VESTMEN'S GALE - Chapter One
Gabby's Call
All words are my own, not AI -David McCaleb
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I snapped around at the sound of my dead sister’s laugh. I searched the waving stalks of grass atop the sand dune, from where her voice had come. Gabby had been gone five years now, almost to the day. But sometimes I still caught her excited shout in a throng on a soccer field, or even in a gaggle of geese flying overhead. Or, as just now, her high-pitched laugh in…what? There was nothing there.
This time it had been clear, as real as terror when waking from a nightmare. Gripping. I jumped from the deck of our family’s vacation bungalow and sprinted up the sand dune. Tall stalks of grass sliced my bare shins and knees as I ran to the top and peered over at a thick forest of oaks and maples. My calf cramped. I grimaced and pushed the ball of my foot against a rock to stretch it out. As a cross-country runner, I’d averaged five miles a day during school. But now, three weeks into summer, I hadn’t been keeping up and my body enjoyed reminding me.
Her name had been Tabitha. Most had called her Tabby. But because of her incessant chatter, I’d christened her Gabby.
“Whatcha doin’, Michael?” Nikki, my other sister, asked. The one still alive. The one I could hug and harass and irritate. She was younger. Fourteen. A little older than Gabby had been when she’d disappeared. And just as talkative. Hadn’t noticed her standing up here.
She slid next to me, head almost reaching to my chest. That thick mop of hair even looked like Gabby’s, wavy as a current washed sand bar at low tide. Though hers had been fiery copper red, while Nikki’s hung coal black and shiny. Like mine. And my mane would be just as unruly, if I ever let it grow out. Funny how Nikki looked more like me than Gabby had, my fraternal twin. Huh… Gabby would’ve been nineteen in a couple of weeks.
Nikki tore off a chunk from a slice of bread and tossed it into the sky. A pair of circling seagulls dove, colliding in midair. The loser gave a harsh cry. That must’ve been what I’d heard before. But it had sounded just like Gabby’s high-pitched cackle.
I wrapped an arm around Nikki’s shoulder. “Look at all those gulls. You attract those flying bums the same way you do boys? A little tease?”
She kicked my shin, but it was only a halfhearted tap. “I’m not a tease!”
“Come on.” I balled a fist and tagged her shoulder. “You’re the biggest flirt in the Outer Banks. Admit it. How many boyfriends you go through last school year?”
“Pfft.” Her eyes rolled away, as if she suddenly found the forest fascinating.
“Seriously! You don’t even know, do you? Bet you’ve kissed every guy in your class.”
Her eyebrows arched, and she punched my stomach. Not a bad swing. “Someone’s gotta make up for you. Last time you kissed a girl you were twelve.”
I huffed. The comment hurt more than her fist. If only I possessed half her spirit. She never cared what anyone thought. Self-confident, just like Gabby had been. Here I was about to head off to Duke and I hadn’t had a date for years. Not that I hadn’t tried. Girls just thought I was a creep. All I’d done was joke with a couple of them like I did with Nikki…and Gabby. They’d always understood it was out of fondness. But word had spread through school I was a cocky jerk and it stuck. That was that.
Another laugh, this time behind me. It was echoed by a distant rumble that rolled up the dune. I turned to see a towering thunderhead dividing the northern sky. Morning rays illuminated its brilliant white peak that stretched till it seemed to lean over us, tall enough to churn hailstones. Flashes of lightning streaked from the beast’s dark underbelly, sliced away by the string-tight line of the water’s horizon. One flash seemed to leave a distant white dot below it, suspended by the brush strokes of dark rain. A sail, boaters probably enjoying the last few minutes of calm before being overtaken by the squall. Hard to tell from this distance, but they were headed our way. Directly on the Atlantic coast, our dock at the bottom of the dune was the only pier for a good distance in either direction. The nearest harbor at least two miles south. I squinted at the tiniest speck of orange atop the sail. A distress flag? No kidding. They’d never make it to shore in time. No choice, now.
Make fast and ride it through.
I pointed my chin toward the water. “I’m going to head down to the dock. We’ve got time before the storm gets here. Gonna get a better look at that boat.”
Nikki shielded her eyes with a flat hand. “They’re about to be swallowed.”
I hiked down the path toward our blue clapboard house that faced east, toward the rising sun. Nikki shadowed me, slipping over rocks. She trailed a growing avian fan club, like her boyfriends back home. Their tails were tipped in black, as if dipped afresh in an inkwell each morning. Their songs sounded so much like Gabby’s laugh, not like the gulls back home in North Carolina. Were the ones up here in Maine a different breed? They were cleaner, even. Feathers neat and in place.
Maybe life could be better in a different location. A new start. At Duke, maybe?
Nah…no escaping myself. The birds endured harsh winters up here. More likely they died before reaching the haggard beach-bum stage of the ones back home.
I turned the corner around the house’s wide deck, distant sail and orange banner still in view, and continued down toward the shoreline. Maine beaches were the very definition of lame. Mostly just a bunch of boulders and stones piled with dank seaweed. Why’d we drive every year all the way from Hatteras to vacation here? Though I considered the hill we’d just hiked over a sand dune, in reality the berm was no more than packed dirt and gravel. Nothing like the clean, sandy stretches of the Outer Banks. Yesterday when Dad had tossed me the keys to the pickup and we were on the way to Barne’s Pizzeria, we’d passed a metal warehouse with Courter’s Curling Club on the side. Curling? How to know you live too far north—your club sport involves sliding pumpkin-sized granite rocks on slabs of ice.
The sail seemed to wink, as if obscured by tall waves.
“You should ask Alice out when we get home,” my social coordinator persisted. “You run with her brother and she—”
“Thinks I’m a creep.” I stopped and held up hands in surrender. “Remember? She was the one standing near me after the race where we won state.” I’d just finished, and the manager had given me a huge cup of ice water. I’d raised it to my lips when her brother ran across the line and crashed into me. It had dumped down Alice’s T-shirt. I’d been out of breath, delirious with oxygen deprivation, and my first muddled reaction to her pained face was to brush the cascading liquid off her. She’d screamed…not a good scene.
Nikki snorted. “Yeah. I’d forgotten about that one. Maybe she has too.”
“Nah. Girls like that don’t forget being embarrassed.” I rubbed my cheek, remembering where her slap had landed. I’d done everything to apologize, but she wouldn’t hear it.
Below us, at the bottom of the hill, a rising tide lapped at the rocks. We picked our way between sea grass clumps and brambles, then gazed over a flashing trail of silver water that led to a low, burnt-yellow sun. Amazing how early light over the ocean always bathed the landscape in golden tones. A cool breeze chilled the sweat beading on my arms, and I shivered. The sail barely maintained distance from the monster storm, and still seemed to be headed our direction. However, the squall stood distant enough that it’d be a little time before arriving. The cars were already in the garage, so nothing more in preparation could be done.
Nikki pointed to it, a slice of bread still in her grasp. “That looks pure evil. See how dark it is beneath it?”
We skidded onto the gray weathered wooden dock that stretched across wet black boulders. Nikki’s light, sand-scratching footfalls scurried behind me to catch up. What a socialite. Couldn’t stand being alone. This was the same pier where Gabby had disappeared five years ago. Her body had never been found. Detectives presumed she’d fallen off and drowned in an outgoing tide. But she’d been much too strong a swimmer. I had been with her that entire morning, paddling around in sea kayaks. I’d only run up to the cottage to use the bathroom, but returned to an empty dock. She’d always been so protective of me even though I was her older brother…by fifteen minutes. And the one time she needed me, I’d been absent. Ever since then, nothing in life seemed complete.
I drew a breath. The dank seaweed musk here was less pungent than the sulfur marsh scent endured at home around Albemarle Sound. I stopped before a long aluminum gangway, the ramp leading down to a floating dock that rose and fell with the tide. Such a contraption wasn’t needed in Hatteras, with its modest four-foot swing. Here, jagged granite boulders formed a breakwater a distance out, protecting the structure, placed by some megarich playwright a couple of decades ago. Mom claimed the screenplay for Jaws had been penned here, in our family cottage.
A wave crashed nearby and someone giggled. Fifty yards distant, a flash of red jumped from the bank onto the rocky beach. Not Gabby. But Christine! From Ontario.
Nikki shoved my shoulder. “Your girlfriend,” she teased.
“As if,” I mumbled.
However, since we were ten, our vacations had always overlapped. She’d been bright and happy no matter when I saw her. I’d fostered an attraction to her ever since I could remember, though we’d never spoken beyond casual greetings. Two years ago, I’d finally worked up the courage to introduce myself. Christine had smiled and talked a bit, but never hinted at any real interest. Turns out she was a runner too. But like a coward, I hadn’t approached her again that entire summer. Why couldn’t I be more outgoing like Gabby? Or even Nikki?
Wait. I slapped the handrail. No more of that! It was a new summer, and I’d be on my own soon. The old me was dying. I could be anyone I wanted in this place, starting now. Working oyster cages on the water with Dad the last few years, I’d finally started filling out. The muscles on my arms and back were wiry and taut. Though Mom had said girls really didn’t care about stuff like that. “At least no girls you should be interested in.” Just what the mother of a gawky cross-country geek would say.
I forced my gaze back up the beach. Christine turned to face the bank and wow! She’d filled out even more than I had. Was that even her? Don’t stare! But it was hard not to notice. Thin red bikini straps stretched between small patches of fabric. Why did girls think it’s OK to walk around in view of everyone while wearing less-than-underwear?
Christine raised her arms and a kid in pink jumped from the grass into them. Her little sister, in a life jacket. I laughed, recalling the child’s playful spirit. How last summer she’d tossed rocks into piles, trying to make a Maine sandcastle.
Christine glanced over, set her sister down, and waved. I looked behind us, but no one else was on the beach. She’s waving to me! Like a dork, I lifted my hand slower than when answering a question in world history. By then the two had their heads down, already stepping over rocks, making their way toward the water.
Nikki turned her head and rolled her eyes. With a flip of a hand, she said, “Handled that like a pro, big brother. Grow a spine. Girls hate conflicted men.” She turned on one heel and sauntered back up the dock. Calling back, “And you have no reason to be.”
I sighed, then twisted again to the approaching squall, sailboat still barely outrunning it, distress flag blown straight as a board. Maybe I should go tell Christine about the storm.
Hey! Great to see you again. You may want to head inside. There’s a storm coming.
Oh, you mean that huge thunderhead with lightning streaming below it? Hadn’t noticed.
No. That wouldn’t work. I’d wait a little longer. Then if they didn’t go in, I’d wander over and mention…something. But what? How should I—
A flash of light and boom!
More flickers popped from the advancing threat, blazing dock poles like camera flashes. The snarl of thunder wheeled across the water in a constant stream. The storm was closer than I thought. I should’ve followed Nikki back to the cottage, but I still had a few minutes, and wanted to catch another glance at Christine. I stepped down the gangway, willing myself to be casual, to not crane my neck her direction. Instead, my eyes caught the boat. It was moving quickly, and still toward us.
The floating dock rose and sank on gathering waves, sides screeching against thick wooden guide pilings as I passed them. How did the contractor ever sink those huge logs into the earth with all the rocks down there? At the end, I sat in a lone Adirondack bolted to the deck, my back to Christine’s house, and studied the approaching vessel.
It was close enough now to see that the sail billowed fatly, like in old seafaring movies. Except I’d seen local vessels like that before: Elizabeth II down on Roanoke Island and others at the tall ship festival at Wilmington. This one was smaller. Long and skinny, with the sail set low, the bottom of it just over the gunwales. An old tender vessel? Maybe some antique boat show was nearby. And the flag wasn’t a distress signal, but a red-orange square with black figures.
A cold drop of rain splashed my face. Crack! Another struck my arm like a hot needle and I gasped. “Ouch.” Bits of ice slurry ran from the red mark on my skin. Sleet, really? And the wind was picking up. If this storm were bringing hail, I’d better get inside. I turned to the beach and Christine was out of sight. Smart girl. I trotted toward the gangway, the sections of the floating dock already whipping like a rope. This storm was going to bring waves worse than the nor’easter Dad and I had weathered last summer on the sound, working our oyster cages. I’d saved every penny Dad had paid me and put it into my own equipment and seed. Double-lashing the floats to an anchor line that afternoon, I’d determined nature wasn’t going to destroy my investment.
I stood still, deck bucking below my body. The ship was less than a quarter mile away now. Were they just making a beeline for land and going to run it ashore? Maybe old-fashioned vessels like that couldn’t be steered well in strong winds. But wouldn’t a replica have a backup motor, to help it out of trouble?
A wave broke a few feet away. Or maybe a striped bass or school of mackerel were hunting, stirring up littler prey. A drop in the barometer often meant feeding frenzies.
Smack!
Ice shards blasted my legs. A golf ball–sized hailstone had crashed on the dock, scattering crystals in a cone. Red dots like measles began to welt on my shins. One of those things could knock me out! But still, the boat. It could be in trouble. If it wrecked on the rocks, I could help the crew to land, get them inside till this thing passed. I couldn’t just leave them.
Across white-crested surf, long sticks jutted from the sides of the vessel. Waving, like the wings of a stingray. Oars rowing! There must’ve been a dozen on each side between round, brightly colored shields mounted so high they obscured the view of the deck. A replica Viking ship. Must be thirty people on that thing!
Crack! A hailstone struck my big toe like a framing hammer.
“Ahh!” I knelt, squeezed it in my palm, and blood and ice ran between my fingers. Through gritted teeth, I growled, “Gonna lose that nail for certain.”
A roar rose as if from a jet about to take off. Several hundred yards out, behind the approaching ship, the water was aboil. Oh no. I stood and limped toward the gangway.
The boat headed straight for the end of the dock, probably hoping to tie off. They really had no other choice.
And neither did I.
I turned back and hustled to the end of the T. Rifle shots of thunder cracked every few seconds. The deck screeched against the pilings like the call of a ghost. This storm was altogether violent. I knelt to maintain balance. Who was steering that thing? No crew stuck their head over the shields to navigate. No one stood to toss a bowline to me as the ship closed in. I snatched up a coil of dock rope and twisted a honda knot, forming a lasso. The other end was already fast to a large cleat. Should hold. The oars lifted straight up like a line of wharf pilings and thunked down as the rowers shipped them.
“Lower that sail or it’s going to tear loose!” I yelled.
The boat jerked to a halt at the edge of the dock, bobbing two feet away in its berth. Pilot must’ve dropped an anchor. An approach precise as a drill team. The oily scent of some rancid, spoiled meat blasted my chest. No cleats on the vessel’s gunwales, so I tossed the loop over the ship’s stempost, tall and curved like a swan’s neck. Long, flat strakes shaped the boat’s sides, dark with a preserving oil. Gouges revealed light, fresh timber, though, as if it had recently run aground.
The unrelenting churn of hail marched toward us.
I ran down the starboard side and beat on round shields. Some metal, others wooden, each painted in mismatched colors with heads of wolves or wings of a hawk. “Let’s go! Get out!” I pointed up the hill toward the cottage. “Inside!”
No one stirred. Were they all sick? Too weak to move? They’d better figure out how or the hail was going to chew them up.
A seagull’s cry sounded from somewhere within the vessel. Amazing I could even hear it over the roar of the wall of ice grinding toward us. It called again, but this time no seagull. Gabby’s laugh.
What? My chest tightened. Maybe I was dreaming, fallen asleep in the Adirondack. My ears must be hearing seagulls, my brain thinking it was—
Smack!
Pain seared my shoulder. “Ahh!” Ice spray blew into my eyes. I gripped the spot where the stone had struck me. The pain was real, for certain. I wasn’t sleeping through this. And Gabby’s laugh had been as clear as life.
A huge hailstone crashed against a shield and knocked it into the boat, permitting a glimpse behind. I gripped a greasy gunwale and hoisted myself up. Balancing on my stomach, I leaned in and stared at sparse deck boards lashed to rough-hewn beams. The entire ship’s skeleton was laid bare to sight. The rancid stink of the wood’s oily coating filled my lungs. From stem to stern, she was empty.
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-David McCaleb
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