by Regina Doman
A shudder ran through her, and she suddenly remembered following Michael down that secret stair, to the little hollow with the twisted tree and the heavy sense of squalor….
The cave. Michael’s old hiding place. That’s where they must have taken Paul.
The answer was hardly reassuring. She ran to the veranda and looked out towards her home. She couldn’t see or hear anyone coming. Her sisters must have told Dad by now, but perhaps something had delayed them. There was nothing for it but to go herself.
Turning back into the woods, she raced down the narrow steps back to Alan’s boat, trying to think and plan as she plunged downwards. By the time she reached the boat’s shrouded hiding place, she had the beginnings of a strategy. Michael was not going to win if she could help it.
After devising several inventive but obscene games for their amusements with Paul’s person, Michael and his cronies appeared to give up. They all settled themselves on logs, opened new drinks, and lit up fresh joints, gazing at him with almost professional perplexity. Paul saw Michael down two more of the pills.
Paul waited wearily, feeling the sweat and beer drip off of him. Flexing his raw wrists against their ropes, he tried to drive down the swelling in his upper arms. And his wound was starting to ache from the sheer exertion. Center, center, he told himself. Still yourself. Trust.
“New game,” Michael said suddenly. “Who has a pen?”
Todd did, and handed it over. Michael twiddled with it, his eyes gleaming. He said, “Each one of us has to come up with a few appropriate words and take turns inscribing them with the pen somewhere on this clown’s skin. Then, we vote on the one we like best, and carve it into his flesh as a permanent reminder of this encounter.”
He pulled out his knife, snapped it open, and thrust its silver point into the log he was sitting on, with another smile at his victim. Paul realized a line had been crossed.
“Oh, fun!” Dillon said, stumbling to his feet. “Give me the pen. I’ve got a good one.”
Paul prepared himself, but winced as the man scrawled an obscene word across his chest with the sharp-tipped permanent-ink pen, driving the point in hard as he wrote. The result was greeted with howls of raucous laughter.
“Oh, gimme that, I’ve got one,” Mark hurried up and took the pen from Dillon.
Mark wrote his message up one of Paul’s arms and down the other one, snickering to himself the whole time. Paul turned his head aside so he wouldn’t have to smell the guy’s alcoholic breath, and attempted to let go of the pain once more. It didn’t help that Mark was standing on his foot. He caught a glimpse of what Mark had written and was repulsed.
“That’s a good one,” Todd said appreciatively.
“F—Fiddlesticks,” Craig lumbered to his feet and snatched the pen from Mark. “You’re too long-winded.”
He squeezed Paul’s cheeks, and, squinting, wrote something across Paul’s forehead, the pen slipping in the sweat. He wiped off Paul’s forehead and outlined his letters again. It took him several attempts to write the one word. “Oooh!” the party exclaimed.
“We’re running out of room,” Brandon complained, after three other words had been written.
“We can always untie him and turn him around—there’s more room behind,” Craig said, with a snicker.
But no one else came forward. After a moment, the ringleader stood up.
“All right then,” Michael said, pulling the blade from the log and tossing it back and forth in his hands. “We vote.”
At the boat, Rachel groped in the darkness, pulled out the emergency kit, cursing her shaky hands and grabbed the flares and the matches. Then she flipped the alarm switch on the boat to “On.”
A loud zooming alarm started echoing over the water and the land. Rachel sprang into the woods, struck a match, and lit the flares one by one and threw them in the air as they exploded. Then she ran in the opposite direction, hoping the noise hid her approach, making her way up the steep wooded slope towards the cave.
Paul heard the noise of the alarm first. He stretched his numbed fingers and relaxed them, praying. Someone had come. The others heard it next, and were startled.
“That can’t be the police,” Craig said.
“I don’t think so,” Michael got to his feet, snapping the knife closed and putting it into his pocket. “If it is, tell them I drove the clown back to the shore hours ago. You got me? He’s gone.”
He moved to the back of the cave and clicked off the light. The cave transformed from dull gray into indigo light, and after a moment, Paul saw the men, changed into dark blue shadows, slip out of the hollow one by one. But Michael stopped by Paul and pulled out a handkerchief. Methodically he folded the cloth into a triangular half and stretched it across Paul’s mouth and knotted it at the back of the head. Then he thrust most of the cloth into Paul’s mouth with two fingers.
“Even if it is the police, they’ll never find anyone down here,” Michael murmured, tightening the ends of the gag as Paul choked and worked fruitlessly with his tongue to push the wad of cloth out. “Don’t think you’re going to get out of your nice helicopter ride.” He slid into the darkness.
With an exertion, Paul made himself slow his gulping and found that he could still take in air around the gag and through his nose, although it was difficult. Now that he couldn’t breathe so easily, he found it too hard to remain firm on his feet. Unwillingly his body sank down against the ropes, which squeezed him like vises. Shuddering, he felt pain coursing through him from all different directions. He was cold, drained, and desperately thirsty. But temporarily, at least, he had a respite. Until they returned.
Rachel crouched in the bushes as the seven men ran by her, down the slope. As she had guessed, they had come from the direction of the cave.
As soon as she was sure they had all left, she crept stealthily upwards, until she reached the massive rock that hid the cave. She moved swiftly through the bracken around to the entrance. There was a rank smell coming from the cave—of spilled beer, sweat, and worse things. Listening at the entrance, she heard someone’s labored breathing.
“Paul,” she called in a whisper.
She felt her way around the stone and looked into the cave.
There was a pool of moonlight, cut into odd shapes by the branches of the disfigured tree. Bound to its bare trunk was a mostly naked man, his head down, his chest heaving, his arms twisted back by ropes. Catching her breath in shock and repulsion, she barely recognized her friend.
He was far from the skilled rescuer she had last seen, and even further from the splendid flute-playing god on the rock. The laughing, joking, persistent goodness that was Paul had been stretched, scarred, and humiliated.
Her stomach violently wrenched inside her, and part of her wanted to turn and run away. But if this was real, she couldn’t leave him. As if in a nightmare, she took a step forward, her stocking feet crunching on broken glass, and stretched out a wavering hand to touch him. She felt the smooth, damp skin of his shoulder, crossed by tiny red cuts.
With a gasp for air that was almost a sigh, he lifted his head heavily, his brow crowned with shame, and the amount of pain reflected in his eyes was almost too much for her to bear.
Hurriedly, she came up to him and put her hands around his neck to undo the gag, looking up as she felt for the knots so that she wouldn’t have to look him in the face. Her fingers pulled at the tight little knot obstinately, and at last it came loose. She worked the wad of cloth out of his mouth, damp with saliva.
“Rachel, don’t stay here. Go get help,” he said huskily after he got his breath. She could feel his intense shame.
“I’m not going to leave you,” she said fiercely, licking the tears that were falling into her mouth. She ran her fingers over his face, attempting to wipe some of the sweat away. As she did so, she brushed his lips with the tips of her fingers, and trembled at the deep feelings that welled up within her.
Quickly, she groped around him, naked or not, trying to f
ind the knots. Finding one buried in his ribs, she began to pull at it.
“They’ll come back, and find you,” he whispered, attempting to get back on his feet.
She didn’t care. A loop came out, and she quickly pulled the knot apart. She started to pull the rope from his chest, but it caught again. Following it, she found another knot, and began to worry it.
“Rachel, please go.” His voice was a rasp.
“Not without you,” she answered stolidly.
“Rachel, please,” Paul insisted, his voice more urgent but quieter. “I hear something.”
“I’m never leaving you again,” she whispered intensely, curling her fingers through the rock-hard knot and pulling it, softening it, coaxing it loose. He was almost free.
Paul seemed to stiffen, listening. “Rachel,” he whispered. Then, he barked a warning, “Rachel!”
Too late, she felt fingers clamping around the back of her neck and pinching tight. She flailed and blackness swarmed over her vision and she sank down into murk.
twenty-one
Paul twisted towards Michael as Rachel dropped to the floor of the cave. The blond man was almost laughing as he released her neck.
There still was not much margin left for Paul, but he threw himself forward against the loosened ropes and hit Michael hard with his shoulder, throwing the man off balance. Twisting himself back up, Paul waited until Michael predictably struck at him. He blocked the blow with his shoulder then butted him with his head. He could feel himself coming loose from the tree, although the rope around his ankles held him back.
Then Michael darted his fists and seized two handfuls of the ropes that swung around Paul’s chest and fell back, pulling hard. With his foot to Paul’s chest, he kicked Paul backwards against the tree, aiming blows on his scar.
Winded, Paul was squeezed back against the trunk of the tree by one rope that still caught him around the stomach. He wrestled to keep fighting but Michael was out of reach now, standing just out of range and bracing himself with the ropes.
“Got you,” Michael panted, crossing the two ends of the ropes, giving them a deft twist and spreading his arms to drive the knot down against Paul’s chest. When he was sure that Paul was trapped again, he knotted the rope a second and third time and lunged forward with a powerful blow to strike him.
Paul tensed himself, but Michael paused, his hand hovering above Paul’s vocal chords. Slowly the rage in his eyes took on a new tint, and he dropped his eyes to Rachel’s body.
That was exactly what Paul had been hoping to avoid. He lunged forward at Michael again, but the blond man wasn’t interested. He lowered his hands and smiled at Paul’s struggles. “She did call the police after all, the little chit. But Craig is up there explaining to the officers how I drove you to a mainland bar for a friendly chat hours ago. Even if they do search my property, they won’t find you here—either of you.” His eyes wandered down to Rachel again.
Paul saw that the combination of the drugs and alcohol had heightened Michael’s sense of power and obscured his judgment. He tried to speak, but the words came from his dry throat like puffs of wind.
Michael merely cursed at him as he leaned over the unconscious girl and lifted up a handful of her inky dark hair. There was no response from Rachel. Paul watched miserably. He had no weapons left to stop the man, and they both knew it.
“She doesn’t mean that much to me,” Michael mused, toying with her tresses. “But even so…” He inspected the back of Rachel’s calves with a finger. “Quite a dish. Made for our pleasure, wasn’t she? Tell me, did you really love her, or did you just want to—”
He paused and looked up at Paul. “You really love her, don’t you?”
His eyes were cold. “Too bad for you.”
Rachel woozily resurfaced into consciousness, and found her cheek pressed against the gritty stone floor of the cave. Someone was behind her, talking. His smooth, steady voice made her skin crawl. Now the distinction between nice and good was chillingly clear.
“You think she came back here for you? No, she came back here because she’s hungry for what I can give her.”
It was Michael’s voice. She felt a sudden urge to vomit. He was wrong. She had no taste now for anything from him. But when she tried to push his hands away, she found that she couldn’t move. His knee was planted on her back, pinning her down.
Michael chuckled. “You know what I’m going to do now, clown? I’m going to eat her alive in front of you. And man, you are going to watch me.”
She tried to wrest herself away, but he merely laughed at her. He had a hand over her mouth, and was working a gag down her throat. Becoming aware of his other hand tracing a line from her neck slowly down her back, as though he were deciding where to start cutting her open, she tried to jerk herself away. He squeezed her neck once more, cutting off her resistance abruptly, and black bees swarmed around her head, stinging her with sharp pricks of light.
She tried to scream as he started pulling up her skirts, but all that she could manage was a strangled gasp through the gag. It was as if her throat was full of sand.
Then she became aware that Paul was crying out in a strange, gravelly voice, but she couldn’t understand what he was saying. Nonsense syllables with an odd, familiar resonance. Over and over again he was crying them, struggling against his hoarseness, louder and louder.
He’s saying the rosary in Japanese, she recognized.
The words had an effect on Michael. He hissed, “Shut up!” when Paul began. But when Paul defiantly cried the words again, something in Michael seemed to snap.
He got to his feet, screaming at Paul to stop. And as he did, Rachel twisted to her knees and scrambled up towards the exit of the cave. But Michael put her into a headlock. Scratching his arms and tearing through the gag, she bit his forearm, hard. He got his arm out of her mouth and started to shake her. Paul kept intoning his prayer in a high cracked voice, more and more insistently, and Rachel felt the power of words storming the heavens, and was sure, although she didn’t know how, that the words would not return void—
And then suddenly a new voice broke in, a roar of battle-hardened fury.
“Let go of my daughter!” Dad bellowed, seizing Michael by the shoulders and throwing him against the wall of the cave. Rachel saw her enemy crumple to the ground, out cold for the second time that night.
Winded, she staggered towards Paul, and collapsed on the ground by his bare feet.
Then Dad was lifting up her head, saying anxiously, “Rachel? Are you all right?” The gag was pulled out of her mouth, and she breathed, relief flooding over her. She knew they were saved.
“Help Paul,” she managed to say.
She became aware of Prisca, standing with her back to the entrance of the cave and hollering, “Hey! Mr. Policeman! We’re over here! Yes, on the side of the cliff! There’s a hidden cave over here! Wait, I’ll come and show you.”
Paul was grateful, and happy. He sat in the police boat, clothed again, rubbing his wrists and trying, but not too hard, to stay awake. There would be police reports to make in the morning, and probably more grief to go through with the arrests of the night, but right now, he was free, having been released with some hesitation by the paramedics who had come to the island. After a long drink and a plunge into the bay, whose salt water soaked his cuts in a stinging but healing bath, Paul felt certain, and had argued with them, that most of the effects of his ordeal would be erased after sleep, but they still wanted him to come to the hospital the next day.
But right now he could simply be happy. Colonel Durham sat across from him in the boat, one arm around Rachel, and the other arm around Prisca. The moon shone above them, and her light danced on the water. Paul yawned, and grinned up at the moon.
“Thank you,” he said.
“I know who you’re really talking to,” Rachel spoke up from beneath her dad’s arm. Her sea green eyes sparkled at him.
Colonel Durham didn’t ask, but he grinned at Paul. Then
he reached across, and unexpectedly tousled his hair, just as if Paul were his son.
“We’ve got to get you cleaned up,” he said. “You won’t believe what’s written across your forehead.”
“Don’t tell me,” Paul said cheerfully, but he saw that Rachel’s face had grown somber.
“It’s not fair,” she said. “That word’s not true, for one thing. It wasn’t right that you had to—go through this—when I’m the one at fault.”
“Don’t take all the credit, Rachel,” Prisca put in. “All of us made mistakes.”
“But Paul’s the one who suffered most for it,” Rachel said.
Paul flushed. “Don’t worry about it,” he said.
“But it’s not fair,” Rachel said again, looking over the bay.
“It’s okay,” Colonel Durham said. “He’s a man. He can handle it. Every good man has to take that sort of stuff once in a while.”
Paul nodded, thankful for the articulation, and felt himself losing consciousness. He yawned. “There’s only one thing I ask, Rachel.”
“What’s that?” she said, turning to look at him once more, her lovely face still grave.
“Try to be a whole person. Not just a night person, or a day person. Be the kind of person who can live in both. Like a person is supposed to do.” He yawned again. “Sorry if this is a little incoherent. But that’s all I ask.”
He thought he heard Rachel say, “Is that all?” but now, being fully asleep, he couldn’t answer her.
Rachel observed that Paul remained essentially asleep for the rest of the night. Of course, by this time, it was early Saturday morning. Sallie and all the girls were awake when the escaped captives and their rescuers returned. Paul roused himself long enough to get out of the police boat, thank the officers, and be mobbed by a mass of crying, ecstatic girls who had been sure they would never see him alive again. Rachel had to grin as she watched him, his lids constantly edging down over his eyes, attempting to be civilized and aware and respond to the dozens of breathless questions. She half-expected him to pitch forward, snoring, at any moment.
