New Year Island

by Paul Draker

  Juan’s voice was emotionless. “The captain was dead as soon as we left port. My old friend held the gun on me, making me drive the boat. He told me I had betrayed them all. He shot me in the chest twice, and once in the head. Then he threw me overboard, five miles out to sea.”

  Jordan shifted beside him and put a hand on his forearm, rubbing it. Her face, too, was an unreadable mask of shadows.

  “How did you survive?” Camilla asked, surprising herself.

  “I was lucky. The Coast Guard was monitoring radio traffic and heard something suspicious. They boarded the empty boat, then started a search. They found me—pulled me out of the water before I bled out.”

  “Doesn’t sound like it was just luck,” Brent said. “How long were you in the water?”

  “A little more than five hours.”

  “I rest my case.” Brent’s eyes roamed the room. “Natalie, how about you?”

  Tucked next to Veronica, she shook her head. She didn’t look up at them.

  “Natalie…?”

  “Leave her alone.” Veronica’s voice split the cold air. “She grew up getting passed around from abusive foster home to abusive foster home, okay? Some really sick people out there. You don’t need to hear any details—it was ugly. Just use your goddamn imagination.”

  Natalie sagged, shrinking into herself. Her head dipped, and she buried her face in Veronica’s shoulder.

  Veronica put an arm around her. “This poor girl is more of a survivor than any of us.”

  “Okay, I accept that.” Brent tucked his hands back in his vest pockets. “How about you, Mason? Or are you going to turn this into a joke, too?”

  Camilla sat up straight, suddenly very curious. What had Mason walked away from that would have killed most people?

  But he only shook his head. “I might be the exception that invalidates your little theory here. I didn’t escape the Twin Towers when the planes hit, didn’t eat my companions after an avalanche, or anything like that. I’m not sure how I fit the picture.”

  Brent frowned. “It’s no coincidence that you’re one of the top scorers in this sick little competition. You’re usually one step ahead of the rest of us. Some people might find that very suspicious under these circumstances, Mason, but I think it’s only because you’re a survivor, too. I can see it in you—takes one to know one.”

  Camilla caught herself nodding in agreement. Even Mason’s irreverent sense of humor was a characteristic frequently found in survivors.

  “I’m a survivor in the dog-eat-dog corporate jungle,” he said. “But surviving layoffs is not the same thing as what you’re talking about.”

  “Maybe it’s not that different,” Brent said. “Tell us.”

  “Well, three years ago I worked for a New York boutique investment bank, on the fixed-income side. My department specialized in mortgage bonds. Subprime… Yes, you’re welcome.” Mason laughed. “Maybe you saw some of the bad press. The company was Dorer, Bradshaw, and Jameson. We were a smaller house but more leveraged than most—which was saying a lot back then.

  I saw the warning signs early. Lots of people did, but most were too greedy to pull back—there was too much money to be made. But by the time the whole thing came crashing down, I had already divested my own interest. Our senior partners lost everything, though. And then the SEC raided us. Six of our board members were indicted for insider trading. Dorer, the senior partner, took a high dive out a corner office window. Bradshaw and Jameson went to jail. I got a slap on the wrist, then accepted a position with a retail bank out here and moved to California.”

  The light glinting off Mason’s glasses hid his expression. “I feel a little silly even telling you this, but that’s my deepest, darkest survival story.”

  “I suspect there’s something you’re leaving out,” Brent said. “How many of your peers managed to avoid being tainted by the scandal? How many were able to make a clean transition?”

  Mason grinned. “Touché. I came out of it better than most.”

  Camilla thought about it for a moment. It made sense. They were all survivors, but of different things: cancer, domestic violence, accidents, war, natural disaster, prison, child abuse, gang violence, corporate scandal, and…

  “Jordan, how about you?” she asked.

  Jordan leaned forward, draping herself over Juan’s back and letting her arms dangle over his chest. She rested her chin on his shoulder.

  “I’ve been thinking about this while you guys were talking, but I can’t come up with anything. In fact, the last few days here have been the roughest in my entire life. Could I have been some kind of mistake?”

  “I don’t believe that for a second.” Brent waved a hand at the gifts scattered across the floor, the monitor on the wall. “This whole thing has been orchestrated too carefully for a case of mistaken identity. There must be something that explains your presence here. Maybe, as in Mason’s case, yours wasn’t literal life-or-death survival.”

  “I’ve led a fairly sheltered life, especially after hearing your stories. I’ve always gotten what I wanted, and people have been really nice to me. Could your theory that Julian chose survivors be wrong?”

  “The math says it can’t be wrong,” Mason said. “Let’s say the odds of a person being a survivor are—”

  “One in ten.” Camilla sat up straight. “No, wait, I’m wrong. One in ten people is a survivor type. That’s different. We’re actual survivors.”

  Brent nodded. “Say ten percent are survivor types—the people likeliest to make it through a life-or-death situation. But most of them never end up facing those situations. Actual proven survivors? We’re much rarer. I don’t have the numbers.”

  “Even at one in ten,” Mason said, “just do the math, Jordan. Statistically, only one of the contestants here should have been a survivor type. But eight of us were not only survivor types, but proven survivors. The odds are—”

  “I get what you’re saying. Less than one in two million,” Jordan said. “Less than one in a hundred million if we count your story, too. But it still doesn’t change what I’m saying.” She held her hand up, displaying it. “It’s not that nothing bad has ever happened to me. I broke a finger once…”

  Her pinky was a little crooked. Camilla had never noticed it before.

  Jordan dropped her hand. “But that’s about the worst I can come up with.”

  A sudden thought struck Camilla.

  “Control group,” she said, recoiling from the awfulness of the idea even as she spoke. “What if this is some kind of sick psychological experiment and you’re supposed to be our control group?”

  Jordan shook her head. “Psychology experiments have to pass ethics review boards. I took a grad psych class at Stanford, and we had a guest lecture from Phil Zimbardo—you know, the ‘Zimbardo experiment’ guy? Back in the seventies, he had half his subjects play prison guards and half play prisoners, but he had to shut the whole thing down because the mock prison guards turned abusive for real. Nowadays, an experiment like that would never be allowed. Psychologists can’t even come close to doing the stuff reality shows do—that’s why they love to analyze them.”

  “Besides, you’re no control group,” Brent said. “You’re definitely a survivor type; your performance in Julian’s stupid games proves it. Your shoes, your food situation—these additional handicaps should have put you at a huge disadvantage, but up until today you were ahead of us all. The real question is, how did Julian know you were a survivor—or a survivor type?”

  Jordan rubbed her crooked pinky with her other hand, thinking.

  “I was a competitive gymnast. That’s how I broke this. But I quit after high school.” She shook her head. “I don’t know. There’s nothing, really.”

  “There’s got to be something.” Brent scratched the side of his head. “You told me about your fiancé passing away. Maybe Julian chose you because you’re a survivor of emotional trauma.”

  “But I wouldn’t say I was traumatized by it.
He wasn’t my fiancé anymore, and we were long over by then. I was seeing someone else. Sure, I was a little sad for him when I heard—anybody would be. But I can’t really see what that has to do with being a survivor type.”

  “How did your fiancé die?” Brent asked.

  “Ex-fiancé. He killed himself, actually. Like I said, it was pretty sad. He was smart and had a bright future ahead of him, but he obviously had some problems and couldn’t deal with them.”

  “Frankly, that sounds kind of cold, Jordan. But I suppose it’s not surprising given what else we’ve seen from you here. Think about what that says about you.”

  “About me?” Anger hardened her voice. She detached herself from Juan and sat up straight. “I don’t remember asking for your opinion, but let’s pursue this a little, shall we? My ex kills himself and I don’t let it ruin my life, so I’m callous; I’m a bad person. On the other hand, you get high, chase off your family, and kill somebody’s kid. Then you lie to us all. But because you feel all sorry and regretful, that makes you a good person? That gives you the right to judge me, you fucking junkie?”

  “That’s enough, Jordan.” Camilla raised her voice, hearing Brent’s breathing coming heavy and fast.

  “I’m not finished yet.” Jordan shook off Juan’s hand, too, and stood up.

  “For your information, Brent, my ex, Jonathan, was a fucking drug addict, too, so I’m getting pretty tired of listening to your sanctimonious bullshit. The only difference I see between you and him right now is one overdose, but who knows? The night is still young.”

  Camilla stood up, too. “Both of you. Let’s stay focused on why we’re here, instead of attacking each other.”

  Juan reached up and took Jordan’s hand and pulled her down to sit beside him again.

  “That’s better.” Camilla spread her hands, looking at them all.

  “So why would Julian specifically seek out survivor types as contestants? Who is Vita Brevis Entertainment, and what are they really trying to do here?”

  CHAPTER 103

  The hiss of pouring rain rose out of the gray fog, drumming on the awning that covered the distant huddle of black-clad mourners. The chaplain’s eulogy, delivered in Spanish, drifted across the wet grass and shining headstones. It floated up the hill to where JT stood alone under a leafless tree.

  The dying tree provided him no shelter. Rain pelted the hood of his poncho. Water streamed down his arms as he watched the honor guard fold the flag into a neat bicorn triangle and present it to Mrs. Sanchez. Her expression was invisible behind the heavy black veil, but JT could see, even from fifty yards away, how the two younger women at her side struggled to hold her upright and quell her shaking.

  The Marines of the honor guard—JT’s former platoon mates—saluted Mrs. Sanchez. Sobbing, she shuddered before them, head bowed, her body hunched in spite of the relatives supporting her arms at each side. The Marines held the salute, and JT felt the urge to salute, too, to honor the kid’s memory. But he couldn’t; the gesture would have been unwelcome. He knew that the honor guard was aware of his solitary presence on the hill, even though they refused to acknowledge him.

  He watched, silent and impassive, as the bugler raised his instrument. The mournful, lonely notes of “Taps” reached his ears. They gave him no solace, no sense of release as they faded away. Their finality only made the weight that sat in his chest grow heavier. He closed his eyes against the comfortless gray as the hiss of the rain also faded to silence.

  Someone moved close by, stealthy in the darkness.

  JT came awake with a jolt of adrenaline. Tingling sensations rippled down his arms and legs. Where was he? Unimportant. Focus on the threat.

  Semiconscious, he strained to clear his head but couldn’t shake the muzziness that fogged his thinking. The comforting black cloud of slumber would be easy to slide back into, and that scared him. He was drugged, anesthetized, lying on his back. The dull pain in his face throbbed in time with his heartbeat. Sharp spikes stabbed behind his left eye, into his head. He could feel scratchy gauze on his cheek and brow, tape pulling taut on his forehead and cheekbone.

  JT stared with his right eye, desperately trying to see. The room floated in the deep gloom, its blurry outlines visible, but he could make out no details. Something or someone had awakened him. He could sense a presence nearby.

  He tried to reposition himself on the cot without making a sound, but his arms and legs were sluggish and failed to respond.

  “It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye, huh?”

  Travis’s voice came from the side, near his head. He tried to scramble to a sitting position, but his drugged limbs betrayed him again. He couldn’t move.

  His heart hammered violently in his chest.

  “I wonder who did it,” Travis said. “Funny thing is, wouldn’t really surprise me to find out it was any one of ‘em. A real prize group, ain’t they all?”

  Something rustled near his head, and JT twitched. His leaden limbs wouldn’t respond.

  “But I could always finish what they started, I suppose.” A sharp point touched his cheek. “How ‘bout I shiv out your other eye?”

  Terrified, he strained his muscles and managed a weak flop, shifting an inch or two.

  “Or I could gut you, leave you to die hard.”

  A sharp point touched and trailed down his stomach, but the paralysis held him to the cot. He couldn’t move, couldn’t speak.

  “You and me, we have unfinished business together. That’s a fact.” Travis’s voice moved away. “But our business, it’ll have to wait.”

  JT could see him now, silhouetted against a dim rectangle in the darkness—the doorway of the room.

  “I’ve got some other business to attend to first,” Travis said. “But keep an eye out for me. Yep, keep an eye out.” He chuckled.

  Then he was gone.

  JT felt cold sweat trickling down his scalp, turning chilly in the night air. He tried again to move, muscles fighting against the lingering paralysis from the anesthetic, but he could manage only a few more inches. Then the fog closed over him again, washing everything away.

  CHAPTER 104

  “It’s Latin, obviously,” Veronica said. “Like ‘semper fidelis.’ ‘Vita Brevis’ means… ‘brave life,’ maybe?”

  “No.” Jordan sounded calmer but still angry. “Think ‘brevity,’ ‘abbreviated.’ It comes from a famous quote by Hippocrates. ‘Ars longa, vita brevis.’ ‘Art is long, life is short.’”

  Camilla sat up straight.

  Jordan noticed her surprise. “The benefits of a liberal arts education, I guess. I got my master’s at Stanford, in communications.”

  “But ‘art is long, life is short,’ though?” The lead lump turned over in Camilla’s stomach again. “That sounds like a sick joke, considering what happened to Lauren. Almost makes you think there’s something to Mason’s creepy theory, like they’re throwing it in our faces.”

  “Get a grip.” Veronica waved her hand, as if dispersing a bad smell. “Someone dies accidentally, and now we’re in some kind of a… I don’t know… snuff film? Is that what you two think?”

  “I’m keeping an open mind,” Mason said.

  She snorted. “Look, I’m sure those things exist, and that there’s a market for them—sickos probably buy them over the Internet. But you’re talking about shaky Handycam footage of hookers getting murdered in dirty basements—not something like this. Are you people forgetting that yacht? That’s millions and millions of dollars of boat. And the money we saw… Who would go to this level of expense to make a snuff film? The whole idea’s asinine.”

  Camilla flushed. “Mason’s got quite an imagination, and I’m not saying he’s right, but I can’t explain—”

  “Two possibilities.” Veronica held up her finger, looked at her hand, frowned, and scraped something from under her thumbnail. “Number one—which I think is most likely—a runaway train wreck of stupidity. Some Hollywood son of a bitch who I’d lo
ve to get my hands on, well, he thought it would be more entertaining to watch people who fit your survivor profile compete with each other, instead of average folks. We’d be tougher, less likely to quit, more resourceful, et cetera. Studio execs loved the concept, so they green-lit it, handed him a big budget. They went out and found us; then they dangled the cash in front of us like a carrot. But it didn’t work out as planned. There was violence. Someone died.”

  Camilla shook her head. “But why would they keep—”

  “The people in charge panicked at first, but then they decided the damage was done. A few more days wouldn’t change their liability exposure, or they could buy their way out of trouble later—pay us off or something. Idiotic, but this is Hollywood we’re talking about. I can see it happening.”

  “No,” Camilla said. “I work in the film industry. No studio would ever—”

  Veronica raised a second finger, cutting her off. “Possibility number two, if we’re thinking out of the box. It’s personal. Revenge. One of us pissed off somebody very rich and powerful, and this whole thing is some kind of elaborate setup. Maybe getting revenge any other way would be traceable back to that person, I don’t know. Maybe the rest of us were meant to be witnesses to an “accidental” death in one of these games that wasn’t really going to be accidental. But no one could have anticipated Lauren’s real accident, and it’s thrown everything off.”

  Mason looked at Brent. “Doc, the kid you killed—was her dad by any chance a rich Hollywood entertainment mogul?”

  “I’m not going to dignify that with an answer.” Brent’s eyes glittered oddly in the lamplight as he stood. “I’m going to go check on my patients. But, Mason, maybe your dead senior partner Dorer had a relative who didn’t like how you managed to duck any responsibility for what your firm and your whole bloodsucking industry did to us all.” He trudged out of the room with heavy steps.