Dark Moon Walking by R. J. McMillen

so, so good to see you.”
    He smiled and opened the bag, reaching in to pull out a piece of salmon. He handed it to her, his smile widening as she snatched it and crammed it into her mouth.
    â€œOh, that’s so good!” She spoke around a mouthful. “I was ready to chew the bark off the trees!”
    He looked up the oddly twisted trunk that grew beside him. It was shedding its bark, jigsaw pieces of reddish brown wood flaking off to reveal the pale green cambium layer underneath. “Nah.” He smiled. “Not a good idea. It looks pretty, but it would taste terrible.”
    He turned back to find her staring at him, her eyes huge. “How can we be joking? They want to kill me!”
    â€œHow do you know? What happened?”
    She turned to look across to where the ship’s light danced in the darkness. When she answered, her voice was again tight with fear.
    â€œThere has to be a reason they’re hunting her,” Dan said.
    Walker and Dan were talking on the radio, and even though Dan’s voice was distorted, Walker could hear in it an odd, distant quality, a change in cadence that he recognized. He pictured Dan staring off into space, his eyes unfocused, as he leaned across the bridge. Ten years ago, when Walker had first met him across a scratched metal table in a cold and featureless interrogation room, Walker had mistaken that distant look for arrogance, had called him an “arrogant white bastard.” He had been wrong. It was Dan’s way of relaxing his mind so he could let it run free, sorting through the details, connecting the dots, noting the gaps in the story, trying to put it all together.
    â€œYou sure she didn’t see anything?”
    â€œNope. Came back from kayaking and they were waiting for her with guns,” Walker replied.
    â€œHuh. Gotta be something big. Drugs, most likely. Those containers could hold a lot of coke or heroin. That kind of money would make it worth going to a lot of trouble to get rid of her.”
    The radios fell silent as the two men considered the possibilities of the events that had occurred. Walker looked across at Claire, curled up on a bed of ferns beside him, her face slack in the depth of sleep. A faint hiss of static emanated from the speaker as he stared up into the dark bowl of the sky and watched the stars wheel overhead. It felt strange to be talking to Dan as an equal, stranger still to feel a sense of kinship, but it also felt right and natural, and he realized that he was enjoying it.
    The radio came to life again. “Thing I can’t figure out is why the hell they would sink it all, then hang around.” Dan sounded like he was mostly talking to himself, and Walker figured he didn’t expect an answer, so he didn’t offer one.
    â€œAny chance you can stay where you are for the night?” Dan’s voice had become strained. “I can’t get hold of Mike till tomorrow, but I’m going to see if he can get the guys in the marine division to send one of their boats up here to take a look. I’ll have to use the satellite radio to call him, so I need to be here, and it would be good if we knew whether the black ship was still anchored over there.”
    Walker heard the rushed words and understood that Dan was talking too much in an effort to deal with the discomfort he felt at making such an outrageous request. He smiled as he listened to the awkward pause that followed, remembering his own discomfort years ago sitting across from this man in that dingy interrogation room. It wasn’t just the situation that had changed; their roles had been reversed.
    Dan spoke again. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea to bring the dinghy over there now either. Sound carries really well at night, and it could be a problem if they hear us.”
    Walker looked around the rocky knoll they were sitting on and nodded to himself. He and Claire had talked about moving again, getting away