2050: Psycho Island

by Williams, Phil M.

  In a daze, Summer watched Connor bleed out on the sand. Derek dropped his sword and turned from the carnage he’d created. Summer felt dizzy, her world spinning.

  “We have to go,” Gavin said.

  “That’s a woman,” one of the fans said.

  “We have to go,” Gavin repeated, this time with his hand on Summer’s shoulder.

  Another fan echoed the same sentiment.

  “He’s right,” Javier said, his eyes red and brimming with tears.

  Summer shook her head, trying to center herself, the world coming back into focus. She swallowed the lump in her throat, holding back her tears.

  They hurried from the stadium, blending in with the crowd. Javier and Gavin shielded Summer through the crowd, keeping her in between them. The men who’d discovered Summer’s secret were left in their wake.

  As they ran for the river, Summer struggled to keep up, her chest tight, and her mind flooded with images of Connor’s death.

  On the river, Javier and Gavin paddled, and Summer slumped in her canoe seat and cried. Beyond the river, the bay was choppy, the dark clouds closing in, and the temperature dropping. Summer gazed up at the clouds, pregnant with rain. Then she saw something she never thought she’d see again.

  An airplane. A little Cessna two-seater, similar to some of the wrecks she’d searched just three days earlier. If it hadn’t been flying so low and directly overhead, she might’ve missed it. The plane was quiet, as if it didn’t have a motor.

  “It’s the Netas,” Javier said. “They have electric planes.”

  Summer watched the plane fly into the distance, wishing she was on it, wishing she was headed back to civilization, back to Byron. A missile came from the heavens, the impact turning the little plane into a fireball, the wreckage falling into the ocean.

  80

  Naomi and CCCA

  “We have similar interests,” the CEO said.

  “We do,” Naomi replied.

  It was Monday, nearly lunchtime. Naomi sat at her desk in her congressional office, her encrypted cell phone to her ear, talking with the CEO of Corrections Construction Corporation of America, or CCCA for short.

  “The island prisons are barbaric, and I for one am thrilled that a politician is finally willing to take a stand against them,” the CEO said.

  Naomi frowned to herself. “I’m sure you are.”

  “If the island prisons are closed, those prisoners will have to be repatriated, but domestic prisons are in terrible shape. You’ll need a construction company with experience building prisons.”

  Naomi sighed. “What do you want? No-bid contracts?”

  The CEO chuckled. “I’m not looking to gouge the government. I’d like to make a healthy profit like any good businessman. In return, you’ll receive a good faith investment in your campaign.”

  “How much?”

  “Fifteen million Fed Coins to your super PAC.”

  Naomi leaned back in her chair, thinking for a moment. “Twenty-five million.”

  “If you don’t win the presidency, this is money down the drain.”

  “If I do, your company will receive at least a twenty billion Fed Coin contract. The more you donate, the more likely I’ll win.”

  “Twenty million,” the CEO said.

  “Twenty-two.”

  The CEO sighed. “Are you sure you’re not a capitalist?”

  “Are you sure you’re not a socialist?”

  The CEO chuckled again. “The real money’s in the public sector.”

  They made arrangements for the donations to be spread among CCCA and their subsidiary businesses. It wouldn’t be embarrassing for Naomi to be supported by CCCA, given her open stance against the island prisons. Having said that, it still looked better if the donations were spread out among different entities. She’d prefer to maintain the illusion of independence.

  Shortly after the call, Vernon entered her office, locking the door behind him. “So?” he asked.

  Naomi stood from her desk and strutted toward him on high heels. She smiled from ear to ear and said, “Twenty-two million Fed Coins.”

  Vernon nodded, grinning from ear to ear. “Corrinne better watch out.”

  Naomi wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him tight. She whispered in his ear. “Let’s go to the Mandarin and celebrate.”

  81

  Derek’s New Family

  After he’d killed Connor, Derek had thought he’d be given to a tribe of his choice. That’s what The Reaper had said. But Derek had no preference. He didn’t know one tribe from another. After his final fight, he’d been escorted back to the locker room, where The Reaper had waited.

  The Reaper had rapped him on the back and said, “Welcome to the Aryan Nation.”

  “I don’t understand,” Derek had replied. “Don’t I get to choose?”

  “The niggers do. I know the difference between an Italian and a sand nigger.” The Reaper had chuckled. “I know you’re white. That’s why you got the weakest opponents. We wanted two whites in the finals.”

  “That’s why they stabbed Jordan.” Derek had glared at The Reaper and his tattooed face.

  “Don’t fucking look at me that way, boy. You’re damn lucky we handicapped that big nigger. He would’ve killed you.”

  Derek hadn’t responded.

  “If the niggers knew the games were rigged, they’d stop coming. They want their team to win, just like we do. Good thing you won too. We might’ve had a riot on our hands.” The Reaper had laughed again. “Dumb niggers believed you were one of ’em. They get rowdy when whites win too much. We try to give ’em some equality.”

  Derek had been fed a decent meal of iguana meat and ripe mangos. He’d spent the night alone in the locker room, wishing Jordan were still with him. Derek had had multiple nightmares of being attacked by bloodthirsty demons that looked very much like the men he’d killed.

  The next morning, Derek had been given breakfast. The Aryan guards had treated him much better since his victory, but he was still a prisoner, stuck in the locker room alone. Derek had wondered, If I’m an Aryan now, why am I still a prisoner?

  Around lunchtime, he was escorted south of the stadium, through what looked like an old park. The Aryan guards still held him at machete point. Aryans by the hundreds had makeshift homes in the park. Some made from salvaged cinder blocks. Others looking more like foxholes and lean-tos.

  Derek was greeted with respectful head nods from his Aryan brothers. He saw a few women among them. The women were thin and zombielike and in short supply. Maybe one woman for every fifteen men. He’d even seen a few kids. Not many but they were there, barefoot, dirty, and underfed.

  They stopped on a riverbank. Alligators sunned themselves on the opposite riverbank, fifty feet away.

  “Strip,” one of the guards said.

  Derek hesitated, looking at what he thought were alligators.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll watch out for the caiman.” The Aryan guard cackled.

  “You need to look presentable for Wade,” an Aryan guard said. “Shit, as dirty as you are, he might think you’re a nigger.”

  The guards all laughed.

  Derek’s old prison uniform was caked in blood and sweat. He stripped in the summer sun and waded into the river, grime and blood dissolving into the current. He kept his eyes on the caiman across the river. Derek dipped his head underwater. He thought about swimming away from his guards, but then a caiman slipped into the water. Derek stepped from the water, clean and naked as the day he was born.

  “See? He’s white. Look at that white ass,” one of the guards said.

  They all laughed again. One of the guards handed him some clothes.

  Derek put on some obviously used, but relatively clean clothes. Army fatigues and a T-shirt. No underwear but sturdy dry socks. He kept his prison-issued boots.

  They walked along the river toward a small island. Two ropes were tied to a tree on the river bank and stretched about fifteen feet across the
river to a tree on the small island. One rope was low and near the surface of the water, the other rope about chest high on a man. One of the guards walked across the thick rope, using the upper rope to hold on to. Derek was prodded along.

  On the little island, a caiman hissed and splashed into the water. The Aryans didn’t react. They traversed another rope bridge, similar to the first, this one taking the men from the little island to the opposite side of the river.

  They walked through more park land and more makeshift Aryan housing. Poverty like nothing Derek had ever seen. Shoeless and shirtless people. Homes made from trash. Everybody gaunt and hungry. They moved into an area with cracking asphalt and the empty husks of houses, their roofs gone, only crumbling stucco and concrete remaining.

  As they moved deeper into the city, the houses were larger, better built, and separated by concrete fences. Many of the houses had thick concrete walls that had weathered the hurricanes. The original roofs were gone and replaced with thatch. The thatch certainly wasn’t hurricane proof, but the materials were replaceable.

  Two properties stood out above the others. The square properties were situated next to each other and surrounded by fifteen-foot-high concrete walls. Metal gates, large enough for a vehicle to pass through when open, were guarded by Aryans carrying rifles. One house was squat, modern, massive, and made entirely from concrete, the roof flat. It looked like a cross between a bunker and a mansion.

  The other house was more ornate, Spanish-style architecture, with white stucco walls, archways, and a mishmash of terra-cotta and thatch roofing. Both houses were sprawling mansions, but only one-story tall, their roofs shielded by the surrounding concrete walls.

  “Who lives there?” Derek asked, gesturing to the Spanish-style house.

  “The Reaper,” one of the guards said. “Wade Wallace lives in the other one.”

  “Who’s Wade Wallace?”

  “You’ll find out.”

  The Aryan guards led Derek down a narrow alley between the properties, so narrow that Derek could reach out and touch both concrete walls at the same time. Once through the alleyway, they approached the bunker-like house from the rear, knocking on a metal door in the wall. The door opened, and the Aryans guarding the door greeted and bullshitted with Derek’s guards.

  “You seen Wade’s new whore?” a guard asked.

  “I heard she’s fuckin’ hot,” another guard replied.

  “Shit. Best-lookin’ bitch I’ve seen on this island. As soon as he’s done, I’m gonna get my taste.”

  “Wade’s been fuckin’ this bitch nonstop.” The guard chuckled. “He got her walkin’ with a limp.”

  Derek stood impassive.

  One of the guards stared at Derek and said, “The Race War champ, huh? You don’t look like much.”

  Derek didn’t respond.

  “Time to meet the boss man. Let’s go.” He motioned for Derek to enter the property.

  Derek walked through the door and into the backyard. The guards who led him over the river left, handing Derek off to the Aryans who guarded the house. Derek was led through the backyard by three Aryans. A kidney-shaped pool held stagnant green water that smelled like sewage. An Aryan pulled weeds from the flagstone patio. Another clipped the hedges with rusty, manual pruners. The house looked much the same from the rear as it did from the front. A big boxy concrete bunker.

  It was slightly cooler inside than outside, and dimmer. Most of the windows were covered with plywood. The furniture was eclectic, like a college dorm, offering no consistent motif or style. A scratched pool table sat in the living room, with plastic chairs along one wall, a wooden bar along another.

  The guards nudged Derek down a long hallway. At the end of the hall, one of the guards knocked on the double doors.

  “Come in,” a raspy voice said.

  The guard stepped inside the room, shutting the door behind him. A minute later, the man returned to the hall and said, “He wants to talk to him alone.”

  One of the other guards glared at Derek and said, “We’ll be right out here. You try anything, we’ll cut off your arms and feed you to the fuckin’ caiman.”

  Derek stepped into the large room. The door closed behind him. The room smelled like sex and body odor. A large man with a gut lay on the king-size bed, a beautiful dark-haired woman at his side. The woman looked familiar. Where have I seen her before? … The beach. Derek remembered the girl hugging Connor’s friend. Mark’s sister.

  A stained sheet covered the mattress. The man wore shorts and nothing else. She wore nothing. Derek recognized him from the beach too. He was the Aryan in charge. Sunlight filtered through a tarp, covering a hole in the ceiling. Boxes labeled MEALS, READY-TO-EAT were stacked against the wall. Derek loitered by the door, unsure whether or not to approach.

  “Get your ass over here,” the man said, still in bed, his head propped on the headboard.

  Derek approached his side of the bed, stopping ten feet from the man.

  He gestured to the woman. “Not bad, huh?”

  Derek nodded, not wanting to offend. She was beautiful, but her neck was covered in finger-size bruises, and her eyes were still and empty, like she was in a dissociative state. She had infected bite marks on her chest, the pattern consistent with a human being. One with a dirty mouth and probably missing a few teeth.

  “What’s your name?” the man asked.

  “Derek Reeves.”

  “Reeves. That’s an English name, right?”

  “I don’t know,” Derek replied.

  Wade sat up, placing his feet on the floor. He grabbed a generic wine bottle from the end table and gulped the liquid like water. He stood with a groan.

  Derek took a step back, the big man smelling like alcohol.

  “You’re part of the fucking problem.” The man pointed at Derek. “It’s okay for everyone to be proud of their heritage but not us. We’re supposed to be meek. We’re supposed to bow down to the niggers of the world. That shit stops right now. You understand me?”

  “Yes.”

  The man took a deep breath, his gut moving up and down. He had a brown and white beard that hung to his chest. His arms and calves and upper body were covered in an amalgamation of ink, most of the tattoos unreadable. One tattoo was prominent and legible. His stomach was largely untouched by ink except for the large swastika tattoo.

  “Name’s Wade Wallace. Wallace is a Scottish name. Your people raped and pillaged mine.”

  Derek swallowed.

  “But that’s how conquest works. The strong survive. The spoils go to the victors. I’m the President of the Aryan Nation on this island.” Wade held out his large hand.

  Derek shook the man’s hand, trying not to wince under his iron grip.

  “Where did you come from?” Wade asked.

  “Virginia. Shenandoah Valley.”

  Wade nodded. “I had kin that lived in Luray. Beautiful countryside.”

  Derek nodded.

  “Why are you here?”

  “I failed the test.”

  “We all failed the test. Why were you given the test?”

  “I killed a man.”

  “Why’d you go and do that?”

  “Revenge.”

  “Don’t gimme that vague bullshit. What did the man do to you?”

  “He raped and killed my girlfriend.”

  Wade nodded his approval. “What was the man’s name?”

  “Zhang Jun.”

  “Let me guess. This piece of shit was some rich fucking chink who thought he could come to America and rape our women. Am I right?”

  “He was the CEO of the Bank of China.”

  Wade roared with laughter, his gut moving up and down, his tattoos coming to life. His teeth were grayish-yellow, a few gaps here and there. He rapped Derek on the back. “And a banker to boot. Damn, boy. Sounds like you killed two birds with one stone. I like you. You’ll fit in just fine.”

  “What happens to me now?”

  “Well, that’s enti
rely up to you. You’re property of the Aryan Nation. If you’re a loyal brother, you’ll do well. I already know you can handle yourself.” He held his arms out, gesturing to his massive bedroom. “Maybe one day you’ll have a house like this and a bitch like that.” He laughed again. “I never had a house this nice until they shipped me here.” Wade gestured to the hole in the ceiling. “It would be perfect if I didn’t have that goddamn hole in the roof. This place was built to withstand hurricane-force winds, but the last one picked up a piece of concrete and dropped it right through my roof. Ten feet over and it would’ve killed me. I can’t swing by the fucking Home Depot and fix it. That’s the biggest problem with this place. We’re living off the decaying carcass of civilization. That’s why we’re always scavenging and raiding camps, always looking for things we can use. You’ll start off working on a raider crew. You ever hear of Roger Kroenig?”

  “The congressman who quit and then disappeared?”

  “He didn’t disappear. They sent that fucking traitor here. He has a group holed up in an old Spanish fort. Huge walls, thick stone. Nearly impenetrable. But they’re not self-sufficient. They have to go out for supplies. Sometimes they send women. We’re planning a snatch-and-grab mission tonight.”

  82

  Jacob’s Resignation

  Jacob went into the office that Monday to tie up a very big loose end before he and Rebecca traveled to the Virgin Islands. Ramesh sat across from him at his desk.

  “I’m resigning,” Jacob said.

  Ramesh’s mouth hung open for a moment. “I don’t understand. You do know that we’ll eventually be bailed out by the federal government. I’m certain of it.”

  Jacob nodded. “I know.”

  “Have you filed the paperwork?”

  “I’m working on it now.”

  “I implore you to reconsider,” Ramesh said. “Our CEO resigning during this turbulent time could spark renewed short-selling. At least wait until you return from your trip. I can handle your duties in the meantime.”

  Jacob sighed, thinking that a few more weeks of his CEO salary would certainly pad the nest egg. “I might as well use my vacation time.”