Page 27 of Fated

“Wait. You know the rules.” His voice has that same rolling lilt the man had, and the old women under the tree. They’re speaking English, but I can’t place the accent.

“Are you a police officer?”

He ignores me, instead scanning the road behind me, then the road behind him. We’re at a junction where the road opens up, becoming almost wide enough to let two lorries pass each other without squeezing.

As the road opens there’s a sort of settlement across from the beach. The buildings here aren’t wood, instead they’re single-story concrete boxes, painted bright orange or goldenrod yellow. There are about a dozen of them, and on the farthest building—a marigold-orange one with a bead-curtain entry—there’s a painted sign that reads “Shop.”

I try to move around the man—a crossing guard, I think—but he steps in my path and holds out the stop sign.

“Excuse me. I need to get to the shop.”

“It’s the rules, isn’t it?”

“But I need to use the phone. It’s an emergency.”

“Emergencies don’t mean you break the rules. If we broke rules in emergencies, then the rules weren’t necessary to begin with.”

“Excuse me, but are you an officer?”

The tall man finally looks properly at me. He stiffens, standing even taller, and his shadow stretches across the gravel, giving me a tiny bit of shade. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I don’t belong here. A man back there took me. I need the police.”

“There isn’t no man back there but Aaron.”

Aaron.

Is that his name?

“Tall. Muscles. Tattoos. Black hair, brown eyes?—”

“I know what he looks like.” The man’s getting impatient. “Seems to me you’re the one who took him.”

“I didn’t!”

The man snorts.

“Are you the police or not?”

“You know there aren’t any police on island. They’re all on the big island.”

There aren’t any police? There aren’t any phones but one?

“If you’re not the police, what are you?”

“Crossing guard.”

“There aren’t any cars. Let me pass.”

“I’m not looking for cars.”

This place. It’s insane. None of these people make any sense.

“What are you looking for then?”

I check behind me to make sure the man—Aaron?—isn’t following me. He’s not in sight.

The man makes a disgusted noise. “Planes.”

---