by Todd Russell
Seth stopped, remember what happened next.
"Go on," Torque said.
"It was a cold fall afternoon and we all were sitting around the fire when. . ."
* * *
Not again.
Kyle pounded the dirt around the campfire. He searched until the darkness took over and he could no longer see. Even by torchlight, he felt he was passing by areas he'd seen dozens of times. He'd even tried following the butterflies and they wouldn't tell him where to find Sar's secret place.
Kyle went into his fort and found the broken pop bottle with dirt. He dug in the ground outside and picked up a squirming nightcrawler and placed it in the dirt in the bottle.
The nightcrawler moved around for a few seconds and then went still.
"Where did you find the dojō, Sar? Tell me."
He reached in and touched the dirt. It made his fingers tingle and he dusted it away on his hole-filled jeans. There was a faint foul odor to the dirt.
"Where can I find more dojō, Sar? Tell me."
* * *
Fall 1984.
Seth heard the noise first. Sar emerged the bushes, his eyes bulging. His stomach and hands were covered in bright red blood. He made a loud noise like a wounded dog. One of Sar's hands held his entrails wrapped over his hand like sausage and covered in blood and dirt. The other held a broken glass jar filled with dirt. Whenever Sar opened his mouth nothing came out but that terrible, pained noise.
"Who did this to you, Sar?" Kyle Roberts yelled. "Tell me?" Roberts took the jar out of Sar's hand. He ordered the other men to get anything they could get to try and stop the bleeding. Several men crowded around Sar and tried to stop the bleeding.
"Sar, what happened?"
When Sar opened his mouth dirt fell out in clumps.
Seth understood what Sar kept saying but he didn't tell the other cons, especially Kyle Roberts. Instead, he lied and said: "Sar keeps saying he's in great pain. Great, great pain."
Sar then did something that shocked all of them. He said one word in English, a word every man on the island knew.
"Escape."
And then Sar fell over, eyes rolling back in his head.
* * *
"We buried Sar here in the clearing," Seth said, feeling his eyes watering. "So yes, I have brought you to where Sar is currently at. His remains, anyway."
"What did Sar really say that day?" Torque asked.
"He said he found it," Seth replied. "He found the other place."
"That's the place," Torque said. "I must go there. If you can lead me back to the general area the day of that storm. . ."
"I'm sorry, Torque. I don't know where the place is. I can describe the place we were at the day of the storm and maybe you can try to find it. A lot of us have tried over the years."
"I know I can find it. Go ahead."
Seth described what the place looked like the day of the storm and where it was in relation to the east camp. When he was done, Torque asked: "What about you, Seth? What's your plan?"
"Think I'll stay here with Sar for awhile."
"I won't forget your help, Seth," Torque replied and Seth listened to his footsteps exit the clearing.
Seth sat down cross-legged and rubbed a hand across the dirt. He smiled for his old friend, Sar, and wished his new friend Torque well.
* * *
With matches he'd been given for his permanent stay on the island, Torque created a torch. He moved through the night ravine quickly, pushing aside branches that tried to slow him.
He kept the image of the island from the plane in his mind's eye. The clearing Sar had found on the west side was located about where the island-face's right eye. He decided to try and stay straight as possible east and locate the position of the island-face's left eye.
Talk to me Dark Lord.
I AM HERE.
On my way.
* * *
The longer they lay there kissing and holding each other on the beach, Jessica found it easier to put aside the many bad things that happened the last two months. She focused on the fun times Richard and her had shared. How he taught her to catch fish and coconuts and pick edible berries. His patience and understanding with her.
She had another sense, a deep and eerie sense about this night on the island. Something was special about this night and the one thing Richard seemed to tell her through his passion.
She wanted him right now. In two months, she had grown so used to life with him that she felt more loved now than ever before. She should tell him that she loved him. She had been sickened by him in the beginning but it didn't take long for the physical stuff to matter less in her tortured surroundings. Somehow his behavior, attitude and personality polished his ugly physical exterior. Richard Templin was not the man she had seen in the beginning. He was caring, sweet, even charming in his own way. He had interior charisma, not exterior.
The quarter-moon smiled. The wind feathered each of their cheeks.
The kissing led to disrobing.
Soon Richard was entering her, all the fears of the island transformed into passions. He moved in and out of her rhythmically, moaning pleasurably, kissing her all over.
He caressed her breasts and wet her rock-hard nipples with his tongue.
As he gently stroked inside her, she stared up at the sky and while Kyle Roberts' face was faintly there she blinked it away. She felt like if she didn't have sex with Richard that moment she might never have sex with any man again.
Richard climaxed inside her, filling her with warm seed. He didn't stop.
Jessica hoped he'd never stop. This was the paradise at sea she set out on for two months ago from San Francisco. Paradise isn't a place; it is being loved and loving, and you can never truly know when and where you might find it.
"I daydreamed about this moment," Richard said, exasperated. He had had virtually a lifetime full of sexual energy to expel. Jessica had taken it all and was a bit exhausted herself. But damn, how good it felt!
"Here on the beach?"
"Yes. Us making love on the beach you washed in on. Night sky with the moon up there watching us. This was my dream."
"So dreams do come true?"
"Yes."
Sweet silence.
"I think it's time for me to show you my last secret." Richard said, putting back on his rotted tennis shoes. "I think it might surprise you."
"Quit teasing, what is it?"
"Come on, it's not far. I'll show you."
* * *
Torque had found a spot that matched Seth's description. He reached down and put his head against the ground as Sar had done the day of the storm in the fall of 1994.
He didn't hear anything.
"Which way do I go from here?" Torque said aloud.
Silence except for the soft crash of ocean waves in the distance.
He waved the torch over the ground.
Dark Lord, what am I supposed to do? I've traveled all this way to see you. To complete my journey.
SLEEP.
Here?
YES, ETERNITY AWAITS.
Torques lied down in the dirt and felt something beginning to tingle in his skin. Soon the tingling began to burn. He tried to rise, but the dirt stuck to him like mud. He felt the dirt wriggling and pushing its way into his skin, puncturing his flesh in a few places at first and prickling all over his body pushing inside him.
Dirt rustled on the ground over the firelight, stamping the light. He felt dirt inside his pants and up his legs, entering in and around his anus and penis. Dirt on his face and in his mouth digging into his tongue and between the spaces of his teeth.
Torque began to understand why Sar had said the word "escape." Sar did not want to become one with the soil. Sar had feared where that would lead.
YES, YOU UNDERSTAND. SAR WAS WEAK.
I can do your bidding.
SOON, WE WILL SEE.
As the soil coursed inside every inch of flesh, Torque straddled the line between the living and dead.
Torque was becoming the soil's human puppet.
* * *
On the west side of the island, less than a mile away the spot where Jessica and Richard made love, illuminated by the glow of a flaming torch, the secret lay in the bushes. Richard was right, Jessica was surprised.
Richard had not been wasting his time like the other convicts all these years. He had meticulously whittled dozens of branches to similar sizes, taken and glued them together with the sap from a group of trees on the island. Next, he'd taken rope and tied both ends and the middle for support. He'd used knots in the rope which Jessica had never seen before, explaining that they were knots he'd learned from a kind teacher in school. He'd glued the rope to the finely whittled branches and had created a very primitive raft, one which he'd built with the use of only two tools: a knife and bare hands.
He had spent the last eleven years constructing a means of escape.
"It floats?" Jessica said, remembering the day she saw the airplane overhead. How she had felt for a moment like she could be rescued and find a way off this island.
"Of course it floats."
"It floats," she said, stroking the wood. "It floats, it floats. . ."
"Yes, floats. I finished it about a year ago and took it out for a test one night. Didn't go very far, maybe fifty yards. I thought the sap in the trees would work as glue if it was properly dried and treated, and it does."
"I can't believe you made this."
Richard smiled.
"What has kept you here?"
"I said it floats, not sails. The nearest island is over four hundred miles away, remember? The ocean or the sharks would have gotten me before I could have made it a fraction of that distance."
"Then why bother in the first place?"
"One, it was something to fight off boredom. Two, I had another idea in mind. I hoped someday there might be a fishing boat nearby. So it wasn't a lie when I said I hadn't seen even one boat. Sometimes I do feel like we were thrown as far away from mankind as possible. I worked on the branches by day and glued them by night. I kept the raft hidden here, covered by shrubs and branches."
"Why don't we take our chances? Right now," Jessica said. "Let's put this in the ocean and. . ."
Richard put his arms around her. "We have the best chance during the day. And look out there. No boats, Jessica." Richard squeezed her shoulder. "Can you remember where this spot is? I want you to memorize this hiding spot."
She nodded. She studied the area in relation to the beach. She could find her way back here.
Richard put out the torch. They returned slowly to the beach, hand in hand, talking about the many things they'd done together; the nightly ritual of walking to the sandy southwest beach and watching the always-changing tide. The sunny days they spent berry picking; the always interesting, often humorous (sometimes catastrophic) fishing trips; and most especially, their wonderful, in-depth conversations. In two months they became good friends.
But both remembered what had been in the darkness.
And what still remained.
They lay on the beach in each other's embrace listening to their hearts beating. It was their night and no malignancy could kill it. Their night, surrounded by an ocean filled with mysteries, secrets, life and death.
And on their night they fell asleep holding each other tightly, Jessica Stanton, who had once thought she'd never sleep again, slept the best night since she'd washed ashore.
CHAPTER 37
Jessica's sleep was dreamless. She awoke, yawned, and blinked back to reality. She was surprised to see the sun shining hot and bright above.
Why didn't Richard wake me yet?
She rolled over and reached out for Richard's warmth. He was not there.
She got to her knees, searched around with laser intensity.
He was gone.
She looked out at the ocean and spotted several ships. Three large Navy ships in the distance.
"Richard?" she called. Had the boats come to rescue her at last?
Those ships should have had wings, and flown down from the heavens. Richard, where are you?
And then she knew.
The terror flooded back in on her in sickening waves: Edward's crawling hand, Bobby, her hand thrusting the knife into Bat Jackson's stomach. Richard saying last night: we have the best chance during the day. Richard knew last night what he planned to do this morning. He didn't tell her because he didn't want to ruin their special night on the island.
Richard had gone to face Kyle Kollector Roberts on the east side of the island.
* * *
It took Richard roughly thirty minutes limping with his leg to reach the east camp. He tried not to think of leaving Jessica, hoping it wasn't permanent. It was long past time to face Roberts. No more running.
He entered Roberts' camp, surrounded by what remained of the executed convicts. Years of convicts buried above ground, rotting in the ocean wind and food for bugs.
Richard was appalled the first time he'd seen it and he couldn't imagine why any of them would continue to live among this above ground human cemetery.
Roberts had constructed (or more likely, had others construct for him) a makeshift house. It had windows, a separate section with a pit dug for excrement. It had a wooden table made out of tree branches and several tree stump seats. Draped across the walls were pictures of butterflies. Everywhere butterflies.
The perpetrator was sitting, back to Richard, on one of the tree stumps. He was gazing intensely at the blank tree branch wall. Staring out beyond the camp. He did not seem to notice Richard's entrance.
"About time you showed up, Richie."
Roberts spun around. A knife blade shining in one hand.
"You've avoided this day for some time."
"You've played on all of our fears since the beginning."
Roberts' forehead furrowed. "Have I? I think I've been generous to you all this time. I split the island, did the babysitting and let you live over there in peace."
Richard's anger started brewing. "And what about the supplies all those years? Who hoarded every plane-load? And you call that. . .out there babysitting? That's a graveyard, Kyle. This is your private human collection burial ground. You picked up where you left off in the states and continued here."
"Look at my face, Richie. I've paid something here too."
"Some of them fought back, I don't blame them."
Roberts smiled, his bubbled face shifted, eyes glowering. "You should have shared her with me."
"I would have killed myself before doing that."
"You care for her that much?"
"Yes. Why does it have to end this way, Kyle? What will be gained from any of this except more needless suffering and death? Must we both die here?"
"Are you suggesting there ever was any other outcome?"
"Maybe we could strike a new truce? Jessica and I—"
Roberts waved his knife from side to side. "We both know we've reached the end of something, Richie. This is how we were meant to finish. It's the showdown you put in your nice little letter in the ground to me."
"The people that decided we needed to come here did this because they thought there would be no redemption for people like us, Roberts. Why should we prove them right?"
Kyle stood up and pointed to the butterfly pictures on the walls. "The only nice thing they sent me from the states. These used to hang in my cell on the row." He ran his index finger across the golden-blue wings.
"I'm surprised they ever gave us anything. I thought this island was about taking, not giving."
"We should have been butterflies, Richie."
"Butterflies?"
"The butterfly is a wonderful creature. Their life cycle is made up of four parts starting as nothing more than an egg, just like us, then larva, pupa and an adult. They fly primarily in the daylight, on days like this. They tend to migrate over long distances and they feed on harmful insects. That's what I did in the world that sent me here: fed on harmful insects.
Sadly, butterflies live very short lives just like we have lived here. But if we had been butterflies we could have flown away. We could have migrated somewhere else."
"Rubbish," Richard spat. "If there's any human left in you at all, you'd feel some remorse for what you did back there and what you've done here. You're exactly what they wanted to send here."
"Maybe we can agree on one thing? We never would have been able to share her."
"No. I love her. I do. I could not share her with someone that would hurt her."
"Are we done with this dance?"
"Fine, let's do this." Richard unsheathed his knife.
"I should have killed you when I had the chance." Roberts glared.
"That would have been out of character, Kyle. What kind of sport is that?"
They took a step toward each other.
"So this is for the big money?" Roberts said.
"Jessica is gone by now."
Richard prayed that his lie worked.
"Ahhh, so you've constructed some means of escape for the pretty one?"
"Maybe I have."
"I always knew you were up to something sneaky. Clever, Richie. Maybe she's the butterfly among us."
They stepped even closer showing each other the glint of their blades.
Richard moved warily. Roberts stepped. Richard, Robert, Richard, Robert. They danced without touching.
"She didn't tell you, did she, Richie?"
Richard tilted his head.
"You bet I fucked her while she was here. Just like I fucked the others before I did them. Mmmm, it felt so good too."
"BAAAAAASSSTTTTTTTTAAAAAAARRRRDDDD!"
Richard rushed with his knife raised.