“You three! Over there!” The shotgun waved east. “They need more help!”
A trio of drained men trudged toward a separate pile of work, and stared down at a pale corpse.
“Great. The pine boxes,” said one of the larger men, named Goat. “I don’t mind burying our own, but this is bullshit.”
“Just grab him,” said a stubby but deceptively strong neighbor. He went by “Stub.”
The first worker began lifting the body by the armpits, then suddenly dropped him and jumped back.
“What the hell’s gotten into you?” said Stub.
Goat just pointed with a quivering arm. “He’s got a bullet hole!”
“Where?”
“In the forehead.”
“Jesus, you’re right!”
They composed themselves and lifted him into a box, providing a better view. “Wait a minute, I know this guy. It’s Mr. Fakakta.”
“Who’s that?”
“Sugar man,” said Goat. “Lived in that big colonial house out past the bend by the ice plant.”
“That big place in Pahokee was his?”
“Ain’t doing him no good now.”
They grabbed the next body, a woman, and just as promptly dropped it.
“She’s got a bullet hole, too,” said Stub.
“That’s his wife,” said Goat.
“What on earth is going on?”
The pair quickly scanned nearby bodies. “There’s his son. Head almost blown off . . .”
Stub was Catholic, made the sign of the cross. “Ave Maria.”
Goat glanced back twenty yards and watched a stream of brown juice shoot from between gapped teeth. “Think we should tell the deputy?”
“Definitely,” said Goat. “Some monster murdered this whole poor family—”
A shotgun blast went skyward.
Everyone froze.
“Shut up over there and get back to work!” barked the lawman.
The pair nodded respectfully, then began hammering penny nails into the lid of a pine box. “Screw ’em.”
Part One
Chapter 1
2017
“Help me!” yelled Coleman. “I’m trapped again!”
“Hold on. I’ve got my own problems.” Serge pushed away a piece of plywood and crawled out from under a debris pile of dresser drawers, chunks of ceiling and a toilet lid. He stood to examine all his scratches and bruises, but saw nothing major. He looked around. “Okay, Coleman, where are you?”
“I don’t have a clue.”
“No, I mean just keep talking and I’ll follow your voice.”
“Okay,” said Coleman. “Hey, Serge, I just realized that ‘slow up’ and ‘slow down’ mean the same thing. That’s fucked. I’m still stoned.”
Serge cleared a path, pushing aside fractured furniture. “Keep talking.”
“Have you seen my weed anywhere out there?”
Serge cast aside a torn-down kitchen cabinet and lifted a soaked mattress. “There you are.”
Coleman sat up, and his face suddenly reddened as a cord from mangled window blinds tightened around his neck.
Serge flicked open a pocketknife and sliced the thin rope. “Don’t you know that’s a choking hazard?”
“I didn’t have a choice.” Coleman rubbed his neck. “It just got me.”
Serge stood again and stared thoughtfully at the bright, panoramic view out the front of the building where the wall used to be. “It got everyone.”
Coleman checked his own bruises. “Is it over?”
“All over but the shouting,” said Serge.
Coleman joined him, looking out across the calm waters of Bogie Channel. “So that was the big Hurricane Irma everyone was talking about?”
Serge would have opened the door, but there wasn’t one. He hopped down from the building and walked toward the street. The only sound was the crunch of gravel and broken glass under his sneakers. The air had turned mild and comfortable, nothing to betray what had come before.
Serge placed hands on his hips as he surveyed what had recently been a historic row of quaint old fishing cottages in the backcountry of the Florida Keys. All had been knocked off their foundations, lying helter-skelter practically on top of each other.
Unless you’ve seen the aftermath of a major hurricane, you wouldn’t realize how much of the damage appears to be the result of high explosives. Little pieces of shrapnel everywhere. Slivers and confetti. Most of the other cottages were missing their front walls as well, allowing the wind to go to work inside like sticks of dynamite. Cabin number 7 had no walls at all, just a roof lying on the ground, which had been pushed against the base of a palm tree that neatly cut it open like a jigsaw. The cabin with the least damage, still barely clinging together and listing like a floundering ship off the edge of its concrete slab, was number 5.
Serge looked the other way, toward the landmark two-story clapboard office and bait store at the Old Wooden Bridge Fishing Camp. It had stood apart from the cabins, alone, unprotected, with no trees to shield it on the edge of the channel. Now there was little evidence there had ever been an office, except for the matchbook-size pieces that littered the ground and floated in the water like another bomb had gone off.
Serge wiped his eyes.
“Are you starting to cry?” asked Coleman.
“Why couldn’t it have taken out a Starbucks or some shit? We keep losing all our best places.” He blew his nose. “I’d bet the bat tower on Sugarloaf is gone, too.”
It was.
One of the island’s endangered miniature Key deer sprang from the brush and bounded through the debris like an antelope.
“I’ve never seen one run that fast,” said Coleman.
“I’m sure it has a lot on its mind.”
Coleman turned back around toward their cottage. “Jesus, we could have been killed! Why did you want to stay here and ride out that hurricane? Didn’t you realize it would be this hairy?”
Another doe darted by.
“I knew it would be strong,” said Serge. “But these little deer always figure out how to make it through storms, so I figured how hard can it be? Second, I love cabin number five.”
“It’s your favorite,” said Coleman. “You always kiss the number by the door when you first arrive.”
“I knew that if God would allow just a single cottage to survive relatively intact, it would be Five. I figured this island would get pretty much torn up, so I wanted to spend a final night in that special place. And last but not least, I seriously miscalculated.”
“Wait. Stop,” said Coleman. “You mean we really could have been killed? But you promised me I’d be safe.”
Serge pulled car keys from his pocket. “What was I thinking?”
“Hey, where are you going?”
They don’t call it Big Pine Key for nothing. The day before, Serge had found a spot where he was able to back his car about twenty yards into the woods, surrounded by thick pine trees. The kind of place where the little deer hide.
“It barely has a mark on her,” said Coleman. “So we’re heading out of here now?”