I might never sleep again, he thought.
And Roger Roothaus had not believed the “bum in the tree” story!
Asked Krimmler if he’d been drinking. Suggested he take a vacation, drive the Winnebago up to Cedar Key or Destin.
“Nothing’s happening on the island anyway,” Roger Roothaus had said. “Not until we hear otherwise from Mr. Clapley. So go enjoy yourself. It’s on me.”
Krimmler protested. Insisted he felt fine. A bum really did break into my camper and beat me up and drag me up a goddamn tree. And left me stranded there, Roger! I had to crawl down in a blinding rainstorm. Nearly broke my ass.
Man, I’m worried about you, Roothaus had said.
You should be!
Don’t say a word about this to Mr. Clapley, OK?
But Clapley sent a guy, too., another freak who busted into my place and roughed me up. He had snuff tapes—
I gotta take another call, Roothaus had said curtly. You get off the rock for a while, Karl. I’m serious.
But Krimmler had no intention of leaving Toad Island, because a general never abandoned the battleground, even for an all-expenses-paid beach vacation. So Krimmler loaded his.357 and hunkered down in the Winnebago to await the next intruder.
Hours passed and nobody came, but the pulse of the island murmured ominously at his door. The breeze. The seabirds. The rustle and sigh of the leaves. Krimmler was a haunted man. Besieged by Nature, he possessed the will and armaments to fight back—but no troops. Truly he was alone.
Oh, to hear the familiar backfire of an overloaded dump truck, the plangent buzz of chain saws, the metallic spine-jolting ploink of a pile driver… how Krimmler’s soul would have cartwheeled with joy!
But the earth-moving machines he so loved sat mute and untended, and with each passing moment the cursed island resurged; stirred, blossomed, flexed to life. Locked inside the dank-smelling travel camper, Krimmler began to worry for his own sanity. He was teased and tormented by every cry of a sandpiper, every trill of a raccoon, every emboldened bark of a squirrel (which he had come to dread nearly as much as he dreaded chipmunks). The onset of a blustery dusk only seemed to amplify the primeval racket at Krimmler’s door, and to drown the din he slammed a Tom Jones CD into the stereo. He turned on all the lights, wedged a deck chair under the doorknob, crawled under the covers—and waited for a slumber that would not come.
Outside the window, Toad Island mocked him.
Krimmler plugged his ears and thought: I might never sleep again.
He squeezed his eyelids together and spun a plot. At dawn he would commandeer one of the bulldozers and start mowing down trees, purely for therapy. Jump into a D6 and plow a wide dusty trench through some quiet, piney thicket. Fuck you, squirrels. Welcome to your future.
Krimmler smirked at the idea.
After a while he sat up and listened. The Winnebago had fallen silent except for a steady dripping on the roof from wet branches overhead. Hurriedly Krimmler snatched up the.357 and went to put in another CD.
That’s when he heard the cry, unlike anything he’d heard before. It began as a low guttural moan and built to a winding, slow-waning Scream. The hair rose on Krimmler’s forearms and his tongue turned to chalk. The scream was mighty enough to be that of a large cat, such as a panther, but nerdy Dr. Brinkman had said all panthers had long ago been shot or driven out of northwest Florida. In fact (Krimmler recalled), Roger Roothaus had explicitly inquired about the possibility of panthers on Toad Island, because the animals were listed as a protected species. One measly lump of scat and Uncle Sam could padlock the whole Shearwater operation, possibly forever.
Again the unearthly cry arose. Krimmler shuddered. What else could it possibly be but a panther? That goddamn Brinkman! He lied to us, Krimmler thought—a closet bunny-hugger, as I always suspected! That would explain why he disappeared all of a sudden; probably ran off to squeal to the feds.
Krimmler jerked open the door of the Winnebago and glared into the blue fog and drizzle. The cat scream seemed to be coming from the same upland grove where he had ordered the oak toads buried. The quavering yowl sounded almost human, like a man slowly dying.