Scared of the Dark

by Easton Vaughn

Aiden looked into her eyes. “Suddenly you aren’t tired.”

  She smiled. “Suddenly I aren’t.”

  There was something feverish about how they came together. Clothes scattered on the grass. One of Lemon’s flip-flops bobbing in the water near the boat, and the mate shoe, inexplicably, mired in a bush. There was a blanket in the skiff, yet neither of them took the time to grab it. It was just them, the hoot owls, the crickets, the light of the moon, soft ground. Afterward, Aiden tumbled over to his back, his knees painted with grass and dirt. Lemon lay her head on his chest, her arms around his waist.

  He fell asleep listening to the hypnotic rhythm of her breathing. And came awake to a soft poke in the ribs. After wiping sleep from his eyes, he looked around to determine what had disturbed his rest, hoping it wasn’t an animal of any sort.

  An angry black boot, the bottom of black cargo pants stuffed inside them. A strong odor of shoe polish. Aiden blinked, disbelieving what his eyes were seeing. Black shadows arranged in a tight circle around him, each with what looked like a long weapon resting on a shoulder. All men, he could tell. Imposing men with military bearings. None of them spoke a word; they just stared, which was horrifying and dizzying. No, no, no. This couldn’t be happening. Not again.

  Aiden forced his eyes closed, his lips moving in a silent prayer.

  He dared to open them and look around again.

  No, no, no. In the light of the moon he could make out the whites of their eyes. It looked, too, as if they’d painted their cheekbones with black war paint. Still none of them spoke. No, no, no. It was happening again.

  In a choked whisper, Aiden called, “Lemon?”

  “What? What?” she barked, her eyes remaining closed.

  “We have an issue,” he said.

  “An issue? What issue?”

  His voice had left him, he couldn’t form another word. He shook her shoulder. Best he could do at the moment.

  Lemon sat up, frustrated with him.

  A moment later, he felt her stiffen, felt her inaudible gasp. Even in the dim light, he could see the terror borne in her eyes the instant she realized their futures weren’t destined to be “calm waters” after all.

  Wednesday, June 27

  The sky was painted with streaking rays of angry red—no oranges, yellows, or purples brightening it this morning. Merritt watched a bird with a rich dark plumage perched on a crop of rocks out in the water, its wings spread wide to dry in the rising sun. He inhaled and smelled the salt of the waves as they crashed against the shore and rolled away.

  “You do this every morning?” a woman’s voice called from over his shoulder.

  He didn’t turn to her. Without even looking he knew she’d be wearing a pair of loose shorts and a tight shirt. He knew that her skin would be imbued with hints of both red and brown, and that a long hank of black hair would fall down past her shoulders. He knew that there would be a touch of hard-to-miss disdain in her dark eyes, her poor attitude another challenge in what was shaping up to be a miserable day. Beyond these things, he had to admit there wasn’t much else he knew.

  “Nothing to say?” Deborah asked.

  There was plenty to say. He could tell her that his plan was falling apart, fraying at the seams. He could tell her that he’d been standing here for hours, dazed stupid, looking out over the expanse of the water for some sign of the island’s three boats. He could tell her that he’d been too clever and Lemon and Aiden had fucked him good. That there would be no getting off of this island. Ever.

  “You were sure enough talkative last night,” she continued, “when you were waxing poetic about Lemon.”

  Merritt hocked and spit into the water. Then he turned to face her, his eyes hard, his jaw trembling, his best efforts to remain calm already failing. “You’re really this needy? What? You want me to beg and plead for your forgiveness? Tell you that you misinterpreted what I said? Let you know how beautiful you are, then call Lemon a bitch in the next breath? What do you need? Tell me. What do you need?”

  She narrowed her eyes, cocked her head. “You really want to come at me like this, James?”

  “I apologize for what I said last night,” he said, sighing. “Of course you’re a beautiful woman. Truly you are.”

  “I’m beginning to think you’re clueless.”

  “What do you need?” he asked through gritted teeth.

  “Beyond the occasional fuck,” she said. “Not much.”

  “Well, I’m not in the mood right now.”

  “You think I care whether you’re in the mood or not?”

  He glared at her. “You’re either stupidly courageous or just plain dumb.”

  Deborah smiled without showing her teeth. “He threatens…”

  “This is a dangerous game you’re playing.”

  “Yeah,” she said, bending and dipping her fingers in the water. “What do I need? For you to listen for a few minutes.”

  “I’ll give you two.”

  “So kind of you,” she said, smirking. “Anyway, you were so open and honest about your life and disappointments the other day when I watched the sunrise with you. Regrettably, I can’t say that I was in return. I’d like to change that.”

  “A confessional? I’m not doing this today.”

  “I used to get on him,” she said wistfully, as if she hadn’t heard a word Merritt said. “All because he’d come in and plunk his service weapon down on the kitchen counter. I’d ask him if he would do that when we had kids. It was a terrible habit.”

  Merritt frowned. She wasn’t going to be denied. He didn’t have the strength to fight her. Two minutes. He said, “Who’s this now?”

  “My husband-to-be,” she said. “We were together for six years, lived together for about three of ‘em. It took him nearly that entire time to decide to make me an honest woman.”

  “I really don’t need to hear this, Deborah.”

  She stood, looked up at the sky. “If you were paying attention—and I know you always do—you picked up on my mention of his service weapon. He was a cop.”

  Merritt sighed for the second time in as many minutes. “Again, I don’t need to hear this. Especially if it’s going to upset you like this.”

  “I’m not upset,” she countered.

  “It’s obvious you are,” he replied.

  “Why you say?”

  “The lilt that creeps into your voice,” he said. “Either when you’re excited or angry. It’s especially pronounced when you’re upset. You revert to the island girl you’ve always been.”

  Deborah smiled a real smile. “You’re a smart one. Can I finish now?”

  “You have one minute left,” he said.

  She went silent for a beat, watching the sky the entire time before continuing. “As helpless as I felt every day when he left for his shift,” she offered, “I felt even more so when he started beating me.”

  “Jeez-an-ages,” Merritt said, lapsing into an awkward attempt at Trini-speak, anything to change the tide of this conversation. He didn’t think he could handle anything deep after all that had happened thus far today. “Must we do this, gyul?”

  “Worse attempt at a Trini accent I’ve ever heard. Awful, just awful,” Deborah said, smiling, and for a moment Merritt believed he’d rerouted her course. But Deborah eased right back into her story. “Who am I going to turn to? His brothers at the station house, ‘cause that’s what they were—brothers. I’m going to tell them Roderick is beating me? And expect them to go against their brother? Please.”

  Merritt noticed she spoke about it in the present tense, as if she was still trapped in that relationship. “Deborah…”

  “I could’ve left him, I suppose,” she said, her gaze trained on the angry red sky. “But the usual things tugged at me to stay: we had a history, and I was comfortable with him despite the beatings; plus, I didn’t want to start all over with someone else, they could end up being worse; and Roderick always apologized afterward.” She let out a breath. “He was forever talkin
g about ‘gutting something out.’ That’s what I was determined to do. I prayed he’d recognize that and stop putting his hands on me. He didn’t, though.”

  Merritt shook his head and spit again.

  Oddly enough, Deborah chuckled. “But when I discovered that he was stepping out on me—with some skanky white woman, no less—that’s when I decided I’d had enough. Isn’t that crazy?”

  “It takes different things to push each of us to our edge.”

  “For once, I was glad he was so careless with his service weapon.” She turned and looked at Merritt. “And you wanna know the funny thing?”

  “I’m sure you’re going to tell me,” he said.

  She smiled. “Roderick taught me how to shoot the damn thing.”

  Merritt said nothing.

  “Left it on the counter like he always did,” she said. “I had time to change my mind. In fact, I was really going to let it go. But I had to ask him about Pamela first. All I wanted was an admission, some guilt, and a plea for forgiveness. It’s done, Debbie. She means nothing to me. I’ll never touch her skanky white ass again. But no…Roderick acted put out because I was questioning him about her. Got all indignant. Slapped me so hard I saw stars. So much for letting it go.” She shook her head. “When I got him it made an awful mess of my kitchen.”

  “You feel better now?” Merritt asked.

  She smiled and nodded. “Much.”

  “Well, then I—”

  “Thing is,” she interrupted. “I wanted you to hear that story for a reason.”

  “To let me know that you’ve been mistreated in the past,” he said. “And that you won’t stand for it anymore. To let me know this thing we had going is over. You feel disrespected by what I had to say about Lemon. You’re done with me. I’ll accept that. No point in me arguing with you over the matter. And I’m not one for begging.”

  Deborah’s smile held. “You finished?”

  He nodded. “Completely.”

  “Actually,” she said, “I told you that story for a different purpose. I wanted you to know that I’m the ride-or-die chick that all of the rappers sing about in their silly songs.” She reached over and softly touched Merritt’s arm. “I like you, James. I think you’re interesting…and strong. A little crazy, at times.”

  “But?”

  “But,” she said, still smiling. “If you disappoint me again, or let me down in any way, you’re right… You to ketch fiyah, licks, all sort nastiness. Nuh?”

  Yeah, Merritt understood. And considering the day he was having, Deborah’s threat wasn’t even the least bit surprising.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  “What are your names?”

  He was tall and solid as a slab of cement, dark-skinned and clean-shaven, his scalp gleaming with a polished shine. He had a charismatic smile but lightless eyes, a scar splitting his left eyebrow. He wore black military-style clothing and spoke in a low pitch with a surprisingly far reach. Lemon would’ve been intrigued had she met him in line at a grocery store. But this wasn’t Kroger. There was no doubt in her mind that he was capable of bringing inconceivable pain and suffering to her doorstep. She’d gotten that sense last night, forced to dress at gunpoint while he leered at her breasts. Something surprising had been in his eyes as he watched her. Not at all what she expected or was used to when men saw her naked. It surely wasn’t lust. If pressed, she would describe it as a barely controlled rage.

  “I’m the type that wears gloves and yet still hunts down the spent shell casings,” he said. “Some would say careful to a fault. I prefer to think of myself as extremely practical. That’s why I allowed you a full night’s rest before our talk now.”

  Lemon tried to call up spit to moisten her dry lips. Aiden was in some sort of catatonic state, motionless beside her and staring at the ground. They were being held inside of a hen house, the floor lined with straw and chicken droppings. Both of them sitting on wooden pallets stained with the large dark circle of the chicken feed bins that had once rested upon them—the worst kind of makeshift bed. Lemon’s back screamed from a fitful night of sleep. That she’d been able to doze at all was owed solely to an exhaustion she simply couldn’t outrun.

  “You’re no doubt curious about a few things,” the man continued. “I’m curious about a few things. I believe we can help one another.”

  He was right about that. Lemon was curious. After dressing under his watch last night, she and Aiden were hustled into the bed of a large truck and shuttled here without blindfolds. She could tell that the place had once been a farm; it was long neglected, with dead tractor equipment rusting like extinct dinosaurs in knee-high grass burned brown by the unrelenting sun. Chain-link fence surrounded the entire property. The fence was twelve feet high and capped with razor-sharp concertina wire. A manned gun tower stood tall and proud a rifle’s range from the fence’s sliding gate entrance. Men with guns patrolled near the fence. Who were they? What was this place? Why had she and Aiden been taken? What was the purpose of all this?

  “My name is Dmitri,” the man offered.

  Lemon licked her lips again but kept silent. Aiden continued to gaze at the ground.

  “Are you two shy or defiant?” Dmitri asked.

  Aiden took that moment to turn his back to Dmitri. His hands were shackled behind him. Lemon suspected he would’ve otherwise crossed them over his chest and given Dmitri a scowl.

  “Defiant, then,” Dmitri said. “Good enough. That’ll make breaking you both all the more enjoyable.”

  He moved to Lemon and crouched down as if he was preparing to speak with a child. He reached forward and stroked her knee. She wasn’t stupid enough to kick his hand off. “You’re from the island,” he said.

  “What island?” Lemon whispered.

  The corners of Dmitri’s eyes crinkled, and he pursed his lips and let out a breath from his nostrils. “I bet your boyfriend here is the one I heard about who is blessed enough to have a BMW, but too reckless of a driver to deserve it.”

  Lemon said, “You don’t know anything.”

  “I know I cut the heads off of the last few people that spoke to me that way. Including your island brother, Ruck.”

  Lemon gasped.

  “Even with a sharp machete,” Dmitri explained, “it’s difficult work detaching a head. Easy enough slicing through the windpipe, a little tougher going through the esophagus, gets hairy once you touch spinal cord. Meanwhile, the body is flopping about, some kind of involuntary twitch as I understand it.”

  Lemon trembled.

  Aiden began to hyperventilate.

  “Unconsciousness occurs within ten seconds without the circulation of oxygenated blood,” Dmitri said. “It’s called a brain ischemia.”

  For some reason, Lemon whispered, “He’s a doctor,” indicating Aiden with a nod in his direction.

  Dmitri whistled and, still crouching, shuffled over in front of Aiden. “Really? A doctor? Then I’m sure you know all about the cell death that occurs, the irreversible brain damage due to the excitotoxicity? You know all about—”

  “Lemon,” Lemon called out.

  Dmitri looked over at her. “Pardon me?”

  “Lemon,” she said softly. “That’s my name.”

  Dmitri smiled. “You have a very interesting name, Lemon. Two thumbs up.”

  “It’s because of my skin tone,” she offered for the same reason she’d blurted out that Aiden was a doctor. Just because.

  “Yeah,” Dmitri said. “I can see that. Around my way, we’d call you a redbone.”

  “I’ve heard that a time or two,” she admitted. “I hate it.”

  “Any particular reason?”

  She shook her head.

  Dmitri smiled. “I suppose you’d rather not resume the talk of decapitations?”

  Lemon said, “No, please don’t.”

  Beside her, Aiden began to rock and moan. Dmitri frowned and turned his attention back that way.

  “You need a bucket, Doc? You look like you’re about to
vomit.”

  “What do you want with us?” Lemon asked. Her mouth was filled with briny saliva now. Her stomach was curling up like wood shavings. The image of Dmitri cutting off heads with a long machete was one she couldn’t erase from her mind. Vomiting wasn’t out of the question for her either. But she rather Dmitri speak to her than Aiden.

  He smiled at her now without pleasure. “Merritt made it clear to us that if anyone were to come to the mainland without him, that I should treat them as hostile. Are you and the good Doc hostile, Lemon?”

  Lemon’s mind was reeling. “You’re with Merritt?”

  “Don’t sound so surprised.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I wouldn’t worry your pretty head trying to.”

  “What are you going to do to us?”

  “We’ll house you until I’ve heard from Merritt as to how he would like us to proceed.”

  “What would it take for you to let us go?” Lemon asked.

  Dmitri smiled, his gaze taking her in. “What are you offering?”

  Lemon clammed up.

  His smile widened. “I’ll send someone to bring you food. Pancakes okay?” He waited, got nothing, and nodded. “I’ll take your silences as a yes. Coming right up—pancakes, sausage, and pure maple syrup from Vermont. It’ll be delish.”

  “Please let us go,” Lemon said.

  “We’ll talk more, I’m sure,” Dmitri told her.

  And at that he was up and gone.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  When he finally managed to speak, long after Dmitri’s exit, Aiden’s voice shook with anger. “Enough is enough.”

  “What?” Lemon looked up, her eyes watery still, the color drained from her cheeks.

  “Enough is enough,” Aiden said a second time. “I’m going to get us out of here.”

  “Did you not see the gun tower? And the men with guns protecting the fence?”

  “I don’t care about any of that.”

  She snorted, dismissive, said, “Smart,” under her breath.

  “I know you don’t think much of me but—”

  “Whoa, whoa,” she cut in. “Don’t even play that card. This has absolutely nothing to do with what I think of you. We’re done, Aiden. Merritt wins. I never thought I’d ever come across anyone as evil as him, but looking into this Dmitri’s eyes…” Her voice trailed off and she shuddered.