Category Five Page 5

  They reached his truck and she realized they’d walked all that way without saying a word. Damn.

  Javier stopped and scuffed the sand with his shoe. “When do you go back to your uncle’s in Guaynabo?”

  “Not for a few days. Tío rented a condo so we could stay here while he works on the case.”

  He nodded, hesitated, then said, “I’m glad you’re back, Lupe.” But he wasn’t looking at her. Why wouldn’t he look at her?

  “Me, too.” She flipped thoughts over and over in her mind like discarded cards. What was the right thing to say? How could she help him?

  “Okay.” He paused, then opened his driver’s side door and slipped in, pulling the dented door closed behind him.

  “Okay.” Her heart was pounding, the blood and water and life being squeezed out of it. Was she losing him? Why? He wasn’t looking at her, so she turned around and started back toward her uncle, tears brimming against her eyelids.

  She heard the engine roar to life, and the truck start to rattle away. Then it stopped with a spray of sand. “Lupe!” A yell this time.

  She turned around and saw him looking at her. “Would you like to come on a dinner picnic with me on the beach tonight?”

  Lupe took a deep, catchy breath. How could her heart stand such wild swings from one side to the other? And a nighttime beach picnic? Sounded like something out of a teen romance novel. She wouldn’t miss it for the world. “Sure” was all she said, and as she turned to keep walking, a smile came unbidden, the tears forgotten.

  All was not lost.

  Chapter Six

  Javier

  JAVIER CHECKED BEHIND the seat for what seemed like the hundredth time: picnic basket of food, blanket, cooler of soda. He hadn’t forgotten anything. This had to be just right. Perfect, even. He needed a night with Lupe that brought them as close as they’d felt before. He’d almost chickened out of asking her, but when he found out she would be staying for a few days he figured it was worth a shot; she was worth more than his ego. He was thrilled when she’d said yes, but now he wondered if it was a mistake. He hadn’t been particularly good company lately. Staying on the island, banging on stone, and working in the sun had been an excuse to not deal with people at all. It didn’t help that he was working for the very people who were buying up land in the island’s darkest hour. However, he’d grown attached to eating and being able to gas up his car. When there was gas, that is. The lines at the stations after the hurricane had only started moving a few months ago. He’d never take fuel for granted again.

  He pulled up in front of the whitewashed condos, freshly repainted after the battering of Maria. He had barely rolled to a stop when Lupe came bounding out the front door in a short white dress, the fabric billowing behind, her strong legs ending in slip-on sneakers.

  She was so damn cute.

  She pulled herself up into the truck’s passenger seat, and Javier inhaled her scent of soap and Vermont woods.

  “Hi.” A small smile from her. He’d take it.

  “Hi. Ready?” He put the car in Drive and did a U-turn, but when the truck finished the turn, an old man appeared in the road right in front of them. Javier slammed on the brakes, his heart pounding in his chest.

  “Jesus! Where did he come from?” Lupe asked in a breathy voice.

  The old man glared at them with his cloudy eyes, shaking a fist. His clothes weren’t more than rags, his hair falling in long white wisps like corn silk. In his unfisted hand he clutched a dark bottle. Only when he was safely on the sidewalk did Javier start moving again. A litany of obscenities in English and Spanish followed them down the street.

  “Well, he was pleasant,” Lupe quipped.

  Javier’s heart was racing from the almost accident, but he took a deep breath and it slowed. “Hard to know what he’s been through. So many people lost so much.”

  A beat of silence, then, “Where are we going?”

  He’d expected this question. She wasn’t the blind follower type. But he wasn’t going to give in.

  “It’s a surprise. A place I found last week.”

  They made their way on the secondary roads. Well, actually, there weren’t really any primary roads. Vieques was several decades behind the mainland and the residents liked it that way. They were on narrow dirt roads, passing by small dilapidated shacks with sparse, deep pink bougainvillea blooms weaving in the front gates. The poor had been hit so much harder during the storm, most of the buildings were covered in the familiar blue FEMA tarps where the roofs used to be. After all of this was over, and if the island ever did fully recover, he hoped to never see that particular color blue ever again.

  Then even those houses thinned and there was nothing but green on either side. The top of the brush had gotten sheared off during the hurricane, but the greens were coming back with a vengeance.

  They weren’t talking, but that was okay. Last summer they had gotten into the habit of driving around the main island, windows down, music playing, Lupe sniffing the air out the window like a puppy, eyes closed, a huge smile on her face. He loved seeing the island through her eyes. She was in love with it all: the smell of the salty air, the colors, the song of the coquís. It became new when he was with her. But she couldn’t understand how close they’d come to losing it all just a few short months ago, and he found his thoughts turning that way more often than not when he talked with her.

  The road got bumpier as they neared their destination, cups and papers flying around the cab. Why didn’t I clean the inside of the truck? he thought. It felt like a first date. They pushed through a clearing in the trees and the hidden beach stretched out before them, a cove of vanilla-colored sand surrounded by nearly undamaged trees with pale turquoise water lapping the shores. He’d timed it perfectly; the sky was turning a rich orange. Lupe gasped beside him, and he smiled at the desired response.

  “I … I’ve never seen a beach this … perfect! I mean, other than in a calendar, or something.” Her blue eyes were large, her body leaned toward the windshield as if pulled by the waves.

  “I hadn’t either. I just found it one night when I was driving around after work. I haven’t told anyone about it. Other than you.”

  “Let’s go check it out!” Her voice had that childlike glee he so loved. Then she was opening the door and slipping onto the sand, ripping her sneakers off as she ran.

  He grabbed the basket of food, blanket, and cooler, and climbed out to follow. Lupe was galloping toward the water’s edge, leaving sprays of sand behind her. He laid out the blanket, securing the corners with the basket and cooler, and went to join her.

  “This is unbelievable!” she yelled into the wind. She looked at Javier. “I don’t understand, why aren’t there tons of obnoxious tourists here? This is even more amazing than beaches on the mainland. And they’re amazing!”

  He shrugged. “I guess because it’s harder to get to the island, and especially hard to find this location. I didn’t see it on any of the maps. This whole part of the island was occupied by the U.S. Navy for years, and now it’s a nature preserve.”

  “Well, I’m glad you found it.” She looked back at him, her eyes sparkling in the setting sun. “Thank you for taking me here.”

  He smiled, feeling the heat rise behind his face, and other places. But he wasn’t going to rush anything. He changed the subject. “Are you hungry?” he asked, and pointed toward the basket on the blanket.

  She clapped her hands. “Yes! I love picnics! Food always tastes better outdoors.” And then she was bounding back, dropping herself on the blanket, and peeking in the basket. He couldn’t stop smiling. She really was like a little kid sometimes, and he loved that about her.

  They chatted back and forth as they ate, talking about Vieques, catching up on news of Carlos and Marisol, the friends they had in common, their families.

  “How are things going with your father? I mean, not drinking and all?”

  She didn’t answer right away, which was unlike her. In conversation
it often felt like she was bursting with all the things she wanted to say, all the ideas she had. He wondered if he shouldn’t have asked, if her father had fallen off the wagon and that’s why she hadn’t been talking about herself much in the last few months. But then she gave him a small smile as she folded and refolded a napkin.

  “It’s good.” Folding, refolding. “You know, I wished for him to stop drinking most of my life.” Folding, refolding. Then she looked up at Javier. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s great. I’m so happy he’s sober, but it didn’t solve all our problems, you know? We still fight. A lot.” She picked up the napkin and tore it. “All of a sudden he wants to parent me? Like, get involved in my life after being drunk and not present for most of it? Yeah, no thanks.”

  He watched her for a moment more, leaving room for her to say more if she wanted to. When she didn’t, he spoke. “Yeah, I’m sure he wished he could undo it all. I did. But you can’t turn back the clock.” His words sounded hollow to his ears, but she seemed to hear them.

  They sat quietly for a few minutes, the lap of the waves and the light wind in the trees overhead the only sounds as the sun was glowing a deeper orange, then red beyond the horizon. It was pretty much perfect. Javier chose another half a sandwich and took a bite with a sigh.

  Lupe looked around the cove, up and down the beach, at the trees behind them. “It’s interesting, from this spot you almost can’t tell the hurricane happened.”

  He stopped chewing and looked at her.

  “I mean, the trees aren’t that damaged—the cove must have protected them. You could almost forget.”

  Javier felt heat build behind his face. He thought about the damage inside his chest that no one could see. The hours and hours huddling in the bathroom with his mother while the house roared around them. It had seemed like it would never stop, that they had stepped into some endless loop of a nightmare. The fear he had experienced when he’d walked around his hometown, Amapola, and seen houses destroyed, children with signs begging for water. “Almost,” he said under his breath, pulling back into himself. Sometimes she seemed to understand everything, and then other times …

  Lupe didn’t miss his response. She put her hand on his. “I didn’t mean any disrespect. I can imagine—”

  “No, you can’t!” He was shocked by the volume and fury of his voice. “No one in the States can understand what it was like. I mean, the president comes down for a few hours, throws paper towels, then downplays the amount of dead?”

  She pulled back as if from a blow. Her voice was measured. “I wasn’t happy with his response either. My family was also impacted—”

  “Yes, I know, but your family and mine? We had the resources to have generators, and gas; most people didn’t. When you can’t even get water to drink—” He sputtered, the words gathering up behind one another at the tip of his tongue.

  She waited for a moment, just looking at the uneaten sandwich in her hand. Then she said in a quiet but steady voice, “Look, Javier, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound insensitive. But my uncle was out on the streets the entire time with the police and rescue force, my father and I sat by the phone, watching the news—”

  “Yes, from the safety of your house in Vermont with power to run the refrigerator and water coming out of the tap, and ATMs and cell service. No rats coming up from the flooded sewers, running across your mother’s floors…” His breath ran out and he put his head in his hands.

  He could tell she was staring at him; he could feel it. Then she was putting the leftover food back in the basket with sharp, quick movements.

  No; this was going all wrong. “Lupe, I’m sorry, I—”

  But she kept going. “Maybe this was a mistake. I shouldn’t have come.” Tears were glistening on her eyelashes and Javier wondered how he could feel any worse. Not sure what to do, he started to close up the cooler, his heart beating on the inside of his rib cage like it was telling him to stop.

  They had both stood and begun to gather the edges of the blanket when Lupe stopped short and stared toward the trees in the growing darkness.

  He followed her gaze. “What? Do you see something?” he whispered.

  “Javier, do you see that?” She pointed into the trees next to the road they had driven in on.

  When he saw what she was pointing at, he knew the night had truly gone to hell.

  Chapter Seven

  Lupe

  THE BLUE GLOW was coming from deep within the trees, and Lupe couldn’t take her eyes off it. “Do you … do you think it’s them? What everyone has been seeing?” she whispered.

  “I don’t know what else it could be.”

  But the light was dimming, getting more distant.

  Javier let out a breath next to her. “Thank God, they’re moving away from us.”

  But she started walking toward the light. Finally, a way she could help.

  “Lupe, what are you doing?”

  “I want to see them. Let’s get closer. C’mon!”

  Javier stood firm. “You’re serious.”

  “Of course!” She could see he wasn’t buying it, and for a moment, one moment, she wondered if he was right. He was the stable one, after all. “Look, Javier, where would the El Cuco investigation have been without us, huh? Don’t you want to see what this is about?”

  He shrugged a bit, and she knew she had appealed to his curiosity. “Yeah, but what if they are the ones taking hearts? I’m quite attached to mine,” he said, hand to his chest.

  “They won’t even know we’re there; I just want to get a look to see what we’re dealing with. C’mon, Detective.” He smiled back and she knew she had him. She held out her hand for him to take. This was her kind of date.

  He clasped her hand and they made their way to the tree line, slowly and silently. She could see the haze of the blue glow in the distance like a beacon. Step by step, they picked their way into the trees, careful not to trip on any roots or branches. The dried leaves beneath their feet made small, crisp sounds, but the wind and the crashing waves provided cover.

  When they were several yards away, the sun fully set and dark covered all but whatever or whoever was glowing, so they stopped behind a palm trunk and watched.

  Javier whispered into her ear and a tingling sensation spread throughout her body. Damn, was she, like, turned on by danger?

  “They’re definitely people, or the shapes of them.”

  At first it seemed to be one mass, a band of light, but then it broke into dozens of individual figures, glowing slightly blue like the bio-bay waters, as Lupe saw what Javier saw. It was a swarm of people, ghostly and glowing, moving among the trees. Lupe and Javier couldn’t see their faces since they were walking away, but the women wore longish skirts that brushed the ground in tatters. The men were dressed in suits, or the remnants of them, some with the remains of hats on their heads. Their hair was not unlike the old man they’d almost run over, long and wispy. There was even a little girl in a once-frilly dress, with rotten bows in her hair, holding the skeletal hand of the woman next to her, an eyeless doll dangling from her other hand.

  “They don’t look like zombies. I’m thinking ghosts, don’t you agree?” She turned around to look at Javier, the blue of the supernatural beings sparkling in his eyes.

  He nodded. “Definitely fantasmas.”

  The glow was moving away en masse into the trees in the distance. “Are we going to follow them?” Javier asked.

  Lupe looked around. They had no flashlights, no water, and Lord knew if the swarm was dangerous or not. “Nah, I’m curious, not stupid. Let’s go back and tell my uncle.”

  They had just started to turn around when Carlos’s hit song blared from Javier’s pocket, the thrumming beat echoing off the trees.

  He yanked it from his pocket and silenced it. He looked at Lupe and whispered, “Now I get service?”

  It was the rustling sound that reached them first. Their heads shot back in the direction of the glow to see the entire group stop and sl
owly turn back to face them.

  For one second, Javier and Lupe and the ghostly swarm just stared at one another.

  Then, they started coming.

  “Oh shit.”

  Javier yelled, “Run!”

  And they did. Lupe could feel the sand shifting under her bare feet as they pounded. They had gone farther than she realized, but finally she could see the silhouette of the pickup truck, waiting in the distance.

  Then, on the early evening breeze, she heard the sound of moaning.

  She made the mistake of looking back, she could see Javier did too, and there the swarm was, going slower, but still getting closer. They weren’t running, more like skimming over the surface of the earth. That was just not fair!

  “Get to the truck!” Javier yelled, as if that were ever in question.

  Lupe’s legs were burning, her breaths coming short and fast, fear flaming through her lungs. Javier made it to the truck first, yanking open the doors. Lupe was a few yards away when she felt something on the back of her neck, like a spiderweb. She brushed at it and spun around to find a woman, or what was left of one, right behind her. Her eye sockets were empty and black, but Lupe knew she was looking at her, moans coming from her hinged jaws in waves. But it was her fingers that Lupe was focused on, her long, thin, bony fingers that had dusty strips of flesh on them, skeletal white peeking through in the starlight. Those fingers, hands, were reaching for Lupe, reaching for her chest, bones clicking, probing.

  Was she reaching for Lupe’s heart? Then she was just … gone, but Lupe could see her back with the masses who were coming closer.

  “Lupe, c’mon!” Javier bellowed from the truck, the sound of the ignition trying to fire accompanying him.

  She lurched back, almost tripping on the sand dune below the truck, then caught her balance, tore up the dune, and leapt into the passenger seat of the truck.

  “Go! Go!” she yelled at him, as if he needed to hear that.

  Javier pumped the gas and turned the key again. A grinding noise, like metal teeth.