Heat

Chapter 8: Night Walk

Chapter 8: Night Walk

Hurricane Road

10:47 P.M.

Hurricane Road ran north to south next to the Gulf. The bungalows along the sandy beach were sized differently, and most of their inhabitants were in bed. I slipped into a pair of sandals and walked outside, needing some fresh air. Perhaps a little exercise would help me sleep. I made a left on Hurricane Road and started to head south. The wind felt light, warm, and somewhat refreshing. Cicadas were a nuisance, but I had gotten used to them years ago. The moon shined almost full, an odd-shaped pool of dark blue and white.

Textbooks and word of mouth throughout the centuries described that Blue Torteese, a pirate in 1802, had docked The Sapphire Princess in Hurricane Bay. He’d gone on a rampage, raped two dozen women, seven men, and pillaged the small town for all it was worth. Legends spoke of a terrible hurricane, with eighty-foot-high waves that came looking for Blue Torteese that night. He and over one hundred civilians drowned. Survivors of the cataclysmic storm claimed the island forever haunted by Blue Torteese and his crew.

His ghost appeared naked on a few occasions throughout the last two centuries. Some claimed the pirate only wore his leather tricorn hat and sported an erection. Others, more men than women, claimed they were “touched” in their sleep by the horny and despicable pirate. Religious bodies were constantly flinging holy water over residential beds by those who said they were “molested” by Blue Torteese while dreaming. Children were always “seeing” the ghost floating on the Gulf like Jesus, grinning from ear to ear with a golden half-smile.

I didn’t believe in ghosts. Nor had I ever seen an apparition of Blue Torteese visiting Hurricane Bay. The truth of the matter unfolded as simple throughout the eons: Blue Torteese was a pirate and often visited Hurricane Bay. Yes, he did drown the night of July 6, 1802, because of a hurricane. But ghouls, demons, and spirits with erections were not real in Hurricane Bay or any other place in the world. Rather, those scary things were figments of the population’s imaginations. I had taken many midnight walks alone and perceived that those eye-rolling suggestions were bogus, untruths, and crazies talking.

Although six residents (names undisclosed because of legalities) had attempted to hire me to investigate the reality of Blue Torteese’s spirit, I declined all proposals and claimed the lot of buyers moronic and not worth my time. Many in Hurricane Bay were convinced that my agency just happened to partake in hauntings, supernatural activities, and anything to do with alien encounters, but they were severely wrong. Although business remained slow, HBIA prided itself as actually one of the leading investigative agencies on the Gulf Coast and assisted clients with missing persons, missing money, murders, abductions, cheating husbands, and runaway daughters or sons.

Other jobs included insurance fraud, arson, rape, domestic abuse, and theft. Not one job in the last three years, since the opening of my establishment, had I taken on a case that entailed ghost hunting, alien abduction, or spirit tracking. I enjoyed my work and career, believed Hurricane Bay one of the most exciting places in Florida to live, and wasn’t against seeing a pirate with an upright erection between his ghostly legs. Who was I to judge, right?

I walked for a mile on Hurricane Bay Beach, turned around at Leader Gas, Oil, and Electric Station, and headed back to Bungalow Sixteen. Still wide awake, unable to sleep, insomnia caused cruelty in my small world.