The Dark Atoll

by Marilyn Foxworthy

  I stepped forward and said fiercely, “Get out of my circle. If you guys have a leader, have him come out here and deal with me. But you shut up and get out of my circle!”

  The man screamed, “Your circle? You don’t get it. You’re going to wish you were dead.”

  I said, “No, that’s not how this goes. You wish I was dead. I’m starting to think about wishing that you were dead. I get what I wish for. Get out!”

  He stood where he was, trying to come up with something to say but couldn't do it. His “plan” wasn’t very good.

  I said, “I’ll make this easy.”

  I stepped closer, directly in front of the man and when I was just about in range, I stepped quickly to my right and my fist shot out and hit him in the jaw, where his mandible connected with his skull, just in front of his ear. He crumpled to the ground instantly. He was unconscious, not dead. I grabbed his body and ran a few feet and threw him to the side.

  I walked back to the center of the circle and muttered loudly, “I told him, this is my circle.”

  Then, looking at the crowd, turning so that I faced all of them at some point, I went into my speech.

  I said, “Look. I didn’t want this. I didn’t kill Coach Brown. Some of you know who did. My bet is that it was this weakling and his buddies. They think they’re tough and if they yell loud enough that the rest of you will believe that they are tough. That’s up to you. All I wanted was to live in peace. You decided that I had to fight and kill five of you. You chose this war. You killed Coach Brown and the others who have died in the past few days. Not me. I didn’t come and threaten you. I didn’t pick a fight. I didn’t abuse you. I didn’t mush you. I didn’t kill your pilots and friends. And I didn’t kill Coach Brown.”

  Someone yelled, “You killed Bubba and Jack and Todd.”

  I turned and faced the voice and said, “No. I didn’t. They killed themselves. They used me to kill themselves. If they didn’t want to die, they didn’t have to. I didn’t attack them. They wanted a fight to the death, not me. Now, maybe they thought that the rules included me letting them kill me, but they don’t. A fight to the death. That was your choice. Coach Brown had it right. He stopped it before another ten of you died and he told you that we leave each other alone and I am allowed to trade in peace. You killed him and chose war instead.”

  I stared them down for a minute and said, “Look, I say this is my circle now. You gave it to me. I don’t even want it. You asked me to take this. You want me to tell you what to do. I would have stayed home. But you decided that you were coming for me. You have laws. They’re stupid laws but it’s what you have. Get mushed or die. If you want to trade, you have to fight. I come here and in order for me to live in peace, five of you had to die. One for five. That’s a stupid trade. I could have added to your economy, but you guys are brutes. And now you want me to take the circle and tell you what to do. Oh, notice that the idiot who was here, the one who probably decided that it was good for him to kill Coach Brown and start a civil war, he isn’t mushed or dead. He’s unconscious. But when he wakes up, he’s going to go back to that stupid rule and he’s going to kill himself by fighting me. There’s not going to be a fight. He’s just going stand up, run at me, and die. Think it over.”

  I was silent for a few seconds and then lowered my voice and said, “Breeders? Do you have a chief to speak for you?”

  There was a murmur among a group of men and women standing together and finally one of them stepped forward. It was an older woman.

  I said, “Listen. There’s a couple of ways that this can go. Maybe you have other ideas. I’m open to negotiations.”

  The woman said, “Um, OK. We…well, um, what?”

  I said, “As far as I can figure, you have a few choices. You can take part in this war or you can go home. For now, I have no grievance with you. If you go home, you and I live in peace. You come trade. If you send a small boat to my house to talk, one of you swims to my beach while the others wait in the boat and we talk. If you stay, you can do two things. If there is a council of elders that gets formed, representatives of each tribe, you can take part and help figure out where we go from here. Or you can decide that you want this war as much as the jocks do.”

  The woman walked back to her group and discussed things for a minute and then came forward again.

  She said, “Kong, my name is Susan. We don’t want to be part of this. We don’t have rules. I’m not even the leader. We do what we want. We want to leave you alone and we want you to leave us alone. When things are settled, we’ll trade if we need something. So, we can just go?”

  I said, “Yep. It’s good to meet you. You can call me Florin if you want to.”

  She smiled and said, “You’re kind of pretty. We’ll stick with Kong.”

  We stared at each other for a minute and then she turned and headed for the beach. About twenty-five people followed her.

  When they were gone, I said, “Now, the rest of us need to decide how things work.”

  Eight guys stepped forward suddenly and one of them said, “They work like always. You are an outsider and things are shit because of you and now you die, and we go back to how things were,” and they started advancing on me.

  I held out my palm and shouted, “Stop! Stay right there. This has to be fair. There’s eight of you and only one of me,” and I started pulling off my boots and my jumpsuit.

  The leader of the group said, “Fair my ass. You’re going to die. This is over. There’s no need for one on one. What are you doing?”

  I finished stripping off my clothes and said, “I’m making it fair. You guys don’t have clothes, so I took mine off. Yeah, I get it. You're going to jump me. But I don’t want the survivors to think that I cheated. I’m one guy against eight and I gave you a chance to walk away. You eight are the asshole bullies who can’t figure out when to get wise and go to class. Well, Vice-Principal Kong is here, and you boys just got permanent suspension. The yearbook will list you in the section about idiots who died this year.”

  I took a step forward, and said, “Now, my darlings, you got one more chance. Head back to class and we’ll forget this ever happened but if you take one step forward, I’m expelling you from this Earth and there’s no turning back. Coach Brown told me that he was going to Hell. You take one step in my direction and you get that bus ride too.”

  The guys stood where they were for a second but finally, the leader lifted his foot and moved it an inch in my direction. Before his foot touched the ground, I was directly in front of him with my fist crushing his throat.

  I hit him hard. It was a matter of kinetics. Every muscle I had contributed something to my punch. And the effect was that his windpipe and esophagus were crushed. He wasn’t dead but he couldn’t breathe, and unless someone gave him an emergency tracheotomy, he’d be dead in three minutes.

  The man to his right jumped back a step but the one to his left turned in my direction. He was more or less stunned and had no idea what to do but he moved, and I picked him as my next target. I leaned to my left and shot my right foot out hard at his closest leg, shattering his knee. I could have easily hit him in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him, or in the chest, breaking several ribs but I needed him out of commission, not just slowed down temporarily.

  My foot snapped back instantly, and I spun all the way around to my right and this time, my foot drove itself into the chin of the man on that side. His head snapped backward violently. As his body went limp and started to slump toward the ground, I grabbed him around the neck and threw him over my shoulder, making sure that his neck broke in the process. I left him where he fell and took three steps toward the center of the circle.

  It was still very windy, and I had to shout as I said, “OK. I told you how this goes. You others still have a choice. Forward or backward. Death or life, it’s up to you. In front of you is a line that you can’t cross and live. You cross it, you have made the choice to die.”

  They stayed where they
were.

  One said, “You can’t kill all of us.”

  I said, “I’m not killing anyone. That line in front of you is deadly. You step over it, you kill yourself.”

  Another said, “Hey, look, guys, yeah, it’s messed up, but I think maybe we’re a few men down and we have to forfeit. It’s just the way it goes. It’s a bad break We have too many injuries. We gotta forfeit.”

  The first said, “No way. He’s just one guy. You fight with us.”

  The second said, “Um, you know what? I don’t think that I do. What Coach Kong says makes sense. He’s not saying quit, he’s saying wise up. I’m no quitter but this isn’t a game anymore. Coach, how does this work?”

  I said, “The way this works is, you leave. You go sit down with everyone else who wants to be a spectator, not a dumb-ass loser. As simple as that. Coach Brown said I get to trade, and nobody messes with me. You let me trade and don’t mess with my people, I got no argument with you.”

  The man said, “Sounds good to me,” and he and another man left the circle and went and sat down on the outskirts of the gathering.

  I saw at least fifteen others shake their heads now and all of them went and sat with the ones who had walked way.

  I said, “So, there’s still three of you. I take it you still want to live by the old rules. Get mushed or die. But boys, I don’t believe in the mushing crap.”

  At this point here was a commotion in the crowd and I looked to see the one that I had knocked unconscious at the beginning pushing his way to the front. He had a knife in his right hand as he came. Damn, I hated knives. Not in general but as a weapon. I hated knife-fighting with a passion. It turned my stomach. Give me anything but a knife.

  He screamed, “What’s going on?”

  I said, “Well, let’s recap. That one is dead because he couldn’t breathe. That one’s dead because his neck broke. That one has a shattered leg and will never walk again. These other three have apparently been waiting for you. But dude, throw away the knife. I hate knives.”

  The guy looked at me and then walked to the guy with the broken leg.

  He looked in the injured man’s eyes and said fiercely, “Sorry about that Hoss,” and he grabbed the man’s hair and slit his throat; and I made a decision.

  It wasn’t a monumental decision, but it was final now. There was no more talking. The guy moved toward me and as he thrust his knife at my stomach, I deflected it with my right hand. I grabbed his wrist with my left hand and easily twisted the knife out of his grip with my right. I hated knives so much. Why did he have to pick a stupid knife?

  With the knife now in my right hand and him standing dumbfounded at being suddenly disarmed, I pulled his arm forward and sliced it from wrist to shoulder as if I were filleting a fish. A long strip of muscle and flesh pealed back like a 30-inch piece of steak. My stroke continued diagonally downward from his right shoulder, across his chest, and deep into the muscles of his stomach until it reached his hip. My cut reversed direction and went straight from his left hip all the way to his neck.

  I paused for a fraction of a second to say, “I said that I hate them, not that I don’t know how to use them.”

  In the next instant, the artery on the side of his neck was open from his jaw to his ear and blood poured out in a dark river. The last three of his men instinctively stepped forward and I finished them with three flashing strokes that left them in a heap at my feet. And it left me covered with blood.

  I left the knife in the chest of the last one to go down.

  I turned to the crowd again and watched as all of them quickly sat down where they were, leaving me the last man standing.

  Except for one. It surprised me. It was Bebe. Bebe stood in front of me, unmoving.

  I looked at her for a sign of what she had in mind. Surely, she wouldn't fight me, would she? Had I misread her? What was she thinking?

  She said, “Kong, I want the old rules. Get mushed or die. It looks like if you beat me, there’s no one left to oppose you. But deal with me first.”

  I looked hard at Bebe and thought.

  I said, both to her and the crowd, “It’s your choice. I told you all that I don’t believe in mushing, but this woman says she wants that choice. OK. Girl, if that’s what you want, I’ll be happy to help you.”

  Her eyes pleaded with me to understand what she was doing, and I felt that I did.

  I said, “Come on. Get mushed or die.”

  Bebe walked quickly into the circle and made a grab for my arm. I let her take hold of me but then I grabbed her hand and peeled her off of me in a wrist-lock that would be very painful if she resisted me. I easily forced her to the ground, and she knelt, looking up at me. I wasn’t hurting her at all, and she was actually cooperating. I thought that she was smiling the tiniest amount. I had her hand in my left, holding her where she was, and I put my right hand on her forehead as if I were squeezing her skull. Then I started to chant. I just made a bunch of noises and droning sounds, doing my best to imitate a didgeridoo. Bebe grinned and started to shake and roll her eyes back in her head as if she were having a seizure.

  OK, I’d read her correctly. She wanted a way out. And by their rules, that meant that I’d mush her, and she would essentially be my property. From then on. I didn’t know if this witchdoctor voodoo charade would fool them or not, but it was worth a shot. Bebe was certainly playing her part to the hilt.

  After a minute of this, I smacked her on the forehead with my palm and went silent. Bebe froze in place and bowed her head and closed her eyes, kneeling at my feet.

  I said, “Woman, what is your name?”

  She answered in a monotone, saying, “Jennifer.”

  I said, “Was that your name before you came here?”

  She said, “Yes, Master.”

  I said, “Jennifer. I don’t mush people. What happened to you is different but just as much of a change and a bond. Do you know what has happened to you?”

  She looked up and smiled and said, “Yes, Master. You made me happy.”

  Wow she was good at this. It was as if we were reading each other's minds. Or reading from a script that we had written.

  I said, “That’s right. Come with me from now on.”

  I turned to the crowd sitting on the ground and said, “I don’t know what this woman’s status was before, but now she belongs to my family. If she was your coach, you need to find a new one. Jenifer, stand up and go join my family over there,” and I pointed at Allie and Christie.

  Bebe continued playing to the crowd as she said, “Yes, Master. Thank you for not killing me. I am happy. I am not my own. I must obey. I am happy.”

  I smiled at her as she passed me on her way to the girls and patted her shoulder in approval.

  To the rest, I said, “Let’s get this over with. Are there any more of you who want to challenge me for my right to live in peace? That’s all I’m asking. And there’s a few ways we can do that. You can sit there and welcome me because I am no threat to any of you, or you can stand up here, right now, and tell me that there is no peace while you live.”

  Suddenly a man stood up and approached the circle. I really wasn’t expecting that.

  I said in exasperation, “Really? Are you joking? All I want is…” and at that moment, he started to run at me.

  When he reached me, I used his momentum against him and threw him over my head and slammed him down hard on his back. I could have adjusted my angle just a little and his head would have hit the pavement, probably killing him instantly. Instead, he landed flat with the wind knocked out of him. I knew what his next move had to be, and I waited.

  He struggled to roll over into his stomach so that he could push himself to his feet, but he didn’t make it that far. When he was face-down, I leaped high in the air and landed with one foot just below his shoulder blades and the other just above his hips. The way that I hit him was designed to push his pelvis away from his neck by a few inches. The result was that his spine separated into two piece
s in the middle, severing his spinal cord. His body twitched twice but he was already dead.

  I stepped down from the body and hung my head.

  I looked at the crowd sadly, and asked, “Are you truly so insane? Look, I know times have been hard and life is cheap here, but times have changed. There has to be some humanity left in some of you. If you are so tired of living, don’t blame me for that. I’m not responsible. In fact, that’s it! From now on, I’m not going to let you make me kill any of you. We tried that. It apparently doesn’t work. All I want is to be left alone. You don’t hurt me or my family and we’re good.”

  At this point, another of what must have been a swimmer or wrestler in a previous life, judging by his shoulder muscles, stood up. I shook my head in amazement and waited.

  He said, “OK, then we can finish this. You’re tired. You’re giving up. You may not be willing to kill anyone anymore but I am.”

  I said tiredly, “OK, come on. I won’t kill you.”

  The guy laughed and moved in to grab me. Yep, he was a wrestler.

  When his right hand reached for my shoulder, I grabbed it and twisted it into a wrist lock, like I had done with Bebe. But instead of forcing him to his knees as I easily could have, I push his hand hard in the wrong direction and his wrist broke, leaving his hand hanging limply from his arm.

  He didn’t scream. He went into shock immediately and just stood there staring at his broken hand.

  I said, “You have one broken hand. If you don’t quit, you’ll have two. And then you won’t have one to wipe your ass with. You know as well as I do that if you stay with a tribe that still believes in mushing people, you’re just meat now. Listen, your buddy Bubba asked me for mercy. He asked me to keep him from getting mushed. He asked me to kill him. And I did.”

  The man asked weakly, “Is that what you are going to do to me?”

  I screamed, “No! Don’t you get it? I told you! I won’t kill any of you. I don’t care if I have to break every joint on your body, I’m leaving you alive now! If you wrap that wrist in a splint, it will heal. You won’t be able to use it the way that you did, so you might want to practice jerking off with your other hand, but you’ll live. If you don’t want to live, swim out into the atoll until you can’t stay up anymore and let yourself drown. But quit bothering me!”