by Lucian Bane
“Bane? You better come down here.” Preacher’s utter calm added to the shit storm in my gut.
I continued farther in and the smell hit my nose, a sharp metallic odor. Preacher was already on to studying other things in the tiny room below, while I stared in sick shock at the skinny dead man, laying on the cot, huge hole in his emptied stomach. Gutted. Like some animal. The sight and the smell combined jerked my stomach with a violent heave and I shot out and barely made it to the boat edge to vomit. Fear shot through me as I hurried to the ladder to make sure the women were okay. At finding them waiting at the bottom of the ladder, I gasped in relief.
“What’s going on?” Tara demanded, “Can we come up?”
I shook my head and both of their faces fell with dread.
“What is going on Bane?” Becca hissed. “We have a right to know!”
“Jase Duff sabotaged the fucking boat.” He’d trapped all the teams here on the island with him.
Tara’s eyes remained wide with alarm, and shook her head as if she refused to believe my words. “We can’t be stuck. Surely they know, there’s cameras everywhere, I’m sure they’ll be here.” She raised her camera and stared at it. “Hello? We need help here. NOW! We’re stranded, the man on the island that you hired has sabotaged the boat and we can’t leave. We can’t leave!”
I didn’t want her on the boat. I didn’t want to tell her what else was there, how serious this actually was, far more than sabotaging.
I hurried down the ladder and drew her into my arms, not surprised to find her trembling. I stroked down her spine, trying to ease her fears. “I got you, babe. It’ll be okay. They’ll send help.” While she gradually calmed, Preacher came over the edge of the boat and descended the ladder. Something told me he’d spare no details and I braced for the impact it’d have on Tara.
“We need to get off this boat and back on shore. The host on the island has officially lost his mind.”
“What is going on?” Becca demanded. “I want to know all of this.”
Preacher made his way down the ladder and got in the water and gave her the news like a weather forecast. “The man has finished losing his mind. There’s a dead man in the boat with his guts missing.”
Becca stared at him then me while I shhh’d Tara’s mumblings of building hysteria.
“Listen to me!” Preacher’s voice boomed. “We’re going to have to back on the island. And find this fucker’s base. Pray there’s a communication device. And radio for help. Are. We clear?”
The total warfare in Preacher’s tone seemed to lasso Tara’s runaway control and she nodded rapidly. “Okay, okay. I’m fine.” She looked at me and nodded. “I’m fine.”
“Good.” Preacher passed a bloodthirsty gaze over each of us. “The fucker was thorough in destroying anything and everything we might want to use on this boat. So we go back to shore, get our gear, and we hunt him down. Look at me.” He waited for all of our gazes to lock on him. “We are getting off this fucking island… one way or another.”
Chapter Fourteen
Even with Lucian right at my rear, every step up the beach increased the dread filling my gut. We should have been on that boat, getting away from this place, not trudging back toward the jungle. Preacher had us pause long enough to get dressed again and armed with our clubs.
A glance over my shoulder froze me in my tracks. Thick black smoke rolled over the water, obscuring the boat. “The boat’s on fire!”
Preacher turned and stared, shaking his head. “Thank God we weren’t on it.”
We stared for a few minutes, and I wondered if I was the only one that felt like we watched the last chance to survive go up in smoke.
Lucian took my free hand in his and turned to Preacher. “Where do you think the other teams are? Maybe when they find out what’s going on, they would want to join with us.”
“Don’t count on it.” Preacher scanned the wall of jungle before us. “They may think we’re part of the sabotaging.”
We headed into the trees, Preacher in the lead, then Becca and me, and Lucian bringing up the rear. The feminist in me rebelled at Becca and me being put in the protected position in the middle. The scared human in me was incredibly grateful, and that part currently outweighed everything else.
A few yards into the jungle, and twilight shaded everything, requiring a few minutes for my eyes to adapt. A spot of bright color partway up a tree seemed oddly out of place, but I couldn’t make out exactly what it was.
I kept watching it, trying to figure out what made it seem familiar, yet strange at the same time. Nothing I’d seen in the jungle thus far had that specific mixture of yellowish white and brilliant red, with splashes of various shades of red in what seemed like a random pattern.
Preacher gave the signal to stop and pointed quietly at what I was studying. Becca moved up beside Preacher and they stared at it. Preacher barely turned his head toward us. “Everyone stay here, armed and on guard. Bane, watch closely.”
We moved into the defensive positions we’d rehearsed since early on in our attempt to be proactive as a team. It wasn’t easy to resist the urge to watch every move Preacher made, but we did. We had to be alert for any threat that might come. Putting up something to get our attention would be the ideal way to get close and attack us. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Preacher’s expression as he stared up at whatever hung in that tree, then he headed back to us. “That’s a body in the tree. The German woman. Gutted. Bane? We need to fucking keep moving, my brother. We need to all be ready to kill. Do you understand me?” Preacher’s hard tone was hushed and filled with something lethal. He eyed me and Becca especially, and we both nodded vigorously. Lucian didn’t ask questions or say a word and Becca and I followed any and all directions to perfection as we went away from that tree. The rough ground made us pick our way slowly as I tried to remember the German woman’s name. The streaks of yellowish white and red was her hair with blood smeared through it. She’d been hung in the tree several feet from the ground. Beyond that, I avoided looking. I didn’t want to know what created all those other colors. It was enough to know she’d been slaughtered and left there for us to find.
I swallowed hard, forcing the hysteria bubbling in my stomach and fighting to blast out of every pore and send me screaming in shrieks through the forest. I was sure I felt Jase Duff’s gaze on me. I’d seen the message clearly in his eyes in that video clip. I should have told Lucian. But I’d been confident in the safety of the rules and the game. Nothing real could harm me. Looking back, I saw how foolish that assumption had been. And now we were all in danger. If Jase Duff could get his hands on Lucian, he would kill him. If I’d had a doubt before, seeing the dead German woman in the tree with my own eyes, settled it.
Numb with terror, I followed the directions I was given and tried to keep my mind from going in a thousand bad ways at once. Everywhere I looked, I saw Jase Duff’s nasty grin. I caught flashes of movement out of the corner of my eye, or just to the edge of a tree, or into a pool of heavy shadow. Always just barely out of sight, but always there.
I don’t know how long we’d walked, but Preacher called a break, and I gratefully drank the water Becca passed to me.
“Anyone have any bright ideas?” Preacher’s low voice was barely audible and he directed the question to Lucian it seemed. Becca shook her head and Lucian remained silent in contemplation. Preacher continued, “I think it’s clear we’re playing on his terms, and he means to win.”
Lucian paced now. “They say this island was an old scientific research station at one time. The old compound we saw in the footage about the island had a little airstrip there, remember?”
“I do,” Preacher said, staring at Lucian, waiting.
“Well,” Lucian continued, “I say find that compound and see if there’s any communications we can salvage.”
“And if anybody comes by way of plane, we’ll be right there,” Becca said.
“Plus it’s shelter,” I added. “Anyt
hing is better than out in the open.
Preacher slid his gaze slowly all around. “Or it could be his headquarters. If I were him, that’s what I’d have done.”
“We need to become the hunters,” Lucian said. “I say find the compound either way.”
We all nodded and got our half shredded map out. “Ladies, keep your eyes on that forest while Bane and I map a course.
Becca and I circled around them, watching the forest while they quickly mumbled through various scenarios and courses, their voices becoming heated and harsh several times until they both ended with, “Sounds good to me.”
The men turned and the tension in Lucian’s eyes scared me, more than anything else so far.
Preacher scrubbed a hand down his face. “The compound should be northeast of where the boat was, according to the map. And if help comes, I think Becca is correct, that’s where they would set down.” He pulled the compass from his belt and checked it against some invisible-to-me landmark. The whole navigation process with nothing in sight besides tree trunks mystified me, and made me grateful he knew how. “There’s no way we’ll reach the compound before dark, and there’s no way we’re moving through these woods in pitch black. We’ll find a secluded spot and camp till dawn, taking turns watching in pairs. Hopefully we’ll reach the compound sometime tomorrow.”
We started off again with Preacher still leading the way. At least the vegetation wasn’t as thick on this side of the island, and Lucian didn’t have to chop our way through it. Even I knew that was a good thing in this situation.
We started up a small steep bank and I slipped and nearly fell back into Lucian. Laughter rang through the trees, echoing so that it seemed to come from several locations.
Ice shot up my spine as I scrambled to my feet and looked all around. I fought the urge to go running off through the jungle, any direction, just to get away from the psychopath.
“Bane!” Preacher hissed, holding up his watch before removing it. He tossed it on the ground before him, and motioned with a hand that we all do the same. He then eyed each of us. “We’ll all camp here for the night.” He pointed at the watches then signaled we keep moving.
Shit. Our watches. He was using them to track us?
Chapter Fifteen
I held on to Tara’s hand as we pushed forward nearly an hour after the laughter, not stopping when darkness fell thick and heavy. None of us had any desire to walk through a dark jungle with Jase Duff waiting behind any tree, but Preacher moved slowly and quietly. I hoped he was right about the watches and him using them to track us. If he was wrong, we could be heading right for him. In the dark.
We finally settled for a dry, dark camp, just setting up the barest necessity for a sleeping platform and slinging the tarp over it to catch dewfall.
Preacher and Becca took first watch and I gratefully wrapped Tara in my arms and pulled her close to sleep. At some point during the night, I startled awake to more of that laughter, and shortly after, Preacher came to wake me.
“You heard him again?” He kept his voice low, barely audible even to me.
“I think I did. Sounded close.”
“Yes. But there’s something off about that sound. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it reminds me of something.”
I got up and drank a little water, conserving since we didn’t have a source for more right at hand, then moved away from the camp. The canopy of trees reduced visibility to nearly nothing, but I still had my other senses. Amazing how dark it was. I held my hand up before me and waved it, not surprised that I couldn’t see it. The place I chose to settle for watch was still in hearing range of the sleeping platform—if I spoke aloud, they would hear me easily—but far enough away I didn’t hear their breathing. Several times I moved to new locations to keep from being lulled by the peacefulness of the night or from surrendering to the fifty ton weight of sleep on my eyelids.
I spent the impossibly long hours marking different noises, trying to distinguish nature from unnatural. The soft gray of morning finally crept in and I quietly woke the others.
A week of little sleep and not enough calories and heavy physical exertion was taking a serious toll on all of us. The severe lack of energy helped to set a groggy pace. Even though the sense of urgency was there, our bodies seemed to be incapable of obeying.
Maybe a half hour from where we believed the scientific compound to be, we paused for a quick break and planning session. So far, we’d not heard anything indicating we were still being followed or watched. But if we were wrong about those watches and the tracking, he could be waiting at the compound for us.
“Okay,” Preacher said. “After careful thought, I think we need to stick together at all times. That means we keep a tight formation and enter the compound together.”
“Won’t that… make us an easier target?” Tara’s words were logical but her tone indicated she hoped we’d do what Preacher first suggested.
“If we’re separated, he stands a better chance. Together, we at least have the upper hand. We stick together. If we go down, we go down together. Understood?”
Preacher was a thousand percent in military tactical form and I worried the women weren’t cut out to embrace that ideal.
“I prefer that,” Tara said.
“So do I.” Becca nodded once, her tone firm.
Preacher stood to lead as a hellacious crashing sound came from our right. Something huge was coming through the underbrush.
I grabbed Tara and placed a big fallen tree between us and whatever it was, while Preacher did the same with Becca. We held our breath while it drew closer and closer, sounding like it moved in a stagger. Maybe injured.
There weren’t supposed to be large animals on the island but maybe this was Jase’s ace in the hole, a mad elephant. A loud rasping accompanied the crashing and…clamoring, like the thing might be trying to get untangled from a mess of metal junk. The image of that insane elephant charging haphazardly through the brush and puffing on an inhaler came to mind. We huddled with the points of our walking sticks aimed in the direction the sound came from, forming a giant pitchfork. Finally the brush parted and a person fell into the clearing.
“Oh my God!” Tara put down her stick and pointed. “Oh my God, Steve?”
I stared at the impossibility, sure she was mistaken. Grunting and growling erupted as he fought to stand with a hiking pack. Looked like a fucking mini-car on his back. It was the width of two men and the length of one. “Miss Tara?” he gasped. “Please oh geeze tell me that’s you.” He fought to kick off the tangle of vines that wrapped his brand new hiking boots. “The jungle is eating me,” he wheezed, fighting to get his feet under him now. All the jingle and clamoring I’d heard was identified as every manner of cookware hanging off that monstrous pack. My God, he was a fucking house on legs.
Once on his feet, he fought to straighten the mosquito netting surrounding his giant hat, at which point we all erupted in laughter.
His face reddened more and his wild eyes widened with offense. “Well isn’t that a fine way to greet a savior! I risk life and limb to rescue the four of you and all you can do is laugh? And what, might I ask, is so damn funny?”
The question brought us to our knees in howling laughter. That he was so clueless to what he looked like was an inoculation against the misery on this fine fifth day of Dom Wars Round Fucking Six.
Preacher pointed at him from his knees in silent guffaws.
“What!” Steve cried in obvious offense. “This is professional safari attire! And equipment! I have enough stuff here to survive for a month you know!” He jerked to me, his pack clamoring loudly. “I paid top dollar for this! The netting is made of Teflon and can stand up to the most ferocious of insects.” He yanked on it to demonstrate then fought to drape it over the top of his hat with a series of huffs. “Thing is sucking the life right from my lungs!”
Fuck he was going to kill us with laughter. I couldn’t breathe. Even Tara howled next to him with an occasion
al I’m sorry, I’m not laughing at you.
Steve eyeballed all of us, nodding while working on the hat’s strap under his jutted chin. He released a frustrated growl, bearing his teeth. “I mean who the hell puts a buckle on the strap of a hat, for Pete’s sake! Are we toddlers?”
We were all wiping the tears from our face when Tara’s sobs cut everybody’s laughter dry.
She hugged Steve tightly and wailed as he suddenly eyed me with a help look while cooing to her. “Thank you, thank you!” she sobbed over and over. “Thank you for coming.”
I hurried and helped pry her off of him. “Yes Steve, thank you. Thank you for coming to rescue us.”
He nodded and straightened his posture, gaining a little pride again. “I sure did. Of course I came.”
“How did you get here?” Preacher asked, his tone serious and low now.
“We came by way of plane.”
Preacher stepped closer. “We?”
Steve’s mouth moved a few times then he raised a hand in sudden surrender. “Now, don’t jump to the wrong conclusions, you need to let me explain, she was the one who came and asked for my help. She was actually concerned about all of you,” he said with a wave of his pointer finger over all of us while nodding rapidly.
Exasperation threatened to choke me at the mention of a female. “She who, Steve!”
“Danielle,” he snapped then pointed an accusing finger at me then Preacher. “Don’t go judging me!”
“We won’t,” Preacher stepped in closer. “Tell us what happened.”
Tara put a hand on her forehead and began to pace. “Who else is with you?”
“Who else?”
Steve’s slightly bewildered and maybe offended tone set off alarms in my head. That little note in his voice meant who else did we need as an adequate savior but him?
“Who else as in the rescue party.” Becca approached at a dignified pace. “Surely you aren’t alone? With only a woman?”