Red Sand

by Ronan Cray

  “How do you know he hasn’t done the same for you?” Eddie asked.

  Paul patted the bag at his hip. “He hasn’t been up here. I left salt on the floor of the cave. Ours are the first footprints. I only kept the fabric here. The rest of it is at the top of Mount Elvis. I need your help to get everything up there.”

  It was a long time before anyone spoke. They listened to the wind and the rain outside. No one looked forward to going out again.

  An hour later, the wind started to die down. Paul thrust his head out of the cave. “This is it! It’s the eye! I knew it! We have to hurry!” Paul threw the backpack over his shoulder and waved them on. “Let’s make it quick!”

  Mason looked over the side again on his way out of the cave. He wished he hadn’t. The Creepers were now within ten meters. He couldn’t believe how far up the mountain they’d come!

  Loaded down with supplies, battered by the wind, and soaked with rain, Mason felt he could hardly move. The spines of some type of fish poked through a plastic bag and stabbed him with every step. He leaned into the storm to make any headway at all. If it hadn’t been for the relative shelter of the large rocks around them, they couldn’t move.

  At last, the others disappeared over a ridge. Mason heaved up and into the volcano’s vast crater. Even dripping wet, cold, sore, and exhausted, he felt elated at reaching the peak. Climbing any mountain is an accomplishment, and he doubted anyone who ever scaled Mt. Everest did so under these odds. Amy even gave him a little hug.

  The cone of the volcano collapsed on itself long ago, leaving a large, flat section of rock sheltered by ragged teeth of projecting stone. A crescent shaped section fell away into a chasm. A precarious looking rope bridge swung across the precipice. On the other side, a crude platform, charred and crumbling, stood against the gray sky.

  Paul found new energy. “Before we built the raft, we built an observation tower up here to signal passing ships. We only used it once. Dragos thought he saw a ship on the horizon, so, in desperation, we lit it on fire as a beacon. No one came. By the time anyone thought of rebuilding it, we’d gotten involved in the raft project. There you go…”

  Amy accepted his arm as he pulled her over a boulder. “Thank you.”

  Mason smiled. Even under these circumstances, Paul was courteous as a camp director.

  His mood changed when he saw the bridge. It looked like it hadn’t been used in years. Like everything else, the ropes were plastic bags twisted and woven together. The wind pulled it sideways, like an invisible hand drawing a slingshot.

  Paul bounced across the bridge like a walk in the park, but the other three watched with suspicion. He waved them on. “It’ll hold.”

  Mason comforted Amy. “It’s ok. You go first, and I’ll be right behind you. Just hold on tight, and I’ll talk you through it.” She took a few tentative steps out, and he followed her.

  The dying rain coated the plastic in a slick sheen. His shoes squeaked as he stepped onto the rope. He couldn’t see the bottom of the pit. The bridge glistened like a spider’s web and felt just as insubstantial. The wind pushed it down and out, leaning his body over the cut.

  The rolled up plastic pinched the palms of his hands whenever he shifted his weight. Every step shivered through the structure. He offered Amy encouragement, but his voice telegraphed his own doubt.

  Paul reached the other side, still talking. “It took months to smuggle everything up here. I kept the balloon portion back in the cave to prevent any suspicion, while I assembled the basket and propulsion up here. It was even harder than I thought it would be. I had all the time in the world, though, right? It was a lot of work for just one man...” he drifted off. The sudden absence of his voice was jarring.

  “So?” Eddie stopped in the middle of the bridge. “What? What aren’t you telling us?”

  Paul looked at the ground sheepishly. “You know I never fit in with Tuk’s crowd. They were so damn sycophantic, and they all knew each other. I couldn’t play politics. That’s how I ended up at Departure Camp in the first place. The truth is, they never wanted me to survive. But I did. Six goddamn years stuck on this island, a castaway among castaways.

  “When I built the balloon, I didn’t think there’d be anyone coming with me. So…” again he drifted off, unable to say it.

  Eddie tensed visibly. “Oh, crap. I don’t believe it.”

  “What?” Amy asked, concerned. “What’s he saying?” She hadn’t been listening, focusing instead on where each step would lead her.

  Mason heard. He understood.

  At that instant, he heard a click behind him. He to look at Eddie.

  Eddie’s left arm wrapped around the bridge to free up his right hand. That hand held a revolver aimed at Mason. “You know what he’s saying, Mason.”

  Amy couldn’t turn her head, so she cried, “What? What’s going on?”

  Mason frowned. “This isn’t the time…”

  Eddie interrupted. “He’s saying, Amy, there isn’t room in the basket for all of us.”

  To Mason, he growled, “We have unfinished business, you and I.” Eddie smiled. “It seems to me, this is the best time to settle it. One less man in the boat.”

  Paul stood staring at the ground in shame, so he didn’t see the gun. Now he looked up. “Jesus, Eddie, where did you get that thing?”

  “What thing?” Amy asked.

  Eddie ignored the others. “Lucky for me, we won’t be deciding democratically.”

  Mason raced through his memory. Back on the ship, when Eddie shot Bailey, how many shots was it? The ship blew up immediately afterward. The ensuing chaos made it hard to focus on details.

  Five shots. The revolver only held six. Mason slid his hand in his pocket. He remembered pocketing Tuk’s dinner knife after he slit the skylight open. He didn’t know what he would do with it. A knife wouldn’t help him in a gunfight. Cut the bridge and swing to the other side? Or maybe he could…

  The pocket was empty. It must have slipped away. He was defenseless.

  New plan.

  “You’ve only got one shot left,” he thought aloud.

  “I only need one.”

  “Put down the gun, Eddie,” Paul called out.

  “Gun! What gun?” Amy shouted, crying now. “Would somebody please tell me what the hell is going on!?”

  “Infidelity is an ugly thing, Mason. Punishable by death in many countries. She got what she deserved.”

  Mason felt full disclosure was the wisest policy at this point. “I slept with his wife,” he said loudly so the others could hear. Perhaps public humiliation would satisfy Eddie. “I knew she was married, but I did it anyway!”

  How did Eddie manage to hold on to the gun? He must have kept it on him at all times. It’d been in the ocean, the sand, and the salt. Would it even work? Was he willing to take that chance? Keep him talking. “I had my reasons, but they had nothing to do with you. Or her, for that matter.”

  Over Eddie’s shoulder, Mason saw something shiny and wet slither over the parapet. They’re here.

  Eddie’s hand shook slightly. “She betrayed me. She betrayed our marriage.”

  “You’re right, Eddie.” He had to buy some time. A minute, maybe less. If he played this right, the Creepers would take care of it. “You’re right, but it was entirely my fault. I seduced her. She didn’t want to, but I convinced her.” Let’s talk about her, shift his attention. “She probably would have regretted it later, but you didn’t give her a chance.”

  The bridge swayed in the wind. Mason clutched the ropes just to stay on his feet.

  “You’re lying.” Eddie spat out through clenched teeth. “You didn’t know her. She’s done it before. You weren’t the first. I just made sure you were the last.”

  “It took five bullets to make that point, Eddie. That means you only have one left. It might not even work after swimming in the ocean. It might even backfire and kill you.” Keep talking.

  Paul must have seen the creatures coming over the
lip. “Uh, guys? Let’s hurry this up.”

  Mason narrowed his eyes. Not helping, Paul. “Listen, Eddie, forget it. We’ll make room in the balloon for all of us. It’ll work. We could both use a second chance.”

  “No! I decide that! I decide, right now, who lives and dies!”

  “Oh my god…” Amy sobbed behind him. “Why does anyone have to die?” She hadn’t moved off the bridge, solidified in fear.

  Mason ran out of ideas. It’s time to play the trump.

  “She was pregnant.”

  Eddie didn’t say anything, but he didn’t make a move. Rain dripped off the gun.

  “She was pregnant, Eddie. She told me. It was your child.”

  The gun wavered. Eddie’s red eyes went wild. His face contorted from shock, to horror, to rage. “You’re lying. You lied to me before. You’re lying now.”

  “You know it’s true. Think about it. She was sick in the mornings, but it wasn’t seasickness. She was tired all the time. And there’s only one person she’s been with in the last four weeks. I’m certain of that.” He wasn’t certain at all. He was improvising. He hoped it was true.

  Eddie took two quick breaths, pushing the gun out in front of him to fire. Then he broke down, tears on his cheeks. “Oh, God, no. I killed her. I killed them both.”

  Mason took a preventative step backward. “You can grieve about it later. We’re cutting this real close. Let’s go…”

  But the last word disappeared in an explosion of sound. Eddie’s body jolted against the ropes, shifting the bridge dangerously, then slumped down, like a fluid, tumbling silently into the echoes of that single shot.

  For a moment, Mason couldn’t move. Then Amy tugged his arm. “Come on!”

  Red tendrils reached for the end of the bridge, wrapping around it, seeking them out. A pod emerged from the tip. Out of time.

  They focused on reaching solid ground as fast as they could. As soon as they stepped off the bridge, Paul set to work on taking it apart. He was in shock. “I can’t believe he shot himself. Why would he do that? After all we’ve been through to survive?”

  It took time to assemble the balloon’s components. They had plenty of room on the plateau to lay out the balloon itself, hooking it up to the basket and a set of acetylene tanks hidden in a crevice behind the platform. Paul wasn’t kidding about the basket. It was tiny. They would have a hard time physically fitting in it. A heavy, rigid frame of aluminum spars elevated the tanks. It didn’t look airworthy.

  “Have you ever, you know, tested it?” Amy asked Paul.

  “How? When? Of course not. But it will fly.” He didn’t explain how he knew, but it didn’t really matter at this point. They were going up. Or die.

  With the basket lying on its side, Paul lit the burners. Flames leapt out toward the wire frame holding up the mouth of the balloon. The sheeting billowed out as the air heated.

  Paul kept busy in his one-man show. Mason stood with Amy on the edge of the ravine. He draped his arm around her, but she didn’t respond. Did she feel betrayed?

  The opposite rim of the crater occupied his attention. The pods covered it. Any moment, they would emerge over the rim on this side. If not, those across the crater would find their way around.

  Cornered, they surveyed their shrinking domain. Just like Eddie, they only had one shot.

  Paul chattered to himself deliriously as he worked. “They didn’t think I could do it. Thought I wasn’t smart enough to be a White Hair. Yeah? Who’s laughing now?” He must have found it soothing.

  Amy clung to Mason's hand as more vines crested the ridge.

  "They’re covering the whole island."

  Amy was either in shock or too deep in her own thoughts. Finally she spoke. "Mason? Why did you sleep with me that first night?"

  “I wanted to see if you really like bacon.”

  She didn’t laugh. He stopped smiling.

  He'd been thinking about it too, and in light of Eddie's revelation, it made sense for her to ask. The truth was, he'd slept with her because it would be too sad to die alone. He had no doubt then, and even less doubt now, that either of them would survive this adventure. In his anxiety, he was willing to find some small comfort in feminine attention, any attention. He couldn’t tell her this. He slept with her for entirely selfish reasons. Any tenderness was a lie. So was this. "Because I love you," he said.

  She buried her head in his arm, weeping. Then she threw her arms around his neck. He held her tight.

  A few moments later, the balloon rose over the crater like a bloated tick. It wasn’t pretty, but it was up. They were too tired to celebrate.

  “Yay,” whispered Amy. “Now we can fly into a hurricane.”

  Paul, on the other hand, was giddy, like a kid at Christmas. His toy worked. “Welcome to Her Majesty’s Airship Verne!”

  “You’re kidding. You named it?”

  He wasn’t kidding. He’d even found a way to stencil HMS Verne on the basket.

  “Get in! Get in!” Paul started pulling in the guy lines.

  "Come on," Mason said, disengaging from her embrace. "Let’s get out of here."

  She wiped her eyes, held his hand, and followed.

  The wind ceased altogether. If he closed his eyes it might be a summer day. The silence of the wind only amplified the rustling of coils reaching out toward him from across the plateau. It sounded like a forest stream, but killed like a flood.

  Paul helped Mason and Amy crawl into the basket. “Tie yourselves in. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.” He released the valves, jetting flame into the air. The turgid creature strained at the ropes holding the basket. One more puff of flame and the basket went…

  Nowhere.

  “Shit!” Paul cranked the valve a few more times, but nothing happened. He looked around for some alternative, but it wasn’t a complicated machine. He settled on punching the acetylene tanks. “Work, dammit!”

  Would it even carry three people? What if it couldn’t leave the ground? Who would volunteer to stay?

  Mason had a sickening moment of gallantry. He knew he would volunteer if it came to that. It was Paul's balloon, and Amy weighed nothing. But what if he mustered the willpower to kill Paul to save himself? He could easily overpower the older man, throw him out of the basket, leave him for the Creepers.

  He glanced around at his fellow passengers and saw the same thoughts in their eyes. Paul shifted warily, though the basket was too small for him to actually move away. He fiddled with the valve, already at maximum, not breaking eye contact with Mason.

  With an asthmatic creak, the basket scraped off the ground and swung lazily toward the ledge.

  “Ha ha! The HMS Verne has liftoff!”

  Mason sighed in relief, then sucked in his breath again. As the balloon ascended, the perilous nature of their journey became more apparent. Only a thin matt of woven plastic separated them from falling to their deaths. That basket already sagged under their combined weight.

  On one side, Amy’s soft body pressed against him. Despite the heat and humidity, she was cold.

  On the other side, Paul's flabby bare leg stuck to his trousers. He could feel that sickly human warmth like a violation. He found it repulsive. He tried to move toward Amy.

  “Whoa! Try not to move!” The balloon righted itself, floating straight up. From the outside, someone would see a tiny balloon crawling upward in slow motion with three frozen figures, teeth set in fear, fingers curled around the basket's edge like baked clay.

  But rise it did into the hollow blue sky.

  Below them, the island steamed in the sunlight. Beneath the mists lay a red, living carpet. Mason was right. The ivy spread across the entire island. Only the salt pools remained open and black like blisters. The very end of the lava plains remained exposed like fossils of some long dead mollusk.

  Whatever lay ahead, it trumped the inevitable end they would have faced on that island. Mount Elvis stared at them with a jealous eye.

  It was time to focus their tho
ughts upward. They were headed through a gray, vertical tunnel. They could see the edges of that tunnel barreling toward them, a ripsaw of rain and debris. The other end of the island, the only visible landmark, measured its rapid progress.

  "We're still climbing," Paul said, answering their unspoken question. "Slowly."

  "Will we make it?"

  Paul looked up. The tunnel stretched far above them. He didn’t answer.

  Mason took that as a 'no'.

  A moment later, Paul shouted, "We need to tie ourselves together, just in case the cords break.”

  "With what?!”

  He pulled a few plastic bags from the edge of the basket. “Tie this through your belt loops.”

  This was a little closer to Paul than Mason preferred, but it beat falling.

  Secured to each other and the basket, they ascended toward a dark rim. The edge of the eye churned up the side of the volcano. They were nowhere near the top. Stinging droplets beat them horizontally.

  “We’re not going to make it!”

  A pristine sky beckoned above, but beside them screamed the devil.

  “Here it comes! Don’t let…”

  The wall blasted into them and flipped the basket upside down. The ties yanked them together, and then the basket jerked sideways. Rain soaked them to the core. The wind pulled them in an orbit around the eye like a party balloon caught in a ceiling fan. The noise of it overwhelmed them. All sense of direction, up and down, no longer mattered. They were at the mercy of the beast that toyed with them.

  They had no choice but to ride it out. The island disappeared. Mason couldn’t tell if they were over land or sea. The maelstrom feathered water and sky into one gray mass.

  Someone, maybe Mason, maybe all of them, threw up, repeatedly. One violent twist hurled Mason toward Amy, head butting her. She went limp, knocked unconscious, as Mason blinked in a daze.

  The wind tore at them for what seemed like years. Mason wondered if he’d ever lived at all, or if this was all there was to life. He had never felt so helpless and out of control. He had no hope of survival.

  Something dark rose up below them. Land. He could make out the line of a beach and, yes, trees! Wherever they were, it wasn’t their island.