they paddled the outrigger canoes in time to the music. I was choked up with immense gratitude.
On the way to Hilo, the ladies kept paddling but suddenly stopped singing.
I wondered why until I heard the song of a humpbacked whale, whose melodious tone resonated through the hulls of the canoes like an answered prayer.
Chapter Eleven
Finally there was land, sweet land. Hawaii was one of my favorite places. Yes, I even kissed the ground.
The ladies asked polite, urgent questions about what had happened to me. I gave them a half-truth: that I had taken a spill off a party boat. They wanted to alert the Coast Guard that I had been found, so I told them my brother’s name.
At their clubhouse, there was food and fresh clothing. I bummed a ride to the airport in Hilo, where I bought a plane ticket home on United. My wallet. What would I have done if I had lost it?
I used the on-board phone service but there was no answer from Megan. I frowned at this. A lot. She always picked up. Well, mostly always.
I couldn’t help but think the worst.
A guy in my business, who’s lost what I have lost—always thinks the worst. It’s our curse, but it’s also our drive.
After agonizing hours, finally, I got back to Southern California. I took a cab from LAX to the street where I had left my vehicle parked. I plucked a ticket from the front windshield. Street-sweeping day, damn it.
Boo-yah! I still had my car keys!
I threw the ticket in the glove compartment, and then pointed my vehicle toward home, which was down a winding road in a remote area of the Palos Verdes peninsula, the part with mud slides and a cracked road that occasionally moved.
Once traffic thinned out, I drove like a madman.
It was raining. I skidded around the turns of the winding road.
When I got close to home, I realized that I smelled smoke. Not a brush fire that reeked of chaparral. This smoke was full of chemicals, lumber and wire.
As I turned the final corner, as panic nearly overwhelmed me—I saw the first, licking flames lance the evening sky.
My worst fear was realized.
My home was on fire.
Chapter Twelve
Burning!
The front door was on fire. Acrid smoke and flames blocked the door, so I dived through the living room’s plate-glass window. Dozens of small slashes opened on my arms and legs as I sailed through the glass and did a tuck and roll on the flaming Navajo carpet and then skidded across the polished wood floor.
“Megan! Kristen!” As low as I could, keeping my belly to the smoking and burning wood floors, I crawled fast through flaming hallways and rooms. I burned my hands and knees as I checked every room and every closet in the house.
Something caught my eye and I squinted. What I saw was so horrid that at first, I didn’t even recognize what it was. But then, I did recognize... her.
I gripped the sizzling meat with my bare hands and dragged Megan’s smoking corpse off the burning sofa and back through the broken window onto the wet grass.
Tears ran from my eyes and the sky added its own tears, as I saw the tell-tale bite on her neck and how the torn flesh had burned and curled up the edges of the wound left by the vampire who had drained my wife of her life and then set fire to my house. I noticed the surgical screws sticking out of her blackened knee where she had had knee surgery, years before. Also, her hand appeared curled around something metallic. Jesus...another coin?
I choked and fought for breath. What a horrible death my love had endured.
“Kristen!” I scrambled back into the nearly engulfed house and looked again for Kristen, under beds, under the bathroom sink, even in the freezer. Where was she?
I searched, lungs rasping and eyes burning. My hands were a mass of blistered skin, my hair was singed, and my soul was raped. I frantically searched the flaming house.
Where was she? I couldn’t find her body, which was a relief, but birthed the rising fear that she’d been
On the way to Hilo, the ladies kept paddling but suddenly stopped singing.
I wondered why until I heard the song of a humpbacked whale, whose melodious tone resonated through the hulls of the canoes like an answered prayer.
Chapter Eleven
Finally there was land, sweet land. Hawaii was one of my favorite places. Yes, I even kissed the ground.
The ladies asked polite, urgent questions about what had happened to me. I gave them a half-truth: that I had taken a spill off a party boat. They wanted to alert the Coast Guard that I had been found, so I told them my brother’s name.
At their clubhouse, there was food and fresh clothing. I bummed a ride to the airport in Hilo, where I bought a plane ticket home on United. My wallet. What would I have done if I had lost it?
I used the on-board phone service but there was no answer from Megan. I frowned at this. A lot. She always picked up. Well, mostly always.
I couldn’t help but think the worst.
A guy in my business, who’s lost what I have lost—always thinks the worst. It’s our curse, but it’s also our drive.
After agonizing hours, finally, I got back to Southern California. I took a cab from LAX to the street where I had left my vehicle parked. I plucked a ticket from the front windshield. Street-sweeping day, damn it.
Boo-yah! I still had my car keys!
I threw the ticket in the glove compartment, and then pointed my vehicle toward home, which was down a winding road in a remote area of the Palos Verdes peninsula, the part with mud slides and a cracked road that occasionally moved.
Once traffic thinned out, I drove like a madman.
It was raining. I skidded around the turns of the winding road.
When I got close to home, I realized that I smelled smoke. Not a brush fire that reeked of chaparral. This smoke was full of chemicals, lumber and wire.
As I turned the final corner, as panic nearly overwhelmed me—I saw the first, licking flames lance the evening sky.
My worst fear was realized.
My home was on fire.
Chapter Twelve
Burning!
The front door was on fire. Acrid smoke and flames blocked the door, so I dived through the living room’s plate-glass window. Dozens of small slashes opened on my arms and legs as I sailed through the glass and did a tuck and roll on the flaming Navajo carpet and then skidded across the polished wood floor.
“Megan! Kristen!” As low as I could, keeping my belly to the smoking and burning wood floors, I crawled fast through flaming hallways and rooms. I burned my hands and knees as I checked every room and every closet in the house.
Something caught my eye and I squinted. What I saw was so horrid that at first, I didn’t even recognize what it was. But then, I did recognize... her.
I gripped the sizzling meat with my bare hands and dragged Megan’s smoking corpse off the burning sofa and back through the broken window onto the wet grass.
Tears ran from my eyes and the sky added its own tears, as I saw the tell-tale bite on her neck and how the torn flesh had burned and curled up the edges of the wound left by the vampire who had drained my wife of her life and then set fire to my house. I noticed the surgical screws sticking out of her blackened knee where she had had knee surgery, years before. Also, her hand appeared curled around something metallic. Jesus...another coin?
I choked and fought for breath. What a horrible death my love had endured.
“Kristen!” I scrambled back into the nearly engulfed house and looked again for Kristen, under beds, under the bathroom sink, even in the freezer. Where was she?
I searched, lungs rasping and eyes burning. My hands were a mass of blistered skin, my hair was singed, and my soul was raped. I frantically searched the flaming house.
Where was she? I couldn’t find her body, which was a relief, but birthed the rising fear that she’d been
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