The Island - Part 2 (Fallen Earth) by Michael Stark Read Free Book Online

little more than an annoyance.
    I passed the kayakers camp five minutes later. Zachary had been in the water for nearly three hours before they realized he was missing. The combination of wind and water could have dragged him well past his base camp. The current in the channel looked to running four to five miles an hour, strong enough to carry a kayak miles down the coast. I kept the engine at half throttle and used binoculars pulled from the rear locker to scan the shoreline, expecting to see him trudging along at any minute.
    Mile after mile slid under by. With the adrenalin e and fear gone, the cold took over. Every inch of my body dripped water. My tennis shoes felt waterlogged. Every time I stood, water squished out around my ankles and bled down on the cockpit floor.
    The farther south I went, the darker the clouds grew. Electricity seared through the skies. Each time I glanced up at the top of the mast, rising twenty-five feet above me. Angel had more going for her than being the highest point on the water. She held a giant metal rod up to the sky as if daring the gods to strike her.
    Four miles below Portsmouth, a long, low strip of orange sliced across a stand of reeds. I angled the boat toward the shoreline, knowing without raising the binoculars that I was looking at the bottom of a fiberglass boat. I cut the engine to an idle twenty yards out and let the bow coast into water less than three feet deep. About fifteen feet out, I switched to reverse and backed her down until she floated at rest.
    I didn’t bother with the anchor, but grabbed the rear dock line instead and jumped over the side into waist deep water. Before I leapt over, I’d thought my body complexly soaked. I found that not to be true, and stood with gritted teeth while cold water worked its way into every nook and cranny.
    The hope in your mind is that you’ll get to the boat, find it empty, and see a trail leading off through the reeds. What I found was Zachary, underwater, his arms splayed wide and his mouth open. Where he died, when he died, I don’t know. He was too young to end up face down in a marsh, though.  That I knew for certain.
    I pulled him out and struggled to get him into the cockpit. It took forever, with rain washing down from an angry sky and lightning tossing bright blue-white shards of light across the heavens. I finally gave up trying to be graceful about it. The dull thud when gravity eventually came to my aid nearly turned my stomach. I joined him a few seconds later, and stood in the cockpit, letting the rain pour down my face me while I caught my breath.
    I couldn’t bring myself to leave him lying in the floor, but shoving him up onto the port seat proved no easy feat. Every time I tried to move him, the dead weight of arms, legs and body felt like I was trying to lift a monstrous balloon filled with Jello. With the task finally accomplished, I fired up the engine and pointed Angel’s bow north, toward the inlet again. Once I had her back out at the edge of the channel, I took a line and lashed the tiller as dead in the middle as I could. I let her run that way for a few moments, adjusting the knots until she kept a fairly straight course. She would eventually veer off to one side or the other, limiting the amount of time I could leave her that way. But I didn’t need much. A few minutes would suffice.
    I stepped into the cockpit and turned on the radio. Three calls later the woman from Silver Lake answered.
    “You can call off the search,” I told her. “I have located our missing camper.”
    Static followed that announcement. When she finally came back, her voice carried the same official tones it had earlier.
    “I read you Angel . I’ll notify the Coast Guard. I also have some news to pass on.”
    I took a deep breath and flicked the send switch.
    “Go ahead Silver Lake.”
    “As of one hour ago, the President of the United States, citing an imminent danger to public health, and invoking authority granted