Thousands of stars twinkle overhead as he rows ever closer to the island—their light dances wildly on the surface of the otherwise black water.
Dipping his oars in, he propels himself along at a steady rate. The night is quiet, almost ominous considering his destination. It gives him plenty of time to reflect upon how it is he came to be here.
The news broke a week ago. The inhabitants of the tiny hamlet of Hope, North Carolina had disappeared. Around four hundred souls in total and the official report held that they all simply vanished.
Every. Single. One of them.
They had simply disappeared en masse.
Like it would be for any good reporter, the interest of Nicholas Talbot was piqued. He refused to believe that so many people could just disappear into thin air and wasn’t about to be stopped by the rhetoric of “a matter of national security.” Something happened to those people and he was going to find out what.
And so here he is rowing toward an island that has been locked down by the authorities in search of answers.
He’s barely twenty years old and still has a boyish mop of brown hair atop his head that frequently falls over his blue eyes or curls around his ears as it is doing now.
Wiping it away from his brow he continues his even stroke through the placid waters. At only five and a half feet tall he has a slight build that is not used to such cardiovascular workouts. His slender arms are burning from the exertion just as his shoulders are crying out for relief.
Still he presses onward, determined to uncover what really happened to Hope—as much for himself as for his idol.
He’s only been working for The New York Times for a few short months now—as an intern—but his ambitions are grander than that. He wants nothing more than to be an investigative reporter like his idol at the paper, Cole Hewitt.
Gliding across the water, his mind drifts back to their last conversation two days ago.
“You want to run that by me again Nick?”
Excitedly he leaned over the desk saying, “OK, I was here last night when I got a call from a guy who says he knows what really happened in Hope. He says he was there when it all went down and he can prove it.”
“What’s his name?” Cole asked dubiously.
Shaking his head Nicholas replied, “You know I can’t reveal the identity of my sources.”
“Do you know his name?”
Marked silence greeted this request as Nicholas coyly looked away. “Yeah,” Cole stated, “That’s what I thought.”
“Look I believe him,” Nicholas explained, “There’s more to what happened in Hope then we’re being told. Four hundred people don’t just vanish without a trace. This could be my big break.”
Cole sternly looked at him as he illustrated, “Just slow down a minute Nick and think this through. What do you really know? Some guy calls you up and says he has some type of proof that something happened in Hope. Could this be any vaguer?”
“Cole,” he groused, “You’re not seeing the big picture here. Come on, I know you better than this. There’s no way you can believe that those people simply disappeared. There’s a story here, I know it!”
“You’re forgetting my first rule of reporting Nick,” Cole pointed a finger at him as he recited, “Not everything you hear is a lie. Despite the portrayal in Hollywood, in the real world conspiracies don’t exist everywhere no matter how badly you want them to.”
“But—”
“Let me finish,” Cole cut off his protests, “You’re so convinced we’re being lied to as part of some grand cover-up scheme but stop and think about what we’ve been told so far.
“All they’ve said is that four hundred people are missing and they’re looking into the cause. Where’s the lie?”
“They already know the cause!” Nicholas blurted out, “The government’s trying to hide what happened to those people.”
“So says your mysterious source.” Regarding him thoughtfully Cole asked, “Did he tell you what happened?”
“No,” Nicholas was forced to admit, “Not yet. He said it would be better if I saw it for myself.” Staring at him askance he asked, “What?”
“The second rule,” Cole declared, “Report the facts not the rumors. All this guy has given you are rumors. You’ve nothing to go on.”
“This is why I need to go to Hope to get the facts—to get the proof he left there.”
Leaning back slightly Cole scratched at his forehead as he asked, “Are you serious? You want to sneak onto an island that has been locked down by Federal Authority on nothing more than the ramblings of a complete stranger?”
“That’s how stories are made,” he replied with a shrug of his shoulders.
“No it isn’t,” Cole said, “You only believe this guy because you want to believe him not because he’s given you anything believable. Don’t you see it? You’re letting your preconceived notions cloud your judgment.
“This is bad reporting Nick; trust me I’ve been around long enough to learn that the government is never as noble as they claim to be nor as sinister as others claim they are.”
“And what about the third rule?”
A flash of bright light off to his left brings him back to the present. Turning his head he spies a shaft of ambient light sweeping out to sea from the island’s lighthouse. Guiding his canoe away from it he rows for shore.
When close enough he scrambles out of the canoe splashing his feet down in knee deep water and hurriedly hauls it ashore. Breathing heavily he takes a moment to ensure that the canoe won’t be spotted by any roving patrols before setting out up the beach toward the bluff and the hamlet of Hope.
In his waterproof neoprene bag he has a halogen flashlight, a digital camera, a map of Hope, and the directions his source relayed to him. They should lead him to a house on Oriole Lane where inside the air register of the master bedroom he expects to find a flash drive containing the proof of the cover-up.
Checking his flashlight once to see that it still works, he decides to leave it off lest he be spotted by the military presence in town.
According to his source it shouldn’t be a problem sneaking past them as they usually congregate on the opposite side of town and only sparingly make the rounds.
Reaching the top of the bluff he can hear voices carrying on the breeze and immediately crouches lower in the tall grass that’s billowing around him. Chancing a peek he sees two soldiers wearing black fatigues distractedly walking the perimeter.
While staying hidden in the grass he moves off a half mile before crossing the road and hopping a fence into someone’s back yard. Under cover of darkness he leaps another fence before finding an alleyway up the side of a house.
All is quiet on this street. After a beat it begins to feel uncanny just how silent it is. The absence of life is chilling. There are no lights on in any home. There are no dogs barking. There are no birds or insects chirping.
There is just a quiet so thick that it’s suffocating.
With an involuntary shudder he moves on.
In the gloom he can just make out bright red graffiti on a wall across the way. In shaky, hurried letters it spells out ‘Croatoan’. Not knowing what it could mean he retrieves his camera and quickly snaps a few shots.
At the end of the block he compares the street sign to the map and after finding where in town he is, sets off for Oriole Lane.
Oriole Lane is situated on the southwestern side of the island, about one mile as the crow flies from where Nicholas came ashore.
The house he’s looking for is located in the middle of the block and is a two-story beach house looking out over the Atlantic Ocean and Pamlico Sound to the north.
He finds the place to have broken windows, an unkempt lawn, and an open front door. Even here the word ‘Croatoan’ has been painted on the white siding.
All over town he’s found that lone word either spray painted on walls or carved into wooden poles. Whatever it means it’s starting to unnerve him.
Entering the home he finds more evidence that what happened here didn’t happen quickly. The disarray of the interior conveys a sense of suffering and loss not unlike pictures from a crime scene.
Mounting the staircase he examines the portraits on the wall as he goes. The smiling faces of a father and a mother and their two children stand in sharp contrast to what became of their once happy home.
Reaching the second floor he rushes to the master bedroom at the front of the house. The bed is made but for some reason that creeps him out even more then the mess downstairs. Putting his unease aside he gets down to work.
Kneeling beside the air vent he lifts the register out and begins probing the inside with his hand. After a few seconds of searching, his fingers brush against a polyester loop.
Grasping it between his index and middle finger he pulls it out of the vent along with the flash drive attached to it.
Yes!
Examining the drive in the moonlight streaming through the window he can’t help but smile. If only you were here to see this Cole.
The smile quickly falls from his lips though when he hears a phalanx of people amassing down on the street below. With the drive in hand he moves to the broken window and can only swallow in fear when he sees the cluster of soldiers converging on the place.
“Shit,” he breathes before springing to action.
Stuffing the drive in his pocket he races from the room heading for the balcony at the rear of the house. Running down the wooden slats two at a time his feet no sooner touch the sand on the beach then the soldiers burst through the front door.
He stays close to the edge of the beach—trying to avoid being caught out in the open under the silvery light of the moon—as he heads north back toward his hidden canoe.
Running on the sand though not only slows him down but leaves a fairly obvious trail in his wake. With no time to worry about it he continues running as fast as he can.
After a half mile he reaches the rocks at the base of the bluff and pauses just long enough to place the drive inside his waterproof bag. Climbing up onto a flat rock he looks behind him but sees no one in pursuit.
Yet.
Glancing up the sloping cliff his heart stops when he spies a shadow along the top silhouetted by the moonlight. It’s too far away to tell if the shadow is looking at him but the way his skin is crawling he definitely feels like there are eyes upon him.
Hearing shouts carrying to him from back up the beach gets him moving again. Leaping from rock to rock he makes his way around the curve of the island. Leaping over a final inlet of water he chances a look back up top but no longer sees the shadow there.
Jumping down off the rocks he hurries to his canoe. Uncovering it quickly he pushes it toward the water but stops when he hears a branch break close by.
Removing his flashlight from the bag he snaps it on shining it in shaky arcs across the beach.
Nothing.
In all directions he’s alone though the clamor of voices is fast approaching. Chiding himself for not remaining calm he resumes pushing the canoe out to sea and in the glow of the flashlight notices for the first time the color of the water.
It is a blood red.
“What in the hell…?” he asks of no one.
A twig snapping nearby scares him into dropping his flashlight in the water as he turns around too fast. The glow of its light slowly fades away beneath the waves as it sinks in a slow spin.
Back up on the rocks a few feet away he sees the same shadow he saw on top of the bluff, only now he can make out a smile filled ear-to-ear with crooked teeth.
Standing in knee deep water he can hear the soldiers closing in on him. Ignoring the unmoving shadow, he reaches inside the canoe for the oars only to find one missing. His heart sinks.
A splash nearby alerts him to the fact that he is not alone. Whirling around he is just in time to get hit square in the face by the missing oar.
Collapsing in the water he joins the wispy beam of the flashlight in sinking beneath the crimson surface.
