“He’s the man you picked, and he deserves to die.” This was Monica. She was there too, somewhere in the small crowd of overbearing, enormous women. Her voice wasn’t so soothing and comforting anymore. The woman on the phone was gone. In her place had come this angry, misguided beast. Heather had almost backed out when she’d seen her in the parking lot of the bar. Now, she wished she had. “And more than most. He’s already confessed to being a serial rapist. Use that as your motivation, if you must.”
“But… he’s so big.”
Nobody said anything. The silence in the long hallway was deafening. Eventually, the one named Gertrude- a woman so large and muscular that Heather had wondered if in fact she was really a robot or cyborg or whatever they were called- broke the silence.
“Pick one,” she said.
There was no more, and Heather’s hand seemed to move upon the command. It shook as she reached forward toward the screwdriver. “This one’s stronger than the other two,” she said. Nobody contradicted her. Nobody agreed. “I don’t have to be as strong with this one, right? Maybe I can get it through his eye and into his brain? That would work, right?”
Nobody spoke. They only stared her down with their many, angry eyes.
My God, she thought. I’m already thinking like them! I need to get out of here. I need to… I just want to go home.
When her shaking hand grasped the screwdriver’s red handle, the “headwomen,” as they called themselves, were suddenly walking down the hall toward the door at the far end. Only one- Heather thought her name was Janet or maybe it was Janice- stayed behind. This was the only one who wasn’t bulging with muscles, and Heather wondered what strange element of the island’s blue sector required one woman be so attractive while the others be so hideous.
“You can do this,” Janet-Janice said. “I know you’re scared, but you’re strong, too. All women are strong on the inside.” She said no more and Heather found that the look in her eyes was filled with the compassion she thought she’d find at the end of Monica’s phone calls. She wanted to ask yet again if couldn’t she just go home instead. But she was too scared to face another rejection.
“Thanks,” she said.
Janet-Janice didn’t say any more, though Heather thought that maybe she had wanted to. Instead, the beautiful woman’s jaw stiffened and she slipped down the hallway where the others had opened the door and let in the blazing sunlight.
I can do this, Heather told herself. Men are scum. This man is scum. My uncle is scum. I’m just ridding the world of a rapist. That’s all I’m doing. And I have a weapon and he doesn’t.
“But he’s so big,” her mouth mumbled. Her brain could not contest the notion.
She thought again of her uncle, of his squeezing hand on her left buttock, of the one glance toward her little sister she thought she might have seen. The anger that welled within her pushed out much of the fear. She took a step toward the open door at the end of the hall, and then another. As she walked, her fist clenched around the screwdriver’s red plastic handle. Its barrel glinted a piercing reflection when she stepped into the shaft of light in the open door. She didn’t blink it away.
Outside stood more than a dozen women in a huge circle, all wearing colored t-shirts and watching Elton, the man she had seduced a million years ago in a little town a million miles away. He was chained at the ankle to a wooden post that had been recently planted into the ground. He had perhaps twenty feet of chain, giving him a huge, swinging berth. But the women were all just outside his reach. He cursed at them and swung his arms at them. Not one of them moved.
Heather saw Lucy standing at the far side of the circle of women. She looked at this specimen of confidence and strength and wondered what she must have been like on her initiation. Lucy was the one she was supposed to be replacing and she looked strong enough to kill Elton with her bare hands, if not with her stare alone. How can they expect someone like me to become someone like her?
Behind Lucy Heather noticed a smaller circle of scorched earth and grass. The blackness there stood out against the green of the lush grass. Then she noticed another, older spot that looked much the same. This one was healing, with tufts of green showing through the blackened dirt and much of the dirt itself moistened to a healthy brown once more. Heather surveyed the vast spread of green and noticed several old stains dotted this southern expanse between the island and the fence that marked the world of the men. Somehow, she realized her initiation had something to do with those scorch marks.
What do they do, she wondered, hold frickin’ campfires and sing Kumbaya when it’s over?
“It’s time.” Heather jumped. Monica had spoken from behind her, from in front of the closing door that marked the last moment of civilization she thought she’d ever know. “There are no rules,” Monica said. “Just kill him.”
“What if he hurts me?”
Monica’s eyes narrowed. “What of it? He will hurt you. But physical pain isn’t so much after what you’ve already suffered. He kept a woman captive as his sex slave for eight years. Think of that, and go end him.”
“Eight…” Heather said. Her mind could not grasp the concept. Eight years ago she had been only seven. Eight years ago she had been happy and obsessed with Spongbob Squarepants of all things. Eight years ago her uncle had still been a nice man, a happy man, and a man she loved to run to for his wiggling hugs and laughter.
She looked at Elton, the crazed rapist who had eyed her legs so disgustingly. My God, she realized. He was trying to rape me, too. He wanted to make me his sex slave! And if Monica hadn’t been there…
“He’s dead,” she said. But her words fell on deaf ears. Monica, Rhonda, Gertrude, Janet-Janice, Lucy, and all the others were too busy staring down Elton themselves.
He was the embodiment of what her uncle probably wanted to become. And for the first time in her life, she was going to fight. She was going to stand up for the woman who had been at his mercy all those years. She was going to kill this man who didn’t deserve the life he’d been given, and what’s more she thought she was going to enjoy it.
Without thinking, planning, or considering an alternative of any kind, Heather gripped the handle of the screwdriver as tightly as she could and ran, screaming into the circle of Elton’s grasp.
5
Josie watched as Heather charged the man chained to the initiation pole. She was angry, and that would help her, but Josie thought she knew what came next anyway. She’d seen it more than once before.
The man, alerted to Heather’s impending attack by her scream, turned, saw, assessed, and squared his shoulders. He took two steps toward her before the chain at his ankle jerked him still. The pole behind him had been buried six feet into the ground and did not move.
For a moment, Josie’s vision seemed to blur as she remembered her own initiation. The fear. The crowd of women, most of whom were now gone from the island, and the first man she had ever seduced chained to a pole and awaiting her wrath. Then the vision was gone and Heather’s arm was swinging in a strong downward arc.
The man moved to block it but only caught the screwdriver’s blade with his palm. Blood gushed as he screamed his surprise and pain. Heather laughed a single, hard cry-
“HA!”
-and then the man’s other fist beat her across the temple. Her head rocked to the side, her hair flying from the impact. Josie’s mind flashed backward six years. She, too, had chosen the screwdriver. Nobody ever seemed to take the rope, though she’d been told Lucy had been one. Her approach had been different, though. Josie had circled her man slowly, trying to glean a weakness while her courage waxed and waned. He’d followed her, wrapping his chain shorter and shorter around the pole. Yet when she’d finally gone in, he too had struck the first real blow. The knock had been to Josie’s jaw because that’s how a man fought, and she’d been flung backward like a common, drunken barfly.
Heather was straightening up. There was a cut on her temple, and despite being well within the
man’s reach he only stood there watching her.
“You’re the Feather!” the man said in obvious awe. His simpleton’s voice carried easily in the open air. No wind was swirling today. Only Heather’s gasping breath stirred the hair around the man’s face. “I remembers you,” he continued. “You wanted to see my puppy.”
“You murderer!” Heather screamed, and for a moment Josie’s heart rose with hope. “You fucking asshole rapist! They told me what you did! They told me!”
She swung again with her makeshift blade but this time the man caught her easily at the wrist. He squeezed and in a moment she grunted in pain and dropped the weapon. She swung her other fist, and it did hit him solidly in the chest, but the big man barely rocked from the impact. Soon he was latched onto that wrist too.
They stood there in an awkward embrace while the women of Monroe’s Island watched. None moved to intercede. None held so much as a shotgun of protection.
Josie remembered the girl’s face when she’d come to visit the other day. She’d been so overwhelmed and scared even then, and Josie had been rude, trying to make an impression in front of Gertrude. All she’d wanted was to go and hug the unknown girl. Now she wondered how much of the real fear was welling up inside her.
More than ever before, Josie thought. More than when she saw her three meager choices, and more even than the day some man raped her or beat her back home. Because this isn’t back home. This place is a place of endings, and if she hasn’t figured that out already, she’s learning it now.
“You smell like piss,” Heather grimaced.
“Ain’t my fault,” the man said. “They made me sit in it for days and days.” The odd communique ended there, and Heather struggled again at his strong hands but nothing came of it. He was too big to be swayed by this frail teenage girl. He was also, Josie realized, clearly experienced at holding a woman down.
“They says you want to kill me, Feather, but I don’t know why. I didn’t make you my angel. I didn’t hurt you at all. I only looked at your legs.”
Heather said something in reply, but Josie didn’t hear. She was remembering her own fear so long ago. She was remembering the moment her fear had nearly overwhelmed her and she’d fought it, finding instead the courage and the strength to plunge that very same screwdriver into the man’s temple and watch him drop like a two-hundred pound stone.
Then Heather kicked the man, hard, between the legs. A small cheer came from a few of the women and the man buckled over, releasing his grip. Heather picked up the screwdriver and slashed at the man’s head. It connected a glancing blow and more blood splattered across her shirt.
You’ll never be clean again, Josie’s haunted mind offered.
The man screamed again, seeming to realize this was not a game after all. He grabbed Heather’s leg, pulled her off balance, and was suddenly biting her calf, straight through the stiff fabric of her jeans. Heather screamed back, swung the screwdriver again, but missed. The man pulled at her feet and she came tumbling to the ground.
Josie’s heart broke.
“Help!” Heather screamed.
But none of the women moved.
The man was above her, straddling her and pinning her down with his great weight. Blood from his scalp wound dripped into her eyes.
“Jesus, he’s going to kill me!” she screamed. “Somebody, stop him!”
None of the women moved.
Then the man’s big hands were over her throat and she couldn’t scream any more. Blood from his wounded hand poured across her neck and chest. He squeezed and her eyes bulged with such fear and surprise Josie knew she was finally learning what the island was really all about.
“You wasn’t supposed to fight me,” the man was saying. His big hands were squeezing, squeezing. The blood was pooling on the grass, turning the lush green a bright red. “You wasn’t supposed to cheat me, Feather. I was gonna make you my angel. I was gonna love you forever and ever. Really really. I was gonna love you.”
The girl’s final action wasn’t fight but flight, as was her true nature all along. Her hand still gripped the weapon but made no attempt to attack her murderer. Instead she pushed at him weakly, in the end turning her head and looking directly into the eyes of the women who stood watching her life depart from her body. Josie met those eyes and mouthed the words, I’m sorry, though the tears she wished would fall did not come.
Gertrude made short work of the man when it was over. She hauled his body away and was back in mere minutes. He had neither fought nor seemed to understand he was even in danger. His obsession over the small, dead girl beneath him had been that great.
Heather was another matter. The women, as was their tradition, showed respect by not speaking a word. But for that one, brief cheer when she’d kicked him, none of them had said a thing from the moment she had come screaming from the fortress’ southern door. Now, they each spent a brief moment over her body. Some tossed a handful of dirt down. Others merely stared and processed their own, private thoughts. Josie, as she always did when this moment inevitably came, stood and wished she could shed a tear for the innocent girl she had just helped to murder. Once again, her eyes remained dry and she counted it as another millennium in Hell she’d one day account for.
They burned her where she lay, covering her body first with gasoline, then the wooden pole which had briefly held her murderer in check. Before they left the little field, more than one woman among them counted the scorch marks left behind from fallen women of the past.
6
“Well,” Gertrude said when the island had been left behind them. “I’d like to take this opportunity to congratulate you, Lucy. Your time with us, with me especially, has been invaluable to The Cause. You are one of the very best I’ve ever worked with. I shall be sad to see you go.”
Lucy didn’t say a word and soon Gertrude continued. “You’ve served your ten years in the highest fashion, you know. You return to the world much improved and a true benefit to society. For the rest of your life you will walk among others who know less than you, have experienced less than you, who are weaker, less valuable than you. In your own way, you can continue The Cause where it really counts.”
“Cut the bullshit, Gertrude,” Lucy said almost nonchalantly, and in spite of herself she giggled happily. She’d been wanting to say that for years. Gertrude clammed up immediately. It was heaven. “Monica isn’t the only one who can tell when someone is lying,” Lucy continued. “I know what happens next.”
“Oh, do you now?” Gertrude said. She was back on the offensive, as always. Lucy caught Monica looking over her shoulder. “And what, exactly, is it that happens next?”
Lucy wouldn’t give her anything else. Let her sweat it out a little. But Gertrude didn’t seem to sweat. She just waited patiently with one eyebrow cocked and her head tilted. Finally, Lucy just started talking.
“You do everything for The Cause, don’t you Gertrude? Every Goddamned thing. It’s like you have no personality of your own. It’s like you are The Cause. You want to know the truth? I pity you. I pity you because you’ve been on this fucking island working for your fucking Cause for who knows how long- half a life maybe- and all you’ve amounted to is a bully. Well, I’ve actually made something of myself.”
“I won’t pretend to understand this outburst, Lucy, but of course you have accomplished a great deal. That’s what graduating is all about.”
“More bullshit, Dirty Gertie,” and even in the darkness Lucy could swear she could see the headwoman’s face turn red. “Graduation is nothing more than completing all the courses. I’ve been here ten years, that’s all. The reason I’ve made something of myself is because of what I’ve learned on my own in that time, not what you’ve forced on me.”
“And what is that?” Gertrude asked.
“Now, now, Gertie. I can’t tell you that. It’s my little secret.”
“My goodness, Lucy,” Monica finally said from the cockpit. Lucy suspected she had been on the verge of blowing up.
“Is this the way you want to spend your final few hours with us?”
“No,” Lucy admitted. “I’d much rather be spending it alone. But since you two are going to be here I guess the next best thing is to do it in silence. I don’t suppose a condemned woman has the right to ask for a silent ride, does she? Because that’s what I’d really like more than anything right now.”
“Oh, dear,” Monica said. “That’s terrible, Lucy. ‘Condemned.’ How can you say that? The time ahead of you is just filled with opportunities.”
“Sure it is,” Lucy said. “And Gertie isn’t obsessed with her body.”
“Lucy! This is all just so wrong. We should be celebrating! You know, I could do such a session on you in this state. This is a side of you I haven’t seen in years. I wonder what it was that has prompted you to speak in such a manner. And perhaps more importantly, how long have you been hiding these feelings? It isn’t a healthy thing to bottle up your true feelings, Lucy. What other kinds of things have you been-”
“Monica,” Gertrude cut her off. “This graduated woman has wishes that we should respect. Now shut your trap or I’ll shut it for you. Perhaps in her quiet time she’ll think about what ‘respect’ really means.”
And those were the last words uttered by any of them until the helicopter reached Hawaii. Throughout the ride, Monica kept her hands on the stick and Gertrude kept her head faced forward. Lucy, meanwhile, laced her own hands behind her head, looked out the window at the passing stars, and enjoyed the silence by finding her favorite constellations.
When the helicopter finally touched down nearly two hours later, Gertrude broke the silence. “You’ll be expecting your money-”
“No… I won’t,” Lucy said. Her voice was quiet but calm. It was the voice of a second-in-commend. “And I won’t expect to get a ticket to the mainland, either.” Gertrude and Monica looked at each other. An unspoken communication passed between them. “I only want to know one thing.”
A huge sigh slumped Gertrude’s shoulders. “For you, Lucy,” she said, “anything.”
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