by Gaby Triana
The soil was soaked and in spots, my boots sank deep into waterlogged holes. The air smelled awful, what with all the rotting leaves, rotting wood of the house, and now a rotting woman just outside of it, the stench of decomposition carried on the wind.
I heard a laugh.
I stopped and looked. Nothing but trees and tangled roots. I checked behind me. Another low laughter rumbled through the trees. I had to be going crazy, one vision at a time. If I wasn’t careful, I’d end up a statistic of the Everglades dead. Somehow, I had to get off this land, back home to try and resume a normal life.
“Who’s there?” I asked. My voice filled the space and sounded alien.
It had to be ghostly. Nobody walked these woods with me, not in real time anyway. I was the only person for yards in one direction and miles in another.
Another laugh fluttered through the woods, only this time accompanied by another voice, talking to the first, telling him to be quiet, or they’d be discovered. My heart stopped. Blood ran cold. I kept my eyes pried open. I was scared to close them, scared my earlier visions would reappear to haunt me.
Billie, the ginger-haired woman, and the men from the grocery store.
Ghosts everywhere. A slow-moving river full of them.
I’d always known this land was haunted. There was no way people could try to live on this giant waterlogged sponge and not encounter tragedy. Tragedy always occurred where there was water, where man did not rule, where limestone beds absorbed fallen airplanes, disintegrating them, swallowing pirate ships whole that were meant to sail the ocean.
Out here, there were no rules.
And somewhere out there, men were plotting. I heard them, nearly saw them as wisps of energy laying dead animals around the property in an attempt to scare away Rutherford, his wife, and two assistants. The Nesbitt brothers. I had come out here to distance myself from the noise and connect with nature only to find more spirits.
Why me? I was the last person capable of handling visions.
I didn’t want to be an antennae for the dead. I only wanted to see Villegas House then come home again. Stupid for thinking it’d be so simple. Now I couldn’t walk ten feet without encountering voices from the past.
I stared straight ahead and saw them, fully formed this time—two white men in long pants and undershirts plucking dead raccoons, Snail Kites, and other small animals off their belts and tossing them in the direction of the house. I felt like they wanted to infuriate Rutherford, animal-lover and rescuer that he was, to try and get him to leave. They would stop at nothing until he’d left.
I stepped backwards, a branch snapping underneath my feet.
The brothers paused, looked in my direction. Could these men with shotguns slung over their shoulders see me? But I existed here, now, in another time fifty years into the future.
“Did you hear that?” one asked, slowly taking steps in my direction.
My belly filled with the deep cold terror that comes when you know your luck has run out, and you’re about to be discovered. Slowly, I backed away, as one of the Nesbitts took slow steps toward me, sliding his shotgun off his back and moving it into position. My heart pounded against my ribs. I’d felt a less elevated type of fear around white people before, before a racial confrontation, but now it was all too real. He was the hunter, I was the prey. His eyes, bright blue, sparkled with amusement, the thrill of the kill, as he inched toward me.
I lifted my hands in surrender.
Had I slipped into the soul of an endangered animal, or was this exactly as it seemed—man stalking woman? My back hit a tree, one of its spiny branches jabbing deep into my skin. I bit my lip to keep from screaming in the event there was still a chance I could avoid this by keeping quiet.
The man stopped, sniffed the air.
He could tell I was here. In another dimension.
Would that bullet travel through time?
A shot rang out and I squeezed my eyes shut, braced for impact as time slowed. I doubled over, gripping my stomach. He’d shot me. This man had really been able to see me and shot me, but when I looked down at my hands, there was no blood. No pain. Though I heard a scream. Turning, I saw another form, taller than mine, darker skin. A woman stepped around the tree, a thin small brown woman with a gunshot to her stomach, bleeding profusely. She cried out once before falling to the ground, just as the man who’d shot her looked back at his buddy and laughed.
Sick. Fucking. Bastard.
A moment later, another woman came running through the woods from the direction of Villegas House. Her white nightgown flowed out behind her. “Brigitte? Brigitte?” she called. Upon seeing Brigitte on the floor of the woods, she covered her ears and let out a bloodcurdling scream.
“Gregory!”
He hadn’t seen me after all. I wasn’t here.
This was Elena Rutherford, and holy shit, I’d just seen a Nesbitt brother shooting one of Rutherford’s assistants. It could only mean that he’d shot the entire clan too. I’d just been given a glimpse into time. The man retreated into the woods, silent as a ghost so Elena wouldn’t see him.
But I saw him.
And now I knew what happened—he’d murdered that woman right beside me, the iron-tinged scent of her blood still lingering in my nostrils.
SIXTEEN
I tripped over my feet, scraped my knees on the gritty ground before running back to the house because at least other living people were there, and as much as they were on my shit list right now, at least they were real and not trying to kill me. I stumbled onto the porch and heaved.
Sharon, Kane, and Eve surrounded me. I caught the cadaverous scent of Linda’s body flaring up in the heat. “What happened? We heard a scream,” Sharon asked.
“I heard…I saw…” I began but couldn’t finish.
“What? What did you see? Is someone out there?” Kane asked.
I shook my head, felt the lie burn in my chest. “Nobody real. I think I can see…I don’t know…” I trailed off. Why should I tell any of them that I could see ghosts? It wouldn’t help our situation. A bunch of dead people replaying significant scenes of their lives. None of it would help us get off this island. “Nothing, don’t worry about it.”
“You can see them, can’t you?” Sharon gripped my shoulder. Funny how she only seemed to care when there was something in it for her. “You can see them, just like Linda could.”
I shrugged her off. “What does it matter?”
“It matters because there’s little written about this house, Avila, and I don’t know when we’ll ever get the chance to come back here again. You’re the only one of us who can tell me what truly happened here.”
If I told her about the woman in the woods, the gladesmen shooting Brigitte, my own personal demons out by the water, she would only use me like she’d used Linda. As it was, she had already used me to get here.
“People got killed, Sharon. That’s all that matters,” I grunted.
“Wrong. It matters who did the killing,” she said.
Her voice grated against my eardrum. Why was she so damn insistent? What interest did she have in this whole affair? “The Nesbitt man did. I saw him do it. Just now, out in the woods. There, are you happy?”
“Which Nesbitt brother?”
“I don’t know.”
“But did he kill everyone? Is that what you saw? Because I don’t think he did.”
“Back off, Sharon.” Kane stepped up to me, setting a reassuring hand on my back. As much as I didn’t want anyone touching me, not even Kane, I appreciated his telling her to stop.
“Seriously. Enough already,” Eve scoffed.
A wave of undeniable hate rose in my chest. I wanted to reach out and strangle this woman, even though I’d never wanted to strangle anyone in my life, not even the men at the supermarket. “Don’t you know when to stop? That’s why Linda is dead.”
She recoiled like a wounded snake. “Don’t you blame me for Linda. Everyone here knew that she was already sick!” Sh
aron shouted.
“Then, she shouldn’t have come,” I insisted.
Sharon scoffed. “She wanted to help. She came of her own accord. Ask Kane and Eve since you don’t trust me.”
“It’s true,” Kane said. “Linda was happiest when she felt needed and wanted.”
“None of this is helping.” I growled, holding the temples of my forehead.
“Neither is the pointing of fingers,” Sharon hissed.
It didn’t matter. Linda was dead and nothing would bring her back. We were here because something about these murders was of interest to Sharon. Did she have family in Florida at the time of the murders? Any other day, I would’ve been intrigued to know, but right now I only wanted away from this house.
“We shouldn’t be focused on the house anymore,” I said. “We should be focused on getting home. Has anyone been able to get a signal?”
“Both mine and Eve’s phones are dead, Sharon can’t get a signal, so that leaves you. You were taking video early this morning when the raccoons broke into our tent. Do you still have battery? Let me see your phone.” Kane held out his hand.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and saw it had 11% battery left on it before handing it over. “I don’t get a signal either. We could try walking east as far as we can to see if we can get on the fringe of Miami’s closest cell phone tower,” I said. “West toward Naples is out of the question—we’d have to swim through the river.”
“And those gators are getting closer,” Kane said. “I went out there to check on Quinn. They’re creeping in.”
“They smell Linda’s body,” I explained. They were braving the evil of the house just for a snack. We had to figure this out. Walking east as far as we could until we hit the edge of cell phone service might’ve been our best bet, but that was assuming the haunted woods would let us through. I hadn’t come back by choice.
“We’re going to have to give them the dead raccoon and any other dead animals we find,” Kane said, looking at Eve whose eyes were filled with exhaustion and tears. In just a little over a day, Eve had gone from looking like a rich Housewife of Atlanta to a corpse bride, not that I or anyone could blame her.
“What’ll happen otherwise?” she asked.
“They’ll make their way inland if they’re hungry enough,” I explained. “Gators have been known to walk into people’s homes, swim in their pools, sleep on patios just to find food. They’ve stayed away all this time—I think they’re afraid of the house—but now they’re building up courage.”
“Because of the body,” Sharon muttered, arms crossed and looking out toward the riverbank. “We have to warn Quinn.”
“It’s easy to outrun an alligator,” I told them.
“Run in a zig-zag pattern,” Kane spouted off the myth most everyone knew.
“No, just run,” I said. “You can outrun one easily, and the best way to do that is in a straight line, because it’s the fastest way to get away. Speed outweighs strategy in this case. Let’s bring Quinn in. He’s been close to the water long enough.”
Suddenly, we heard shouts and all turned in the direction of Quinn by the water’s edge. Kane took off jogging in his direction. My heart rate kicked up in the hopes he’d come across boaters or hunters in the woods.
“Quinn?” Kane called. “You alright, man?”
The shouting continued, repetitive, as though he were trying to get someone’s attention. We found him deep in the woods past the spot where I’d seen my vision earlier this morning. He crouched near the ground looking like a kid who’d found a hidden ant pile under a rock. “Check this out, guys.”
Carefully, we made our way through the dense brush to where Quinn crouched in front of a bush. When we arrived and surrounded him, he pointed and we saw what he had found. A small litter of kittens. Panther kittens.
“Cute, aren’t they?” He reached out to stroke the soft spotted belly of one kitten. “I heard meowing, almost like chirping, when I was walking this way looking for anything dead I could feed those gators and found this.” He petted the kitten again.
“Don’t do that,” I said, kicking his hand away.
He looked at me with fire in his eyes. “I’ll touch it if I goddamn want.”
“Sure, put your human scent all over it, so when Mama comes back, she’ll know exactly whose ass to kick,” I said.
“She has a point, Quinn. Leave them alone,” Kane said, backing away. “In fact, we shouldn’t even be here. Now we’ll attract gators and wildcats. Come on. You and me need to go for a walk to try and find cell service.”
Stepping over rocks and fallen branches, I made my way out of the woods only to realize we weren’t the only ones who’d sensed the kittens in the brush. Two six-foot alligators, bellies on the ground, hissed up at me, exposed pink mouths showing off perfect rows of teeth.
“Okay…nice boy. It’s okay…” I stayed calm and talked smoothly like I usually did, but these weren’t village alligators who were used to being around humans. These were wild and judging from the way they’d made it inland this far, curious and looking for a snack. “Guys, don’t move.”
“What is it?” Eve asked.
“Gators. And it’s breeding season. Let’s try and move slowly in the other direction.”
“Are you serious?” Eve whined.
“Those assholes have been encroaching on our territory all morning,” Quinn said from behind me.
“This is their territory, I hate to tell you,” I said, keeping my eyes on the reptiles who slowly were accompanied by two more aggressive pals. Now there were four, and more ornery than I’d ever seen any gators. “When I tell you to move, move in the opposite direction. They can’t navigate through the trees too well.”
“Avila? I don’t like this…” Eve was crying. “What do we do if one bites?”
“You bite back.” I mumbled under my breath, keeping my gaze on the reptiles. “The real answer is gouging it in the eye but with this many to gang up on us, there’s a good chance we won’t survive, even with excellent eye-gouging skills. So, start walking slowly away. I’ll stand here until you’re gone.”
“What about you?” Kane asked.
“Just go.” As the only native Floridian here, as someone who shared territory with gators in the wild and as the most guilt-burdened person among us, I should sacrifice myself.
Just then, one of the gators tired of warning with hisses charged at me. I broke into a run back to the woods, as the others dispersed in different directions, Eve screaming like a child, Kane pulling out the shotgun, aiming it at the reptiles. He fired one shot that stilled one of the gators, just not the one chasing me.
“Run!” I yelled at him, searching for the highest ground possible. There was no point in wasting several shells on animals that would soon encounter trees to slow them down.
But then, fucking Quinn began throwing something at the reptiles and it took me a moment to realize what he was doing. The second I saw the gators pile on top of each other frantically fighting and thrashing, I realized the horror of what he had done.
“No!” I screamed and climbed several feet up a cypress tree, as another panther kitten flew through the air on its way to becoming gator meal.
“You rather they eat you, Cypress?” He reached for the last kitten, holding it high. As he aimed for leverage, the man seemed to take pleasure in his actions. I wished I could say it was pride in his strategy for defending us. After all, the gators were now preoccupied with tearing apart the defenseless kittens, but it wasn’t.
It was pleasure in killing.
Quinn didn’t look like himself at all. His normally unreadable face took on a more rugged, ferocious appearance. Someone primal, careless, and heartless had taken over him. One of the Nesbitts, down to the jeans and white undershirts, appeared as a transparent overlay on top of Quinn.
I blinked and the double vision dissipated, leaving only Quinn.
Then, I saw her.
She moved out of the corner of my eye.
Leaping from the woods, shiny tan coat without markings, long slinky body rippling with muscle, fierce golden eyes. Ready to kill. She paused, assessing. No roar—Florida panthers couldn’t, and that was a shame for Quinn—but make no mistake, she was intensely pissed. In all my years living in the Everglades, I’d only seen the elusive creature once, hit by a car on US-41. This was the first time I’d seen the endangered cat up close in her natural habitat, and I never knew rage until seeing her now.
She watched angrily, as the human murderer of her babies held her last cub high in the air, about to fling it. The cat hissed, teeth bared, nostrils flaring. She crouched on her hind quarters, preparing to spring forth on the unsuspecting interloper. My body pulsed with energy.
I did nothing to warn him.
SEVENTEEN
In the split second it took Quinn to toss that last kitten toward the heap of gators, the cat had pinned him onto his back and torn into his face. Using the force of her massive paws, her claws ripped into his cheeks, goring out his eyes. They hung from their sockets, from the optic nerve, dangling on his cheekbones. His arms and legs thrashed, fighting against the creature, as blood spilled all around him.
I watched, horrified and eerily satisfied.
Screams echoed from the woods, then came frantic debate on whether or not to shoot the cat and risk killing Quinn, but from my vantage point, the damage had already been done. Quinn had stopped moving. The cat had torn an enormous hole into his chest, and his lungs hissed as they leaked air. From my low branch, I clung to the trunk perfectly still, in case the grieving mother thought I had anything to do with this. She paused to glare at me with golden eyes. She didn’t come for me.
I felt her pain.
I’d seen it before—in different eyes—the day my brother died.
Even the gators had stopped fighting over their food, paused mid-wrangle, watching the cat, listening to her chirps that belied what should’ve been furious roars. The panther tore into Quinn’s neck, the screams from the woods continued, and finally, a shot rang out, as the mother cat fell onto her side.