Scar Island(12)

The Admiral took a step backward toward the line of men, his eyes still on the boys. The boy on the Sinner’s Sorrow whined piteously and rocked from one knee to the other. The Admiral looked at him and rolled his eyes.

“Oh, back to your block, you baby,” he muttered, and the boy jumped up and scrambled back onto his stone block.

The Admiral backed up until he was again in line, shoulder to shoulder with the others in the puddle. He raised his sword and pointed it straight up at the coal-black clouds that rumbled and flashed overhead.

“Work!” he hollered, practically screaming now to be heard over the gusts and crashes and rain. There was a tingling in the air. A buzzing, a charge, a vibration. “Suffering! Discipline! You are dirty little scabs, you devils, and you’ve been sent to hell!”

As the Admiral spoke, the metal buttons on his jacket began to glow with a strange blue light. There was a crackling, like static all around. Then a great blinding flash.

A hot-white bolt of lightning shot down from the black clouds and through the upheld sword in the Admiral’s hand. Spidery lines of electricity surged and cracked through the crowd of adults, and in one blink of a bit of a second, the puddle at their feet burned to a hissing white burst and the world was split by a deafening cannon crack.

The boys screamed and jumped and covered their faces, and Jonathan felt himself thrown off his block and onto his rear on the ground.

Then, all was still. Jonathan sat on the wet stone with his eyes squeezed shut and heard nothing.

Bit by bit, sounds came back. A fading rumble of thunder. The rain dripping on the walls and puddles of the prison. Gusts of wind whistling between the towers. Jonathan lowered his arms and blinked open his eyes.

Two boys still stood on their blocks. The rest were on the ground, like him. They were all looking at where the Admiral and his men had been standing a moment before.

The men were still there. But they all lay in a heap on the ground. Perfectly still. Rain pattered softly on their coats, their boots, their bare hands. The air reeked of steam and burning and electricity and lightning. No one moved.

Slowly—first one, then two, then all of them—the boys crept closer. Step by step they formed a cautious half circle around the pile of grown-ups. No one got too close. There was the Admiral, facedown, his hat on the ground and the sword still in his hand. There was Mr. Warwick, on his back, his one eye open and gaping up at the storm.

“Is he …” one of the boys started to say.

“Are they …” another began.

There was a crack of thunder and they all jumped, but no one stepped away. They hardly noticed the rain pouring down around them.

“Oh, man. Are they … dead?” It was Walter who finally managed to ask the question they were all wondering.

“We need to check,” the big kid named Tony said.

“How?” Sebastian asked breathlessly.

Colin took one step closer to the steaming bodies.

“Thomeone needth to check for a pulth.”

Sebastian nodded.

“Right. Do it, Colin.”

“Me? I don’t want—”

“Just do it, Colin. You’re closest.”

Colin stepped forward. He tiptoed between the bodies like he was afraid they’d wake up. He shied away from Mr. Warwick’s staring eye and reached down toward the Admiral. His hand stopped inches from the Admiral’s neck and he looked up at Sebastian with wide eyes.

“Do it,” Sebastian snapped.

Colin tucked the corners of his mouth into a frown and stretched down the last bit. He felt with his fingers past the Admiral’s collar, trying to find the neck. Jonathan cringed and braced himself, expecting the Admiral to leap up at any moment with a furious roar.

But there was no leaping. No fury. No roar.

Colin stood motionless for a moment, his eyes on the ground and his mouth still frowning and the fingers of one hand held to the soggy neck of the Admiral of Slabhenge. Then he blinked and looked up at the boys gathered at a fearful distance around him.

“He’th dead,” Colin whispered. “Dead ath a doornail.”





There was a moment of silence. Jonathan heard someone gulp. Colin realized he was still touching the dead Admiral and yanked his hand back and stood up straight.

“Are they all dead?” Tony asked.

“Check ’em, Colin,” Sebastian demanded.

“No way, Thebathtian. I did mine. Thomebody elth’th turn.” Colin hopped out from between the bodies and rejoined the group.

Sebastian grunted in frustration.

“Fine. Tony, you check those two,” he said, pointing at Mr. Warwick and another body. “Benny, those two. And … you, Johnny or whatever, you do those ones.” He pointed at Jonathan and then at Mr. Mongley and the man who’d bellowed out their names during Muster.

“It’s Jonathan, and I—”

“Whatever. Just do it. Now.”

Jonathan could tell that arguing wasn’t going to work. He wiped his hands on his pant legs and stepped forward.

He checked the roll caller first. The man’s eyes were closed, but his mouth was open. Steam was rising off his jacket. Jonathan pressed two fingers against the man’s neck. His fingers were half-numb from the cold. He pressed them in harder. It felt like touching a warm steak.

He felt nothing. He waited, quietly. Nothing.