by Brooke Dark
She dresses and calls Brata. She tells him of the events that transpired the night before.
He’s aghast. ‘You should have let me drive you back to your hotel.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she tells him. ‘I believe I am close. I believe I may have found its lair.’
He’s quiet for a moment as this news sinks in. Then, ‘Give me an hour, I will come to your hotel. You can show me.’
♥
~ CHAPTER ELEVEN ~
REVELATION
AMBER eats brunch at the restaurant overlooking the ocean. A fruit platter. Yogurt. Toast. English tea. It is a beautiful morning. The sea breeze cools her skin. She watches one of the waitresses appear with a tray. It contains little baskets of incense. Amber watches the girl at one of the Hindu shrines. A stone carving of Ganesha, faces the ocean. It is already adorned in leis of frangipani flowers. The girl places one of the small banana leaf canang trays onto the small mantle. It burns with a pair of incense sticks. The sweet exotic smell of smoke drifts on the salty sea air. It is blissful, Amber thinks. Calming. She breathes it in deeply. The waitress splashes droplets of water onto the shrine before moving onto another situated in a garden bed near the pool.
Amber checks the time. Brata will be by in half an hour. She heads back to her room to change. Her bedroom door remains opens. She adores the fresh tropical air. The fresh tropical breeze. It carries the constant waft of frangipani flowers. The curtains flutter. She brushes her hair in front of the mirror. She runs the night’s events through her mind. Chasing that beast south into mangrove forests, recalling the peculiar things she saw there.
There’s a knock on the door frame. She looks up.
She tenses slightly.
Sam stands there.
He has a cocky look in his eye. He wears white shorts, blue polo shirt, deck shoes. His thick hair combed neatly. Tanned skin. He stands there, as if Amber’s heart should melt for him.
She feels no tug of lust for him however.
He invites himself in. Looks around. He’s brimming with arrogance. His eyes shift to her. Sizing her up. As though she’s a dish he might tuck into. Wondering which end of her he should begin with.
There is no hello. No “How are you?” He says, ‘So, you’re fucking my wife.’ His smile doesn’t wane. He simply shuts the door behind him. Closing it gently. ‘You like fucking girls? You are a dirty lesbian?’
Amber sighs. ‘Sam. Please, if you come here talking like this, you aren’t welcome.’
He laughs. ‘Hey, I’m sorry, but you have been fucking my wife, yes? I have every right to come here to and voice a complaint.’
‘Okay, but—’
‘No. You listen to what I’m telling you. You fucked my wife. You know? So, you owe me now. You owe me.’
Amber frowns. ‘Owe you?’
‘Yeah.’ He approaches her, his smile almost gone now. Amber backs up.
‘What do you say? You want to try fucking a man? Maybe dat’s what you need. A good cock inside you. Yes? Then you can leave men’s wives alone. Yes?’
‘Sam. You should leave.’
‘No.’ He stands there eyeing her with his searing dark eyes. He grabs her hand. ‘I think I should fuck you. I think you should try fucking a man. Then we call it even. Okay?’
She shakes her head. ‘I’m sorry, Sam, but that’s not going to happen.’
‘Why? Cos I don’t have a big fat pussy between my legs?’
‘Please, Sam. I don’t want any trouble.’
He laughs in her face. ‘Ha! You don’t want any trouble? You don’t want any trouble? You started dis trouble! I was having a niiiice little holiday with my wife, and suddenly this dirty little whore from England comes along and turns my wife into dirty pussy licker. The way I see it, you brought dis trouble on yourself. Now I want compensation. Dat’s what I think. Then I call it even.’
‘That’s a peculiar logic, Sam.’
She tries to step around him. She will make for the door if she can. She will stand outside and ask him to leave.
He grips her hand. She attempts to shrug it. He holds her with strength.
There’s a moment where they have eye contact. He shakes his head. ‘You’re not going anywhere, little bitch.’
She shoves him aside with her spare hand but he grabs her by the throat. Heaves her up against the wall.
‘Look, dis is all your fault,’ he hisses at her face. He holds her there. He runs his spare hand to her groin, gripping the mound of her pussy through her dress. He squeezes. Hard. Unpleasantly. Digging his fingers into her soft, fleshy parts. He smiles. Enjoying the look of fear and pain in her eyes. ‘You want to see how a man does it? I’ll push you onto the bed and fuck you like a dog. Eh? I think you will like dat?’
His fingers increase pressure at her throat. It’s getting difficult to breathe. He leers at her, smiling, the fingers of his other hand squeezing and squashing her pussy lips together. He’s enjoying it. She can see the randy look in his face. She can see it’s arousing him. Senses his hardness in his shorts. He pulls up the hem of her dress. Guides his fingers to the waist line of her knickers, begins to slide his fingers down inside…
Suddenly he stops.
A look of confusion on his face.
He notices that Amber’s expression has changed. From something like primal fear. To a smug grin.
He frowns. His hand poised in the tops of her panties, wondering what’s going on. ‘What?’ he says to her. ‘What are you smiling at?’
Her eyes turn white.
He gasps.
Her tongue flicks out and whips its way about his neck. Constricting his throat.
His grip on her neck loosens. He snatches at her tongue, trying to tear it from him. He can’t breathe. He tries to step back. He can’t move. Her fist takes a handful of his chest and suddenly he his thrust violently across the room by some invisible force.
He lands heavily. Knocking his head. Dazed.
Groggily he gets to his knees, looks about. Attempting to orientate himself. A shape scampers across the ceiling.
He tries to focus on it. He looks about for Amber. Searching the ceiling. The room about him.
He finds her kneeling right there at his side. He gasps and tries to lash out at her. She grabs him around the throat. Holds him there prone, no matter how much he struggles.
He cannot speak. He does not need to. Amber talks for the next minute. ‘Turku. Two weeks before you came away on this holiday. You slept with Alina. At a buck’s party for your best friend.
‘Helsinki. Three months ago. You fucked Eevi and Lumi at a work function. You slapped Eevi across the face when she wouldn’t leave in the morning. You told her she was a slut.
‘New Year’s Eve last year. You fucked Linnea. In her mother’s house. While Veronika slept in the guest bedroom.
‘Lappeenranta. Last November. You went away for two weeks for work. You regularly fucked a girl called Helena. She fell in love with you. She wanted to visit you in Helsinki. You told her she couldn’t. You didn’t tell her why. You broke her heart.
‘Last July. You and Veronika travelled with some friends to the Lakeland district. You stayed in a cottage on the water. Most nights you were all drinking. One night, after Veronika had gone to sleep, you took advantage of one of her closest friends. Mila. Mila was extremely inebriated yet you persisted. You undressed her. You fucked her. You did not care that she was half asleep. There was no consent. That constitutes rape. But you have convinced yourself otherwise. Now Mila has moved away from Helsinki. Veronika still does not know why. Mila remains depressed and troubled. She still doesn’t know exactly what happened that night.
‘Savonlinna. Your wedding to Veronika. Veronika’s hometown. You fuck Lotta, Veronika’s cousin. In the field behind the reception hall. You justify it by saying this is your last fuck as a free man. You threaten Lotta if she ever tells Veronika. You say you will hurt her younger sister if she ever speaks about it.'
Amber names other
dates and times and females. All occasions and instances, every moment he was ever unfaithful to Veronika.
Then she falls silent. Letting him absorb everything she has just told him. When she feels it has sunk in she says, ‘Rightly or wrongly, I have shown Veronika the love that she deserves.’ She stands. She pulls him to his feet and throws him toward the door. He loses his footing and crashes into the wall.
‘I know your secrets,’ Amber tells him. ‘And before you fly home, you will tell Veronika. All of it.’
Rage bubbles up in his face. He climbs to his feet and rushes at her, hoping his superior height and bulk will over power her. He’s sadly mistaken. She grabs his throat with one hand, instantly stopping his momentum, making him grunt, groan. She holds him there as easily as someone holding up a tiny straw doll.
‘Don’t fight me,’ she warns. ‘You do not know who I am.’
She throws him backwards. He crumples against the wall. This time he yanks the door open and flees.
♥
~ CHAPTER TWELVE ~
LAIR
WITHIN the hour, Amber and Brata stand on undeveloped sea front between the southern tip of Sanur and Benoa Port. The beach is a swathe of black volcanic sand here. In the far hazy distance the volcanic slopes of Mt Agung can be seen. Inland, away from the beach, the air is still and humid. The sounds of the surf are dull, muted by the dense mangrove forest, sounding far away. Flies buzz about the trees. The scrub is wild and rugged. Mangrove roots resemble the legs of enormous spiders. The fleeting shapes of birds dart through trees before flying off.
In front of Amber and Brata there lies a clearing of sand. In this clearing, a midden of human bones. Old bones. Dried and bleached by the sea air. By the tropical sun. The pile stands half a metre in height. Covers an area of two to three square metres. Encircling the sandy clearing, strange dolls, fashioned from sticks and human hair. Suspended from stunted, twisted trees. Trees resembling deformed people. They are ghastly, haunting things. They look as if they have been crafted by human hand.
Brata is intrigued. Also puzzled. Puzzled that something like this has apparently gone unnoticed by members of the public, that no-one has chanced upon it before now. Of if they have, why has it not been reported?
‘Perhaps local folk indeed know about it,’ Amber tells him. ‘Maybe they’ve chosen not to say anything for fear of retribution from dark forces.’
Brata nods. ‘You make a good point. Still, I’m surprised dat even a whisper of dis hass not made it to police.’
Amber circles the midden. Simultaneously studying it whilst gazing up into the treetops. She frowns. She sniffs the air. There are smells of distant smoke. Of mangrove mud. Of salty sea air. There is also something else. She stops and gazes off into the bushland.
‘What iss it?’ Brata asks her, following her gaze.
She’s not sure. She believes she senses something. An odd odour. She moves away. Brata watches. ‘What do you see?’ he asks.
She does not answer. Not immediately. When she does, she says, ‘It’s nothing I see. It’s something I sense.’
He trails her through the forest, his shoes covered in dark mud and grime. His shirt snagging on spiky branches. He marvels at the animalistic way Amber tracks her course through the undergrowth, slipping through as deft as a cat. He almost loses sight of her once or twice, so quick is she. Yet when he emerges into another clearing he sees her standing there, gazing down at some figure on the leafy earth.
He comes up opposite her, hands on hips, staring, puffing.
There’s a creature on the ground. A ghostly monster thing with fish skin and fish eyes. A long snout with blood on its teeth. The creature is shark like in form. Except it bears limbs. If it were on foot it would stand taller than either Amber or Brata. Yet its bulk is sleek, slender as an eel.
‘Is this familiar to you?’ Amber asks Brata.
Brata circles it, never taking his eyes from it. Fascinated. ‘I have never seen anything like it.’
‘What about that thing you spotted?’ Amber asks. ‘The one you told me about.’
Brata wipes a handkerchief over his brow and the back of his neck. His shirt is damp with sweat. ‘Dat night, what we saw, it woss very dark and gloomy. What I saw dat night… it look more like monkey’
Amber kneels down. She reaches out and places her hand directly over the head of the critter. She shuts her eyes. Brata watches, curious. He does not speak, does not interrupt.
He watches as Amber now places her hand directly against the chest of the creature. Her eyes are still shut. The centre of Brata’s brow folds downwards as he witnesses the colour of Amber’s hand turn grey, taking on the colour of the animal.
Two minutes later, Amber’s eyes come open.
Brata watches her.
‘It has been dead for some hours,’ she says, looking about. ‘It has been banished from its realm, I feel. As punishment.’ Amber looks at Brata now. ‘This is the creature I fought last night.’
‘Did you wound it?’
‘Not enough to kill it.’ There are shards of dead coral stabbed into the creature on its underside. Stingray barbs. Amber pulls one into her grasp. Inspects it. Sniffs it. She looks for prints in the sand and leaf matter. She uncovers places where the leaves have been kicked aside. She trails them. It leads back toward the beach where she loses the trail. Perhaps the killer has taken to the water. Or perhaps it has climbed the trees. Ambled away amidst the boughs.
‘I believe I am close now,’ Amber tells him. ‘I believe I am very close.’ She watches his eyes. ‘Brata, I sense you wish to have your forensics people get to work here. But let none of them come here. Not yet. Can you promise me that?’
‘If you believe you might catch dis killer, den I give you time.’
‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘I shall return here tonight. Alone.’
♥
~ CHAPTER THIRTEEN ~
CONFESSIONS
AFTERNOON. There’s some business Amber needs to attend to. She moves through the grounds of the Villa Apsara. Once more she reads the text message on her phone.
Hi Amber. We’ve checked out. Sam says I mustn’t see you anymore. Please don’t try to find me.
Veronika
She knocks on the door to Veronika and Sam’s room.
There comes no answer.
She knocks again. Puts her ear to the door. She senses no-one within.
She heads to the pool. Casts her eyes over the pool guests. Those swimming. Those lying on sun lounges.
Sam and Veronika are nowhere to be seen. She considers heading for hotel reception. Asking if the couple really have checked out. Yet… she senses them nearby.
She strolls out toward the beach.
The beach before her is crowded with fishing boats and hawkers and boys again flying kites. Tourists lounge about on sunbeds beneath shady umbrellas. Amber strolls down the cobbled path that runs the length of the beach. Cyclists ride back and forth. Hawker stalls sell plastic toys, balloons, sweets, cigarettes. She walks for five minutes… then she sees them. Sitting on beach towels. On the sand. In front of the Sanur Paradise Resort Hotel. Half way to the water’s edge. A glass bottom boat is anchored just off the beach.
Amber considers what she is about to do. She knows Veronika and Sam are due to fly out in three days. She can’t let them leave without addressing certain matters.
She strolls down to them. They aren’t talking. Sam gazes out to sea. Veronika lies in her bikini, a sarong tied around her waist, draped over her legs. Amber approaches… and stops in front of them. Sam sees her first. Then Veronika.
Sam tenses instantly. ‘What the hell are you doing here? Leave us be.’
Amber raises her hand. Silencing him. ‘I am here to sort things over. Okay? I do not wish to break up your marriage.’ She offers a sympathetic look toward Veronika. ‘That is the last thing I want. So listen to me. Firstly, let me say that I did not play fair when I met you both. I am sorry, Veronika, but I believe I seduced y
ou. As such, I may have lead you to places you might not ordinarily choose to go. For that I am sorry.’
Veronika eyes Amber. There is only a sense of lament in those eyes. Not regret.
‘Please accept my apology.’
‘Are you finished yet?’ asks Sam. ‘Because we don’t want to hear any more.’
Ambers considers this. She watches Sam closely. ‘Tell me something,’ she says to him. ‘Have you told her?’
Veronika frowns. Sam glares at Amber. He looks uncomfortable.
Amber eyes him. ‘Have you told her?’
Veronika looks back and forth between Amber and Sam. ‘Told me what?’
‘Don’t listen to her,’ Sam tells Veronika. ‘It’s all bullshit.’
‘You will tell her,’ Amber says, her eyes focused on him. ‘She will know. I go nowhere until you do.’
Sam gets to his feet. He steps up to Amber. Threatening. ‘You don’t scare me, bitch,’ he says to her face, keeping his voice so as not to cause a scene.
He is scared however. Amber senses it. Can almost smell it. He’s angry and terrified. Terrified of her. Also terrified of what Veronika might learn.
‘You will tell her,’ Amber says calmly.
Veronika gets to her feet. She moves to them. ‘Sam, what is it? Tell me.’ She studies Sam’s face. He stares at Amber.
‘I do not wish to make you tell her,’ Amber warns him. ‘But I will if you don’t.’
He continues to glare at Amber. She flinches not, simply matches his stare.
Finally he drops his gaze and sighs. He blinks at the beach sand. Gone is his arrogance, his ego, his pride. He looks a mere shell of the man who confronted Amber in her room earlier that day.
He returns to his towel. Ignoring Veronika at first. Sits with his elbows resting on his knees. Gazing out to sea. Veronika trails him back. Sits before him. Takes his hand. Watches his eyes. ‘Please, Sam,’ she says. ‘What is it? Can you tell me?’
His eyes go to hers. He sighs. Then he drops his eyes to the sand. He starts from the beginning. From the very first time he cheated on Veronika. To the last…