9 Tales Told in the Dark 7 Read online

  But then again there was something ominous about the silhouette of the boat. It looked like the kind of boat that had speed to it, but it seemed more like it was drifting in with the tide. Martin kept a more concerned eye hoping he could make out people on the deck or some effort of steering. But the boat seemed too careless.

  Martin walked to the end of the pier and thought of untying his canoe and paddling out there. He really didn’t want to call the Sheriff. He just wanted everyone on the ship to be okay; under his breath he started a Hail Mary. He’d never forgotten the words even if he didn’t bother marking Sundays with church.

  “God, let them be alright.”

  The planks creaked and Martin turned to see a woman, tall, slender with curly brown hair and a face saved by a pair of large thick-lensed glasses that dwarfed her long nose and bushy eyebrows.

  “Morning, Rena.”

  “Mr. Norris.” Rena Washington cleared her throat with his name as if it had gathered in her mucous all morning.

  “What brings you out here?”

  “Mr. Snelling gave me the day off and I figured a walk and some fresh air would be a good use.” She didn’t sound very convinced and the sea air wasn’t very pleasant in Reddick Bay. But it didn’t make him suspicious of anything, Rena Washington was the kind of woman who would do something unpleasant if she’d read in Reader’s Digest that people did things like it and found something profound from the experience. “What’s wrong with that boat?”

  Martin shrugged turning his attention back to it. “Maybe they’re out of fuel.”

  “Morons, take a small yacht and can’t remember to gas it up, that’s what’s wrong with the world these days, education, Mr. Norris.”

  “Eh, ignorance is bliss.”

  Rena snarled at him and her eyes became black slits that stretched the length of the large frame.

  “Well I will leave you to your blissful morning.”

  The board creaked so loud for a second Martin wished they would snap just to give Rena a good dunking. But she made it back to shore with no problem and continued walking along the beach, messing up the perfectly smooth wet sand with her awkward gait, like a dog pissing in snow.

  Dealing with Rena Washington so early in the morning was enough to make the day seem strange when combined with the drifting ship. Martin gave another thought to his canoe and looked back at the dock. There wouldn’t be much else to do.

  He walked back over to McHenry’s boat and borrowed a life jacket. He didn’t put it on because it wouldn’t fit. But if he needed it he could swim to it. Safety first he thought as he climbed onto his canoe. It shook as he dug his paddle out form under the seat.

  The Hail Mary returned to his lips as he paddled slowly out to the boat.

  The boat waited for him, if it had run out of gas it certainly had reached the point where any momentum it had going had finally been lost and the tides pinned it in the bay. But Martin appreciated the exercise as his arms began to burn.

  He reached the nearly pristine boat. It hadn’t bumped into anything as far Martin could tell. The white paint was so shiny he could see how badly he needed a shave and a haircut.

  “Hello!” He called out, “Hello?”

  No answer, no movement, just the sound of the ocean whipping at the ship’s hull. Just as the boat had appeared there was no purr of an engine. It was all too eerie and Martin wasn’t one to get spooked so he dug through a list of reasons as to why the ship might be empty. The easiest was some prankster cut it loose and it just happened to not end up hitting the Gulf Stream. He decided to paddle around the boat.

  Martin always believed the ocean was a small child, sticking things in the most random of places; made sense to the Ocean.

  At the rear of the boat were a small ladder and a line of rope. Martin tied a loose knot and stepped out of his canoe. The boat felt his near three hundred pound frame on her rear end, but there was no one on board willing to greet him.

  “Excuse me?” He announced just in case and then kept talking because he was bored enough to do so, “It’s just me, Martin Norris, I run the dock here at Reddick Bay, ain’t much but it’s a quiet place so it’s really just right if that’s what you’re looking for?”

  He marched around the boat looking for signs of a struggle or anything that might clue him in why it was adrift.

  But while there was no appearance of struggle, the boat looked as if it had recently had passengers. There were a couple of towels which just as easily could’ve been tossed around and drenched as the boat made its way down the coast, but really the cooler of beer was two shy of a twelve pack of cans on the deck, the water inside the cooler wasn’t ice cold but it was cold like it had been not too long ago.

  Martin worked his way inside the cabin, went down below and found stuff really tossed about, like it had been ransacked already.

  “Great,” Martin sighed. He knew he’d have to call Sheriff Geren. He was in charge of everything and the sooner he got it done the better.

  The engine fired up like it was still on the dealer’s lot and he took it in and parked it front and center near the end of the pier so he could point the Sheriff to it from his office and not move any more muscles than needed to guide Sheriff James Geren to the scene of the crime.

  “You don’t like me much,” Sheriff Geren bellowed and shook his head like he was shocked and trying to make the gesture bigger so that people in the back row could see his performance. But there was no back row; it was just Sheriff Geren three feet from Martin Norris with only a desk between them.

  “As long as you remember respect and like aren’t the same things.” Norris smirked.

  “Right,” purred the gray mustached and blonde haired Sheriff, he was about forty-five and had the stomach that could serve as a desktop if needed. “I’ll try and appreciate that much I suppose.”

  Geren looked out through the blinds at the boat at the end of the pier.

  “You pull the drugs off her already?”

  Martin Norris wouldn’t dignify the question with an answer.

  “You might as well tell me all you know, Marty.”

  Martin hated the way the Sheriff toyed his name into some that belonged on someone smaller, friendlier and a lot younger. Sheriff Geren knew it boiled Martin’s blood, too.

  “Told you everything from the start of my day to when you showed up.”

  “I don’t like your tone, if you’re gonna not like me but respect me, remember an officer of the Law should be addressed with ‘sir,’.” Geren had produced a taunting smile, perhaps he wanted Martin to deck him, he was asking for something.

  Instead Martin stood up and headed for the door. “The boat is outside.”

  Geren adjusted his hat and walked through the door Martin held.

  “It’s not the badge you wear I respect.” Martin gave Geren pause and watched the Sheriff’s eyebrow cock, “it’s the way you treat your wife and your three kids. You keep them happy and safe. She’s a special woman, Sheriff. As long as you keep doing as you’re doing I’ll respect you for it. But just because you won the prize doesn’t mean you can keep bragging about it all these years later. I can’t help that I’m the lesser man. But I can live with it.”

  It was almost the conversation Martin had always wanted to have with James Geren, but he knew better than to keep it up, there was more at hand than their past and the look on Geren’s face was enough to know the words hit home and were actually appreciated.

  “You’re not the lesser man,” Geren said as he turned his back and headed out to the boat.

  Martin stood in the doorway and watched him down the pier. Just as he began to let the door shut, he noticed a dark gray silhouette in the distance.

  Another boat.

  Martin held the door back open and watched the boat as it kept moving along the horizon. It moved south and then turned and came around again, but stopped so that the waves seemed to almost conceal it, except that Martin had seen it and could see the sliver that still m
arked it where the sky met the ocean.

  The appearance of the boat was suspicious enough given that an unmanned ship had just been brought in. The ship in the distance was hovering, waiting.

  Sheriff Geren seemed to take notice too. He stood on the back of the boat and looked out at the sliver. With that Martin felt able to wash his hands of it and he slunk back into his office, and flung his feet up on his desk and didn’t give balancing his checkbook a thought as he closed his eyes.

  The scream was loud; it wasn’t Sheriff Geren but his voice soon hollered.

  “Martin!”

  Whatever daydream conversation Martin had slipped into evaporated and his feet hit the floor hard. He snapped a blind bending it open more to see what all fuss was about.

  Immediately, a sight he’d never expected roared to life. A gunboat, a very fast gunboat, tore through the waters; it bounced around like a jet ski and was armed with screaming passengers. But they were not screams of fear they were war cries.

  They opened fire.

  Geren ducked out of the way and the ting on the aluminum roof sounded right above Martin’s head. He jumped back from the window. The blind Martin had damaged righted itself to conceal most of the scene.

  In his safe was a shotgun. It was all he was ever willing to own.

  The boat outside roared around setting up another pass on the dock and Sheriff Geren. Martin could hear the Sheriff pleading for him.

  It was the first time his safe ever opened on first try. It didn’t stick. The handle didn’t need an extra tug. It opened and surprised Martin. He stumbled back before reaching in and grabbing the shotgun.

  Then he heard an explosion. Something fell from a great height and hit the ground with a crunch of metal. The faint sound of a siren played to its death.

  Martin ducked down to the corner of the window and tried to look through. He could see the blazing Crown Vic, which once read ‘Sheriff’ on the sides, now it was black and the decals were melting away like wet paint.

  The boat zipped along making smaller and smaller passes, causing destruction. The Sheriff was caught in that firefight. They’d both be dead if Martin tried to make a move.

  A shotgun may be easy to aim, but wasn’t going to offer much damage from Martin’s office to the bay.

  “Help! Martin!”

  Martin thought of Geren’s wife, the mother of his children she couldn’t afford to lose him. Martin knew he wasn’t qualified to provide for her, he wouldn’t even humor himself with the idea of playing house.

  His shots weren’t aimed, he didn’t bother, all they were meant to do was draw the ire of the attackers and let Geren get somewhere; preferably that somewhere would be considered safer than the pier.

  “Move!” Geren screamed as he barreled right at Martin. There were far safer places than the doorway he stood in. Martin pivoted like a door and Geren dove back into his office. “Christ, what are they trying to do? What the hell did you get me involved in? We have to get the hell out of here. Don’t you have a back door? Christ!”

  “It’s through the bathroom, so people can use if from the outside.” Martin answered and realized Geren was running out the back door, leaving him behind. Two facts struck Martin as he dashed back through his office, first of all he was and would never be a Captain, and secondly these four walls did not make ship. They made an office that was too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. He knew it wouldn’t be standing once he left.

  “Geren!” he cried as he burst out of the back of the building next to a dumpster and a steep embankment which Geren had already scrambled up.

  “They blew up my car!” His voice was filled with the panic of a man who had too much to live for.

  “They’re about to blow up my dock!”

  Geren pushed through the naked brush and then snapped his head back, as Martin’s feet crunched the branches behind him.

  “You should’ve warned me, you bastard.”

  “How was I supposed to know, I told you it was damned eerie!”

  “About the kid, Marty. He’s still on that boat.”

  “Kid? What kid?”

  “The kid on that boat!”

  “There was no kid on that boat.”

  “Yeah? There was when I got there. Said pirates were coming. Well they were there two seconds later.”

  They were up the hill and could be seen clear as day if the attackers bothered to look up from their target of Martin’s office.

  “You really didn’t see a kid?”

  Martin shook his head. His breath was heavy. Unlike Geren, Martin carried double the weight and once he started moving he usually didn’t stop so easy, which only exhausted him more.

  “Must’ve seen my badge and knew he was safe. Lately I’ve felt stupid still wearing it. Like some stupid habit. Like all of this is going to be normal again one day.” Geren stopped behind a rock and a thick bush.

  Martin dashed around it, but it wouldn’t conceal his big frame, he skidded to a stop and braced on his knees so that he’d stop running.

  “He’s still there?”

  “Ran for cover right back into that boat. He saw ‘em over my shoulder.” Geren gave one final look at the boat encircling the bay and then slunk behind the rock and buried his head between his knees.

  “He’s still there?”

  “That’s what I said,” Geren snapped.

  “In the boat?”

  “Would you look at the boat? They’ve shot everything but it, that’s the safest place the kid can be!”

  “We can’t just leave him to them.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  Martin stood up and reloaded his shotgun.

  “Something stupid probably, pray for me or something.”

  The embankment gave Martin the momentum of the boulder straight out of an Indiana Jones movie. It was perhaps only possible in Martin’s head to out run bullets, but so far he seemed to be doing it as he hit the pier at full speed. He was deep within an Our Father as his ankles twisted him to a stop at the boat, if no one saw the fall it didn’t matter, but it might’ve appeared he was dodging bullets when he hit the wooden planks. He heard them crack before he sprung back up.

  He’d never jumped so high in his life and just barely cleared the arm rail into the back of the boat. The landing was less successful. He smashed into the cooler and it cracked. The icy water leaked out on his arm. It felt like it had put out a fire.

  The attackers were coming around for another pass. By now they must know they were only dealing with two guys and a shotgun.

  “I’m here to help!” Martin announced as he crawled into the cabin.

  The pot swung at his head made no sound on Martin’s head, and for that he was grateful. He had just managed to grab the young boy’s arm and held it. As he repeated, though much less calmly, “Here-to-help.”

  “Not a pirate?”

  “Not-a-pirate.”

  The boy didn’t let go of the pot, but he looked as if the idea of striking Martin had gone away so Martin let his arm go.

  “How are you going to help?”

  Martin thought that was a good question as his only thought so far had been to grab the boy and get landside as soon as possible. But what would stop these pirates from chasing them back into town? They shot up a Sheriff’s car, what would stop them from turning the town of Reddick and everyone in it into Swiss cheese?

  “I’ll get you off this boat.”

  “We can’t leave the boat,” the boy said.

  “Uh, why not?”

  The boy wouldn’t answer. Martin may not have been a pirate, but the boy didn’t trust him yet.

  “I’m Martin Norris, I came aboard earlier looking for anyone. I towed you in. I run this dock and I’m a lot bigger than any one on that pirate ship, got it?”

  The boy tucked his bottom lip and thought about it.

  “It’s my dad’s boat, I won’t let them have it.”

  Here’s where Martin Norris was a lesser man tha
n the good Sheriff James Geren; he couldn’t handle kids.

  “Sounds like a dumb way to get killed. I’m sure you’re worth more than this boat.”

  “I’m not,” the boy snapped back so quick it was like being whipped, but in that silence Martin could hear the pirate boat’s engine idling next to them.

  They were trapped.

  The boy saw the worry hitting Martin.

  Martin aimed his gun at the doorway and started waiting.

  “My dad’s boat is fast. Got plenty of gas too, cause I let the engines die so that the Coast Guard would come. And if they didn’t I could floor it.”

  Martin liked the boy’s thinking. Only no one must’ve told him the Coast Guard was long gone. Maybe they’d found a nice tropical island without any zombies or nut jobs on it.

  “Well then fire it up, there’s a cove we can probably get to and I know the rocks there, this time of day you can’t see them but I can get us through them.”

  Outside voices started to yell at them. They were being ordered out… but the boat’s engine soon drowned the pirates out. Now all Martin had to do was get back on the deck and over to the controls. But a big target wouldn’t stand a chance. It wouldn’t work. The boy would have to sneak out behind him while Martin hoped the pirates wouldn’t shoot on sight.

  “Listen quickly and carefully,” Martin told the boy.

  The sun almost hit Martin in the eyes as he emerged, hands up in the air. Thankfully the overcast sky softened it, but at the same time Martin wished he could see it. Bad things didn’t seem to happen on sunny days and this was becoming a very bad thing.

  “I surrender!” he yelled.

  There were automatic rifles and even an Uzi pointed at Martin. The men were dressed for warmer weather but had improvised by wearing t-shirts to cover their faces from the wind or identification. It also hindered their view enough to make Martin’s plan work. He stopped in place and hoped the boy was good enough to stay in behind him.

  “Where is the boy?”

  “The boy?” Martin knew as soon as he said it he shouldn’t have, “What do you want with him?”