CHAPTER 57: Doug's Outside

Things are coming to a close for Doug and his friends — it’s been a long and strange journey for everyone! Now, after all the changes — the ingratiating new age retreat and their piles of tech corporation cash, missing pets and people, packs of rabid and feral dogs roaming the island, children living out in the woods, and everything else — things seem to have calmed. But, as ever on Sternum Island, things aren’t ever what they seem…

If you’d like to get a complete copy of APOCALYPSE ROCK you can buy the audiobook through Audible (CA/UK/US) and the ebook on Kindle (CA/UK/US) 🚨

Hit play above to listen or scroll down to read. Please rate and/or review the story wherever you’ve found it, and share with any friends who you think might like it!

“THERE’S THE HOPPER now. Late as usual…” Officer Singh said.

Sunlight dappled through Doug’s eyelids, reflections coming off water.

He inhaled fresh, salty air. Seagulls squawked in the distance. Somewhere behind him the buzz of a weed whacker echoed, and then a dog barked. Familiar sounds in a familiar landscape. A Reassuring boredom.

A blast of a ship’s horn rolled in from the ocean and Doug opened his eyes. It was a sunny day with only a few, small fluffy clouds in the sky. He was down at the Sternum Island Village Marina, facing out toward the calm and radiant sea. Doug was slumped in a wheelchair. A blanket loosely covered his legs, his right hand tucked under it, cradled in his lap. His head drooped to one side, his jaw slack and mouth slightly open. He felt some drool drip down his chin. A gruff wipe of a cloth jiggled his jaw.

“No stress, buddy. You’re gonna be in good hands.” Doug recognized Dr Hubble’s voice coming from just over his shoulder. “They’ll get you back to wherever you belong.”

“He’s opened his eyes again?” This time it was Officer Singh. “Hopefully Terminal PD can communicate with him.”

“They have to take it easy with our boy in the woods,” Hubble replied. “He’s goddamn innocent until proven guilty! He needs to recover properly. Who knows how long that’ll take. Then there’s that weird strain of rabies he got out there, somehow, not to mention the cocktail of meds in his blood. No surprise he’s a goddamn vegetable. It’s a miracle he managed to get to the main road in his condition.”

Across from Doug was the marina noticeboard. He could just make out scraps of yellow and bright pink bits of paper, tiny silver staples pinning little colored wedges on the board — the corners of July’s missing posters, the ads for “No Job Too Small!” — all of them had been torn down.

“He’ll have ample time to recover. Besides, the fingerprints on the gas cans from July’s shed are enough for us to hold him. And that other house in the central valley? The partials from the explosion up Costo? All over the place.”

“Like he was squatting everywhere.”

“Or like he was trying to burn the island down.”

“Oh, whatever. The Terminal squad can just sit on their asses and wait until he gets better.”

Try as he might, Doug couldn’t make a sound, let alone move his mouth.

“Speak of the devil… Hey, July! How’re you doin’?”

“Morning, you two! What great weather. How’s our mystery man today?”

“Ah, some more signs of life,” Hubble replied. “He just opened his eyes again. And the infection where the wrist was severed has cleared up.”

“Oh good to hear…” July kneeled down in front of Doug, and peered at him. He could see the deep lines of concern on her face, her sharp nose almost pointing at him, her scrupulous eyes probing. Even with his head drooped to the side, he saw her pupils dilate slightly in the emerald green of her irises. As if she recognized him.

“It’s lucky we found him when we did,” Hubble continued. “Woulda had to take it off at the elbow myself…”

“Good morning, mystery man,” July whispered to Doug, smiling. “Now I can see your eyes. That’s good. We’re all so interested to find out just who you are, and how you ended up wandering through the woods like that.”

There was a whine and Ramses plonked his massive head onto Doug’s lap, and nuzzled him affectionately.

“I just can’t get over it,” July remarked to Hubble and Singh. “Ramses really likes him. He’s usually so suspicious of strangers.”

Doug wanted to scream. But all he could do was move his eyes from side to side.

“I’ve come bearing gifts,” July stood up. “For the officials, donuts. Freshly baked. Shining Wind’s trying out some new recipes.” There was the ruffle of a paper bag. Hubble and Singh laughed appreciatively.

“What would we do without him?” Hubble garbled through a mouthful of donut.

They all laughed. Doug could see Ramses’s black eyes staring up at him from his lap.

“And for our boy in the woods,” July bent down again and held up a small parcel wrapped in plain brown paper. “It’s the book I read to you for the past few days. You seemed to like it. So you can take it. Maybe it’ll help stir up some memories.” July wedged it snugly between the wheelchair’s side and Doug’s thigh. She lifted up Dora’s umbrella to show Doug — the clear plastic one he’d loaned her last week. “I thought you might need this if it rains, just in case you have to wait for the ambulance on the other side.” She hung it on the back of the wheelchair.

Doug felt July’s hand on his upper arm. “Just promise you don’t come back and burn more houses down.”

Hubble laughed. “You’re a saint, July. I’d wring his neck if it was my place.”

“What’s done is done. Anyway, we still don’t know for certain it was him, do we?” replied July.

Officer Singh cleared his throat. “Well, his fingerprints all over the gas cans from your shed are pretty compelling. It still doesn’t help identify who he actually is. But the prints are a definite match.”

“Funny. Most of that stuff’s been there for years and years,” July replied, still looking into Doug’s eyes. “I can’t remember the last time I went in there. Maybe when our boy in the woods here was still an actual boy.”

“You know what’s spooky?” Singh continued. “Terminal Crime Lab got back this morning about some of the other partials I found at your place and on Costo. Those prints are way older. I’m amazed they were still there after all these years. But they think those partials might belong to someone called Stanley Gerber. He was held at Leek Point. He was in their violent offender’s rehabilitation program. He escaped and was never seen or heard from again. But here’s the strange part: all that was over seventy years ago… He’d be well into his eighties by now.”

“Wow,” exclaimed July, still looking at Doug. Her face had gone cold, her eyes staring dead straight into Doug’s. “Yet another boy in the woods, it seems.”

“I’d be amazed if an old fart like that could survive out there for this long. What’d that one do to get himself into Leek Point anyway?”

“He thought he could speak with animals,” Singh explained. “He was obviously suffering from schizophrenia. He claimed he could actually take on the thoughts and memories of other beings — by eating them. There wasn’t a pet left inside a mile radius of where he lived. Dogs, cats, birds. Goldfish, even. He ate ‘em all… then they found him with a neighbor’s baby…”

“Goddamn!” Hubble exclaimed through a mouthful of donut.

“Oh yeah. It’s not nice.”

July nodded along, her eyes locked with Doug’s as Singh continued. “It was a big scandal at the time. His dad was a high-up in the health authority. Dr Walter Gerber. Turned out that he used to run some experimental CIA department in the Cold War.”

“How interesting,” July replied.

“He could’ve pulled some strings to get his kid out. But instead he just abandoned him at Leek Point. The kid’s mom lost it. Left Terminal for some place out on Broken Islands, and that was that.”

Doug’s wheelchair wobbled, his slack jaw jiggling along with it. He could see the white froth of the sea churning up. It was the Island Hopper docking. The ramp lowered and foot passengers started disembarking. Through the crowd, Doug could make out two familiar figures: Bear and Brandi, dressed in colorful hiking gear, looking around with vacant smiles, chatting happily, as if this was their first time visiting Sternum.

Further up the dock an empty blue bus pulled up. Written its side in large, yellow cartoon-font writing were the words, “ENDLESS WELLNESS @LEEK_POINT_SPA” Gus stepped out of the bus. It was Gus. He had a t-shirt on, one that Doug recognized from the past weekend’s open day at the Golden Years retreat, “I’m Official: Ask Me Anything!”

Bear and Brandi greeted Gus, shaking hands, as if it was the first time they’d ever encountered each other. Doug heard Brandi ask Gus, “We really need a coffee!”

“Oh, I know just the place,” Gus smiled at Brandi politely. “The Shining Wind Cafe is just up the road. We can stop on our way.”

“There’s a lot of tourists today,” observed Hubble.

“Leek Point’s had a lot of good reviews on TripAdvisor lately,” July replied.

“This must be him,” Singh motioned toward the ramp.

Lumbering at the back of the disembarking crowd was the unmistakeable figure of Sweetland. A zig-zag of stitches ran across his puncture-marked face, a black eyepatch on. Instead of his police outfit, he was now dressed in the garb of a hospital orderly, that was at least a couple sizes too small and stretched across his barrel-like torso.

“Wow, goddamn it,” Hubble whispered. “Hope he didn’t make the Hopper lop-sided. I’d clear out to the other end of the ship if I saw him.”

The three laughed uneasily.

As Sweetland loomed closer, Doug tried to scream, but only a small gurgle came up, along with some foamy bile. Another stream of drool seeped from his mouth.

“I am here to take charge of this man,” Sweetland’s remaining black eye burned down at Doug. Ramses twitched and a deep growl vibrated through the blanket against Doug’s lanky legs.

“Is this dog under control?” Sweetland’s eye widened. “You know there’s been several cases of rabies, recently.”

“He’s mine,” July replied tersely, holding onto Ramses’s collar. “And he certainly does not have rabies, thank you very much.”

Cars and trucks started to exit the ferry, driving up through Sternum Island Village.

“Once the ferry has unloaded, I will take charge of this man.”

Singh, Hubble and Sweetland proceeded to swap paperwork. “He will be well-cared for in our facilities,” Sweetland remarked at one point, absentmindedly and to no one in particular it seemed.

The offloading cars slowed. In a light blue four-door sedan sat Dora and Irene, their mother, Siobhan was driving. Doug gurgled violently, his eyes jerking around, the only part of him that could move. They’d pop out if he’d give anymore pressure.

“Are you sure this man is fit to travel?” Sweetland asked. “He seems to be having some kind of seizure.”

As the line of cars started moving again, Dora looked out her window, right at Doug. Without a glimmer of recognition, she looked past him, then returned her attention to something in the car.

Foamy bile was now seeping from both corners of Doug’s mouth. He felt hot tears stream down his face. He wanted to scream, to explode, to die.

“Oh dear, maybe it’s all a bit too much!” July squatted down in front of Doug, and wiped the tears and bile from his face. “Once you’re on the Hopper you’ll be out of the sun and wind. You’ll be just fine.”

July kept daubing Doug’s slack face. She leaned in close, as if paying extra attention to some particularly sticky bit of effluence from Doug’s eye. “I’m sorry it had to be this way,” she whispered. “You were the only one who could make it through. It’s going to be just fine. I promise, Dougy… They won’t hurt you. Once the cylinder is off the island, I’ll be able to get things back under control.” She patted his upper forearm through the blanket.

Doug closed his eyes. Underneath the blanket he tried to clench his bandaged right hand into a fist. The stinging sensation was gone, in fact all sensation was gone. He thought he was moving his fingers. He was only imagining he had a hand. Deep inside the flesh of his arm, wedged between muscle and bone, Doug could feel the little glass cylinder pulsing slowly, as cold as ice.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit apocalypserock.substack.com