Sunset Sanctuary

by R J Castiglione

  The way he stood there, feet spread apart, arms slightly raised, head cocked to the side, made him seem demonic. And now, late at night enough for the hurricane to have reached nearly full-force, the deafening sound of rain made me freak out.

  The scar on my scalp twinged, still tender after only three weeks of healing. And it reminded me of that night.

  Three weeks ago, nearly to the day, I had come home after a double shift. I had taken the extra hours on a whim because, well, money.

  And that meant by the time I got home, Jeff was waiting. And angry. And drunk.

  My current feeling of nausea mounted as I remembered the argument we had in Atlanta over how stupid I was. I couldn’t even remember to text him that I’d be late, and how he could do so much better than me. I didn’t even manage to have dinner ready or laundry done.

  I remembered apologizing to him until I was groveling because, at the time, I believed he was right, and I didn’t want to lose him over my ineptitude. I was worthless. I was stupid. He did deserve more than me. And my groveling sent him into a rage.

  Then that caricature of myself shattered when he first connected his curled fist with my stomach, sending me straight to the ground, followed by a swift and violent kick to my ribs, followed by a stomp on my head, his heel to my face. If he had been wearing shoes, I might have lost an eye.

  And lastly, as I managed to raise myself to my hands and knees, the final assault. Jeff, in a fit of fury over my “ineptitude,” grabbed me by the collar and started choking me with my own shirt.

  I had thought then he would murder me, the way he laughed. He was having the time of his life as he tossed me around like a rag doll. The last thing I remembered on that fateful night weeks ago was the glass ashtray. I hung my head low as the heavy, shining object connected with my skull. And hours later, I awoke in the hospital, having been told I was found on the street blocks away from the apartment.

  I honestly thought I escaped him when I came to Maui. But here he was, silently waiting for me to move, a puma ready to pounce.

  The way he stood there terrified me the most. I feared this was it. Had he come here to finish what he started back in Atlanta?

  The coward in me took over. I fled. The sound of our squeaking sneakers could be heard over the pounding rain. I knew he was chasing me. Even as I ran up one flight of stairs to the second level of the nearly empty school, with everyone enjoying the lighted gymnasium, I could tell he was gaining on me.

  So I ran. Down another flight of stairs at the end of the second floor where I practically threw my body into a door’s security bar. The change in pressure caused me to be sucked outside. After one strong gust of wind, the door slammed shut behind me.

  I continued to run, the wind tossing me around like a feather. I dashed further away from the school as the razor-blade like rain stung my skin until I found myself at the baseball diamond.

  I didn’t know if Jeff had followed me outside. I didn’t care. Without looking back, I was through an empty gate and took shelter in one of the dugouts, water already pooling below me, filling the small structure too quickly for it to drain away.

  I crouched on the bench as the storm enveloped me, screaming in my ear as though it were a dark spirit intent on driving me insane.

  But at least I was protected from most of the rain. And after a few minutes, I knew Jeff hadn’t followed me outside.

  I should call for help was a singular thought I couldn’t act on. I pulled my phone out. No signal. With nowhere to go, I buried my head between my knees and rocked back and forth on the metal bench, where I started to have a complete meltdown.

  11

  Morning 20

  It was past midnight, and nothing had changed. I felt like a statue in a graveyard, curled into a protective ball as the storm raged around me. It inhaled and exhaled against me with a breath that felt tepid, clammy, and sinister.

  I had been through hurricanes before, but this one took the cake. It wasn’t just a hurricane. It was a titan, the pent up and released rage of some forgotten ocean god.

  Just as I thought the hurricane was unrelenting, it seemed to calm, if only for a moment. The break made me wonder whether I was in the eye of the storm, although it was much too early for that. I heard on the radio as I prepared dinner that the eye would pass over Maui six hours from now.

  I lifted my head up. Cheeks raw from the mixture of salty wind and even saltier tears, I squinted through the rain, now falling straight from the sky as though God had turned on a faucet.

  And I saw her. A girl standing on the pitcher’s mound. I rubbed my eyes, thinking I imagined her, but she was still there, standing upright and proud and untouched by the storm, with sadness and grief written on her face.

  Am I dead? Did Jeff actually get me?

  I admired the young woman, with her thick black hair that flowed calmly down her back. She wore the most amazing red dress that swirled around her, barely disturbed by the wind. She had a single pink lily tucked behind her ear. She seemed to glow with an aura that stopped the rain around her from reaching the ground.

  In her hands, she held a feather fan. I recognized it as a Kahili, often shown in portraits of Hawaiian royalty. It was also just as undisturbed by the hurricane, dry as a bone.

  “Who are you?” I asked. My mousy, cracking voice was captured by the hurricane, so it was unlikely she heard.

  She smiled at me, and I felt all my panic and anxiety melt away. I looked at the young woman and knew then that I was going to be okay.

  She raised her free hand and gestured toward the school. I understood instinctively that it was safe to return. When I looked toward the building, then back to her, she vanished. The storm began to pick up, and I knew I had to get back inside. The dugout did not a hurricane shelter make.

  I worked my way around the building toward the entrance by the gymnasium. Even after midnight, some people were still arriving, most likely holdouts who thought they didn’t need to evacuate away from the shore.

  I followed one such group in, a pair of tourists by the look of them, and crept around them into the gym.

  The lights were dimmed. Over a hundred cots were laid out, occupied by mounds of people trying to fall asleep, only to be awakened by a loud snort, snore, or roof rattle whenever the storm picked up.

  The roar of the rain against the gym’s metal roof proved too deafening for many. Nearly every other cot was aglow with harsh blue light from a phone or tablet.

  As I walked between the rows of bodies, I did my best to carefully observe each person, afraid I might stumble upon Jeff again.

  Once through the gym, I heard some laughter coming from the hallway. Following it, I found Auntie in a classroom, desks pushed together to form a table where she was playing poker with some friends.

  Tad and Jim had their own game going in the corner and laughed and jested with one another as they played at war, slapping the pile of cards to declare victory each round.

  They were the first two to spot me shivering in the doorway. Tad shot to his feet and flew across the room at a speed that belied his size.

  He caught me just as my knees gave out. My mind didn’t realize how exhausted my body was. I awoke hours later, the storm still raging, my shirt, pants, socks, and shoes removed, drip-drying over the back of a nearby chair.

  I peeked over the sleeping bag I found myself tucked into and spotted Tad’s hulking figure leaning against the closed door. When he noticed I was awake, he glared at me and raised his finger to his mouth to demand my silence.

  I sat up, shivering as the sleeping bag slid down my torso. The room was unexpectedly cold.

  Staggering to my feet, wrapping the sleeping bag around my shoulders, I shuffled to the window, mindful of some of the other bodies littered around the room, which I now realized was a teacher’s lounge. Some of the older evacuees, including Auntie, claimed the small number of couches out of both necessity and comfort.

  Auntie, despite having the disposition of a y
oung woman, was still seventy-five. Her days of sleeping on cold floors were long behind her.

  I looked at some of the others on the floor, their faces lit up only by the menacing, gray glow of the sun trying to penetrate the torment swirling above our heads. I found Jim, snoring in a corner, but no sign of Calder or anyone else I recognized.

  I finally reached the window and gasped at the sight of naked palm trees bending in the wind, like toothpicks ready to snap.

  Some cars in the parking lot had slipped against the force of the wind. A few tipped onto their side. I placed my hand on the window, relieved to realize they were hurricane resistant glass, and could undoubtedly withstand the beating.

  As a single tear slid down my cheek at the sight of my new, old home being torn to shreds, a heavy hand landed on my shoulder, causing me to jump. Half expecting Jeff, I could breathe again when I saw Tad standing next to me, silently beckoning me to follow him outside.

  As he led me through the lounge, I noticed the clock on the wall that read 5 a.m. We would be only a handful of people awake at this hour. Through the gymnasium and into the locker room, Tad spun the dial on one of the padlocks and pulled out our bags, tossing me a dry shirt and shorts, and a pair of spare slippers I packed.

  As I slipped the shirt over my head, I could still feel him glaring at me, angry that I had disappeared for so long, ventured out into the storm, and came back a complete mess.

  I wondered if telling him about Jeff would make things easier or harder. Now clothed, I sat down on a bench across from Tad, who seemed to expect me to start first.

  “How much do you know about why I moved here? How much did my mom tell you two?”

  Tad raised his arms and curled his fists, waving them in the air to express his anger. “And what does that have to do with you going for a midnight stroll during a hurricane? Auntie almost passed out worried!”

  “Just answer the question, please.”

  My eyes began to well up, something Tad didn’t fail to notice. He sat down, never failing to keep eye contact with me. I could tell he was still frustrated, but he raised his eyebrows, cranked his head, and rubbed the back of his neck.

  “She didn’t say much. Just that your boyfriend attacked you, and you came here to get away from him. Why?”

  I hesitated, never having spoken to anyone aside from Calder about this. Even Calder didn’t get the brunt of the details. I unloaded on Tad in a monologue of word garbage, as though the last five years of my life demanded release.

  “It started off with small things, you know? Putting me down, yelling about little things, getting drunk, and grabbing my wrists too tight. Then he drank more. And got angrier. He would punch walls and throw shit, and then he decided he was tired of fixing the holes and started to hit me instead.

  “First, pushing me down, telling me how useless and worthless I was. Then slapping my arms and back to leave giant welts. Twisting my arm so hard it still hurts sometimes. Not to mention becoming more forceful and violent in bed.”

  Tad squirmed a little. I could tell he wasn’t too keen on talking about sex, despite how gay-friendly he turned out to be.

  I cleared my throat and wiped a forming tear before it could fall. Too much water was falling already from the storm. Now wasn’t the time for crying. Tad started to say something, but I stopped him.

  “Please. I just want to finish this. I need to get this off my chest.”

  He stopped himself, and gestured for me to continue, but shifted over to the bench to sit next to me. I could tell he struggled with how to handle this, and the way he turned into me to listen seemed to be the best way he could show he cared.

  “I knew I had to escape. I suppose the moment I decided to happened a few months before I actually left. I had a friend, Debbie, in a similar situation. Her husband was just as violent. The two of us had planned to escape together, to come here together. But then her husband killed her, and then himself. I never told anyone that, even Mom. Even when I disappeared for a few days to go to her funeral, no one knew, but when I came back, Jeff was even worse.”

  I looked up at a skylight in the locker room ceiling. The sky turned bright as we entered the eye of the hurricane. The wind died. The rain stopped. For a moment, I saw a bright white wall of clouds passing overhead. Everything went eerily silent.

  “I lost my ambition to leave when she died. We weren’t particularly close. She was in a guild in an online game we played together. I didn’t even know her address. Jeff never let me have real friends.

  “But then that night came three weeks ago. Jeff was drunker than usual and decided to take out all his rage on me. He didn’t just attack me. He….”

  I paused, swallowing a wall in my throat that held back a tsunami of wails and sobs and uncontrollable grief and anxiety. Breathing in and out didn’t seem to stop what was coming. I knew all too well the warning signs of an impending panic attack.

  It took Tad’s firm, steady hand on my shoulder to pull me away from it. The shock of his warm hand on my cold, clammy skin was enough to settle me and allow me to continue.

  “He was brutal. He didn’t just attack me. He tried to kill me. Sometimes I wake up at night panicked, still feeling him strangling me with my own shirt. And then he dragged me to the street and tossed me to the curb, like gutter trash.

  “I don’t think he meant for me to survive. When I woke up in the hospital, I remembered Debbie. After feeling the same fear she did before she died, I knew I didn’t want to become her, so I ran away.”

  “Brah….” Tad was at a loss for words. I could tell. His hand around my shoulder turned into an arm wrapped around my back. I leaned into him and felt, in a way, that Tad became more a brother to me than a cousin. Still, though, I felt guilty for unloading this all on him when who I really needed were the police, and a whole army of therapists I couldn’t afford.

  I enjoyed the familial moment for a minute, the two of us sitting in silence save the clattering coming from the other side of the locker room, sounds of people starting to wake up.

  “That’s not the worst of it, though. You want to know why I went outside, why I disappeared for hours?”

  Tad nodded, losing his grip on me as I stood up and paced back and forth in a panic.

  “He’s here,” I mumbled, before stopping and turning toward him. “Jeff’s here, on Maui. He came up to me while I was serving food. I freaked and ran outside and hid in the dugout for a few hours until…” I hesitated, not sure whether to tell Tad about the mysterious woman I saw. It would confuse him just as much as me.

  Tad shot up to join me. His anger mounted, this time not at me. He puffed his chest up and curled his fists. “You say he’s here? In the building?”

  “Doubtful. Jeff wouldn’t stick around. I still have the police report, and there are some cops here, right?” Fueled by Tad’s anger, I did something totally out of character and punched the locker with my palm. It definitely hurt me more than the locker. “I only hope he died in the storm. Knowing my luck, though, he’s fine. I just know he came here to finish what he started. This time there’s no doubt. He looked and acted like he wanted to murder me for leaving him.”

  I spent the next few minutes talking Tad down. He pretended at vigilantism, as though he alone would hunt Jeff down and kill him for daring to attack his family. But Jeff was gone. I knew this. Without knowing why, the woman in the storm seemed to want to protect me, whoever she was.

  Tad and I left the locker room after fetching the report, the only proof I could offer to local police.

  The lights in the gym were turned on now. People started waking up, a few of them going just outside the gym to assess the damage around the school before the storm picked up again.

  A lonely policewoman yelled at them to get back inside, knowing the calm would only last a few more minutes before the eye passed, this time with more force than the front side of it.

  Tad tried to get her attention, but it wasn’t until she had everyone safely back insi
de that she paid us any mind. The sky already started to darken, and the roar of the wind resumed, as though the very same, angry ocean god I imagined with Calder flipped a switch.

  The whole room grew quiet when a wall of rain struck the school, shaking the rafters above. I heard one idiot, a mainlander, warning people that the roof couldn’t take much more, as though he were an expert in hurricane-resistant design.

  Wanting more privacy, Tad led the policewoman, Officer Lanna, as she introduced herself, into a nearby empty classroom.

  I explained the situation as she read over the police report. All it took was one look at me to know it was real. I still sported slight bruising under my eye even twenty days later. I wondered if the bruise would ever fade completely.

  The way she spoke gave me hope. I thought of the mysterious woman and imagined that if she had a voice, it would sound like Officer Lanna. They even looked similar, with their dark, tanned skin, long hair, and small, albeit sturdy frame, only Officer Lanna wore her dark blue police uniform with black shoes and black utility belt, rather than a magnificent pink and red dress.

  Tad, meanwhile, stood in the doorway, making sure no one came in to disturb us.

  “I understand you’re frightened. Are you sure he’s not still here?”

  I shrugged. “When I came back inside, I looked around. I’m pretty sure he left.”

  She continued to review the police report, focusing intently on Jeff’s picture. “If you’re certain, I’ll notify the staff at the front door to let them know to detain him should he return. I’ll also tell the other officers. And when this storm is over, I want to see you first thing at the station to file a report. We’ll need to get a protection order. For now, that’s all we can do.”