Bad Men

Powell sighed theatrically and removed his gun from its holster. He rummaged in the pockets of his jacket until he found the suppressor, then attached it to the muzzle. Moloch’s insistence on silence puzzled him. There was nobody out here to hear a shot, and anyway, even if someone was outside, the wind and snow would muffle any noise. Still, Powell wasn’t about to argue with Moloch. Like Shepherd, he found Moloch’s behavior peculiar, but he wasn’t going to risk taking a bullet in order to point it out.

“How will I find you when I’m done?”

“There’s a path through the forest. You’ll pick it up behind the tower. Stay on it and it will lead you straight to us. For now, we move on.”

When he said the words, he looked puzzled.

We move on.

Shepherd said nothing, but his finger found the trigger guard of the Mossberg and remained there.

“We’re not waiting for Carl Lubey?” asked Scarfe.

“He’s not here and I want to get off the road and out of sight,” said Moloch. “In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re on a tight schedule. We’ll make for his place and take it from there.”

“There’s a snowstorm blowing,” said Scarfe. “And you don’t know the island.”

“You’re wrong,” said Moloch. “I know this island very well.”

Scarfe shook his head in disbelief and looked to the other men for support, but they were already preparing to follow their leader. Powell, meanwhile, shot Dexter a look of disgust, then began to descend the rocks, toward the beach. Scarfe watched him go until Dexter grasped his arm.

“By my reckoning, pussy,” he said, “you got no lives left.”

Dexter released him and spit once into the snow by Scarfe’s foot. Scarfe shot one last look at the figure that stood among the waves before adjusting his pack on his shoulder and following Moloch, Shepherd, and Dexter across the white road that skirted the woods. He expected Moloch to stop and look at a map or check a compass, but instead he moved purposefully into the trees. Within minutes, the four men were heading for the center of the island on an old trail that wound its way through the forest. While they walked, Scarfe unfolded his map from his pocket and tried to read it, hampered by darkness and snow and wind. It was a struggle, but he eventually confirmed what he had suspected from the moment they had found the trail.

It wasn’t detailed on the map.

Somehow, Moloch had found an unmarked path.

Moloch drifted. Sometimes he was beside Dexter, moving through a white forest, the snow melting on his face and hair. At other times there was no snow, just a harsh wind and frost upon the ground, and there were other men around him, dressed in furs and hand-stitched hides. Eventually, the two worlds began to coexist, like transparencies laid one upon the other, and he was both Moloch and someone else, a man at once known and unknown. Moloch was confused but not frightened by the sensation, for what he felt more than anything else was a sense of belonging, a feeling of returning. This was not home. This was not a place of solace or comfort. There was no shelter for him here, but it was the beginning. Here Moloch, or whatever he truly was, had flamed into being. Whatever else might happen here, he would at last reach an understanding of himself, and those torn pictures that had tormented him in so many dreams would reform themselves, enabling him to see himself as he truly was.

He was coming to recognize that all this was meant to be. His wife was always going to flee here, and he was always going to follow. Men would come with him, for men had come with him before, because that was the way it had always been. It had been taken out of his hands and all that he could do was follow the path to its end, and to the final revelation that awaited him.

It took Powell only minutes to half climb, half slide his way down the slope to the rocky beach. When he reached the bottom, he was breathing heavily, and his hands stung from the cold. His finger was almost numb as he inserted it beneath the trigger guard. He advanced to the shoreline and raised the gun, resting its barrel against his forearm.

The man with the arrow through his torso stood in the water. The sea was just below the level of his chest, but the waves that billowed against him had no effect. He remained entirely still, his orange jacket glowing luminously in the faint light that somehow contrived to penetrate the dense clouds above. Powell could even see the point of the arrow, gleaming, just above the water.

He’s dead, thought Powell. He’s dead, but he’s just too dumb to realize it. He’s like a dinosaur, waiting for the message to penetrate to his brain. Well, I’ll help it along. I’ve got an express delivery for him, going straight to his head.

Powell sighted, then squeezed off two shots in quick succession and watched in satisfaction as twin puffs of red sprang from the breast of the figure among the waves.

The man didn’t fall.