A Place for Sinners

by Aaron Dries

  The mosquitos were out in full strength, carpeting her body in stings she didn’t feel. Theirs were burning itches upon itches upon flesh that was numb, and no longer her own. A shark’s hide is tough, and of that she was thankful. But that didn’t stop the hundreds of insects from trying their best; they bit and sucked, tiny mouths ripping through skin. Sycamore would swipe at them occasionally, out of habit if nothing else. Faraway tingles.

  She began to grind her jaws and could hear her glass teeth scratching together. Heat boiled between her bloodied lips. Sucking oxygen into her lungs was getting harder and harder to do, but it was worth it. Every wheeze was copper flavored, reminding her of tastes yet to come.

  Soon. The light.

  The shark’s hunger bore no comparison. It was as complete as anything she’d ever known or witnessed, if not more so. And so she let the mosquitos feed and was unbothered; she understood their purpose in the world more than that of her children, who over the years had fed with similar greedy mouths.

  Light.

  She could feel it now. It was growing stronger as the land stretched into an incline. Even the constant, electric whine of the insects started to fade with this immaculate warmth. There was a new sound now: a hush, like distant waves or rushing air. The branches before her unsewed themselves and in turn put together a jigsaw sky. The temperature dropped, sending the mosquitos rushing back toward the island’s humidity. Sycamore stopped; her copper-breath held at the sight.

  The landscape had driven her to one of its many peaks without her even realizing it, and now she stood on a tongue of rock overlooking a chasm that was wide enough to accommodate her entire London apartment.

  Standing there with evening wind drawing water from her eyes, the shark wondered who else had stood on this rocky outcropping. Whoever it had been, they had dreamed of building bridges, had been the owner of strong, committed hands. But that was not all. Whoever the man was—and somehow she knew it was a man—he’d also had an undisciplined brain within his skull. This fact was illustrated in the demented architecture in the chasm.

  Something foreign, yet familiar, began to penetrate her skin in a way that neither mosquito nor mercy had managed to do. It was a flicker of disquiet, a sense that there were other great powers and jaws and teeth in the waters through which she swam.

  The chasm was filled with unfinished bridges. It wasn’t as though they had collapsed and the engineer had simply continued building upon the broken remains. No. That wasn’t it at all. Each foothold ended in a violation of gravity. One bridge ended in the birth of another, which would then stretch up or sideways at a contrasting angle. As a result, wooden pathways crafted from jungle debris reached higher and higher, instead of straddling the chasm and making a direct route to the other side. It was all pure ambition, thwarted by an inability to think straight or with clear purpose.

  It was insanity. A puzzle to which there was no resolution.

  Something inside the shark was crushed.

  The knot of bridges was old. Spiderwebs quivered in every joint. Dead leaves caught at its angles. This was a forgotten place. And that made sense in a way—the combination of such hands and mind didn’t seem compatible with completion.

  How sad, thought the woman who had once been Susan Sycamore. Imagine living a life without getting what you set out to find. This misery was echoed in the sound the bridges made when the wind blew: old wood groaning against old wood. It was a moan some part of her brain associated with empty pirate ships in movies some child had once watched in a carpeted living room with her father. It was the groan the child’s house made when storms came a-knockin’ against its walls. These were the sounds of desertion.

  I’ll get what I want. What I need. Her thinking was in defiance of the bridges themselves Sycamore gritted her jaws together and tasted the red, red, red.

  4

  Amity dropped to her knees.

  Her lungs burned with the effort of sprinting. And all along, she’d been thinking, Yeah, this is it. It’s finally here. The beach. The boat! It’s over. Caleb. I need you now. I want you to just hug me for a while. I want us to cry against each other and know that everything is going to be okay. Because it is. It is.

  This train of thought had continued the entire time she ran, as the sand beneath her feet grew colder and wetter, as the salty wind churned with more force.

  I’m saved. We’re saved.

  She’d even struggled not to laugh; doing so was so easy, so tempting. Victory was close. And yet she had held herself in check, driven onward toward the bend in the ravine. She didn’t want to jinx herself, even though she knew that—yes, yes—she was right and goddamnit, this was it!

  I’m about to be saved and things are going to be different, I just know it. I promise they will. There’s so much that I’ve learned. Truly. And I know how fucking trite that sounds, but I’m being serious. I’ll never wander again. From anywhere. And I’ll stand by family to the end. Family Love. Ma, too. I can’t wait to go home and care for her. I want to dig her out of the grimy hole she’s buried herself in. I swear all of this is true; I just hadn’t realized it until now.

  How fucking juvenile can you get, Amity? You weren’t traveling the world. You were running away. Say it. Own it. How the fuck could you have ever been so selfish? Ha. I can see Ma right now; she’ll sit there and scream at us, stating our sins. She’ll say that we gave up on her. And she may be right.

  Her monologue ended as she slid between the V of boulders separating her from the torture any kind of hope brings. On some level she’d known everything would go wrong.

  Amity dropped to her knees. The sand was cold. Lifting her head required the summoning of strength she didn’t think she had in her to lend, and yet she forced it to come. It was so important that she torture herself with just one more look.

  Sinners get punished, Amity reminded herself. Ma was right.

  It wasn’t the beach where she and the other tourists had docked. It wasn’t really a beach at all. It was a cove of jagged rocks facing the cool blade of the horizon. Seagulls rode the wind. She watched their mouths open and shut like scissors cutting through the veils of her deafness to allow a distant screeching to slip through—Amity didn’t know if it belonged to the birds or if it was her own. She suspected the latter. There were vibrations. Every time the waves crashed against the rocks, both the ground and her body shook. A tide of realization, of truth, pounded her head with all the force that moons muster.

  Amity leaned back and called out to her mother, to her brother. She was way beyond caring how she sounded—it was real and raw, the way it should always have been and so often wasn’t. The thorns of her lies had dug deep long ago, and in some strange way, airing at least this truth brought relief.

  It happened.

  The body of a young girl slammed against a boulder five feet to her right. The seagulls worked themselves into frenzy, diving toward the rocks and then swooping back up again. Their eyes were as red as the blood in the air.

  Another wave splashed against the cove, covering the corpse in a sheet of bubbles.

  Whatever heaviness had been hovering over Amity vanished. There was only weightlessness and a fever’s ache. No words. Nothing.

  Waves retreated, taking all of their bubbles with them. The child was revealed.

  She couldn’t have been much older than eight. Her naked body was impossibly twisted to accommodate the curve of the rock it had struck. A small hand lay outstretched, the fingers curling inward as though in invitation. Her head was twisted to face Amity, eyes rolled up, revealing the whites, so blanched in comparison to her heavy tan.

  Even through Amity’s confusion and shock, a weird buoy of rationality floated by and she had no choice but to cling to it—she’s not Thai. Japanese, maybe. Chinese.

  I just don’t know.

  But not Thai.

  It was almost as though another voice was announcing this fact to her, and Amity couldn’t understand for the life of her why it was s
o important—but it was. And the voice just might have been right, too. The child’s face was longer and a little more oval shaped than those she’d seen on the mainland; her nose was a little more pronounced. It was Amity’s artist’s eye that noted these subtle differences.

  Or maybe it was that focusing on the dead child’s nationality distracted her from the slit throat. The ocean had cleaned the wound, but there was more blood below the skin to replace it. A tide of a very different kind.

  Before Amity had a chance to glance up to see where the girl had fallen from, another corpse thumped against the sand right at her feet. Clods of flesh and gray matter splashed over Amity’s legs, her chest, peppered her lower lip. Its taste was in her now.

  The second child was a boy, a little older. Thin. He wore a bright blue Star Wars T-shirt. Han Solo’s and Chewbacca’s faces were stern and severe as they brandished their pistols. The boy’s shorts were stitched together from other shirts.

  Brother and sister.

  There was no mistaking it. They had the same features, the same broad nose structure. Not to mention his-and-her matching throat slits.

  Vibrations brimmed. Amity was screaming.

  There were sounds now coming from deep inside her. Their echo grew and grew. Amity’s hands inched toward her ears. There, they gripped the cartilage, pulled.

  Go away! Go away!

  It was the sounds of feral dogs growling in preparation for attack.

  Vibrations ran dry.

  You’ve got to breathe. Don’t and you’re as dead as them.

  It was easier thought than done. Had she forgotten how? Something that had come so naturally to her all her life now required extreme concentration. So she lifted her head and let the oxygen pour in through her lips.

  The sky boomed with the day’s demise. Epic cumulonimbus, as imposing and majestic as atom-bomb clouds, flared purple and orange and red. Against this backdrop, a hundred yards above, Amity saw the peak of the cliff. Between her and it there stretched the island’s rocky throat, exposed and vulnerable to the horizon’s blade. Two silhouettes stood at the peak. One was taller and hugged the smaller figure from behind. Their embrace ended with a flurry of movement, and then the silhouette in front began to fall. Amity watched it arc across the clouds headfirst, its small arms outstretched. An upturned crucifix.

  These sights had a color and that color was RED.

  The third child hit a boulder near the breakers, exploded and tumbled into the water. The makeshift knife that had been rooted in its neck slid free, snagged against a crop of oyster shells. It sat there until another wave slammed the cove and snatched the evidence away.

  It was sunset, and the day was darkening with each death.

  The vibrations came back.

  Crying, Amity swirled around to face the way she’d come. The shadows that had lurked in the jungle—the ones that had threatened to close in on her minutes before—had now fulfilled their promise. The way was strangled by darkness. Her tears mingled with blood; Amity swallowed it all down. She didn’t know if she was strong enough to go back that way. It would be pitch-black in there.

  That was a lie. She did know.

  She wasn’t strong enough.

  Amity turned to the left. To the right. The small cove was nestled against the island’s edge. There were rocks and jagged boulders in both directions. Soon they would be indistinguishable from the sky. There would be no lights flickering on at dusk as there were along the Evans Head streets. Once the sun dipped beyond the cliff, the shadows would claim all.

  It made sense that if she kept on rounding the island’s perimeter, then she would come to the beach where they had arrived. Eventually.

  Go left, said a voice. Amity listened to it because it sounded friendly. Right now, anything that drowned out the dogs’ barks and growls was an ally. She scrambled toward the first set of boulders and pulled herself up their barnacled girth. The wound in her right palm screeched pain, but she pushed through it. Fingers latched on to a clump of weeds. Salt flakes filled her nose.

  Don’t sneeze. Sneeze and you’re a goner.

  Amity pulled herself upward and onto the rock. Gasping, she drew herself into a ball. Now that she was on her side, it required no effort to glance up at the cliff.

  She watched the final figure leap into the air.

  It even gave itself a running start.

  “No-ooo!” Amity screamed, unhearing the word but feeling it just the same.

  She reached out for the falling silhouette as though she could catch it. There was nothing to do but watch it tumble. The arms thrashed. The legs kicked. It was a woman this time. Amity knew it was the mother of the children. She watched the woman land on the sand near her boy in the Star Wars T-shirt. What had been an intact woman one moment—so very alive, as her children had not been—was an accordion collapsing in on itself the next.

  As to what lay between? Amity had no idea. She just hoped it was painless and quick.

  The sun dipped behind the cliff. Those cold fever fingers were back to stroke her.

  What’s happening here?

  What the fuck?

  This couldn’t be a dream. But it couldn’t be reality, either. On this island, animals attacked and families fell from the sky…

  Amity studied the clump of dead grass between her fingers. Let it go, she willed herself, but her fingers weren’t in a listening mood.

  She wondered if she was dead and if this island was some kind of purgatory, or worse, hell. Even that made more sense to her than what she’d just witnessed.

  Let. It. Go.

  Her fingers relaxed and the brittle strands of grass blew away. The world slid into further darkness. She had to get up and keep on climbing. There was no way she was going to make it around the island and back to the beach before dark, but she couldn’t stay where she was.

  So even though it hurt, Amity dragged herself up onto her haunches. Grime coated her body, clung to her clammy skin. Spray misted her face. Salt against salt.

  Move. Leave this horror behind. Leave it or you’ll go mad. Don’t think about it. MOVE!

  Amity steadied herself and shuffled to the next rock. It was slippery, but not too bad. The higher she got, the better it would be. She soon found her rhythm. But night, like panic, was impossible to escape.

  OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGodohmyGod—

  Shut up. Keep going.

  So much blood. What happened to them? Why—

  MOVE. Don’t kid yourself into thinking you’ll make it back to the beach tonight. You’ve got to find somewhere to hide. You’re safer out here than you are—

  (Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.)

  —in the jungle. Trust me. Even if you just jam—

  (Hold on to the rope.)

  —yourself between two big rocks, it’s better than nothing. You need to stay warm. Stay out of sight. Stay—

  There it was.

  A cave.

  5

  Shadow inched across the rocks, cold on her heels. Its dark, clammy fingers were quick but she was quicker. Though not by much. Every plunge drained her of energy, made her journey to the cave harder and harder.

  The cave.

  She watched its mouth growing slowly larger. Images of her bent over wood pieces within its walls, chafing fire into life, danced in her head.

  Amity suspected that drawing flame from sticks wasn’t as easy as she hoped it would be. Not like in the movies, anyway. But then again, nothing ever was. The idea of temporary warmth and shelter did give her comparative comfort. And that was enough. Enough to keep her going.

  I need to put as much distance between the bodies and me as possible. I want that even more than warmth. So lunge. Lunge. Lunge.

  The shadow was the dread that knowledge brings. The knowledge that she was going to die out here, that she would rot and become food for the animals in the sea.

  A memory.

  There had been a large fish tank on the way to the headmaster’s office at Saint Catherine’s Scho
ol For Hearing Impaired Children. Inside were five forgetful goldfish swimming in constant circles of rediscovery. She envied them for their simplicity, that they would never know what it was to be haunted. But it wasn’t the fish themselves that unsettled her. It was the ceramic skull at the bottom of the tank. The way the top of its head would lift off to allow a stream of bubbles. Little goldfish puckering kisses through the eye sockets.

  Please, no. Please, not that.

  Amity glanced at the ocean. She’d read somewhere that it was the one thing on this planet that you should never turn your back on, and she could see why. It boiled with contempt for her. It was hungry for her skull.

  Never.

  The dread wouldn’t be shaken.

  Why? Why on earth would a mother kill her own children? And to do it like that…

  Her breath was ragged. She felt sick.

  The shadow was persistent as it crossed the island, a slow-moving scythe.

  Every time she blinked, she saw the dead family on the beach, their faces turned toward her. Their blood churned in the water. Everything was RED.

  Why commit suicide?

  She didn’t want to blink again, and yet there was no choice. She was a slave to her flesh.

  The mother’s knife caught on the rock. It looked as though it was crafted from wood and bone, one edge whittled down to a point. The waves lapped away the blood, hungry for it.

  Amity was sure if she went any farther her lungs were going to explode, so she stopped and crouched on an uneven rock that was puckered with potholes. Each brimmed with seawater, reminding her of how thirsty she was.

  A palm-size octopus rounded the walls of the shallow pool, its legs a spectrum of neon hues.

  What pushed a mother to destroy not just herself, but her whole family? What in God’s name could have pushed her—literally—over the edge?

  Amity’s headache continued to beat at her head, growing behind her eyes. Adding to her discomfort was the fact that her throat had grown so dry it was almost impossible to swallow. She rested her palm against her cheek and counted breaths—questions just weren’t distraction enough.