“You stay here and—”
“I’m coming with you.”
“I can’t let you do that. It’s too dangerous. I’m sure these guys have been instructed to shoot anything that comes within ten feet of their camp. I’ll be better on my own.”
“But who’s going to watch your back?”
“You will.”
“But how, if I’m stuck up here?”
“Give me a moment.” Allen turned and placed his hand on the mango trunk. He shut his eyes, appearing to meditate.
After a few seconds he reopened his eyes. He looked at Laney. “If you think I might be in trouble, just give me a signal.”
“And how do I do that?”
Allen half stood and grabbed an old tree limb off the ground. He handed the branch to Laney. “Strike the mango tree three times. But not too hard or you’ll hurt it.”
“And you’ll hear that?”
“More like I’ll feel it,” Allen replied. “I know it sounds weird. We can figure it out later, when we have more time.”
“Okay. I have to say, Allen, you never cease to amaze me.” Laney stood up.
“I know, I’m an evolutionary wonder,” he smiled. He tilted his head so he could clear the brim of Laney’s fedora. He kissed her lightly, leaving a thin gloss of green pollen on her lips.
She ran her tongue over her upper lip. She sucked her lower lip into her mouth, savoring the residue of their kiss.
“Well, what’s it taste like this time?”
Laney smacked her lips. “Would you believe, passion fruit?”
Since Allen’s transformation, they’d been taking it slow, dreading his condition was contagious and they would never be able to share another intimate moment together. After a few indiscretions, they soon realized whatever drastically altered Allen wasn’t transferable; at least not so far.
Allen gazed down at the brightly lit encampment below, accentuated by the surrounding nightfall creeping over the jungle like a black fog.
“Promise you’ll be careful.”
“Believe me, they won’t even know I was there.” Allen traipsed down the hill looking like a bizarre plant-thing that kept uprooting itself with each step. As he got closer to the tent city, he became more discreet, assuming the plant life around him to blend into his natural surroundings.
A patrolling guard walked by having no idea Allen was only an arm’s length away, hugging a mahogany tree. As a joke, Allen willed an underground root to bulge up out of the dirt. The man stumbled and nearly fell. He turned around, staring at the ground. He saw nothing that might have tripped him up as the root had already receded back into the soil. The guard continued on his rounds.
Allen heard the clamor from the main tent as the work crews ate their meals and conversed loudly.
When he was near the generators, he made the mistake of stepping under the conical beam of a spotlight just as two guards came around the backside of a tent.
With no time to hide, Allen dropped to the ground onto his back in a patch of weeds. As the men approached, Allen shifted his body and moved his legs and arms evasively to avoid being stepped on, giving the impression it was their boots rustling the tall grass.
He rolled over onto his side and merged into the shadows.
Keeping to the trees, he snuck over to where the large tree-cutting machines were parked. They had tank-like treads for maneuvering over harsh terrain. Each harvester had a glassed-in cab reinforced with steel bars to protect the driver in the event of an accident.
On the back and side platforms were the propulsion engine and the motor for operating the mechanical arm that cut down and stripped the felled trees.
Allen jumped up, vaulting over a railing. He landed next to the cover housing the engine. He twisted the knobs on a side panel. He lifted the lid, exposing the intricate electrical wiring of the monstrous diesel engine.
He placed his hand on the manifold.
A black corrosive enzyme traveled from his fingertips onto the metal, spreading quickly over the engine, melting the insulated wires and plastic parts.
He closed the lid. He jumped down to the ground.
Allen crept to the next harvester, and symbolically, sabotaged the machine in the same amount of time it took for it to cut down a tree and make it into logs.
He continued on his mission, gutting one engine after another. He’d almost wrecked them all when one of the guards spotted smoke. Someone sounded a shrill ear-piercing alarm.
Allen posed in a cluster of ferns to watch the mayhem. More guards came running out of the tents, armed with assault rifles.
People started funneling out of the mess tent in a confused stupor.
Authoritative voices yelled in the night.
Spotlights traversed over the tent tops.
Allen nonchalantly slipped away, making his way up the incline to the hilltop.
Stepping around the trunk of the mango tree, he gloated, “They’re officially out of business,” expecting Laney to be there to greet him with open arms.
Laney was gone.
8
DETAINED
“Get your hands off me. Let me go,” Laney protested as the security guard dragged her into the command tent. She tried to take a swing at him. He blocked the blow, shoving her to the ground.
“Where’d you find her?” asked a man wearing a black shirt and trousers with military-styled boots. A nine-millimeter semi-automatic pistol was on his right hip.
“Hiding on the ridge.”
“I wasn’t hiding, you jerk.” Laney tried to get to her feet. The guard pushed her back down with his boot.
“Where are the others?”
“There’s no one else. Just me,” Laney snarled, glaring up at the man in charge.
“Let her up.”
The guard reached down to help Laney. She knocked his hand away, getting up on her own.
“Was she armed?”
“No, sir.”
“Go ahead, wait outside.”
“Yes, sir.” The guard stepped out between the tent flaps.
“What’s your name?”
Laney refused to answer.
“All right. Then I’ll begin. My name is Ivan Connors. I’m head of security for Wilde Enterprises.”
“I’m still not telling you my name.”
“Then tell me who you’re working with?”
“You’re wasting your breath.”
“I want to know which activist group you’re working for,” Connors said, raising his voice.
Laney just stared at him.
“Fine. Have it your way.” Connors grabbed her by the arm, marching her out of his tent. He turned to the security guard standing outside talking to another sentry. “You two follow me.”
Connors escorted Laney roughly down a breezeway between the tents until they reached the area where the heavy-duty tree cutters were parked. The two guards took up positions a few feet away.
Laney could smell burnt rubber and a foul chemical odor, which made her cover her mouth with her free hand. She turned. Connors glared at her, motioning for her to look at the equipment.
“My job was to make sure nothing happened to these machines. Each one of these John Deere forwarders cost $250,000. Which means you destroyed two and a half million dollars worth of our property.”
“I’ve seen what one of those things can do,” Laney said. “Why so many?”
“We’re a big corporation.”
“And that gives you the right to destroy the rainforest?”
“A few trees aren’t going to matter.”
“You know, we will stop you,” Laney said adamantly.
“So, I was right. You weren’t acting alone. You’ll be more cooperative when you’re facing ten years in prison.”
“You don’t scare me.”
Connors turned to one of the guards. “Put her in restraints. We’re going for a ride.” He looked at Laney. “I’m sorry, you leave me no other choice.”
The guard slu
ng his assault rifle over his shoulder. He reached into a pouch on his belt, taking out a set of plastic ties used for handcuffs. He grabbed Laney’s left arm, tucking it behind her back.
“TAKE YOUR HANDS OFF MY WIFE!” a voice boomed from the jungle.
9
NIGHT RESCUE
When Allen stepped out of the trees, one of the guards gasped and raised his rifle.
The other guard looked at the man standing next to Laney. “What the hell is that? What do we do, Mr. Connors?”
“Shoot the damn—”
“Tell your men to put their guns down,” Laney yelled. “That’s my husband.”
“Your husband’s Swamp Thing?” one of the guards said.
Allen didn’t take offence to the man’s comment, as when he was a kid he’d liked the misunderstood comic book monster even though the grotesque creature was spawned from bog sludge instead of a luscious tropical forest. At the moment, Allen’s body was shingled with fern leaves and dotted with tiny purple flowers. Vines undulated about his body like starving stamens searching for food.
“Lower your weapons,” Connors ordered.
“That’s better,” Allen said.
“So it was you?” Connors said.
“That’s right. Would you mind releasing my wife?”
“And if we don’t?”
“That would be a big mistake.”
“Is that so?”
“Please, just let us go,” Laney pleaded. “He doesn’t want to hurt anyone.”
“What’s he going to do?” Connors grinned. “Give us a skin rash?”
“I’d listen to her if I were you,” Allen said.
“Words by someone that is about to become a tossed salad. Shoot the damn thing!”
The two guards fired shots.
Each slug passed through Allen’s body, ricocheting off the heavy equipment behind him. There was no pain, just the sensation of air ventilating through his torso. The bullet holes sealed instantaneously.
“You fools missed!” Connors yelled at his men.
A guard pulled a machete from the sheath on his belt. He charged Allen.
Allen raised his arm to stop the man. The blade came down, chopping Allen’s hand off at the wrist.
Laney screamed.
The man took a step back expecting Allen to yell out with pain.
Allen glanced down at his bloodless stump. The hand magically formed right before everyone’s eyes like a time-progression film of a plant growing in just seconds.
“Oh, you’ve got to be shitting me,” a guard said.
“I’m telling you, stop, before someone really gets hurt,” Allen warned.
“Then I suggest you back off.” Connors put the muzzle of his pistol to Laney’s temple.
Two more guards, hearing the gunshots, rushed into the small clearing. The four men stood protectively next to Connors with their weapons trained on Allen.
“Take him down and tie him up!” Connors shouted.
“I wouldn’t touch him,” Laney tried to warn them.
The first man yelped when he grabbed Allen by the arm. Razor-sharp thorns jutted through the man’s palm and out the backside of his hand.
Allen blocked another attacker, seizing the man’s face. When he removed his hand, the man’s eyes, nose, and mouth were sealed tight by an adhesive sap. The man fell backward. A fellow guard caught him. He looked down in fright, watching the other man suffocate in his arms. Grabbing his knife from his belt, he slit the man’s lips apart with the sharp blade. The man gasped, able to breathe, blood running down his chin.
Another guard rushed Allen.
Allen flicked his fingers and a milky goop splashed into his attacker’s eyes, blinding him. He clutched his face, screaming, and stumbled back.
“Who’s next?” Allen stared at the bewildered guards. He took a moment to glance around. He’d been so distracted by the scuffle he hadn’t noticed that Connors and Laney were gone.
He heard a truck engine and spotted a Land Rover leaving the encampment.
The interior lights were on. He could see Laney staring back over the backseat, yelling his name as the vehicle sped off.
Allen shoved his way past the guards.
He ran after the vehicle.
He kept running, even as the red taillights faded into the jungle.
10
SHANGHAIED
The last thing Laney remembered was Allen standing there in the night; the mortified look on his face as he shrank from view. She had no idea where she was or how long she’d been riding in the backseat after being been whisked away as a cloth hood had been draped over her head shortly after leaving the encampment.
She could hear Connors whispering up front, giving the driver instructions. She squirmed, trying to free her hands bound behind her back. The insides of her wrists were pressed so tightly together she didn’t have any wiggle room to loosen her restraints.
The vehicle slowed coming to a stop.
Laney heard the driver’s door open. Connors got out on his side. She could feel a gush of cold air caress her exposed neck. She tasted the sea breeze on her lips when it wafted up under the hood.
The back door opened. Laney was dragged out.
She heard creaking wood and metal, water lapping against pilings, seagulls keening overhead, a not too distant foghorn.
A hand gripped the top of the hood, yanking it off with a few strands of Laney’s hair.
“Hey!” She looked around the waterfront. They were standing on a pier at a shipping dock. She saw the driver leaning against the front grill of the Land Rover, remaining with the vehicle.
“Let’s go.” Connors guided Laney in the direction of a brow stretching up to the main deck of a merchant ship. She saw the gigantic letters WE on the side of the stack, the ship belonging to Wilde Enterprises, most likely the cargo ship that brought all the heavy equipment that was back at the logging camp.
They went up the gangway onto the main deck. Laney saw rows of twenty-foot long sea vans. She counted maybe fifty cargo containers.
The ship’s captain and two crewmembers stood by an open hatchway leading through the bulkhead into the forward compartment.
“So who do we have here?” the captain asked.
“I want you to keep her locked up in one of your cabins until you reach the mainland.”
“What?” Laney said. “You can’t do this. That’s kidnapping.”
“Are you sure about this Connors?”
Laney could tell the captain wasn’t too thrilled. She didn’t like the way the two sailors kept leering at her; like they’d been out to sea so long they’d forgotten what a woman looked like.
“Don’t worry. I’ll have someone waiting to take her off your hands.”
“So in the meantime, she’s what...a prisoner?”
“Until she’s properly charged.”
“Don’t believe him,” Laney pleaded with the captain. “I had nothing to do with damaging that equipment.”
“Maybe not you directly, but your husband did. Until we get him, I’m afraid it’s all on you.” Connors pulled a folding combat knife out of his trouser pocket. He flipped open the blade, slicing through the ties binding Laney’s hands.
She slipped off the plastic straps, rubbing her wrists.
Laney saw Connors glance over at the two seamen still gawking at her. He directed his comment to the captain. “Tell your men if anything happens to her, they’ll be dealing with me, personally.”
The mariners looked at the captain with sly grins on their faces, thinking the man in charge of the ship had more authority.
“You heard him,” the captain said sternly.
Their snickering smiles quickly waned into frowns.
“Take her below deck. Put her in the cabin next to mine,” the captain told the two mariners. “Then alert the rest of the crew. Tell them we’re about to get underway.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Wait, get your hands off me,” Laney protested but
the men were too strong and manhandled her toward the hatchway. She glanced over her shoulder. She saw Connors lean in to speak with the captain.
“There’s a slight possibility her husband might try and—” he hesitated when he saw Laney watching him. He steered the captain away in the opposite direction.
Laney only managed to hear, “If he does, you’ll have to set a...” and then they were too far away and she was forced inside the forward compartment.
11
THE TRAP
It hadn’t been difficult following Laney’s trail from the jungle to the wharf.
Whenever he asked if a vehicle had passed through a particular part of the rainforest, the vegetation around him had given a response only he could perceive so he could continue his pursuit in hopes of reaching Laney in time: much like following Hansel’s trail of breadcrumbs.
Allen snuck inside a warehouse. He broke into a locker where a waterfront laborer stowed his gear.
It had been months since he’d worn clothes, but he thought it best, if he wanted to pass himself off as a dockworker on the pier. His feet felt constrained in the work boots and had already started to sprout through the leather, even bulging the tip of the steel-toed shoes.
He’d found a stevedore’s jacket and had the hood up, concealing his face. Each time he crossed paths with another longshoreman, he would keep his head down, nod and mutter a greeting and keep on walking.
It was still dark. So far, no one suspected the strange man in their midst.
Allen ducked into the shadows.
A tall figure was coming down a brow, disembarking a ship about to pull away from the pier as Allen could hear the diesel engines idling through the hull.
Allen stayed out of sight, watching the man pass by.
It was the same man that had taken Laney.
Allen glanced up spotting the bold initials WE on the funnel and knew the cargo ship belonged to Wilde Enterprises. He couldn’t believe Laney’s abductor was leaving her on the ship, like a scallywag pirate snatching a coastal town wench.
The brow was about to be pulled up. Allen knew he had to act quickly and dashed across the pier. He jumped onto the gangway, clinging to the railing, as it was being hoisted in the air. He clambered up its length. He jumped down onto the main deck.
Cryptid Island Page 3