“Same as ever,” Allen sighed. “How about you? Have any trouble getting to the top?” “No,” he shook his head.
“Then the signal flag is out,” Allen grinned as he climbed to his feet. “That’s great. Maybe we can get off this rock before long if someone spots it.”
“Maybe,” he nodded solemnly as Henry sat up, blinking owlishly as he reached for his worn trousers, the only garment he had left besides his waterlogged shoes and shorts. He had willingly sacrificed the rest of his clothing to the making of their flag.
“Sgt. Walker,” the old man smiled at him, his weary gaze now seeming dark, and cloudy to Jon’s eyes. “I trust you encountered no great difficulties?” “None,” he lied smoothly, wondering when the men would get around to mentioning Simon’s absence. And what he would say, if he could say nothing of the truth.
“That’s a relief. We’re most fortunate to have encountered someone as capable as you to oversee our little group,” the old man remarked as he stood. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, nature calls.”
“Of course,” he nodded as Allen made similar excuses as he walked off into the jungle in another direction.
Jon stood watching them go, still seeing fiery landscapes, and boiling oceans all around him as he watched the men go off to relieve themselves. He wondered then if they were all truly dead, or if this was some kind of halfway house of sorts between life and death. Either way, did they really need food or water in such a case, or were their appetites just the illusory shadows of a life only recently lost? Again, he did not know.
“Jonnie,” Dana/Danielle exclaimed as she came outside just then, and spotted him. “Thank God you’re back safe. I’ve been worried sick when you took off on your own,” she informed him as she led the twins outside. “You should have let one of us go with you, you naughty boy,” she grinned.
“I….thought about it,” he told her, seeing nothing deceptive in her gaze as she came to embrace him, hugging him with the same genuine affection he had known from her all along.
But she was an actress. Supposedly a good one. Would he know if she were faking? He swore, and shook off his doubts as he returned her embrace. Enough doubt. She was a human being. The same as he.
“We might have…..a problem,” Pam told him as Tammy ducked her head, and blushed furiously.
“What’s wrong,” he asked, looking past Dana’s smooth shoulder to meet her gaze.
“There’s something….odd about that new woman. The redhead,” Pam told him.
“Hey, guys,” the woman mentioned came outside at just that moment. “Hey, you’re back,” cold, green eyes studied him as Jessica gave him a less than enthusiastic smile. “I was wondering if you were going to fall on your head out there doing all that macho crap you guys enjoy.”
“I’m more careful than that,” he assured the redhead who actually seemed rather disappointed than relieved at his return.
“We’ll see you at the river,” Pam told him. “I’m going to help Tammy fish today.”
“Can I help,” Jessica asked as she eyed the two, young blondes.
Jon found he understood at once as the two looked at him, their blue eyes clouded, and anxious.
“I was hoping you’d help Dana make some more dishes today,” he cut her off. “We’re going to need them if we’re here for any length of time with all the mouths to feed. Cook pots especially.”
“Sure,” the redhead shrugged, eyeing the twins with a proprietary gaze that disturbed him.
“I’ll get things set up at our kiln after breakfast,” Dana agreed, smiling back at Jon. “You want bananas and mangoes, or mangoes and bananas,” she teased him.
“Surprise me,” he told her lightly as he realized he didn’t feel the slightest bit of hunger any longer. It was as if his body had just been switched off. He could smell the air. Hear the ocean. Feel the world around him. Yet he was suddenly feeling disconnected from his body’s appetites, as if he had no need of anything. Not food. Not water. Not even the desire of his ebony lover’s touch.
“Lucky man, aren’t you,” Jessica smirked at him before she went after Dana. “Having these luscious things all to yourself all this time.”
“We have all helped each other survive, Ms. Parker,” he told her blandly. “Sex isn’t all we’ve shared. It isn’t even the most important thing.”
“Spoken like a true eunuch,” Allen drawled as he came back from the jungle in only his torn jeans. What remained of his shirt was now gone. Judging by the young man’s damp hair, and slightly pink skin, he had been bathing.
“Let’s go check your tackle,” Jon suggested to Tammy.
“I’ll come with you,” Pam told him.
“Going where,” Allen asked, his interest evident from the swell of his fly.
“Fishing,” Tammy smiled at him.
“Say, that sounds like fun,” he grinned at the young, bashful blonde, and was ready to invite himself when Jon spoke up.
“You and Henry should take all the water bottles, and the canteen down to the water hole and refill them today,” Jon advised him.
“We haven’t used that much water. And there’s plenty…..” “Jon is the boss,” Pam told him primly. “We all agreed on that. You have to listen to him.”
“We didn’t agree,” Allen told her with a scowl.
“Yes, you did. When you joined our group,” Pam told him. “Now, scoot, boy,” she grinned at him, dismissing him like a child.
“You’d better be careful around him,” Jon advised them as they went to the little storage niche at the side of the cave where they stored their tools. “I think he might be dangerous.”
“He better be careful around me,” Pam shot. “I don’t like pushy guys.”
Jon tried not to hear the sharp edge to her voice.
“What kind of guys do you like,” he asked her calmly as they began taking several of the slender cane poles he had fashioned for Tammy from the pile before them.
“Strong, but flexible. Sensitive, but capable. Guys like you,” Pam smiled at him in as overt an invitation as he had ever had. And not once in all the long days on this island had she ever looked at him like that. Or had he simply not noticed?
“I’m flattered,” he smiled back, feeling not one trace of sexual response as he stared at her half naked young body clad in a makeshift skirt made from the remnants of her ruined gown.
“You should be,” Pam winked teasingly.
“So….About the trouble you mentioned,” he asked her as they headed for the river sometime after they had all had their fill of tropical fruits. All but him, though no one seemed to notice he had not taken so much as a bite. And still he was not hungry. He didn’t know if that was a good sign, or not.
“Jessie, that redhead, has been pressuring Tammy lately,” Pam finally told him as they settled down to fish. “I think there’s something a bit odd about her.”
“I….ah….think she just likes women,” Jon told her.
“Yuck,” Pam grimaced as Tammy blushed furiously, but remained silent.
“I guess that answers my question. She didn’t….try to hurt you, did she,” Jon asked Tammy directly.
“No,” she murmured. “But she kept sitting real close to me while we ate. And when we go to bed, she keeps brushing against me. Touching me.”
“I finally lay down between them,” Pam told him. “And then she started trying to fondle me. I think slapping her hand told her where I stood.”
“Well, as long as she doesn’t try anything else, we’ll leave her alone. If she does, you come to me,” he nodded to them. “No one has to the right to force another to do anything they don’t want,” he said, and found himself only then remembering Pam’s sins. Pam’s. Not Tammy’s. So why were they both here?
Tammy whimpered at that pronouncement.
“Is something wrong?” “It’s….ancient history,” Pam told him grimly as she glanced at her sister.
“Well, you can talk to me about anything you like. I’m not going anywhere,” he assured them. “And we are all in this together. If I can be of any help,” he ended lamely.
“It’s nothing,” Pam murmured, though she looked away, less confident now.
“Pamela?” This time Pam make a choking sound.
“Pam?” “I’m sorry. I was just….remembering,” she told him.
“What was it? Something bad,” he asked as he put an arm around her in comfort.
“The….The night of the shipwreck,” she told him. “And the storm. I….I think something bad happened,” she told him.
“What do you mean?” “I….I think I might have hurt our father,” she suddenly blurted out.
Jon said nothing as Tammy dropped her pole, and just dropped her head, looking into the water.
“Tell me about it,” he suggested quietly. “Don’t worry. It will be between just you and me.”
“I….I don’t remember everything. Not too clearly. Dad….was drunk again. He was always drunk lately,” she grimaced.
“I’m sorry.”
“Me, too. But not for the same reasons. You see….he..….he….molested me. Sexually.”
Jon nodded, saying nothing as he sensed the boisterous teen’s spirit was dangerously brittle just then. “What happened?”
“He….He fucked me. No big deal. I didn’t care. He didn’t hurt me, and it kept him from Tammy. Only that night, he said he was tired of me. Tired of the same old thing. So he went after her.
“I couldn’t let him,” Pam told him desperately, looking up at him with a plea for understanding in her eyes. “I….I promised mom I would watch out for her.” She smiled weakly. “That’s like a sacred pledge. Because she was dying….cancer. She had not told anyone yet, but she trusted me. I was the older one. The outgoing one. I had to watch out for Tammy, because she is always so shy and quiet, and lets things run over her.
“I…I wasn’t going to let dad run over her, too. I couldn’t.”
“So you hurt him?” “I….I killed him,” she rasped. “I forgot that for a long time.
“There was the storm. Then the endless drifting. Then we got to the island, only we were on our own. Everything kept me so busy I just….somehow….forgot. But then the dreams started. Bloody, horrible dreams,” she sniffled, and hugged Jon tightly. “And now I can’t forget. It won’t go away,” she sniffed. “And now that woman is trying to do….to….”
“She won’t hurt you,” he promised her. “She won’t hurt either of you.”
He felt a tentative hand brush his shoulder, and turned to see Tammy’s tear-stained face looking up at him. She held out her arms, and he opened an arm to her. It was the first time the bashful girl had willingly touched anyone except her sister. He hugged her to his free side as they both wept in his arms.
“I’ll try to help you all I can,” he promised them as his eyes went inevitably to the top of the distant peak.
He could almost sense the gaze of that giant being looking back at him.
“Just….leave me alone,” Samantha hissed as he returned to camp to find the brunette stalking away from Allen. Nearby, Henry was staring into the fire, watching the clay dishes bake as the other two women worked at fashioning more while chatting quietly together.
“Is something wrong,” Jon asked as he joined the old man at the fire. It seemed that time had slipped by unnoticed of late. As unnoticed as Simon’s absence, which had not been mentioned by anyone since the day he returned from the mountain. It was as if, he realized only later, he had never even been a member of their group. As if he had never existed.
“College boy was trying for a sympathy fuck. He struck out,” Henry smirked, tearing Jon from his grim thoughts.
“A…sympathy fuck,” Jon echoed in disbelief.
“Yeah. Stupid punk thought making sympathetic noises about her dead baby would endear him to her. He struck out. Course, he’s been striking out since he boarded our cruise. It’s almost painful to watch,” the old man actually snickered. “You should have seen him wasting his time trying to get the dyke over there to put out. I think he was the only one on board that didn’t know she was only into girls.”
“That is pretty stupid,” Jon agreed, deciding not to cut off the man’s callous banter. It might help him learn something that might help him. If he deserved it. So far, he was guessing that the longer they were here, the more their true characters seemed to come out. Pam was her sister’s protector, and so that was the role she played. To the hilt. Tammy was shy and unassuming to the point of being almost invisible.
Henry, it seemed, was at heart a crude and callous sort of man. A behavior he must hide successfully back in the world judging by his success as a noted television reporter of some fame.
Judging.
“So, what are you into,” Jon blurted out.
“I wouldn’t mind getting into her,” Henry grinned as he whispered to Jon as Tammy walked by holding the string of fish she had caught after their cleansing conversation. Pam was walking with her, holding their tackle. Both seemed younger than ever now. Almost…..childlike.
“Which one,” Jon asked. “They both look like one other.”
“No. I’ve seen enough twins to be able to tell them apart even without their speaking. Tammy’s the hot one. So shy, so innocent. She’s the kind that makes a man want to take her in hand, and teach her all about the facts of life.”
“So you like teaching them young?” “Younger the better,” the man admitted honestly, then looked up at Jon. “You know what I mean. I heard you Injuns used to take them pretty young, too,” he remarked crudely. “Who knows what you do out on those reservations? Maybe that’s why they’re off limits. You don’t like sharing the wealth.”
“I wouldn’t know. I was an orphan, and was raised in Arizona by foster parents. White foster parents.”
“Too bad. So,” Henry looked up at him with a broad grin. “How many times you fucked ‘em?”
“I haven’t.”
“You shitting me,” the old man snorted, all pretense of dignity gone now. “You’re doing the movie star. We all know that. But you haven’t had the twins? Neither of them?” “No,” Jon told him curtly, feeling a rising distaste for this man that no amount of human sympathy could ease. “They’re children.”
“They’re sexual creatures. And at least one of them knows it. I’m sure the other just needs a little encouragement, and we could have a regular orgy going here. I know college boy would appreciate it. He’s been moaning about blue balls since we got here.”
“It hasn’t been that long,” Jon protested.
“You call a year and a half not long,” Henry smirked as he carefully pulled the clay dish from the fire. “Jeez. You, and your little girls have been here even longer. I think you’re even starting to like it here,” Henry accused. “Of course, I’d like it better, too, if you didn’t guard the only pussy on the island like it was your own private stash.”
“Maybe I feel responsible for them,” he shot back, looking up to see Samantha staring at him with an odd expression. Jessica, as always of late, just ignored him.
“Maybe you’re a fucking fag. Maybe you’d like the college boy to…..”
“You’re a sick, twisted man,” Jon accused him bluntly. “There’s no hope for you.”
And just that quickly, Jon was standing atop the mountain once more, and this time Henry was at his side, staring around in confusion as he climbed to his feet.
“What the hell is this,” he muttered, showing little fear for the horrific vision that surrounded them. “What’s going on?” “Judgment,” that familiar voice rang in Jon’s ears.
He looked up, and the being nodded to him.
Henry just looked around. “I’m having a….a delusion. That’s what this is. Some of that college boy’s dope got into the water.”
“You have found no redemption for this man,” the being stated without question.
“No,” Jon choked, hating that he had felt that way even before suddenly finding himself here. There should have been some hope. Some shred of decency. But there had been none, and he had been sickened by the man’s behavior over the past eighteen months that had passed unnoticed, but now replayed through his memories as his arrogant, obnoxious behavior was revealed in full detail.
“So be it,” the being nodded as one of the winged beasts circling over their heads shrieked in his ears as it appeared to carry off the older man to his fate.
Henry virtually a gaunt, skeletal figure as his little flesh dissolved, was still protesting his doubts of his own senses as he was dropped into the boiling oceans far beyond the island.
“He will cease to be a skeptic soon enough,” the being advised him. “I expected him sooner.”
Jon looked up at him. “Can you tell me anything else,” he begged the being, feeling helpless and sickened at once at his circumstances.
“Tell you what,” Samantha asked as Jon blinked, and found himself facing the woman across the fire from the new pot she had just set into the hot coals to fire.
Jon shook his head. “I….I just want to understand you better. To….be friends,” he babbled inanely as he looked up at the melancholy brunette that spent most of her time alone, refusing even Jessica’s company despite being close to her own age.
Age.
Jon suddenly realized they all looked more like teenagers now. All of them. Even Allen looked younger than ever. And yet he had the sudden perception of time passing. Of being on this island with the survivors for over four years now.
“I told you about….that….when I was feeling lonely, and stupid. God, I still can’t believe I shared that,” she told him with a look of disgust aimed at herself as Jon suddenly remembered the alleged conversation as they sat on the beach one afternoon while the others swam.
She had told him of her child. Of tiny Amy, her lost child. And it had led to her confession that she had indeed killed her husband. She had found him in bed with her baby, fingering her, and rubbing his penis over the girl’s mouth. He had been preparing her, he had told Samantha, so she wouldn’t grow up frigid and fearful of sex, like her mother.
Samantha had lost her mind. She blacked out, or so it seemed. When she regained her wits, she realized what she had done. She had used the knife in her hands she had been cutting up chicken with to hack her husband to pieces. Fearful of losing her child to someone as bad as her spouse, she had continued to cut the man up until he had been completely gutted and slaughtered. Then she began to prepare him. She feared jail if she tried to dispose of the body, and got caught. She feared jail only because she feared losing her child, who meant more to her than anything else in the world.
So she chose the one way to be rid of the body that no one else could possibly detect. She froze him after cutting him up into manageable pieces. Being a butcher’s helper, and a farm girl, she knew just how to handle meat. She used a special machine to make meal of his bones, and spread it for fertilizer. She used his body for meat, learning to eat it because it was just that to her now. Meat. And over the months she devoured him, serving him for supper for herself, her company, even her dogs, she had played the role of a deserted wife who had come home to find her husband had simply left her.
And then she had finally decided to take a cruise. A vacation to get away from the horror of what she had done, and had apparently gotten away with as well. For the last of her husband had been disposed of, and there was nothing left to mark her as guilty. Nothing but her conscience. Which kept her moody and bleak for all this time as much as her grief for her dead child.
“I am not a judge,” he had told her, as he told her then. “I believe you acted as you did out of fear and concern for your child. I can’t blame you for that.”
“But if a jury had heard about it…..”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Neither do you. We won’t ever know now.”
“Unless you tell someone after we’re rescued,” she pointed out.
“What you told me was said in confidence,” he had assured her. “I wouldn’t ever betray that,” he had told her, trying not to look toward the mountaintop where he had already seen two men cruelly, and horribly dragged from his side. At least they weren‘t being whisked off to the plateau as he and Henry had been some months ago..
Samantha sighed. “Sometimes, I wish I could just die, and get it over with. I’m such a mess,” she told him as his mind returned to the present moment.
“Life is too precious to just give up,” he told her, fearing if she gave up, she might just end up atop that precipice before she had a second chance.
“I guess,” she smiled weakly. “You have a way of inspiring people. Even Tammy seems to have opened up since you showed up.”
Showed up?
In that instant, he had the distinct memory of being washed up on the island after the others. Of them finding him. How was that possible? What in hell was going on? Time was way out of whack, and now even his recent history was being rewritten? Yet he remembered being in the lifeboat with Dana and the twins, just as he now remembered being washed up to find all of them already on the island. Both memories couldn’t be correct. Could they?
“Hey, sexy,” Allen came over to stare at her bared breasts since they pretty much all down to makeshift loincloths after four years in the tropics.
“Oh, please,” Samantha sighed, rolling her eyes as the young man gave her a leering invitation. “You wonder how someone like that ever lost his virginity.”
“If he has,” Jessica declared as she came over to set another pot by the fire.
He glanced up at Jessica. “A bit hostile, aren’t you?”
“He’s a man. You’re a man. I’d expect you to side with him.”
“I don’t ‘side’ with anyone. I’m just trying to keep us all….alive,” he told her.
“I almost believe you. Almost,” the redhead snorted. “But you’d still fuck me if you had the chance, just like any other man. Wouldn’t you?”
“No,” he told her curtly. “I’m not the kind of man that would ever force himself on anyone like that.
“And I tend to be loyal, too. Dana and I are….unofficially a couple, and unless she wishes that to change, I’d not betray her in that manner,” he added.
Jessica shook her head as she headed back to the makeshift potter’s wheel he had helped her fashion out of stone, and a few tightly braided vines. “Sometimes I almost think you’re trying for sainthood, or something,” she mocked him as she left.
He shook his head. He refused to think poorly of her. He suspected there was something that had made her as she was. He only hoped he could learn it, and determine if she was really only striking out in pain, or self defense, before they ended up on that…..place.
He did his best not to think of them as he had Henry, fearing that he might loose more of them with a careless statement. He knew there was more to it than that, of course, but still, he had to guard his thoughts, and words, fearing he might somehow inadvertently condemn any of the remaining ‘survivors.’ Only he was finding it harder and harder to reach Allen, or Jessica.
He had hope for Samantha, who at heart was only a scared, frightened woman who had lived for her child, and genuinely regretted her actions.
Even the twins, or rather Pamela’s actions, could be understood. Twins, he had always heard, were uncommonly close. He could understand Pamela didn’t want to see her sibling hurt as she had been hurt. Especially after promising their mother she would look after her more innocent sister.
As to Tammy, her presence still remained a mystery if each of them had some secret sin that had brought them here.
Allen remained a mystery, too.
True, he had learned of that college boy who favored drugging women, and filming them for his pleasure and profit, but he had stayed rather distant from him, and simply stayed on the periphery of their world as he did what he was asked, but spent most of his time drooling over the women around him without doing, or saying anything that might either reveal his heart and mind, or to endear himself to any of them.
“Jessica doesn’t like men,” Samantha told him as if fearing he might either be angered, or hurt. She was uncommonly sensitive to his feelings of late, he noticed. He wondered if it was because he was the only real man left on the island, Allen having proven himself fairly inept in anything but guided tasks.
“I’ve notied. I feel sorry for her.
“Not because of her preferences,” he added quickly at her faint frown as he fed a bit more wood to the fire to keep it going just enough to fire the pots they were making. “But because she seems so distant, and moody, and unable to leave her past behind.
“You cannot carry that kind of anger around without it finally poisoning you in very subtle ways,” he added.
“You sound like you’ve had experience in that,” Samantha said as she used her fire-hardened stick she held as a tool to maneuver the new pot around to ensure it fired evenly.
“Honestly? I have,” he told her, feeling that his own openness was earned by the woman who had told him her horrific tale.
“Really? You seem so disciplined. So careful. I wouldn’t have thought that of you,” the brunette replied sincerely.
“Well, I was orphaned at eight. A drunk from town ran my parent’s old truck off the road, killing them, and leaving me alone.
“For whatever reason, I wasn’t sent back to the rez with my grandparents as I always thought was proper, but put in foster care, and raised by a white couple. They did their best to ‘civilize’ me, as they called it, and for a long time I harbored a lot of anger, and bitterness toward them, and life in general.
“The Marines helped me get over it, and put it behind. Still, sometimes I remember what my life could have been if I hadn’t joined the Corps. Things were not going well, and I was one step away from real time in prison when I impulsively signed up.”
“Well, I think you’ve done well all the same. We might have all died by now if you hadn’t been washed up here.”
“Well, I owe you,” she was told as he smiled faintly in reply. “After all, you were the one that pulled me out of the water when I could have drowned out there.”
Samantha nodded. “I….I’ve seen enough death,” she told him earnestly. “I felt……I felt I had to save you.
“If only to somehow atone for the life I took. If that makes any sense,” she told him.
“It does. More than you know,” he replied as he rose to his feet from where he had been sitting with her. “Now, I’d better get to work if we’re going to have that fish for supper tonight.
“Yell for Allen if your wood supply gets too low. He can find you some more so you won’t have to stop your work to hunt wood yourself.”
“I will,” she assured him before he left.
Jon stood on the beach, wondering how it was he could see, feel, and easily swim in the water he perceived, when part of him knew that it was really a bubbling cauldron of something nameless. Something with unnatural, horrific beasts that prowled its depths even as they filled the sky. The deceptively blue sky that looked brighter than any he had ever seen.
He closed his eyes, standing on the beach and tried to sense the world beyond the veneer he currently occupied. Trying, he supposed, to understand this world….this place, and his role in it. He didn’t want to be responsible for damning any of those people. Not even the likes of Simon, or Henry. Yet that strange being, that…..angel?, told him it was his responsibility.
“Who brings me,” he had asked the being that first time.
“You brought yourself,” he had replied solemnly.
Did that mean he had been judged? If so, what was the verdict? He hadn’t been carried off to be dropped into that hellish ocean of flame, but this was increasingly hell in his mind. Even Dana noted he was more pensive than before.
Only he didn’t know if she meant before coming on the island with her, or before he had been washed up on the beach to be found by her, and her small band.
He opened his eyes, staring past the corral reef.
He smelled only sea air. Saw only clear, blue water.
His mind still remembered the truth though.
And that scared him. Badly.
Was he in hell? Was this his punishment? To be endlessly responsible for people, good or bad, and forced to condemn one after another of those around him until he was the only one left.
And then what?
He exhaled audibly, his tumultuous thoughts brining little clarity, and his doubts bringing little peace.
One thing was certain.
He was now more than certain they were all dead. Places like this simply could not exist in the ‘real’ world. After all, beings like that curiously angelic being would be easily noticed if they appeared in the world he had known. And someone would surely have noticed if their comfortable plane abruptly turned into a flaming charnel house.
He turned to look back at the high peak that was visible even from the beach.
He felt no draw to it. He had not been ‘summoned’ in over a year since Henry’s unnoted disappearance. Unnoted by anyone except himself. Just as it had been with Simon. Had it really been nearly two years since he had first climbed that towering peak to stand before that strange being who filled his mind with cryptic answers to his questions even while placing this current burden on his shoulders.
He had always prided himself on his control and discipline since finding himself in the Corps. Only that control was slipping of late, and he feared he might just lose his mind if he didn’t come to terms with his odd situation soon. He had little doubt a breakdown would do little for either his circumstances, or the others who, unknowingly, now depended on him for the safety of their very souls, or so it seemed to him. It was a bleak responsibility. One he would gladly give up. Only he didn’t think that would be too easy.
His eyes dropped to the beach, and he sat down, his fingers feeling only warm, ordinary sand as he looked back out at the sea.
Someone once said, “Life sucks, and then you die.” No one had ever told him life could suck on the other side of the grave.
Because he had to be dead. All of them were just….well, dead.
But nothing the Walker’s had taught him in their precious religion explained this. Not one bit.
“Can I join you,” Allen asked as he appeared at his side just then.
He looked up at the young blonde man and nodded. “Plenty of room,” he said, gesturing around him with one hand.
“I, ah, was wondering if we could talk.”
“Sure,” he shrugged again, his gaze once more out on the ocean.
“We’re not getting off this rock, are we?” Jon sighed, glanced back at him, and nodded. “Let’s just say, I think the odds are against us,” he told him.
“I kind of got that feeling after four years scrounging for food,” the young man sighed.
“At least we’re alive,” he said solemnly, though he wasn’t all that sure of that fact any longer.
“Yeah. Kind of a messed up wet-dream, though, huh?” “What do you mean,” Jon asked.
“C’mon. Two guys on an island with five hot babes, and you still can’t get laid.
“Well, you do, but…..”
Jon rolled his eyes. “Is that really what’s bothering you?” “Well, wouldn’t it bother you? At least you have that movie star. Even if she is…..
“Well, I’m not prejudice, but I like to stick with my own kind.”
“Yeah,” Jon asked neutrally. “Well, since there aren’t any Apache here, I guess I tend to be color blind myself.”
“Oh, yeah. You’re an Indian.”
Jon didn’t respond to that.
“Still, you got that woman in your bed, and three others that would crawl all over you if you just asked.
“I guess nothing would thaw that dyke,” he grumbled. “Still, that leaves a lot of free…..”
“Allen,” he cut him off before he said something stupid. “Dana and I respect one another. We took solace in one another, and became friends first. If we share more, it’s because our intimacy grew out of that friendship.”
“Yeah, well, you’re a lot smoother with the small talk than I am,” Allen grumbled. “Plus, you’re a real war hero, man’s man, and made a real difference since Sam dragged you out of the water.
“I don’t have that going for me.”
“Exactly what are you wanting here, Allen,” he asked, already guessing he knew.
“Well, I was wondering if you could….pass some my way. Put in a good word, or whatever, and…..”
“Allen, why don’t you try getting to know the women first.
“No lines, no silly adolescent games, just honest conversation with your fellow castaway. Be honest. Be yourself. That’s my advice.”
Allen grumbled. “Look, I’m not like that. Okay? I just want some pussy. I just want to get laid at least once before I die on this godforsaken rock.”
“There is more to life than sex, Allen. I can’t say anything more than what I have. The rest is up to you.”
“So…..You aren’t going to…..?” “I’m not a pimp,” he told him. “Even if I did have some power over these women, which I honestly doubt, I would not use them like you’re considering. It’s not ethical, and it isn’t fair to the girls either.”
“Geez, man. I thought you were a guy, not a freaking feminist.”
“I’m not a feminist. I just believe that men and women are all people, and we should treat one another fairly, and equal. It’s the best way to get to know one another, and get along without conflict.”
“I figured a big soldier like you would enjoy it if things got a little rough,” Allen grunted.
“Being a soldier is a job, not a personality thing,” Jon remarked quietly. “And it’s also about a lot more than just shooting a gun, or invading other countries.
“The soldier’s ultimate role is to defend the citizens of his nation, wherever they might be, and ensure the laws of the land are upheld. Again, wherever he might be.”
“Guess they brainwashed you pretty good,” Allen muttered.
Jon looked back at the ocean.
“Consider it this way. If we were part of the ocean,” he said, trying to get through the man’s thick skull without reaching that point the had with Henry. “We’d be drops of water, adding to the whole sea.
“Each drop joins the others, filling the sea, and making up the greater body. No one drop is more important than another.
“That’s how it is here for us now. We have to be able to rely on one another, fit together, and help one another survive. There is no alternative except…..”
Allen grimaced. “I understand that part,” he murmured, looking chagrined. “But I’m a young guy, and I have needs,” he protested.
“We all do. But we can’t force those needs on anyone else. We either deal with them, or we ignore them. We do not have the right to use others callously. Even if they don’t like us, or who or what we are, we have to keep working to keep us all….alive and well.”
“Yeah, well, I’ll think about it,” Allen finally said in a rueful manner as he climbed to his feet. “Me, I still end up low man on the stick with you around. Frankly, that stinks. Nothing personal, but it just stinks.
“I just wish I still had some weed. Or something that would get me a babe that had to obey me, and put out when I said so,” he grumbled as he turned to leave.
Jon said nothing as he watched Allen walk back into the jungle.
There had to be a way to reach that moron, he thought. He hoped. He didn’t want to see anyone else get dragged away with melting flesh to be dropped into the fathomless burning seas he had almost managed to forget about for the moment.
“Nice speech,” a gruff voice drawled as he turned to see Jessica Parker standing behind him, one of the fishing poles he had made for the twins in her hand. “You almost sounded intelligent.”
“Thanks, I think,” he remarked, looking back out to sea.
“Hoping to spot a ship?”
“A ship. An aircraft. Something,” he said neutrally as he glanced over to where their makeshift signal, and a large pile of wood ready to be set afire waited.
“Dream on. We’re stuck here, and we both know it. It’s been years, and we haven’t seen a thing except more water, and a few clouds.”
“Well, I try to think positively,” he told the redhead who walked down to the edge of the surf, and threw out her baited hook.
“The fishing is better back at the river.”
“I know. I just thought I might hook one of those big turtles I saw down here a few days ago. Figured it would make for a change of pace for once.”
“Turtles,” he asked, remembering the dark shapes he had seen moving about when he was atop the mountain. “You saw turtles?” “You think I was seeing things, Marine,” she huffed.
“No, no. I was just thinking, what would bring them here?
“Maybe they came to lay eggs,” he suggested, looking around the beach. “If we could find them, if they laid any, we could add them to our stores, too.”
“That does sound good,” she admitted as she stared at the bit of coconut shell that served as a float for her hook.
“I think we could all use a little more variety,” he nodded. “That’s good thinking,” he told her. “About the turtles.”
“You don’t have to patronize me,” Jessica huffed.
“I’m not. I’m just glad you thought of it, because I hadn’t even noticed any turtles.”
“Guess you were busy looking at other things.”
“I guess so,” he admitted, still at a loss as to how to proceed with Jessica. She was so hostile toward him, or Allen, that she rarely said much at all to them unless making demands, or hurling insults. Hardly an easy person to get to know.
“Hey,” she grinned, tugging at the pole he had made for one of the twins. “I think I got something,” she said, forgetting her dislike in the moment as her excitement at such a quick response overcame her usual demeanor.
“You must have used good bait,” he said, rising to his feet, and lifting his spear just in case it was needed, started toward where she stood tugging at the pole.
She barely glanced at him as she focused on the line, the thin vines used as line straining as she pulled back, walking back to add leverage to her efforts as she laughed in delight. “I must have a big one,” she chortled. “Turtle soup tonight,” she exclaimed.
Just before she started screaming.
It took Jon a moment to understand why, as he was so focused on the line that was still in the water. Then he looked down, and saw something long, wet, and gleaming that had tunneled up through the sand and wrapped around one of Jessica’s ankles. She had forgotten the pole, and was falling back on the beach in a vain attempt to kick at the slithering tentacle with her free foot even as a second limb came up out of the water. Even as it seized her free leg, pulled her toward the surf where several other black, oily limbs of ropey, black flesh emerged to churn up the water, he did not hesitate.
Plunging his spear into the fat tentacle holding the redhead’s left leg, he quickly drew his knife to sever it even as he spotted another one slashing through the air toward him. Ducking gracefully to one side, he jumped over Jessica’s writhing body, and deftly cut the other one as well even as he grabbed his spear in one hand, and jerked her up with his other, all but shoving her toward the trees as he shouted, “Run!”
The tentacles must have had some kind of suckers on them, for the ends remained wrapped tightly around Jessica’s lower legs as she ran without stopping her shrill cries of terror. Jon remained behind her, his spear in one hand, his knife in the other, and waited for whatever was going to come next.
The injured tentacles writhed above the water with the others, waving madly as dark ichors sprayed from the severed ends. Wherever it fell, Jon saw a dark steam rise up, accompanied by a stench so foul he didn’t think it could be a natural creature. Considering what he had already seen, that went without saying.
“Not today,” he growled somberly as the tentacles slid back beneath the waves. “Not today.”
He then turned toward the forest to find Jessica.
She had not gone far. She was clinging to a tree only a few feet into the forest, staring down at the macabre black members wrapped around her legs, and shuddering with genuine horror. Jon thought she might be in shock, but even as he approached her, he saw it was something else that was in her eyes. He looked down again, and saw the blunted tips were that had been dripping that vile, black blood had begun to sprout additional, slender tendrils that were climbing up her legs, moving around her body, and threatening to encase her in a slick, black shroud of the alien flesh.
“P-Please,” she whimpered, barely able to draw breath to speak as she saw him lope toward her, his expression incredulous at the sight.
As he approached her, he also saw she was not so much clinging to the tree, as she was being affixed to it as some of the tendrils had wrapped around the trunk of the nearest tree, and were slowly wrapping her and it together. He couldn’t begin to guess why, but he wasn’t waiting to find out.
“Don’t worry, Jessica,” he spoke more confidently than he felt. “Just stay calm,” he said, keeping his own voice level and determined as he first cut the tendrils keeping her tied to the tree by her upper thighs. He then began to cut away the larger tendrils, and the fat ends of the tentacles since they seemed most responsible for the strange growth of the new tendrils.
Even as he pulled, and cut at them, he saw they possessed no suckers as he first thought, but simply stuck to the skin by means of some slimy secretion that covered the ropey flesh. He managed to cut the first tentacle piece away, but by then the tendrils had reached her hips, and he waving ends were rising toward her full, rosy-tipped breasts. She wanted to scream, he could see it in her eyes as she stood there before him on frozen limbs, but couldn’t seem to catch her breath.
He wondered it the growth was somehow squeezing her to death, if they could die here. Then again, he had seen two men’s flesh melting away as they were carried off to be dropped into a boiling cauldron that currently resembled an ocean. Just now, nothing should surprise him.
Tossing the second tentacle away, he found something that did.
Even as he began cutting the dark tendrils free, he realized he couldn’t pull some of them free once wrapped around her bare skin. It was as if they were melding with her skin, and she was now just standing there groaning weakly as she watched some of the still writhing tendrils rise before her eyes now, the black fleshy, things now solidly encasing her from mid-torso to her feet.
Jon stopped trying to cut them away when he realized he was doing no good, and was only drawing blood when he tried. Her blood.
He stepped back, staring helplessly as the woman shivered violently, and the tendrils encased, and melded into her upper body, forming a sealed covering that reminded him of latex, or something similar. Nor were they stopping. The things were now wrapping around the woman’s head, but mercifully leaving room for her to see, and breath, though her mouth and eyes were covered over, leaving only vague slits in place to mark them as the fleshy strands melded to her face, and formed a solid, black covering now from head to toe, leaving nothing of the woman showing except her naturally curvaceous body.
“My God,” he rasped, shaking his head as he tried to understand this strange phenomenon, and how to help the woman trapped inside it. “Jessica,” he asked as he realized even her hair was lost in the now bizarre cocoon of alien flesh that had formed around her like a second skin. “Are you all right?” “I am fine, Jon,” the woman replied, her lips barely moving as the facial skin moved, but showed no parting as she spoke.
He frowned. She didn’t sound right. She didn’t sound human.
“Jessica, how do you feel?” “I feel fine, Jon,” she replied in the same bland tone that made him think of the human voices that came out of some computers these days.
“Do you know what happened to you,” he asked, feeling a bit anxious over this abrupt change in her demeanor.
“Of course, Jon. I have been made more pleasing for your needs.”
“My needs,” he choked.
“For any who desire me,” she replied again in the same neutral tone that was making him feel even worse.
“This isn’t right,” he spat, his frown growing.
Jessica didn’t respond.
He frowned again, and waved his hand in front of her blank face. Even her hair had been subsumed by the strange cocoon that had also absorbed her ragged skirt, leaving her obviously naked considering the plump, split flesh that marked her now exposed sex. A wary glance showed that she had no obvious hair adorning that orifice either.
“Jessica, do you feel….normal?” “I feel as I am wished, Jon. How would you like me to feel,” she asked guilelessly.
Wished.
He suddenly remembered Allen’s last callous words as he had left the beach before Jessica had come down. “I just wish I still had some weed. Or something that would get me a babe that had to obey me, and put out when I said so,” he had said.
Jon didn’t think this was coincidental as he abruptly recalled that selfish wish.
Remembering the lesson with his impatience with Henry, he refused to think of either of them as lost though. He drew a deep breath, and looked directly into the ‘eyes’ of the sleek, black silhouette of Jessica Parker, and asked her bluntly, “Jessica, do you regret anything in your life that happened before you came to this island?” Jessica did not hesitate. “No,” she replied.
“Do you deny you did things that were…..That might be considered….immoral, if not illegal?”
“No,” she replied just as quickly.
“And you don’t regret anything?” This time here was a faint hesitation. Enough that he prompted her, “You must answer,” with a stern authority that commanded obedience.
If he was right about the thing that had taken possession of her body, it would ensure she was compliant even if she wished to resist answering.
He was right.
“I only regret that I never found that one special person to love me as I loved them,” she said, just a trace of a wistful note in her voice that otherwise remained bland and neutral in tone.
“Why couldn’t you find that person,” he asked her in a sympathetic tone, thinking it might ease her fears if her obedience was only superficial, and her mind was as behind held as captive as her flesh.
“I…..I never learned to trust anyone. That, and I’ve always loved women more than men.”
“Why couldn’t you trust anyone,” he asked, suspecting this was the key to her problems.
“I…..I…..don’t know.”
“You don’t know? Or you can’t remember,” he asked, stepping closer as he literally felt the tension that radiated from her deceptively calm façade.
“I….I don’t want to remember,” she gritted out, the words sounding as if they were forced from her this time.
“Listen to me, Jessica. I am not trying to hurt you. You must believe that. I am trying to help you. You must tell me, no matter how painful it seems now, it can only help me to help you.
“Otherwise……I am afraid you might be in a great deal of trouble. Do you understand me?” “Yes, Jon,” she replied in the same toneless voice again.
“Then answer me. What made you unable to trust anyone?” “My….My…..parents sold me to my cousin when I was……I was only…..eleven. He….He did things,” she said, her body now trembling even with the stabilizing affect of her new cocooned flesh. “He made me make…..terrible films. I…..I finally ran away after I turned sixteen.
“I have not trusted a man since then.”
“I’m sorry, Jessica,” he told her, putting a gentle hand on her right shoulder. “I hope you believe me, and that you will trust me.”
“I will do as you wish, Jon,” she told him blandly.
“Then answer one final question for me, Jessica,” he asked as he had a sudden inspiration.
She did not react, but seemed to simply be listening as he gathered his thoughts.
“You must answer me honestly. Obviously, this…..thing is somehow controlling you, and your responses.
“Only you must answer this question honestly. I order you to answer me honestly. Is your mind, your own consciousness still free inside this…..thing?” “Yes, Jon,” she replied after the faintest hesitation, and a faint quivering of her ebony ‘flesh’ again.
“So, you do have to do as you are told?” “Yes, Jon,” she replied, her tone as bland as before again.
“Then,” he said, tightening his grip on her shoulder. “Listen very carefully. I am going to give you an order. An order you must obey. An order that will remain in affect so long as you are on this island. Do you understand this, Jessica,” he asked.
“Yes, Jon,” she replied without wavering this time, too.
“Good.
“Jessica, I want you to act like yourself, and accept, or reject any advances made to you by anyone on this island.
“I want you to answer only to yourself. Can you accept this order, Jessica,” he pressed.
The dark flesh beneath his hand trembled even more violently, and then her right hand rose in a stilted manner, and she shuddered again as she choked out, “I…..I….will…..obey you, Jon,” she rasped, even as the black sheath around her began to melt away, leaving her standing on a liquid puddle of black tar.
She looked up at him with her own green eyes, wide and frightened, and flung herself against him. “Jon,” she gasped. “Jon, I was……
“That thing…..
“Oh, God, thank you,” she wept freely as she clung to him, suddenly no longer the ice queen that had been insulting him all this time as he tried to understand her.
“Are you all right now, Jessica,” he asked her gently as he slowly let his own arms gently embrace her, showing her he was expecting nothing of her.
The truth was, he still felt nothing of sexual desire, despite standing there as naked as the day she was born, thought now completely devoid of any hair anywhere on her body. She was denuded from head to toe, and she looked quite exotic, and strangely fragile.
“I….I think so,” she shuddered, kicking away the last of the sticky tar that remained on her feet as he turned her away from the beach, and the place where that strange cocoon had enveloped her.
“How…..? What was that thing,” she asked him as she let him steer her into the forest toward their usual trail back to the cavern shelter.
“I think it was…..a demon. One summoned by a careless tongue,” he told her honestly.
“Why do I get the feeling you’re being serious,” the former redhead shuddered as she looked up at him anxiously.
“Remember Allen’s words on the beach?” “I just remember he was bitching about not getting laid whenever he wanted it……
“Oh, God, are you saying he conjured that thing up just by wishing…..?” “I think so, Jessica.
“And I think it best if we don’t let him know that, either. If he realizes something about this island is listening to our casual desires….”
“That can’t be it,” she shook her head. “I mean, I’ve wished for things, too. You know, since getting stuck here. Especially after the weeks turned into months, and then years.
“I’ve never had anything I wanted answered.”
“I think you have to be on a certain…..base level.
“I think the fact Allen is so completely, and selfishly focused on his own lust helped his wish come true. I think, deep down, you’re not a bad person.”
She stopped, and he stopped with her as they stared ahead to the clearing near the river that led up to the cliffs, and their shelter. “Jon, how did you know….?
“I mean, back there? I had the feeling you knew all about me. About….things I had done.”
He turned to look into her wide, green eyes, and smiled faintly. “What if I told you we’re in some kind of purgatory, and this is our last chance to get things right,” he asked her. “What if I told you that none of this is real, it only seems that way?”
“I’m…..I’m an atheist,” she told him. “But the way you say that……it scares the hell out of me,” she admitted as she looked around furtively before looking back at him.
“I’m trying to be….honest. As much as I can. I just want you to know, I really am here to help you. All of you. If you have any problems, let me know. If you have anything you want to talk about, I’ll listen.
“Wherever we are, we have to stick together. And help one another.”
“I….I’m sorry,” she blurted unexpectedly as she blushed, and turned away from him.
“For what,” he asked.
“For treating you like…..like a man. I mean, one of those men I’ve hated.
“I wanted to scream back there, wrapped up like some obscene sex toy, and you could have told me anything, and I would have done it. I had no control. No control at all. When you touched me, started questioning me, I tried to fight, but I…..I had no choice but to answer you.
“I…..I was afraid you were like……Allen. I thought…..
“Anyway, I’m sorry,” she told him, glancing back at him. “And I really should thank you for helping me like you did.
“I don’t think anyone else would have risked their life for mine like you did.”
He nodded. “Just remember what I said, Jessica. I am here to help. Or listen.
“Anytime.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, and then ran on ahead of him without ever once looking back.
He stood there alone for a moment, relieved he wasn’t going to have to face another judgment after all despite the ugly thoughts he had been having for a few minutes there, and then realized he had better warn the others to stay away from the beach for now. He didn’t know what Jessica might say about what had happened to her, but she doubted she would be too forthcoming. Not if his suspicions he had voiced to her about Allen’s wish were right.
And he had the unnerving feeling he was right.
Which only added another mystery to this place.
Just why were they here? For some chance at redemption? Or just a waiting house for the final judgment that he was being made to declare on those around him?
He didn’t know, and he didn’t like knowing.
He glanced up at the peak just visible through the broken canopy of the forest, and considered climbing back up there just to ask a few more questions about what had happened to Jessica. Only he had the unnerving feeling that….that being would just stare at him, and once again claim the rules forbade any answers to such questions.
Which annoyed the hell out of him. It truly did.
Dana walked down toward the beach with Allen, both of them curious about the dangerous octopus that had almost attacked them. Frankly, she couldn’t believe anything could be as big as what he and Jessica had described.
She was also a little annoyed with her lover.
Lately, he wasn’t exactly keeping her happy, or satisfied.
True, he worked his butt off, unlike the college boy at her side, but she had needs. However young she looked now, she had been enjoying her own desires since she was a teenager. A rather young teenager. To her, sex was just one more appetite to enjoy filling. Jon had been a wonderful, and attentive lover for the first year, or so, but lately, he was just leaving her itches unscratched, and that aggravated her.
Enough so, that when Allen suggested investigating the so-called sea monster, she went along with him just before dusk. He was busy talking with the goofy woman that had decided to shave off her hair. All of it. He didn’t even glance her way as she walked past them, putting a little extra sway into her firm bottom to let him know what he was missing. Exasperated, she just turned her back, and went on with Allen, listening to him spin imaginative speculations on why Jon suddenly didn’t want them going anywhere near the beach.
The fact was, she was greedy enough to wonder that herself, and it made her want to know for herself. Her greed, and self preservation were why she had first aligned herself with him, playing up to his male ego, and thus ensuring she had the best of everything, including men. Only lately, as she had been bemoaning, she wasn’t even getting that.
She might as well slip into the lezzy’s bed. She wouldn’t be the first cunt she had slept with. She just preferred a good, hard cock when it came down to it. Even if they didn’t find anything, she felt a little flirting with the blonde geek would bring Jon’s attention back around if he realized she might be getting away from him.
She had never met the man that didn’t get his ego bruised if his woman slipped away from him without permission.
She was envisioning just how to best play the scene when she suddenly stepped into something wet, and gooey. She hopped on one foot as she yelled for Allen to wait up, and stared at a glistening mucus that stretched from the ground up to her foot where she had stepped into something that smelled oddly…..musky.
“Hurry up,” Allen hissed. “The sun is going down, and we won’t be able to see much if you don’t move that black ass.”
“I stepped in something,” she huffed, trying to wipe the stuff off her feet as her mind tried to write off the goo as something natural.
She took a single step past the place where she had blundered into it when she felt a tickling sensation climbing her leg, and she looked down to see the glistening, wet goop sliding up leg toward her body.
“What the hell,” she shrieked even as the goop exploded with thousands of skinny, writhing tendrils that began to encircle her body from head to toe, tightening and molding themselves to her helpless body that suddenly seemed incapable of voluntary movement.
“You all right,” Allen shouted back, lost from sight by now as she stared with wide eyes as the tendrils that had covered her lower jaw, and silenced her, now rose over her brow.
Naturally, she couldn’t answer.
She felt a growing terror as she found herself now standing upright, and perfectly still, like some life-size doll as the stuff now flowed over the top of her head, and she felt its tepid embrace completely encase her. She could feel the soft ocean breeze blow across her skin, and realized the stuff on her was making her more sensitive than ever rather than insulating her from the world.
She stared through a hazy film, but found that despite the growing darkness, she could see better than ever.
“Will you come on,” Allen’s impatient voice snapped from somewhere out on the beach, and she felt her legs move of their own accord.
She walked methodically toward him, stopping just behind him, and waiting in silence as she stared at him poking at the sand as if seeking some buried treasure. He continued searching the sand for several minutes before straightening up, and flinging his stick into the waves.
“Damn, I can’t find anything like this. We waited till too late. We should have come down here while the sun was still up….
“What the hell are you doing,” he demanded as he turned around to see her standing silently behind him without moving.
“Awaiting your orders, Allen,” she replied in a surprisingly calm voice considering her mind was screaming away on the inside as she tried in vain to fight this monstrous thing that had possessed her.
“My orders, huh,” he grinned, thinking the woman must be playing some kinky game. In the dark half light of twilight, he saw nothing out of place on the naked, black woman before him who looked more than ready for a little fun.
“All right, Dana,” he grinned. “What if I tell you to suck my dick,” he asked.
“Is that a command, Allen,” she asked him.
“Yeah. That’s right. A command.”
“Yes, Allen,” she replied in the same helpless manner, and sank to her knees in the sand, and unzipped his ragged shorts to pull his short, but thick rod out through the fly.
He gasped in shock, then moaned as her lips sucked him fully into her warm, wet mouth. When he felt her tongue start teasing him as she slid his stiffening rod in and out of her mouth, he quit thinking she was playing some game, and just grabbed her head to encourage her efforts.
He didn’t even notice the lack of her once thick, black hair as he roughly forced her to take his hard shaft as if he were fucking her mouth. The feeling was so delicious that he found he couldn’t hold back the climax so long denied him. He all but howled as he ground his hips into Dana’s face, and forced her to swallow every drop he poured into her mouth. Still, even as he pulled out of her warm, moist cavity, he found himself still hard, and wanting more.
“Hands and knees, slut,” he growled, deciding to see how far she would take this unexpected new game. “I want to fuck you.”
“Yes, Allen,” she replied in the same insipid tone even as she dropped to all fours, and wriggled her full, round bottom back at him.
He noticed enough to see she wasn’t wearing her skirt, and without a second’s thought, he knelt behind her, and just shoved his rampant cock right into her waiting body. She shuddered violently, and he liked the feel of her snug, clasping hole. He smiled smugly, guessing soldier boy wasn’t that big either if she was still this tight.
“Yeah, baby,” he moaned as he began to thrust into her from behind with hard and savage strokes. “From now on, you’re my slut. My bitch. Understand,” he demanded, slapping her black ass with one hand ass he kept riding her the way a woman was meant to be ridden.
“Yes, Allen,” she replied obediently as if she were really getting into the game.
Yet the toneless quality of her voice annoyed him.
He decided that didn’t matter. What mattered was the snug hole he was filling with his dick after walking around with a bad case of blue balls for all these years. Jerking off had done nothing for him, and he had simply quit bothering early on. That left him all the more frustrated as he watched the four cunts walking around him virtually naked, and acting as if they didn’t even see him.
Well, he had one of them now, and he intended to see he kept her right where she was. She was so fine, the only thing missing, he thought inanely, was a camera to record the details. This would be one hot addition to his stable if they were back home, and back in business again. Maybe he’d even take her with him if they ever got off this crummy rock. A Hollywood star would look real good in his stable. He’d have the freakin’ world by the throat with her in his stable, and on film.
Just look at how much that god awful Tom and Pamela Anderson tape had made.
He groaned, feeling her inner muscles milking him with genuine skill as she thrust back at him, welcoming every stroke as he leaned forward, and began to fondle her dangling tits. He loved the feel of the large, fat orbs in his hands, and tugged a bit roughly at her fat nipples, wondering how they would look pierced.
When he came again in another surprisingly swift climax, he sat back on his haunches and stared at the black ass still wriggling in front of him.
“You cum, slut?” “No, Allen,” she murmured demurely.
“Well, make yourself cum,” he told her, and grinned as he added, “I want to see you do it.”
“Yes, Allen,” she replied as one hand slid back between her shapely thighs, and began to stroke her own liquid flesh that seemed plump and smoother than the one time he remembered seeing her down at the river as she bathed.
He didn’t dwell on it long as he watched her start to shudder almost at once, as if just his command had her body exploding into orgasm. He considered that for a moment, and laughed. Talk about well trained. Soldier boy didn’t know what he was losing.
“Listen, slut. From now on, you belong to me. Understand?” “Yes, Allen.”
“You stay with me. Listen only to me, and you do whatever I say. Got that?” “Yes, Allen,” she replied evenly in that same annoying tone.
“And try to sound a little happier about it,” he grumbled.
“Yes, Allen,” she replied in a husky tone full of promise this time.
“Yeah,” he grinned, and realized his dick was still standing hard, and ready despite having cum twice now.
“Hell, yeah,” he grinned, and just grabbed the woman, and flipped her on her back as he drove between her legs, burying himself back in her searing, hot hole once again even as the moon began to rise, flooding the beach with bright light from the large, gleaming orb.
He stared down into Dana’s featureless visage at that very instant the full moon illuminated her, and he froze, gaping at her new appearance as he realized she was not only as hairless as Jessica, that gay bitch, but that her skin was blacker than ever. It even gleamed like some kind of vinyl, or something.
He touched her cheek as he eyed her warily, then slid his hand down to that fat, turgid nipple he had been playing with earlier, and felt only firm, hot flesh. She moaned softly at his touch, and rocked her hips beneath him as he touched her, and he frowned as he realized her sudden obedience was somehow connected to this weird costume she was wearing.
Even as he wondered where she had gotten it, he remembered her bitching earlier about stepping in something.
“Hey, slut,” he asked warily as he stayed still atop her, just looking into that blank visage as if still trying to convince himself it was real. “What happened to you?” “I don’t know, Allen,” she cooed in the sensual voice he had commanded of her. “I stepped in something that grew to cover me, and now I cannot help obeying you.”
“That right,” he grinned, wriggling his own hips again. “So, everything I been telling you, you’re really going to do?”
“Yes, Allen,” she told him in a sexy rasp. “I will do anything you tell me.”
“Good. Just remember everything I told you, because from now on, you’re my private piece. Got that, slut?”
“Yes, Allen.”
“Cool,” he laughed as he began to plow her even harder than before, dropping his body down to press against hers as she enjoyed every inch of her ripe curves as he continued to drive his seemingly tireless rod into her body.
“I could really die happy like this,” he joked.
“Yes, Allen,” she replied before he realized what he had said, and barely had time to gasp before unnaturally strong hands rose to grab his head, twisting it at an unnatural angle as his neck snapped like a twig.
He stiffened, spending his last climax into her still hungry passage even as he fell limb and still atop her. Without orders, she lay beneath him, not moving. A moment later, his body just vanished, and she continued to lay on the soft sand, heedless of the chill of the air as the night grew cooler.
Jon was laying on his pallet near the twins wondering where Dana was even as Jessica sit doing some mindless chore with Samantha over near the still burning fire outside the cavern shelter. One moment he was staring up at the rocky ceiling of the cave, and the next he was standing atop that hated plateau, and staring at the hellish vision of his new reality.
He bit down his own fear, slowly turning to see the tall being with his dull gray wings wrapped around his imposing height once more. He looked down sadly at him, then looked toward a space behind him.
Jon slowly turned to see Allen sprawled on the rocky cliff with his neck at an awkward angle. He looked back up at the being, and asked calmly, “What happened?” The being gestured with a single finger, a few silvery-gray feather fluttering briefly, and in that instant, he saw the evening Allen had spent with Dana. An evening that could have been spent with any of the women had they been foolish enough to follow him down that path.
He heard his cruel commands echo in his own mind, and saw the helpless Dana obey every one, and in the end, even carry out his fateful ending.
“Formalities must be met,” the being finally said, reclaiming his attention. “Thus, I ask once more. Do you find any redemption in this man?” Again, the words were torn from him, and he spoke without willing the words as he replied, “No. He seems completely without hope.”
“So be it,” the being said as one of those hideous, shapeless things shrieked loudly as it ducked down to snatch up the suddenly moldering corpse that was carried off in the same manner as the other men he had seen…..damned.
“This was his last chance. Regretfully, he wasted it,” the being said with what sounded like genuine regret.
“What about that thing in the ocean,” he asked, still concerned for the others just then as much as he hated the idea of one more of their group being so easily disposed of in this dreadful fashion. “And Dana?”
“What you, or the others summon, are but trials you must face. As surely as you face any other trial in your time here,” the being told him.
“You can’t tell me anything else? Something that will help?” The same enigmatic smile was etched into the being’s features as he looked down at him with a surprisingly sympathetic expression. “The rules,” he drawled quietly.
“But what about…..?” “What about what,” Jessica asked he found her kneeling over him.
“Jessica,” he jumped, coming up to his feet as she looked up at him.
“What….What did you hear?” “Not much. You started mumbling, and tossing around. Were you having a nightmare,” she asked with what seemed like genuine concern.
“I….I have a bad feeling. I think Dana may be in trouble,” he said as he looked around and realized Samnatha, and the twins were sleeping, and they were the only ones up. He headed out of the cavern after snatching up his knife, and spear even as he realized Dana was not there, just as he feared. “Stay here,” he told her when she started forward. “Watch Samantha and the girls for me.”
She stopped a few steps behind him, and she nodded. “You can trust me, Jon,” she assured him as she stood there, meeting his backward glance with an earnest expression.
He stopped, looking back again, and asked bluntly, “Jessica, do you remember Allen?” “Allen? Allen, who,” she asked.
He grimaced. “Never mind. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
He raced into the jungle, feeling her eyes track him as he left, and even as he headed for the beach, he wondered what he was going to be able to do for Dana. The woman who had been his occasional lover. His companion. His second-in-command at times.
He still didn’t know much about her as she remained a mostly private person despite her outgoing nature. He had managed to learn more about Samantha, and more recently Jessica, than he had about Dana even after four years on this island at her side.
He just hoped he could do something to help her escape the nightmare Allen had foolishly locked her in with his careless, carnal wishes. Just then, though, he didn’t think things were looking too good for any of them.