by Toby Neal
And yet I still picked at the knot. The rope was cheap hemp with a fuzzy natural fiber feel to it. Using my teeth, I had it off before long. I was still racked with periodic shivers from the fever, but I felt stronger having eaten the rice ball.
It couldn’t hurt to explore the storage shed, get a good sense of where I was being held. I rolled carefully onto my side and up onto my hands and knees. My clothing had dried, stiff with mud from the pit, but at least it no longer caused a wet chill, aggravating my illness.
I stayed on my hands and knees to explore the shed, swinging my arms slowly as I crawled, feeling my way around the different objects in the shed. I reached one of the walls and felt around the bottom.
As I had suspected, the wall was embedded several inches in the dirt, probably to keep the copious rain, which mercifully seemed to have stopped, from oozing in underneath the wall.
I tested the area where the door was, a faint line of light.
Locked, of course. There were two sides to the door, and rust was definitely impinging the hinges. I pushed, and the doors bowed out slightly but held, even when I put all my weight on them.
No surprise there.
The exploration had wiped me out. I crawled back to my pallet and clumsily replaced the rope, looser this time, and curled up to sleep.
I managed to get some hours of sleep before I woke up screaming. I didn’t think it was close to morning, because with my eyes open, I still could hardly see a hand held in front of my face.
I kept seeing things moving at the corners of my vision. I was pretty sure they were hallucinations, but there was a weird fluidity to them, like they were snakes undulating down the walls.
Closing my eyes didn’t help. I still saw them. So I opened them again. This time, a tiny light fluttered around my pallet. The light seemed to intensify, coalescing into a glowing object that danced around the darkness like a grave light.
The hairs on the back of my neck rose. I eased myself up into a sitting position, leaning my back against the metal wall on one side, drawing my knees up.
The glowing bug, moth, or whatever it was landed on the edge of my blanket near my feet. It rested there a moment. I blinked, looking at it.
Probably some sort of bioluminescent insect.
It swelled, expanding, its intense greenish yellow light spreading and dimming, and it seemed to be the shape of a woman. I could see through her to the far wall, and her features were blurry—but I recognized her anyway. I knew that petite, slender shape, the outline of hair long enough to brush her hips as she knelt.
My ex-wife, Anchara. Kiet’s murdered mother.
At least she wasn’t covered with blood in this hallucination. I raised a hand to rub my eyes, refocusing them.
She was still there.
“What are you doing here?” I must be dreaming. She didn’t answer. The expression on her translucent face was sad.
“I am releasing you.” Anchara’s voice was a rustling whisper that sounded like wind in the tops of the trees, but I understood her perfectly. “I was angry. I thought it wasn’t fair, what happened, that you got to raise our son. I didn’t go when I was supposed to. But now I see that driving you mad has led you here to an unsafe place, and our son needs you.”
I blinked repeatedly. It felt unnatural because my eyes were open so wide. My mouth had fallen open, too. “You aren’t real. You’re a hallucination. You’re dead.”
The rain started up again on top of the metal roof, just a gentle patter. Anchara was still there, even after I rubbed my eyes. “You’ve been haunting me? Why?”
“Because you lived, and I didn’t,” she said. “It wasn’t fair.”
The hairs rose all over my body, but I controlled the urge to back as far away from her as I could. There was nowhere to go with my back against the wall, and she’d already done her worst in my dreams.
“You won’t see me again. I forgive you. Now you must forgive yourself.” Anchara looked right at me then, a feeling like a searchlight passing over me. She faded, wavering in the air. The luminescence that had spread to assume her shape contracted back down to a moth, and it fluttered around the space.
My eyes couldn’t stop tracking it. It was going somewhere, flitting and darting, bright as a flashlight in the total darkness. I tugged at the loose knot on my wrist and got it undone, and followed the glowing insect as it flitted into one of the corners of the shed and disappeared.
It had gotten out somehow.
I was probably still dreaming or hallucinating. I kept waiting to wake up as I made my way to the corner where I’d last seen the flying glow-bug, and felt my way up the wall.
The moth had disappeared through a sort of window or ventilation hatch, a simple square opening with a metal shutter hanging down over it. And when I pushed, that metal shutter wasn’t locked.
My mind raced. I could get out. Maybe I could free the men in the pit. Maybe I could find my way…to where?
This was nuts. I was probably dreaming the whole damn thing.
But the patter of rain hadn’t stopped, and the metal under my hand felt cool and sharp. I should have woken by now. If it was a dream, it was the most realistic one yet.
I pushed the shutter outward slowly, looking around. The shed butted up against a wall of dark, dripping trees. A sliver of moon barely lit the area enough to see anything, but fluttering and dipping, deep into the shadows, was the glowing moth that might have been Anchara.
Maudene Yamaguchi peered at Lei through a screen door green with mold. Split coconuts in wire hangers, sprouting orchid plants, bracketed the doorway. “What you like?” The old woman’s voice sounded like a rocking chair on a wooden porch.
“Hi, Mrs. Yamaguchi.” Lei identified herself. “I’m following up with you about something you found on the beach? A skull?”
The old woman pushed the door open slightly. “Come in.”
“Thank you.” Lei toed out of her athletic shoes and set them on the low shelf filled with rubber slippers. The cottage was one of the old plantation style homes Lei had always loved, single-wall construction with a tin roof and wide, painted-wood floors interspersed with lauhala matting.
“You came all this way to talk with me about that?” Mrs. Yamaguchi gestured to a futon couch. “Go. Sit. I get the tea.”
Lei was reminded of visiting with her grandfather Soga Matsumoto on Oahu. There was no rushing a Japanese elder, no matter the mission. The house smelled faintly musty, with notes of ginger and soy sauce. Mrs. Yamaguchi was cooking—probably something with homemade teriyaki sauce.
Lei seated herself on the couch, glancing around. A kneeling desk made of old crates doubled as a coffee table in front of the couch. On the walls, three traditional silk paintings made a triptych. Through the sash-style window, Lei could see a square of neatly mowed, very green lawn, and beyond that, the variegated tops of jungle trees rolling downhill to a wind-whipped ocean.
The drive to Mrs. Yamaguchi’s house in Hana had been beautiful, and Lei had been able to flash her lights to get around dawdling tourists blocking the road in front of the many waterfalls in order to get to the remote village in much less than the usual two hours. She’d focused on the challenging act of driving to keep her mind off of Stevens. The road was mostly one-lane, encroached upon by stands of bamboo, lush flowering trees, and extreme hairpin turns.
Sitting here now, her hands resting on her thighs, Lei breathed out a long exhale of held tension. Mrs. Yamaguchi was not going to be interested in her agenda. She would tell her story how she wanted to, at her own speed.
Lei looked at the wall across from the window. On it was a sheathed samurai-style sword with a bamboo practice katana below it, resting on simple wooden pegs. Just above the swords was a line of photos of Japanese men in uniform.
Mrs. Yamaguchi came shuffling back. She was carrying a lacquered tray. It held a small clay teapot, two handleless cups, and a couple of nori-wrapped rice crackers on a plate.
“The water is still get
ting hot,” the elderly woman said.
“Can I help? Please, Aunty. Let me do something.”
“Okay, then. In a minute you can fetch the hot water from the stove.”
“I will.” Lei leaned forward, opening the file she had brought and set it beside the tea tray. “So I have been assigned to investigate the bone you found on the beach. Please tell me about your discovery.”
“I was doing my morning walk.” Mrs. Yamaguchi pointed to a wooden stand in the corner where several hand-carved canes rested. “I walk every day. How I made eighty-five last week.”
“Congratulations. That’s a big milestone. My captain said you brought the skull in? I was wondering why you didn’t just call us so we could see it where you found it?”
Mrs. Yamaguchi’s dark eyes, so deep a brown that Lei couldn’t see her pupils, seemed to sharpen in the fans of crepe-like skin surrounding them. “I didn’t want someone to take it away while I was calling you. And I don’t believe in those cell phones. So I put it in my trash bag and I brought it home. I had to do my shopping in Costco anyway, so I just took ’em out myself. You can go get the water now.”
“Of course.” Lei got up with a respectful inclination of her head. She walked into the modest kitchen. Sure enough, an old-fashioned white enamel teakettle was just beginning to whistle on the small gas stove. Lei turned it off, glancing around the pristine space with its small round table and two chairs.
She saw no other evidence of anyone else living with the elderly lady, and the thought of Mrs. Yamaguchi driving that hazardous road in the rusting truck she’d glimpsed in the lean-to garage gave her a bit of a shiver. Still, Mrs. Yamaguchi seemed steady enough.
She carried the kettle back out to the tea things. “Is it okay if I pour it in?” She was unsure of the protocol.
“I put the tea in the pot already,” Mrs. Yamaguchi said. “You may pour.”
Lei carefully filled the heavy earthenware pot with the boiling water and replaced the lid. She took the kettle back to the stove and rejoined the old woman. “Now, you took the skull in. What made you think someone might take it from where you found it?”
“Someone knows who that child is. That someone wouldn’t want anyone to see the bone,” Mrs. Yamaguchi said.
Lei frowned. “You know who these people are? Who would take the skull and hide it?”
Mrs. Yamaguchi just shrugged. She opened the teapot and stirred the loose tea inside with a bamboo whisk. She placed a china strainer over each cup and carefully poured.
Lei followed the older woman’s lead as she lifted the teacup, sniffed, and sipped. The tea tasted like flowers and green things.
“Delicious.” Lei’s grandfather had a kindred spirit in Mrs. Yamaguchi.
The woman gave a brief nod. “You want I take you to where I find the bone?”
“That would be perfect.” Lei opened the file again. “I just wanted to tell you a few things we have found out so far, in case you might know anything about it. The skull belonged to a male child, aged ten or so. The hole in the front?” Lei tapped the photo, drawing the woman’s gaze to the disturbing break in the forehead. “This happened after the skull was buried. Perhaps when the flood washed it down the stream. There’s no evidence of foul play so far.”
“I am glad of that,” Mrs. Yamaguchi said. “Finish your tea. Then we go. I have to be back by three.”
“Three?”
“General Hospital is on.” Mrs. Yamaguchi jerked her head toward the sleek, wall-mounted flat-screen in the corner. “I always watch.”
Lei hid her smile by slurping her tea. Finishing it, she stood. “I’m ready if you are.”
Chapter Six
I wasn’t sure what I’d just experienced.
I’d just had a hallucination visit from the ghost of my ex-wife, and while I appreciated that Anchara had decided to forgive me and wasn’t going to haunt me anymore, her direction that I get back to our son was about as loony tunes a moment as I’d had in my life.
Looking out into the darkness, at the glowing moth fluttering among the dripping trees, I heard the thin, high scream of some small animal, abruptly cut short. Mosquitoes buzzed in my ears. The moth zigzagged out of sight into the depths.
I had no idea where I was being held prisoner, or how to get anywhere that would get me out of this place. If I’d had anything to drink, I’d have downed it. I longed for that anesthetic, that oblivion. But I didn’t, and I still hadn’t woken up. I pinched my own arm, hard.
Pain spiked.
Apparently I wasn’t dreaming.
If I was going to escape, I needed supplies. A compass. Weapons. Some sort of plan.
And then there was the fact that I was sick. I felt my way back to my pallet just as my wobbly knees collapsed. Lying there, reattaching my rope, I was so dizzy and nauseated from even those small exertions and stresses that I retched.
Finally, curled on my side in the fetal position, I drifted off. Maybe tomorrow I’d be well enough to do something.
I woke to the stabbing of sunshine in my eyes and a rough hand under my arm hauling me upright.
“Come.” It was the man from before. I continued to pretend I didn’t understand Spanish, but his meaning was pretty clear as he untied the rope and hefted me up.
I was definitely feeling a little better today, I realized. My vision was clearer and I wasn’t as dizzy—but I didn’t want to be put back in that muddy pit. I dragged my feet and stumbled, my head lolling.
The guard swore impatiently and draped one of my arms over his shoulders. He had a knife in a scabbard on his belt—a modern combat knife with a molded-plastic handle, a compass embedded in the haft.
I needed that knife.
The sun was out today, and the humidity was so thick that breathing felt like snorkeling. The mud we slogged through was actually steaming. In spite of the brightness stabbing my eyes, I tried to get my bearings on the camp.
The main access seemed to be a small airstrip, one of the pistas I’d heard of, runways for the drug planes to come and go from the jungle. Clustered at one end of that runway was the encampment, a group of tents and ramshackle dwellings of scrap wood and roofing material, draped in camouflage netting beneath trees that had clearly been left to provide visual cover from the air.
I counted at least eight men in a quick survey. Two were on guard duty, but not taking it too seriously as they smoked and leaned on their rifles. The rest were playing cards or cooking in an open-sided group tent.
The guard put me in the outhouse again, which I badly needed by then. Afterward, he marched me on past my shed toward a large tent deep in the jungle shadows. We passed by the pit where I knew the other men were. All I could see was the circle of bamboo and palm fronds that covered the hole.
My guts twisted with guilt and worry over them, trapped in the unhealthy filth of that hole. I stumbled, slipping down from my guard’s grasp, and as I did so I grabbed his belt.
He swore and hefted me up again, insulting my mother and sisters in Spanish, but as we got going again, his knife in its snap-on belt scabbard was deep in the cargo pocket of my filthy pants.
Compass and weapon. Check.
Though now that I had it, how long would it be until he missed it?
Too late now.
“Excuse me, sir. I brought the prisoner.” My guard spoke outside the imposing canvas tent.
An interior flap was untied. A guard carrying one of our military-issued M16s stood aside after looking us over. My guard hefted me in. I kept my head lolling on my chest, sneaking glances as I was able.
The man who appeared to be in charge of this operation was sitting at a table, eating. The biodegradable tray he was scooping food from was one of our MREs. Meals Ready to Eat are not known for flavor, but this hefty, black-bearded man was shoveling in the familiar, homely beef-and-vegetable entrée like it was gourmet.
Who were these people, outfitted like our military? Had they stolen all of this, or been given it in some misguided oper
ation?
“I brought the tall, sick one,” the guard said.
“Put him on the chair,” the man replied. His small, beady eyes ran over me. I was floppy and unresponsive as the door guard moved to open an aluminum folding chair. It screeched in protest as he unfolded it and further squealed as my guard dropped me onto it like a sack of rice.
“Tie him,” the commander said. He opened a vacuum-packed plastic container of peaches and poured them onto the tray. The smell hit me right in my empty belly, sweet and heavy as a long-ago summer. My stomach rumbled as the guard tied my hands behind the chair back.
But he didn’t tie my legs.
Head still bowed, I glanced around for a map. If I had a map and the compass, I might have a chance of getting somewhere useful.
“Prop today’s paper under his chin,” the commander said. “Hold his head up.”
They stuck a newspaper, pulpy and curling with damp, under my chin. The guard smacked my cheek. “Look up, damn it.”
A flash went off in my eyes as they took a photo. This must be the next “proof of life” installment since they cut the bone hook off my neck.
With that thought, I suddenly and vividly remembered the attack.
I’d been in the middle of lecturing. A half circle of men was seated in front of me as I talked about the three C’s of evidence collection at a crime scene and the necessity of protecting the area where a crime occurred. Overhead, we heard the thrum of helicopters approaching, but that wasn’t unusual. I didn’t even stop talking until the tear gas shot into the tent, fired from three choppers as they landed in our airstrip area.
They mowed us down with non-lethal ammo and tear gas. A few shots were fired, but our troops clearly hadn’t expected this kind of balls-out full-frontal attack. Most of the men I was instructing didn’t have weapons with them—I’d left my sidearm in the tent, too.
