Terminal Island

by Walter Greatshell

  Henry doesn’t know what to say, can only shake his head. It is a nightmare, a hideous joke.

  His mother goes on, “Here you won’t have to struggle. Here we are not only tolerated, but honored for what we are. For what you are. Your Father wants to reward you for all your sufferings, Henry. He wants to show you what He has to offer all His children: comfort, acceptance, love, power, wealth—whatever you want. He withholds nothing. Don’t you understand by now? Take Him into your heart and you’ll have everything you ever wanted but didn’t think you deserved. This is not a God of poverty, of charity; He does not expect us to apologize for our ambitions, or ask for a share of our wealth. It is only the unbelievers who pay. At our church, the Almighty tithes to us.”

  Henry still shakes his head, not because he doesn’t remember but because he remembers too much. His head feels like a bomb approaching critical mass—as if he doesn’t stop madly thinking and do something right now it will burst.

  He does something.

  Very painfully, he gets to his feet and picks up the heavy bison costume, pulling the wretched hide mask down over his head like a knight’s helmet. His legs are shaky, but he gets his body under control and calmly shambles towards Ruby as if in weary surrender. Still shooting, she adoringly holds out her free hand to him and he takes it. His mother has tears in her eyes, she’s so grateful. Henry is weeping, too—in some way he still loves them…even if they’re murderous cannibals.

  Without warning he yanks Ruby aside, throwing her to the ground, and grabs Moxie. The toddler screams as Henry bundles her against him and starts to run. Suddenly there are women all around him, fencing him in like a chain of bloody paper dolls. They have weapons: medieval-looking surgeon’s tools, things belonging in a slaughterhouse. Butcher’s tools.

  “Put her down, honey,” says Ruby, getting back up and fussing over the camera. “You’re just upset right now. Don’t do this.”

  “Yes, do it,” Lisa sneers. “Run, like you did before. Prove to them you don’t belong here, so Iacchus can elect a true believer, a true islander, to be His prophet.”

  Vicki says, “Henry, sweetie, you need to understand that it isn’t a choice—you are the personification of our Lord and Savior—the Son of God. If you don’t accept that, there is another in the line of succession. But no woman has ever worn the vestments of Zagreus, and we don’t know if He will find it acceptable.”

  “He will!” Lisa cries. “You’ll see!”

  “Who’s He?” Henry asks contemptuously.

  “Our Lord Iacchus,” Ruby says gently, with awe. “He is the one who resurrected Zagreus, who rescued Him from death. Iacchus is King of the Underground, the brother of Persephone, a chthonian deity who intercedes for us in dark places. Like Zagreus, Iacchus was also once a lonely, beautiful boy—kalos ho pais. That’s why He took pity on Him.”

  Vicki says, “Iacchus now passes that mantle onto you, Henry. That means you have to take on the responsibility, one way or another. It’s something your cousin Peter learned that the hard way.”

  “My cousin?”

  “Arbuthnot is your cousin Peter. Didn’t you know that? Remember your cousins Peter and Paul? Peter Carolla Dioscuri, from back in San Pedro? He changed his name to Carol Arbuthnot.”

  Henry’s brain is spinning, seeking avenues of escape. “What are you talking about?”

  “After you and I moved away from the Del Monte Hotel, your aunt Helen and her husband decided that their sons were the rightful inheritors of the Zagreus dynasty. With our parents’ blessing, they arranged a coup against your uncle Thaddeus on Catalina, intending to kill him and take back the Omphalos—the sacred figure of the horned child—before Thaddeus could confer it upon his daughter.”

  “That would be me,” says Lisa.

  Thaddeus—there is that name again. Uncle Thaddeus. Principal Thaddeus. Sheriff Thaddeus. No wonder, they are all the same guy: Thaddeus the Butcher. Barely able to summon reason, much less outrage, Henry says to Lisa, “Wait. So you’re my fucking cousin?”

  “Oh, it gets better,” she says.

  Vicki continues, “Needless to say, the coup failed. Your uncle Thaddeus had complete authority over the islanders, down to the last schoolchild. In fact it was the children that did your aunt and uncle in: our little Furies, led by Lisa here. A very rough bunch, as I’m sure you remember. For her sins, my sister met the Mouth of Iacchus; her foolish husband was burned with his boat; our parents were strangled in their beds; and the Del Monte Hotel was razed to the ground.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “Your cousin Paul was brought to the island and embraced the faith. Peter ran away, changing his identity and disappearing for many years, until last week he returned to the island as Carol Arbuthnot and murdered old Thaddeus. What he might not have realized was that by killing his uncle and taking possession of the Omphalos, he effectively crowned himself High Pontiff of the Sacred Mysteries of Eleusis. Last night, Paul was killed while searching for you—he stupidly witnessed the sacred rite and was sacrificed. And now you have killed Peter, which places you first in the line of succession.”

  “Unless something happens to you,” Lisa says.

  “It’s really a miracle, Henry,” Ruby cuts in. “How you’ve come here and without any urging put on the sacred vestments. The same ones your father wore, and his father before him. Doesn’t that tell you something?”

  “What do you mean, ‘my father’?” Henry furiously whirls on his mother. “You always said my father died before I was born!”

  “I’m sorry, Henry. I was trying to protect you. Your father was very much alive all these years, and living here on the island with his wife…right up until last week, when your cousin Peter murdered them and took the idol.”

  Ruby says, “I only had the honor of meeting your father once, when I was chosen to marry you, and he told me that he remembered you from when you were a child—that it was you who elected him High Pontiff.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You gave him the Idol. Right after your aunt tried to steal it. You found her purse and handed it to him.”

  The purse, the little horned statue. Thaddeus the Butcher. Henry reels: My father? No…no way!

  Nodding sympathetically, Henry’s mother says, “Now Thaddeus is dead; Peter is dead; Paul is dead. You are last in line, the end of the direct male lineage. You were the one we always wanted, Henry. You are the true heir of Zagreus.”

  “So wrong,” Lisa mutters.

  Connecting the dots, Henry says, “Wait a minute, does that make her my sister?”

  Lisa says, “Hello! Of course I’m your sister, dumb ass.”

  “Oh my God. Oh my God.”

  “Yes,” Vicki says, somberly. “Praise your Father, and be His son.”

  Henry isn’t listening, and doesn’t hesitate this time. Clutching his struggling daughter, he lowers his head and charges. The ranks of women in his way brace themselves like football halfbacks, weapons raised, but they are no match for his momentum…or his horns.

  Expecting them to get out of the way, Henry crashes through their line, feeling the sickly crunch of horns punching flesh and bone. Blows fall on his head and back, mostly muffled by the thick hides. Then he is clear, running toward the brush.

  He feels a crimping agony in his right breast—Moxie is biting him!

  “Aaugh! God!”

  Baby teeth or not, Henry has no choice but to let her go—she’s savage as a wildcat, frenziedly kicking and biting, gouging him with silver cat-claws. Tears blur his vision as he releases her, saying, “Daddy loves you, honey. Don’t forget Daddy loves you! I’m coming back!” Snarling like a cat, she slashes after his retreating legs.

  The road is out of the question; there is an army of women between him and there. Henry’s only choice is to go into the rough. He has learned already that this is no impediment—the hide is thorn-proof—but he doesn’t know where he’ll end up.

  Fuck it. Impervious as a mountain go
at, Henry rips his way through dense stands of twigs and briars, the thickets parting around him like so much Christmas tinsel, then closing up behind. It is better than he had hoped: the half-dressed women don’t even bother trying to pursue.

  For a few minutes he goes like this, barreling along on sheer adrenaline. But then he starts to overheat, to become exhausted—that suit is a bitch to lug around. Despair sets in, a biting swarm of thoughts that he can’t outrun: What is he running for? Why run? Run to what? To whom? There’s no one to run to any more, no one to save but himself. And for what?

  He slows to a broken trot as the underbrush thins on the slopes of a surrounding high ridge. Beyond that should be an open view of the whole coast, and of every ship and boat in the channel. It’s a clear day; there should be a lot of them. On a clear day you can see forever. Well, it’s a clear day…if he can just get up there. He takes off the heavy costume in preparation for the climb, exposing his sweat-soaked clothing to the open air. He feels a hundred pounds lighter.

  It gives him hope: I can still save Moxie. I have to save Moxie.

  Turning for a glance back over the brush-filled hollow, Henry sees something that wakes his blunted nerves:

  Horses. A line of white horses, breasting the undergrowth as if fording a stream. But it is not the horses that terrify him, it is their riders: white death-maidens in ceremonial gold masks. They seem to float above the brush with a look of unhurried grace, their long limbs controlling the animals with easy flicks. They are carrying limber, sharp-tipped rods that can only be one thing:

  Javelins. Pig stickers.

  Gibbering to himself, Henry begins to climb.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  THE ISTHMUS

  She’ll be comin’ round the mountain when she comes…she’ll be comin’ round the mountain when she comes…she’ll be comin’ round the mountain, she’ll be comin’ round the mountain, she’ll be comin’ round the mountain when she comes…

  Blood in paradise. Red drops flecking dusty gravel; lush color amid crinkly brown leaf-litter; blood and sweat watering arid desert rocks. Blood and sand.

  Henry tastes blood too as he scrambles on all fours like an animal up the steep slope, crawling through dense underbrush, hands and face cut to pieces. The rocks and sticks are sharp, but he stopped feeling pain some time ago; in extremis the body girds itself against such nuisances as pain…or grief. He had read about this phenomenon but never experienced it; now here it is, how weird.

  If he could see himself he would be amazed: clothes all torn, coated with dust and filthy black tracks of blood, one eye caked shut—where is the guy who just days ago was panicking over running out of conditioner? Who refused to drink water from the tap?

  The morning is filled with white noise, the hiss of locusts maybe, or the ringing conch of his own skull, but within that deafening roar he can hear the horses. Horses and the jingling of chains.

  Too soon, too soon…

  Yes, definitely horses, climbing the old goat trail. They are very close.

  Come on, come on, you’ve got to move faster if you’re ever going to reach the top.

  That would be fine if he had anything left, but by now Henry’s limbs are rubber, his body a machine stuck in first gear. He’s at the mercy of his own physical limits; he should have worked out more.

  Up there, the sky. Catch a breath and look at it, so blue and clean. There will be a long, clear view at the top, a plateau from which to see and be seen, and after that it’s all downhill. It seems at least possible that they will not follow beyond that crest, in full view of the outside world. He clings to this notion like a lifeline as he claws upward once again.

  Hooves clacking, clattering against raw stone. Chipping pebbles loose that spatter right behind him. The bristling sound of twigs as riders and mounts breast the thicket.

  Oh no…

  Now they are here, two of them. He doesn’t look back, but can feel them watching him, their cool appraisal, as if they have all the time in the world. I must look pitiful, Henry thinks. Perhaps they have pity, he prays they have it, at least enough to last a few more seconds. It’s not the pity but the seconds that count—fuck their pity.

  Summoning the dregs of angry defiance, he drags himself over the top, bolting upright to run for his life on the windy plateau—Yes, you bitches, yes!—

  And stops short.

  Garbage. Henry is surrounded by garbage, up to his knees in it, a reeking, smoldering field of trash. The place is familiar from when he was a kid. Yes, he’s been here before—this is the town dump.

  Beyond the dump is the broad pane of the sea, incongruous Aegean blue. Far across the channel Henry can see the hazy rind of Los Angeles. There is a scattering of boats in between, impressionistic dabs of white as tauntingly out of reach as the gulls shrieking in space.

  You’re trapped, boy. The desolate ridge on which he stands is a dead end, with a vertical drop of several hundred feet. Directly below the eroded cliff face is a rubble of jagged boulders washed by the tide.

  Out of the corner of his eye he catches the gleam of gold. Oh God, here they are.

  Two fantastic and hideous masks bob into view, rising like phantoms out of the trash: identical golden baby-dolls, horned and serpent-haired.

  Gorgons, that’s the word. Buffalo-gal Medusas, their freakish heads flashing in the sun. By now Henry knows what it all means and it still doesn’t make sense. The black cavities of their eyes show pure indifference: callow, anonymous cruelty. Detached from all humanity.

  As the horses bear them forward, Henry can see that other than their masks the Medusas are all but naked. Their skin is covered only with peeling alabaster, so that they appear to be living statues—statues splashed with dried blood, their arms dark red to the elbows as if dipped.

  They are young, athletic and whipcord-tough. Their left hands casually control the reins while their right grip those bronze-tipped javelins—pig-spears specially made to hunt wild game from horseback. Now I’m the pig, Henry thinks wildly, the squealing prey. They trot forward, spears raised.

  “You can’t get away with this!” he shouts, though they already have. For a very long time.

  They’re on him, passing so close on either side that he is nearly trampled. He fully intended to dodge or deflect the first lance, pictured himself pulling one of them down and taking control, but it’s all too quick and the smooth blade plows in before he can even think, splitting ribs. Henry gasps in breathless incomprehension at the sickly feeling of something punching through him and out the back. That cold, rigid pole in his chest, a lever to twist his heart. He can’t even scream.

  The heel of a gold sandal kicks him off the spear and Henry goes down hard. Huge hooves paw the stinking trash by his ear. The pain is unbearable—he gladly blacks out for a moment…

  It’s not over. He reluctantly comes to, choking on blood, with them looking down on him, those terrible gilded suns. There are others now, different ones: a dozen or more toadlike spectators in white robes, with hammered copper gills and great goggle eyes—no, not toads, fish. Hideous fish wearing garlands of kelp. Robed fish-people lining up to watch the coup de grace.

  But the spears don’t fall, remain poised over Henry’s face while the riders dismount. Why don’t they get it over with? And all the time more are joining the masquerade, coming up the road: some on horseback, some on foot; all drunken, masked revelers singing together.

  She’ll be ridin’ six white horses when she comes…she’ll be ridin’ six white horses when she comes…she’ll be ridin’ six white horses, she’ll be ridin’ six white horses, she’ll be ridin’ six white horses when she comes…

  One of the horned riders, perhaps the leader, walks up and straddles him. Workmanlike, she quickly cuts off his clothes, tossing them aside. Please, he tries to say. He cannot move, cannot speak, cannot imagine what these people are doing to him. Or maybe he can.

  Struggling for breath, Henry stares into those eyeless black pits, trying to mak
e contact with the human being inside. With his murderer. Fading, he sees only himself in that metal cowl, distorted chrome yellow.

  Perhaps sensing his yearning, perhaps only to see better, she tips up her mask as she works. Motes of sunlight swirl between them as she glares intensely out of her metal bonnet.

  “Try to relax, Mr. Cadmus,” she says. “This will be over in a minute.”

  It is the taut brown face of Sheriff’s Deputy Tina Myrtessa.

  Now she is fastening shackles to Henry’s wrists and ankles, deft as a cop making an arrest, cinching the cuffs so tight it shocks him almost alert. When he tries moving his spread-eagled limbs, he find that they are dragging lengths of chain—chain that hangs slack between him and four white horses.

  The horses are jumpy, nickering; maybe they know what’s about to happen. One of them urinates in a hot gush, the wind causing it to splatter him. As the deputy finishes and stands away there is an electric pause, a sense in the air of anxiousness and welcome fruition. A job well done.

  The masked crowd has fallen back to the field’s periphery. Only Henry and the four horses and riders remain. The deputy murmurs instructions, gently aligning them all just right, then raises a big silver revolver in the air. She slowly turns around so that all can see her, sensuous and monstrous in the sun, pubic hair clotted white.

  Pointing the gun out over the sea, she cocks back the hammer and averts her face. “Ready…set…”

  This is it. Staring up at her, Henry finds himself involuntarily, painfully making a sound that only a moment before he would have thought unimaginable: he is laughing. A dry, burning husk of a laugh.

  “To Serve and Protect,” he rasps, hurting his punctured lung. “I get it.”

  Bang.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  BIG FISH

  And they’re off!

  As the horses bolt, Henry hears a distant, answering boom: the Marlin Cannon. Big fish, he thinks.

  All his life he has wondered what it’s like to die, evaluating the infinite ways of doing so in much the same way he browsed expensive cars that he didn’t expect to ever be able to afford—This one’s fast, but that one’s a little more elegant. As a young man he wanted to die in battle, fighting for something he believed in. Either that or in bed, at great age, surrounded by flocks of children and grandchildren. Death by drawing and quartering was way down the list.