Tortured Spirits

by Gregory Lamberson

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  They wore T-shirts with their swimming suits and ate burgers and chips at the bar. A lone musician facing the pool played his guitar and sang into a microphone.

  “It’s like a vacation,” Maria said.

  Or a honeymoon, Jake thought. “A day of heaven before we visit hell.”

  Maria munched on a chip. “I’ll take the day.”

  Sitting on a poolside cot, Jake slathered on sunscreen.

  “You’re glowing like the sand.” Maria peeled off her T-shirt and tossed it onto the cot, revealing her blue bikini top.

  Jake averted his eye to avoid getting excited.

  They dove into the pool. The cool water relaxed Jake and cleansed the grime from his body. He treaded water near Maria, who moved backwards into a man-made waterfall. Jake followed her, closing the distance between them. When his face came close to hers, she swam out of the shade and into the sunlight.

  Forty minutes later, they returned to their suite. The air conditioner chilled their wet bodies, and Jake watched goosebumps form on Maria’s arms and legs as she braved the frigid temperature and shut the unit off.

  They went into their separate bedrooms, and Jake peeled his trunks from his wrinkled, shrunken penis, toweled off, and pulled on his briefs. He didn’t get any farther than that when Maria screamed.

  Jake bolted out of his room, his wet feet slipping on the floor, and crashed on his left hip. Crying out in anger as much as pain, he got back to his feet and limped into Maria’s room, where she stood frozen in one corner, her eyes bulging. A large white snake lay coiled in a perfect circle on the bed, the blanket disheveled where Maria had drawn it back. The snake’s head turned from Maria to Jake, blinking. Jake had never seen an albino snake before.

  “Stay right there.” He gestured with both hands.

  “I’m not moving!”

  Jake ran into the living room, snatched the phone, and carried it to where Maria could see him. He called the front desk and waited.

  “How can I help you?” a woman said.

  “There’s a giant white snake in my bed! Send somebody over here to kill it now!”

  “I’ll send a bellman directly, sir.”

  “Thank you.” He slammed the phone down and sprinted into the bedroom just in time to see the end of the snake’s tail disappear over the edge of the bed.

  Maria stood paralyzed.

  “Jump on the bed!” Jake said.

  Maria leapt onto the bed and then leapt off, throwing her arms and legs around Jake, who cried out a second time as her momentum drove him through the doorway and onto the floor.

  Maria sprang to her feet and helped him up, then she shoved him toward her room. “Close that door!”

  After following her instructions, Jake heard a knock on the front door. “Just a minute!” He put on his shorts and answered the door. A short Hispanic man in a white linen uniform stood there holding a long pole with a claw on one end and a squeeze handle on the other. His nametag identified him as Cabey.

  “Where’s the snake?” Cabey said.

  “In the bedroom on the right.”

  “How big?”

  “Maybe two inches in diameter. I don’t know how long.”

  Cabey marched into the living room and nodded to Maria, who clutched a long-handled mop like a baseball bat. Jake eased the mop handle away from the ceiling fan.

  Cabey opened the bedroom door, his movements slow and tense.

  “It’s under the bed,” Maria said in a high-pitched voice.

  Cabey got down on his hands and knees and pulled back the cover hiding the space between the bed and the floor. Then he peered under the bed. His scream caused Jake to flinch and Maria to scream, too.

  Cabey backpedaled out of the bedroom. “Un serpent de fantôme! Un serpent de fantôme!”

  “What’s he saying?” Jake said.

  “A ghost snake,” Maria said.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake.” Jake took the mop handle from Maria and strode past Cabey.

  “Serpent fantôme! Serpent fantôme!”

  Jake got down on his hands and knees as Cabey had done, only he held the mop handle like a lance, its tip poised before his face. With his free hand, he flung back the draped sheet.

  The snake appeared even whiter in the darkness, almost glowing. It hissed at Jake, its forked tongue flicking out, then launched its fanged jaws at his face.

  Jake recoiled, and the snake’s jaws clamped down on the mop handle. He seized it just behind its head, his fingers sinking into the scaly flesh. Then he dragged the pallid head forward, forcing the mop handle down the snake’s throat. The serpent focused on Jake with reptilian malevolence.

  Rising to his knees, Jake pulled the snake’s head along the mop handle, forcing the wood deep inside its body. The snake gurgled, syrupy saliva drooling from its immobilized jaws. Jake continued to thread the creature’s body along the handle. The front of the snake’s body appeared rod straight, while the rest of it curled in the air. Each pull of Jake’s hand brought the hate-filled eyes closer to his until the snake had been force-fed the entire mop handle and only eight inches of tail remained twitching.

  Jake offered the snake shish kebab to Cabey.

  He waved his hands. “No, senor! Serpiente del fantasma!”

  “I thought you might say that.” Jake noticed that Maria now held Cabey’s grabber.

  Stepping into his shoes, Jake carried the snake on a stick outside, threw it on the ground, and stomped its head into pulp. Its blood was red but its skull was white.

  “All you have to do now is clean it up,” Jake told Cabey when he went back inside.

  TEN

  They ate dinner at the resort’s restaurant on the beach. Maria drank two margaritas, but Jake stuck with Diet Coke.

  Walking up the steep driveway to their suite in the settling darkness, Jake pointed at the mop handle on the ground. “Someone took the snake.”

  “Why didn’t they take the mop handle, too? Isn’t it covered with guts or whatever snakes have inside them?”

  Jake leaned forward. “I can’t tell in the dark.” But the handle appeared clean to him.

  Maria looked around. Tree frogs chirped in the woods around them. She rubbed her arms. “Come on. Let’s go inside.”

  Jake unlocked the door and turned on the lights. They had left the air-conditioning on and he lowered its output. Then he went into Maria’s room and peeked under her bed and inside her closet.

  “No ghost snakes,” he said when he reentered the living room, but Maria had disappeared. Feeling a breeze coming from his room, he realized she had opened the glass door and stood smoking a cigarette on the patio, the full moon reflecting silver blades on the ocean’s surface. He couldn’t see her face, just her bare back above the black dress she wore.

  “You look beautiful,” he said when he joined her.

  “You’ve now seen just about my entire wardrobe for this trip. I didn’t pack to entertain.”

  Looking into her eyes, Jake saw the moon in them. “I thought you were cold.”

  “I didn’t say that. I said I wanted to come inside.”

  Maria kissed him, and he tried not to show too much excitement when he responded. He knew she was riding a roller coaster.

  She took a drag on her cigarette and exhaled smoke. “Who would have thought that we’d be together like this on some crazy island?”

  “Not me.” Although he had been attracted to her while mourning Sheryl, Jake thought he’d lost his opportunity with Maria after everything that had happened with Edgar and Katrina.

  This time he kissed her. When they finished, she stepped back, pulled the straps of her dress over her shoulders, and wiggled out of the garment. She wore no bra or panties, and the gold cross between her breasts gleamed in the moonlight.

  Jake took her in his arms and kissed her again, then spun her around so she faced the ocean. He unzipped his pants and dropped them around his ankles, then slid inside her. She pres
sed her palms against the railing and pushed against him. His hands settled on her hips, and he thrust into her wetness, her moans rising on the sea breeze. Somewhere in the darkness a seagull cawed, reminding Jake of Edgar.

  Maria raised herself high in the air, removing him from her, and his penis stood naked and alone.

  “Inside,” she said, draping her arms around his neck. “You’re not having this without a condom.”

  Jake swept her off her feet and carried her into his bedroom, where he set her on the bed. A pack of condoms lay on the bedside table.

  “Why do you think I let you have the room with the patio?” Maria said. “I knew I’d end up in here.”

  He leaned close to her. “What happened to ignoring our feelings for the good of the mission?”

  “Fuck it,” she said, kissing him. “Fuck me.”

  He was happy to oblige.

  In the morning, they ate fresh fruit from room service in their underwear.

  “I’m not used to seeing you for breakfast,” Jake said.

  “Where am I going to go?”

  “There is another bedroom.”

  “What, with the snakes?”

  “You’re a cop. You deal with vermin every day. You mean to tell me you’re afraid of a little snake?”

  “Little?” She stood. “Papi, I’ve collared suspects smaller than that.” She stepped out of her panties. “But what you did to that snake? I gotta say, you impressed me.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  She straddled him in his chair. “Oh yeah.”

  They stood on a bluff overlooking immense green trees, the rain forest stretching before them.

  With the Fiesta behind them, Maria raised the binoculars to her eyes. “According to the map, that hazy building in the distance must be Malvado’s palace. El Miedo is too far away to see.”

  Jake took the binoculars from her and studied a three-story yellow structure gleaming in the afternoon sunlight. Terraces overlooked a fountain and a topiary garden. “You could get lost in that forest and wander around for days.” He shifted his view to a dark gray building topped by spires. “That looks like a church.”

  “Someone’s coming.”

  Lowering the binoculars, Jake saw a car approaching on the road below them. He tossed the binoculars through the open driver’s side window onto the backseat. A moment later, he discerned a tan vehicle with strobes mounted on its roof.

  “I didn’t call 911, did you?” Maria said.

  Jake slid his camera out of his pocket. “Go stand across the street.”

  Maria crossed the street and faced him with one hip sticking out and a hand upon it. “How’s this?”

  Jake waved her to the left. “I can’t see the palace.”

  She moved over.

  He snapped a photo. “Perfect.”

  Maria returned to the Fiesta as the police car stopped next to them.

  A short, dark-skinned Hispanic man with a thick mustache got out of the car and set a hat over his balding head. His short-sleeved shirt revealed slender arms, which he spread wide apart. “Bonjour. Buenas tardes.”

  “Good afternoon,” Jake said.

  “Ah. Americanos.” He tipped his hat to Maria.

  “Si,” Maria said. “Bon après-midi.”

  “A lovely day, is it not?”

  Jake nodded. “Very.”

  “You are tourists?”

  “Yes. We’re staying at Mount Pleasant Resort.”

  “I have a cousin who works there. I see you are admiring our national rain forest.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Maria said. “It reminds me of El Yunque in Puerto Rico.”

  “Oh? I’ve never been there.”

  You’ve never left Pavot Island, Jake thought.

  “But why do you observe our beauty from here on the roadside? We have very nice tours for our visitors.”

  Maria held up the brochures in her hand. “We were just on our way to see the Church of St. Anthony, but we had to pull over when we saw this view.”

  The policeman’s gaze flitted to Maria’s cross. “You are Catholic?”

  “Si.”

  “St. Anthony’s is the oldest church on Pavot Isle. The architecture is magnificent. May I?” He held out one hand, and Maria gave him the brochures, which he looked through. “I have a cousin who works at the Rabaud Rum Plantation. The tour is very nice, but I don’t recommend driving there. They are too generous with their samples.” He winked at Jake, then handed the brochures back to Maria. “And you will find much fine shopping in Pavot City, mademoiselle.”

  “Gracias.”

  The man turned to Jake. “I would like to offer you some advice, monsieur. Enjoy the resort. Enjoy our wonderful city and our attractions. But for your own safety, avoid isolated areas like this. I like to believe we have a good police force, but we have plenty of voleurs, and tourists are targets.”

  “Thank you. We’ll be careful.”

  “Also, I recommend that you do your sightseeing during the day. Stay on the resort at night. I would regret it if anything happened to you.”

  “We will.”

  “Bonne journée.”

  “Au revoir,” Maria said.

  The man offered Maria a slight bow, then returned to his car and drove off.

  “He was Hispanic,” Maria said. “He understood Spanish. But every time I spoke to him in Spanish, he answered in French.”

  “Did you see the tattoo on his arm?” Jake said.

  “Yes. A black snake.”

  “Now we have to visit that church in case he checks up on us.”

  They visited St. Anthony’s, then the rum factory. On a narrow highway flanked by palm trees, en route to Pavot City, Maria sampled the radio stations while Jake drove. Salsa music. Reggae. Calypso. French news. All of it sounded generic, as if produced and programmed by the same person.

  “Jacek Maban is Malvado’s Minister of Cultural Affairs,” Miriam had told them. “No movie is shown, no program is broadcast, no concert is held, and no guitar is strung without his say-so. Nothing suggesting freedom of religion or democracy is ever absorbed by Pavot residents through legitimate means.”

  A city skyline appeared in the distance. Jake counted a dozen buildings at least ten stories tall and twice as many half that size. “It’s bigger than I expected.”

  “But there’s so little traffic going into the city. We’ve passed only three cars in the last twenty minutes, and according to the map, this is a major highway.”

  As they drew nearer, Jake noticed the buildings appeared gray. “They’re mostly old buildings. I see just one that isn’t made of concrete.”

  A single black tower reflected sunlight off its tinted windows.

  “How much do you want to bet that’s the capital?” Maria said.

  “Or at least police headquarters.”

  Raindrops spattered the windshield, and Jake switched on the wipers. The rain came down harder, then stopped two minutes later and the sun shone again.

  “Welcome to the Caribbean,” Maria said. She rolled down her window and lit a cigarette.

  Nerves, Jake thought.

  “I wish I had my gun.”

  So did Jake.

  Jake and Maria entered the city just after 6:00 p.m. Golden sunlight gleamed on an enormous billboard that showed a muscular black man dressed like a general in a royal-blue uniform. He was saluting, and a wide smile split his face. Three officers in khaki uniforms, rendered much smaller, saluted him from the lower left-hand corner. The style of the painting reminded Jake of US propaganda art during World War II. Behind the general, palm trees waved before a blue sky and a yellow sun. Bright red letters declared, Bienvenue! Bienvenida! Welcome! Pavot Ville, Capitold’lle de Pavot.

  “Something tells me our friendly dictator doesn’t smile like that in person,” Jake said.

  “Something tells me he isn’t built like that, either.”

  Jake noted mostly small cars parked on the street and very little traffic. A police car pass
ed them, then a jeep, then a taxi.

  “There are a lot of bicyclists,” Maria said.

  “And pedestrians.”

  The buildings were spaced farther apart than Jake had thought at first glance, with small, single-story shops between them. He drove the length of the city in twenty minutes, then crossed over to a parallel avenue and drove back. Men of all ages drank beer outside the shops, children with serious expressions played on the sidewalks, and women in pairs pushed strollers and half-full shopping carts.

  “Look at their faces,” Maria said. “It’s like the hood, only worse. Utter hopelessness.” Chain-link fences topped by coils of razor wire surrounded buildings with curtained windows and balconies. “Most of these residential buildings are projects.”

  Jake didn’t ask why she was so certain. On every street corner they passed the Pavot flag: a vertical red stripe over a black background. “What street are we looking for?”

  “Rue de Verger.”

  He slowed down. “Ask for directions.”

  Maria called out to two black women carrying groceries, “Excuse me? Por favor.”

  The women turned and Jake stopped the car.

  “Do you speak English?”

  The women shook their heads.

  “How about Spanish?”

  They shook their heads again.

  “Nous cherchons le restaurant Coucher du Soleil dans la Rue de Verger.”

  Jake sighed. “What is that, Frenglish?”

  “Let’s see you do better. It’s no stranger than what people around here speak. The Hispanics speak French, and the blacks speak Spanish.”

  The women conferred with each other, then one pointed ahead, held up two fingers, waved her hand like a swimming fish, then held up three fingers.

  “Merci.”

  The women bowed their heads and resumed walking.

  “What did they say?” Jake said.

  “We’re close. Two blocks up and three over on the left.”

  Jake followed the directions. Palm trees obscured many of the shops, and a police car passed a trio of emaciated men who looked like dead men walking.

  “Scarecrows,” Maria said.