Lost: The Novels

by Catherine Hapka

  Charlie pointed to the woods just west of them. “Look!”

  As they watched in horror, four huge trees crashed to the ground in sequence. The sound was heard again. Then again. And again. Each time, trees fell with a powerful BOOM! It made no sense, but Jeff was filled with the dreadful idea that something was striding through the jungle, knocking trees down with every step.

  That’s crazy, he said to himself. It would have to be huge!

  The men were rooted to the spot for a few seconds, frozen in shock and fear. Locke shouted, “Snap out of it! Let’s go!”

  They began running desperately toward the rocky mount. They had little reason to believe that it was any safer there, but at the moment it was the only place that even offered the promise of hope.

  Jeff sprinted like a long-distance runner. Just as during the crash, he felt somewhat apart from his body, as though his physical self were carrying a watchful spiritual self on its shoulder. The calm “other” Jeff noticed with admiration that Hurley, nearly as broad as he was tall, was actually surprisingly agile; he was keeping up with the others with seemingly little effort. Amazing, Jeff thought, what a little terror will do for you.

  Charlie and Michael wore expressions of pure panic. Locke simply looked determined. He glanced back occasionally, as if making sure that everyone was keeping up. That gesture made Jeff admire him a great deal more than he had previously. It seemed to indicate a level of responsibility and leadership that did Locke well.

  But while Jeff’s mind occupied itself in musings and observations, his body remained keenly aware of the danger that lay behind them. The crashing of trees was now mixed with another kind of thunderous roar. It sounded like the pounding footsteps of some horrific giant beast. Jeff conjured up nightmare visions of what it might be, helped along with images implanted by countless monster movies. Was it King Kong? Godzilla? Gorgo?

  Locke reached the hill first and immediately began clambering up the rock wall. Michael got there next and Jeff followed in a second, slightly beating Charlie to the wall. Once he was a few feet off the ground, Jeff forced himself to look back. He could see no monster in the increasingly dim light, but everywhere he saw the evidence of its presence. Bushes were flattened, trees felled, and a wide swath was cut through the tall grass by what must have been feet the size of Humvees. The ghastly roaring continued through it all. It sounded like the combined cacophony of a hundred zoos, all screeching to the sky in one thunderous chorus.

  “Keep climbing!” Locke yelled. Jeff could barely hear him over the roar of the beast. Climbing furiously, trying to beat down the panic threatening to overwhelm him, he glanced around to make sure that everyone had made it this far. The soles of Locke’s shoes were just inches from Jeff’s face and he blinked as dust peppered his eyes. Just below his own feet, Charlie and Michael were climbing side by side. Farther down the cliff, Hurley struggled to clamber up behind his friends; the strain was showing on his face as he searched frantically for each foothold.

  Jeff turned his face forward again, squinting his burning eyes against the cloud of dirt generated by Locke’s efforts. And it was at that instant that he heard a shout from below. Whirling around, Jeff saw that Hurley had lost his footing. Clawing desperately at the rock wall, Hurley grimaced in agony as his body scraped down the cliff.

  The unseen beast’s roaring was louder than ever and Hurley fell directly into its path, screeching like a man who had fallen headfirst into Hell.

  9

  JEFF AND SAVANNAH WERE alone in the sitting room of Jeff’s rustic little cottage. They spent nearly every Saturday and Sunday there, sketching, painting, making love. They sometimes spent hours together without saying a word, he standing at the easel that he had placed just under the large skylight, she curled up on the daybed, working earnestly at her sketch pad.

  When they did talk, the subject was often art. Jeff had been both surprised and thrilled to find that Savannah had not only a passion for art history and technique but a broad knowledge of both; she had quite obviously delved far deeper into the subjects than had any of her fellow classmates. She was articulate and thoughtful, too, and if sometimes her arguments seemed designed just to annoy Jeff, they delighted him for that very reason. He had been accustomed, over the course of his growing fame, to a certain amount of deference, even adulation. But from the moment they met, Savannah treated him as an intellectual equal, albeit one who had things to teach her.

  They almost never worked in Jeff’s studio at the college, although it was far superior in terms of both space and lighting to the low-ceilinged room they were in now. But the college did not afford them the privacy that they required for these sessions; not simply the privacy that allowed them to make love whenever the idea presented itself, but also the sense of aloneness they required. They reveled in being with each other and no one else.

  Besides, Jeff preferred home to almost anywhere else he could think of. Back in London’s swinging scene, he was out every night, almost always with a different woman. He was a familiar face at the trendiest restaurants, bars, and clubs and was always on the A-list for the best parties.

  But now, even when Savannah wasn’t with him, Jeff reveled in his cottage. He loved curling up near the fire in his overstuffed chair, enjoying a glass of wine or a cup of tea. His favored reading at times like these were the great ghost stories of Henry James, Sheridan Le Fanu, Edith Wharton. Among the few pleasant memories of his childhood on the island of Arran were the times when his wizened grandmother, who always looked at least two decades older than she actually was, would terrify him with “true” ghost stories that she had been told when she was a child. All of them took place on the stormy coasts of Scotland or in the castle ruins that dotted the landscape. That delightful frisson of fear was something Jeff came to treasure, and he happily recalled alternately screaming with laughter and squealing with terror at the tales the old woman told him.

  Savannah loved these stories, too. He knew that he had found the rarest of women when she snapped a book shut late one night and declared that Oliver Onions’s “The Beckoning Fair One” was the finest ghost story in the English language, an appraisal with which Jeff could find no fault.

  In fact, on just about every level he could think of, Savannah struck Jeff as being pretty nearly perfect.

  Looking back on it, Jeff couldn’t quite pinpoint the moment when they became a couple. He was smitten with her before she had finished uttering her second sentence to him and it somehow seemed that she had appeared in his classroom that day for no other reason than for him to fall in love with her.

  All the familiar warning bells went off in his head that day, and he heard them clanging every day thereafter. Jeff was very much a man who enjoyed playing the field, and the attractive combination of his profession, personality, looks, and success had ensured that the field was virtually inexhaustible. He had a firm rule about permanent relationships—they were to be avoided at all costs. Affection was nice and sex was a necessity, but “true love” only led to trouble. He had watched helplessly as his parents struggled through a bleak and loveless marriage that drained them both of life and hope; he had witnessed countless variations on that theme with other friends and acquaintances. He found that the beginning part of a relationship was always the vital part—electricity, passion, that vibrant curiosity about one another. But once matters settled into the mundane, passion died and animosity began growing. The solution to Jeff seemed simple—always make sure that the romance never got beyond that exciting opening stage. Clip it off in full bloom and then move on to the next blossom before the inevitable wilting began.

  Those warning bells urged caution on another front, too—Savannah was his student. At twenty-two she was legally a consenting adult, but Jeff knew that there were conventions and prejudices in colleges that went beyond clear-cut matters of law. A professor who dallied with a student might find his reputation impugned and his ethics called into question. As artist-in-residence, Jeff wasn’t a tr
ue member of the faculty; that might give him a little leeway when it came to this kind of behavior, but it would also make it easier for the college to simply wash its hands of him if it disapproved of the way he conducted himself.

  Jeff paused, his brush lightly touching the canvas, and gazed at Savannah across the room. Her forehead was knitted in concentration. She was dressed in jeans and an oversized sweater. She hated wearing shoes, and her feet were clad only in thick woolen socks dyed a truly objectionable shade of lavender. He thought she was about the most beautiful sight he had ever gazed upon. While the warning bells tolled ceaselessly, Jeff told himself he just didn’t care. Whatever happened because of his affair with Savannah would be worth it. And as he ignored the warning bells, he also ignored that tiny voice in the back of his head, the one that insisted repeatedly, You’re getting in too deep. Enjoy her, and then cut her loose. Don’t get trapped. You’ll live to regret it.

  But even while a part of Jeff wanted to assert that the relationship had no future, and no matter how many times he told himself that this was nothing more than a highly enjoyable fling, Jeff knew better. He had recognized from the beginning, albeit reluctantly, that Savannah meant more to him than any other woman he had ever known. Her sweetness and openness, her directness of manner, her endless curiosity about the world—all of these elements, combined with her ethereal beauty and powerful, earthy passion, caused her to burrow deep inside his heart. When he was with her, he wanted nothing more than to bask in her presence forever.

  And when they were apart and he could think more dispassionately, the dissenting voice in his head spoke louder, making Jeff fear for the loss of his freedom. No, he told himself then, I could never bear the chains of a lifetime commitment.

  Jeff set his brush down, walked across the room, and sat beside her on the couch. He tried to take a look at what she was drawing, but she immediately clasped the pad to her chest.

  “No!” she said. “I’m just sketching nonsense. This is not for public consumption.”

  “Oh, please…” Jeff said in a mock-wheedling voice. “Just one little peek…”

  Savannah shook her head firmly. “No! Go back to your own hackwork and leave me to mine.”

  Jeff stretched out on the couch and settled his head in her lap. She put the sketch pad face down beside her and began gently stroking his hair.

  “Speaking of your own substandard art,” she said, “what are you working on?”

  “Oh, you won’t show me yours but you want me to show you mine,” Jeff said.

  Savannah smirked. “Well, as much as that statement reeks of the schoolyard, yes, I do.”

  Jeff stood up. “Okay,” he said. “Just to prove that I’m the open one in this relationship, and not the secretive, mysterious, possibly evil one, I’ll show you.”

  Savannah followed him over to the canvas. When she saw the painting in progress, she smiled. “Why, it’s me!” she said, pretending to be surprised.

  “Yes, damn you, it’s you,” Jeff said. He stood behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. “Ever since you intruded on my peaceful life, I don’t seem to be able to paint anybody or anything else.”

  She nodded. “That’s a good thing. I know all about you famous artist types, with the endless succession of naked hussy models.”

  “You have the wrong idea about me,” Jeff said. “I came to this college straight from the abbey where I spent decades in celibacy and prayer.”

  Savannah nodded. “So you’re saying that if I were to become naked right this minute, you wouldn’t have all kinds of dark and sinister designs on me.”

  Jeff spun her around in his arms until she was facing him. He began kissing her neck. “No, I’m not saying that at all.…” He tugged her sweater up over her head. She wore nothing underneath. “In fact, a dark and sinister design just came to me.”

  They kissed deeply. As Savannah began unbuttoning his shirt, she said, “Oh, professor! I’m beginning to think you don’t have art on your mind at all.”

  Later, they lay on the couch, covered by a scratchy old blanket. Her sketch pad lay on the floor, having been unceremoniously tossed there while its owner had her mind on other things. For a while, neither of them said anything, but only gasped for breath, recovering from what Jeff considered to be the almost superhuman ferocity of their passion. He had never met anyone even remotely like her.

  At length, Savannah spoke. “Have you ever read Wuthering Heights?” she asked.

  “What an odd question,” Jeff said, smiling.

  “Not so odd,” she said. “I’ve been reading it recently and I was just thinking about it. It’s all grand passions and love that extends beyond death—that kind of thing.”

  “Yes,” Jeff said. “I read it a long time ago. I have to admit I know the film much better.”

  “Ah yes,” Savannah said. “Merle Oberon, Laurence Olivier. That glorious, glorious music. I’ve loved that film ever since I first saw it on the telly when I was a child. I guess that’s why I decided to read the book. Actually, turns out the book’s better. Even without the music.”

  “They usually are,” Jeff said.

  Savannah reached up and gently caressed Jeff’s cheek. “It just got me to wondering, that’s all,” she said.

  “Wondering about what?”

  “Well, I wonder if when you die your love will prove stronger than death and you’ll come back to me, calling my name in a snowstorm,” she said.

  “I wouldn’t dare,” Jeff said. “What if I caught you in an intimate moment with your new boyfriend?”

  “Which one?” she asked. “The trophy boyfriend that I’ll use on the rebound or the incredibly wealthy playboy porn-star boyfriend who will be the father of my children?”

  Jeff chuckled. “Now that you mention it, I don’t know that I’ll feel very comfortable about either one.”

  Savannah turned to face him, propping her head on her left fist. “I’m serious.”

  “What?” Jeff said incredulously. “You’re serious about whether I’ll be a ghost going boo in the dark?”

  “No,” she said, a grave look on her face. “I’m serious about wanting a love that will exist beyond death, beyond time. Do you think such a thing truly exists?”

  No. I emphatically do not, he thought.

  “Well, of course I do,” Jeff said soothingly. “Of course I do.”

  Savannah kissed him lightly on the cheek and stared deeply into his eyes. He found it difficult to meet the intensity of her gaze. She said, “I hope so, Jeff.”

  Jeff sat up, thinking it best to change the subject as quickly as possible. He said, “May I see your sketches now?”

  Pretending to be indignant, Savannah said, “Oh, so you think if you favor me with your sexual prowess, I’ll then do anything you ask?”

  Jeff nodded. “Pretty much,” he said.

  She reached down and picked up the sketch pad. “Oh well,” she sighed, “when you’re right, you’re right.” She handed it to him.

  What he saw on the oversized pages surprised him. Savannah had been devoting much of her work to studies of anatomy, feeling that the human figures she drew and painted were insubstantial. It was not realism she was after, but believability, and she had sought Jeff’s help conquering the problem.

  But the drawings here were not of humans. Indeed, Jeff was not at all sure that they were anything he had ever seen before. The pages were covered with strange designs. Within some were images of snakes and scarabs. No, on second thought, they were not quite images but suggestions of these things. The pictures were intricately detailed and must have taken Savannah hours upon hours to execute. Jeff thought they were exquisitely beautiful but somehow disturbing.

  He stared at the pages for so long that Savannah finally asked, a note of worry in her voice, “Do you hate them that much?”

  Jeff shook his head, almost as if he were coming out of a trance.

  “No, I don’t hate them at all,” he said. “They’re quite wonderful
. But what are they?”

  Savannah shrugged. “You tell me,” she said.

  Jeff said, “I’ve never seen you do anything like this. Where did they come from?”

  Savannah took the pad from his hands and peered at it, as if seeing the drawings for the first time. “I have no idea where they came from,” she said. “Just one morning I woke up and started sketching and there they were.”

  “They’re quite amazing,” Jeff said. “They look like…” He paused for a moment, groping for a way to put his thoughts into words. “They look like hieroglyphics from a civilization that never existed.”

  Savannah smiled and said, “Don’t be too sure.”

  “Well, if you ever learn to read them,” Jeff said, “be sure to let me know what they mean.”

  Savannah chuckled deeply, like a villain in an old mystery. “It may be that you will learn to read them before I do,” she said, doing a very bad Bela Lugosi impression. “And what you find will be…horrifying!”

  “Oh, trust me,” Jeff said with a broad smile on his face, “I’m already horrified.”

  Savannah shrugged off the scratchy old blanket and wrapped one leg around Jeff’s waist. “And you have reason to be.”

  Jeff reacted with exaggerated shock. “Again?” he said. “Don’t you know I’m a rapidly aging academic? I don’t know if I can manage it again so soon. I’m very fragile.”

  Savannah began to caress him softly and glanced downward. She said, now doing a terrible Greta Garbo impersonation, “Your voice says no, no, no, but your body says yes, yes, yes!”

  Jeff had to agree that there was a great deal of truth to what she said. They kissed passionately.

  “Savannah,” he said, his voice husky with desire, “you’re going to be the death of me.”

  She laughed again. That tinkling, musical laugh that he loved so well.