Escape, a New Life (13 page)

She looked behind her.  The raft was bobbing in the water not far from her.  Being behind her, she paddled over to it
with the current at her back with little effort, and clung on.  Her arms and shoulders were burning.  Fighting through the pain and the tears, she managed to pull herself up onto the raft.  The raft that Eric had built, that was saving her life at this moment, even though she could do nothing for him.   

She finally worked up the courage to turn toward the beach. 

It was empty.  They were gone.  He was gone.

Abby felt rage and
hatred boiling up from her stomach.  Crying, she collapsed onto the raft, pounding the hard wood with her fists until her hands were bleeding.  She screamed to the endless and empty sea and made a vow to herself that she would get back to the island.  When she did, she would kill anyone left on that godforsaken rock.

ABBY’S EYES SQUINTED as they opened in the bright
midday sun.  She wondered how long she had been floating out here.  Hours?  Days?  She thought hard to remember.  She recalled being wet and shivering in the middle of the night.  She ultimately decided that she had been out here at least a full twenty-four hours.  Judging by the overhead sun, she had spent much of the morning sleeping, and it was close to noon.  She readjusted her assessment and figured she had probably been floating out there for a day and a half by now. 

Her throat and lips were completely dry.  Eric had stuffed the solar bag into his back pocket when they left the shelter.  Eric.  She wanted to cry at just the thought of his name.  Although her body had been wracked with sobbing throughout the night, she realized now that her eyes were not welling up with tears anymore
; they just hurt.  She was getting severely dehydrated.  If she did not get back to land soon, she would not be getting back to land at all.

Sitting up, she stretched her arms.  What had been a bad headache yesterday had progressed into a searing migraine today.  It began at the base of her neck
where she had been clubbed the night before, and seemed to reach throughout her entire brain.  Not only had she been knocked unconscious last night, but had gone over a day without food or water. 

She wondered if her shoulders
were sore from the paddling yesterday, or sore from sleeping the night on this array of mismatched logs?  Looking around, she could not believe that she was still in relatively close proximity to the island.  She was probably a few hundred yards out at most.  The raft was moving swiftly enough, but it was not moving away from the island.  In fact, it seemed to be moving in a counterclockwise circle around the island. 

Over the next hour
, she watched as the beach where she had first met Eric a few weeks ago appear in front of her.  The cave where they had nearly been drowned looked rather innocuous at the moment.  Slowly she passed by the beach, going left to right.  She thought about jumping from the raft and trying to swim in.  Remembering how disastrously that had turned out the previous morning, she thought better of it.  Today she was significantly weaker. 

She decided she would close her eyes and rest.  Later, when the sun was lower in the sky, it would not be so hot and she would feel stronger.  Her mind was set.  She refused to die floating out here on this raft, even if making a swim for land was certain death.  If she
was going to die, at least she was going to die trying.  Lying in the warm sun, she began drifting off almost immediately.

In her half lucid state
, she began dreaming.  There was a man.  He was handsome, and she was drawn to him.  But he was hurting her.  She could not describe it, but when she was with him her body was wracked with pain. She could not escape him.  She was helpless and trapped, unable to reach out or turn around. She tried to see his face, but he did not have one.  His shape was familiar, but only a foggy memory.  She was struggling now, wriggling, kicking, and scratching.  He was unfazed and laughing at her.  The feeling of naked vulnerability encompassed her while she struggled. 

She was stuck in a state between dreams and consciousness and began willing herself to wake up from the nightmare.  Her limbs were paralyzed, but she continued to struggle.  She felt helpless in reality as much as she
did in her nightmare.  Finally with a gasp, she shot up screaming, and remembered where she was.

“What the hell was that?”

Looking around to get her bearings, she could not place exactly where around the island she was.  The sun was getting lower in the sky.  She must have slept longer than she thought.  It had seemed like just a few minutes.  She leaned to the edge of the raft.  Not willing to test her muscles just yet, she splashed some cool seawater on her face.  It was just a dream, but it felt so real.  Her heart was pounding in her throat. 

Stretching out on the raft, she took stock of her
faculties.  Her head felt a little better, though she still had a bump on the back of it, which throbbed with every heartbeat.  Her arms and legs, while still weak, did not feel quite as sore as they did earlier.  She would feel a little more confident if she knew exactly where on the island she was, though.  Looking in, she appeared to at least be closer to land than she had been before. 

Earlier
, she had figured that she was at least three hundred yards off shore when the raft had passed by the beach.  Now she could not be more than one hundred yards out, and it almost seemed as though she was continuing to get closer.  Maybe the tide was going in, she wondered. 

There was some sort of inlet
and cove up ahead.  She did not recognize it, but the raft seemed to be heading in that direction, so that was where she was going.  She lay on her back and pedaled her feet in the air to see how her legs felt.  They were tired, but the soreness was gone, and she knew they were stronger than her arms. 

She loosened one of the vines toward the back of the raft, so that she would have something to grip onto.  Hanging her feet off the back and into the water, she began kicking.  Within a few minutes
, her thighs burned.  The pain was inside her legs and muscles, but to her surprise, she seemed to be making progress.  She kicked harder toward the island and within ten minutes cut her distance to land in half.  The pain intensified, but she was numb to it.  She was only focused on getting back to shore.

The raft entered the inlet very close to the edge
on her left.  With only several yards to go she looked to the side and could see through the clear blue water, right down to the sandy bottom.  She decided to let go of the raft and swim diagonally to the shore.  The sand dropped off sharply not far from the edge, but she figured she was only a few feet from being able to touch bottom anyway.

She let go and
tried to put her feet down into the sand, the water was about chest high.  Her legs immediately gave out from under her and she fell.  She flailed, trying to get closer to shore, but her limbs would not cooperate.  Each time she tried to stand, she was knocked over.  She watched as the raft drifted away from her and beached itself further down the inlet.  Abby wondered if she should just try to follow it?  She was so disoriented that she did not even realize the strength of the current she was trying to fight.  Each time she fell, she had more difficultly standing up again.

Finally
, she managed to stand.  Knowing she would be pulled down again, she did her best to fall forward, her head landing on the wet sand at the water’s edge.  She lay there for a moment, still in the water from the hips down, feeling the current tug at her feet.  She reached up to grab anything she could.  A rock, sea grass, even sand.  She was willing to take anything she could grip in order to aid her in dragging herself fully out of the water.

She was shocked to feel a hand grab hers.  Abby looked up to see Robert’s smiling face.  He
grasped her under the shoulders, pulled her out of the water and helped her walk from the water’s edge into the shade of the nearby trees.  She let go of him with the intention of sitting on the ground against the thick trunk of a tree.  Instead, her knees buckled and she collapsed to the ground right where she stood.

“What in the world happened to you?”

Abby tried to speak, but only made a rasping sound.  She attempted to clear her throat, and winced in pain, as if a thousand razors where slicing the inside of her throat.  He handed her a small canteen, which she drained in seconds, not spilling a drop. 

“Thanks,” she croaked
after a few moments, handing him the empty canteen.  He handed her a second one that was full.  She gulped down half of it before taking a break and looking at him.  “Thanks again,” she said more clearly. 

He asked again, “What happened?” 

Her breathing finally began to slow.  She took another gulp from the canteen and handed it back.  “We were trying to make our escape off the island.”  Her mind wandered back to yesterday morning, and she began to choke up.  She swallowed, trying to get rid of the lump in her throat.  “They killed him.  He saved me, and they killed him.”

Abby broke down as Robert put his arm around her.  “It is alright,” he said.  “They are not here.  No one is going to hurt you.”

She yelled, “They already have!  They killed him.  He saved my life.  Twice!  We were almost out.  The raft was floating away.”  She paused to compose herself.  “He knew.  He knew that if I swam out to the raft that I wouldn’t be able to make it back.  He was just buying time, holding them back so I would be safe.”

She recounted the last few days for Robert
– Sara showing up and befriending them, her getting caught in the trap, Eric saving her at the camp, killing Tom.  By the time she recounted last seeing Eric, lying on the beach while she watched helplessly from the raft, she showed no emotion.  She was not crying anyway.  She was angry.  She was furious and filled with hate. 

“I’m going to kill them, Robert.  I’m going to kill every one
of them.”  She tried to stand.  Her legs shook under her as she braced herself against the tree, until she felt her footing was secure.  He stood an arm’s length away as she tried to take a step, and he caught her as her legs gave out.

“Abby, I understand what you are feeling right now.  However
, you are not going to do anything but get yourself killed in this condition.”  Their eyes met, only inches apart. 

“You smell like rosemary,” she said.

He laughed. “There are worse things I could smell like, I suppose.  I picked some fresh this morning to make with roast potatoes and a wild duck for dinner.  Come back with me.  Have some food and get your strength back.

She shook her head no,
and for the first time in a few hours, felt the familiar sharp pain at the back of her head.  “Fine,” she said, reluctantly agreeing to go with him.

“Good.  Now let
’s get your head right and get some food in you.”

They wal
ked into the trees, her arm slung across his waist, and his arm around her shoulder, for support.  They were quiet for a long time, with the exception of Abby’s occasional grunting when Robert helped her climb over a rock or a fallen tree. 

He
eventually broke the silence. “I will get you back on your feet, but I am not going to help you kill those people.”

Abby stopped and let go of him, snapping back, “I don’t need your help!  I didn’t ask for your help.”

He chuckled a bit.

She asked, “Is that funny?”

“Well,” he said, “by my count, you would be dead twice over now without my help.  So whether you have asked for it or not, it has turned out well enough for you so far.”  He gestured for her to come close again so they could continue walking.

Abby knew he was right.  As they walked through the trees, there was something familiar and safe about him
, she thought. 

“I know you are yo
ung, and you know everything, but let me offer you some of the best advice I can.  Learn to accept help.  Learn to trust the
right
people, and let the right people into your life.  Keep the wrong ones out.  You learn to do that, and you are going to be just fine.” 

He gave her a squeeze around the shoulders, and she squeezed back.  She gave him a little smile.  “That sounds familiar,” she said
. “Is that from a movie?”

He was looking off in the distance, “It is something you may have heard before
.”

“Well, I think I was doing that.  Letting the right people into my life
, that is.  Those people, Sara and that redhead Emily, they killed him.”  She stopped and looked in his eyes.  “They took him away from me.  Whether you help me or not, I’m going to take their lives away from them.”

ABBY HAD BEEN STAYING with Robert for the past several days.  They stood together on the hillside as he pointed out over the trees.  “I will tell you how I always know where they are,” he said.  “Late in the afternoon, just as the sun is going down, they light a fire.  They almost always do.  You have to be watching over the island when they light it.”

“Why is that?”

“Before it gets going, it will be very smoky.  Once the fire is going pretty good, there is very little smoke.  You watch and see where that smoke comes up through the trees, and that is where they are.” He pointed toward the northeast.  “That is where they had been for the last few weeks.”  He then pointed toward the beach where Abby had launched the raft, where the sun was starting to dip low in the sky. “That is where they have been for the past few days.”

Abby nodded
. “That’s where our camp was set up.  Do you think they have been staying there?”

“Why not?”
he said. “You had a shelter, food, and wood.  You said they were hurt, so they probably did not want to hike back through the trees.  That is probably exactly where they are.”

Abby was pacing.
  Over the past few days, she ate good meals, gained back her strength, and was starting to feel anxious.  She was feeling fit and unstoppable.  It was time for her to move on, and they both knew it.

“I cannot help you,” he said.

“I’m not asking you to.  Just don’t get in my way.”

“I will not stop you either.  I will not interfere with the will of another, even if I do not agree with it.”

“That’s all I can ask,” she said.

They stood watching the sky for a few minutes.  As the sun got lower, the sky turned brilliant shades of orange, purple and pink
near the horizon.

“I should go,” she said.  “You
said I would have the best view from up at the summit.”

“That you will,” he sighed. 

“Thanks for everything.”

“Abby, please be careful out there.” 

She studied his face.  He was older than she was, probably by about thirty years, in his early fifties.  He was in great shape, though.  His body rivaled her youth in its appearance, but he wore those years in the wrinkles around his eyes.  At this moment, they looked deeper than she had seen them before.  He was looking at her with the concern of a father. 

“Don’t worry, I will,” she said,
standing on her toes and kissing him on the cheek.

********************

Abby made short work going up the side of the mountain.  Dusk was coming, and she did not want to miss the smoke and spend the night sleeping in the open for nothing.  She could not help but let her mind wander to Eric, thinking of the last time she had come this way.  They had passed right through here together.  Now he was gone. 

That was the first
time Tom and his band of crazies had found them.  She knew she did not have to worry about them too much this time.  When they surprised them the first time, it had been six of them against Abby and Eric.  There had been three men and three women.  All the men were dead now.  At least she assumed that Tom had not survived.  She liked her chances against the women.  Over the past few weeks, Abby had discovered that she was a formidable fighter in her own right.  She had already done plenty of damage in dire circumstances against strong and healthy adversaries. 

Now the odds were one against three.  However
, of those three, one was half blind and hobbling around on a broken leg, at best.  Abby had never bothered to figure out that one’s name.  She had already taken out Sara once, and who knew if she could even see straight with the broken nose that Abby left her with the last time they met. 

T
he only healthy one was the redhead, Emily.  From the little time that she had spent around her, Abby sensed that she actually seemed pretty meek.  She did not know how she had played into Eric’s killing, given that they had disappeared shortly after she had come on the scene.  However, back at their camp, she never said a word, and did not put up a fight when Abby flipped her on her back.  She would be easy.  Sara was scrappy, though.  Abby had trouble deciding which one she should take care of first. 

She had covered the distance in record time.  It was a good thing
, too, because the sun would be setting in just a little while.  She found a perch on top of a large boulder where she sat to wait for the smoke to appear, telling her where her prey would be.  She felt the back of her head.  It was still tender to the touch, but her headaches had just about completely subsided over the past couple days.

Staring out at the tops of the trees that
led toward the ocean, she let her mind drift off.  She found herself running from her faceless enemy again.  She was scared this time, but not for herself.  She was trying to protect someone very important. Whoever she was trying to protect was also holding her in place, like an anchor.  It was as though she was chained to this faceless man.  He hurt her, but she could not leave.  She could not even protect herself.  Her dream was interrupted by a thud when she hit the ground, having fallen off of the boulder.

Standing,
Abby worked out her shoulder and shook off her disturbing dream.  She looked out over the trees to find that dusk had passed.  Save for a few wisps of light on the horizon, she was staring into darkness. 
Damn it.
  She sat and took a piece of fruit from the bag that Robert had sent her with.  She ate her small, raw supper while brainstorming, trying to figure out what to do next.  Hike back down and spend the night with Robert again? 

No, she would set up camp here.  She considered lighting a small fire, as it woul
d get pretty cool tonight, but decided that she did not want to chance the orange glow giving her away.  Plus, she remembered feeling the empty sheath on her right leg, she did not have her knife and flint anymore.  Last time she saw it, it was in Sara’s hand.  She did not want to think about that. 

Not that a fire would necessarily give her away.  No one was looking for her, or would even know where to look.  The idea struck her that
she did, in fact, know where to look.  The women she was looking for would not have the same concerns about lighting a fire.  They would not be worried about the orange glow giving them away.  As far as they knew, the only person who would be looking for them was on a raft in the middle of the ocean.  Maybe they should be worried. 

If they were down at her camp, they would probably light a large fire to contend
with the cool breeze coming off the water.  She would likely be able to see the glow in the treetops once it was dark enough.  It was just a matter of waiting.  She climbed her boulder again, but after a few minutes worried that she might doze off and fall a second time.  So she sat on the ground, leaning against it and waited for complete darkness to come.

While she waited, she thought.  She was happy that she had kissed Eric
, and was glad that she had come to know him.  She was furious that he had been taken from her.  Thinking about how she would go about killing the ones responsible, she almost started to feel bad for them.  Emily would be quick, she decided, and first.  No doubt the redhead would be in the best condition of the three of them.  She would take her time with the other two, though.  It would be slow and painful.  They would feel every ounce of pain they had caused Abby.  They would feel it tenfold.

Darkness came in the form of a moonless night, though the
faint glow on the horizon told her that the moon would come eventually.  Looking up, Abby saw more stars than she had ever seen in her life.  It had been decades since you could stand on the south coast of California, look up, and see more than a handful of stars.  What she was seeing now was astounding.  It did not even appear real to her. 

Looking out to the water, her eyes followed the coastline to the area where she and Eric had set up camp. 
The tall trees and the distance prevented her from seeing the actual beach, but she knew where it was.  She watched for the slightest flicker or glow in the treetops, any indication at all that the women were set up there.  She scanned the area back and forth, but saw nothing.  For ten minutes, twenty minutes, a half hour, she kept hoping, but saw nothing.

Damn it.
  She hurled a rock through the air toward the trees.  If she had not fallen asleep she would have seen the smoke, wherever it was, and the three of them would be on their way to dead by now.  She climbed her boulder again, and stood, making herself as tall as possible.  The top of her head was the absolute highest point on the island at the moment. 

Remembering that Robert had told her that their former camp had been to the northeast, she scanned that area
, too.  She quickly looked over that entire section of the island and saw nothing.  Slowly, she looked it over again.  She was trying to see every inch of every tree.  Still nothing.  Closing her eyes, she breathed slowly.  Her heart was pumping hard, her anger starting to get the best of her.

Opening her eyes, she immediately saw a bright orange glow d
ancing on the treetops about one miless straight down the mountain from where she stood.  “Gotcha.”

Abby
hopped down from the boulder.  It was dark, but her eyes were completely adjusted, and she could see well enough to make it down the mountain to the tree line.  Once there, she would have to move slowly. 
That’s fine,
she thought. 
It is still early.
  She was full of rage, but she was not stupid.  She was not about to storm into the camp while the three of them were sitting around, awake.  She would wait until the middle of the night when they were all sleeping.  That was when she would make her move.  That was when they would pay for their crimes.