by Kyanna Skye
“The drink that you spilled all over yourself, what was in it?”
She combed through her memory, looking for the answer. “Um… I’m not sure. All I remember was that it was something called Água Escura. I think it was Mexican.”
“Brazilian,” Luke corrected with a nod. “And I think it’s what saved your life.”
She froze. “Excuse me?”
“Água Escura, means ‘Dark Water’ in Portuguese. It has a few fruit juices inside of it that are repellant to the creatures that attacked your boat. It’s effective, even when highly diluted by water. If you had it all over you, the beasts would have ignored you. That would explain why you alone survived and managed to swim to my shore here.”
Tris froze, uncertain if she had heard correctly. Part of her was uncertain if the man was joking or not. She had expected the man to laugh and either tell her that she had been befuddled by drink and had a nasty experience or to tell her that her drink had similar effects on others and there was no need for concern. Certainly she hadn’t expected him to validate her experience as she described it.
“Uh…” she said, trying to find the words. “I’m sorry?”
“There really is no name for them,” Luke went on. “Sea Snags, I call them. They’ve been in these waters for hundreds of years. Since before even I came to live here.”
Again, no words came to her. Only confusion entered into her thoughts and she could not make heads or tails of them.
He seemed to grasp that and folded his hands. “You do know where your cruise was taking you, don’t you? And by that, I mean the route you were taking to see all of the sights?”
She thought about it a moment. “Uh… the Bahamas… Puerto Rico…”
Luke nodded. “And, I’m afraid that each of those places runs along the southernmost border of the Bermuda Triangle. And the Triangle has been making people – whole ships and even planes – disappear for years… centuries even.” He unfurled his hands as if to say, ‘surprise’. “Now you know why.”
She sat there, looking at her host incredulously. Words failed to rise to her mouth as did coherent thoughts. All she was certain of was that she was looking at a man that struck her as having spent too much time under the sun, his brains cooked. After a few moments the only words that came to her lips were simple ones.
“Sea Snags?”
Luke nodded. “Yes. Well… not always,” he clarified. “Planes go missing in the Triangle all the time, but it’s not the Snags that bring them down. There are other creatures out there. Some of them are considerably less than friendly and others that even I would do my best to keep well away from.” He said it so plainly, like he was talking about what kind of a dog he would buy if he could.
Tris sat there, her mouth slightly agape. She looked her host over, looking for signs that perhaps maybe he was drunk and had maybe spoken as if the wine had conquered his reason. He looked calm and sober enough, there seemed to be nothing off about him.
A thought struck her and relief washed over her. She chuckled at her host. “Oh, I see… you’re putting me on, aren’t you? Having a laugh?”
The look on Luke’s face was dead serious, yet somehow it was still polite. He shook his head so slowly that each half-arc of his jaw seemed to bolster his point as if he were nailing it with a hammer. Again, she could tell that he wasn’t joking. But the urgency she had felt back down on the beach seemed to reach up to her and her mind struggled to maintain control.
“I don’t believe in monsters,” she said. “You have to be joking.”
Luke didn’t look as though he wished to upset her but he sipped once more from his wine glass. “The giant squid was said to have been a myth for thousands of years. But then when their carcasses began to wash ashore in the 19th century, people began to believe it. And it was entirely proved in 2004 when those fellows in Japan caught pictures of a live one beneath the sea.” He paused, looking her over as if he’d seen this kind of reaction in people dozens of times before. “Just because you don’t believe in something doesn’t mean it’s not real, Tris.”
She wasn’t sure why, but to hear him use her name so familiarly made her think back to Silence of the Lambs. Hannibal Lecter had held that sort of familiarity with Clarice and the effect had been just as spine tingling then as it was now. Every instinct that she had was telling her that it was time to leave.
She stood up from her chair, her legs burning with the desire to get as far away from a madman as possible. “Right… uh, listen, Mr. Silva… thank you for taking me in and giving me these clothes... and giving me lunch. But, why don’t you just go ahead and show me to the docks and if I can get in touch with that cruise ship…”
“Oh, I’m afraid it’s far too late for that, Tris,” Luke said, almost regretfully.
She froze. “E-excuse me?”
Luke sipped at his wine again. “You’ve seen the creatures that ate your fellow tourists… you’ve survived them… even if they didn’t care to eat you at the time they still most certainly saw you, as evidenced by your spoiled clothes. They know that you’re out there somewhere… in these waters… and if you enter open water ever again they’ll stop at nothing to find you.” He set his glass aside and stood up. “If you return to the water, no matter how large the boat you travel on is, they will still bring it down… just to get you.”
He looked down sadly at the table where much of the food had gone uneaten. “You must understand that the Snags are very similar to bloodhounds. They never forget a scent and if you were to be on the water at all they would sense you. That is their way.” He looked at her, almost pitifully. “You’ve been thrust into a world that you know nothing about… and for better or worse, you’re here for the duration.” He sighed somberly. “I am so very sorry to have to say so, but I’m afraid that now, you’ll be a permanent guest of my home.” His look and his words were both sad and Tris could only stare at him, wondering if she was perhaps still dreaming and wondering too if she would ever wake up from… this.
“Luke…” she began.
“I’m sorry, my dear,” he said, his voice heavy with genuine remorse. “If we had the means to fly you out of here I would happily have concocted some story to help you believe that what you’d seen never actually happened. I would do all in my power to see you returned to the mainland safely and you could go on with your life. But it’s not meant to be. Not anymore. My island is too small – and too rocky – for a runway so a plane could never land here. A helicopter might, but there is no landing pad here and even if there was, no helicopter in the world has the fuel capacity to fly you to the nearest island with an airport. The only way to leave my island is by boat. And those poor souls that you witnessed being slaughtered… well, the Sea Snags would not have attacked unless they were certain that someone on that boat had seen them first hand. It’s one of their only defenses really.
“You say you were watching dolphins? Well, likely the Snags were feasting on them when one of your fellow passengers saw them. Their only defense then would have been to bring down the sightseeing boat that you were aboard. And if they know you are aboard my supply boat, they will inevitably sink the whole vessel just as they did yours. I cannot ask my people to take that risk, I’m sorry.”
He turned as if to go but before he left the shade of the tent he turned to look at her. “The room where you showered is yours now. I’d advise you to please not try to escape. My supply boat really is the only way off the island and my staff will be alerted to your presence and they’ll know to watch you.” He looked sadly at the stony ground. “Also, there are worse creatures out there than the Snags, Tris. Here in my home, is the safest place you could ever be.”
She could see that he still wasn’t lying. And for a man who was wealthy enough to own an island she imagined that perhaps he was a gifted liar. Yet somehow she was perfectly aware that every word he had said was true. This seemed a bit far to go for a practical joke and there was no sign of humor in anything he said.
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br /> “I’ll do everything that I can to make you comfortable, Tris,” he promised.
She shook her head. “No… I won’t believe it. You can’t keep me here!” She took a hasty step forward, intent on throttling he man.
Before she got within reach, however, a loud howling sound drew her attention, freezing her in her tracks.
She turned and a scream built up inside of her lungs that failed to leave her mouth. Her terror was so vast at what she saw that to even make a sound as necessary as a scream would surely have meant death.
There were monsters standing in behind her. Three of them… each of them easily as large as a man, though one was slightly smaller. Each of them poised to block her escape.
At first she thought they were some kind of a lizard. There were three of them and they were impossibly large lizards, like Komodo dragons. But they weren’t Komodo dragons. These looked far fiercer than that. And lizards, she knew, did not walk upright like people.
They were indeed standing erect like a man would, but on two short and stubby legs, balancing the remainder of their weight on their long tails. But from the short legs that hung on their bodies where on a man arms would be, she guessed that the creatures could crawl around on all fours like a genuine lizard if they wanted. And on any surface, as each of the creature’s limbs was capped with five fishhook shaped claws. Their skin looked as smooth as glass, almost like a snake’s. And the pattern of its scales looked just like the strange image she had seen on…
The realization washed over her in less than a heartbeat. No. No! It wasn’t possible… it couldn’t be…
The creatures hissed at her and she got a closer look at the rest of their features. Each creature had a spear-shaped mouth filled with two dozen tiny daggers. In their mouths were forked tongues that flitted from one side to the other like a snake’s.
Protruding from their lower jaws were several small hair-like extensions, almost as though the creatures had a beard that had not yet grown in. Their eyes were yellow and catlike, the top of their head lined in small horns that extended from the tip of their snouts all the way down their backs. Their bodies were colored almost as dark as blackened glass.
And from the hiss that issued over their lips, she would have thought they sounded hungry.
She reached back into her senses, thinking that she had truly gone mad. That maybe she was in the throes of death and drowning in the ocean right now… that she’d never actually made it to shore… and that her mind was just conjuring up some image that helped her cling to life only to make her long for death.
If that were so, she did not feel it. Part of her was hoping that Luke would scream for her, calling for his armed security and that those men would gun down these animals right where they were.
But no outcry came. Not from anyone.
“Tris, there’s no need to worry,” Luke said calmly and she felt his hand on her shoulder and he stepped by her and fearlessly approached the creatures. Much to her shock, he embraced the smallest of the three, as if it were a lover, encircling its midsection with his arms.
She felt bile rise in her mouth.
“This is my wife,” he said familiarly. “And these are my two sons.”
Tris was barely maintaining control of her finer senses as the day wore on. She had been escorted back to her room, though she had taken the pitcher of wine from lunch with her and had drank all of it in the hope of passing out and waking up aboard the cruise ship, surrounded by the familiar comforts of her stateroom and hoping for the comfort of realizing that everything she had experienced was just a dream… or a nightmare.
But the alcohol had not helped. It seemed that her adrenaline – or maybe it was just sheer madness – kept her awake. She felt as wide awake as a priest on Sunday. There would be no sleep for her… not from this. Not until she could either confirm her sanity or be certain that she had slipped to lunacy.
She leaned against the frame of a door that overlooked a private balcony to her room. Beyond was a portion of the compound that she noted had been overturned by Luke into this, his private villa. Some of the old Spanish guns that rested on the walls were still being cleaned by the staff and every once in a while she saw armed guards walk by on the walls and below in the yards. Each of them stopped to acknowledge her with a nod, crushing any hope she had of remaining anonymous to these people until she could find a way to escape.
They know who I am, she thought, feeling mortified.
She had thought to find some alternative methods of communication. She had searched her entire room and found no telephone… no computer… nothing that would help her reach the outside world.
There has to be something, she decided. Luke had said there was a boat. Boats needed radios… and the radio that could do that was probably… Down at the docks… where they’ll know an outsider, even if Luke hasn’t told them about me.
Shit!
Okay… so getting a hold of a radio was out. But so were a good many other things… including a psychiatrist. She knew that the island had electricity, she had determined as much by the lights in her bathroom and from the security cameras that she had seen outside in the courtyard. Obviously they weren’t cut off from the rest of the world, especially if Luke said that there was a boat to bring in supplies.
So… the boat is the only way out of here.
Shit!
All of her thoughts had been on wondering if she had gone insane or not for the first fifteen minutes when she had returned to her room. After that she resolved that she would rather not find out and decided that if she was still in control of her psyche that getting away from this place was the best way to preserve it.
But deeper contemplations of trying to find another way off the island were drowned out by everything that Luke had told her at lunch… and by what she had seen. Though she had seen it – or thought she had – she was unwilling to believe it. Monsters… the Bermuda Triangle… monsters… she was marked for death… monsters… she was a prisoner here…
It’s not true, she told herself repeatedly and with gulp of wine. It’s not true… it can’t be true. This isn’t happening… Luke… Mr. Silva… whatever the hell his name is… it’s all fake! He’s just fucking with me! I didn’t see that shit!
There came a knock on her door that almost made her jump from her skin. She turned towards the door and gripped the edge of the door frame she had been leaning against. “Go away!” she shouted, feeling tears form in her eyes.
The door was lightly pushed open and standing there in the arch of the door were two figures that would have, under normal circumstances, caught her interest entirely.
They were men. Each of them built handsomely enough for her liking. Broad shoulders, well-toned if not overdeveloped muscles, a light sheen of sweat covered their bodies where they were visible. They wore no clothes that she could detect, their modesty protected only by towels that were wrapped around their waists.
One of them had lightly colored blonde hair that was parted down the middle and wore deep brown eyes, and he looked to be about thirty or so. The other had a head of lighter brown hair and piercing green eyes, though he was slightly shorter than his counterpart, looking about forty or so in age. He carried a metal flask in his hand.
“I told you to go away,” Tris warned.
“Yes, I’m sorry about that,” the blond one said, taking two steps into the room. “But, our father thought it would be best if we talked to you. He knows you’re upset… and believe me, we understand perfectly how you feel.”
She caught the word like an outfielder catching a long-drive. “Your father?”
“Yes,” said the brunette man. “Luke… he’s our father.” He blushed a little. “I’m Jon… and this is my brother, Jacob,” he said, gesturing to the blond man beside him. “We met earlier today… though, you wouldn’t know us if you saw us.”
Fear began to tremble inside of her legs. She couldn’t have run even if she wanted to. “You’re… his sons?”
Tris held her ground, thinking that if things came to the worst of it, she could just throw herself from the balcony of her room and hope that the fall killed her. Death seemed preferable to wasting away here as a captive.
Wait… am I a prisoner here? Could this all just be some kind of cruel joke?
She licked her lips nervously, hoping that the answer to her question would be a resounding ‘no’. “Am I a prisoner here?”
The two men looked at each other uncertainly before looking back to her. “Uh… it’s not that simple, I’m afraid. You’re here for your own protection… and for others too, I suppose,” Jon said.
“The Sea Snags can’t find you if you’re too far inland… you just happened to land on the only island that they won’t try and cross. They die if they’re out of the water too long. Most other places, if you’d washed up on shore and that drink you spilled on you had washed off enough, they’d have plucked you right off that beach,” Jacob added.
Okay, they’re nuts too, Tris decided, but stayed on point. “That doesn’t answer my question.”
Jon pursed her lips together contemplatively. “Yes… I suppose it would be simpler just to say that you’re a prisoner here. But… it doesn’t have to feel that way. That’s another reason that we’ve come here.”
“You can’t hold me here,” she warned. “That’s kidnapping.”
“Not in the eyes of the local law,” Jon said delicately. “You see, our father – when he bought this island – the government recognized his right to set the laws for this place as he saw fit. They didn’t care if he did or not, the island is so small and nobody but us lives on it. So, according to local law, your life as a U.S. Citizen is null and void here. You’re a resident of this island now.”
Tris’ jaw dropped. “Just like that?”
“Just like that,” Jacob confirmed. “Money can accomplish a lot in this part of the world. It would be best if you just accept it. This isn’t a terrible place to live. Not in the least. We have all of the comforts you could possibly imagine here. And if it’s not here, we can import it. Well… everything except cars. There’re no roads here.”