by Todd Russell
When at last she could stop—a good half-mile away from the cave—she broke down on her knees and the tears rained down her face.
She had recognized that unique gold wedding ring. She knew the owner, in fact.
Edward.
* * *
While her eyes were closed she imagined her body had been invaded by tiny black bugs. Her brain throbbed with a thick black constantly-moving layer of insects, the bugs spiraling to the center intent on ravishing her thalamus. The hard lump in her throat was an unsteady bug baseball; hundreds of tiny, tightly-packed bugs in a perfect, writhing circular shape. And her heart, oh God the heart! Black bugs moved about the ventricle walls like grade school children on a Jungle Gym, each beat of her heart weighted by hundreds of squirming black bugs.
She opened her eyes and screamed again.
The wind rustled the trees, drowning her screech.
She saw jeweler Nile Waters (who should have been named Jerkwaters), one of the many unscrupulous friends of Edward's, ass-kissing: "You know quality when you see it, right? Why fuck around? You, a man of immense power and standing, don't need the local Joe Blow's ring, you need originality! You have a reputation to uphold, Ed, you need to wear only the best in fine jewelry! So, let me have a one-of-a-kind ring made especially for you. Expensive? Well..".
With an empty, hungry stomach Jessica was violently sick. She puked until it was not just dry heave, but blood.
And then she closed her eyes again.
And through blackness her imagination assaulted her, showing a bloody pile of her own vomit crawling with tiny black bugs.
She staggered away, shaking her throbbing head, holding her aching stomach and Dick's pocket knife, trying to shake her disgust and horror.
Before she lost her mind.
* * *
She wandered aimlessly for thirty minutes remembering good times spent with Edward. She loved seeing movies with him and he made excellent choices: romance, comedy, adventure. He was the sweetest man when it came to making love, always willing, gentle, and totally in control of her mind and body. He could touch her with almost anything and make her shiver in ecstasy. In many respects a wonderful husband.
But what had he become? Where was the rest of him? Was only part of his body maimed? Or was the rest of him bug-infested?
And how had his hand gotten there?
Though she had no watch, she would have guessed by the sun's downward position in the sky it was around four o'clock. Night was coming.
And she was still alone.
Even though she had no urge to eat, she decided to seek out some food. Maybe later she would forget about the bugs and feel hungry.
She hurried on her path to the berries. She was careful to heed Dick's early warnings—assuming they were not lies too—about staying on the west side of the island.
Something strange was happening on the east side of the island. Waiting, it seemed with terrifying patience, to reveal itself. Dick knew and seemed to want to secret her from what was happening over there.
But Dick was not the only one who knew what was over there. Whoever had dropped that green box knew too.
Who? Soviets? U.S Military? Jessica had been good in World Geography, one of her few classes (the teacher was good looking) but she didn't recall any tiny islands between Hawaii and San Francisco which fit this geography. She only knew that this island was a well-kept secret. She wasn't supposed to be here. She landed here by mistake and if she didn't find a way, some way off it she might wind up like Edward.
Or, heaven help her, worse.
She reached the special 75x75 clearing spot where Dick had brought her to pick berries. She could still see him holding the poisonous plant, telling her, "eat one of these and you probably won't be coming home for dinner."
Why did he hit me?
She unhinged his pocket knife with fingernails once beautiful and long but now ugly, broken and dirty. She cut one of the poisonous plants and dropped it to the dirt. She ground it with her foot.
For Edward. Herself.
Edward, what did this to you?
A sinister thought crept across her brain. What if Dick put it there? A cruel, callous act. Could Dick have a cold, evil side? Why didn't he just break Edward's death to her in the beginning? It would have been so much easier. Instead, Dick was nice to her, making the situation almost bearable.
Guilt washed over Jessica. She didn't even go looking to see if Edward had washed ashore. She'd believed that she was the only survivor of the LADY STANTON. But maybe Edward had washed ashore on the east side of the island. Jessica had only thought of herself and how bad it was for her but not what might have happened to her husband.
She thought she would start crying for Edward, herself, maybe even Dick again until a voice stopped her like a concrete wall.
"Well I'll be GODdamned," the voice said.
The horror returned, swooped down and crawled like the tiny black bugs victimizing her flesh.
Because the voice was not Dick's.
CHAPTER 12
T.C. was her first thought, he looked exactly like T.C. from those old re-runs of Magnum P.I. He was very big, very strong-chested, and dark black. Only when the black man opened his mouth she realized it was not the warm-hearted T.C. For inside the huge black man's mouth, there was not a fine set of whites (like T.C.'s) no, there was decayed emptiness. Red gums with no teeth. The black man's bulging body was half-naked, only his penis covered by a bush.
And the most frightening man she'd ever seen.
"You must be a mirror-ahge," the man chuckled, flexing his rippling muscles as he came toward her. "I ain't seen no mirror-ahge pussy for years."
"Stay away from me."
"Oh, and a spicy mirror-ahge at that." The man smiled with crazy eyes. Insane eyes. He flexed again. He held up a hand that could crush Jessica's face like a pop can.
"Just—just stay away from me."
He approached, beaming brighter.
She backed away. Into the poisonous plant.
"You mirror-aghe, you must be. I must touch you. The best looking mirror-ahge I ever seen."
He came closer.
She took one more step and fell into the plant, getting tangled. Cornered. Trapped. She put Dick's pocket knife out in front of her.
"Stop or I'll, I'll—"
"You'll what?" his eyes seemed to smile, blinking with a craziness all their own. This man was insane.
"Lay one hand on me and I'll cut you."
He reached.
She jabbed.
"Ow." he yelped, removing his slashed hand. Blood quickly oozed out of the nasty cut. Oozed off his hand and dripped on the dirt.
Drip. . .drip. . .drip.
"You a mean mirror-ahge." He reached behind and brandished a knife of his own. A sharp, shiny buck knife. "The last motherfucka who cut me, I bled the bastid. Bled the bastid real slow."
She threw Dick's knife at the man's face and shot to her feat. The pocket knife, result of a bad but lucky toss stuck into the black man's shoulder and he yelped in pain again. It gave her just the time needed to get untangled and move ahead a couple steps.
She ran and he pursued.
"I get you, mirror-aghe. I get you!"
There was so much rage and hate in the man's words that her heartbeat tripled.
Now she was being hunted.
"I get you!" the black man kept screaming. He was close, almost on her heels. She knew she could never outrun him. Chances were he knew the island, the surrounding landscape as good as, if not better than, Dick. She had to use her size disadvantage and crawl under places her attacker would have trouble navigating through as swiftly. On open ground she would be caught.
"SOMEBODY HELP ME!" Jessica screamed, ducking under a five-foot high branch and rolled into a waist high layer of thickets.
And kept rolling.
Rolling.
She was on a steep decline that fell roughly ten feet.
Something cracked in her legs.
She feared it to be a broken bone but it was just the use of weary bones, a delayed skeletal-firecracker from earlier. Footsteps pounded through the ravine after her. Toward her. Closer. The black man was swearing, using vile, terrible, obscene words.
Dizzy, she climbed to her feet. The ravine spun, refused to clear, held her still.
Heavy footsteps pounded closer. Closer. He was saying he was going to skin her like his last victim, skin her down to the bone. No one slashed—
(Bobby?)
—and lived to tell about it.
Still dizzy, yet knowing that any second Bobby would be upon her, she dashed out, her hands thrust in front of her like insect feelers.
Bobby was right behind her.
She tripped. This time it was a rock jutting out of the ground, not Edward's hideous hand.
"I SEE YOU," The black man laughed. She struggled to get to her feet again. Her body, especially her muscles, couldn't get it together. Come on, body, move, this isn't break time!
The black man caught up with her.
She screamed.
He grabbed her violently. He could have snapped her arms and maybe that was one of his intentions. He thrust her to the ground and pressed the shiny buck knife to her to cheek. She eyed the fierce metal blade, terrified.
His blood trickled down his knife hand and landed on her shoulder and the ground.
Drip. . .drip. . .drip. . .
"You too good looking a bitch to let go." His voice was hot as molten lava, his grip like a bear trap.
"Please. . .don't."
"See, I don't think you a mirror-ahge no more." His chipped, dirty fingernails bit into her wrist. "I bet you like it in the ass, huh?"
"Please leave me—"
He slapped her so hard her face went numb.
"SHUT YOU MOUTH."
Cold, heart stopping silence.
"What's your name?"
"J-J-Jessica."
"I'm Bobby." His eyes shone madly. He stuck the tip of the buck knife to her lips. "When I done fuckin' you with my cock, I'm gonna fuck you with this."
She shuddered. Closed her eyes.
"Gonna bleed your pretty ass."
He forced her eyes open, forced her to stare into the abyss. She could see flesh sizzling fires burning in the man's eyes. The light of a thousand ghoulish nightmares. This man's life was riddled with horrors, his soul long since tagged and condemned to eternal damnation.
He put his hand on her neck. Squeezed. "Make a move on me, and I bleed that pretty ass right now."
"I—I won't m—move."
"No, no, you won't" He laughed, satisfied. "I'm alreadv creaming for you."
She winced in pain. He loosened his grip on her neck. She imagined the terror of being raped, every woman thought about this at one time or another, but her fantasies never started as bizarre as this reality.
Bobby set the buck knife above her head, out of her reach, untied his tribal-like underwear, and was naked. His purple crown was as large and rocky as his muscular body.
"No. . .please. . .don't."
"That's what I like hearing. Sound just like a pretty hoe!" Bobby giggled. He reached for her red blouse, pulled it up. Pulled down her strawberry-colored panties.
"No, PLEASE NO!"
He touched her vagina with cold, poking fingers. "You look sooo sweeeeet."
She felt the vomit building, the dry heave filled with blood and imaginary squirming black bugs.
With his hand cupped tightly around her throat, he opened his mouth, his tongue slithering across his lips. He took his hand with the slash and smeared some of his blood on her chest. He rubbed it in with sickened excitement.
He knelt very slowly between her legs, mouth wide and she screamed again.
He stopped and said: "Go on, pretty, scream away. No one fucking hears you scream here. NO ONE."
He started to kneel again, tongue flickering, cool hands holding her pinned. Then something went wrong.
His eyes bulged. His face turned to an expression of raw shock. His hands tensed and let go.
He fell over, dead. There was a sharpened tree-spear sticking out of the back of his skull. Blood and brain matter sprayed in a thin stream out of Bobby's skull. His eyes locked wide open, taking his death plunge with a memory of what he'd almost violated.
* * *
Jessica trembled. She touched her blouse with shaky fingers and covered herself. Staring at the blood spraying out of Bobby's skull, she remembered Dick's words.
A finely-honed tree branch can go through you like butter.
Dick had come back and was standing before her.
"Jessica?"
She stood, covered in Bobby's blood, confused and speechless.
"Jessica, it's okay. I'm here."
He came out of the bushes with his hands held out.
And seeing his face, she remembered who the person was she had the bad dream about:
Him.
CHAPTER 13
"Before you say anything," Dick said, stopping at the corpse. He bent down, wrenched the bloody tree-spear from Bobby's head and tossed it into the bushes.
Jessica backed up, staring warily at her dead stalker. "S-stay away, Dick. . ."
"Let me explain."
"Go to hell." She inched back, stopping when she felt the chill of Bobby's buck knife kiss her back. If her lungs held any air and her voice box would have allowed it, she would have screamed again.
Dick rolled Bobby's body over so neither of them would have to view it. "I didn't want this to happen."
"Leave me alone, you son of a bitch."
"Jessica, please."
"You hit me."
"I just saved your life."
"You hit me."
"I saved your life twice."
"You hit me."
"Jessica, I'm sorry."
"Apology not accepted, you bastard. What did you come back for, huh? To hit me again?"
Dick showed no indication of the rage he'd displayed the previous night. He did not move any closer, staying his ground, fully understanding that if he took a step, just one step, Jessica might flee.
"I can't take back what I did last night." Dick held both hands out. "I can't take back a thousand bad things I've done in my life."
"Why did you hit me, Dick? Why?"
"I fucked up. No excuses. I know it's not okay."
"No. No, it's not okay. Just when 1 started to trust you and then you pull that on me."
"You're right."
"You think that because I'm a woman you can take advantage of me any damn way you please?"
"Jessica?"
"What?"
"Do you think we can have this fight after we bury Bobby?"
"I'm not moving an inch in your direction. I don't want to come near you. Do you hear me. Dick? I. Hate. You."
Dick shook his head: "You don't mean that."
Of course she didn't, but she wouldn't admit that right this moment.
"Leave me alone. You said that's what you were going to do last night. Just leave me alone."
"And let you get killed?"
Jessica couldn't answer that, she felt he might be right.
Dick knelt down. "I never wanted this to happen, do you understand? I never wanted you to see any of this. I only wanted to keep you safe. Now things are different. If I let you go now, you will be in danger."
Fear replaced Jessica's anger. Dick's statement suggested that there was worse than Bobby on the island. Maybe the wild animals Dick had claimed existed on the east side were other psychos like Bobby.
"No more BS, Dick, what is going on here?"
Dick stared at Bobby, then back. "We bury Bobby and then, then I promise to answer all your questions. Everything."
She wondered for a moment if he would. Dick's face looked more honest, more truthful than it ever had. After his deception could she believe anything he said?
"Jessica I know you have no reason to trust me after what I did last night. I made a terrible mistake."
"That's an understatement."
"It there's anything I could do to take it back, anything at all, I would. I never meant to hurt you."
"You have a funny way of showing it."
"I think. . .hope once I explain everything, you will understand why I wasn't totally honest from the start."
"That's a lousy excuse, Dick. I'm not going anywhere with you."
"We can't stand here and fight all day."
"Wanna bet?"
"Jessica, it will be dark soon and I've learned enough about you to know that you don't want to be out here at night. Especially sitting next to Bobby in. . .this condition. Come on."
"No, Dick, I'm not moving." She was lying. She would rather be back in the cave, not in the dark with a dead Bobby.
"Please?"
"Go to hell. You're a liar and woman beater."
"Just let me explain."
"You can explain right here, right now. Otherwise you can go to hell."
"What do you want to hear me say?"
"You hit me."
"Okay, okay, I hit you. But I can't take it back. Never. That and a lot of other messed up things in my life."
"Dick, I trusted you, I started to believe in you. . ." Tears began to well in her eyes.
He moved toward her.
"Stay back." She held up her hand. He stopped. "Just stay away from me. Please."
"Okay, I'll keep my distance. I don't want to hurt you anymore. Do you know what I did when I left you last night?"
"I don't care."
"I walked around the island all night. I told myself how stupid I was to do that to you. I don't know what made me do it. That's not me. I've never struck a woman before. Never. Total lapse of judgment. It's not how you, or any woman, should be treated."
"But it happened."