by JC Braswell
“Looking for something?” It must have come loose during the tackle, and now Williams stared down the barrel of his own weapon. “Part of me wants to shoot your other leg and watch you struggle through this hell. Got to be honest. Surprised you made it this far, a college boy like yourself. But enough of that sappy stuff. You owe it to Charlie to spill your blood. You gave up on us back there. Does that mean you should live? Nah, I’d rather just shoot you right now and make my way back over to camp. The yellow brick road is just ahead for me.”
“You found it?” Williams couldn’t believe his own words. Out of all of them, Simmons would be the one to be saved.
“Got right up to the edge of the valley and peeked over the hill. It just sat there. As many tents as soldiers. Then I got to thinking. If it’s an American outpost, and if you four…well, I guess two now. Shame what happened to Harris and Donnie back there. Damn shame. Must be weighing on you pretty heavy.”
Williams looked over at Jackson’s prone body. He was the last one he needed to save.
“Harris served his purpose. His body, that is. Found it damn near tore in three pieces. Legs nowhere to be found. That’s when I realized the little bastard could be put to good use. Fooled you just enough.” He smiled again. “Like that little bonfire I made?”
“We can work this out.”
“I don’t think so. Imagine if you two made it out of here and it happened to be an American camp. Our little secret would be exposed.” Simmons didn’t blink. His lips curled back exposing gum as he taunted, waving the gun. “My ass would’ve been court-martialed for disobeying a commanding officer’s orders. Wouldn’t it? The thought of being penned up in some military prison doesn’t sit well with me. Not at all.”
“Listen, man.” Williams held his hands up. He swallowed, tasting the iron of blood. Whatever help you need, you can get it there. I promise. No court-martial. None of that.”
Simmons twirled the gun in his hand. His chest rolled as he flexed.
“Oh, no. I can’t do that. You see, we’re all too far gone for any type of redemption, or whatever you would call it. You led us down this path. It’s time for you to pay the price—now.”
“You’re talking mad.” Williams dug his fingers into the dirt. Then, by chance, his index finger probed a smooth shell. It had to be a rock—a small miracle buried within the red soil.
“And what is mad? Is mad sacrificing your brothers to help some mongrel boy because he may be on our side? You’d sacrifice your own kind for some higher cause that doesn’t exist. These animals all want us dead, and you’re too stupid to see that.”
Simmons aimed the gun. His finger twitched. The hammer could fall at any second.
Jackson yelled, seizing Simmons’s neck with a vine. The wild man screamed as Jackson wrenched back, pulling Simmons’s weight with him and releasing Williams, allowing a lungful of air to rush into his mouth.
“You bigoted bastard,” Jackson screamed, a primordial sound somewhere between man and animal where survival lived. The agony sketched on Jackson’s face revealed he squeezed as hard as he could. But Williams knew he couldn’t hold on. Deprived of water, weakened by the harsh climate and exhausted from the lack of sleep, Jackson’s whole body shook, struggling to maintain his grip as Simmons writhed around.
“Jackson.” Williams choked.
Simmons spun around as he found his opening. Light popped once, then twice from Simmons’s gun.
“No,” Jackson cried. He staggered backwards, clutching his chest where the bullet found its mark.
“You think you can sneak up on me like that?” Simmons targeted the back of Jackson’s skull as he crawled back towards Williams, his necklace made of VC ears dangling from his neck hovering a few inches above the ground. “I ain’t gonna let some jiggaboo scare me. No, son. I’m gonna gut you.”
With the stone in hand, Williams shuffled to his feet and took aim at the animal. But there was something else waiting for their former squad mate, a sentence another needed to carry out.
Its platinum eyes flashed to life with vengeance as it sprang from the jungle’s bosom. It bore down on Simmons’s exposed shoulder, accompanied by the sound of tearing ligaments and muscle fiber. The Texan bellowed out a gut-wrenching cry as the tiger seized him again, yanking him backwards.
There would be no act of kindness or mercy from the tiger. It flung Simmons against a stone outcrop with ease. Simmons rolled to the ground until he came to a stop five feet from Williams.
“My arm,” Simmons cried, reaching for the stump that had once extended out.
The tiger circled around, its glare fixed with a purpose. It bore its bloodstained ivory fangs as it pawed at Simmons’s boots. Simmons, who had descended into the depths of his animal nature, found himself stalked by the very nature he wanted to embrace.
Williams pushed his chest off the ground. His entire upper body throbbed as he crawled to safety, finding Simmons’s severed arm and his handgun a few feet away.
“Ain’t no way.” Williams holstered his weapon and continued toward Jackson. Jackson remained motionless, his face buried in the mud. He feared the worst.
“Goddamn it. Somebody help me. Somebody help me.” Simmons floundered around, kicking at the air in a futile attempt to beat back the tiger’s coming attack. The tiger was not amused, growling and swiping again, its claws ripping into Simmons’s legs and tearing hunks of flesh.
“Jackson, wake up, buddy. We need to move.” Williams rolled him over. Jackson whimpered, his chest soaked from two fresh bullet wounds.
“It burns.”
“You’ve been shot before. Nothing new.” Williams glanced back at the tiger.
Simmons twisted to his stomach with a desperate expression, his mauled face resembling the aftermath of a butcher’s block. The tiger pounced, clamping its jaws down on Simmons’s bicep. Another fount of blood sprang forward. The tiger latched on and dragged Simmons backwards, contorting Simmons’s back into configurations not meant for a human to suffer.
“Please…help me.” Jackson’s arms trembled.
“I know, brother. Just hold on for me.” Williams snaked his arm around Jackson’s neck. He knew it would be an impossible task, but he tried anyway, straining with each muscle to pull the big man up.
“No,” Simmons cried again. Flesh and tendon cracked and ripped. His pleas for mercy fell on deaf ears.
“We can do this together.” Williams took in a fresh breath of oxygen and lifted, thinking back to the fateful night. Jackson was right. She would not want him to give in. She would want him to prove himself for her, for their unborn child.
He found the inner strength, pushing past his pain and fever. He lifted Jackson off the ground as the tiger mutilated Simmons.
“I know you could.” Jackson anchored his arm around Williams’s neck.
“Walk with me. Keep focused.” Williams repeated as he strained to keep both of them upright.
“I’ll walk with you any day, man.”
The two slogged forward, leaving behind Simmons’s pitiful cries. The jungle had caught her prey. Simmons would be sacrificed this night.
“I think you’re right,” Williams huffed, leaning forward as he pulled both of their weight. His heart raced as they disappeared under the cover of foliage. He knew it was only a matter of time. There would be another visit. The beast-turned-savior would find them.
“About what?”
“About everything.”
Williams stepped forward. There would be no ground to meet them. Weightlessness set in as the two tumbled down the decline. Williams tried to maintain focus, his body jarring against trees and loose rocks until the two came to a stop as the ground flattened out at the foot of the hill.
With Simmons’s cries still waning in the background, Williams caught a glimpse of the path ahead. The trees thinned out. The moonlight was a little more powerful. He imagined it emptying out into a valley of tall elephant grass. In the distance, the familiar sight of campfires flickered.
He feared it was a hallucination.
“Do you see that?” Williams grimaced, rolling to his back.
“Yeah, I see it,” Jackson said in his fleeting voice.
“Salvation.”
THIRTY TWO
Seagulls cawed overhead, flying in a V-pattern towards shore. Williams leaned back in his leather captain’s chair, adjusting himself as the saltwater-laden air nipped his sunburned face. He plucked his beer from the plastic holder molded in the cooler’s lid and took a sip. It had grown warm and bitter in his absence.
Peering over his worn flip-flops with blue strands fraying at each end, Williams focused on the child who fiddled with his fishing rod—a blue-and-orange Fisher Price toy made from plastic and some cheap cardboard.
The child cast the fishing rod toward the water. Its light-green hook plopped in the water, but there would be no fish for him this day, not without bait. The kid bounced up and down at the prospect of catching a meal. Williams took another swig. He didn’t know how, but the kid was familiar.
A speedboat engine roared into earshot as the rocket-red sea vessel cut across the water, white-capped waves following its movement as it blew by.
“Towards the center.” The child pulled back on the plastic string as the waves generated by the speedboat rocked their vessel. “Hold tight, buddy. Hold tight.”
The kid giggled as he mimicked the surfers he had discovered on The Endless Summer movie on television. His legs sprawled wide and bent, his arms outstretched on either side, moving with the waves that lolled the small fishing boat.
“Yeah, boy.” Williams laughed and clapped. “That’s what I like to see. Adventurous. If you’re of my blood, you’ll always be adventurous.” Williams felt like himself again.
The child looked backwards. His curled brown locks sprawled from underneath his hat as he joined in the laughter, playing up his surfing ability.
“All right. All right.” Williams opened his cooler and retrieved another beer. As he popped the cap off, the child twirled around and went back to his fishing rod, preparing to catch his prized fish.
“You gonna help me out?”
Williams nearly spat out the beer upon hearing the boy’s soft voice. Its notes blended with innocence and determination. He’d never heard the child speak before in all his dreams.
“Promise I won’t get in the way. I just wanna grow up to be like you,” the boy said.
Williams kicked off his flip-flops and dropped his feet to the floor. He knew he was dreaming. It had happened many times before, but this was different. There was a realness about it.
“What was that?” The bottle clunked against the ground. Beer foamed out of its mouth.
“I said I want to be like you when I grow up. Be a good fisherman. Catch good fish.”
Williams pushed himself out of the chair. His eyes fixated on the clear sky around him. The puffed white popcorn-shaped clouds were numerous, but no signs of gray. The storm would come. It always came.
“You ok?” the child asked, wrapping the fishing line around the spool.
“I’m fine.”
“I know I don’t have any bait or anything. I just want you to show me how. If you don’t show me how, I won’t learn. Kind of like…surfing,” he spoke with a slight lisp this time. It was the voice untouched by the harsh reality that would soon settle in. “Almost got it.”
“Almost got what?”
“The fishing pole.”
Williams edged closer. His fishing pole rattled against the round metal trim.
“The fishing pole. Yes,” Williams whispered, ducking slightly to see if he could catch any details of the child’s face. “You catch fish with it.”
Shadows crept across the sky as gray clouds manifested. In the distance, natural-born whitecaps signaled the beginning of the storm. Winds would come. Rain would fall. The storm was rising.
“No, you have faith in your instincts. The fish will be there. The pole is just a tool that helps you catch the fish that you know are there.” The kid cast his line forward, his movements smoother than before.
“And what if the fish aren’t there? What if you mess up?” Williams crept closer.
“You can only mess up if you give up on who you are. That’s what makes us different from animals. We can forget who we’re supposed to be. We become like the fish. We swim around with other fish in schools without a thought or care, only nurturing hunger,” the boy spoke with wisdom beyond his years.
Lighting flashed in the distance, but the child did not seem to care.
“So if we make a mistake and give up then we become like the animals?” Williams dug his toes into the coarse lining about three feet away from the child. He was close enough to save him.
The storm clouds burst. A hail of water rained down on them, pummeling the boat. But the child remained steadfast, reeling in his plastic line without the slightest care in the world.
“Yes. We try until we fail, then we try again even if we make mistakes. There will always be redemption.”
The rain gusted sideways, blowing stronger against the bow. Williams’s bare feet grinded against the ground. His Hawaiian shirt flew open as he fought against the wind.
“We need to go inside,” Williams yelled through the howling storm, its fury popping his eardrums. erupted all around them, rocking the boat in unorthodox directions. Then the child’s hat lofted off of his head. It spun into the distance, carried by the wind.
“We can’t go inside. When you find the storm, you must weather it. And if you can weather it, you need to lead others to safety.” The child’s long bangs blew with the wind, camouflaging his face, but his pale-blue eyes peeked through his bangs.
“But—” Williams looked back inside the cabin where two figures he didn’t expect to see stared back at him. “Karen?”
His words were a mere whisper in the wind but summoned a smile from the woman who stole his heart. The other figure—one familiar yet strange—stood beside Karen. She couldn’t have been any older than three, her soft facial features a unique blend of the two lovers. He knew in that instant he was staring at his unborn child.
A girl? Williams mouthed.
Karen simply nodded while pulling their child close to her hip. The specter of his past should’ve pained him, but the soft, subtle smile from the woman he loved comforted him.
“I’m sorry,” he said, the wind whipped around him, snapping the ship’s flag back and forth. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“Let it go. This is not your fault,” her words lifted him more than he could’ve imagined. “We love you. We always will.” His daughter lifted her arm, one no bigger than the saplings he used to form a crutch, and waved.
Suddenly, the fishing pole whipped from the unknown child’s hands and blew out with the wind. The child remained unfazed by the great gray background, water spilling over the sides of the boat as it canted sideways.
Williams looked back to the child then to Karen only to find an empty cabin.
“No,” he said.
With a loud slosh, the wave spilled over the vessel, carrying the child overboard. Williams would not relent, not this time. He dove for the side and snatched the small arm as the child flopped backwards over the rail. But Williams had him.
“Not going to let you go.” Williams pressed his knees into the railing, its sharp edges cutting into his bicep with the child’s weight on the other end. He was still there, holding on with everything he had. “Hold on.”
The boat rolled backwards. His legs slipped from underneath him. Then, as if time had stopped, the child’s brown locks parted.
“No.” Williams exhaled.
The child’s face—his soft blue eyes, his neatly defined eyebrows, the soft tones of flesh that surrounded his pink lips—came into view through the bubbling waves.
It couldn’t be. He was staring at himself as a child.
“Sometimes we’re meant to live one life when we think we’re meant for another,” the child said. This time t
here would be no letting go. “And you are too good a man to let go. You know that now.”
THIRTY THREE
Williams lifted his head and took in his surroundings, his fingers still wrapped around the imaginary child’s hand. The ocean waters were gone, washed away by the jungle that swirled with wisps of midnight haze.
“My God,” he repeated. He needed to steady himself. He needed to gain some grounding. Fever stung his eyes. Still clouded with the vision of Karen and his daughter, he couldn’t remember how he’d ended up in his place.
Through the jungle’s tendrils, Williams caught a glimpse of the silver field that shone brightly in the moonlight. It wasn’t an illusion. It was real. They had found the escape.
“That’s it.”
A stiff breeze washed over the area like the ocean washed over the boat in his dreams. He measured maybe a hundred yards or so until the jungle opened up and poured out into the field.
“You awake, Chris?” Jackson groaned.
Jackson’s eyes were as bright as a full moon in a starless sky. Williams could tell that something was off about the man. At least he was still alive.
“Yeah, I’m awake. If you can say that. You ok?” He tried to remember. Their brawl with Simmons was a fleeting memory that seemed days earlier.
“I’m all good. Real good,” Jackson said, adjusting himself on his stomach. “I was wondering if you was gonna wake up. Been laying there for an hour. Just waiting to see if you woke up.”
“I’m here, buddy.” Williams crawled to Jackson’s position.
“You were saying something in your dream. Couldn’t tell. You just kinda moved your arms around every once in a while and said a few things I couldn’t understand.” There was an unfamiliar strain in Jackson’s voice.
“What happened to us?” Several deep-pink lacerations opened along Jackson’s forehead.
“All I remember was falling. Felt like I was doing somersaults for hours when we fell down the hill. When we stopped, I kinda just laid here. Body all aching and waiting for you to wake up from that dream or something,” Jackson spoke with a slow cadence.