Every Vow You Break

by Peter Swanson

  “That’s what he told me. I didn’t believe him, but I hoped. I also did have an issue with Alec, that I’d lied to him about all sorts of things, including my past relationships, but now I think … I know it’s crazy … but I think Alec is part of it, too.”

  “They’re all part of it, Jill,” Abigail said. “That’s why we’re here. We’re here to be punished.”

  “Oh God,” Jill said. Then: “Why? Why are they doing this?”

  “What happened the night you were bleeding?” Abigail asked.

  “That whole day was a nightmare. I was supposed to meet you and go swimming, remember?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I was getting ready to go, and Alec told me that I couldn’t. It was so out of character for him, the way he said it, and I was like, What do you mean? He said he was making my decisions for me from now on, and that he’d decided that I wasn’t going to leave the bunk that day. That I was going to spend all day there, naked, with him. He had this look on his face. It was slightly deranged, and I remember … I remember thinking that I’d made a terrible, terrible mistake marrying this man, and then I rationalized it, I guess. I told myself that what he was doing was kind of sexy. We were on our honeymoon and he was taking control, telling me he wanted me all day long, naked, just to himself. So I did it. We ordered all our meals to be delivered, and we had constant sex, and I kept telling myself how it would sound on paper, in a romance novel. It would sound great. Halfway through their honeymoon they spent the day inside, completely naked, only with each other. But it didn’t feel like that. It felt like he was keeping me there, like if suddenly I decided that I’d had enough and wanted to go outside for fresh air he wouldn’t let me, or that if I didn’t want to have sex again, he would force me to.”

  She was quiet for a moment and Abigail didn’t say anything.

  Jill took a long breath. It sounded loud in the small damp room. “I took a nap, right after dinner, I guess it was. I was exhausted. Utterly exhausted, and now that I think back on it, I know I was drugged. When I woke up, hours later, it wasn’t just Alec in the room. At first I thought he was talking to himself, or else talking on the phone even though the phones don’t work here, but then I heard another voice and I opened my eyes and Porter was in the room, and they were both standing over the bed looking at me. I was so confused and out of it, and I don’t remember everything they said, but Alec kept saying something like, ‘This is what you want, isn’t it? Both of us together.’ And he was kind of giggling. It was insane and I started to scream and Porter held me down, and that was when Alec bit me hard, under my arm. It was so painful that it woke me up a little and I was able to get Porter off of me, although I think he kind of let me go because he was laughing, too. And that’s when I ran outside. I don’t remember much of what happened. I was bleeding, and I was cold, and I think I was starting to hallucinate. All I know is that I felt the way I’d felt in college one time when someone had given me a pot brownie and it had gone bad. I kept hearing phantom sounds in the woods and I had no sense of time, and then I was wondering if I’d dreamt it all. After a while I knocked on some windows of the other bunks, just hoping that someone would come and help me.”

  “That’s when I saw you,” Abigail said.

  “That was really you?”

  “Yes, I saw you that night. You were bleeding and you asked me who I was and then you ran away. You don’t remember that?”

  “I do. Maybe. I didn’t know it was you. You … you looked … in my memory, you were standing there and your face was not human. I could tell you were a woman by your voice, but your face was something else. I remember a muzzle and yellow eyes. And then the next thing I remember is being in the woods all night long, thinking that there were wolves everywhere. And then it was dawn, and they came and found me. They gave me some kind of shot, and then I woke up here. I’ve been here ever since.”

  She was crying again, great ratcheting sobs this time, and Abigail wished she could go to her. Instead, she occasionally made shushing sounds from across the room, not knowing if they were comforting. Jill eventually said, “Why are they doing this?”

  “It’s punishment. And because they can.”

  “But why are we here? What are they doing next?”

  Abigail thought she knew what was coming. She’d been thinking it since she woke up in the blackness of this dungeon. She didn’t know if she wanted to say the words out loud, but then she decided it could only help. They needed to be on the same page.

  “I think they’re going to kill us, Jill,” she said. “It will probably be some sort of ritual, or a game, the way they’ve been playing a game ever since we both got here. But they are going to try to kill us. They can’t let us off this island.”

  “What if we promise not to tell?” Jill said, and Abigail recognized that she was already bargaining with them. They weren’t even here, although they could be listening, and she was bargaining.

  “Maybe,” Abigail said, and even saying that word out loud gave her a flicker of hope. “Maybe it’s all just a vicious game.”

  “Besides, it’ll be our word against theirs. They’ll make it so no one will believe us.” Abigail could hear the rising optimism in Jill’s voice.

  “Maybe,” Abigail said again, “but we can’t count on it. These are rich, powerful men and they can’t have us accusing them of what’s happened here. There’s a good chance they are planning on killing us. We should try to find a way to get off this island, if we can.”

  Jill was crying again, quietly this time.

  “But they can’t kill us and get away with it,” she said.

  “They’ll find a way. They’re rich men, and they can arrange it. There’ll be some kind of accident. Maybe an airplane crash or we drown. And there’ll be no witnesses who say otherwise. That’s why we need to survive. We need to tell this story.”

  “Okay,” Jill said.

  “If there’s an opportunity to run, with me or without me, take it. Try to get away and hide somewhere on the island. Hide as long as possible and maybe you can outlast them.”

  “But only if they’re really going to try and kill us, right?”

  “Right,” Abigail said. “We don’t know what’s going to happen.”

  Abigail listened to Jill breathe for a moment. Loud, damp breaths.

  “Tell me your story,” Jill said. “Why are they after you, too?”

  Abigail began to tell her, not really wanting to, but knowing that it was better if they kept talking. Hearing each other’s voice made it less scary. She told Jill about the one-night stand in California and how it had been a setup. She was still talking when she heard the hollow clip-clop of steps outside in the hallway, then the door was opening, light penetrating the darkness.

  CHAPTER 26

  It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the sudden light, but Abigail could see Chip filling the doorway. He wore a light brown collared shirt with a green vest over it, his red hair seeming to glow. Jill began to scream. Abigail turned toward her, instinctually reaching out before being yanked back by the handcuffs. Jill, now that Abigail could see her, was still dressed in the bloodied nightgown she’d been wearing when Abigail had last seen her. Her hair was dirty and matted on one side with pine needles. Chip said nothing, but went toward Jill, and Abigail heard a cracking that sounded a little like a slap. Jill stopped screaming, her body stiffening.

  Abigail was now screaming, too, as another man entered the room—the pilot with the lengthy blond hair, holding what looked like an electric razor in his hand. She batted at him with her free hand when he got close, but he easily dodged her. Abigail saw that his lips were wet. He struck her in the chest and she heard a loud crack, her body surging with pain. All her muscles froze, and strange lights flashed in her vision. She thought she was dead and in that brief moment was struck by the ridiculousness of her death.

  Then a hood was shoved over her head, everything dark again.

  “You’ll feel a little prick,�
� came a voice, distant, mocking, and there was a sharp sensation in her shoulder muscle, almost as though she were being pinched. There was almost relief as the world went dark again.

  Cold air moved around her, carrying voices with it. She lifted her head, and there was the semblance of light, yellow flickers cutting through the blackness. Her face itched, her skin was hot, and she began reflexively to shake her head. She felt a tug and the cloth hood that had been put over her head was pulled away. Squeezing her eyes shut, she found herself taking in deep lungfuls of air.

  When she finally opened her eyes, the world in front of her tilted precariously and she shut them again. Her stomach roiled, and she thought she was going to be sick, so she leaned forward, pressing her head to her knees. It felt as though she was on a wooden chair, and it didn’t seem as though she was tied up.

  “Wakey, wakey,” came a voice. She sat up, opened her eyes again, and kept them open. The scene in front of her slid into blurry place. It was nighttime. She was in the woods, and a cold wind was moving steadily through the trees. The right side of her body was warmer than the left, and she turned to find a fire in a pit, its flames almost as high as the men who stood around it. She squinted to bring them into focus, and one of them laughed, the sound familiar. Bruce, in a turtleneck sweater and jeans, the skin of his face yellow in the firelight. Oddly, disturbingly, he was holding a glass in his hand, what looked like a whiskey, as though he were at a party.

  “Yep, she’s awake,” Bruce said.

  Abigail wanted to say something, but when she went to move her lips they barely responded. She ran her tongue over her teeth and lips. Her teeth felt large and strange, and her lips were like rubber.

  You drugged me, she said to the men, although the words were only in her head. She closed her eyes again.

  She woke to laughter, and lifted her heavy head.

  A man danced in front of her, his knees bent at almost right angles, hopping from foot to foot. She couldn’t tell who he was because he was wearing a mask that obscured the top half of his face. Green leaves fanned out from the mask. Behind him was a cluster of men, rocking back and forth, some chuckling, and maybe it was the wind, or the drugs surging through her system, but their laughter seemed to come from somewhere else, from high up in the trees.

  The world tilted. She squeezed her eyes shut, and blackness washed over her.

  Seconds later—or was it hours?—she shivered awake, opening her eyes. For a moment she watched the men without them knowing she was watching. No one was dancing, and no one was wearing a mask; they were around the fire, their voices still dispersed by the wind. They weren’t looking at her but at another figure, on the other side of the fire, also on a chair. The scene came into focus, and Abigail knew where they were. It was the clearing in the woods behind the swimming pool, the place she’d been to earlier that was called Silvanus Woods. How many men were there? She tried to count and got to five before the figures blurred again. One of them was bending toward the woman in the chair—Jill, of course—and Abigail watched a man pull a hood from her. She was slumped, and Abigail thought—with a rush of terror—that she was dead, but then she tried to stand, and the man pushed her back down by her shoulders, laughing. The man was Alec, her husband, dressed in a puffy ski jacket and with what looked like a cigar clenched between his teeth.

  All the men were looking at Jill, and Abigail scanned them again. Besides Alec and Bruce, there was Chip, a bottle of beer in his hand, Eric Newman, also with a beer and smoking a cigarette, and Porter, wearing only a polo shirt and jeans, his dark skin gleaming in the firelight. She also recognized the pilot with his blond hair, who had given her the shot, and one other man with a large gray mustache, its tips waxed. The bartender named Carl.

  She moved her legs a fraction to find out if she was bound in any way to the chair. Not that she thought she could run, not with whatever drug was in her, making her heavy and confused, but she still wanted to know. She moved her legs about six inches and felt pretty sure that the only thing holding her down on the chair was the drugs in her system.

  She breathed deeply in through her nose, filling her lungs. The world still spun a little, but the nausea was gone and her head was a little clearer.

  “Put on the mask, put on the mask,” came a voice, not one she immediately recognized. More laughter, some of it seeming to come from behind her. She willed herself not to look around, lowering her chin slowly back to her chest, deciding to pretend that she was still passed out. I’ll just sit like this for as long as I can, she thought. The longer I delay what is happening, the more clearheaded I’ll be. I’ll fake it. It’s not like I’m even sleepy anymore.

  A hand was tapping at her cheek, softly at first, then harder. She shook herself awake and swung out with a fist, striking a thigh. She heard loud laughter, then Eric’s chiseled face swam into her vision, his breath sharp with the smell of French cigarettes, his eyes looking into hers.

  “She’s up,” he said, and straightened so that she was now looking at the crotch of his jeans, a wide leather belt, a half-tucked-in flannel shirt.

  Abigail took deep breaths through her nostrils again. It made her feel better. She rotated her head on her neck, pain radiating down her shoulders and back, and the world stayed level. I feel better, she thought, but lowered her head back down anyway, not wanting anyone to know that she was more conscious than they thought she was.

  “No, no,” he said, his voice oddly gentle as he tapped his fingers against her cheek again. “Stay awake for us.”

  “Where am I?” she said, trying to make her voice sound slurred, although it was coming out that way pretty much on its own.

  “It’s all just a dream,” Bruce said, stepping forward to stand next to Eric. She watched him turn back to the men huddled around the fire, gauging their reaction to what he’d just said. They were all grinning, and Bruce turned back to her, a smile of satisfaction now on his face.

  “It’s like a terrible dream,” she said, making her voice sound small, wondering if there was still a chance that she could gain some sympathy from her husband, or maybe even from Eric. But Eric was smiling and Bruce laughed, the same merciless sound she’d heard coming from him earlier by the plane. A barking laugh, like rocks being clapped together.

  “Yeah, we all know about terrible dreams,” came a new voice, and Abigail refocused her eyes on the speaker. It was Chip with his reedy voice, and all the other men, including Bruce, now looked at him. “How does it feel?” he said, pointing his finger at her.

  He seemed to be waiting for an actual answer and Abigail shook her head slowly, suddenly panicking, as if she’d been asked a question in class that she didn’t know the answer to.

  “How does it feel?” he asked again, his voice louder. He took a step toward her. The fire was behind him, his shaggy beard and sloping shoulders outlined in flickering orange light. Next to him was the blond pilot, now holding the mask he’d been wearing earlier down by his side, tapping it rhythmically against his thigh as though it were a tambourine.

  “How does what feel?” Abigail said, and the words came out loud and clear, although her voice sounded strange in her own head.

  “How does it feel to be a modern American woman, to live an entirely privileged life, to be able to do everything you want to do, everything you feel like doing, and get away with it?”

  Abigail said nothing.

  “How does it feel to finally have to own up to your actions? Both of you.”

  Chip looked over at Jill and so did Abigail. They’d been moved closer to each other, although they were still about ten yards apart.

  “Alec, please,” Jill said, her voice almost a wail.

  “Jill Greenly,” Chip boomed. “You are charged with infidelity and wantonness. How do you plead?”

  Abigail watched Jill, her head swiveling, her eyes wide. She looked like a panicked cat searching a room for its exits.

  “How do you plead?” Chip said again, stepping in her direction, no
w pointing at her, his arm held high, almost above his head.

  It’s a trial, Abigail thought. We’re on fucking trial. She felt a laugh rising in her that she knew was partly hysteria. She tried to suppress it, but it came out anyway. The eyes of all the men shifted toward her.

  “We’ll get to you, Abigail Lamb,” Chip said.

  She laughed some more, and Bruce said, “Keep your mouth shut.”

  She kept laughing, her shoulders hitching up and down almost spasmodically. Finally, with tears streaking her face, she said, “You bunch of fucking cowards.”

  Bruce bent and took a wild swing at Abigail’s head with a closed fist. She leaned back and the punch missed, and because Bruce was bent over awkwardly, the punch spun him and he twisted to the ground, landing hard on his side. Eric helped him up, then held him back.

  Abigail felt the laughter rising inside her again, but suppressed it, thinking that Bruce might just kill her on the spot if she laughed again.

  “I trusted you,” Bruce said, still being held by Eric.

  “You set me up,” she said. “People who trust each other don’t do that.”

  “You fucked another man on a weekend to celebrate our wedding. On a weekend that I paid for.” In the light from the fire she could see spit spraying from his lips as he spoke.

  “Fine,” Abigail said quickly, sensing that Chip was going to interrupt, that this was not the script he had in mind. “I’m a bad person. I’m guilty. But you didn’t need to marry me. You didn’t need to torture me and do all this.”

  “If I hadn’t married you, then you’d have married some other man and made his life miserable.”

  “What does that have to do with you?” Abigail said.

  “So you plead guilty, Abigail Lamb,” Chip said, jumping in before Bruce could answer. It was clear that in some ways Chip was in charge. Even though he had no personal connection with either Abigail or Jill, he was running the show.