Tribulation

by Kaz Morran

  Ronin said, “He spent the last days of his life in screaming pain. It’s kind of scary, don’t you think? I mean, who knows—it might get you next. So how about it, hafu?” Ronin knelt down, bringing him and Taiyo face-to-face. Every word had weight. “Are you scared of the monster? No? Kristen and Nel are. They can’t stop crying.”

  That wasn’t true. Though, he wouldn’t have heard unless they’d shouted.

  Ronin continued, “Monsters come in many forms.”

  “It’s not a monster,” Taiyo said while trying to gauge the threat level Ronin posed. “It’s an animal. Animals are instinctual. If understood, they’re predictable.”

  “Do you consider people animals?”

  “People are complicated, but they’re still animals.”

  “More complex. Less predictable. Makes sense,” said Ronin. The goon walked away, but Taiyo’s relief was short-lived. Ronin came right back, kicking, rolling, and dragging a crate, which he put beside the rocky base of the mast at Taiyo’s feet.

  Ronin sat on the crate and said, “I’m not talking about the kind of monster that got Anton and Walter.”

  “So …”

  “I don’t buy that Anton drowned.” Ronin patted Taiyo’s legs. “I investigated his body. I saw the evidence.”

  Ronin investigated Anton’s body? A groan rose from Taiyo’s chest. When? Before or after Taiyo had? Was Ronin trying to convey that he knew Taiyo had gotten into the cairn first? Taiyo couldn’t possibly comprehend the psychology of Ronin Aro, but he knew the prognosis was bleak. They’d all been taken down a few tiers or mental stability since entering the Asylum, but Ronin was different. He’d come pre-installed with a special kind of crazy.

  Thick fingers strummed against the metal mast at the foot of the hammock. Along with the vibration, Taiyo could feel Ronin grinning like a preschooler with a secret.

  “Okay,” Taiyo raised his voice, hopefully enough to reach Kristen and Nel but not so loud that Ronin knew he was signaling them. “How about we convene a meeting with Nel and Kristen so we can all talk about it.” He started to prop himself up on an elbow but gave up, exhausted.

  “Can’t. They’re sleeping.”

  Taiyo drew in a breath and eased it out his nostrils. The lie was too blatant to bother refuting. “Later, then,” he said. “After we bury Walter.”

  Revisiting the site of Walter’s death was an unnecessary risk Taiyo didn’t want to take, but after going off alone to mark the death alongside the cave art, Taiyo could hardly argue against giving Walter some kind of funeral.

  The strumming stopped, and the hammock began to quake. Taiyo tensed. He gripped the hems on the sides of the netting, ready to spring out of the hammock.

  Ronin switched to Japanese. His voice firm but polite, like a probing cop or parent: “So, we’ll discuss the other monster then. The monster between just you and me. It is still just between you and me, right?” The mast shook harder as Ronin strengthened his hold.

  “I don’t know what you’re—”

  Ronin jumped up from the crate. “Liar!” He spat the word in Taiyo’s face.

  Taiyo reeled back, but Ronin snatched the hem and seized the momentum of the hammock. The sounds and smell of respiration moved closer, pricking Taiyo’s cheek.

  Calm once again, and hunched over Taiyo’s head, Ronin said, “There is something interesting about that name, isn’t there, hafu? MONSTAR-X.” The words slithered out, louder now: “Ah, What a fantastic idea for a name.”

  Taiyo shifted his weight away from Ronin, planning to roll out onto the ground, but Ronin yanked the net to keep Taiyo in. The hammock bounced and shook; the frame and mast groaned under strain. Taiyo held the hems, twirling and swinging while Ronin crooned his lullaby:

  “Monster. MONSTAR. … Ah, what a name. Monster. MONSTAR. … Oh, what’s in a name?”

  How did Ronin have the strength left to inflict torment? Compared to the rest of the candidates, he’d shown few signs of physical wither. Trapped on a ship, even an animal comes to see he has no place to go. He paces the gangway, refusing food and drink, exhausting himself; he runs wildly, port to aft, again and again, desperate that one time the view out to sea will change, until he either jumps ship or turns on his captors.

  Every few oscillations Taiyo felt a shove to keep the hammock going like some cruel rendition of a father pushing a swing. He mouthed to call for help, but the words didn’t come. He’d be fine, he told himself. He could handle this.

  “Monster. MONSTAR …”

  Ronin’s voice strengthened with each word he cast, each sentence gathering like a storm, a televangelist possessed by the demons he professed to exorcize. “The monster gestates inside you. It grows in your head. It pushes and kicks and takes on a life of its own. It breaks free from the chains, free from the asylum that is housed in your skull …” The barrage did not relent. The verses marched forth. Louder, more maniacal. His voice turned coarse and then guttural, rising and falling with his frenzied posturing and gnashing teeth. “No longer does your monster belong to you. You belong to your monster now. It owns you. It has become you. It is you. You are the monster! Don’t you see it inside you? Don’t you? Don’t you?”

  The hammock trembled and jolted.

  “Please,” Taiyo cried. He stiffened his arms against the compression of the mesh. “Please, Ronin. You need to relax.” The hems on his sides closed over his legs.

  Kristen and Nel called out in concern, but they didn't yet abandon the perimeter.

  “Relax?” Ronin yelled and shook the hammock by the hems, rattling the mast and sending quakes through Taiyo’s body. Taiyo kicked free of a sudden clasp around the ankle, but before he could anticipate Ronin’s next move the hems of the clamped over his chest and tightened around his legs. The bucks and flails did nothing to keep Ronin from wrapping the mesh around his body.

  Each fit of resistance made the entrapment tighter. Taiyo tried and tried to writhe free until his muscles burned and refused to fight. He’d been reduced to captured prey, barely able to summon a breath through the web spun by the predator. Even once his breath partway returned, the tension around his neck—the crisscrossing strands of woven nylon—crushed his attempts to call for help.

  As soon as the ringing in his head, his wheezing, and the violent motion of the hammock began to settle, the shrill laugh of a tyrant took their place.

  Defuse; don’t escalate.

  Clenching a knot of webbing in each fist to stop Taiyo’s rocking, Ronin bent over the hammock-turned-cocoon and brought their faces together.

  “Are you paying attention now, hafu?”

  Like a guitar string, Ronin plucked the tense length of rope that tied the feet of the net to the hook of the mast; the vibration rippled through Taiyo’s neck, spine, and legs.

  Taiyo pressed out against the mesh with his elbows and the backs of his hands, but the leverage belonged to Ronin. Against the pressure of the mesh on his throat, “Think.” Taiyo managed to say out loud. He’d wanted to tell Ronin to think about the consequences, but the command was for them both.

  “You weren’t listening to me, hafu.”

  “I… was.” Taiyo needed a plan. Self-defense. Something besides the fetal position.

  “What’s that hafu?”

  “I was.”

  “What? Speak up.”

  “Let … me … go.”

  In the process of rattling the hammock, Ronin’s fingers clawed through the holes in the mesh, gouging Taiyo’s neck and ribcage. “And then what?” Ronin yelled. The frame creaked and groaned, and scraped against the rocky floor. “What’s today’s lesson, then, hafu?”

  “Croc.”

  “What did you say, halfbreed?”

  He stretched his neck to shift the threads off his voice box and yelled, “That fucking crocodile.”

  “Nope.”

  A new sound emerged over the strained metal and heavy breathing: the crack of snapping leather. A belt. The one scavenged from Anton.

  As
soon as he’d regained the strength, again Taiyo wiggled and rocked as hard as he could. Anything to get free—or at least to get an arm up to block the lashes. By the time he realized he wasn’t getting whipped, Ronin had already woven the belt through the mesh to lock Taiyo in. Ronin finished the job with a length of climbing cord, stitching the cocoon shut, from the toes to the head.

  Taiyo pleaded with Ronin and called out to Kristen and Nel, and between his attempts heard Ronin cranking the handle on the bottom of the mast. Seconds later Taiyo was in the air. Dangling. Feet up; head down. The still-attached aluminum frame clanged and clattered.

  He bellowed for his freedom, but the snare rose higher until his face, upside down, met Ronin’s point-blank. The noise of the banging hammock frame had stopped; it too was airborne, hanging from the mesh at Taiyo’s head.

  “Monsters!” Ronin yelled. Then again in a whisper, “Monsters.”

  “Nel!” Taiyo cried out. “Kristen! Come here. Right now, please.” And to Ronin: “Okay. Monsters. I get it. You said monsters. You can put me down now.”

  Ronin went away, not far and not for long. He untied what was left of the aluminum frame and tossed it aside. With the extra rope, he sealed Taiyo in even tighter.

  Taiyo twirled and swung, at the mercy of Ronin’s shoves.

  “It’s best that we keep our voices down,” Ronin said. His hand gripped Taiyo by the shoulder to halt the motion of the hammock. “Don’t you agree?”

  All Taiyo’s weight piled down on his head, craning his neck, pressing his face into the mesh, and pinning his arms at his sides. He felt Ronin’s finger on his forehead. It traced the threads of mesh pressing into his skin. “You’re going to get grill marks,” Ronin said.

  If not for the darkness, their inverted eyes would have met just centimeters apart.

  “Ronin. If the rope breaks …”

  “I’m sure you tied it well. Being the clever little engineer that you are. But did you test the load limit of that mast?” He scratched the bottom of his boot on the hard basalt and gravel. “Might hurt to fall. I’d try not to squirm if I were you.” He let go, and the snare began to spin.

  Taiyo mouthed the words to call for help, but the spun-up mesh tensed around his chest, barely permitting him to wheeze.

  In a low voice and from a step back, Ronin observed his twirling prey and said, “The first days of a crisis are crucial.”

  A little late, you fucking asshole.

  “People think survival is all about getting water and shelter, but they’re wrong, aren’t they, halfbreed?” He gave Taiyo’s webbed enclosure another spin to keep it going. “After you secure your basics is when the real survival starts. That’s when your thoughts turn inward. That’s when you start to feed the monster. Time passes. You’re more aware of how fucked you are. So you feed it more. You keep feeding it. It grows bigger than you. Big enough to eat you.”

  Taiyo’s face burned from within, burned from the sweltering air, and burned from the threads of nylon cutting into his cheek, ear, forehead, and right eye. He dismissed the fear and pain; frustration welled in their place.

  This was not how human beings treated each other. “I get it,” he said through strangled airways. “People can be monsters.”

  “Nope.” Ronin gave him a twirl and a push.

  Helpless, Taiyo could only endure the twist of the rope, spinning him up and then down. One way, then the other, over and over until the tension dispersed and he hung, gently swaying upside down, back and forth, in front of his tormentor.

  “Guess again, halfwit.”

  Taiyo waited for both his breathing and the hammock to stabilize before trying to speak. “We …” He had to push his chin into the mesh to free his mouth. “We make our own …” He winced. Fighting the pain, which seized every joint and muscle, he stretched against his ossifying spine. The mast bounced and groaned, warning it had reached its limit. “We are the monsters.”

  Ronin slapped Taiyo on back. “Good student.”

  I’m killing you when I get down. I’ll feed your body to the crocodile. Nobody will ever know. I swear I’m going to kill you.

  Ronin erupted. He rattled the hammock while roared into Taiyo’s face, spraying spit and acrid breath, “Find it, spaceman. Find it! You have to find it inside you and grab it! One hand on its throat, one hand on its balls, and you X it. You X that monster!”

  The hammock jolted, one way then another, and Taiyo cried out, “Let me down! Let me down!”

  “X that monster. X it now!”

  Nel called, “What’s going on over there?”

  “You guys okay?” shouted Kristen.

  They sounded far Halfway or more to Walter. They’d probably strayed from the perimeter to gather more rocks.

  Ronin seized Taiyo by the throat. Unclipped nails dug into Taiyo’s neck, squeezing to collapse his airways. It was the same as back in the hallway at school, the first time Ronin had pounced. The bastard growled, “No talking unless I tell you to talk. You understand me, little halfbreed?”

  And then Ronin laughed loud enough for all to hear before releasing Taiyo’s throat. “Nothing to worry about,” he called to Kristen and Nel, his tone sweet and calm. “We got it worked out now. Right, hafu?”

  Quietly, Ronin hissed through his teeth as if bloodletting the words into Taiyo’s ear: “Tell them everything is fine.”

  Again, Nel called, “What’s happening?” Her voice was closer, but still several minutes away unless she ran.

  “Tell her you’re fine.”

  “Can’t,” he lied. “The mesh. Too tight.”

  He heard the unmistakable sound of a blade flipping open. Fear flashed through his veins. Ronin had told everyone his multitool had sunk in the flood.

  Landing like a punch, Ronin’s fist yanked hold of the mesh at Taiyo’s face; fingernails clawed Taiyo’s nose and cheek.

  “Stop moving. You’ll make me cut your neck open.”

  The cold metal of the knife pressed against the lump in Taiyo’s throat, undulating with his rapid gasps. Ronin slit a single strand of mesh to free Taiyo’s larynx. Nothing more.

  “Taiyo? Ronin? You two all right? Guys? We’re coming back now, okay?”

  “Tell them, hafu.”

  Taiyo could see a spec of approaching light.

  “Tell them, now.”

  “Tai? Taiyo, can you answer me?”

  Taiyo felt the tip of the blade against the underside of his jaw. He swallowed and barely got it down. “It …” He cleared his throat, painfully, and Ronin eased up on the pressure. “It’s okay,” he called to Kristen and Nel.

  “What?”

  “Tell them again.”

  It took several tries before the words came out clearly. “It’s fine,” Taiyo called. “We just— We fixed the problem. Everything’s okay now.”

  “Are you sure?” The light stopped moving.

  “Tell them.”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay.” A pause. “We’ll keep working, then. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Another pause. Longer this time. Then: “You’re totally sure you don’t need help?”

  Taiyo hesitated, and Ronin prodded him in the back of the head with what felt like the blunt end of the multitool. “Yes, we’re fine here.”

  But the light didn’t move. For about a minute, it swayed a few degrees left or right and then continued in Taiyo’s direction.

  Now Ronin yelled out that all was under control, but in an agitated don’t-worry-about-it tone.

  The light cone got close enough to appear like a full moon. “Why don’t you guys come give us a hand?” Nel called, still too far to speak at a normal volume.

  “Come pay your respects,” added Kristen. “You don’t have to pray or anything if you don’t want to.”

  “Hold on. I’ll be right there,” Ronin yelled. Then softer to his prisoner, he said, “How about you? Are you coming, or staying here?”

  I’m going to kill you, you piece of shit. Taiyo
clenched and unclenched his muscles. If he could’ve taken the multitool from his belt, he would’ve plunged the blade through Ronin’s chest.

  Ronin gave Taiyo a shove and disappeared into the cloak of night, and as the footsteps faded into the shadows, a flash of reason soothed Taiyo’s fury: The crocodile had no appreciation for human burial customs or the sanctity of life. To the croc, Walter was not Walter—he was food. And no animal liked its food being stolen. Despite possibly being more cultured than a reptile, Ronin believed in pre-emptive strikes. Ronin’s bullshit bravado was bound to end in martyrdom, keeping the croc fed and happy so the more refined among them might survive a few more hours.

  Silently, but for the sounds of his own tortured insides and the gentle groan of the crooked metal mast, Taiyo swung in the dark, a muse to the interplay of inertia and drag, propelled by twists and untwists, slowing with each sweep.

  Twenty minutes or more went by with him hanging head down, woven into near-suffocation as if caught by a spider and saved for later. He felt his guts being crushed. His eyes, either bulging from the pressure or straining to focus on the absence of anything to focus on, felt like they were pulsating.

  Amid the orbits and rotations, he glimpsed the same eerie blue glow he’d seen on his way to the cave art to record Anton’s initials. It was fainter this time, and unaccompanied by the clicks and whoosh, meaning it was more distant than before. It might have been a glow-worm, except that it didn’t move. At any rate, it went out after about five or ten minutes.

  Ronin’s words, like secretions from the blood-brain barrier pooling in the dish that was Taiyo’s upturned skullcap, ran through his head:

  X that monster. X it now!

  “What goddamn bloody monster?” Taiyo yelled through the constraints. Not even an echo replied; the walls no longer cared.

  Time passed. The pendulum slowed but persisted.

  And the sound of toppling rocks woke him from the numbness.

  “Guys?” No answer. It hurt to speak, but he managed, “You guys back yet?”

  He knew he’d heard it. An inuksuk had fallen. The ridge of his spine tensed, forcing the mesh to cut into his skin and tighten around his chest, extracting his air and stuffing him with fear—fear that something had a lock on his scent. Something biding its time. Assessing its chances.