Jake Morrison's Arc

Chapter 22 of 54

Jake woke to Marisol shaking his shoulder. Gray light filled the cabin. She had the radio handset in her free hand. "The shelter's back," she said. "They want our answer. How many we'll take." Jake sat up and pulled on his boots. The wall held. The fish came in. But the voice on the radio was still waiting, and every stranger they let past the fence could be a bite they couldn't see. He found Marcus and Sofia at the boat shed. Marcus wiped grease from his hands on a rag. Sofia held her clipboard against her chest. "They say they've got nine survivors," Marisol read from her notes. "They want us to send a boat." Jake shook his head. "We can't check nine people over a radio. We can't see their arms. We can't watch how they move." He remembered the laughing man's grin. One hidden bite had almost dropped the wall. "So we say no?" Sofia asked. Her pen stopped moving. "We could use nine sets of hands. More fishing. More fence." "We say yes with rules," Jake said. He looked at Marcus. "You fixed a boat yet?" Marcus jerked his thumb at a small skiff tied to the dock. "Motor runs. I got it turning over last night." Jake nodded. "Then we bring them here. But nobody steps ashore until I check every arm and leg myself. On the water. Off our sand." Marcus set down the rag. "You want to inspect them on the boat." Jake pointed at the far dock, the one they'd repaired. "We build a holding pen at the end. Wire on three sides. They tie up. They strip to shorts and sleeves rolled. I walk the line. Anyone hiding a bite goes back in the boat and doesn't land." Sofia was already writing. "A quarantine dock," she said. "I can lumber it by tomorrow." Marisol keyed the handset. "We hear you," she said into it. "We'll take your nine. Bring them by boat to our east dock. Every person shows both arms and both legs bare before landing. Anyone with a bite stays on the water. Those are the terms." She let go. Static hissed. Then the voice answered. They agreed. They would come in two days. Jake let out a breath he'd held since dawn. He had his answer now. Not blind trust. Not a locked door. A gate he could stand in and watch with his own eyes. Marcus started nailing wire to the dock posts that afternoon. Sofia marked her lumber down and frowned. "Nine more people means more mouths," she said. "We're short on fruit already. The garden's weeks from ready." Jake watched the wire go up. He had solved the strangers. But nine hungry newcomers meant the island needed food it didn't have, and the boat that brought them would have to go out again for supplies.