#Book 1 - Page 33 (2/2)

“Are you hurt at all?” he asked.

I didn’t feel anything until now. I wanted to stay in my sandy grave, but I knew I had cut the back of my head when I was thrown into the gla.s.s. I felt the bones in my s.h.i.+ns throbbing, my elbows burned, and my throat felt raw from where the kelp squeezed me.

Also, my lungs wheezed, my eyes stung, and in general my whole body felt like a truck had hit it.

“I’m OK,” I said though.

He giggled. “Well, s.h.i.+t, aren’t you just Mary f.u.c.king Wonderwoman. I think I broke my f.u.c.king ankle from the fall, not to mention when I cracked my head on the stairs.” He reached up and rubbed the cut that ran along his forehead. When he stopped laughing to himself he took in a deep breath and closed his eyes.

The sirens were close now and I could see red lights illuminating the trees in the distance.

“What do we do now?” I asked, hoping I could just close my eyes too. Maybe I would magically appear in my bed at home and everything would be dealt with.

Dex grunted.

“I mean, what do we say?” I continued. “Do we go back to Uncle Al’s? Do we stay here and wait for help? How do we explain to Al, to anyone, what the h.e.l.l just happened? ‘By the way, some dead fisherman attacked me and blew up your lighthouse?’ ”

“Dead?” he scoffed, eyes still closed.

I nodded. “He was dead, Dex. I mean, he wasn’t alive alive. He wasn’t...like us.”

Even my truthful explanations sounded weak. How could I even begin to explain what happened to anyone when I couldn’t even explain it to the only person who was there?

“He’s dead now,” he said without a trace of interest. “And I honestly don’t think that should even be mentioned. No one was supposed to be in that lighthouse at any rate, let alone some bat-s.h.i.+t crazy Captain Highlander.”

He opened his eyes and rolled over on his side to look at me. “There will be no trace of him. Whether he was already dead or not.”

“We’ll have to lie.”

“No. We’ll tell the police what we were doing there. Tell them I flicked a cigarette down the hall and that started everything. Places like this have all sorts of fuels and chemicals still inside them.”

For emphasis, he fished a package of cigarettes out of his pant cargo pockets, scrunching his face up in pain as he did so, and pulled a cigarette out. I noticed how shaky his hands were before I really noticed what he was doing.

“You don’t smoke,” I told him. I hadn’t seen him smoke at all this weekend, let alone smell it on him.

“I do and I don’t. My toothpick friend comes out when I’m in quitting mode,” he spoke, the cigarette bobbed between his subtly duck-like lips. He pulled out a gold lighter with his other hand from some other unseen pocket and lit the cigarette in one trained swoop. He took in a deep puff and blew the smoke out in rings that joined the flames in the sky.

With a whoop, the urban sound of a police siren or an ambulance (I often confused them) filled the air and echoed out of the trees.

Dex coughed. “OK. Time to do this.”

He got to his feet without making a sound, but I could tell he was in a lot of pain.

He put his hand on his lower back and looked down at me. From his jaunty stance and wiggling cigarette, he reminded me of the silhouette of the Captain Morgan’s pirate.

“Do you want me to carry you?” he asked. I didn’t know if he was belittling me or just being polite. I decided on the former just in case.

“No,” I said forcefully, and sat up. My abs burned with the crunch, especially the sides that bore the brunt of the kelp’s pull earlier.

I got to my knees and then slowly stood upright. I knew the hit on the back of my head would probably make me feel woozier than normal. I didn’t dare touch it, though, in case Dex made a big deal about it. All I wanted to do was get home.

And get to work. Oh G.o.d, work. The meeting. That thought alone had me starting to sway a bit. Dex reached out and steadied me with one hand and leaned down.

“Can you make it? I wasn’t kidding about carrying you,” he said.

Well, it’s better to be safe than sorry with you, isn’t it, I thought. I shook my head, took in an invigorating breath of half ocean air and half burning fuel, and straightened up.

The top of the embankment now swarmed with people in uniform and emergency vehicles. I guess a lighthouse explosion was one of the most exciting things to ever happen here.

And now we were caught in the middle of it.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I thought talking to the curious police officers, EMTs, firefighters, and the local news reporter, plus Uncle Al and the twins, would have shed a lot of doubt on our story but they all seemed content to buy it. One firefighter said a fire starts every week because of leftover engine oil or whatnot. What I think he meant was that drunken sailors got stupid but as long as they believed what happened without questioning us, we were golden.

And then there was Uncle Al’s reaction. I felt extremely guilty for destroying his historic lighthouse. None of this would have happened had his stupid niece not shown up at his door with some slightly unhinged filmmaker.

But Uncle Al looked nothing short of relieved. I guess he really did find the place evil, the cradle of some demonic, horrible spirit. I understood how right he was about that and I think he did too. While we were explaining what happened, I noticed he had a suspicious look in his eyes. It wasn’t accusatory, but rather a look of knowing there was more to the story than we were telling everyone. It actually calmed me, as if he was in on the secret without knowing.

Either way, Dex and I were very lucky to not only walk out of there alive, as people kept telling us (oh, if they only knew...), but also to be excused by the authorities without any further inquiries.

That’s not to say the ambulance attendants excused us so readily. They had to do a thorough once over on both of us to make sure we didn’t sustain any burns or injuries.

Dex and I sat beside each other on the back b.u.mper of the ambulance as the two medics poked and prodded. Dex’s female attendant asked him if he was taking any medication. Dex hesitated and then said a name I couldn’t p.r.o.nounce, something “zapine.”

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