Roberto to the Dark Tower Came

by Tom Epperson

  “Wake up, asshole!”

  Oscar looks around dazedly, smacking his dry lips, then smiles at Vladimiro.

  “Vladimiro! Good to see you. Where have you been keeping yourself?”

  “You know what I’ve been thinking about all night?” His big head slowly swivels from Oscar to Lina. “Her. I’ve been thinking about her.”

  Oscar reaches for his cigarettes. “Not too surprising. Studies reveal that most men spend most of their time thinking about sexual intercourse.”

  “Did you hear how she talked to me?”

  Alfonso laughs. “Sure, we all did. It was hilarious.”

  “I’ve never had a woman talk to me like that before.”

  “Well,” Oscar says, “maybe she’ll apologize.”

  “I’m sorry,” says Lina. “I didn’t mean it.”

  “Okay,” says Oscar, “now we’re all friends.”

  Vladimiro is silent, still staring at Lina. Now he reaches out and slides the back of a finger over her cheek. Lina moves her head away and looks at Roberto.

  “What are you looking at your boyfriend for?” says Vladimiro. “He can’t help you.”

  “See,” says Chávez, “I told you she was a bitch.”

  “I’m not leaving here without fucking her.”

  “Colonel Luna gave you direct orders to leave her alone,” says Roberto.

  “Shut the fuck up,” says Vladimiro.

  “I’m afraid Antonio’s right,” says Oscar. “No matter how tempting the young lady is, we have our orders.”

  “But it’s like I was saying before,” says Chávez, “it don’t matter what the sergeant says or the colonel says. They’re not here; they’re not gonna know.”

  “They’ll know,” says Alfonso, indicating Lina and Roberto.

  “But they won’t say anything,” says Chino. “Not if they want to keep living.”

  The room becomes quiet except for the soccer game on TV. The hungry eyes of Chino, Chávez, and Vladimiro are fixed on Lina. For hours, Roberto’s tried to keep at bay the horror of the situation, but now it’s like a black suffocating wave breaking over him. Lina’s about to be raped.

  “I won’t stay quiet,” says Lina. “I’ll tell everybody, and then when I get out of here, I’ll tell my father and my brothers. They’ll hunt you down, they’ll kill you!”

  Vladimiro laughs, and puts his hand on her thigh and squeezes.

  “You’re making my dick hard, girl.”

  “Alfonso,” says Oscar, “tell them not to do this.”

  But Alfonso shakes his head and looks resolutely at the TV. “I’m staying out of this.”

  Vladimiro stands up and pulls Lina to her feet.

  “Let’s go.”

  “No!” says Lina, struggling to break free, but Vladimiro slaps her across the face and knocks her back down on the couch. Roberto rises up off his chair and charges at him but he’s made it only a couple of steps when Chino swings his fist into his stomach. The air’s blown out of his lungs and he drops to his knees and his glasses go clattering to the floor. He looks up, Vladimiro and Lina are blurs.

  “Don’t beat her up!” says Chino. “Don’t leave any marks!”

  “Fuck you,” says Vladimiro, “I’ll do whatever I want.”

  And then he and Lina are gone, headed to the bedroom. Oscar comes over to Roberto and helps him up. Roberto can’t talk, he can only whisper.

  “Do something.”

  “I can’t,” says Oscar. He reseats Roberto on his chair, then picks up his glasses and puts them back on his face.

  “How come he gets to go first?” says Chávez.

  “I don’t know, Chávez,” says Chino. “Why don’t you go in there and tell him you’re taking over?” He laughs, as does the Happy Boy-looking guy.

  “Hey, Enrique,” says Chino, “you want a piece of her too?”

  “Sure,” says Enrique. “Why not?”

  “I’ll bet Enrique’s never even fucked a girl,” says Chávez. “He probably doesn’t know how.”

  “I’ve fucked plenty of girls.”

  “Sisters don’t count.”

  “He’s probably too drunk to get it up,” says Chino.

  “I’ll get it up, don’t worry,” says Enrique, and then he gets a sudden sick look on his face and runs for the bathroom. A moment later Roberto hears loud puking noises, and Chino and Chávez laugh. Soon Enrique comes tottering back, pale as a ghost. He collapses on the couch and passes out.

  Roberto sits there, head hanging, eyes closed, seeing Vladimiro taking Lina away, again and again he takes her away, like a hideous ogre dragging a girl off to its lair. Roberto remembers seeing the blue bed through the window this afternoon. What’s going on there right now, what’s he doing to her? Roberto starts repeating to himself: God, get Lina and me out of this. God, get Lina and me out of this. God—

  A bone-chilling female scream rips through the night. Roberto’s eyes open and his head jerks up. A second scream starts, and then abruptly stops.

  Alfonso mutes the TV. Everyone listens. It’s so quiet Roberto can hear the soft thud of the moth as it hits the light shade.

  “What the hell was that?” says Alfonso.

  Chávez grins. “Sounds like a whore that’s having a good time.”

  “Somebody should go in there!” says Roberto. “Stop him!”

  “If Vladimiro really hurts her,” says Oscar, “we’re all in trouble.”

  “He’s not gonna hurt her,” says Chino. “He’s not that stupid.”

  “Oh, but he is,” says Oscar. “Remember the girl in Miscamayo? The mayor’s niece? Hernán 40 was furious. The mayor was on our side.”

  “A lot of shit goes down in the jungle,” says Chino. “Vladimiro’s not the only one.”

  Alfonso unmutes the TV. The announcer’s yelling hoarsely as a goalie makes a great save.

  “Just relax,” Alfonso says. “He’ll be done soon. Everything’ll be fine.”

  Enrique on the couch groans in his sleep, then farts.

  God, get Lina and me out of this.

  Time seems mired in an endless present of pain and fear. The universe is this room and nothing else. How will his heart be able to beat and not simply burst as one criminal after another goes in the bedroom to rape Lina?

  Vladimiro walks in. His face is flushed and he’s dripping with sweat.

  “How was it?” says Chávez.

  Vladimiro gives a weak laugh. “Not bad.”

  He grabs the bottle of rum, takes a drink. Chino stands up.

  “Where you going?” says Chávez.

  “Where do you think?”

  “Why should you be next?”

  “Because I am. That’s why.”

  “We should at least flip a coin or something.”

  “Fuck that.”

  Vladimiro laughs again. “Well, whoever it is, you better hurry up. Before she gets cold.”

  Everyone stares at Vladimiro.

  “My god,” says Oscar. “You killed her?”

  “She kneed me in the balls. I got mad. The bitch.”

  “Are you sure she’s dead?” says Alfonso.

  “Go in there and look if you don’t believe me.”

  Vladimiro sits down on the couch, rubs his hands over his bony brow, his thick lips.

  “I didn’t mean to. I don’t know what happened.”

  Chávez is smiling strangely. “How did you do it?”

  Vladimiro moves his hands away from his face and looks at them as if surprised to see them there.

  “With these.”

  Roberto can hardly hear their voices because there is a roaring everywhere, like a train in a tunnel or a hurricane or like all the atoms of the earth are shuddering and shaking and are about to crumble into a pile of nothing.

  “You fucked up, Vladimiro,” says Alfonso. “You fucked up bad.”

  “It wasn’t just me, it was all of us. We were all going to do it. I was just the unlucky one.”

  “Don’t try to drag m
e into this,” says Alfonso.

  “Or me,” says Oscar. “We’re not taking the fall for this. You’re on your own.”

  “What were we supposed to do with some piece of shit girl,” says Vladimiro, “put a ring on her finger and marry her?”

  Roberto stands up. He starts walking toward Vladimiro, his legs moving stiffly, as though they’re made of wood. Oscar intercepts him. He guides Roberto back to his chair. His eyes seem ashamed.

  “Sit down, Antonio. Please.”

  “There’s an easy way out of this,” says Chino.

  “What?” says Chávez.

  “You all heard the sergeant say to shoot the prisoners if they try to escape. Well, that’s what happened. We took the cuffs off so they could go to the bathroom and then they made a grab for our guns. We had no choice.”

  Vladimiro bares his gappy teeth in a grin. “That’s perfect!”

  “So let’s go get the girl and put some holes in her,” says Chino.

  “And then we’ll take care of him,” says Chávez, nodding at Roberto.

  So, Roberto thinks. It ends here. Just like that.

  “Alfonso?” says Oscar. “What are you going to do?”

  “Nothing,” says Alfonso. “I’m going to sit here and do nothing.”

  Oscar goes over to the couch and pulls on his boots, and then looks at Roberto.

  “I’m sorry, Antonio.”

  Now he starts walking toward the front door.

  “Oscar!” says Chino. “Where are you going?”

  “I’m washing my hands of this,” Oscar says, and opens the door. The doorway is filled with flashes of light and bullets slap into Oscar’s fat stomach. He lands on the floor on his back as Quique appears, with Ernesto right behind, their Galils raking the room. The Black Jaguars hardly have time even to reach for their weapons before their uniforms begin spouting blood, before their flesh and bone get blown from their bodies. Roberto sees Alfonso falling, the top of Chino’s head disintegrating just above his Chinese eyes, Vladimiro rising from the couch then sitting back down with a dozen bullets in his chest, and then he sees the improbable sight of Daniel in his Foreign Legion cap, his camera bag swinging from his shoulder, his mouth agape and his eyes huge as he wildly fires his pistol. He actually hits somebody, a chunk of Chávez’s cheek goes flying and then a burst from Ernesto’s rifle knocks him back against a wall; he slides down it, leaving a smear of blood. Enrique is the last to die, and the only one to say anything. He sits up dazedly on the couch and looks at Quique’s ferocious face, his jaguar whiskers. He pitifully lifts up both hands to protect himself and cries out “No!” and then his palms are punctured and his fingers severed and his face is turned into something that is no longer cute or sweet.

  Killing them all has taken mere seconds. Roberto’s been the still center of a whirlwind of violence; now he shakily comes to his feet. Ernesto pulls out his knife and cuts his cuffs.

  “Where’s Lina?” says Quique.

  “In the bedroom.”

  “Anyone with her?”

  “No.”

  Roberto and Quique and Daniel run toward the bedroom as Ernesto moves back toward the front door. Roberto’s thinking she may still be alive, Vladimiro was a cretin who was too drunk to know what he’d actually done. They pass the bathroom and reach the closed door of the bedroom.

  Quique opens it, and they go in. A bedside lamp casts a mellow light. Through the diaphanous blue folds of the mosquito net, Roberto can see Lina lying on the bed. Quique lifts the net.

  She’s on her back, naked from the waist down. Her hands are still bound behind her. There are red marks on her neck. Her eyes are startling. They’re wide-open, and seem to be looking toward the ceiling. Because of the burst blood vessels caused by her strangulation, their whites are red.

  “Shit,” says Daniel.

  Roberto leans over her and touches her hair. He says, “Lina.”

  Quique grabs his arm.

  “Let’s go! Come on!”

  “Let’s go, Roberto!” says Daniel.

  And then Roberto finds himself running down the hallway again and into the living room. Ernesto has turned the light off and is standing at the front door, peering toward the house.

  “They’re coming!” he says.

  Roberto stumbles over a body in the dark.

  “Lina?” says Ernesto.

  “Dead,” Quique says.

  “Where’s Roque?” says Roberto.

  “He’s waiting for us by the lake,” says Quique. “We just need to get to the jungle and we’ll be okay. Now get ready to run like hell.”

  They step outside. Roberto sees Joaco lying on the ground. A black pool of blood has formed at his throat where it’s been slit. Roberto hears voices in the distance, and looks back at the house. The dark tower looms against the starry sky, with the half moon floating just above it. Some lights are on in the house, and he can see the shapes of people moving around outside. The beams of flashlights slash through the night. The four of them begin to run. An automatic rifle opens up. Roberto hears a bullet snap past his ear. His legs are weak and clumsy from all the sitting and he trips over something and falls. Quique grabs his arm and pulls him up.

  “Go!” says Quique.

  Roberto stumbles away. Quique fires a quick burst at the muzzle flashes of the Kalashnikov. As he turns to run again, a bullet hits him in the back of the head and he drops to the ground like the blind horse Lina shot.

  Roberto stops and looks back at Quique.

  “Let’s go, let’s go!” Ernesto screams.

  “Run, Roberto!” Daniel gasps.

  Roberto runs. Other rifles are firing now. A flashlight traps him briefly in its beam but then they’re among the fruit trees. After the trees will be the lake, the pasture, the sugarcane field, and then the jungle. Roberto swerves among the trunks and he’s running faster now and he won’t fall again. Daniel is to his left, he’s running with the pistol in one hand and the other hand holding the camera bag so it won’t bang against his body, but where’s Ernesto? Roberto looks back and sees him walking unsteadily with one hand clasped to his side.

  “Daniel!” Roberto says.

  He and Daniel hurry back to Ernesto.

  “Ernesto, are you hit?” says Daniel.

  Ernesto pulls up his blood-soaked shirt. There’s a hole in his back and a hole in his belly. He laughs. “It went right through.” And then he sits down heavily at the foot of a tree. “You guys better get going.”

  “But we can’t leave you,” says Roberto.

  “We all die. It’s my turn today,” and then he laughs again. “Don’t worry, I won’t let them take me. And I’ll send some of those bastards to hell first.”

  There’s the sound of shooting but it’s at a distance, they’re not shooting at them. His breathing labored, Ernesto takes a position behind the tree, waits with his rifle. Roberto and Daniel look at each other.

  Now Roberto hears voices, sees a flashlight in the trees. He leans down and grasps Ernesto’s shoulder.

  “Thank you, Ernesto.”

  “Good-bye, Ernesto,” says Daniel.

  Ernesto looks back at them and smiles.

  “Good luck. And find Roque, he’ll take you home.”

  Roberto and Daniel continue through the trees. Just as they reach the lake, they hear the sound of gunfire behind them. Many guns. Ernesto’s engaging the enemy.

  The lake lies still and beautiful under the stars and the half moon. They pause, trying to catch their breath.

  “Where’s Roque?” says Roberto.

  Daniel points down the bank toward the pavilion. “We left him there. With all our packs.”

  Roberto squints toward the pavilion. For a moment, he thinks his eyes are playing tricks, but no, they’re definitely there: several dark shapes moving on the pavilion, another one on the walkway.

  “Daniel, there’s people down there!”

  “Fuck!”

  They duck back into the trees.

  “You
think they have Roque?” Daniel says.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do we do, Roberto?”

  He sounds terrified. Roberto’s terrified too. With Roque missing, they’re all alone. Gunfire’s still erupting. Ernesto can’t hold them off for long.

  “We have to make it to the jungle, Daniel. We can’t stop running till we’re there. Okay?”

  Daniel nods. Now they begin to run, skirting the edge of the lake, keeping low and in the trees. The noise of the firefight reaches a crescendo, and then there’s an explosion, maybe a grenade, and then sporadic shooting and finally silence. They’ve doubtless killed Ernesto, and they’ll be coming.

  Daniel and Roberto are past the lake and into the stand of trees, and then they emerge into the pasture. The rutted dirt road crosses it diagonally and then disappears into the sugarcane field. On the far side of the field is the dark mass of the jungle.

  They run through the pasture. Around them the dead cows are scattered over the grass. Roberto sees the single tree with the dead horse lying beneath it; some small animal that’s been feeding on it scampers away. Now Daniel stops and bends over with his elbows on his knees and his chest heaving.

  “I can’t breathe,” he says.

  “Come on,” says Roberto, grabbing a handful of Daniel’s shirt and giving it a pull. “We’re almost there.”

  Daniel stumbles on. They get to the dirt road and start running down it. A falling star streaks across the sky above the sugarcane field. They pass the last dead cow. They’re about fifteen meters from the field when Roberto hears an automatic weapon firing. He looks back and sees men swarming out of the trees and into the pasture. He sees the flashes from their rifles and bullets are flying past him and into the sugarcane. He and Daniel reach the field and run up the road, if the frantic flailing of their exhausted limbs can still be called running. Their pursuers can’t see them now. At the end of the perfectly straight road is the jungle, into which the Black Jaguars supposedly are too cowardly to follow them. They groan and sob as they run, and curse God and call on him to save them. The sugarcane arises darkly on both sides above their heads, and now a wind springs up and the plants lean and sway and make shushing sounds as if telling them to calm down, quit struggling, accept their fate.