by Todd Russell
"I won't hurt you," he lied again, and then he expanded the lie: "I will never hurt you." She wondered if that's what he told those thirteen college girls.
She tried to look away, but he forced her to gaze at him. "Maybe I should tell you about a girl who wore a butterfly scarf? You remind me a little bit of Stacy."
The fire crackled, pleased.
CHAPTER 29
In the bushes near Robert's camp, Walkins saw a ghost.
"Randy? Man, you're back?"
"Yep, Walker."
Randy never could get his name right, it was Walkins, not Walker. "And I haven't changed a bit, either."
Don Walkins nodded. Randy and he had once been best friends, until a tragic motorcycle accident peeled most the skin from his body. Randy died in Walkins' arms moaning, whimpering and hallucinating at the end. And the last time Walkins had seen him, the night of the shootout, he'd looked the same way: a lobster-like monstrosity with bright white eyes.
"Jesus, man, shouldn't you be somewhere else?"
"Is that how you greet a friend? Hey, I had to walk through hell to get here."
Walkins wondered if a pun was intended. "Fuck no! It's great seeing you, man. What do you think of this place?"
"Bummer. But that chick? Wow, good stuff."
"Yeah, but she's," Walkins couldn't face his friend, "not mine."
"Hey, are you getting pussified on me, again? I came to tell you something: it's time."
"Again?"
"You don't have to be so brutal this time."
"Who?"
"You know who, dummy."
Walkins did. "He really is some kind of bastard."
"That, he is." Randy nodded, scratching a piece of meat near his chin. It fell off, landed somewhere in the dirt and vanished before both of their eyes.
"Randy, man, I'm not crazy, am I? I mean, I'm not cracking up, right?"
"No way."
"Good. For a second, I was worried."
"I guess I better be going," Randy said, "but do me a little favor, will ya?"
"Sure, anything."
"Bang that chick for me. That ass of hers. . .ow! Ow! Good stuff."
Randy disappeared.
* * *
Walkins stood staring, his torch brightly illuminating the dark ravine. Would he ever see Randy again?
He hoped someday he would.
Walkins unsheathed his knife.
For eight long years he'd taken orders, taken lives and taken shit he didn't believe in.
It was his turn to take something.
CHAPTER 30
I'll be waiting for you.
Richard jolted awake. Beside him lay the knife that had carved a hole in his leg. The pain was dull and aching but he could suffer through it.
He had to get to the east side of the island. Jessica was in trouble and he didn't want to think how long it would take for Kyle Roberts to violate her in ways she never even imagined.
He struggled to his feet, trying to ignore the pain. He reached down and grabbed the knife.
"I'm coming, Jessica," he said several times while Kyle Roberts' cold voice replied.
Waiting for you.
"Don't touch her, you bastard."
Richard hobbled toward the camp as fast as his injured leg would allow.
* * *
"I'd like to play a game, Jessica." Kyle said, approaching and winking his left eye. "I think you've realized by now that I enjoy sports."
Thirteen college girls.
"What I have in mind doesn't involve your mind. Are you curious?"
"N—No." She shuddered.
"Oh, that was absolutely perfect! That's the word I want you to moan for me."
"J—Just let me go. Why can't Richard and I stay on the other side of the island and you can keep your—"
"He had his side of the island," Roberts snapped, "and when he came upon you, my pretty one, he didn't share."
"Maybe because he understands I'm not a slave, I'm not property."
"All these years I've shared this island with him." Kyle reached out and grabbed her neck.
"Y—You said you wouldn't hurt me."
"All these years he wouldn't be part of our group." His grip tightened.
"Please—let—me—go."
"I've waited for . . ."
"Don't—please—choking—don't—"
He let go of her neck. "Yes, my pretty one. It's time to play together."
She tried to distract him by being hysterical: "Please, I never asked to come here—"
"No," he whispered and began to stroke her legs, spread before him. He grabbed her neck again. The rage in his eyes was replaced with wanton lust. "But a pretty woman like you asks for this. . ."
Her eyes involuntarily slid down to his swelling erection. She shuddered.
He reached with cold hands up her red blouse and up her thigh.
Up—up—up!
He touched her vagina and smiled.
"Dry," he said, still whispering.
Jessica saw the savage look in Kyle's eyes that had been in Bobby's. A look which conveyed the lack of sex for years. A serial rapist's sexual hunger.
She remembered reading stories of how he'd raped the college girls before killing them. And the story of the one young woman, Amanda Worley, who escaped being killed but not being raped. None of Roberts' female victims escaped being raped.
"Dry," he said again, playing with her vaginal lips. Thrusting his finger up inside her with rough, awkward motions. He played inside her with two, three and four fingers.
The nausea rose in her throat. She couldn't hold it back this time. But she didn't retch, she begged him to stop.
"Dry," he said again and again with a chilling tone. Dry. But her insides weren't dry, not anymore, they were starting to moisten. She thought of pissing herself if he raped her. She thought of his fingers as the heads of serpents probing inside her.
He withdrew his fingers, smiling sensually. He guided his penis, maneuvered it in place and started thrusting inside her.
"Please, no, stop, no, stop. . ."
His eyes rolled back in his head. After a few short thrusts he came.
"Couldn't wait. Too good my pretty one. Too good. "
"No. . ." Jessica said, sobbing.
"Enough!" someone yelled.
"Stop, goddammit."
Richard? She hoped, turning to see who was there.
Not Richard.
* * *
He thought for sure it was Templin but it was not. The problem child.
"Can't you follow fucking orders?" Kyle shouted, marching toward Walkins who stood rigid ten feet away. "I told you to leave us alone."
"No, Kyle. It's my turn." Walkins voice was cold, foreboding. Roberts kept marching closer until he saw the glint of Walkins knife.
"I've had enough of your bullshit orders," Walkins said. "Come any closer, Kyle, and I'll cut you."
Problem child, Kyle's mind reeled, PROBLEM PROBLEM PROBLEM CHILD.
"I can see you ain't listening to me. Doesn't matter because I ain't taking your BS orders any more. I'm going to be giving them from now on."
"So, this is your big stand, little man?"
"I'm not like the rest, Kyle. I know who I am, where I've been sent and who you are. I'm Don Walkins from Detroit, and you best know that I could carve you up inside of five seconds, and will, if you step one more inch towards me."
"If you're not like the others then you know what happened to those who tried me, don't you?"
"I should have done what Templin did and gone solo. I didn't belong in this camp any more than him. Or maybe have teamed with the Mexicans, they had the right idea too."
"I'm going to give you thirty seconds—"
"You ain't giving me shit, Kyle! I ain't playing fucking games!"
PROBLEM CHILD PROBLEM CHILD PROBLEM CHILD PROBLEM—
"If you really want to die—"
"No more games!" Walkins was shaking, his face red. He was clearly breaking
down. "This is my home, not yours, not Templin's, not anyone else's. She's mine too. I'm taking her with me."
Kyle Roberts laughed heartily.
"Come on, little man. Let's get this over here and now. Come get some."
PROBLEMCHILDPROBLEMCHILD!
Kyle drew his knife and gestured with his other finger. "C is for Crowd. The crowd is cheering you on, problem child."
It didn't last long.
* * *
Exhausted, Richard reached the camp. In time to see the fight commence in one corner and Jessica in the other, nearest the campfire, slumped over with her arms and legs tied to two poles with a zombie-like expression.
You bastard, Roberts. As he drew closer he realized it was Walkins and Roberts fighting. Seth Everson didn't appear in the camp at the moment.
Neither of the battling men noticed Richard as he limped across the camp to the spot where Jessica was tied up.
He heard both men shouting obscenities at each other.
Two lunatics raging for order. Walkins yelped in pain. Roberts growled.
Richard lifted Jessica's head and put his finger on her lips, "Shhhh."
He cut her down and started to half-drag, half-carry her out of the camp. He got to the edge of the ramp and only turned back once.
But once was all it took to see the winner of the fight standing over the slain, repeatedly kicking the dead body with sadistic glory screaming: "C is for Chaos! C is for Chaos!"
Despite the pains in his leg he drag-carried Jessica through the ravine and away into the night.
CHAPTER 31
The fire was dying to be fed.
He dragged the bloody body by its legs and dropped it in the blaze. The flames caught the ragged clothing and quickly melted to Donald Walkins' body. In seconds the foul smell of burning flesh swept across the camp.
Roberts watched the defeated face of Walkins melt into an ash-gray skeleton. A complete sizzling meltdown taking the thinnest flesh first: eyes, nose and mouth exposing a red tongue which quickly blackened and burned off. Soon Kyle was staring at a biology textbook skeleton, the scary white fleshless thing on Halloween, the new Donald Walkins.
The very dead Donald Walkins.
"Burn bastard, burn!" Roberts raised a fist high in the air. "Burn until your nothing but cinders and ashes. Burn."
And with the fire growing hotter, hungrier, Walkins' flesh obliged.
When at last the fire began to die down, Kyle turned and stared at the black ravine surrounding the camp.
Templin had stolen Jessica back and was wounded out there. He couldn't go far.
Too dark. The coward will hide under the darkness.
DAMN YOU, WALKINS!
Where was Seth?
Seth would report back. Seth was not a problem child. Seth knew who was in charge and how to treat him. Soon Seth would return.
There was no escape. On his island nobody escaped. He had wasted too much time today and missed opportunities to have Templin killed. No more playing around.
Kyle sat down on the dirt and watched the burning body in the fire. Nightmare visions danced in his dark green eyes.
He waited for Seth to return, grinding a knife into the ground.
* * *
Jessica wanted to go back to the southwest beach where she'd first been found. The trip with Richard's leg was a slow one, but they made it about an hour later. Richard kept asking her what happened and all she would say was: "The southwest beach."
When she saw the beach she washed in on under light of a full moon, she raced out into the cold ocean tide. Before she knew it she was waste deep in the ocean. Under the water she tried to scrub Kyle Roberts filth out of her. As if she had a stubborn stain inside her flesh-cloth.
"Why?" She beat the top of the water with fists. Why had the ocean decided to spare her? What was she supposed to do? She was devastated that Kyle Roberts had violated her body. He had collected something from her that didn't belong to him. Now she felt anger rise inside her that scared her. She wanted to march back into that camp and do monstrous things to Kyle Roberts.
She was scared of what the island had made her become.
A wave approached and crashed over her head.
Go ahead, take me back out there. Reclaim me. Do it. I dare you.
Underwater, she opened her eyes.
* * *
Two months ago.
"Can I get you something to drink?" Edward Stanton asked.
"My 7-up is fine." Jessica replied.
"What's wrong with you? You've been distant since we left from San Francisco."
"The sea is getting rougher. We should turn back."
"We'll be fine. We're in your boat, the good LADY STANTON." He leaned in and kissed Jessica's cheek. "Now come out from down below and let's join our friends on the deck."
Jessica took Edward's hand and followed him to the deck of the yacht. When she emerged the first thing she saw were waves violently crashing against the side of the yacht.
The waves were like outstretched fingers.
She saw the face of a monstrous creature in the wave, its shadow grew over the boat.
Soon, salty ocean water filled her lungs and she drifted and fell. . .
* * *
A hand pulled her out of the water, back from the grip of the waves. Richard swam with her in his arm back to the shore, wincing. He pushed the wet strands of hair out of her eyes.
"Why didn't you let me go?"
"After all we've been through? I'm not going to let you go."
"Richard."
"Not the best time for a swim."
"This island scares the hell out of me, Richard. I want to go . . . anywhere else but here."
"I know."
"He scares the hell out of me."
"Guess that makes two of us," Richard said as they reached the shore. "When you're ready to tell me what happened with Roberts, I'll be here."
She smiled. She couldn't talk about what Roberts had done to her yet.
"Man, this ocean water stings."
Jessica reached out and touched his shoulder. "I'm growing fond of you."
His eyebrows rose.
"Yes, thank you for rescuing me." She leaned in and kissed him on the lips. Surprised, his arms went to her side but then fell into the moment and he hugged her tighter. He kissed her back.
The night crowded around them watching god-like. The wind whispered secrets. The waves never stopped crashing.
PART 4
TERMINATON
CHAPTER 32
The next morning, over five thousand miles east of the island in Washington D.C., the world sizzled in August. Bright rays lit up the steps of the White house.
Outside it was the perfect Courier and Ives summer scene; something you might hang on the family room wall. The Secretary of Defense trudged through the beauty into the White House.
"Mr. Secretary." The President spoke when he entered the oval office.
"You asked to see me, Mr. President?"
"Yes."
The Secretary took a seat directly across from the President.
"I have been consumed with ADP1982 and the recent Navy report that a civilian may have shipwrecked there."
"And?"
"And to tell you the truth, I'm surprised this hasn't happened sooner." The President's voice carried a tinge of anger. "Here so early in my administration and we have to untangle this mess."
The Secretary raised his hand and set it on the edge of the desk. "Mr. President, if I may, the evidence concerning the Stanton shipwreck is heavy speculation on the Navy's part. I urge you not to be disturbed—"
"Not disturbed? Do you realize what you're saying? There's a chance innocent civilians have shipwrecked there. Perhaps even a woman. Somebody's daughter."
"But sir, you read my recommendation?"
"Yes, and I think it is rubbish. Pardon me, Mr. Secretary, but I don't wish to turn my back on this project any more. I want a SEAL team sent in there."
"S
ir, that is loaded with problems."
"An extraction team could go in, assess and take control of the island. If the woman is there, then they could make their best attempt to get her out. It's easy to end any speculation with ground intel."
"Sir, let's assume there is a survivor from the Stanton shipwreck on the island. Somebody's daughter, as you said. What do we do with her? Are we going to hope she comes back and doesn't say anything about the island?"
The President slammed the file down on his desk. "We can't sit on our hands!"
"Sir, if this becomes public it could. . ." the Secretary didn't finish the obvious.
Project ADP1982 was the type of scandal that could implicate several politicians on Capitol Hill, not only the office of the President.
"At least my plan of action doesn't include ADP1982 becoming public," the Secretary of Defense said.
"Doing nothing risks a leak too. The Stanton estate is in shambles. If they weren't so busy chasing his money they'd be quadruple checking the reports and sending ships out there. We don't know that they still won't do that. The Coast Guard is cooperating with the Navy and it seems for now everybody is buying that the Stanton party all died at sea."
"It's been over eleven years without a leak. And besides, no matter what is done to prevent it, there has always been the chance of a leak."
The President's eyebrows rose, but he did not comment.
"I believe that to attempt a search, and subsequently, a rescue," the Secretary said, "it would be futile. If there is someone, and hopefully it's not Stanton's wife. God help her, I fear what those. . .convicts will have already done to her."
"The project is a grave mishap and must be shut down."
"I thought that was already your decision, sir."
"And how do you feel about it?"