Fresh Flesh

by Todd Russell

  When she was able to go on, they went to the next one. And found another rotting, decaying convict. This one had a knife in his throat pinning him to the earth.

  But worse, much worse were the black bugs—

  (And now, here they are, BOBBY AND THE CRAWLERS!)

  —crawling in and out of chew holes in the man's cold, yellowing flesh.

  Jessica started screaming, backpedaling out of the camp, screaming, falling to her knees, screaming.

  Richard grabbed her mouth and silenced her. "No, Jessica, you'll tell the whole damn island we're here."

  "I can't. Do. This." She shook her head. Trembling. Feeling ravenous black bugs lurking beneath her skin.

  Richard grabbed her shoulders. "You don't have to look, but I must. We need to know what were up against."

  We're up against hell.

  "Wait here," he said. "I'll check the rest of the camp. Please don't scream any more though. You scream and we'll have company. We're back in here in part because this is the last place I figured they'd expect us to be."

  "Y—Yes."

  "I'll be right back."

  "Please don't leave me in this terrible place." Jessica reached after him.

  "I won't be long."

  She didn't take her eyes off him as he searched the other forts. She counted them one at a time, up to seventeen total, including Roberts' fort. He returned with a disturbed look on his face. Whatever he'd seen wasn't expected.

  "I'm going to leave something for Roberts and then we need to leave."

  "This feels very wrong here. Please hurry." Jessica could taste bile in her throat.

  Richard entered Roberts' lair while she waited outside, eyes darting around at all angles of the camp. It seemed like a cloud of evil floating outside the doorway to Kyle Kollector Roberts' island home.

  "Hurry, Richard, please. I don't like it here." She was fearful that any second Roberts and more of his east island cohorts would be taking a lunch break at home. "Hurry."

  Richard emerged with the disturbed look still on his face. He took her hand and they darted from the camp.

  The wind and the shadow with one eye followed.

  * * *

  About fifteen minutes later, Richard decided they'd put enough distance between them and the Roberts' camp. They were in a heavily wooded area with a vast amount of over and undergrowth.

  "What's going on back there?" Jessica said, shivering.

  "Roberts lied to us."

  "About?"

  "There aren't ten of them. . .anymore," he said with a deliberate, sullen tone. "Only five left."

  "Five?"

  "And I'm thinking two of those five are now lying dead on the northeast beach. So three of them left now, I think."

  "I don't ever want to go back there."

  "We won't." Richard gave a small, but unconvincing nod. "I promise we won't."

  They both knew there were some promises that couldn't be kept.

  CHAPTER 26

  Sweat streamed like tears down Kyle Roberts cheeks as he dragged the second body, Bat Jackson, into camp.

  He dragged Bat's body like Butch Smith's; holding him underneath the arms, naked feet painting a line across the sand and dirt. As he dragged the bodies, Kyle tried not to cloud his thoughts with the face of Richard Templin. But the face kept coming to him, a haunting set of quick snapshots: Templin at the beach: Templin in the cave. Templin screwing the woman. Templin running. Templin. TEMPLIN.

  Templin.

  Templin was responsible for this.

  Kyle laid Bat Jackson's body inside the home the man had built, laid him flat on his back.

  When the government had sent Kyle Roberts to the island this allowed him to create a final collection. The one masterpiece collection he'd been afraid to create in the woods for fear of discovery and capture. On the island his collection of humans was his most favorite.

  Kyle Roberts had his own method of burial and had been burying his men like this for eight years. They had to have a burial ritual before becoming part of his human collection.

  He would bury his men inside their own dwelling. If their knife was available—it almost always was—he'd pin them to the earth with it so they would never be disturbed. If the dead person's knife wasn't available, Kyle had a healthy supply of replacements. If their knife was a long blade, Kyle would impale them through the chest.

  However, if it was a shorter one, he would stick it through their neck. And if, by some strange, unnatural act, their head was severed in the process—yes, it happened sometimes—the whole body would be roasted and the surviving men would have a grand feast.

  Bat Jackson, the poor bastard, had never even taken his knife. It lay on his rock seat. Bat was a brave man and must have intended to take Templin with his bare hands.

  Bless you, Bat.

  Kyle picked up the knife, studying the length of the blade. He switched to viewing the chest and throat of the body beneath him. He opened Bat's eyelid and showed the dead man his knife.

  "What do you think, Bat? Long enough?" Kyle inserted the knife into Bat's chest slowly, watching the flesh separate into wet, squishy folds. Deeper—deeper—deeper. . .

  "I think it will make it, Bat."

  . . .deeper. . .deeper. . .stop. Ground. Kyle looked at the two inches of blade that remained. He nodded, impressed, and pounded the knife into the ground with his fist.

  The dead body spasmed with rigor mortis, then rested. Jumping Bat Jackson had been collected.

  Kyle moved out of the camp and cursed the sun. The intense rays bored holes in his head, as if angry as Kyle over the terrible injustice of these two murders.

  Templin, Templin was responsible.

  Only Kyle was allowed to kill the convicts. Templin should have known the rules. He would have known them if Kyle had forced him to stay on their side of the island and to be part of their group. There were rules and Templin had violated the most sacred one: nobody harms but Kyle Roberts. Nobody collects except Kyle Roberts.

  Kyle shook his fist at the boiling sun. "TEEEEEMMMMMPPPPLLLIIIIINNN!"

  Kyle looked around the village and hollered: "Gomez, Edison, French. Get your asses up and fight. Bring me back the fucking bastard. Do you hear me? He kept a woman from us. TEMPLIN'S GOT A WOMAN."

  Kyle knelt down and pounded the dirt. He started clawing it, dug in with such fury his fingernails tore back. Took handfuls of dirt and held them up to the sun.

  "Templin did this: Templin's responsible for this! Hill! Forester! GET UP AND FIGHT HIM. HE'S GOT A WOMAN! A WOMAN! A WOMAN!"

  Gomez, Edison, French, Hill and Forester didn't speak from their collected spots, pinned and rotting inside their forts.

  Tears rolled in streams from his eyes. At last Kyle Roberts repeated softly: "A woman."

  * * *

  A harsh wind blew some of the dirt from his now-bleeding fingertips.

  After a long time he stood. His moment of sorrow and rage was over. Now, he knew he must think of a next plan of attack. He'd never believed it would last as long as it had. There had been others who tested him on the island. Gomez had been the first. He was trying to get a gang of Mexicans together and go form their own camp. Templin had done it, so why not Gomez?

  Kyle remembered offering to help Gomez chart out a good camping spot. And when Gomez was turned Roberts stuck him in the spine.

  When Roberts returned with Gomez head on a stick he told the other Mexican cons: "There is only one gang and one camp on this island. If you cross me your head will end up on a stick too."

  Edison challenged Kyle on the spot and Roberts easily killed him. French, the only other Mexican on the island, said he didn't want to fight. But later that night, Kyle Roberts slit French's throat when he slept.

  After that there was no more talk about forming separate gangs. This wasn't normal prison life. This was their own private wilderness death row and Kyle was both inmate and warden.

  "No," Kyle muttered to himself, disbelieving that Templin had bee
n allowed island freedom that none of the other cons had experienced. And how did Templin repay him? A woman washes ashore and he tried to keep her to himself.

  * * *

  Fifteen minutes later, Walkins thrashed through the ravine toward Roberts. He was still standing in the middle of the camp surrounded by his human collection. His eyes were still peering up at the sun. He was still thinking of ways to enact suitable revenge. Thinking about his opponent.

  TEMPLIN.

  "Kyle," Walkins said again. Roberts looked down from the sun and at the approaching figure.

  "You better have good news."

  "I do." Walkins nodded.

  Kyle's eyebrows rose. "Talk to me."

  "I ran into Seth while searching for them. We've got them now. He's been watching them and says they are still circling, but slowing down. Should we jump them now?"

  Kyle made a fist. A smile surfaced on his wind-blistered lips. "No, not yet."

  Walkins looked surprised.

  Kyle laughed. "Return to Seth and keep watching them. Follow them until they camp for the night. When Templin goes to sleep, he has to sooner or later, come get me. I'll be here, waiting."

  "But wouldn't—"

  Problem child.

  Walkins must have seen the cold look in Kyle's eyes. He didn't push.

  "When that son of a bitch sleeps, we'll take the woman. Then we won't have to find him. He'll find us." Kyle began to laugh.

  "I like that." Walkins started laughing too.

  Kyle added, darkly serious: "And when Templin comes to us, we'll torture him like no man has ever been tortured. Punishment for his selfish actions and for what he did to Bat and Butch. C is for Celebration."

  Kyle waited excitedly for night to fall.

  * * *

  "Richard?" she said.

  He looked up. "Yes?"

  "You're forgiven."

  "For what?"

  She smirked. "Come on, you know what I mean."

  "No, I don't really know what you're talk—"

  Her eyes caught his. Fires burned in day skies.

  "Hitting you?" he pointed at his chest, disbelieving.

  "Yes," she said, "few men would have done for me what you have here. You've saved my life, cheered me up during the bad times. You've made this situation almost. . .bearable."

  He studied her eyes. She hoped that sounded like a compliment, because it was. The best compliment.

  And then they leaned toward each other again. Closer, closer and instead, Richard reached over and stroked Jessica's shoulder.

  "Thank you, that means a lot," Richard said. "We better get going. It will be dark soon."

  She nodded and they were on their way again. The ravine opened up like a mouth and swallowed them.

  * * *

  When Kyle saw the message written on the dirt floor his anger toward Templin intensified.

  Templin's handiwork. He was taunting him now. COCKY SON OF A BITCH!

  Kyle Roberts hands started to tremble as he read the message. When he finished, he ran out to the camp and screamed Templin's name. Screamed warning to Templin that he would not die, never die, not until every last means of torture was borne upon him.

  He looked down and read it once again, something boiling inside him as his lips moved:

  Two presents for your collection, you sadistic bastard. This isn't about the woman, it's between you and I. We've been headed for a showdown since the day we got here but it took Jessica washing ashore to make me realize that fighting YOU is the only way to escape this island prison. Game on, fucker!

  He shredded the paper. The words were engraved on his brain.

  COCKY SON OF A BITCH!

  Oh, but Templin's time was coming. Oh, yes.

  Soon.

  CHAPTER 27

  Night came without conflict.

  They had circled the island for several hours at a brisk pace, keeping close to the shoreline. She watched the sun slide across the horizon, from overhead, to way off in the distance, to the spot where it sank into the ocean.

  The moon rose.

  Tonight a full moon.

  She gripped her new weapon, the switchblade, like a good friend. Richard had offered her Bobby's knife instead and she politely declined. The thought of using a dead man's knife felt wrong.

  The wrestler, she reminded herself, I killed Jumping Bat Jackson the wrestler. Killed with the same hands that once shined with beautifully manicured nails. The same hands that held her multi-millionaire husband on the covers of countless magazines, newspapers and yes, even scandal sheets.

  And some perverse humor struck her if the paparazzi could see her now. See her with these same hands that once spoke of youth and innocence, but now spoke of horrific surroundings.

  She was a killer. The headline: RICH MOGUL'S WIFE KILLS INSANE WRESTLER ON FISH-STINKING BEACH. And perhaps a follow-up headline: JUST LOOK AT HER HAIR.

  No. She had no choice. It was self-defense. If she hadn't killed the wrestler, he would have done her worse.

  Surrendered her to Kyle Kollector Roberts.

  She thought of how her life had been transformed over the last two months. Not transformed, more like dissembled and destroyed. She was no longer Jessica Stanton, wife of rich mogul Edward Stanton, and knew she never would be again. The island had stolen her life like the others. The world probably believed she was dead. It had changed Jessica, broken down the plaster walls that money had surrounded her with. Here, she was forced to show her independence. There was Richard, and he was a godsend, but he didn't pamper her like the servants back at the mansion. Jessica had never, in fact, felt more independent than the day she washed ashore. The irony was that it was liberating.

  Before Edward there had been Ron, who was the 'just there' guy; he was boring. But hey, he was a lawyer and Jessica's mother had been adamant about which profession her spouse should be in (anything in the six-digit income bracket would suffice).

  She had married Ron right out of college, which had made her four-year stay an absolute waste. She had majored in journalism and was interested in TV, radio, or working as a reporter.

  She loved kids but she didn't think she'd ever get the chance to have any. Ron had been fixed and Edward's low sperm count couldn't be fixed.

  Things between Ron and her crumbled not long after the newlywed newness wore off. Edward found an interest in her almost the next day, and in five months their marriage was in the works. The island was the one missing piece in her jigsaw puzzle life. Independence. Here, on the island, there were no helping hands. The island had forced her to face fate in its own haunting, mysterious way.

  Sooner or later she had to recognize herself, not Edward Stanton's or Ron Nesbit's wife, or even the daughter of Frank and Elizabeth Snow. The island was responsible for all this, and probably much more than she understood or imagined. This place had become her destiny too. Everyone who had come to the island, she realized with stunning clarity, had been forced to face their true selves. Was that the punishment the government deemed worse than death? Recognizing the deepest, darkest part of your inner being?

  And for most of the participants it was.

  * * *

  Richard stopped the circling by tugging her hand. She looked around and saw only darkness. The surrounding ravine was barely illuminated by the fat, full moon lying up in the sky.

  "Are you ready to get a little sleep?"

  "No way," she replied.

  "No way?"

  "You're the one who needs sleep, Richard. You didn't get any last night, and with all that's happened today. . ."

  "So now you're my mother?"

  "I'd like to hear about your mother. You don't talk about your family."

  "We went through that. You are the only one on the island with any family, Jessica."

  "Come on, you must have somebody back there? Somebody back in the states you'd go see if you could?"

  Richard thought about that for a minute. "Pete Jones."

  "Who's that?"
<
br />   "Good friend in high school. He wasn't at the party that night I got in trouble. He told me not to go, actually. I should have gone over to his house and listened to Skynyrd records instead." Richard circled their surroundings with a pointing finger. "Freebird, my ass."

  They both listened to the waves crashing in the distance. Both wondered where their three stalkers were. If they were close, far, or had given up for the night?

  "Go ahead and sleep." Jessica pointed at the dirt again. "I'll be okay. I've got my switchblade."

  "Rich woman with switchblade. A killer combination."

  "Now if only I had my high heels?"

  "You're sure about me sleeping? I could use some."

  "Yes, get to it. It will make me feel much better knowing I'm not Rich Woman With Switchblade Traveling With Zombie."

  Richard laid down. "OK. I don't think they're out there, Jessica. It's too dark here at night. You're standing less than five feet from me and I can barely see you."

  "Sleep, Richard. For your own good."

  Richard didn't reply for almost a minute, and she wondered if he had fallen asleep that quickly.

  "Were you serious earlier, Jessica? Did you really mean that you've forgiven me?"

  She moved in and kissed his cheek."Yes."

  He reached out and gently squeezed her hand.

  "I'll only sleep a few. . . hours," he said and drifted away.

  When he started snoring, she pulled his hand to her lips and kissed it: "Goodnight, Richard."

  * * *

  "Sleeping?" Kyle stood up from the crackling campfire. Sweeter words he hadn't heard in awhile. "I'm going this time to make sure it doesn't get fucked up. I'll take the woman, you and Seth make damn sure Templin doesn't follow."