Phantasmagoria: Island Encounter

The man, dark-bearded and burly she saw, stepped from the dock to the long walkway that led up to the house. Riley then realized he was carrying some object in his right hand. A hatchet.

Riley was home alone now.

Her husband had died less than a month ago in an awful accident while they were vacationing in Galveston. That might have seemed strange as a travel destination to many people, but the couple actually owned an island off the coast of Maine, purchased by James a couple of years before they met.

Winter was coming.

They would be stuck on the island for a long period, due to weather. That wasn’t unusual at all. It happened each and every year. The worst of the frigid weather lasted at least a couple of months.

So, they decided to visit Texas, which had been having an “Indian summer,” before that period of island isolation set in. The white Texas beaches were crowded, but James had promised her a real honeymoon, unlike the one following their wedding five years ago. His business then had been…