Jake Morrison's Arc

Chapter 34 of 54

The caves were empty now, but empty was its own danger. Jake stood on the wet rock and knew it. Clear ground drew creatures the way an open door drew flies. If anything crawled up from the water before people moved in, it would nest again, and they would fight this battle twice. He looked at Frank and said the only cure was bodies on the ground. "We hold it now," Jake said. "Or we lose it." He radioed the home island. Two boats came the next morning, loaded with lumber, fencing, and twelve armed settlers. Marcus stepped off the first boat with his toolbelt and his rifle both. "You want a wall or a graveyard?" he asked, grinning. He walked the shoreline and picked the choke points before Jake finished explaining. Marcus mapped four spots where a creature could climb from the tide into the caves. "Fence these," he said, "and the rest is cliff. Nothing scales that." Sofia came on the second boat with clipboards and crates. She had run supplies since the supermarket days, and she counted every nail before she trusted it. "Water, food, tools," she said, ticking each off. "A crew can't hold ground on empty stomachs." She set the settlers to work in teams and had cots hauled into the driest chamber by noon. The cold stone rooms filled with voices and hammering. They worked three days. Marcus drove stakes into the sand at each landing point and strung wire across them. Jake and the crew raised fence panels where the seabed rose gentle enough to climb. On the third night a wretch surfaced at the far point and dragged itself onto the rocks. Two sentries fired. The thing dropped before it reached the fence line. Jake stood over the body and felt the difference. This time they had been ready. By the fourth morning the caves were sealed and manned. Frank moved his wife and two children into the largest chamber. Ten settlers stayed to hold the ground with him. Jake shook his hand at the dock. "It's yours now," Jake said. "Both islands, one people." Frank nodded and looked at the fresh fences. "We'll keep faith," he said. Jake rode home with Marcus and Sofia as the sun dropped. The new island was no longer bait. It was a fortress with a crew inside it. But relief did not last the crossing. Halfway across the water, the home island's radio crackled. Sofia grabbed it. She listened, then turned to Jake with wide eyes. "It's Marisol," she said. "The babies are coming." Jake pushed the throttle forward. The boat leapt across the swells toward home.