Blood and Bone: A Smattering of Unease Read Free Page A

Vitals were steady. No broken bones, but some deep contusions and a goose egg on the noggin. The worse diagnoses were exposure and dehydration.
    Troy could handle cuts, bruises, and the sunburn, but sent for the MedBot to administer the IV. Despite being a hunk of metal and wires, the MedBot was surprisingly competent and gentle.
    The reluctant host left the curtains closed and exited the dark room. It could be hours or even days before the intruder regained consciousness.
    He wasn’t about to take either of his boats out or send for medical help from the mainland, which was at least a couple of days away. According to the weather reports, the storm would hit within twenty-four hours, and he was fully equipped to take care of his uninvited guest for a week, if need be.
    On his way to throw the tattered shorts and shirt into the trash bin, he noticed the wallet in the shorts pocket. Surprised, he said. “How the hell did he not lose this ?”
    He attempted to pull some identification out of the wallet, but everything was wet and stuck together. One of the limp cards tore a little when he tried to peel them apart.
    “Nope.”
    He tossed the wallet, contents and all, into the dryer.
    He glanced at the clock in the living room as he rolled through. “Damn!” he uttered.
    The morning was nearly gone, and he was starving. All of the exertion of the last couple of hours had burned up what little fuel he had gained from his half-eaten breakfast.
    One of the pastimes that he truly enjoyed and didn’t use bots for was preparing food. He was too hungry to do a from-scratch lunch today, so he just heated his leftovers from the evening before and grabbed himself an imported brew. Smiling to himself beneath his overgrown, unruly moustache and beard, he said with a chuckle, “ Everything here is imported. I’m in the middle of nowhere!”
    He snapped his tray to his chair and returned to his favorite spot on the deck.
    He popped the top on his beer bottle. He held it up so that the early afternoon sunlight shone through the amber liquid.
    “To you,” he said, toasting the horizon.
    In the seventeen years he’d lived on the island, he’d experienced the wrath of five tropical storms: one in 2039, two in 2041, one in 2044, and one in 2046. He supposed he’d been lucky to not to have been hit more often. But then, maybe his island was easy to miss, just the size of a pinpoint in the vastness of the Pacific, and not even large enough to register on a map.
    He finished his lunch and rolled into the kitchen to clean up his dishes. He looked in on his uninvited guest, even though there was no need. If anything changed, his cell phone would beep. But he had to satisfy his curiosity.
    The human flotsam slept soundly, breathing easily. He hadn’t changed position. Troy was almost disappointed. Though people weren’t his strong suit, it had been months since he’d last had company.
    He snapped his fingers, suddenly remembering. “Wallet!”
    He pulled it out of the dryer and took it to the living room. He clicked on the satellite television, tuned it to the Weather Channel, and set himself to examining the contents of his guest’s wallet.
    “Hmm . . . coupla shopping discount cards . . . sixty-seven dollars . . . library card . . . destroyed photograph . . . aha! Driver’s license!” He held the item up in front of him as though he had won a prize.
    “Thomas Quinn. Age 33. Six-foot-one. Blue eyes. Blonde hair. Atlanta, Georgia.”
    Troy’s forehead wrinkled as he concentrated, waving the driver’s license to and fro as though fanning himself. “Thomas Quinn. Thomas Quinn . . . Tom Quinn . . . Tommy Quinn . . . Tommy Quinn .”
    His eyes widened and he felt the blood drain from his face as realization struck him. “No. It can’t be!” He picked up his glasses from their place on his tray and examined the photo, which had been protected from the salt water by its lamination. “Oh, shit.”
    Because it was . “How the hell .