by C B Cox
I close my eyes and gather my thoughts. As I do so, the buzzing in my head subsides and I hear the wind above the din of the motor. I open my eyes. The bow dips sedately into the ocean. The engine has died. I stare at it in utter disbelief.
What now?
I snag the start cord in my good left hand and yank hard. The motor whines, splutters and fails to start. I try again. Not even a splutter. I twist off the gas cap and peer inside. I reposition my head to allow moonlight to enter. I see shiny metal. The gas tank is empty.
“Shit!” I spit and launch my right foot at the transom below the motor. I stub my toe. The boat rocks uncontrollably. I sit and regain my balance, clutching my foot. I look around. Spot a jerry can under a tarp. Spare fuel. I lift it against my ear and shake. Liquid sloshes around inside.
There is a God!
I spin the screw top open and sniff. My joy is short-lived. It’s not fuel, it’s water. I need a paddle. It’s notable by its absence.
The boat is drifting towards a rocky headland less than a hundred yards distant.
Holy crap!
I hear a sound like a fly trapped inside a jar. The buzz gets louder, more intense. I’m forced to steer my gaze away from the headland and the rocky foreshore, to investigate the source.
The buzzing increases to a crescendo. I hear the ocean split by the bow of a boat. A dark shape passes close by my left eye.
My world goes black.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Day 33
A fire tender races to a fire along a city street inside my ears. The ringing bell sound starts low and increases to a crescendo. My breathing is shallow and labored, yet my heart threatens to punch a hole through my chest wall. A scab forms on my swollen lip. An icy sword rips through my tailbone, lancing my internal organs.
I open my eyes, or at least I try to. My left cheek pulsates. It feels bruised. Pus glues my right eye almost shut, except for the narrowest of slits through which I can see my eyelashes. My world has gone from nothingness to a blur of dull colors. I try to focus. Strain through my ‘good’ left eye. I wish I hadn’t bothered.
I’m sat in a large basement. Damp claws at my skin. The fetid air is heavy with mildew. It makes me want to puke. I fight the urge. Cold seeps into my bones. A solitary, low wattage filament bulb hangs on a naked cord in the center of the ceiling. It sways on a draft. It casts long, languid shadows across a barren concrete floor, plaster finished walls and white painted timber boarded ceiling. There’s an ancient boiler and several sets of metal shelving units stacked with old paint cans.
When I try to move, the shackles around my ankles and wrists tighten. I’m tied to a low metal stool bolted to the floor with anchors. Someone, I’ve no idea who, has welded metal angles to the legs, secured by anchors into the concrete slab. As I shift my weight, the shackles rattle and clang. My head spins. My teeth chatter uncontrollably.
How did I get here? How long I’ve been here?
I’ve no idea. I draw breath. Summon energy. Yell for help. Only a weak moan passes swollen lips.
I’m a prisoner.
I have to get out of here.
I concentrate hard on my eyelids and force my sticky eye to open a quarter-inch. It doesn’t make what I see any less scary. The room is a blank canvas. There are no doors or windows. No obvious entry or exit points. The walls are rough, whitewashed plaster. A metal bracket digs into my right shoulder blade when I try to support my back. Rust-colored stains course down the walls at irregular intervals from the timber boarded ceiling. Dinner plate sized cobwebs span every nook and cranny and are grotesquely exaggerated with every swing of the bulb.
Three feet above my head, the ceiling vibrates and floorboards creak. Footsteps rattle across a timber floor. I try hard to quieten the tinnitus. The footsteps cease. The creaks fall silent. A ticking clock fills the white space between the silence. I’m just about to exhale, when the clock chimes.
Bong. Bong. Bong. Bong. Four o’clock.
I wonder if it’s morning or afternoon? There’s no way of knowing. I feel nauseous. I start to drift off. The fluid in my ear canal shifts.
Sleep takes me.
Chapter Forty-Eight
When I wake, the muscles in the back of my neck ache. While I’ve been sleeping, my head has been resting on my breastbone. A patch of spittle covers my shirt at the neck. I must have passed out.
I’m alone and scared.
I’ve no concept of how long I’ve been asleep, but the basement is no longer freezing. There’s warmth to the air, accentuating the musty stench. Beads of sweat trickle down my forehead and the saltiness stings my ruptured eye. The ringing in my ears has returned. Somewhere, past the ceiling, a clock ticks. The light bulb continues to swing in the draft. Weird shadows shimmer over every surface. I desperately need to pee. My mouth is Sahara dry.
I tug at the chains, swiftly conclude it’s futile. As my mind awakens, my imagination does it’s worst.
Where am I?
Who’s doing this to me?
Why?
I’m not ready to die…
I close my eyes in the desperate hope it might stop my mind from performing macabre gymnastics. Instead, it’s like flash cards are being held up in front of my face.
Technicolor images whizz past. Bella floppy in my arms. A bloodied Levi performing a pagan dance perilously close to a cliff edge: stag antlers protruding from his skull. Curtis Jackson stroking Martha’s hair, casting a malevolent grin at me. Charles Madison rattling an oversized bunch of keys in my face. Snakes slithering from the empty eye sockets of a human skull and crawling up my calf. Dorothy Wiley wrapping my face in bandages. A plank of wood crashing against my skull. A faceless figure dragging me across a beach, dumping me unceremoniously down a hole…
The clock strikes the hour. I count six bongs. I jerk. My eyes fly open. I’m released from the nightmare.
Six o’clock.
I slow my breathing in time with the ticking clock. The pain is intolerable.
Will it always be like this?
The growl of dry hinges brings me back to the present. I jerk upright, but my wrists are tied securely. Cold steel digs into my skin. White light floods in and momentarily blinds me. Dust mites float in the dim light cast from the bulb. I glance left and watch a man-sized rectangle of wall move toward me. I realize I’m watching a secret door swing open. I hold my breath. The light dims. A long shadow falls over me. I close my eyes and listen as ragged footsteps shuffle towards me.
The footsteps cease.
Someone leans over me. I feel their presence. Their breath.
“Look at me. Open your eyes,” he says, dispassionately. I squeeze my eyes a little tighter. I can’t look. Won’t look.
“I said… Look at me,” he repeats. He’s calm, not angry or agitated. I try to process what I’m hearing. Endeavor to recognize his voice. The voice inside my head instructs me to keep my eyes closed.
“Hope. Look. At. Me,” he says, injecting menace.
He knows who I am. This isn’t some random abduction.
I mustn’t look at him. If I open my eyes, there will be no way back.
The ringing in my ears increases. It ceases when my head strikes the wall with a dull thud. I gaze at the ceiling.
“Please. Don’t,” I beg, steering my gaze to the ceiling.
He grabs a clump of my hair, drags my chin onto my chest.
“Look. At. Me! I’m through with your silly games.”
My eyes won’t obey. I’ve no desire to see the person in front of me.
Because I know who it is.
Chapter Forty-Nine
The stool leg screeches across the unyielding concrete and cuts through the ringing in my ears. My eyelids are welded together. I will not look at my jailer. To open my eyes will make this nightmare real. It will empower my captor. Make me his.
Warm breath tickles my cheek.
I hear him sit. The chair groans under his weight. He sniffs. Expels a weary sigh. Snorts like
an angry steer being corralled.
“I need water,” I rasp.
“Look at me,” he barks.
“Please. I need something to drink. Water. Anything,” I say.
Silence fills the space between us.
“Tell me why you came here?” he asks. “In the first place.”
I don’t understand the question.
“You brought me here,” I say flatly. “Please. Some water.”
“Stop being a smart-ass. I asked you why you came to Tern Island?”
What does he want from me? He knows why I’m here. It’s my home. My island. I’m here to write. My right hand aches. I purse my lips.
He growls, then roars, like a man possessed. He is possessed. Metal scrapes across concrete: the chair being pushed back, I presume.
I won’t look.
“Answer me. Bitch!” Spittle mists my face. His rampant breath hot against my cheek. “Well?”
I squeeze my hands into fists and yank on the chains.
From nowhere, my terror morphs into anger. I’m no longer afraid of him. It’s as if his resentment has pushed me beyond fear. My life is worthless unless I drum up the courage to overcome my worst fears. The realization emancipates me. Dread evaporates like dew on a hot summer morning. I feel empowered. I can do anything. I’m unstoppable. The situation can’t get any worse than it already is. Death, pain, torture, let’s see what tools he’s got in his toolbox? I just need to know why?
I open my eyes and see, Curtis Jackson.
I meet his evil stare with a glower of my own. I dig deep and spit in his face. He recoils too late. Wipes the spittle away with his sleeve.
He laughs a Joker’s laugh. Leans in close. “Do that again, and you’re signing your death warrant. I’ll string you up like one of Wiley’s rabbits.”
“Just like you did the others?”
“Ugh, what do you know? You’re nothing. A nobody. No one will ever miss you. I’ve made certain of that,” he says, turning and pacing the austere basement like a caged animal.
“Can you be sure I won’t be missed?” I’m defiant.
He races at me with balled fists, bared teeth, face contorted into a wide-eyed, crazed sneer. He stalls an inch from my face. “Oh, I’m sure, all right. You don’t know me,” he screams. “You’ve no idea what I’m capable of. What I’ve done to protect what’s rightfully mine.” His face turns crimson. Eyes pop. His manic words are spat with the venom.
“You’re going to kill me anyway,” I say, without emotion, pausing. “So before you do, why don’t you get whatever’s bugging you off your chest?” There is no heat in my voice. I elect to meet his fury with calm.
He steps back. Collects the chair from the floor, strides over, spins it around in front of me and positions the chair to face me. He casts his right leg over the chair and man splays with his chest pressed forward against the chair back. He casts his head back and pushes his fingers through his hair. Studies me, as if it’s the first time we’ve met.
“You want to know the truth?”
“Yes. Why do I have to die?” I say. It’s the truth. My truth. The only truth I have left.
“Tern Island … is … mine. Always was. Always will be. You and your soon to be ex-husband, stole it from me.”
“We didn’t steal it, Curtis. Your father, he sold it to us. We were helping him out. Helping you out. Getting your father out of a hole.”
He snorts. His eyes roll to the ceiling.
A silent minute passes. He breathes deep. Lowers his head. He seems calmer. The burn in his eyes slightly diminished.
“My father had no right to sell it in the first place. It wasn’t his to sell. The island was the only sanctuary I ever had from the selfish, self-important bastard. Son-of-a-bitch never cared for me, or Mom. His only motive for selling was to keep me away from it. Stop me from doing ‘wicked things.’ Those are his words, not mine. I mean, what did he know? He only ever lived a charmed life.”
I shrug. “Lots of parents don’t understand their children. It’s a generational thing. I’m sure he didn’t mean to hurt you,” I say.
Can I drag him back from the brink?
“Ugh. You really believe that? He hated the very bones of me. I was never good enough. Everything I did. Everything I became. Bastard even gave more attention to that sniveling runt, Levi. He showed him how to tie a hook, but not me. He confined me to my room until I’d finished the extra homework he’d set me, to his entire satisfaction. He’d spend hours sitting on the rocks by the causeway dangling a line in the ocean with that retard, Levi, fluffing his hair, making small talk, shooting the shit. I watched them from my bedroom window, while I did my homework. I’m convinced he did it to wind me up. I showed him though. I’d sneak out and go hide in the woods whenever I got the chance.”
He shakes his head, as if he can’t fathom something. Huffs and spins his gaze towards the opening in the wall. “Do you know something, they lived in this house for almost three decades and had no idea this part of the basement and tunnel existed. It dates from The War of Independence. I mean, how stupid can you be? Christ’s sake, it actually pre-dates the house. The house was built around it. There’s a secret opening. I worked it out. Kids are much smarter than adults. It was my secret.”
He’s in a world of his own – a world of memories.
“Anyway… It’s my tunnel and my goddamned island. I come and go as I please. When I was a kid – long before you came – I used the tunnel to escape from him whenever I could. At high tide, it came into its own. It’s completely waterproof. I could visit my shack with no one knowing. Hide out. Set traps. Hunt. Regular as clockwork, I’d leave the dead rabbits on the doorstep for mother to find. Blame Levi, to spook her out.” He runs a hand over the stubble on his chin.
He’s reliving the memory.
“Levi was a snitch. Even at school he used to get me into trouble. Tell the teachers I was bullying him or stealing his lunchbox. I showed him. He didn’t dare cross me after…”
He stalls.
“Did you push Levi over the cliff?” I can’t help myself.
“You’ve been talking to Dorothy, haven’t you?”
I shrug.
“Old hag can’t keep her big mouth shut. I warned her that if she ever told a living soul what really happened, I’d do the job right and take great delight in finishing Levi off. It would be an act of mercy.” He raises his hand to the side of his head, forms the shape of a gun and mimes pulling the trigger.
“No, it wasn’t Dorothy. Your version of what happened, it was much too neat,” I say. I don’t want him going after Dorothy, when he’s finished with me.
“Well, anyway… It’s irrelevant now. Levi can’t tell and neither will you.”
He leans forward, closes the gap between us. Our eyes meet. I look deep into his eyes. The soft hazel flecks burn amber with resolve.
“My father tried to make amends by offering the Wileys money. It was a grave error. He might as well have admitted that it was me that pushed Levi over. I told him I’d kill Levi if he didn’t stop giving him all the attention. As usual, he ignored me. He kept on treating Levi like his son. Asshole was devoid of emotional intelligence.”
He falls silent. The silence lasts a quarter minute.
“Before I pushed him over, Levi was plain stupid. I just helped him along his journey to becoming the complete retard, you see today.” He rears back, grinning.
“Is that why your father sent you away to boarding school? To stop you from killing Levi?”
I twist the chains on my ankles and wrists. Think about asking for water. Think better of it. Elect to keep him talking.
“No. My father sent me away after I tried to kill him. We had an argument about me wanting a shotgun for my birthday. Of course, he said no. It was mother who talked me out of it. I had a knife at his throat. I would’ve cut him like a stuck pig if she hadn’t stopped me.” He wipes spittle from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes narrow an
d burn into mine. He waits for me to react. When I stare straight back, he continues to describe his macabre life story.
“After that, he was terrified of me. He stopped associating with the Wileys. Kept Levi at arm’s length. Mind you, he couldn’t keep me away from the island for the entire summer. He’d avoid me like the plague. Stay in New York for the duration in the company condo. I was just a kid, yet he was petrified of me. I didn’t mind. It meant I could spend every day here on the island, alone. Everyone thought of the island as mine. It was an open secret around these parts. I loved the notoriety,” he says, with a grim smile.
“But your father didn’t sell the island until much later. Why? He must have wanted to keep it in the family to placate you?”
“You’re so fucking naïve. I’ve told you already, you don’t know me. Nobody does. He underestimated me. He assumed he’d managed the problem by sending me away to boarding school, in the hope it would instill some discipline in me. He actually believed I’d grow up to be a ‘fully functioning citizen.’ His words, not mine. It was never going to happen. By then, I was irreparably damaged. I knew what I was… What I am… I like it. I like getting a boner on from hurting and killing things. I can’t get enough of watching living things suffer: rats, rabbits, deer, retarded boys, you name it, I like it… The more they bleed, the better I like it. I acknowledge that I overstepped the mark when I killed the hiker girl, though.”
He gazes at me. There’s longing in his eyes. A void begging to be filled by notoriety, recognition. He’s gauging my reaction. I feel a lump in my throat rise and fall, but remain absolutely still. I can’t let him see me react.
“That girl, she tried to make a fool of me. Huh. That was never going to happen. She’d had a fight with her dumbass boyfriend. I’d been watching them from the shack. He took off. Left her alone on the beach. She cried for a while, and when I approached her to ask if she was okay, we got talking. In the blink of an eye, she downright forgot all about her boyfriend. She said he was an asshole. Said she’d wanted to split with him for months. I suggested we take a walk in the woods. She said, why not? She was real friendly. Laughed at my jokes. She said she was hot and undid two buttons on her shirt. She had boobs to die for. She was much older than me. I assumed she understood what a walk in the woods really meant. But when I tried to kiss her, she called me a freak and ran away. I got scared. Thought she might go running to the police saying I raped her. I couldn’t let that happen. After what happened with Levi, the police already had me in their sights. So, I ran after her. Football tackled her to the ground. Dragged her off to the tunnel. Where no one could hear her scream.” He smirks. “Am I frightening you?”