Fresh Flesh

by Todd Russell

  A turkey shoot, Charles had said too many times. Charles was fond of clichés. He was the master of C words: clichés, cruelty, crime.

  Yes, in the future, a mere two years after Kyle went to college, Charles would be sent to prison for chopping up cars. Another C word. Chop, chop.

  Back to the headless turkey that Kyle saw in its death throes. Running around with blood squirting from its head and now roasting in the oven at their foster home.

  We'll be eating you soon. Kyle licked his lips.

  He pulled it out of the oven and his grip loosened. Some scalding juice came out of the pan and burned his flesh. "OW!" He lost control of the pan. The turkey and pan went flying on the floor.

  "Kyle, are you ok?" Angela reached for Kyle's hand.

  "Um, I think—yes, I'm ok. I'm sorry, Angela." He had wanted to call Angela mom for some time, being that she was the closest thing he'd ever known to a mom, but couldn't screw up the courage. He was scared of getting that close to anybody. Even though he would never be closer to another mother-like figure than Angela.

  The garage door slammed shut and big steps stomped toward the kitchen. Charles had come home from work. He worked every holiday including Thanksgiving and Christmas. The look in Charles eyes seeing the bird on the dirty floor cut through Kyle like diamond.

  "Is this your work, boy?"

  "It was an accident, Charles, he—" Angela started and Charles stuck his big white palm in the air.

  "There are no accidents with Kyle. Haven't you learned that, woman?" He stood, glaring at Kyle.

  "It really was an accident, sir, I—"

  "Shut it, boy. I come home hungry for a dinner. What are we going to eat now?"

  Angela had started to pick up the turkey when Charles started stomping it with his foot. Turkey pieces flew every direction.

  "Dog food now."

  "I didn't mean—" Kyle raised his hands in a pleading motion.

  "Don't." Charles shook his dirty mechanic nail finger at Kyle and then headed out of the room wiping the crushed turkey off his work boot with a towel he'd snatched off the counter. "Help me build a fire, boy."

  Kyle knew better not to say anything more. He followed Charles to the fireplace.

  "We need some kindling to get this fire going strong. Bring some to me."

  Kyle knew what Charles wanted from him and he started shaking his head. Not his collections. No. Anything but them.

  "If you don't get them, I will."

  They stared at each other with Kyle's heart pounding. Charles sighed and pushed past Kyle, storming toward his room.

  "Please, not them."

  Charles had always left his collections alone but the threat was there.

  "You spend way too much time with childish garbage," Charles told him as he went into the room and took down three of his wood collections, one of them being the butterfly.

  Kyle rushed Charles from behind and knocked the mounting boxes out of his hands. He reached for the butterfly one and held it against his chest. Charles could burn the other ones and he'd miss the hard work he put into them, but if something happened to the butterfly? Unspeakable.

  He would do anything to protect the butterfly.

  "A little vinegar today, huh boy? Good." Charles chuckled, taking the other two and ripping down four more wooden mats. He moved back into the other room and broke the collections into pieces and shoved them into the fireplace.

  "Charles," Angela said, muffled in the other room. Tears started to form in Kyle's eyes, he clutched the mount with the butterfly.

  "The boy is almost a man now, Angela. He can drive a car and soon he'll be out there on his own. He doesn't need to play with these any more. It's time for him to grow up and get a job to pay for things like that turkey he threw on the floor."

  "You stubborn fool, it was an accident. Kyle didn't do that on purpose."

  "He's sixteen now. Time to stop playing with bugs. This is a lesson."

  "This is no way to teach him anything."

  "You're too damn soft."

  The sound of the flames cracking through wood.

  "Loving a stubborn fool like you, I guess so! Now don't you ever take his property again or I'll kick your big white butt out of this house for good. I mean it, Charles Andrew Smith."

  All three names. You knew Angela was serious when she rolled out all three names.

  A smile crept across Kyle's face. This was the first time Angela ever stuck up for him in over five years together. His butterfly collection would be safe.

  Angela, however, would not be. She would be dead before Christmas.

  * * *

  Heart attack out of nowhere and with Angela's weight she just collapsed and succumbed. Charles first act with Angela gone was to send Kyle away.

  "It's not just you, boy," Charles said, trying to explain his newest string of C's: callous castaway. "The foster home is over." Charles wasn't lying, he sent all three foster kids back to the state saying he couldn't carry on without Angela. Charles wouldn't have been able to do it alone, but he had Kyle.

  "I could stay here and help you, Charles."

  "Yeah, sure." Charles laughed. "You know you kids were never mine. And you wouldn't want a crusty guy like me watching over you anyway."

  C is for Crusty, indeed.

  Kyle shook Charles' dirty mechanic nails hand. To Kyle's surprise, Charles pulled him into a rare hug. He'd been ten or eleven years old the last time Charles had hugged him like this. "You take care of yourself, boy."

  A long, awkward silence before Charles added: "And don't you turn out like. . .me."

  Charles sulked away into the distance. Kyle didn't expect to ever see him again.

  * * *

  Kyle opened his eyes and it was present day again. Much older now but the past still clung to him. The butterfly fluttered away and Kyle waved goodbye.

  Seth said he'd seen a woman on the island. Bobby would find out if Seth was seeing things again. Kyle hoped this time Seth wasn't delusional because a lot of fun could be had with a woman on the island.

  CHAPTER 10

  The young ensign with bleach-white hair, that earlier bragged of how strong his seaworthy stomach was, violently upchucked over the right bow. He wasn't the first, though. Six Coast Guard men and three other Navy ensigns puked too.

  "Jesus, Admiral," a veteran Navy Captain named Wick Eckers said. He had seen some ghastly sights in 'Nam: rat-chewed bodies, bullet-riddled and rotted flesh, brain-blown corpses and worse. But he hadn't seen anything as disturbing and grotesque as the things ten feet away.

  Admiral Bodecker tugged his beard, a nervous habit which had accompanied him most of his adult life. In his many Navy years, he'd rarely seen the ocean display such gruesome power. There were three limbless torsos brought in by the Coast Guard with seaweed wrapped like tinsel around the flabby, useless flesh where the head, arms and legs should have been. The bodies were all drained white and well rotted. The sight was terrible, but it was the horrendous smell that had been the coup de grace for the pukers.

  Ocean rot, ocean decay; the overwhelming smell of salt and mutilated flesh. Strange how these bodies had shown up from nowhere, retched from the largest cemetery on earth. He wondered how they came up?

  "Ensign?" He touched the young blonde man on the shoulder, "Go below deck. Take the day off."

  "Yes, Admiral." His face was as green as the seaweed on the torsos. He slid past the admiral and disappeared below.

  A strong wind came, rocked the boat like a seesaw, upppppppp. . ..dooooooowwwwwnnn. Watching the wind blow the dangling seaweed made Bodecker shudder. It was an eerie sight, indeed. The Navy was good to him the last nineteen years. He supposed without the ocean, despite the grisly sight before him, he'd still be boozing it up and chasing different women ashore every night.

  The Coast Guard captain, Roe Simon, climbed up the small steps to face Admiral Bodecker. He was a short, middle-aged man wearing an oversized white hat in vain hopes of concealing his eraser head.r />
  "We found something else."

  "Another body?" Admiral Bodecker replied.

  "No. No, this." The man held up a waterlogged sign that Bodecker had not seen him holding before.

  LADY STA. The name of the same boat which belonged to the ripped-apart bodies? Did the ocean think man was too dumb to figure anything out? Or was it just a strange coincidence?

  More eeriness filled the salty ocean air.

  "You see how the edge of the sign is broken off?" Captain Simon pointed„ "I think it's missing the last four letters. About a month ago, during that bad storm, our records reported a yacht disappeared somewhere in the vicinity of where we found the bodies and this. The name of the yacht that went down was LADY STANTON."

  "The ship with that rich mogul?"

  "Edward Stanton, yes."

  "Isn't he one of the wealthiest people in the world. Forbes list, all that Wall street stuff? Made some computer chips or something?"

  "He is—was. One of those. . ..bodies. . . could be Edward Stanton."

  "Lord of mercy, Jesus." Admiral Bodecker shook his head. It was becoming a task to lay eyes upon the chewed-up corpses. He quickly ordered them covered and taken away.

  "How many people were on her when she went down?" Bodecker asked.

  "Eight were reported missing. Five males, caucasians, middle-thirties to forties. Three women including Stanton's wife."

  Admiral Bodecker watched the ensigns cover the hideous torsos with a heavy white tarp. He motioned the Coast Guard official to the bridge.

  "Come, please. We must speak privately."

  They left quickly. The ocean grabbed the gigantic Navy ship in its steel fist and cradled it like a toy.

  * * *

  Admiral Bodecker led the Coast Guard captain to his well-kept, neatly organized office on the bridge. On Bodecker's desk was a detailed map of the Pacific, showing everything from ocean depths to latitudes and longitudes. He took a compass from his pencil and pen holder, an IN GOD WE TRUST coffee mug, and handed it to Captain Simon.

  The Coast Guard man took it and pinpointed where they'd found the torsos and the sign. He grabbed a sharp pencil and drew an X at the latitude and longitude coordinates.

  "The sign and bodies came up here, roughly four-hundred miles north/northwest of the Hawaiian islands.

  "There was never an S.O.S or any cry for help from the LADY STANTON. Dead radio silence. It's damned peculiar that these bodies turned up at all. Christ, it's been over a month."

  "I was thinking the same thing myself. Give me your best assessment of what happened."

  Simon nodded. "Stanton and his friends were headed for the Hawaiian islands. Their vessel was competent for the journey, that's not the problem. The storm came and they were too busy partying to get the hell out. To be blunt sir: they fucked up, and it cost them their lives."

  "Yes, but according to where you found the boat insignia and the bodies, that's four hundred miles off course. How could anyone get that far off course?"

  "Drugs? The rich ones like to party hard, you know."

  "Hmm."

  "Unless," added Captain Simon, "the ocean dragged those bodies—and the sign—four hundred miles."

  Actually, Admiral Bodecker had two nervous vices: beard-pulling and pacing. He did both without thinking. There was something disturbing about the LADY STANTON sinking and a month later spitting up three bodies.

  "Survivors?"

  "Impossible. No one. Nobody could have lived through that."

  "But what if they went down close to here," Bodecker put his finger on -156 degrees longitude, 29 degrees longitude.

  "That would make them several hundred miles off course."

  "It's possible?"

  "Yeah, with a dumbass at the helm and a shithead for a navigator."

  This time it was Bodecker who said, "drugs?"

  "I. . .don't know. Pretty sketchy. They're all dead and that's how I intend to put it in my report."

  "No. I'm afraid not." Bodecker shook his head.

  "What? I have to file a report."

  "No Captain, not if I say you can't."

  "And why would you do that?"

  "Because if they did go down here." he tapped the spot on the map, "they're close to this island."

  "Yes, but that island? Government-owned land, right?"

  "Yes, and what if the LADY STANTON went down and there was a survivor who made it to the island somehow?"

  "It would be a governmental matter."

  "That's why you aren't going to write anything in your report."

  Simon knew it was an order not to be disobeyed.

  "Then how can I file a report if I can't put anything in it?"

  "I'm afraid that's not my problem. Uncle Sam wants it that way, you know."

  "Well, sir, if you don't mind me saying: it's a crock of shit. Nobody survived. Nobody. And even if they did, the storm would have ripped them up so badly they'd never have recovered on their own."

  Bodecker said, "That will be all, Captain Simon. The Navy will take it from here."

  Simon started for the door, grumbling, "Yeah, yeah I bet they will."

  "Not a word of this to anybody, Simon. Keep the lid tight, understand?"

  When the door slammed shut, Bodecker looked back down at where his finger was still pointing. Government land was all even he was told. Well, now with possible civilian(s) shipwrecking they would have to tell him more about what was going on there. If there was one or more survivors on the island, Bodecker could order one or more ships in his fleet to travel there in no time. They would have to brief him on this small mysterious island in the Pacific.

  He left his office to get permission from the higher echelons to search the island for any survivors of the downed LADY STANTON. Surely they would give him clearance.

  Bodecker should have known better.

  CHAPTER 11

  Jessica had a vivid dream about someone she knew, but when she awoke she couldn't remember who it was. She didn't wake with a start. She sensed danger from the person in her dream.

  A sheen of sweat covered her body. Her favorite Friday night red blouse was glued to her skin. Examining it's ragged condition, she couldn't describe it as her favorite anything any more.

  It reminded her too much of the island. Dick. Lies. Every aggravating, yet always humorous, episode of Gilligan's island. How could they screw up getting rescued so many times?

  She realized she was still alone. Had been all night. How had she fallen asleep? She had laid there depressed and in pain.

  She felt it all over, a bad bout of menstrual cramps coupled with an aching jaw.

  Why did he hit me?

  Sunlight shone brightly through the cave entrance and warm sea-wind rushed in.

  She slid across the dirt and took the knife that Dick had thrown down last night. Holding his pocket knife made her feel both relieved and worried. She felt safe holding a weapon, yet worried about the possibility of having to use it. What if Dick had not lied about the "night creatures" and they decided to become day creatures?

  Why did he hit me?

  She closed her eyes, frightened and hurt by memories of Dick. She was at risk of starving without him. She had tree-branch fishing poles and plenty of worms for bait but she didn't have the knack. She could quiet even the most rambunctious child—a feat most men would cower at mere contemplation—but she had no talent for catching her most abhorred food. Stinking, smelly, salty, fish. And the coconuts, she couldn't kid herself into thinking there was an icecube's chance in hell climbing fifty feet. She wasn't a monkey.

  Berries. That left the berries. She would live strictly off berries—a berritarian! Hell, she could probably even prune that nagging twenty pounds.

  Face it, Jessica, you're screwed.

  She climbed to her feet, her weak bones barely holding her. Firecracker snaps told her that even her skeleton felt drained. Which did she have worse: emotional or physical damage?

  Why did he hit me?

/>   She limped across the dirt floor, more bone-snapping, until she made it to the entrance. She stopped and stared out into the bright ravine, almost expecting a grief-laden Dick—he had pulled the punch—to be there.

  He wasn't.

  Maybe he's on the spying trip again, waiting to surprise me? She searched the dense ravine with hopeful eyes.

  He wasn't.

  There wasn't even a strong wind to play tricks with her mind like it had before. There was emptiness and nothing else.

  She looked down at Dick's pocket knife. She clutched it, making white knuckles. What if she had to defend herself with it, could she do it? Yes. Could she stick another human being—even Dick—if there was no other alternative?

  Was Dick a foe or a friend?

  Why did he hit me?

  She left the cave, went to the bathroom and peed dark red blood.

  On the way out, she tripped over it.

  She thought at first it was either a small rock jutting out of the ground, or a cluster of tenuous vines. There were lots of those little pitfalls on the island, but the thing she felt touching her bare foot was not as hard as a rock, nor was it grassy, nor thin, nor flimsy like any vine she had touched on the island. It was soft and flesh-like.

  Repulsed, she snuck a peek. At first she saw nothing.

  Then she saw a rotted, severed hand with all of the skin savagely peeled, chewed, or ripped off. On the ring finger, only a few grossly-decayed scraps of yellow-brown meat remained, and they were being swiftly stolen or devoured by hundreds of tiny black bugs. A unique gold wedding ring lay innocently amidst the feverish feast, several tiny bugs popped out—

  (Look, Ma. No hands!)

  —between the ring and the digit's gnaw covered bone. She could not suppress her first scream. Or the dozen that followed.

  Jumping to her feet, she scrambled away. As she ran, she kept brushing herself off, as if the tiny black bugs had found their way to her skin. She had to get away. Far away. She had to get off this crazy island. She maneuvered past, through, and around plants, vines, and trees; all flying at her as hazy shapes. Every angle, every level. She dodged. Turned. Circled. All her maneuvers were executed without stopping.