Tormented by Robert J. Crane Page B

which was good. I may not have been the most popularity-obsessed person around, but even I wasn’t eager to share a crazy story with near-total strangers. I looked up and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror that stretched above the bar. I let my sightline drift over to the tall, dark-clad lawman to my right at the end of the bar, and caught a flash of him staring at me before he averted his eyes to go back to his drink, a tall glass of golden beer. “Much less. I don’t settle so easy.”
    Sarah made a full-shoulder shrug even as she stared straight ahead. “At least you’ve always got a ready quip about it.”
    “Less useful than you’d think,” I said, taking another drink of my beverage. So sweet.
    “Have you had a chance to look around the island much yet?” Jake asked. Brant put a big mug of dark beer in front of him unasked, and I watched Jake take a long pull from it while he waited for my answer.
    “I pretty much sat around this afternoon,” I said, skipping over the part where most of the actual sitting was done in the Jacuzzi bath, with the jets working my weary-yet-technically flawless muscles. “And when I spoke to the girl at the rental place about exploring the rest of the island, she was pretty discouraging about the whole thing. I got a real, ‘whatever you do, don’t go to the elephant graveyard’ vibe from her, and we all know that’s really just an invitation to do the thing you’ve been told not to.”
    “Let me guess,” Jake said with that grin, “Apollonia?”
    “Good guess,” I said, gracelessly stealing a peanut from the dish in front of Sarah, drawing a somewhat annoyed look from her. “Though I suppose you don’t exactly have a wide selection of suspects to choose from in this case.”
    “You’d be right about that,” Brant said, setting a martini down in front of Sarah as he re-entered the conversation. “But Apollonia, she’s a special sort. Ingrained in this place. Been here as long as I have.”
    “Anyway,” I said, “between the grim warning and the weather, I haven’t had much inclination to look around. Figured I’d just hang out within easy run of car or roof until things cleared.”
    “Is this the part where I’m supposed to play the creepy, crackly weather report on the radio?” Brant asked me with a gleam in his eyes.
    I raised an eyebrow at him. “Why? Has my life become a horror movie?”
    “I hope not,” Brant said, “because I’m very much the comic relief that’s bound to get offed first.” He ran a hand from his waist up to his face, brushing at his facial hair. “I mean, look at me. I’m too pretty to live in any nightmare scenario.”
    I saw Sarah lean back on her stool to my left so that she could talk to Jake. “Are they speaking in some sort of code? Am I too old to understand what they’re saying?”
    “I’m a bit lost myself,” Jake said good naturedly. “But I did hear the weather report, and it sounds like a horror all its own.” I looked over at him, and his lips pursed in a thin line. “Storm’s moving in hard. Expecting more rain before tomorrow—torrential downpours.” He brightened. “Fun vacation, huh?”
    “Yeah,” I said, turning to pick up my drink, “it’s a real rain barrel of laughs.” I brought my glass up to take a sip and my eyes alighted on the mirror above the bar as a fierce pain shot through my entire body.
    Darkness swam in front of my eyes, the shadow swirling in the reflection like a cloud of darkness closing in across a stormy sky. Searing tendrils of raw nerves ran over my scalp, causing me to cry out as I fell back, my gaze still locked on the dark shape in the mirror staring back at me with an implacable, unceasing darkness.
    A low, rumbling voice rang in my ears, sending icy fingers of fear rippling across my back and up my neck in the moment before I hit the ground. “GET … OUT!” it said, and then I struck the floor of the bar and everything went dark.

14.
Reed
    I rose to my