by Robin Ray
***
The look on Dr. Scott's wet face changes from one of hope to one of sullen desperation and fear as Grace and Silverleaf continue to slowly pull him up.
“We're almost there,” Grace informs him.
He gazes at her. His countenance has dropped as has his will. “I can't go back.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“I can’t return to Miami.”
“Why not?”
“Please tell them to forgive me.”
“What?” Grace queries. “I don’t understand. What are you saying?”
“I hope you never understand. I'm sorry.”
“Eddie!”
He lets the vine go. They watch as he falls to the jagged rocks below.
“No!” Grace screams.
Silverleaf drops the vine. “My God!”
Grace crouches down holding her head. “This can’t be happening! It’s a nightmare! Why did he let go?”
Silverleaf sits beside her. “I don’t understand it, either, but we have to keep moving.”
A shot echoes out from the dense forest. Grace screams and falls after being struck in the right shoulder.
“Grace!” Silverleaf yells.
“I’ve been hit,” she bellows.
He looks at the wound. Blood is trickling from a black hole just below her clavicle.
“I think it went clear through.”
He applies pressure on the wound then looks around for the shooter. He sees no one.
“I know you’re out here, you bastard! Come out! Fight like a true man!”
As he listens for a reply, the Mid-life Crisis, tossing in the waves, sails closer to the island. Silverleaf turns to his stricken partner.
“Grace.”
“Go get that bastard, Milt.”
“I can't leave you here.”
“I'll live.”
“What about this wound?”
“Tie it with a piece of cloth.”
Taking off his shirt, he rips a long section off the bottom and ties it around her shoulder.
“Ahh!” she screams in pain.
“Sorry,” he apologizes.
She places her hands on her bandage. “I’ll be fine. Go get him.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Silverleaf gnashes his teeth, grabs a rock, and gets up. Hitler rushes from the shrubbery. Silverleaf recoils to throw the rock, but the ex-chancellor shoots it out of his hand. Grace sits up with difficulty.
“Where's Eva?” Hitler shouts, waving his pistol. “Wo ist meine Frau?”
“You go to hell!” Grace yells.
“I will ask again! Where is Fraulein Braun?”
“She's dead,” Silverleaf answers.
Hitler is taken aback. “What? Liar!”
Silverleaf reaches for a stick on the ground. Hitler shoots. Silverleaf, hit in the right arm, staggers backwards but is held up by a sapling nearly six feet tall. He looks at his Asian friend.
“Run, Grace! Run!”
Grace rises and staggers down the trail. Hitler shoots at her but misses. Racing after her, he trips and falls over the heavy stick Silverleaf flings at his legs. Using the reprieve, Silverleaf also starts streaking down the mountain. Seconds later, he catches up with Grace near the end of the slick trail.
“How are you feeling?” he quizzes her.
“I’ve had better days.”
Looking up the hill, they see Hitler getting to his feet. Scratched by rocks and stones from the forest floor, his forehead is trickling blood.
Migdalia, Rochelle, and Keith appear at the crest of the hill some 200 yards behind Hitler. Fatigued from hiking, they stop to catch their breath. Migdalia sees Grace and Silverleaf near the bottom of the hill and points to them. Immediately, the three of them also give chase.
Over on the shore, the Mid-life Crisis gets beached itself on the sand. The sea weary crew and captain disembark. Gazing up at the cliffside trail, they see Grace and Silverleaf running down towards them through the rain.
The captain cuffs his hands around his mouth. “Ahoy!”
A few hundred feet behind the racing duo, they see the armed madman shooting blindly in the storm.
A bullet strikes Grace in the back. She shrieks. Toppling over like a rag doll, she slides down a few feet on her spine.
Silverleaf stops running and races to her. “Grace!”
“Kneeling down beside her, he places his reaches his hand behind her back to try and stop the bleeding. It doesn’t work. Blood, mixing with the rain, simply comes gushing forth. Grace reaches up and touches Silverleaf’s face.
“Don’t forget about me.”
“You'll make it, Grace,” he speculates. “We've already been through too much for his thing to set us back like…”
He silences himself when he realizes he’s speaking to deaf ears as she’s gone.
Silverleaf closes his eyes, lays her down, clenches his fist, gets up, and struts towards Hitler.
“I’ll make you rue the day you were born!” the businessman promises.
Hitler glares at him. “Ja? Millions have tried!”
The Austrian-born ex-statesman lays his gun on the ground, assumes a martial arts stance and motions for Silverleaf to attack.
Silverleaf races over to him and throws a punch.
Hitler blocks it and kicks him in the chest.
Silverleaf staggers backwards and gets caught by a sapling.
Hitler taunts him to come attack again.
Silverleaf gets up, runs over and throws another wild punch.
The old hermit ducks and punches him in the mouth. Blood spurts out.
“Dummkopf!” Hitler yells. “What do you take me for? An amateur?”
He dropkicks Silverleaf in the face, knocking him to the ground.
“I've trod over countless nations with these very boots!” he brags.
Kicking Silverleaf in the face, he causes him to roll right off the trail.
Hitler goes back for his gun, picks it up, and aims it at the downed businessman for the final coup de grace.
Migdalia, Rochelle, and Keith run into view on the trail.
Hitler looks at Silverleaf. “Aufwiedersehen.”
Migdalia screams. “No!!”
Hitler flips around, sees the group of three, and starts shooting wildly at them.
Migdalia, struck in the shoulder, stumbles backwards into Keith's arms.
The crew from the Mid-life Crisis, noticing the bloody melee, races faster towards it.
Hitler fires, catching Keith in his upper right arm. It causes him to drop Migdalia.
Rochelle races to comfort her cousin.
Hitler's gun clicks empty when he tries to shoot again.
Keith, still reeling from the shot, speeds after the gunman.
The swift old Nazi sidesteps his charge and, in a judo-like move, flips him to the ground.
The redhead howls in pain from the fall.
Hitler whips out a long silver spike hidden in his sleeve and thrusts it forward.
Keith, looking up, twists quickly. The spike gets driven into his left shoulder.
While Hitler rejoices, Silverleaf picks up a long, thick stick.
Rochelle races down towards the imbroglio.
Hitler turns to Keith. “Inconsequential fool!”
He yanks the spike out of the injured man's shoulder and holds it threateningly above his chest.
“You've made the biggest mistake of your life,” he brags.
“No!” Silverleaf yells.
Hitler strikes again, but his aimed is thwarted when Rochelle kicks him in the head with such force that it sends him flying off her cousin. The spike flies out of his hand.
Hitler, quickly regaining composure, pulls out a small gun from his boots and raises it at Rochelle.
Silverleaf throws a heavy stick, knocking the gun out of Hitler's hand.
“Ach!” Hitler shouts. “Don't any of you realize who
I am?!”
He crouches down, grabs his gun, and points it at Rochelle again.
Silverleaf grabs the fallen spike and dives towards Hitler.
Distracted, the Nazi re-aims his pistol at Silverleaf.
Silverleaf, already up near Hitler, shoves the spike so deeply into his neck that it protrudes from the other side.
Rochelle recoils in horror as Hitler struggles with the spike.
Silverleaf stares at him…
“Dummkopf!”
…and kicks him off the cliff to the jagged rocks below.
The crew of the Mid-life Crisis finally arrives on the hill, but they soon realize they are too late to stop the bloody carnage.
Friday, May 1.
One week later.
The Mid-life Crisis is greeted by a throng of reporters, camera crews, family members, ambulances, and curious onlookers as she sails steadily into the Port of Miami. As the newspaper people jockey for position, the captain of the Crisis tries his best to keep the large collection of microphones and lights out of his face and those of his passengers and crew.
Silverleaf, Migdalia, Keith, and Rochelle, upon disembarking the yacht, are placed immediately in waiting stretchers. Exhausted and unwilling at the moment to give any testimony as to their adventure, they simply acknowledge the crowd by waving at them as they are placed in ambulances and whisked away to area hospitals.
