Falling Prey

by M. C. Norris

  “How do you like that? How does that feel? Is it too tight for you? Speak up. We can’t hear you.”

  Alonzo watched the man strangle. He didn’t care. His death didn’t matter anymore than his life. Alonzo hadn’t known anyone else on the plane, but he supposed that some of these angry people had. They’d lost friends and loved ones to this man, and they were enraged. Their lives had meant nothing to him, and now his life meant nothing to them. When the shadow of his parachute passed over them while they floundered in the sea, they all began to swim with renewed purpose, with the intent to catch and hold this man responsible for every drop of innocent blood in the ocean. Alonzo could see it in every flash of their feral eyes, their gritted teeth, as these once ordinary people pulled the cord around the hijacker’s neck. He could see how eagerly they drank from the dark goblet, how eager they were to become hollowed out inside, just like him.

  Alonzo’s gaze landed upon an object sticking out of the hijacker’s belt. The others were so preoccupied with their murder that no one had even noticed the revolver. Alonzo’s reaction was automatic, and immediate. Before anyone could fathom what he was doing, he slipped through the mob, took the pistol, and jammed the barrel down into his throat. He’d seen enough death for one lifetime, and he was done. Someone else could have his seat at the table.

  The taut body of the hijacker slackened, as his assassins all loosened their grips to turn and gawp at the new spectacle. It was almost funny. All of their eyes were on him. Even the hijacker, purple-faced and gasping, wore an expression of disbelief. He would be their teaching dog, and he’d show them the ultimate truth. He’d show them how nothing mattered, how things went until they stopped. Life was a big joke, and death was the punchline. Alonzo smiled, giggling around the barrel of the gun.

  ###

  28-D

  Rising from the sand with a groan, he swiveled his head in the direction of the jungle, where he’d heard a single gunshot. He blinked his eyes. The hollow pop had resounded from the general vicinity of where he’d watched the hijacker’s parachute float down. All around him, debris was washing up onto the beach. Seat cushions, soda cans, and worse were all rocking to the ocean’s gentle rhythm. Voices emanated from all directions. There seemed to be lots of survivors. Cries for help keened over the tide’s thunder hiss. Everyone needed something. The balance of the disaster was just beginning to sink in, and all that needed to be done was overwhelming.

  A surge of foam rushed up around his ankles, enveloping his feet with an effervescent caress. The water was stained with blood. His blood. It was streaming down his forearm, dripping from his fingertips to bloom like rosebuds on the sand.

  Lurching forward, he slogged from the sea like some Atlantean warrior, dazed and disoriented by the sights of the surface world. His left arm was completely numb. Blood oozed from his shoulder with every pulse of his heart. It looked really bad. His left leg was even worse. A clod of what looked like raw hamburger dangled from a ragged hole in the denim fabric. That certainly hadn’t been there when he’d pulled on his jeans that morning.

  He stopped to look himself over, running his good hand tenderly over every inch of his body. There were lots of places that hurt, particularly the two bullet holes. It struck him as oddly humorous that he actually caught himself feeling lucky to have survived the ordeal with only two bullet holes in his body, as if getting shot at all was anything for a person to feel lucky about. The upside was that he had himself a couple of brand new scars, and one hell of a story to go with them.

  Hart glowered into the jungle, trying to recall every detail of the crazy event. Everything had happened so fast. He’d risen from behind his seat, screaming as he’d unloaded a revolver at a bunch of bad guys. It hardly seemed real. It seemed more like a snippet from some wild dream after a beer and chili binge. Hart might’ve even questioned his own memory, if it weren’t for those two bullet holes. One, and two. Indisputable proof that he’d indeed stood up to a team of professional hijackers—resulting in a shootout that quite possibly brought down a commercial airliner, killing untold dozens of innocent people.

  Hart began to breathe heavily. Impossibly, he was still alive and breathing, having cheated death yet again after being shot, and falling from the sky. However, what would that good fortune matter once the other survivors recognized him as being the one who’d fired the first shots? He hadn’t meant to hurt anyone. He hadn’t even wanted to touch that gun, but the federal agent had forced his hand. None of that was going to hold any water in a court of law, especially if the agent wasn’t around to testify on his behalf. He’d be blamed for the whole catastrophe. They’d hang it on him. The instant that someone spotted him, they’d probably point, and begin to shout their accusations. An angry mob would form, and he’d be hounded to the ends of the earth like some loathsome monster.

  Whimpering, Hart shuffled up the blanched strip of sand toward the emerald mountains that loomed beyond. The trees were funny looking. Palmed columns jutted skyward from a dense understory of ferns and vines. The trunks of the palms were all prickled with a yellowish bark, kind of like pineapple skin. He didn’t know where in the hell he was.

  Once he’d reached the safety of the tree line, he peered back in the direction of the sea. People were crawling from the water. Little cliques were forming, up and down the beach. The dead and wounded were being dragged ashore. Hart found himself thinking about the shackled man. He wasn’t exactly sure why. Their lives had touched through stolen glimpses, and although the crossing of their paths had been fleeting, his brief connection to a man whose name he’d probably never know seemed oddly portentous. Hart wondered whether or not the guy had survived. Didn’t seem likely. It was an awful thought to imagine plunging chained into the sea. Didn’t really matter what crimes he might’ve committed. That was a particularly cruel way for a human being to die.

  “Hey!”

  Hart’s ears pricked to the high pitch of the shout. He squinted into the brilliance of the sun-dappled sea. There was a boy out there. Clinging to a seat cushion, legs threshing the water, the kid was kicking over the waves like a grasshopper on the surface of a pond. When the boy hailed him with a waving arm, Hart felt his stomach drop. It was Lonny, the kid with the stitches on his knee. The last thing he wanted was to be recognized.

  Hart peered from the relative safety of the trees like some oversized cryptid, as the kid paddled his way to shore. Once the boy reached a depth to which his feet could touch, he abandoned the cushion, and surged out of the surf with his skinny arms dangling limply at his sides. Behind his visage of exhaustion, the boy still sparkled with that naïve optimism common to kids of his age.

  “Hi,” the kid said, as he tramped up to Hart.

  “Hi.”

  “Are you hurt?”

  Hart nodded.

  Breathing heavily, the kid turned back in the direction of the sea. Shielding his eyes with his hand, he scanned the horizon. Wreckage bobbed for miles upon the blue. Scattered castaways clung to scraps. “Have you seen my mom?”

  Hart shook his head. “There’s some people in the jungle.”

  “Want to go look?”

  Hart turned back into the trees. “I heard a gunshot.”

  “Is it the bad guys?”

  “I think.” Hart frowned.

  “You think somebody got killed?”

  “Maybe.”

  The kid stared back into the jungle. He licked his lips. “Think maybe we ought to go see if everyone’s okay?”

  “I don’t know.” His left arm wouldn’t move. He tried to curl his fingers, to make a fist, but only two of them obeyed. Something was wrong with it.

  “I need to see if my mom is back there.”

  It was tempting to just tell the boy to go ahead, to run off and check it out on his own, thereby allowing Hart an opportunity to slip away into the trees and vanish from sight. He didn’t exactly have a plan, other than to separate himself from the other survivors of the plane crash, and to go and find som
e medical attention on his own. He guessed that he could always use the old amnesia excuse. Did that ever actually work?

  “Come on. Let’s go.”

  Hart was feeling pretty conflicted. The kid knew him, knew what he’d done. He’d tell the others. However, the last thing Hart wanted was to endanger another life by sending Lonny alone into the jungle, into what might be a violent situation. “I can’t.”

  “Does it hurt,” the kid asked, wrinkling his nose as he stared at Hart’s shoulder, “like, really bad?”

  Hart nodded. “Yeah. You don’t want none of this.”

  “I can help you, if you need help walking.” The boy sidled close to Hart’s right side. “Here. Lean on me, and I’ll help you walk.”

  “Alright,” Hart said, clearing his throat, eyes darting. He wasn’t ready to face their judgment. He just wanted to hide. “They’re back this-a-way.” He pointed in the opposite direction from which he’d heard the gunshot. They could disappear together into the jungle for a little bit, Hart figured. It was the safest compromise. They could hide together until the circumstances changed, maybe presented some better options.

  Lonny squeezed in close, wrapping a thin arm around Hart’s back. After a moment, Hart placed his hand over the kid’s shoulder. Together, they limped forward. He didn’t really lean too much weight on the boy, afraid he’d squash him. He just allowed enough pressure beneath his palm to let the kid believe that he was helping.

  Hart had no idea where they were going, except away from everyone else. Not easy to tell where people were though, or where they weren’t. It was Hart’s first time in a jungle. It confused the senses. It muted sounds. In any direction you turned your head, everything pretty much looked the same.

  “Mom!”

  The kid’s sudden cry took Hart by surprise, prickling the hair on the back of his neck. “No-no-no. Shh.” Hart patted the kid’s mouth. “No shouting.”

  “Why?”

  Hart didn’t have a good reason why shouting was not allowed. He drew them to a stop. It occurred to him that taking a motherless child along with him as a refugee might actually have been a worse idea than sending the kid off alone. He’d inadvertently elected himself as the boy’s guardian. What the hell did he know about parenting a child? If anything bad happened to the kid, then it was just going to be another strike against him in the eyes of the other castaways. “Well,” Hart whispered, leering dramatically into the jungle, “we don’t know what all is out there. I mean, there might be dangers around here, like lions and tigers.”

  “And bears?” the kid whispered, his eyes glimmering with excitement.

  “Yeah,” Hart whispered back, nodding his head, “and b—”

  Both of them jolted when boughs of foliage parted, and a new face suddenly appeared. The man was wild-eyed, and speckled with gore. Lonny clung to Hart’s waist, knotting fistfuls of his shirt between his fingers. Hart wrapped his arm protectively around the boy. The stranger smiled, looking suddenly relieved, as though he’d also been startled by their unexpected meeting. The man chuckled, smearing his palms over his mask of bloody grime, and over the glistening dome of his shaved head. Hart recognized the man’s uniform from the plane. He hoped to God that the guy didn’t also recognize him.

  “You lost?” Lonny asked.

  The man appeared equally confused and amused by the boy’s question. He gave another soft chuckle, and shook his head. “No, but I don’t have any idea where I am.”

  “Me neither,” Hart said, shrugging his shoulders. “Truth is, I don’t really remember much of anything. I remember boarding a plane this morning, and then the next thing I knew, I was crawling up out of the ocean onto a beach.”

  The man nodded, smiling broadly. “Isn’t that weird? I feel the exact same way.”

  “We’re trying to find my mom.”

  “Your mom?”

  Lonny nodded.

  “This your son?”

  “No.” Hart shook his head. “We just met.”

  The man appraised Hart’s condition with narrowed eyes that swept him up and down. “You look hurt pretty bad, bro. I think you need a medic.”

  Hart cleared his throat, but he couldn’t think of a smart reply.

  “What’s your mama look like?”

  “Um, she’s real pretty, with sort of longish, brown hair.” Lonny pantomimed with flowing gestures of both hands. “She had on a white skirt, and a brown bead necklace.”

  The man snapped his fingers, and pointed at Lonny’s chest. “You know what? I think I saw her.”

  “You did?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Where is she? Is she okay?”

  “She seemed fine. Want me to take you to her?”

  “Yes.” Lonny beamed, releasing his arms from around Hart’s waist.

  “Brother, you need to just sit down and wait right there. Don’t even move at all.” The man took Lonny by the hand, and he backed into the vegetation. “I’m going to take this kid to his mom, and then I’ll be right back with some help for you. You need to sit down, bro. You hear me? Don’t move. You’re losing a lot of blood.”

  Hart nodded, knowing that he wasn’t going to be there when the man returned. The amnesia, and all … a person in that condition would be disoriented, and probably prone to just wander off. Feeling empowered by this perfect opportunity to slip away into the jungle all alone, Hart thanked the man as he vanished with Lonny into the trees. Who else could you trust to escort a kid safely through the jungle, if you couldn’t trust a U.S. Marine?

  CHAPTER THREE

  22-D

  “Come on, man, goddamn it! Hang on!”

  Even as the fading sun slipped down into the sea, Nate kept up with the CPR. Blinded by tears, muscles howling, he pumped on the sternum of his unresponsive patient like a lifesaving robot gone haywire. Matted hair clung to his face. Spittle webbed his cracked lips. He would not quit. This man was going to live.

  “He’s gone.”

  Nate ignored the comments muttered by the group of teens who were sprawled in the sand. For hours, they’d taken shifts, but the kids had given up. They seemed content to loaf around watching him, and making their pessimistic assessments of the situation. What the hell did they know? They’d probably never lost anyone before. Not like him. They’d never lost anyone like Dawn.

  “I’m telling you, man. The guy is gone.”

  Nate heard the kid. He felt the hand settle gently on his shoulder. Instead of lunging on him like a wild animal, beating him down into the sand, Nate opted to ignore the teen, and to just keep on pumping away at the federal agent’s sternum. What these kids couldn’t comprehend, and what he was loathe to explain to them, was that if this guy died, then Dawn had lost her life for nothing. He’d slowed her down on account of this man, whose bleeding carcass triggered the feeding instincts of the monster that took her. If he’d abandoned him to drown, as Dawn had subtly suggested, then this guy might’ve been the target of the attack. Odds were, Dawn would still be alive. She’d be sitting here in the sand right beside him, and this world around them would be an immeasurably better place. But, that’s not what had happened. Nate had ignored her. He’d instead clung to this chunk of sea monster bait with the same stubborn tenacity as he still clung to the false hope that this federal agent might soon regain consciousness, and then explain what had happened up there, and where they were. That was the hardest bit to swallow. He’d put his wife in jeopardy in hopes of quelling his own anxieties, and she’d died as a result. In other words, his weakness had killed the strongest woman he’d ever known.

  Every downward thrust to the man’s sternum wrought eruptions of black bubbles from his bullet holes. Gore foamed from his flooded throat, and oozed from his reeking loops of exposed innards. He didn’t want to admit it, but the teens were right. The guy was dead. Dead as a damned doornail.

  Nate rose, kicked some sand at the corpse’s face, and marched down to the water’s edge. He wished that there was something solid around t
hat he could slam his knuckles into. Nothing but sand and water, and so much of both. The ocean was such a vast grave for a little thing like her. Searching the twilit waters, he knew that she was out there somewhere, and that thought was maddening. The love of his life had been stolen by the same ocean she’d loved so much, and he couldn’t do a damned thing about it. He cursed at the jealous sea, and then fell to his knees, weeping into his hands. She would forever be a part of it, disintegrated, and reintegrated into the rolling blue. The sand beneath him was Dawn’s body. The surging tide was her blood.

  ###

  24-E

  “Come on,” Alex said. He knuckled Peanut’s shoulder. “Let’s give him some space for a little while.”

  “Guy’s lost his mind.” Peanut rose to his feet, brushing a curtain of sand from his rear end.

  “Where are you two going?” Tara inquired, curling her lip in the cute way that she always did whenever asking a question.

  Alex turned back toward Tara and Brett, and gestured up the beach with a bob of his head. “Away from him,” he whispered, casting a furtive glance in the direction of the shuddering form whose tears continued to fall into the surf. “Come on. Let’s leave him be.” He and Peanut set off walking along the shore. After a moment, the other two leapt to their feet, and they came running up behind them.

  Alex didn’t know much of anything about the relationship between the two men, but he guessed that they were probably good friends, and that’s why the guy was so upset. Maybe they were best friends. There was obviously some sort of a strong connection there. He didn’t blame the guy for freaking out. If Peanut ever died … Alex didn’t even want to consider such a horrible possibility. If anything ever happened to Peanut, he guessed he’d probably react the exact same way.