The Dark Atoll

by Marilyn Foxworthy

  They just waited.

  I said, “OK. You really don’t remember your names?”

  Allie said, “Florin, they were lost. We knew them but not their names.”

  Ariel said, “Beloved, they told me that until they came to us with the Nomads and stayed with us in the basement, they didn’t remember anything.”

  I looked at the girls and the Brunette said, “I remember getting out of the canoe and seeing you on the beach here. I remember Ariel inviting me under her blanket and I remember sleeping next to you in the dark.”

  Suddenly, I understood. These two were suffering the same daily amnesia that Allie had those first few days that she and I were together. I wouldn’t push it; I’d do what I had been doing and help them if I could. The Nomads were fine. They didn’t need anything from me right now. They had lives. These two though did belong with us. A tribe of me and the lost girls. All of us alone until recently.

  My first thought was, “Here we go again.”

  It wasn’t like my experience with Allie or Christie, the one without a memory and the other without a soul. That experience wouldn’t help me know what to do in his specific case. Bebe had been easier: she just needed to change tribes. Ariel was strange but wonderful, and so far, amazingly helpful and reasonable. These two new ones were different from all the others. From what I knew so far, they had no memories before coming to my little island. And strangely, because of that I supposed, they had no fear of me or any of the girls. Oh, that was it. These girls were “fresh”. They didn’t know that they were wounded. I could see it now. Their lack of a past made them innocent. Maybe this would be easier than with the others.

  If I put it in terms that I was used to, these girls were new-born and just wanted to know where they fit in the world. They did remember yesterday and the people that they had met and the talks that they had been part of. That was going to be helpful. And thankfully, I didn’t think that I had to be as afraid of saying the wrong thing like I had been with Christie those first two days. These girls weren’t going to misinterpret my words based on heavy baggage. At least I would assume so until I found out otherwise.

  I decided my course and smiled, and said, “Girls, I am so glad that you’re here. I liked it when we were sleeping near each other, too. I’m glad that Ariel brought you under our blankets to be warm. Allie told me before you came that she was going to send Toni and Scout to find you and bring you to be with us if you wanted to come.”

  I paused to see what they would do with the information. The brunette took hold of the redhead’s hand and they stood side-by-side smiling at my acceptance. They probably had no fear of rejection, but I think that they were happy that more of their new world was being colored in for them. I wanted to say that I would suggest names and that we could change them if they didn’t like them or something like that, but I decided that things would be more comfortable if I just declared how things would be now and not act tentative. That was probably what we all needed now.

  I said, “So, your name is Tabby,” indicating the brunette, “and your name is Ruby,” indicating the red-head.

  Tabby said, “Oh, that’s nice. Ruby. That’s pretty. I didn’t know. Ruby, your hair is pretty.”

  Ruby said, “Yours is too. The canoe girls cut our hair. It looks nice. I like it here.”

  Tabby said, “I do too. I never did it either. Like the girl in the basement.”

  Ruby said, “Me too. She liked it. I think that it must be fun.”

  I said, “Do what girls?”

  Tabby said, “Touch your penis.”

  I was surprised at Tabby, but before I could react, Allie broke in and said cheerfully, “You and Ariel made love. That’s so wonderful. I’m so happy. I will take a knife and I’ll be back in a few days. Maybe 10. I’ll hurry, but not too much.”

  I frowned and started to ask what she was talking about, but Christie said solemnly, “I’ll come with you. We’ll kill them all. Like you said before. Now is a good time for it. We can’t wait any more.”

  Bebe said dryly, “I’ll take us in a canoe. Maybe we can be back in five days. I want to hurry. I’ll slice them off and them you can stab them in the ass till they die.”

  I didn’t know what was happening all of a sudden. We had been cheerful and happy and meeting the two new girls and all of a sudden three of them were talking about leaving and going on a killing spree. The sun was out and we were happy. In fact, we were winding down from a hectic and hellish four weeks and it was time to lie in the sun. We were done! What was happening?

  Allie was still smiling as she said, “OK. That will be nice.”

  I said quickly, “Allie, I told you, you aren’t going to do that. You are staying here with me.”

  Allie said, “But you were happy making love with Ariel. I can tell. So, we have to kill them before they hurt her like they did with…” and she went silent.

  Ariel touched my arm and said softly, “Ask Bebe. Allie remembers what, but not why.”

  I took a deep breath to calm myself and said compassionately, “Girls, come here and talk to me. Come on. In a little circle. OK. That’s nice. Um, Bebe, what’s going on?”

  Bebe looked stunned and confused.

  She shook her head as if she were waking up from having fallen asleep suddenly and looked at me.

  She said, “Florin. Oh, Florin,” and she shook her head again.

  She seemed to understand something; as if she had been somewhere else and had just come back.

  Bebe looked at Allie and Christie and said, “It’s OK now. They are all dead already. You forgot again. They’re all dead. They died yesterday in the storms.”

  Ariel said, “We’re all safe now. Remember? Remember, Florin is our boyfriend. He took care of it.”

  Allie said, “They ate my cat!”

  Bebe said sadly, “Yeah Sweetie. I know. It was awful. But they are all gone now.”

  Ariel said, “I’ll take them to the house and we’ll start getting ready for tonight. Bebe, stay here with Florin.” Then to the other girls, she said, “Come on. We have beds to make and laundry to do. The house is a mess and it will be fun to clean it.”

  Allie said, “Oh, that will be fun. This is a nice beach. We should have a picnic!”

  Ariel whispered to me, “It’s OK. They’ll be fine. After a nap, they won’t even remember what just happened. We’ll see you two soon.”

  I watched the five of them walk away as Bebe held my arm where we were.

  I said, “What does she mean, they ate her cat?”

  When they were out of earshot, Bebe said, “Was Ariel a virgin? Could you tell?”

  I told her that Ariel was indeed a virgin.

  Bebe said, “You are our husband now. You are such a good man. Yeah, Ariel was a virgin. I’m glad. Allie can’t face what happened. She said that the problem was that they ate her cat. She knows that she is horrified and angry, but not why. Until just now, I couldn’t have told you either. Florin, Ariel was a virgin; the rest of us were raped. All of us. Allie, Christie, me, the other two, Toni, Scout, Zena, Beth, everyone. Every damn one of us. I think that at some point in our miserable lives here, that every one of us swore that someday we would have our revenge. When we saw that you and Ariel were happy, I think we snapped and thought that there was nothing left to wait for. The boys were too. Raped, that is. Every single one. It was like a forced initiation and rite of passage. At least the girls weren’t forced to brutalize someone else as well. Damn, it started the second day after the crash, before we even made it to land. While we were still of the rafts. There was one group of men that didn’t take part. Those were the ones who came here to this house and took Ariel and some of the women with them. One of them died protecting a young girl. The girl must have been Ariel. Within three weeks, we had all been raped and crushed. A lot committed suicide.”

  I said, “I wonder if that’s why they committed suicide. Maybe they just gave up any hope of humanity here.”

  Wow. What a hor
rid revelation. And I didn’t have the energy left to even feel much passion about it. I wondered for an instant if my fate might be the same as those who lived here before me. Would we get so tired of living that we wanted to leave the Earth as Ariel put it?

  We were silent for a minute, but suddenly we heard Ariel call out from somewhere that we couldn’t see.

  She shouted, “Bebe, you have nice tits!”

  Bebe laughed.

  Ariel yelled, “You’ll feel better after a nap. I guarantee it. Come back and climb under the covers with us you big busty bouncy beauty!”

  I didn’t know what to say, but I figured that maybe Ariel did, so I went along with it.

  I said, “You do have really nice breasts, Bebe.”

  She grinned and said, “Oh, like you’d even know. You haven’t even touched them yet.”

  I teased, “No, but Ariel says that she did, and I trust her.”

  Bebe laughed again and said, “That was confusing. I thought it was you somehow.”

  I said, “Um, does that mean that I get to…”

  She cut me off and said, “As much as you want! Oh, hell yes!”

  And then I realized that we were savages and I was as wild as the others. He past was a mushed-up fish. But Bebe had nice tits. So, everything would be fine. Philosophy only takes you so far. It’s a great tool for certain jobs. But a nice pair of boobs was good when you were about to lie down for a nap.

  We will end the first book of our castaways’ adventures here. If you read on, it’s up to you. The story continues in the next volume. I don’t really know what will happen next.

  Florin and the girls are safe for now. The world has changed in four weeks. And for the first time in 18 years, the sun is out. The first thing to do will be to repair the house and find out who these two new girls are. Well, really, who all of them are. Florin is still figuring out who he is, isn’t he?

  Tahiti and Florin’s family is only 200 miles away, but they won’t be making that trip in a fiberglass outrigger. Not with the kind of weather that may still come up. The sun may be shining today but that doesn’t mean that it will be shining tomorrow.

  If you are still reading my story, that was your choice. It was a lot of reading when all that really needed to be said can probably be summed up like this:

  1. Choices make people happy.

  2. Listen for the whole story before you try to fix something.

  3. Sometimes we need to rethink our identity and maybe become a different person.

  4. Don’t learn about sex from your teenage peers - that’s never a good idea.

  5. People always do what they perceive to be in their best interest and within their power.

  6. And when you don’t know what else to do, maybe you should go fishing.

  If you choose to read on, I hope you enjoy it. I’m going to keep writing the story, whether you read it or not.

  END OF BOOK ONE

  Marilyn Foxworthy lives a peaceful life studying classical mindfulness, practical philosophy, and martial arts. A prolific writer of fantasy and adventure in the style of the twentieth century pulp writers of the ‘Golden Age’ of fiction, she enjoys what she calls ‘Tom Swift for Adults’. Often blatantly and graphically erotic, her epic stories appeal to the adolescent parts of us that still enjoy a good vicarious adventure liberally sprinkled with interludes of boisterous romping in the hay.

  Ms. Foxworthy describes her writing process this way: “I never know what is going to happen. The characters tell me their stories and I write them down the way I hear them. A character comes to me and sits down for coffee and starts talking. I’m as surprised as anyone by what they tell me. If I like the story, I publish it. If you like the story, you read it.”

  Series by Marilyn Foxworthy (without giving away too many spoilers):

  • The Nogud Legacy. What if you wake up on a road with no idea who you are? The place seems medieval but is it the future or the past? The population is low and good men are at a premium. A smart guy like Joshua knows how to make a new life, even if he can’t figure out how he got here or what the rules are at first. And what's with these girls in the hoods and tunics?

  • The Guardian Maidens of Sturgil's Mark. Ronin is a novice Adventurer Monk out to kill some monsters and make a name for himself. The elven girls who join him don’t like wearing armor very much but overall, they’re a great team. Monsters beware. We’re coming to kick down doors and take the loot.

  • The Girls on The Hill. They aren't really fairies. They're just the girls who work at the particular resort that Robby Jensen enjoys vacationing at. And this time he finds out that most of the female the staff have a crush on him. And the robots are terrible scamps. It starts with a drowning girl in the river; and Robby just happens to be there in a canoe to rescue her.

  • The Sea Nymphs. Robby is established now and wants to share his good fortune with his older brother Tom. Tom adjusts to Robby’s lifestyle quickly. He has his own way of doing things but he’s Robby’s brother for sure.

  • The Shrine Maidens of Barsoom. The “Red Planet” of John Carter’s stories is real but not quite the way we were told. The Great White Apes are real, and the princesses really are naked, but a lot of the details a hundred years later are different.

  If you don’t see all of these series in the store yet, they’re coming soon.

  If you would like to keep in touch, hear about new releases, or anything else, you can find the contact information on the Amazon author page for Marilyn Foxworthy.

  And if you enjoyed the book, please do leave a review on Amazon or GoodReads.com.