John Locke - Now & Then

“Get out!” the lady screamed again.

She didn’t sound friendly, but D’Augie could hardly afford to be picky. He needed assistance.

“Help me!” he shouted.

“Help you? Sure, I’ll help you! I’m getting my shotgun. If you’re still laying in the bushes when I get back, I’m going to blow your ass to hell!

D’Augie cursed, and started rolling. It was slow, hot, exhausting work trying to roll two blocks to the inn. Sand had caked on the cuts in his forehead and entered his broken nose. He held his breath and tried to blow the blockage from his nostrils. In doing so, he remembered watching a fight on TV once, where the corner man told his fighter never to blow a broken nose.

But why? D’Augie tried to remember. Oh yeah: because it will swell up and hurt ten times worse.

The corner man had been right.

D’Augie kept rolling. He figured to make it to the gate and use the gate pole to prop himself up. But the gate was a block and a half away, and D’Augie was in serious pain, losing blood, and getting dizzy. His mind was getting fuzzy, and he was stuck amid the sand dunes. He stopped rolling for a minute and took a break, trying to remember what it was about laying on a sand dune that posed a problem.

The fire ants brought his memory back. Ten or twelve of them had gotten in his shirt and began stinging the back of his neck. D’Augie wasn’t about to let them grow in numbers like the last time. He resumed his rolling, and though the dune sand was soft and loose and the going much slower, he made up for it by working harder.

Ten minutes later he found himself not in front of the B&B as he’d planned, but behind and to the side of it. He broke out of the last sand dune and rolled onto the compacted sand behind the inn. He was lying about thirty feet from the boardwalk, near its center. From his vantage point he figured it was a hundred and fifty feet from the beach to the Inn, and he could see the steps at both ends. Eight steps on the left end took you up to the Inn, and however many steps there were on the right end would take you down to the beach. The boardwalk was elevated about two feet above the sand, and there were access points on either side, with three steps each. There were people below him on the beach. He couldn’t see them and couldn’t be seen by them, but he could hear them laughing and playing. He also heard Rachel calling to Creed, hollering for four more Kashenkas, which D’Augie knew to be some sort of drink. He turned his head and saw her standing on the boardwalk, maybe twenty feet to his left. She had her hands cupped around her mouth and was concentrating her attention on the back of the Inn, and hadn’t noticed him lying in the sand.

D’Augie thought about calling out to her, maybe get her to lift him up and help him to the kitchen, but when he heard Creed shout back that he’d bring the drinks to her in a minute, he came up with a better plan, one he’d seen in the movie, Jeremiah Johnson , starring Robert Redford. In the movie, an Indian had buried himself under a layer of snow and jumped out and attacked Robert Redford. It didn’t work, but then again, Redford had been holding a rifle, whereas Creed would be carrying a tray of exotic drinks. D’Augie would simply roll a few feet closer, over to that loose, fresh-raked sand by the boardwalk, bury himself a foot or two into it, and when Creed passed by, he’d jump up and use the edge of the boardwalk to get to his feet. Then he’d come up behind Creed from under the boardwalk and cut the tendon in Creed’s ankle. Creed’s scream would be drowned out by the beach noises, and when he fell, D’Augie would slit his throat and make his getaway.

D’Augie remained perfectly still until Rachel disappeared down the steps to the beach. Then he rolled to the fresh-raked area and positioned the knife in his cast. He began digging the soft sand out from under his body with his left hand. It was easier than he’d expected. Within minutes he scooped out an area about a foot deep and eased his back into it, and started covering himself with the sand he’d dug out of the hole.

After a few minutes of that, he realized it wasn’t going to work. With only one free hand and leg he wasn’t going to be able to cover himself enough to escape detection.

D’Augie would just have to roll out of the hole, make his way to the boardwalk, lift himself up, and intercept Creed from the front. Creed would be probably be taken back encountering the limping, bleeding sand-covered D’Augie, but the last thing he’d expect is to be attacked. So the element of surprise, plus the fact that Creed would be carrying a tray of drinks, would be enough to tip the scales of battle in D’Augie’s favor. So that’s what he’d do.

As soon as he worked his way out of the hole he’d dug.

Which he suddenly didn’t seem capable of doing.

And worse, his back was getting awfully goddamned hot for some reason.

Chapter 19

I WAS ALONE in the kitchen when I heard Rachel shouting a drink order from the boardwalk. I’d served a few of our guests Kashenkas earlier, and knew they’d be ordering them all afternoon.

The Kashenka is a trendy drink invented in Paris twenty years ago to honor a beautiful Polish cabaret dancer who worked near the Ritz hotel. It’s made with pressed strawberries, white castor sugar and Polish vodka and served in a tall glass filled with cracked ice.

I figured if Rachel was calling for drinks instead of sending Tracy to the kitchen for them, both girls were obviously needed on the beach to tend to our demanding guests. My immediate problem was the lack of serving trays. I looked under the sink, in the hutch and even tried the broom closet, but couldn’t find anything suitable for presenting the drinks. Maybe the guests wouldn’t mind if I just used a dinner plate. I had just started trimming the strawberries, when I remembered the picnic basket Beth had taken to her sick friend.

The basket was on the counter, filled with apples. I took the apples out and turned the basket upside down to make sure it was clean, and noticed some scratch marks on the bottom. There was something unusual about them. They seemed to be less random and more of a deliberate design. I took the basket close to the back door to get as much light on it as possible, and realized what I was seeing was not scratches at all, but two distinct Roman numerals. I rubbed my thumb over the woven wood where the scratches had been made, and felt something sharp. I pried apart the area between the weave and discovered something had been wedged in there.

It was that exact moment I heard a man screaming. I cocked my head to the side to listen. It sounded like a Rebel yell, only louder, and more terrifying.

I dropped the basket, tore out the door and raced about twenty feet down the boardwalk and found a man lying in the pig pit. I hopped over the rail and got to him quickly and pulled him out and turned him over. He had a leg and arm cast and his shirt had scorch marks on the back. A few more minutes and this guy would have been burned alive. I turned him on his side and felt his pulse for ten seconds.

Though he was in serious pain, I could see he was going to live. He’d probably have permanent burn marks on his back, and might require skin grafts. His face and hair were caked with blood and sand and something about him seemed familiar. His eyes were wild with pain, and he was grabbing at his sling. I looked around for help and saw that no one seemed to have heard him or noticed me pull him from the pit.

“Don’t move,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”

I ran back to the kitchen, grabbed my cell phone and dialed 911 and gave them the details. I grabbed four bottles of water from the refrigerator and a roll of paper towels and ran back to the burn victim, who was trying to roll toward the sand dunes. I stopped him and turned him on his stomach and began pouring water over his back. I decided not to remove his shirt in case the skin might come off with it. I poured a second bottle of water on his back and then turned him on his side and opened a third bottle and poured it on his face and hair. I got him to drink a few swallows from my last bottle of water, and used the remainder to wet some paper towels. I dabbed at his face with the moistened towels, and though his broken nose threw me off a minute, I finally recognized him as the kid Rachel and I had pulled off the sand dune a couple of weeks earlier.