She chuckled softly. "What did you call it, Ryland? Savaging?"

As if on her command, the gates battered open with rusty squeals.

Snorting and squealing, the animals trundled out of their pens.

Dr. Mulligan's trigger finger was still twitching when the pigs set upon him.

18

Shipwreck

THE WATER WAS so cold Sheila thought it might literally stop her heart. She gasped, sucking in a mouthful of salt water as a wave slapped her in the face.

The undertow sucked her back toward the ocean. She kicked and paddled against it and another swell launched her forward, toward the rocks rising from the churning surf.

Already her hands and feet were chilled to the bones.

She couldn't see the others. Only heard their screams.

A terrible groan rose above the screams. An echoing boom. The ferry had hit the rocks but she didn't dare twist around to look. The surf would pull her away if she did. She had to keep swimming forward, keep fighting against the undertow.

The second she turned back it would be over.

Gasping, plunging forward, she called out Martin's name. He didn't call back.

The dog swam by easily on a swell, looking like a drowned rat. Its owner cried "Duchess!" from somewhere behind her.

Sheila tried to reply but a wave rolled over her and salt water filled her mouth and nose. She choked, coughing madly. Her arms were frozen, exhausted. She had to keep moving but the urge to give up nearly overcame her.

In the next instant a wave threw her onto a rocky outcropping, slick with algae. A seagull perched there stepped back from her and regarded her curiously with its yellow eyes. Then it flew off, shrieking, into the sky.

She caught her breath, hugging the wet, freezing rock. All around her passengers fought the current, their life jackets bright orange blobs bobbing against dark blue.

Impossible to tell which if any of them were Martin.

She looked back at the island. The beach, the trees, the bluffs, all fuzzy and indistinct, shimmering with sparkles of sunshine. For a moment, the scene seemed utterly unreal. As if she were hallucinating it. A mirage.

Look, Daddy! The island sparkles!

The little boy on the ferry had seen it. Sheila and Martin and the boy's father had looked at each other, mystified.

She saw it now. Even after she blinked to clear her vision of salt water. Like every molecule was dancing, every object still deciding what it could be. Like she was looking at the world without its clothes on.

Maybe I hit my head, she thought.

Duchess the dog splashed onto the beach and the shimmer vanished instantly, everything around the animal swimming into clear focus. Solid rock. Clamshell-littered gray sand. Long strands of seaweed. Grungy seafoam.

Another wave splashed over her, slapping her back to reality. The fear for her life, for the others. The damp chill in her bones.

Rolling to her left, she saw the ferry had slammed into the jagged rocks and tipped over. Several long gashes on its hull took on more water each time the waves withdrew.