leg into the back of the guard’s and the guard flipped over on his back and Teddy straightened up and kicked him hard in the right ear and the guard’s eyes rolled back in his head and his mouth flopped open.