The Island(39)

“The ferry is not there,” Hans announced.

“Now what do we do?” Petra asked.

“I don’t know,” Heather said and sat down in the grass. She looked at the kids. Olivia seemed to be doing OK, given the extraordinary circumstances, although she had gotten very good at concealing how she felt.

Owen was a wreck. All the water was gone now and he was clearly dehydrated. He was not in good physical shape to begin with. His mother’s death had hit him very hard, and he’d retreated into video games and overeating and hiding in his room. He’d been excused from gym and he’d given up riding his bicycle and skateboard. He wore only a shapeless hoodie and shorts, and clearly this night jog up and down hills had brought him to the limits of his physical capacity. Furthermore, he hadn’t had his ADHD or antianxiety medication for two days now, and Tom said that he needed those pills every day.

“Hey, Owen,” Heather said, coming over to him.

He shrugged her away. “Don’t touch me, Heather!”

She nodded and gave him space.

“Now what will we do?” Hans asked.

Heather turned to look at him. The Dutch couple seemed OK after their exertions. They both appeared to be in their late fifties or early sixties, but they were lean, fit, and strong, like a lot of Europeans.

“What do you suggest?” Hans asked her.

“I don’t know. But we should get away from here. We’re exposed. When they find out we’re missing, they’re going to come to the ferry and check around here first.”

“The trail you made leads them to the woods,” Hans said.

“That’s not going to fool them for very long. They know our best chance of getting off the island is to come to the ferry, so they’ll show up pretty soon.”

Petra hoisted a finger into the air. “Listen,” she said.

Heather listened, and sure enough, over the sea and the morning chorus, they could hear two vehicles coming toward them from the farm.

“They know,” Hans said.

“They’re in a big hurry,” Olivia said.

“We have to hide! Up there, farther back in the grass. Come on!” Heather said.

She grabbed Owen by the arm and they scrambled up the slope into the long grass. A Toyota Hilux and a Land Rover appeared on the brow of a hill five hundred yards away.

“Everyone, get down! Don’t move!” Heather said.

The two vehicles drove to the ferry terminal and stopped with a squeal of brakes and a spiral of dust.

Four men and Kate got out of the cars. They were all armed with long rifles. Jacko, Matt, Danny, and Ivan. Matt examined the ground.

“They were here,” Matt said, his voice carrying easily in the morning air. “They were here in the last hour but they’ve gone now.”

“Did they swim for it?” Kate asked him.

“I don’t know.”

“The sharks will have took ’em,” Jacko said.

Matt walked down to the water and looked at the little beach next to the ferry dock.

“No one’s been on this beach,” he said.

Hans and Petra crawled next to Heather, who had the best view.

“What’s happening?” Hans asked in a whisper.

“It’s Matt and some of the others,” Heather whispered back.

Hans peeked over the lip of the grass. “Five of them,” he said. “And they have guns.”

“Yeah. We have to get to cover somewhere. We’re exposed on this hillside and it’s going to be very hot in an hour or two.”

“You want us to keep going now?” Hans said.

“We have to, don’t we?”

“But your plan was to take the ferry. They control the ferry. We have no other way of getting off the island.”

“Maybe we could get some branches and make a raft or try to swim it,” Olivia suggested.

“You saw the tiger sharks?” Hans said.

Olivia nodded.

“We’ll think of something else,” Heather said. Neither of the kids was a great swimmer, and the current looked strong. “But we have to get away from here.”

Hans shook his head. “No. This is not an American Rambo game. This is foolishness.”

“What’s your plan, then?” Heather asked.

“We should announce ourselves clearly and distinctly with our hands over our heads and then we should walk down there and demand to be taken over on the ferry.”

Heather stared at him. “Are you insane? You know what’s going to happen if you go down there.”

“What?”

“They’ll kill you.”

“No, they won’t. I haven’t done anything.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“We have no water. No food. In this heat, we will be dead by nightfall,” Hans said.

“We’ll find water,” Heather said.

“There’s no fresh water here. The only spring is at the farm in their aquifer. How could we last one day without water in these temperatures?”

Heather had no answer to that.

Both kids were paying attention and looking frightened.

“What are the men doing now?” Olivia asked.

“Matt’s down on the sand trying to figure out if we swam for it,” Heather said.