Scar Island

by Dan Gemeinhart

  “Mommy and Daddy can’t help you.” He picked up the sword and tilted his head back and looked down his nose at Jason. “We don’t need their help. They’re the ones who sent us here, man! Screw them! And you want to, what, go running back? So they can blame us for what happened and send us to some other craphole? And you wanna do that to all of us?”

  “No. I just wanna go home. I’m sorry, Sebastian.”

  Sebastian shook his head. “Home? Home?” His face twisted, then darkened. “No,” he snorted. “You’re not sorry. But you’re gonna be.” He pointed with the sword to the shadows where Colin and Jonathan had just been. “Sinner’s Sorrow. Twenty minutes.”

  The watching boys gasped. Jason’s face went pale.

  Jonathan’s knees were still burning. And he’d spent only a couple of minutes on the Sinner’s Sorrow.

  “You can’t do that! That’th too long,” Colin protested.

  “Damn it, Colin. I’ve warned you to shut up.” Sebastian turned to face Colin squarely. His face was etched in hard lines of anger. His eyes bore black holes into Colin’s. He pointed the sword at Jason. “He gets twenty.” The sword swung until its point was inches from Colin’s nose. “You get ten.”

  “You can’t make me.”

  “The hell I can’t.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Really?” Sebastian’s eyes roved wildly through the room. They found Jonathan, and his jaw clenched. His sword swung to point at Jonathan. “Then your little buddy Johnny gets twenty. Is that what you want?”

  Colin looked back and forth between Sebastian and Jonathan. Jonathan’s mouth went dry and he tried to shake his head, but his neck wouldn’t move. Colin sniffed and pinched at his neck.

  “Okay. I’ll do the ten minuth.”

  Sebastian smiled. “I know you will. I’ll be running the watch.”

  “No.” Jonathan’s voice finally croaked free of his throat. Sebastian’s gaze swung to him. “I’ll do it. I’ll take the twenty.”

  Sebastian narrowed his eyes and shook his head.

  “No. Not you. This is Colin’s. And then he gets tonight’s coal duty. And no dinner. Come on. Jason’s first.”

  Jonathan took one look at Benny’s hungry leer and swallowed his protests.

  The windows showed pure night blackness when Colin and Jason limped up from the coal room. Sebastian and his favorites had already gone up to their rooms, and the only light in the dining room came from the three candles set on the floor in the middle of the circle of mattresses. Jonathan and the other boys were already in bed, lying awake and waiting.

  Colin crawled into his bed with a little grunt. His face was smudged with black coal dust. Jason fell onto his own mattress and pulled the blanket over his face.

  “Are you okay, Colin?” Walter asked in a hoarse whisper.

  Colin was lying on his back with one arm thrown across his eyes.

  “It wath bad,” he answered. “But not ath bad ath it’th gonna get around here.”

  The other boys looked at one another through the wavering candlelight.

  “Well,” Colin said, “are you going to read the thtory, Jonathan?”

  Jonathan bit his lip.

  “Sure,” he said, and opened the book to the page he’d bent down to mark his spot. “It’s a new chapter, called ‘I Travel Quite Across the Island.’ ” He took a breath and cleared his throat. The other boys rolled over onto their elbows to listen. The warmth of the candlelight caught their ready faces.

  “I mentioned before that I had a great mind to see the whole island,” he began to read, and if there was the drizzle of rain or the skittering of rats, the sounds were lost in the words of the story.

  The next morning, a supply boat was scheduled to arrive, with mail and food and anything else the Admiral had ordered. Sebastian had them all drilled and practiced and ready to go, waiting by the gates nearly an hour before the boat was supposed to get there.

  Gerald was standing ready in the dead Mr. Vander’s uniform.

  “Remember,” Sebastian was saying to them. “This ain’t no big deal. It was always us that unloaded all the stuff anyway. Mr. Vander’s gonna just be standing a little farther back this time, is all. I’ll do all the talking, if we have to do any. We do it quick, we do it quiet, and we get them out of here.”

  The boys all nodded, Jonathan included. He looked back over his shoulder. Across the courtyard, Benny stood by the closed doors that led to the dining room. Jason and Colin were locked inside. The key was in Sebastian’s pocket.

  “I don’t trust either one of you,” Sebastian had told them in front of the whole group that morning after breakfast. “And we can’t have you doing something stupid and messing this up for everyone.” The last Jonathan had seen of Colin, he was standing, pinching at his neck and frowning thoughtfully as he watched Sebastian stalk out into the courtyard, brandishing the Admiral’s sword. He also had the Admiral’s hat on his head. It was a new touch Sebastian had added that morning when he’d come down for breakfast. Either he had a huge head or the Admiral had had a small one. The hat fit him perfectly.

  Jonathan squinted out over the green and white of the tossing waves. Somewhere, just beyond his eye’s reach, was the real world. Waiting. He breathed in, then out, and shivered. He wasn’t ready yet.

  The mailbag was heavy over his shoulder. That was his job, to hand over their letters. Polite little lies scrawled in childish writing to keep their kidnapped ship afloat. In the bag was his own letter. And Jason’s new one, written that morning with Benny peering over his shoulder. Everyone’s letter was in the bag. Except Sebastian’s. Jonathan had noticed that: Sebastian never wrote a letter.

  “Hey! I hear it!” Tony called out, and everyone snapped to attention. They waited.

  “Aw, no, you didn’t,” Miguel said.

  “I did!” Tony repeated. “I still do! There it is!”

  All the eyes followed his pointing finger.

  The boat was bigger than Cyrus and Patrick’s little mail boat. Its noise was a deeper one, more rumble than whine, more easily lost in the constant low roar of the waves clawing at Slabhenge’s walls. It pushed through the waves instead of rising and falling and hopping between them.

  Gerald jumped up on his stool in the shadows by the gate opening and pulled the long coat tighter around him.

  “Okay, boys,” Sebastian said. “Here we go.”

  The boat rolled up sideways to where the staircase dropped into the depths. Sebastian and David ran down to the water’s edge, and a bearded man puffing a pipe threw a rope to them. Sebastian tied it off to the metal ring and the man slid a long wooden ramp over the rail of the boat.

  The two men in the boat began sliding bags, crates, and boxes down the ramp, where they were grabbed by a boy or two and dragged or carried up the stairs and through the gate into the courtyard.

  The boat rocked in the waves, and the ramp knocked and jostled, but it was all done in a matter of minutes. When the last crate was being hauled up the stairs, the bearded man waved to the fake Mr. Vander to come down to the boat.

  The boys still on the stairs looked at each other.

  “What do you need?” Sebastian asked the man.

  “What do you mean? I need someone to sign that the order was delivered, boy!” The man waved a clipboard up toward Gerald.

  “Oh,” Sebastian said, looking back at Gerald standing in the shadows. “I’ll bring it to him,” he added quickly, snatching the clipboard before the man could object. He dashed away up the stairs.

  Jonathan watched him talking with Gerald in the darkened archway. The man was watching, too, a frown on his bushy face.

  “Here,” Jonathan said to distract him. He shrugged the mailbag off his shoulder and handed it up to the boatman. The boatman coughed and spit. He took the mailbag from Jonathan’s outstretched hands and disappeared over the boat’s side for a moment, then reappeared with a different one.

  “Here’s your incoming,” he growled, handing it to Jo
nathan. Sebastian ran back to the boat and handed over the clipboard.

  “Mr. Vander signed it,” he panted.

  The man looked it over.

  “All right. And what about the next one?”

  “The next what?”

  The man pulled the pipe out of his mouth and shot Sebastian a withering look.

  “The next order, boy. I assume ye all will still be wanting to eat next week, aye?”

  Sebastian looked desperately up at Gerald, then over to Jonathan. Jonathan’s stomach twisted into a nervous tangle.

  “Oh, yeah, about that,” Jonathan said, licking his lips. “The Admiral’s a little behind. He’s kinda sick, see. Most of us are. Bad flu going around. He told us to tell you that he’ll be sending you next week’s order in the mail in a couple days.”

  The man squinted and looked back and forth between Jonathan and the overcoated figure in the gateway. He popped the pipe back into his mouth and blew out a few little clouds of thick smoke.

  “All right. Tell him to see that he does, then. I ain’t coming all the way out to this damned rock to ask him what he wants.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  With a grunt the man heaved on the ramp, and Jonathan and Sebastian helped him pull it back on board the boat. The boat’s motor roared and gurgled and the boat throttled away through the waves toward the mainland. Sebastian and Jonathan stood shoulder to shoulder, watching it go.

  “Nice save, Johnny,” Sebastian said.

  “No problem,” Jonathan replied, hefting the new mailbag onto his shoulder. “And it’s Jonathan.”

  They turned and walked up the stairs. The rest of the boys fell in behind them. In the courtyard, they swung the gate closed. The boat was already out of earshot, nothing more than a receding white-trailed dot in the green sea.

  The shipment was piled just inside the gate. A few big burlap sacks of flour and oatmeal and rice. A dozen or so big crates, and some smaller boxes.

  “Okay, everyone grab something,” Sebastian ordered. He picked up the sword where he’d left it leaning against the wall. “We’ll move everything into—”

  “Sebastian! Sebastian!” It was Benny’s frantic voice, screaming from across the courtyard. He was ramming the door to the dining room with one shoulder and calling back over the other. Sebastian sprinted across the courtyard with Jonathan, the rest of the boys following close behind.

  “It’s Colin!” Benny shouted as they ran up. “He’s going nuts!”

  They all crowded around the big windows that looked into the dining room.

  Colin stood panting in the middle of the room, by the Sinner’s Sorrow. In his hands he was holding the ax they used to chop the wood for the kitchen stove. Jonathan wasn’t sure what he was doing until another boy gasped, “Look at the Sinner’s Sorrow!”

  The wooden monster was nearly in ruin. Its top rail was completely gone, smashed and shredded. The dreaded kneeling rail was almost as bad, torn up and splintered by the sharp blade of the ax. Jason stood in the distant doorway to the kitchen, peeking timidly out.

  “Stop!” Sebastian shouted, his voice choked with fury.

  Colin’s sneaky smile came and went, and he raised the ax high above his head.

  “Don’t!” Sebastian roared, but the ax came rushing down and bit again into the Sorrow’s bottom rail. Through the window they heard the heavy thwock as it hit home, taking another bite out of the dark wood.

  Sebastian dug through his pockets and pulled out the ring of keys and fumbled with them, stepping to the door. Colin raised the ax and again brought it down.

  “You’re dead, Colin!” Sebastian screamed, jingling the keys and trying to find the right one. “Dead!”

  The ax flashed again and with a final crack the kneeling rail split and broke in half. Colin dropped the ax and looked toward the window where they all stood watching. His smile flitted to and from his face, shadowy and sad.

  Then Colin walked quickly over to the doorway that led into the depths of Slabhenge’s dark labyrinth. By the doorway sat an unlit lantern and a lumpy sack and the Admiral’s fancy hat. He picked up the lantern and the sack, then pulled the hat onto his head and looked back over his shoulder.

  “Stop!” Sebastian shouted, finally jamming the right key in the door and swinging it furiously open. But Colin just threw the sack over his shoulder, tossed a two-fingered salute at the crowd from the brim of the Admiral’s hat, and disappeared through the doorway.

  All the others came rushing in. Sebastian sprinted to the doorway but stopped at the edge of the windowless darkness.

  “Come back, you little jerk!” he hollered into the hallway, but the only answer was his own hollowly echoing voice. His lungs were heaving. He wiped at the corners of his mouth with his arm. “Bring me a lantern,” he barked over his shoulder.

  “No,” Jonathan said. “Let him go.”

  Sebastian spun around.

  “Let him go?! Why?”

  Jonathan shrugged, thinking fast.

  “What’s the point? Where’s he gonna go? We’re in a prison on an island.”

  Sebastian’s top lip snarled like a lion about to roar. He shook his head again, furious breaths hissing through his nose. The Scars all waited in silence.

  “Should I get a lantern?” Benny whined.

  Sebastian’s jaw clenched. He shook his head and spit angrily onto the floor. “Don’t bother,” he finally seethed. “There’s nowhere for him to run. He’s dead.” He turned his face back to the doorway and shouted at the top of his lungs. “You hear that, Colin? You’re dead! Have fun living with the rats!”

  He turned back to the staring crowd. He raised the sword and pointed it at them all.

  “No one helps him. No one feeds him. You do, you’re out, too. He’s dead to us. Got it?”

  His angry glare scoured the group. No one said a word. His eyes stopped at Jonathan, a scary kind of mad shining in them. Jonathan didn’t lower his gaze, but he didn’t raise his voice, either.

  “All right,” Sebastian yelled. “Get to work. Bring all that stuff in here.”

  Without a word, they turned and walked outside to bring in the supplies.

  They walked past the ruined Sinner’s Sorrow on their way to the door. Every pair of eyes secretly raced over the wrecked and ravaged torture device.

  “Way to go, Colin,” Jonathan whispered under his breath.

  Jonathan didn’t dare go back to visit the library that day. If he was seen ducking off into the passageways, Sebastian would be sure to think that he was helping Colin.

  Sebastian spent the rest of the morning sulking in his room or storming around the kitchen, chewing and slamming cupboard doors. With their leader so ill-tempered, all the boys laid low. Some played cards or hung out on the stairs watching the water, but the Robinson Crusoe group lay on their mattresses and listened to Jonathan read more of the story. By lunchtime, there was only a thin pinch of pages left of the book.

  Jonathan was halfway through his peanut butter sandwich when a shadow fell across the table. He looked up to see Benny’s sour face glowering at him.

  “Sebastian wants to see you in his room,” he said.

  “Okay,” Jonathan answered, taking another bite.

  “Now,” Benny said. Jonathan put his sandwich down and followed Benny up the passageway to the adults’ rooms.

  They walked past the door to the Admiral’s office, still closed and locked. The next door in the hall stood open, and Benny led him through it.

  Inside, Sebastian was lying on a huge, high bed. It was fancy and old-fashioned, with a tall pole at each corner and thick curtains that ran between them. All the curtains around the bed were pulled open and Sebastian lay propped up on a pile of pillows, watching a TV that was blaring on a little desk at the foot of the bed.

  “Here he is,” Benny announced proudly.

  “Leave us alone, Benny,” Sebastian said with a bored voice. Benny frowned and gave Jonathan a dirty look and then walked out, closing the door be
hind him.

  Sebastian sat up and scowled at the TV.

  “The reception sucks,” he said. “You can’t hardly see a thing.”

  Jonathan shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other.

  Sebastian blew out an impatient breath and slid off the bed. He sat down at the foot of the bed and clicked the TV off, then looked up at Jonathan.

  “Where is he?” he asked.

  Jonathan didn’t have to ask who Sebastian was talking about.

  “I don’t know,” he answered truthfully.

  “You’re his friend,” Sebastian persisted. “And I know you’ve been creeping around this place.”

  “I don’t know where he is,” Jonathan repeated. “This place is huge. He never told me he was leaving.”

  “I want him back. I don’t like him being out there. It’s not … right. I’m supposed to be in charge, right? I’m supposed to be taking care of everybody. I should know where he is, right?” Sebastian’s eyes were sharp and troubled.

  Jonathan shrugged. “It’s not your fault,” he said at last. “He ran away. You didn’t make him leave.”

  Sebastian looked away and nodded, then his eyebrows lowered and he looked back to Jonathan.

  “If you do see him, would you tell me?”

  Jonathan swallowed and looked away. He didn’t answer.

  Sebastian frowned and shook his head.

  “It didn’t have to be like this,” he said. “We could be doing this together, you know.”

  Jonathan looked at him.

  “Doing what?”

  “Running this thing. Being in charge. You’re smart. This was all your idea, remember. You didn’t have to make me the bad guy.”

  “I didn’t make you anything,” Jonathan protested.

  “Yeah?” Sebastian jumped to his feet. Jonathan took a step back. “Someone has to be the boss. Someone has to make it work. How else do you make everyone write a letter? How else do you make sure no one tells the boat guys? How else do you get people to feed the furnace? Huh? How do you make it all work otherwise?”