Sandman Read online

  Sandman

  By

  Tammy Bird

  First Publication 2018

  Flashpoint Publications

  ©2018 by Tammy Bird

  ISBN 978-1-949096-03-3

  Cover Design by AcornGraphics

  Editors: Patty Schramm and Nann Dunne

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Parts of this work are fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, or events is entirely coincidental.

  Publisher’s Note:

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author(s)’s rights is appreciated.

  Acknowledgements

  “What you need to remember is you are good enough, momma.” One of my grown children told me that on one of my darkest writing days. “You have a story to tell, and your words may be just the words that someone somewhere needs to read.” He probably doesn’t even remember saying the words, but I will never forget them. His siblings said similar things over the years as I struggled to refine my writing voice. For those words and for their love and understanding, I am grateful. Thank you for being you, Sarah, Katie, Angela, Roscoe, Crystal, Nic, and Eli. I am a better writer and a better person because of you.

  To my closest friends, my grandkids, and my extended family, thank you for sharing in my happiness and my frustration as I traversed this new land. Thank you, too, for your encouragement when it seemed too difficult to continue and for bragging about me when I wasn’t strong enough to brag about myself.

  Thanks to my writing academy crew, both instructors and peers, but especially to Ona Marae, whose extensive guidance and friendship taught me a great deal about writing and about commitment to our words and to each other.

  To those who showed support through the revision process and into production, thank you. A special nod to Ann McMan who not only designed my phenomenal cover but guided me through the first attempt to put this story into words, to my daughter-in-law, Jen Seha who somehow convinced me I could trust her to read my first revised draft when I was afraid to let anyone in, and to Patty Schramm who wrote the words that every writer wants to hear: “I want to publish your work.” Thank you for believing in me and for believing in Sandman.

  A special thank you, as well, to Aimee Young who named the small café that plays a small role in the story but a big role in my heart and to the man in the ice cream parlor on Buxton Beach who answered my comment about how quiet the strip of sand was at the end of October with, “Yep. So quiet you could bury a body in a dune and no one would notice.”

  And finally, my Dear Lisa. You are the best friend I have in the world. Thank you for loving me, for marrying me, and for taking this journey with me. From reading early drafts to giving me advice on the cover to spending countless hours in the bookstore while I wrote, you were as important to the completion of this book as I. No words can express the gratitude and love I have for you.

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to my mom, who lived a life of pain and determination like none I have ever known, yet continued to thrive. From her I learned drive and perseverance, both qualities I have needed in my own life’s journey.

  Thank you mom, for being my advocate when I was not my own. Thank you for telling anyone who would listen, “My daughter is writing a book.” Thank you for our last years together and all of the laughter and card games and love.

  If you are listening, mom, “I did it. I really wrote a book.”

  Chapter One

  Sunday, November 18, 2018, 4:00 AM

  The Outer Banks, North Carolina

  “Looks like a fucking war zone,” Katia Billings-Castillo said, her voice barely audible.

  Glimpses of the cluttered beach appeared along the headlight beams after each swish of the windshield wipers. Hurricane Anna, off the coast, had spawned a couple of tornadoes, and one had touched down on Buxton Beach.

  Several volunteer EMS workers littered the small strip of sand in response to the mass casualty incident. Additional help might not arrive for days, and Katia found solace in their presence.

  She saw a pink object wedged between the narrow slats of a sun-faded fence. A child’s toy. “It’s going to be a long morning.”

  “No rest for the weary.” Elliot Palmer, her partner of four years, gave her a small smile.

  Katia reached into the console and pulled out a handful of light-blue, disposable gloves. She wiggled her left hand and then the right into a pair and shoved the rest into one of the deep pockets of her windbreaker. She ticked off items in her head they would need: triage kit, airway bags, tags. “Let’s go.” She breathed a grateful “thank-you” into the sky when a string of spotlights came on and banished the darkness.

  They grabbed their triage gear and pushed out of the vehicle against the relentless rain.

  The downpour pelted Katia’s face despite the bright-yellow hardhat and matching jacket she wore. A shiver moved up her spine and landed at the base of her neck. “Fuck, El.” She pitched her voice an octave above the wind. “The Clark place.”

  Elliot nodded to the right. His chin moved forward slightly, and his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat.

  Katia turned and followed Elliot’s direction. “Aiden,” she whispered. She bent down on one knee next to the tiny form in turquoise pajamas. Keep your head on straight, she thought. No breath. No pulse. Black tag. Move on. The air and rain absorbed the sounds of the sirens and brought them focused and screaming into her head. Moving in for a closer look, she put her face near the cheek of the five-year-old and placed her finger against his neck. She shook her head.

  “No pulse.” She breathed deeply before pulling a black triage tag out of the windbreaker pocket that didn’t hold the extra gloves. She secured the tag to the arm of the small frame.

  Katia stood up. They would come back for him. Right now, it was about finding the living.

  Neighbors grouped into twos and threes. Side by side, the rescue workers searched through the scattered debris looking for people and tending to the injured who were emerging.

  “Over here,” a man yelled. He made a sweeping motion with arm and hand. “She’s breathing. Hurry. Come on.” Katia moved through the remains of a living room and into what was left of the bathroom. The woman’s arm hung across the side of an old clawfoot tub. Other than the appendage, her body was fully on the outside of the cast iron, porcelain-lined focal point of the room. Katia knelt in front of the woman. She didn’t recognize her, perhaps a visitor. She eased her to the ground and felt for a pulse. The woman was alive. She had no visual injuries outside of a large, raised bump on the side of her head.

  Katia attached a yellow tag to the woman’s wrist. “Stay with her.”

  Katia moved away from the destroyed beach house. Steady drops of rain fell from the rim of her hat and onto her chest and shoulders. The beach was strewn with boards: pale-blue, green, pink, and yellow-stained pieces of wood stuck out of sand and dunes at weird angles. Looking to her left, she considered the best route to take from where she stood. She sidestepped a pack of cigarettes and a cell phone. Glass crunched against the soles of her steel-toed ankle boots. A table sat eerily upright as if waiting for the family to sit down
to breakfast. A baby’s crib lay on its side several feet away, the youngest of the Clark family tangled in its mosquito netting.

  Two tears broke free and mixed with the rain on her face. There was little she could do to stop them. These were her neighbors. People she grew up with. She reached into her pocket. Assess. Tag. Move on.

  At its widest point, Hatteras Island stretched three-and-a-half miles between water and dunes and was fifty miles long from end to end. But on this day, the water pushed its foam directly onto the lower dunes—at times making its way to the flattened beach grass—before beginning its retreat to the sea. Chatter on the radio indicated that Hurricane Anna continued to spin offshore but was making slow and steady progress out to sea. Here in Buxton, the downpour had subsided, but the air was still thick with condensation.

  Katia nodded to one worker and then another as she moved through the tangled web of wood and steel. Everyone remained intent on tasks at hand. They were quiet until words were needed to ask a question or to guide someone toward the triage area.

  Katia spotted Elliot to the left of a dune. He squatted, leaning forward on his toes. Two men stood slightly behind and to either side of him. She quickly identified the first as Brent Grainger. He and Elliot became friends in preschool and remained inseparable. The other, Andrew Hunter, was new to the island, a woodser from Virginia somewhere.

  Katia noticed Andrew’s stance. His typically squared shoulders were rolled forward. His face looked like it was being pulled by an invisible string toward the dune.

  She quickened her pace. As she neared the trio, she noticed the pale blue of Elliot’s gloved hands. They appeared to glide back and forth across the wet sand like an eraser being moved back and forth across a whiteboard.

  Katia tried to move faster, but her tired legs and the rough terrain worked against her. The hard, water-soaked sand sent tiny shockwaves through the soles of her boots and into her feet with each step.

  Watch the wires. Stay close to the fence. Her eyes looked down quickly and then back up. What does Elliot see? Her gaze moved up and down. She caught sight of something in the sand. A kid’s plastic riding toy. She moved around the swaying red seat that was now barely attached to a set of bright-yellow handlebars.

  She felt the tension of the men from a hundred feet away. She could sense it in their bodies. She rounded the edge of the dune. Her eyes met Brent’s and followed them to where Elliot’s blue-gloved hands moved across the sand.

  “Holy fucking shit.” Katia nearly lost her balance as she came to a stop right behind Elliot.

  She had been with the Outer Banks Emergency Medical Services Station for four years. She was used to pulling broken and bloody bodies from the brink of death, breathing life into the dying, facing untimely deaths. People sobbing. Begging. Screaming. The lullaby of the survivors her constant companion. But this?

  She could now see what she’d sensed from a hundred yards out. Brent’s body was shaking. It was most noticeable in the movement of his hands, which hung at his sides.

  The grotesque scent of rot filtered through the ambient smell of sea and sand. It filled her nostrils. Breathe anyway. She forced the air in and out of her lungs. She moved her gaze to take in the partial bit of human sticking out of the dune. She wanted to move closer, but her lead-filled legs held her feet against the wet sand. Breathe.

  Her body was on full alert; every one of her senses was heightened. The rain became slivers of glass that poked her skin repeatedly. The wind filled her ears, all the way into her neck. The smell. Oh my fucking God. Her head pounded. Breathe. Just keep breathing. The world was moving in slow motion. For the first time in her twenty-five years, Katia faced a version of death that made her stomach churn and her throat burn.

  Through her peripheral vision, she was vaguely aware of the actions of the others as each moved without speaking to form a line. The horror of death like this wasn’t something an untrained person should witness. She didn’t want to see it, but she couldn’t look away from it. It was a nightmare she was unable to stop.

  Katia looked to Brent. His face gave nothing away—except for his lip, which was clenched between his teeth, his chin white from the pressure.

  Elliot pulled a radio out of its holster on his belt. “Who’s taking the lead on this?” He paused and listened to the response. “Send him over to the Clark’s lot. We have a body.” Another pause. “No. Not a fatality of the storm.”

  Katia noticed one shoe. Even covered with pebbles of sand, she knew the shiny multi-inch heel was expensive. The purple of the heel melted into the swollen, purple foot from which it hung. Her eyes moved up past skin swollen to the verge of popping. The matte purple swirled with green on the leg of the woman in the dune. The body was mostly buried. Mounds of sand made the woman appear disjointed—like Katia’s thoughts. She tried to stay in EMS mode.

  One leg, from the thigh down, was exposed. She looked farther along the dune’s edge to where the fingers of one hand poked from the sand. Like the exposed lower limb, the hand was swollen purple and black. She wondered how the steady rain hadn’t punctured the outer layer of flesh. She rolled her head from side to side. The gray-green of the early morning turned a muted yellow as the sun tried desperately to shine some light through the rain and fog.

  “The storm is slowing,” Katia said.

  The others nodded in unison.

  Andrew motioned with his hand toward the sea. “Someone needs to tell the ocean. It still seems angry.”

  As if on cue, the waves roared and churned up a new wall of liquid blues and greens topped with foamy white. The ocean’s offering left a wide dirty-white fringe along the edge of a possible crime scene. It pooled around their boots.

  Katia found herself repeatedly returning her gaze to the hand of the woman in the dune. In the increasing light, she saw it. A ring. Sudden awareness pummeled her gut. Her chest felt tight, her head foggy. Her vision became tunneled. She could see her team members, but they were moving farther away and becoming smaller. She could hear Elliot talking to Brent, and Brent’s response.

  “What a fucked up way to wrap up a shift,” Elliot said.

  “Seriously,” Brent replied. “At least the weather report says the storm’s headed out. Slowly. But out.”

  “At least.”

  Katia heard Andrew say something about the children. An unknown voice responded, and it all faded. She was alone in the dark tunnel, mimicking her brother’s verbal coping mechanism of repetition. The body. The body. The body. She blinked several times in rapid succession and popped her jaw. Words uttered in her direction were making their way in. At least she thought they were directed at her.

  “Let’s head in. Get dry. We can regroup and figure this shit out.”

  It was Elliot’s voice. She tried to focus on his words, but her mind refused. Visions of the ring and of the purple shoe zoomed in and out of focus. Her stomach seized. A brassy taste filled the back of her mouth. Her head throbbed. She collapsed to her knees on the wet sand like a rag doll. She waited while the foam chewed at her knees, ankles, and hands. She closed her eyes and listened to the sound of the waves as they splashed against her skin. She heard her mom’s muted voice in the distance: Smell the flowers. Blow out the candles. Employing the childhood trick, taught to her by her mom before she died, helped steady her breathing. She waited until the sand crystals were no longer spinning and she could stand.

  She leaned into Elliot for the brief moment it took to gain full control of her legs and then fled. She ran hard and fast away from the decaying flesh, past the houses crumpled in the sand, and past remnants of what used to be and what would never be again.

  ****

  For two weeks, he watched the storm gain strength east-northeast of Puerto Rico.

  It was a poorly organized mass of weather. He jotted, “Likely of very little consequence.” in his notebook on a page titled “November 9, 2018.”

  On November 10, conditions changed.

/>   The local weatherman reported that the inconsequential cyclone strengthened into the first named storm of the season. Anna.

  Within the day, Anna was peaking at 115 MPH, a category three hurricane, and she was stalled off the coast of Hatteras Island.

  “Anna has settled in, folks,” the six AM weatherman said. “The center of the storm is twenty-nine miles east of Hatteras Island. Peak winds of 115 MPH and rainfall at 7.51 inches have been reported. There’s severe flooding along the Pamlico Sound. Everyone who opted to stay behind has been told to remain indoors. Two confirmed tornadoes have been reported in Buxton, where peak storm surges of 10.2 feet continue.”

  As he listened, he turned to a previous page in the notebook and neatly marked through item after item. He was prepared.

  1) Jugs from garage. Fill.

  2) Flashlight batteries.

  3) Radio batteries.

  4) Check generator.

  Reports of high winds and storm surges were commonplace on the islands along the east coast of North Carolina. Until two hours ago, television reporters droned on about suggested evacuation. Perfect smiles parted to release words that no one heard. Full-time residents rarely traveled Highway 12 to get away from a storm, and this time was no different. Except it was, and two hours ago, everyone listened.

  He looked again at the screen. He loved storms. The bigger the better. They made his heart pump and his insides tickle. Anna was big. And she was just sitting there, exerting her power like a lioness. He closed his eyes and pictured himself on the beach when the tornadoes touched down. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with air until they could hold no more. He exhaled slowly and opened his eyes.