Island

by Richard Laymon

  ‘Nope,’ Erin said. Her voice was much closer to me than Alice’s. I thought I could feel her breath on my arm. Though I couldn’t see even a hint of her, I pictured her sitting cross-legged, leaning forward, elbows on her thighs, the tips of her breasts almost touching her forearms, her face only inches from the bars.

  I wished I could see her.

  I thought about the lighter in my pocket.

  I didn’t go for it, though. Better for us all to stay invisible, at least for the time being.

  ‘You can’t get in or out,’ Erin said, ‘unless you’ve got keys. These’re really strong cages.’

  ‘They were made to hold gorillas,’ Alice explained.

  Monkey Business

  ‘Gorillas?’ I asked.

  ‘This used to be a gorilla zoo,’ Erin said.

  ‘Before we moved here,’ her sister added.

  ‘Yeah, a long time before we moved here. We’ve only been on the island a couple of years.’

  ‘It’ll be two years in June,’ Alice said.

  ‘The gorillas were all dead before we ever got here. Long dead. Like before we were even born. This guy massacred them all. How do you like that? The same guy that brought them here.’

  ‘To save them,’ Alice added.

  ‘Yeah,’ Erin said. ‘There was some sort of revolution going on some place in Africa. Like back in the sixties? And this guy was afraid all the gorillas might get killed off.’

  ‘He was a naturalist,’ Alice explained.

  ‘You know, like that Gorillas in the Mist woman. Sigourney Weaver?’

  ‘Dian Fossey,’ Alice said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Erin said, ‘like that.’

  ‘He lived right here in the big house when he wasn’t running around places like Africa.’

  ‘So anyway,’ Erin said, ‘he captured like a dozen of these gorillas and shipped them over here to this island. He had the cages built especially for them. Made himself a nice little private zoo.’

  ‘It wasn’t really a zoo,’ Alice pointed out.

  ‘Not if you wanta get technical,’ Erin said. ‘It wasn’t like a public zoo. He kept the apes for himself, like pets. Then one day he slaughtered them all.’

  ‘Killed them?’ I asked. ‘Why’d he do that?’

  ‘Maybe he got tired of them,’ Alice suggested.

  ‘Or they done him wrong,’ Erin said. Again, I pictured her smiling.

  ‘Nobody knows why,’ Alice said.

  Then Erin went on. ‘He must’ve gone nuts, or something.

  He chopped them all up in their cages with a machete, and then he shot himself in the head. Anyway, that’s how come the cages are here.‘

  ‘We weren’t permitted to play in them,’ Alice said.

  ‘Now we gotta live in them,’ Erin said.

  ‘Who else is here?’ I asked.

  ‘In the cages, you mean?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Connie and her mother, and Kimberly.’

  All of them!

  I started to cry. I tried to be quiet about it, but couldn’t help letting out a few little noises. Erin and Alice didn’t say anything. It was like they were both sitting in their cages, listening to me.

  Then something rubbed the top of my head.

  I flinched.

  ‘It’s just me,’ Erin whispered.

  Her hand gently stroked my hair, then eased down along my cheek. Petting me.

  I’d started crying out of relief at the news my women were here and alive. With Erin caressing my face, though, I started crying for her, for what had been done to her.

  And for myself because I’d allowed it to happen.

  I’d enjoyed watching.

  ‘It’s okay,’ she said softly. ‘They’re fine.’

  ‘Are not,’ Alice said.

  ‘They’re as fine as we are.’

  ‘You call that “fine”?’

  In a softer voice, Erin said to me, ‘Tbey’re really gonna be shocked. They thought you were dead, for sure. You fell off a cliff or something?’

  I nodded. I tried to stop crying.

  ‘That was after Thelma got him in the head,’ Alice reminded her.

  ‘Yeah,’ Erin said. ‘Anyway, they were awfully upset about you getting killed. They thought you were the greatest.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yeah. They’re gonna go nuts when they see you.’

  ‘They’re in ... some of the ... other cages?’ Even though I was getting better, I could only talk between sobs.

  ‘Connie’s in the one next to mine,’ Alice said. ‘Then’s Kimberly. Billie’s cage is on the other side of Kimberly’s. And then the rest of ’em are empty.‘

  I said, ‘Maybe I’d better ... go over now, and ...’

  ‘No.’ Erin’s hand dropped to my shoulder and squeezed it. ‘Don’t go yet. Please? They’re probably all asleep, anyway. Can’t you just stay here and talk to us for a little while more? Please?’

  I didn’t much want to go over and see my women, anyway, until I’d completely finished the crying. Besides, I wanted to find out a lot more about what had been going on. I said, ‘Okay. I won’t go yet.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Erin said.

  ‘How long ... when did they get here?’

  ‘Connie and the others? About a week ago.’

  ‘This is their seventh night,’ Alice said.

  ‘What about you two?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s night twenty-four,’ Alice said.

  I gasped, ‘What!’

  ‘Yeah,’ Erin said. ‘Twenty-four.’

  ‘My God!’

  ‘Wesley put us in the day he got here.’

  ‘The first time he came,‘ Alice pointed out.

  ‘He knew about the cages,’ Erin said.

  ‘He’d read about them.’

  ‘Yeah. An article in some old National Geographic magazine, or something, and he wondered if they were still here, and could he see them.’

  ‘He said maybe he’d buy them if they were in good enough shape.’

  Erin’s hand glided down my arm. She found my hand, and took hold of it. Then she continued with the story. ‘Anyhow, Alice and I were off swimming, so we weren’t around when he came along. Mom and Dad had to fill us in. I guess they were showing him the cages, and all of a sudden he grabbed Mom and put a razor to her throat. So then Dad was afraid to do anything, ’cause he didn’t want Mom to get her throat slashed. Wesley made them both get in cages, and locked them in. Then Alice and I got back home and he put us in cages, too.‘

  ‘We could’ve gotten away,’ Alice said.

  ‘Yeah. It would’ve been a cinch. There was only Wesley.

  He didn’t have a gun or anything, either. But he said he’d kill Mom and Dad if we didn’t do everything he told us.‘

  ‘And he told us to get in the cages.’

  ‘So then he ended up killing them, anyhow - only not right away.’

  ‘Maybe not Mom.’ Alice sounded a little offended.

  ‘If he didn’t kill her, where is she?’

  I figured I knew where she was, but I kept my mouth shut.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Alice muttered.

  For my benefit, Erin explained, ‘He kept Mom in one of the cages just like the rest. of us. Dad, too, but they took him away a long time ago. With Mom, she was here the whole time till she got away.’

  ‘When was that?’ I asked.

  ‘A few nights ago.’

  ‘Four,’ Alice said. ‘Counting tonight.’

  Four. That would’ve been the night I hiked upstream, searched our battlefield, and found the woman at the bottom of the lagoon.

  ‘Yeah,’ Erin said. ‘They were bringing Mom back to her cage after ... it was her night for going to the house. She hadn’t ever tried anything before. Because of us, you know? What Wesley said he’d do to us if she ever tried to escape. But she figured we didn’t stand any chance unless she made a getaway. Then she could sneak back, you know? And save us. So she waited till they were trying t
o put her back inside her cage, and then she shoved free and made a run for it. They both went chasing after her, though. And they got her.’

  ‘Maybe they did, and maybe they didn’t,‘ Alice said.

  ‘They got her.’

  ‘Just because they said so ...’

  ‘Come on, Alice. You think they would’ve been acting like that if they hadn’t caught Mom? You know darn well.’

  Alice went silent.

  I thought about asking more questions. What time had their mother made her break? Were they familiar with the lagoon? How far was the lagoon from here?

  But I didn’t have to ask.

  The dead woman I’d found in the water had to be their mother. Who else could it be?

  And Matt, I’d already figured out, was their father.

  Wesley had made orphans out of these kids.

  One of his many crimes, and one of his worst.

  ‘Anyhow,’ Erin said, ‘back to what I was saying. The day Wesley got here? We all ended up in cages. Then he hung around for a couple of days. He never did anything to Dad, but he like ... took turns ... fooled around with the rest of us.’

  ‘He likes to hurt people,‘ Alice muttered.

  ‘He’d take us out of our cages. Just one at a time. And make us do stuff.‘

  ‘Awful stuff,’ Alice added.

  ‘And if we didn’t do everything just right, he’d make someone else pay for it. Like he wanted me to ... do something to him. I wouldn’t. So then he put me back in my cage and took Mom out. He whipped her right in front of us, then made her do it to him. ’Cause I’d said I wouldn’t.‘

  Erin’s hand felt hot and sweaty, holding mine. I gave it a gentle squeeze.

  ‘Anyhow,’ she said, ‘he did that sort of stuff to us right from the start, when he was here the first time. He didn’t stay very long, that time. When he went away, he left us in our cages with some food and water, and said he’d come back.’

  ‘But not when,’ Alice added.

  ‘Yeah. After a while, we started to think he wasn’t gonna come back at all. We got really low on the food and water. Before it was totally gone, though, we heard this huge explosion.’

  ‘Our yacht going up in smoke?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah. And next thing we knew, he was back. He came in from the jungle, all smiling and happy.’

  ‘And not wearing a stitch,’ Alice added.

  He hardly ever does,’ Erin said. ‘Like he thinks everybody wants to be looking at his thing all the time.’

  ‘Which they don’t.’

  ‘Not me.’

  ‘Did he say how he blew up the yacht?’ I asked.

  ‘Sure,’ Erin said. ‘He bragged all about how easy it was.

  He used that razor of his to cut open a fuel line. Down in the engine compartment? Then he made a fuse out of a bedsheet. After he lit it, he snuck overboard and swam away underwater.‘

  He was laughing about it,’ Alice said. He thought he was so smart.’

  ‘He outsmarted us, all right,’ I told them. ‘We all thought he blew it up by accident and got himself killed.’

  ‘That’s what he wanted you to think,’ Erin explained. ‘Billie says you figured it out pretty quick, though.’

  ‘Well, we guessed. After people started getting murdered. I mean, who else could’ve been doing it? As far as we knew, the island was uninhabited. We didn’t know there was a whole family ... Are there any others?’

  ‘Other what?’ Erin asked.

  ‘People. Families. Houses. Do you have neighbors?’

  ‘We’re it.’

  ‘Nobody here but us,’ Alice said.

  ‘We had the island all to ourselves. It was great. Until Wesley came along.’

  ‘Mom and Dad brought us here so we’d be safe,’ Alice said. ‘That’s a good one, huh?’

  ‘We lived in Los Angeles,’ Erin said. ‘We moved when the riot happened. That was the last straw, you know? They were afraid we’d all get killed, or something. They wanted to take us someplace where we wouldn’t need to worry about stuff like crime and drugs.’

  ‘And look what happened,’ Alice said.

  ‘We know what happened,’ Erin told her. ‘But it was great while it lasted.’ To me, she said, ‘We did home study. No school. Mom and Dad taught us. She used to be a schoolteacher, and Dad was a writer. It was great, not going to some awful school full of nasty kids. And we went swimming and fishing almost every day. It was the greatest, till Wesley came along and ruined everything.’

  ‘I wish we’d stayed in Los Angeles,’ Alice said.

  ‘No, you don’t.’

  ‘Mom and Dad’d still be alive.’

  ‘Maybe. But you never know. Maybe the quake would’ve killed us all.’

  ‘Would’ve been better than this.‘

  ‘No, it wouldn’t have been.’

  ‘I’d rather be dead,’ Alice blurted. ‘I’d rather be dead any day of the week than get ... Rupert, you don’t know what he does to us.’

  ‘Huh-uh,’ I said.

  I wasn’t about to let on that I’d watched him and Thelma with Erin. It would’ve been too embarrassing. And it would’ve made the twins wonder what was wrong with me - how come I watched them mess with Erin, but didn’t try to help her?

  ‘They play with us,’ Alice said. ‘It’s bad enough we’ve gotta stay in these cages, but it’s a lot worse when they take us out. They take us out to play with us. They play dress-up with us. They play house with us. They make us eat with them and dance for them and fight with them. Anything they can think of, they make us do. And it always ends up the same way, with getting beaten to a pulp and getting fucked.’

  ‘Hey,’ Erin said. ‘You don’t have to get crude about it.’

  ‘It is crude. Everything about it is crude! I wish I was dead!’

  ‘No, you...’

  ‘Hey! Knock it off! Jesus H. Christ, it’s the middle of the night. Some of us are trying to sleep around here, thank you very much.’

  ‘Connie?’ I said.

  Silence.

  Then she asked, ‘Who said that?’

  ‘Me.’

  More silence.

  Then, ‘Rupert?’

  ‘That’s my name, don’t wear it out.’

  ‘Holy fucking shit! Rupert!’

  Reunion

  ‘Rupert?’ Now Billie had joined in,. obviously awakened by Connie’s excited voice. ‘Is that you?’

  ‘Yeah. How are you?’

  Instead of answering, she sort of gasped, ‘Oh, my God’ in a shaky voice.

  ‘Haul it over here so we don’t have to yell,’ Kimberly greeted me.

  ‘Hi, Kimberly,’ I said.

  ‘You’re a little late for arriving in the nick of time,‘ she said, ’but better late than never. Come on over here.‘

  I whispered, ‘I’d better go. But don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything.’ I eased my hand out of Erin’s.

  ‘You’ll get us out of here, won’t you?‘ Alice asked.

  ‘Yeah. Somehow.’

  ‘Just be careful,’ Erin told me. ‘And come back to our side of things when you get a chance, okay?’

  ‘Sure. Thanks.’

  ‘We don’t even know what you look like,’ she said.

  I thought about the lighter in my pocket. She’d pretty much invited me to strike it up. I wanted to do it. The flame would give me a close-up look at her, sitting there in her cage. I’d get a chance to see her twin sister, too.

  Both of them probably naked.

  A good way to find out whether they were really identical.

  But they’d already been badly treated - to put it mildly. I didn’t want myself adding to their troubles by lighting them up and embarrassing them.

  So I kept the cigarette lighter in my pocket.

  I said, ‘You want to know what I look like? I’m so gorgeous I make Tom Cruise look like he got hit by an ugly-stick.’

  Soft laughter came from Erin.

  ‘Really?’ Alice aske
d.

  From farther away, Connie said, ‘What kind of shit are you handing those girls, Rupe? Tell ’em the truth! You look like a fucking chimp! An albino chimp that lost all its hair!‘

  She was sure in fine form.

  ‘I don’t, either,‘ I said to Erin. ’Chimps have tails.‘

  ‘You’d better go,’ Erin said, ‘or she’ll start saying really bad stuff about you.’

  ‘Okay. See you later. You, too, Alice.’

  I made my way out of the space between their cages. I got to my feet in front of Alice’s cage. Running a hand along its bars to keep myself oriented, I hurried toward the cages where Connie and my other women were waiting for me.

  ‘What’ve you got, nine lives?’ Connie asked when I was in front of her cage.

  ‘Just lucky.’ I kept moving slowly, following its bars. ‘Something broke my fall.’

  ‘You must’ve been hurt,’ Kimberly said. Her voice came from a distance ahead of me. ‘It was a long way down.’

  ‘Got banged up pretty good. That’s why it took me so long to get here. I was out cold for a couple of days or so, then I was too messed up to do much.’

  ‘We’re lucky you’re alive at all,’ Billie said from her cage on the far side of Kimberly’s.‘

  ‘And lucky that you finally fourrd us,’ Kimberly added.

  ‘Yeab.’ Connie sounded a little annoyed. ‘Better late than never.’

  Reaching out, I felt no more bars. I’d apparently arrived at the comer of Connie’s cage. Leaving it behind, I crossed an open space. My searching hand bumped against steel.

  And got grabbed around the wrist.

  ‘Stay.’ Kimberly’s voice. Her hand clutching me.

  It felt strong and warm. Heat from it seemed to flow up my arm and spread through my whole body.

  ‘You’ve gotta get us out of here,’ she said.

  ‘I will. Are you all okay?’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ Connie said. ‘They’ve had us for a week. All they wanta do is figure out new ways to fuck us over.’

  In a low voice, Kimberly said, They’ve raped all of us.‘

  ‘Even you?’

  ‘Yeah, even me.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘What do you mean, how?’

  ‘You’re so ... tough.’

  ‘They make you go along,’ she muttered.

  ‘It’s my fault,’ Connie said. She sounded different, suddenly. Quiet and upset. ‘They use me. If Mom or Kimberly don’t go along, I’m the one who gets it. They don’t want me getting wrecked, so they ... keep cooperating. No matter what Wesley wants.’