The male voice said, “No such thing.”
“One such thing,” said Eph. “He’s on our side, and I can explain—or try to—if you’ll give me a chance.”
Eph sensed the light source moving. Advancing on him. He stiffened, expecting an attack.
The male voice from the other light said, “Careful, Ann!”
The woman behind the light stopped about ten yards away from Eph, near enough that he could feel heat coming off the lamp. He made out rubber boots and an elbow behind the beam.
“William!” the female voice called.
William, the bearer of the other light, came running toward Fet. “What is it?”
“Take a good look at his face,” she said.
For a moment, Eph had both beams directly on him.
“What?” said William. “He ain’t no vamp.”
“No, dummy. From the news reports. The wanted man. Are you Goodweather?”
“Yes. Ephraim is my name.”
“Goodweather, the fugitive doctor. Who killed Eldritch Palmer.”
“Actually,” Eph said, “I was falsely accused. I didn’t kill the old bastard. I did try, though.”
“They wanted you real bad, didn’t they? Those motherfuckers.”
Eph nodded. “They still do.”
William said, “I don’t know, Ann.”
Ann said, “You’ve got ten minutes, asshole. But your so-called friend stays in the car, and if he tries to get out, you’re all fish food.”
Fet stood before the back of the Jeep, showing them the device and the timer he had attached by flashlight.
“Shee-it. A goddamn nuclear bomb,” said Ann, revealed to be a woman in her fifties with a long, fraying braid of gray hair, dressed in waders under a fisherman’s slicker.
“You thought it would be bigger,” said Fet.
“I don’t know what I thought.” She looked again at Eph and Fet. William—a man in his forties, wearing a wool sweater shaggy with pulls and droopy blue jeans—remained off to the side, both hands on his rifle. The lamps lay at his feet, one of them still turned on. The indirect light cast Mr. Quinlan, now standing outside the vehicle, in an intimidating cloak of shadows. “Except that your situation here is too bizarre to be untrue.”
Eph said, “We don’t want anything from you, except a map of these islands and a means to get out there.”
“You’re going to detonate this little fucker.”
Eph said, “We are indeed. You’ll want to relocate away from here, whether the island is more than a half mile offshore or not.”
“We don’t live here,” said William.
At first, Ann shot him a look that said he had told too much. But then she softened, allowing that she could be open with Eph and Fet since they had been open with her.
“We live out in the islands,” she said. “Where the damn stingers can’t go. There are old forts from the Revolutionary War out there. We’re in them.”
“How many?”
“All told there’s forty-two of us. Was fifty-six; we’ve lost that many. We’re in three living groups, ’cause even after the world’s ended some assholes still can’t get along. We’re mostly neighbors who didn’t know one another before this damn thing. We keep coming back to the mainland to scavenge for arms, tools, and food, kind of like Robinson Crusoe if you consider the mainland the shipwreck.”