their time at sea. Yesterday he’d imagined that they’d formed a lifetime bond through their adventures. Today Culann was alone in the world.
“My dad’s dead,” a small voice called out from behind him.
He turned and saw Gus’s daughter, looking every bit as beautiful as the night before. Her hair hung down to her shoulders. She wore a UAF Nanooks t-shirt that came down to the tops of her thighs. If she wore anything else, Culann couldn’t see it. Her eyes were puffy from crying. He rose to his feet.
“Worner’s dead, too,” he said. “And my cousin, Frank.”
She nodded. Culann walked over and put his arm around her shoulder. She fell sobbing into him. He inhaled the lilac scent of her hair and squeezed her tightly for a few moments, savoring her sweet vitality while contemplating the death around him.
“I’m sorry,” she said, pushing away. “I don’t even know you.”
“My name’s Culann.”
“I’m Constance.”
“Something bad has happened. Something big. We need to figure out how big.”
She nodded.
“I’m going to check each house. You can come with me if you want, but you might not like what you see.”
She thought about it for a second and then said, “I want to go with you.”
Culann extended his hand, and she took it. A tingling ran up his arm as her slender fingers clutched his hand. They crossed the street and opened the door to the cabin. Two dogs bounded out and joined the pack swirling around them. Inside they found a dead fisherman on a cot. Constance turned her head away.
“So, do you live out here year-round?” he asked, wanting to distract her from the horrors surrounding them.
“No, I live with my mom in Fairbanks. I don’t see my dad all that much.’
“What are you doing out here now? We were supposed to be gone for another week-and-a-half. How did you know we’d be back early?”
“I didn’t,” she replied with a smirk. “I thought I could get two weeks to myself by coming up before he got back.”
“Why would a girl your age need two weeks by herself?”
“It doesn’t really matter.”
The two worked their way from dwelling to dwelling, finding only dead fishermen and live dogs. Along the way, they stepped over dead birds, dead squirrels, dead raccoons. About a half-mile up the road, a woman slouched against the front door of her trailer. She raised her hand to her lips and puffed on a cigarette. Culann and Constance raced over, the dogs nearly enveloping the woman in their enthusiasm.
She looked up at them with blank eyes. It was Margaret McGillicuddy,
McGillicuddy’s wife, although she was drained of the effervescence Culann had found so charming the night before. He had a hard time recognizing her at first.
“Moses is dead,” she said.
Culann nodded.
“Neighbors are dead, too.”
He put his left hand on her shoulder, careful not to let go of Constance’s hand with his right. Culann explained what he’d found out so far, who he knew to be dead.
Margaret listened without speaking. She smoked her cigarette down to the filter and then lit another one.
“But if we’re alive, there’s got to be more,” Constance chimed in.
Culann was buoyed by the hopefulness in her voice. And she was right. Margaret stayed on her step, but Culann, Constance and the dogs found seven more survivors.
Alistair, Julia and little Marty had all survived. There was Simon Coughlin, an elderly man who ran the general store and appeared to be blind in his clouded-over left eye.
Culann recognized him as one of the silent old coots from Alistair’s bar. And there were fishermen’s wives. Genevieve Gordon looked to be about fifty years old. She spoke with a faint French accent and a not-so-faint slur. Culann guessed she’d responded to the sight of her husband dead beside her by cracking open a bottle. LaTonya Munch was a slight woman of about forty with a hooked nose. Carla Verig was the stoic Native woman who’d waved to Culann from her doorway on his first drunken stumble up Pyrite Avenue. She again wore her raincoat despite the sunny sky. By the time the group finished their survey, the pack of dogs following them had surged to around fifty.
4
A survivor’s meeting convened in the tavern. They gathered around the bar’s only table. The dogs, who had pressed through the doorway as they entered, now occupied virtually every bit of floor space in the bar. Alistair poured out a few shots of whiskey to settle the nerves. Even Constance had one. Culann had four.
Between the ten of them, they could account for every resident of Pyrite. Aside from Culann, every member of the crew of the
Not a single dog had died, but every other animal wild or tame that had been spotted was dead. Moreover there wasn’t a radio, television, cell phone or two-way on the island that could receive a signal from the outside world.
“So what is it?” asked Julia, running her finger along her broad chin.
“It’s got to be a virus of some kind,” Carla said before averting her gaze and smoothing out imaginary wrinkles in her raincoat. She didn’t seem to Culann to be much of a talker.
“I still think it’s pollution,” Margaret said, her once-glimmering blue eyes now dull with grief. “Something in the air is killing us.”
“But then why are the radios out?” countered Simon in a croak that suggested he was even less used to talking than Carla.
“If a virus hit the mainland,” Genevieve responded with a whiskey-thickened tongue, “there wouldn’t be anything for the radio stations to send out.”
“My mom’s in Fairbanks,” Constance said. “Do you think she’s okay?”
“Of course she is,” Margaret said with forced calm. “Your mom is fine, and we’re going to get you to her as soon as possible.”
“Don’t lie to the child,” Alistair said with such forcefulness a vein throbbed in the side of his shaved head. “This is the hand of God. We all need to get ready for His return. Are you a Christian?”
Constance nodded her head.
“Good,” Alistair replied. “Maybe that’s why we are still alive. We are the saved.”
Margaret smirked and said, “I’m not much of a Christian. Besides, do you really think the pervert here is one of the saved?”
“What about the orb?” Culann asked to change the subject. “The orb that Gus”—he squeezed Constance’s bare knee to cushion the blow of hearing her late father’s name—“took from us last night.”
They had all seen the orb last night, even little Marty, and been drawn into the debates as to its origin.
“Why do you seek worldly explanations?” Alistair shot back. “The End of Days is clearly upon us. No other explanation makes sense.”
“But we don’t know that the orb is a worldly explanation,” his wife replied.
“Perhaps it is the implement through which the Lord is doing His work.”
Alistair massaged his thick neck in tacit acceptance.
“Julia has a point,” LaTonya said while placing her hand on Julia’s arm. “I don’t know whether this came from Earth or heaven. Or hell, for that matter. I’m sure it has something to do with what’s going on.”
Heads nodded in agreement.
