Latham's Landing by Tara Fox Hall Page B

the tent,” he said cheerily,
grabbing a large pack off the sled. “Unless you want to freeze to
death.”
     
    An hour later, Caroline sat with Helter
inside a two-person sub-zero temperature tent on small flat
chemical warming heat packs, with wool blankets across their laps.
Foam and a tarp protected them from the hard ground and snow
beneath them. Helter was warming up some food with a small propane
camp stove just outside the tent. The wind was still blowing
fiercely, and the snow and ice was piling up just outside the
door.
    “ Here,” he said, handing her a steaming
mug. “I hope you aren’t a vegetarian.”
    “ Thanks,” Caroline said, sipping the
hot liquid gratefully. They finished their first cup of stew in
silence, then Helter handed her another, and turned off the stove,
disconnecting the propane and bringing it inside the
tent.
    “ Isn’t that dangerous?” Caroline
asked.
    “ More dangerous to leave it out of
sight,” Helter said darkly. “It might not be there in the morning.”
He zipped up the tent flap. “The wind at least has stopped, but the
snow is falling pretty thick. There’s six inches of fresh powder
and I still can’t see more than five feet out. We should be able to
move at first light. I want to get off this island once my work is
done.”
    “ Which is?”
    “ Like the ghost said, the same as
yours,” Helter said. He held out his hand. “Harold Skelt. My
working name is Helter Skelter.”
    Caroline nodded. “And you’re here to destroy
the house?”
    “ The entire island, if possible,”
Helter amended, then took a sip of stew. “I was hired by the
current owners to burn the place for the insurance
money.”
    “ You believe it is evil?” Caroline
asked, incredulous.
    Helter nodded. “You must have heard about the
two cars and truck that got uncovered in the spring flood this year
on the mainland? There are at least nine people that went missing
in the last ten years that are now thought to have come out here
and disappeared. That’s on top of the five reported disappearances,
the three actual natural deaths that happened back in the seventies
and sixties, and the fifteen deaths ‘by misadventure’ that happened
in the last two decades, half of them drownings, and the other half
murders.”
    “ So why pack for an overnight camping
trip?” Caroline asked sarcastically. “You’re over prepared for
arson, Helter.”
    “ Because I knew it wasn’t going to be
easy,” Helter replied, his tone implying that she’d been
underprepared in her own plans. “I did my homework, and talked to
the guy who ran the boathouse near the shore. That place used to be
part of the island, but they gave it up. The usual thing the house
does to defend itself is call up a storm or something to drive
anyone who arrives inside, or drown those that try to get back to
shore. Then the ghosts descend. I knew I couldn’t risk going inside
no matter what, but knew that I might get stuck here for a night.
So I brought supplies to camp on the shore.” He smiled at her. “And
aren’t you lucky I did?”
    I was lucky. You saved my life. “And
what if the house falls on you or something?” Caroline teased
darkly.
    “ Tell you the truth, I was worried that
the snowmobile was going to fall through the ice,” Helter said,
biting his lip. “More people drowned in the water here than
anything else…even the ones later found on the island or inside the
submerged part of the house always had water in their lungs. That’s
why I came in winter, to avoid the water.”
    “ Me, too,” Caroline agreed softly. “I
tried to burn it before, this past summer, and never got further
than the water before a storm pushed me back to shore. How did you
know it wouldn’t burn?”
    “ Because no one hires a demolitions
expert when they could pay far less for an arsonist,” he replied,
sipping his stew. “I got the feeling I wasn’t the first person that
had been hired, when the owners contacted me. That