Terminal Island

by Walter Greatshell

  Frightened by his outburst, Ruby says, “Henry—Henry, slow down, okay? I don’t understand what you’re saying. I know you’re upset, but sit back for a second and tell me what in the world you think is going on. And why.”

  “Who the hell knows why? For money—for God or something. All I know is they’re doing it! I’m not making it up!”

  “I believe you, but you’re going to have to stay calm, all right? For my sake.”

  “Yes, okay, I’ll try…”

  “For my sake.”

  “Yeah, but Ruby, if you had just seen—”

  “I know—shhh.”

  “Yeah, okay, okay, but—”

  “Shhh. Take a deep breath.”

  “Hooo—okay, yup. I got it…”

  “Relax…”

  “I know…I know…phew.”

  “We’re gonna get through this.”

  “I’m trying, honey, really.” Henry wishes Arbuthnot could be here to back up his story. As it is, he’s afraid to show her the gun, afraid it will only freak her out more. “I think I’ve got it under control,” he says, head pounding.

  “Good. You see? That’s better.”

  “Ruby, just tell me something: When are they planning on bringing our daughter back?”

  “Soon—within the next couple of hours.”

  “Hours? No. You see?—no way. And you said the cops are supposed to be coming?”

  “I think so. That’s what they told me. Probably any time now.”

  “All right. Then let me ask you this: Have you seen or heard another soul today? Either outside or in the hotel?”

  Ruby thinks about it. “No, because of this festival—”

  “Stop! Stop it! Please!” Henry clutches his head as if to hold it together. “I can’t listen to this—it’s too much. I’m sorry, honey, I know you don’t mean it—you haven’t been out there. You don’t understand. You can’t. I didn’t used to believe it either, it seemed so impossible—I thought it was my imagination running wild. I wish I had listened to my gut, but I didn’t, and now it’s too late. But you have to trust me that we are in big trouble, major trouble, and—” Henry’s voice splinters “—and so is Moxie.”

  Gently, Ruby asks, “What is it I don’t understand?”

  Evil, honey. There’s evil, it’s real, and we’re up to our necks in it. “I’m not gonna—I just…I need us to be careful. If we’re going to wait here, we can’t sit in this lobby any more—we can’t see the street from here. I want us to go up to our room, lock ourselves in, and keep an eye out from up there.”

  “An eye out for what?”

  “I don’t know. Whatever comes.”

  They carry their travel bags back upstairs and Henry barricades them in, shoving the bed against the door. Ruby doesn’t comment on this, watching her husband with worried sympathy. When she tries to turn the lights on, he snaps, “No! Leave it off.”

  “Okay, okay—sorry. I just thought it was a little gloomy in here, that’s all.”

  It is getting late. With the sun dipping behind the mountains, they can now open the curtains without going blind. Henry sets up a chair by the window and sits down to wait. From here he can see into the building directly across from them, but not all the way to the end of the street as he would prefer. For that he would have to be sitting out on the balcony in plain sight, giving himself away. His sniper training won’t allow him to do that. What he needs is a mirror.

  He finds one: There is a large window across the way that is at a perfect angle, reflecting the lower part of the street. That’ll work.

  “Do you want anything to eat?” Ruby asks, unpacking wine and olives and rolls and feta cheese.

  “No.”

  “You have to eat something. We haven’t had a bite all day.”

  Henry absently accepts a paper plate and plastic cup from her and sets them on the windowsill. He can’t eat—his stomach turns at the thought—but he sips the sour merlot.

  “You’re gonna make yourself crazy,” she says.

  “S’not me that’s crazy,” he mumbles.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  After what seems like a long time, Ruby says, “It’s weird to have it be so quiet—the room seems empty without Moxie in it.”

  Henry can’t bring himself to speak, throat tightening at the thought of his daughter. He nods stiffly, blinking tears.

  “I miss her,” Ruby says. “But she’s okay, I know it. She has to be.”

  Henry closes his eyes, nodding again.

  Ruby nods back. “Of course she is. What could happen to her in a beautiful place like this?”

  Evening settles in, the room and the street below filling with darkness. Henry’s whole focus gradually shifts to the reflection in the window opposite, which offers a thumbnail view of the lit intersection. This mirror image grows brighter and more clear as everything around it sinks into shadow. He stares deep into the reflection for any sign of movement, any furtive approach. Peekaboo, I see you.

  Various situations play out in his mind, both good and bad. Best-case scenario: What if Ruby is right and that Janet girl were to just blithely return with Moxie, safe and sound as if nothing in the world was the matter? Oh my God—Henry doesn’t dare think of that: it’s tempting and cruel as a mirage in the desert. What if it’s the Sheriff’s Office, responding to Ruby’s call? Seems hardly more likely. The only help he’s expecting at this point will have to come from Arbuthnot—if anyone can take down this place it’ll be that guy. Henry wonders what he’s doing out there, if he’s all right. The memory of that nickel-plated .357 pressed to his head gives him solace—He can take care of himself.

  But what if it is the police? Do he and Ruby just trustingly go down and let them in? They’ll be sitting ducks. Better to just hunker down and hope they go away. And if they break in, what then? Is he really ready to shoot it out with the cops? No. Face it—they’re at the mercy of these people. If the cops are part of it, then there’s no hope. There’s probably no hope anyway—if someone wants to kill them, where can they go to escape?

  What about the hills?

  “The hills…” Henry says.

  “What?”

  “Back up in the hills there’s this old abandoned mining camp—I saw it when I was a kid. If we can get out of town, we can hide there until help arrives.”

  “Honey...”

  Henry wearily interrupts her: “Look, I agree…for now. This is just in case, all right? Just in case we have no other choice. What if they don’t bring Moxie back? How long do you intend to wait?”

  “Of course they’re bringing her back! Why wouldn’t they? Just shut up—I’ve had enough of your hysteria. You’re freaking out and you’re freaking me out, and I’ve had enough of it—I can’t stand it any more! My mother warned me that you were crazy before I married you. I’m beginning to think I should have listened to her.”

  “Fine, I’m crazy, this is all in my mind—I’m having combat flashbacks. But just try to remember what I’ve said, that’s all I ask.”

  “I wish I could forget it.” Ruby lays down under the covers and puts a pillow over her eyes. “I really do.”

  Henry keeps watch. There is no activity, nothing happening outside, and after a while it becomes hypnotic, the square reflection across the way swelling as if drawing him into a tunnel, swallowing him in a buzzing cave of echoes. He feels weightless, slightly seasick, accelerating down a watery chute.

  He is jerked back by a series of sounds—distant smashings and screams, then the low, ponderous beating of drums, punctuated by shrill explosions of brass: Bum…bum…bum…bum…BWAAAAAA-AH! Bum…bum…bum…bum…BWAAAAAA-AH!

  Something moves in the distance. Henry catches his breath.

  Deep within the looking-glass, a seething, phosphorescent mass like a molasses-thick wave comes into sight, surging forward under the streetlights, undulating and turning as if alive, a gigantic millipede at the intersection, gliding on thousands of legs around
the corner towards the hotel. The window frame and the ceiling of the room are suddenly alive with jumping light and shadow—spotlights are shining up from the approaching host. Henry doesn’t dare lean out to see better; he must rely on the reflection…and the sound.

  It is people. A big crowd of people carrying candles and lights, walking in silent ranks like a funeral procession. There are Boy Scouts and flag-bearers and businessmen and soldiers in uniform and a high school marching band. Between trumpet blasts, all Henry can hear is the shuffle of hundreds of feet on the pavement, a sound like water washing gravel…that, and the almost subliminal booming of the drums, so deep it resonates in his back teeth.

  Henry says, “Ruby.”

  She doesn’t respond, and with great difficulty he wrenches his attention off the opposite window. He is startled to find his wife standing right behind him, looking over his shoulder with bars of light and dark playing across her moon-blank face.

  Unnerved, Henry turns back to the reflection. The crowd is halfway up the street, and now he can make out some kind of display at the forefront: a hideous, leering face with flames guttering in its eyes and mouth. Though he can’t see it very clearly, Henry experiences a primal shock of recognition and dread—he has seen that face somewhere before, much larger, cut in stone and bearded with rockweed. It is a fragment of his earliest and most primal fears—the ones quickest to be discounted in adulthood.

  Oh my God…

  What is that? What does it mean? Busting out in a cold sweat, Henry stares into the reflection, trying to pick out more detail, as if by squinting hard enough he can decipher the meaning of it all, that everything will become clear.

  The end of the parade is in sight, a fleet of golf carts trailing the marchers. The leaders are right below the window, filling the street in front of the hotel. The drumming stops—now they are all just standing there. What are they doing? He can’t hear anything, doesn’t dare go out on the balcony to find out. All of a sudden it is the most imperative thing in the world to him that he be able to see.

  Henry shifts around trying to get a better angle of reflection, and just as he thinks he has found the perfect position, the image is obliterated by whiteness—someone in the room opposite has turned on the lights.

  “Not now, not now,” Henry cries, guts spasming with alarm. “I can’t see!” He cranes his neck in despair, unable to get a decent view.

  In his panic he fails to see what is most obvious: a hulking, horned figure standing in the lit window opposite, staring across at him.

  “We gotta…get out,” Henry says, his tongue gone thick and dry as a rubber eraser.

  Why can’t he stand up? Moving causes his head to spin, and his face feels boiling hot. Something is wrong—something’s been wrong—but he has slid into it so gradually it seemed like a product of exhaustion and shock. Now he realizes he can’t think straight—he’s woozy and on the verge of passing out. Sweat trickles down his nose and it takes him two tries to wipe it, his hands are so far away.

  “Honey—?” When he reaches for Ruby, needing her arm to lean on, he finds only empty air and collapses to the floor.

  It is almost a pleasure to lay there, to let go—Henry doesn’t bother trying to get up. Not even when he hears the bed being shoved away from the door, and Ruby opening it to go out. A second later he hears the lobby door being opened and the shuffle of many approaching feet, the stairs creaking under their weight.

  One, two, three flights, that unhurried squeaking and shuffling, and then they are on the third floor landing, flashlight-beams darting every which way as dozens of shadowy figures gather right outside his open door. Henry can hear them whispering, “Where is he?” They can’t see him because of the bed.

  “I’m right here,” Henry says, voice slurred against the carpet. His eyes are drooping and he can’t find his gun. “Come and get me.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  ACT ONE:

  THE WHITE BULL

  Henry awakens on the balcony of a darkened theater. He recognizes the spangled ceiling of the Casino. There is the soothing sound of an orchestra tuning its instruments, the soft murmur of a crowd.

  His head feels like it weighs a thousand pounds—with great effort he sluggishly turns it and receives a shock. Surrounding him are hideous, animal-headed people: dogs and goats and wild boars in evening dress. Though he knows it can’t be so, he could swear that they are not masks; they seem alive, chatting together. He tries to focus, to dispel the illusion. It sticks.

  As if noticing Henry’s alarm, a frightening goat-face leans into his and whispers, “Welcome to the Temple of Eleusis, last stop along the Sacred Way.” Henry wrenches his eyes forward.

  A disturbing pig-man in a tuxedo takes center stage and fiddles with the microphone, saying, “Is that it? Got it.” His voice is mellow and silky, not much above a whisper. “Good evening, everyone. We have reached the final stage of our Pilgrimage. Welcome to the Hall of Initiation, and the seventy-third annual Festival of Resurrection, being held here in the City of Avalon on the beautiful Island of Santa Catalina. Before we get started, can we all please stand up and sing the national anthem? I’d like to dedicate tonight’s ceremony to all our brave men and women serving overseas.”

  They sing. Henry neither stands nor sings along, feeling oddly abashed—he has always disliked people who refuse to participate in patriotic ceremonies like this.

  When it is over, the pig-man says, “Gee, that was lovely. With every initiation we are greater, our message spreading like the tributaries of a mighty river—an invisible river that deposits its gold on our shores, delivers its power unto our hands. Welcome, my friends, to the Greater Mysteries of Eleusis, our most hallowed rite, our passion play; its secret liturgy a gift to us from long before the age of Peisistratus! Let it begin—now!”

  The spotlight winks out.

  For a moment there is only silence, then the velvet curtain draws open, revealing a barefoot girl standing on a floor of brilliant autumn leaves. The girl is in profile, unlit, her graceful-necked figure silhouetted against the pale blue background, prim in a plain gray dress and bonnet. The bluster of wind can be heard. It’s all vaguely yet deliberately ominous.

  An accordion drones slow and sad, and with a silvery voice the girl sings:

  “Youth is a flower that blooms in Spring,

  “Just when the sun turns warm and bright,

  “And in that hour of quickening

  “We pray no favor, fear no spite.

  “But always at the end the heavens wait

  “To surprise us with their chosen fate.”

  The music fades away.

  From above, a deep, amplified man’s voice intones, “Darling Core. You are so beautiful. So innocent and pure.”

  A beam of golden light shines down on the girl. She looks up, startled. “Father?” she says.

  “Yes. I have been watching you, my favorite daughter. You make the forest bloom in autumn. You make the blood rise in me as when the world was first created. Come to me. Be one with me.”

  Shaking her head, the girl slowly backs up. “No, please. Please, Father, you can’t. Mother will know.” Both of their voices are measured, robotic, the girl’s movements exaggerated as in a silent film.

  “I can do what I wish, or what good is it being ruler of Heaven?”

  “The greatest good of all is mercy.”

  “Mercy has no place in this universe—it is the exercise of force that turns the wheels of the world.” There is faint, echoing thunder.

  “No…”

  “Yes. Now be a loving daughter and show yourself to me, that I may rejoice in the perfect whiteness of your youth, and feel young again myself.”

  The girl hesitates for long seconds, then bows her head and slowly unties her bonnet. With ritual slowness she removes it and lays it on the ground, unfastening and shaking out her long sleek hair. Henry tips his head upright, becoming slightly more alert as the girl slips out of her dress and stands naked
and bone-white in the leaves, beautiful and remote as a plaster statue.

  The direct light on her imperceptibly fades to darkness, leaving her nude body in sharp relief. Her small, pointed breasts rise and fall with her breathing.

  Suddenly there is a dim rumble of stage thunder, getting louder. The drums of the band come in and add to it, imitating heavy approaching footsteps, percussion swelling the sound to a shocking volume. All at once there are screams at one end of the theater: a burly white figure has appeared through the fire door. It is a painted man, naked but for a huge bobbing codpiece and a snow-white bull’s head on his shoulders. Sparks and smoke trail from his flaming gold horns.

  The man runs up on stage, buttocks bouncing, and the girl flees at the sight of him. She tries to run offstage, but black-clad figures can be seen in the wings, barring her escape. Before she can do anything else, the bull-man claps his hands around her hips and throws her down into the leaves.

  “No,” she shrieks, fighting and kicking. Her struggle doesn’t seem to be an act. “No!” she cries, “naaugh—no!”

  The bull-man slaps her down and flings her legs apart, then falls on top of her, his great smoking head rearing back as if with pleasure while his hips thrust against her. Deafening screams of brass accompany each thrust. It seems to go on forever, the color of the backdrop shifting from pale blue to deep red. There is a final shocking pyrotechnic BAM! and a shower of sparks, then the lights and music die out together. The curtain draws shut.

  In the following lull, Henry sits blinking in the dark, his head throbbing.

  ACT TWO:

  NATIVITY

  The curtain opens again. The scene has changed. The backdrop screen is now lit with the pastel hues of sunrise: pink and yellow clouds, leafy greenery. There is a fullness of morning sounds: birds, frogs, trickling water, the hum of insects. The air is misty. In the darkened foreground, taking up most of the stage, is a grassy mound atop which stands the same girl as before, now wearing a filmy white dress, her nude profile altered by the addition of an impressively pregnant belly. She has a crown of flowers on her head, making her look faerie-like, pagan.