Tortured Spirits

by Gregory Lamberson

  Next, a naked woman looked up and followed a similar routine. By the time she had stopped snorting, the man had started masturbating. She crawled on top of him and pushed her vagina against his penis. Within seconds, they each grunted in a mockery of lovemaking.

  Maria slid her hand across the floor, and her fingers curled around the handle of the machete, which she slowly drew closer to her, careful not to scrape the metal blade against the wooden floor. Holding the blade a quarter of an inch above the floor, she brought it to her hip, her shoulder aching with strain. She rolled two inches to one side, pushed the machete beneath her body, and laid flat. When the zonbie turned his back to her, she rolled in the opposite direction, her cheek pressed against the filthy floor, and pulled the rifle beneath her. At last she had hidden both weapons, but now she experienced extreme discomfort. And she still had to worry about the Walther.

  The zonbie moved closer. As the sky outside brightened, she noticed he wore leather sandals, his toenails were long, and his black skin seemed powder gray. Sweat formed on Maria’s forehead, and she tried to regulate her breathing. She closed her eyes halfway and saw the zonbie step before her. She prayed the thing didn’t notice the handgun. A painfully long moment passed, and she fought the urge to open her eyes.

  I have to look fucked up enough to pass for one of these things.

  A few packets of Magic landed near her face, and her eyelids twitched.

  Damn it …

  The zonbie walked away and she exhaled. Opening her eyes, she stared at the packets of Black Magic. Malvado was killing his people to create a workforce he did not have to pay or worry about betraying him. The zonbie returned to the front of the building, and even before he exited Maria heard scarecrows stirring and snorting Magic.

  A hand came down on the packets before her, and she looked up into the bulging eyes of a woman with dark skin.

  “It’s all yours, sweetheart,” Maria whispered as she got up onto her knees. “You need it. I don’t.”

  She gazed out the window. Dawn had come, and none of the zonbies remained in sight. But how could she know they were inside their shelters, and even if they were, how did she know none of them looked out the windows?

  A dull moan rose behind her, and when she turned around she saw other scarecrows had awakened and were consuming their drugs. All except one: a shirtless teenage boy who lay on his back. His chest did not rise or fall, and flies buzzed around him.

  Maria grabbed the machete and took a step closer to the boy. Oh, Christ, don’t tell me I have to perform mouth to mouth on one of these—

  The boy opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling.

  Maria froze in midstep.

  The boy sat up with no visible sign of effort and turned his head in her direction like a windup doll. He rose and looked at her with unblinking eyes.

  Oh, my God. He overdosed in his sleep. This is how it begins.

  The boy pointed at her. His mouth opened in slow motion, and he uttered an unintelligible sound, “Ah-AH-ah …”

  Maria’s gaze darted around the room.

  A few of the scarecrows glanced at the boy, then returned to the religious exultation of their addiction.

  The boy continued to babble, his sounds growing louder.

  Not a boy, Maria told herself. A zonbie.

  Moving around the scarecrows on the floor, she made straight for the newborn dead thing, who continued pointing and grunting. His flesh and eyes had not yet changed color, and he still appeared human, albeit a pathetic one. She buried the machete in the dead boy’s skull. His eyes rolled and he sank to his knees. She wrenched the machete free, and he toppled over, chunks of brain falling out.

  Maria had killed two soldiers in adrenaline-fueled self-defense and thirteen zonbies, but only this one had felt like an actual kill.

  With her chest heaving, she returned to the window. No way did she intend to cross the entire building again. She picked up the rifle, tossed it out the window, then climbed through it and leapt to the ground, where she rolled across the grass and came up in a fighting crouch. She had never appreciated fresh air so much in her entire life. Retrieving her weapons, she tucked the machete into her belt, gripped the rifle in both hands, and ran. She headed toward the woods but also in the general direction of the fields.

  Running with the rifle proved awkward, and Maria stumbled more than once but never fell. She didn’t look behind her, fearing what she might see. Her desperate, heavy breathing filled her ears. The overseers were human, yet she saw no living quarters for them or their horses or vehicles for transportation. Did they ride the animals to work?

  After a quarter of a mile without incident, Maria stopped and turned around. The buildings stood silent, with no movement around them, appearing abandoned. No more smoke rose from the rooftop of the Black Magic factory.

  Dropping the rifle on the ground, she bent forward with her hands on her knees and vomited. Once finished, she stood straight and folded her hands behind her head, drawing in breath. She spat on the ground, propped the rifle against one shoulder, and walked toward the fields.

  Acres of red poppies stretched before her.

  Heroin. For all the misery Maria had witnessed in New York City because of drugs—addicts, robberies, murders—it felt oddly emotional to see the source of such devastation. How many souls had been harmed or destroyed because of such destructive greed?

  Reaching into her bag, she took out the minibinoculars and focused them. Beyond the red poppies, acres of blue flowers matched the early morning sky.

  Cocaine, she guessed. Malvado was a one-stop drug lord. Someone’s got to destroy him.

  But it wouldn’t be her. She just wanted to get the hell off Pavot Island.

  The temperature rose with the sun as Maria moved through the woods. Sweat streaked the grime and blood on her flesh, and she hacked at loose branches and vines with the machete. She didn’t know what her first move would be once she escaped the woods.

  A vine waved in the breeze before her, and she cocked her arm to knock it aside with the machete. The end of the vine opened, revealing fangs and a tongue that flicked in the air as a hiss escaped it. Maria gazed into the thick snake’s malevolent eyes. Just yesterday the sight of such a serpent caused her alarm. Now she laughed and walked on.

  Emerging from the foliage, Maria gazed at the riverbank. She wasn’t sure how many miles upriver she had walked from the footbridge since the previous night, but she assumed the same breed of piranhas swam this water as well. Wiping sweat from her eyes with her arm, she followed the current.

  Forty minutes later, Maria discovered a rowboat trapped in a crop of rocks. Peeling blue paint revealed rotting gray wood lined with cracks. Refusing to set foot even in shallow water, she crawled over the rocks and retrieved a frayed rope floating in six inches of water inside the boat.

  Returning to the riverbank with the boat towed behind her, Maria coiled the rope at her feet, making sure the boat didn’t break free and drift away. She pulled the boat onto the bank and stood it on one side, dumping out brown water and rotten leaves. Setting it back down, she tested the floorboards. They squeaked and groaned but didn’t break.

  She set the boat in the water, got into it on wobbling legs, and sat on the bench. The current immediately seized the craft, and Maria took control of the oars and steered the boat around the rocks. She had never rowed a boat before, and she found herself turning in a circle. When she rowed against the current, one oar snapped.

  “Shit!”

  Discarding the broken oar, she tried to stabilize the boat but failed. Traveling backwards, the boat picked up speed, which she did not see as a positive development. She debated using the rifle as a makeshift oar but rejected the idea. It was too important to her survival. Instead, she rowed the lone oar with both arms and managed to turn the boat around.

  Thunk.

  Maria looked down at her feet. At first she thought the boat had struck a rock, but then she heard the sound again. And again. Ben
eath the water, something pounded on the bottom of the boat. The pounding grew faster, louder, and she felt the vibrations through the floorboards.

  The piranhas!

  She had to reach shore fast. Feeling the vibrations of the predators through the boat’s bottom, she rowed faster and with great effort steered the boat closer to the opposite bank. The aft of the boat struck the rocks, and the boat rebounded away from her destination.

  Glancing over her shoulder at nothing but cascading water, Maria rowed with all her strength, and this time when the aft hit rock she leapt toward land, her arms and legs flailing. She hit the ground harder than intended, then sat up and watched the river carry the boat away. She saw no sign of the piranhas.

  Maria limped along a paved road flanked by bright green grass and lush trees. No traffic passed her, thank God. She could only imagine how she looked, her limbs streaked with blood and mud. Half a mile away, she saw a white house and a barn and a wooden corral-style fence that surrounded grazing cattle.

  In the late morning sunlight, she found the events of last night almost impossible to accept. Emotion lumped in her throat, and she felt tears running down her cheeks. She had to learn what had happened to Jake.

  Ducks in a pond flapped their wings as she crossed a dirt driveway and passed a green pickup. She stepped onto a long wooden porch with a sagging roof and knocked on the wooden frame of a screen door.

  A Hispanic girl no more than twelve opened the inside door and stared at Maria through the screen. She made no effort to hide her disgust at Maria’s appearance.

  “Do you speak English?” Maria said.

  The girl didn’t answer.

  “Are your mommy and daddy home?” Maria said in French.

  The girl withdrew from sight, and then a woman who looked just a few years older than Maria appeared. Her eyes widened, and to her credit she did not gasp.

  “Please,” Maria said. “Please help me.”

  SEVENTEEN

  When Jake opened his eye, he had no sense of his location. Ceiling tiles came into focus, where naked fluorescent bulbs hummed, and sunlight streamed through windows around him. His dry throat ached.

  Where am I?

  He tried to recall what had happened to him.

  Pavot Island … Humphrey … Maria!

  He attempted to sit up but found himself unable to move. Tipping his head forward, he saw wide leather restraints buckled across his chest, waist, and thighs, pinning his arms to the bed. Turning his head left and right, he took in a dozen empty beds around him.

  A hospital ward.

  An intravenous tube from an IV bag hanging on a stand beside him dispensed clear liquid into his left arm.

  Russel …

  He remembered the soldier pinning his arm to the table in the interrogation room while Russel drew back the machete.

  Oh no.

  He had to turn his head so his right eye could see his bandaged left arm. Tears formed as he raised the stump where Russel had cut off his hand and wrist. The restraint across his waist could not hold down an arm missing a hand. Blood seeped through the dressing.

  Oh, my fucking lord.

  Muscles in his cheek and neck twitched, and a sound escaped through his nostrils before he tipped his head back and screamed. Hurried footsteps echoed at the far end of the ward, but he continued screaming.

  A Hispanic woman in a nurse’s uniform leaned over him. “Relax, mister. Screaming will do no good.”

  “Fuck you! They cut off my fucking hand!” Spittle flew out of his mouth.

  “If you think screaming will bring your hand back, then go ahead and scream. But you’re setting yourself up for a major disappointment.”

  Tears burned his eye. “That shit-fucking cocksucker …”

  The nurse glanced at his chart. “Mr. Helman, you can call me Ramona. I’ll probably be your nurse for the rest of your stay here.”

  Jake didn’t like the sound of that. “Where’s here?”

  “L’hôpital de la Pitié.”

  Jake’s heavy breathing continued. “Hospital of Pity?”

  “Mercy Hospital.”

  He snorted at the irony.

  “We’re just a clinic serving some of the farming communities and sometimes El Miedo.”

  Jake pictured the map of Pavot Island. “Those communities are sparsely populated, and El Miedo has a single prisoner.”

  “And we’re a small staff.”

  He swallowed. “You have to help me. I need to get word to an American—”

  “There’s no US embassy here.”

  “But there are a bunch of US companies. You can get word to someone at—”

  Ramona shook her head. “Listen to me very carefully. I’ll do what I can to make you comfortable while you’re here, but that’s all I’ll do.”

  “I was traveling with a woman. We were separated in Pavot City, where I was apprehended. Do you know if she survived or escaped?”

  He heard more footseps.

  “I don’t know anything,” Ramona said.

  A man in a white lab coat joined them. He wore glasses and a stethoscope and appeared to be of mixed race descent, with light brown skin and frizzy black hair. Ramona handed him the clipboard, and he took Jake’s pulse, then listened to his heartbeat.

  “I’m Dr. Mathieu.” He gestured at Jake’s face. “How did you get those scars?”

  Jake grunted. “An amphibious monster swiped me with its claws in Brooklyn.”

  Showing no expression, Mathieu removed a penlight and shined it in each of Jake’s eyes, which caused him to frown. “And your eye?”

  “A scarecrow strung out on Black Magic mistook it for an eight ball.”

  Mathieu pocketed the penlight. “Your vital signs are strong. We’ll probably keep you here for a day or two, then send you on your way.”

  “Send me where? Home?”

  The doctor’s expression turned grave. “That’s unlikely.”

  “Wherever I go, I’ll end up back here, won’t I?”

  “Probably.”

  “Will I be missing my other hand? Or maybe a foot?”

  Mathieu said nothing.

  “You call yourself a doctor? You’re a barbarian. What kind of Hippocratic oath do the doctors on Pavot Island take?”

  “I realize you’re upset. Nurse Faustin and I stopped your bleeding and cleaned your wound. We sutured it, disinfected it, and are providing you with painkillers. We saved your life. Pass judgment if you will, but we’re doing all we can for you. We don’t enjoy certain freedoms you do in the United States. Now if you need anything, tell Nurse Faustin.” The doctor walked away.

  “I have to piss,” Jake said.

  Ramona reached under the bed and brought up a plastic urine bottle, which she uncapped. Looking at Jake with dispassionate eyes, she unbuckled the belt of his shorts and unzipped his fly. Jake closed his eye as she pulled down his briefs and fumbled with his penis, inserting it into the bottle. Sighing, he emptied his bladder.

  Ramona woke Jake again in the afternoon. She cranked the bed into an upright position and spoon-fed him rice and beans.

  “Do you have a family?” Jake said.

  “I have family all over the island.”

  “Do any of them oppose Malvado?”

  “I’m not discussing politics with you. Stop talking and eat.” She lowered her voice. “I can see you’re a fighter. You’ll need your strength.”

  “You need strength—all of you. My country and the United Nations obviously don’t give a damn about this island, so you need to take care of yourselves.”

  “I’ve lived here my entire life. Most of us have. Foreigners don’t move to Pavot Island to live, just to advance their careers by running factories. That’s all we are to Americans: a cheap resource easily exploited. The corporations that run your country don’t want that to change.”

  “That’s why you have to take charge of your own destiny.”

  Setting down the spoon, Ramona looked at him. “That’s e
asier said than done. It’s hard to revolt when you have children, elderly parents, bills …”

  “You have to be willing to make sacrifices to improve life for your children.”

  “Really? Is your country so perfect? Freedom there is just an illusion to keep the masses happy. At least here we know we’re slaves to a corrupt system.”

  “No, my country isn’t perfect.” He gestured with his stump. “But we don’t maim our prisoners.”

  “How do you know? Your government detains suspects indefinitely, with no hope of trial. They send prisoners to black sites where no one knows what happens to them. You don’t even know who your real leaders are. We know Malvado.”

  “That’s why you can overthrow him if you’d all just pull together.”

  She offered him a patronizing smile. “Okay, you’re right. It’s that simple. I’ll start the revolution on my next day off.”

  “That’s a start.”

  Male voices echoed at the far end of the ward.

  Ramona’s expression turned serious, and she carried Jake’s lunch away.

  “Was it something I said?”

  Two soldiers wearing camouflage fatigues and red berets jogged around Ramona, who kept walking. Jake tensed up as they approached his bed, but they passed him and stood at the opposite end of the ward with their machine guns aimed at the floor.

  Four more figures emerged from the hallway. Registering a large man in a royal-blue uniform and Russel’s bald head, Jake swallowed the last of his food.

  Ramona nodded to these men as she passed them, and Jake realized none other than Malvado himself walked beside Russel. He had to admit the dictator’s shoulders were as broad as they had appeared in the billboards, and the man stood six inches taller than Russel.

  Two tall and muscular dark-skinned men dressed in civilian clothes followed them. Jake’s testicles crawled deep inside his scrotum for protection. As the men stopped at the bed, two more red berets took position at the ward’s entrance.

  “This is Helman.” Russel motioned to Jake, who felt his blood simmer at the sight of the man who had maimed him.