Deadly Passion, an Epiphany (8 page)

His mind drifted to what burned a hole in his own soul, the killings he’d had to live with all these years. No one had ever found the bodies of the three men he’d killed. He could still see Megan’s face, her dirty torn clothes, the tears streaming down her cheeks. Georgia wasn’t home when it had happened. He’d dealt with it himself and after Megan had bathed and he’d tucked her into bed, he’d made her swear never to tell her mother. He’d gotten the names out of Megan. His rage had consumed him and he’d taken his shotgun and waited for the three men outside the bar, the only bar in their small town. Pretending to be drunk, like them, he’d offered them a ride. Then he’d driven them far out of town. The men hadn’t even noticed. They hooted and hollered the whole way, still sharing a bottle of whiskey.

After he’d pulled up deep in the bush, he said he needed to go for a piss. They got out of the truck and stood drinking near the trees. He remembered the lewd remarks they’d made about his girl. It had fired his rage into an inferno. He’d shot them fast, first two of them. The third was so drunk and in disbelief he didn’t even think to run while Harold reloaded. Then he buried them. To the day of the explosion at the club, they’d been listed as missing. Their bodies were never found.

But what he’d done was engraved on his soul and had eaten at him all these years. He should have taken Megan to the cops, the hospital, let the law deal with the men, rather than take matters into his own hands. He tried to justify his act—they would have been released eventually and possibly rape other women and girls. He’d done the world a favor by getting rid of them.

Georgia had never suspected anything. She was home when he’d returned and thought he’d been working late in the fields. It wasn’t unusual for him to be out on the farm working till midnight.

For six years he’d lived the lie, sat in church on Sundays feeling like a heel, a hypocrite. Hell, his girl was only thirteen, still a child. She’d done okay, though. She seemed to have coped with the trauma all on her own. Never mentioned a word to Georgia. She was such a good girl, his Megan. He’d been against her move to New York, but after meeting Mark, and really liking him, he was glad she’d become involved with a good man and was going to settle down and get married.

“Harry! Keep that fire goin’!” One of the guards wielded his whip.

Harold flinched. He’d become oblivious to the pain it caused. Nothing mattered anymore except to get out of this pit and be reunited with his Georgia and their children.
If she’s still alive, if she survived the blast. Is this payback for killing Jack, Colin and Dennis? Is this my retribution? But no one knows. Not a soul. They deserved what they got. Did I somehow get blamed for what happened at the club?
The questions roiled through his mind, twenty-four hours a day, causing many a restless night.

“Motherfucker!”

The whip crashed down on his back again. He hurried to shovel more coal into the blazing furnace. The flames leapt out at him. He jumped back, their fiery licking tongues reminding him of the raging inferno in the nightclub, seeing his girl writhing in agony, Mark on fire, people screaming, trampling others in their quest to get away from the flames, not seeing Georgia anywhere…

Making plans
…

Georgia sat with Jonas and Cassie on the riverbank. “What are we going to do? Do you have any idea where we are, Jonas?” she asked.

“No. After we’ve cooked the fish we’ve caught and everyone is fed, I’m going to gather some men and we’ll scout the area. It’s the tropics. It was warm and humid last night and if I look at the jungle and its foreign flora, I’d almost suggest we’re somewhere in the Amazon.”

Cassie laughed. “Jonas, how is that even remotely possible? It’s not like New York and the Amazon are neighbors.”

“I don’t know how, but it’s the only solution I can come up with. Have you ever seen flowers like the ones near those rocks on the other side of the river? Look at the foliage, the ferns, the trees, none of them are anything I’ve ever seen, not even on pictures of the Amazon.”

“Maybe people from the future rescued us just in time,” Georgia suggested.

“Time travel? I don’t believe that’s possible either,” Jonas said.

“Son, who knows. At the rate technology is evolving, they could have been working on a time travel machine without any of us knowing. How do we know what’s possible in the future?” Georgia said.

“I supposed you’re right. But if that’s so, why put us in such a godforsaken place?”

“When you go to explore, maybe you’ll find civilization,” Cassie said.

“Yes. Maybe they miscalculated our coordinates,” Georgia mused.

“Stop it already with the time travel theory. I think our fish is done. That Mik is a lifesaver. Catching all those fish with sticks is no mean trick.”

“Yes, and enough to feed everyone. Except of course the few complainers claiming they don’t like fish,” Cassie said.

“Oh, and don’t forget the two women who said they were allergic to fish. They’ll have nothing but the fruit to eat,” Georgia added.

“There’s not much of that left,” Jonas told them while pushing the fish onto a leaf using a stick. A flat rock had served as a frying pan.

“Tastes pretty good,” Cassie said. “Similar to halibut.”

“Fills up the holes, I guess,” Jonas said. He’d finished his portion already.

Georgia handed him what was left of hers. “Have the rest of mine, son. I’m not a big eater and you’ll need it for when you go trekking through that jungle.”

“Thanks, Georgia. Are you sure?” When she nodded, he quickly devoured the fish. “I’d give anything for a machete. It would make it much easier.”

“Didn’t bring mine to the club. It didn’t fit in my purse,” Cassie joked.

Jonas and Georgia laughed. “At least we can still find humor and laugh even though we’re in a horrible situation,” Georgia said.

“Okay, I’m going to call out for volunteers.” Jonas stood and walked to stand in the center of the groups. “Everyone! Listen! I’m looking for volunteers for a scouting party. I need young, able, fit men.”

Too many responded so Jonas had to pick. “A party of six is enough, I think.”

“We could do two groups,” one man suggested. “If we take different directions, maybe one of us will luck out.”

“Good plan.” Jonas picked six more men and asked a man who looked to be in his early forties to be in charge of the second group. He introduced himself as Russell.

The ones that were left reluctantly went back to their spot on the beach.

“If any of you have pocketknives, anything you can use to make marks on the tree trunks to find our way back, or to cut stubborn foliage, it would help.” Several of the men already sitting on the beach hurried back with pocketknives. One even had a dagger and another had a jackknife. Jonas grinned and eyed the young man. Caramel skin, dreadlocks, though from what was left of his clothing, looked like he’d been well dressed. “What’s your name?”

“Tom Hellington.”

“Keep your knife, Tom, and come with me. That’s if you want to, of course.” He held the knife out to him.

“Hell, yeah. I’ll do anything to help.”

That caused a stir. Other men jumped up wanting to be in the scouting party. Jonas sighed. “If we don’t find anything today, we’ll switch and take turns each day. How’s that?” It seemed to satisfy them. He walked back to his camping spot. “I’m off, girls. Behave while I’m gone!”

“I want to go with you,” Cassie said, pouting.

“Cas, we don’t know what we’ll find. It could be dangerous, who knows. You stay here and keep everyone calm. Maybe get everyone fishing for our dinner tonight, and we need more wood for the fires. See you soon.”

* * * *

“I hope,” Cassie said softly as she watched the scouting party disappear into the jungle.

“He’s a big boy, dear,” Georgia said. “He can take care of himself.”

“We don’t know what’s out there. All they’ve got are pocketknives.”

“Maybe we can go a short way into the jungle and see if we can find more of that fruit. Jonas said it wasn’t that far from here,” Cassie suggested. She noticed Georgia’s hesitation. “Maybe some of us younger women.” She gazed at Mik trying to teach some people how to catch fish.

“I don’t feel comfortable about this,” Georgia said and tried to pull Cassie back down.

“We’ll be fine. Don’t worry, Georgia. Why don’t you join the men to help them fish?”

Cassie called out to the groups. “I’m going to see if I can find some fruit. Anyone game to go with me?”

Several younger women jumped up and ran to join her.

A tall lithe young black woman said, “My name’s Tamara, Tammy for short. I can climb trees like the best of them.”

Cassie smiled. The woman looked as if she was heavy into working out. She had a very lean and wiry body. Five women in total had volunteered—Carolyn, Patty, Hope and Marlene were the other four. They looked in pretty good shape. Grimacing to herself, Cassie wished she’d worked out more. “Here goes. Stay together and in pairs if possible. At a sign of anything weird, run for your life back to camp.”

“Way to freak us out before we even go in there,” Tamara said. “Why weird?”

“I don’t know. This is all freaky. We don’t know what to expect. There could be wild animals lurking in the jungle.”

They hiked for a while, every now and then stopping to admire strange flowers or plants. There were very tall trees with skinny trunks and very straight branches sticking out at the top. Long green vines dangled from the branches. “Look at that,” Cassie said, pointing at the vines. “If they’re strong enough we can make a net for fishing.”

“Hopefully we won’t be here long enough to need that,” Carolyn said, frowning.

“I found some kind of fruit,” Patty called out from up ahead. She had a large purple fruit resembling a melon in her hands.

“Let’s crack it and see.” Cassie looked for a rock and found a few large boulders not far from where they were. She watched as Patty smashed the fruit against the rock. It split open to reveal fruit just as purple as its skin.

“Should we try it?” Patty looked at Cassie.

“I don’t know. What if it’s poisonous?”

“I’ll try it,” Tamara offered. “If I get sick, then so be it. I’m starving. There really wasn’t enough fish for all of us, not enough to still the hunger pangs.”

Cassie didn’t know whether to stop her or allow it, but it was already too late. Tamara dug large chunks of the fruit out of the shell. Purple juice dribbled down her chin staining the bodice of her tattered evening gown that hung in glittering strips around her waist and legs. “Tastes good. A mix between bananas and pears.”

They all sat on the rocks and waited for a while, but Tamara seemed fine so they went to the spot where Patty had found the fruit. There were many of them, some much larger. They gathered as many of them in their arms as they could carry and headed back to the river.

“Look, here’s a bush with what looks like cherries,” Hope suddenly shouted and after putting her melons on the ground, promptly started picking the maroon berries and ate while she picked. “They taste delicious.”

“We’ll need to come back for them,” Cassie said. “We have our hands full carrying these melons.”

“Are we going the right way?” Marlene asked. “We didn’t mark the way we came.”

“Just look for trampled leaves, broken twigs,” Cassie said. Marlene was leading now and Cassie made up the rear. They seemed to walk much longer going back and she was starting to worry that they were going in circles.

A scream. Cassie stopped dead in her tracks, as did the others. In consternation they watched as Marlene dangled in the air, her melons plopping to the ground, some of them breaking open. Cassie darted to the front and jumped up to grasp Marlene’s feet, but she couldn’t jump high enough. “What the hell’s got her?” she shouted.

“Wait,” Tamara yelled. She climbed up the tree next to Marlene heedless of what might be hiding in it. Crawling carefully along a branch she got close enough to reach out to Marlene. “Grab my hand!” she called out trying to overpower Marlene’s screams. Marlene’s legs thrashed, she clawed at something above her. While they watched, she suddenly disappeared.

“She’s gone,” Cassie said.

“How? What got her?” Hope asked.

“Tammy, do you see anything in the trees?” Cassie called up and watched Tamara clamber frantically through the tree, searching.

“There’s nothing here. It’s like she vanished into thin air.”

“Impossible. Something was up there. We have to find her,” Cassie said.

They looked in the area for a long time, listened for sounds, for possible screams, but nothing. Cassie finally called them together. “We need to get back to the river and wait for the men to return. Seems we’re dealing with some kind of invisible monster.”

They were all scared. Instead of walking steadily, they ran, Cassie taking the lead. She watched carefully for broken leaves, twigs and soon found the path they’d made when heading into the jungle. When they broke out of the brush and foliage onto the riverbank, she heaved a sigh of relief. After they put the melons on a pile Cassie joined Georgia.

“You were gone a long time, Cassie, and it seems you’re missing someone.”

“Yes. Something took Marlene right before our very eyes. She vanished. Poof, just like that. It was freaky. We looked for her for a long time, but there’s no sign of her anywhere.”

“How did she vanish?”

Cassie explained what had happened. Quite a few of the other people had gathered around and whispered to each other.

“Aliens. Told you,” a man said.

Cassie shrugged. “I’ve got no explanation for what happened. No more trips into the jungle. Let’s all hope the men return safely.” She was so worried about Jonas now, she couldn’t even eat any of the melon or the fish that they’d caught while she was gone. Her hunger pangs had disappeared.
Jonas, I hope you’re okay…

Exploring the jungle…

Jonas led his group. He made sure they all marked trees as they ventured deeper and deeper into the jungle. They’d walked for hours already, or what seemed like a very long time. All Jonas could do was gauge the sun and its position. It was directly above them now, so it had to be around noon. Nothing spectacular had occurred during the trek so far, no animals, no reptiles or even an ant, though they’d heard rustling. They’d scattered some flocks of exotic birds, seen strange, exotic plants and trees and tasted different fruits. So far, no one had become sick from eating the fruits. They’d also discovered trees bearing nuts. They were unlike any nuts they all normally snacked on—the taste sort of a cross between a walnut and peanuts, except they were the size of an orange.