Fresh Flesh (13 page)

"Wow, you have feelings for this lady, huh?
Tell you what I'm going to do. I'm not going to come up there right
now and take her from you."

Jessica noticed her first breath.

"I only wanted to live over here alone and in
peace. I haven't caused you any trouble."

"Until she washed ashore and Bobby's
unfortunate demise, no trouble, no. But now. . ."

"Can't we make some arrangement?"

Loud laughter. "What, you get her every other
weekend? This isn't some fucking parenting plan, Richie. You have
no rights here. I'm the only one on this island who matters."

"That's not true. We are human beings, we all
matter. That's one of the main reasons why I didn't stay over there
with you. I knew there would be a war."

"Does it matter why we're over there and
you're here? The world abandoned us and doesn't give two shits what
happens as long as we face our death sentences here."

Richard stood trembling.

"I didn't think you disagreed. So, enough
bullshit. It's time to talk serious. I want the woman on my side by
sunrise tomorrow. That gives you a more-than-generous full day to
fuck her, kiss her goodbye, do whatever you've been doing to her.
One more day. See, I'm not being as impatient as I could be."

Richard clenched his fist, turning each of
them bright red.

"If the woman is in my possession by tomorrow
morning, I may decide to let Bobby's death go without further
punishment. After all, Bobby was my buddy."

Jessica gulped.

"However, if the woman is not mine by sunrise
tomorrow, then we will come and take her by force. If that is your
choice, Richie, you might as well dig yourself a grave tonight
because I will reclaim my property by lunchtime tomorrow. And I
won't kill you quickly, Richie. No, I'll punish you, keep you on
the brink of death until I've squeezed every inch of that crazy
bullshit life out of you. I'll break you for sport in front of the
boys."

Richard started to say something but stopped.
Jessica was glad he didn't let his anger force him into some macho
back and forth.

"Here's the score: there are ten of us. I
know it's been awhile since you've stopped by and visited, but we
have numbers on our side. And when I confirm to them the sweet
prize you aren't sharing? Oh my, the boys will be unhappy. They
will tear this island apart looking for you."

"Come on, there must be something—"

"Ten to two, Richie. Think about it. Think
about it hard. You still have plenty of time."

Richard's face was red and sullen.

"Plenty of time."

"Never," Richard whispered, turning to look
at Jessica.

"Sunrise tomorrow. Be there with my
property."

Richard just kept shaking his head saying
under his breath, "Never."

"Have a good last day with her, Richie. It
looks like it's going to be a scorcher. A beautiful day. B is for
Richie's Bitchy. B is for Richie's Bitchy. . ." The voice trailed
off.

The ocean breeze stopped blowing long enough
for Jessica to hear the sounds of thrashing away. The wind resumed
strong and steady.

Kyle Roberts' chilling words repeated inside
Jessica's brain:
B is for Richie's Bitchy.

The ocean winds played a chilling song as
Richard returned to his rock seat. He sat, putting his sweat-laden
face in his hands. The ocean song kept playing; it's melody a
series of annoying cacophonous whispers. The ocean could not only
scream louder than any other beast on earth, but scream softer as
well.

A scream inside a whisper.

Jessica worried about Richard; she believed
that this described him and the whole island perfectly.
A scream
inside a whisper.

Someone needed to break the silence. Since
the first day she'd met him, he led the conversations. He'd been
the one who seemed to know what to do next. She'd let him lead and
she followed. She had never been like this with any other
relationship before. Was the island changing her too?

She couldn't handle the silence anymore.
"What are we going to do?"

For a long time her words had no effect on
anything; Richard, the ocean winds, the light shining through the
rave entrance. But then Richard looked up, his face lighting
up.

She repeated her question.

"I'm thinking," he said quietly, avoiding eye
contact with her.

"Care to share any of your thoughts?"

"Not yet," he answered.

"Then how about telling me who that was?"

"You mean what that was? That was no man. .
.at least by my standards."

She was about to agree before he
continued.

"I'll tell you what I know about Kyle
Roberts. . ."

As Kyle Roberts travelled back to the east
side of the island he couldn't stop grinning. He was disappointed
to have lost Bobby but look what he was gaining?

He saw a butterfly land on a vine in the
distance and stopped.

He felt his mind falling back in time
again.

1965
.

After his foster mother Angela had died and
Charles had sent him back, Kyle Roberts had to grow up even more.
In the next two foster homes Kyle stepped up his self-reliance. It
wasn't long before he had multiple odd jobs to go along with a
paper route he was growing too old to do.

He never showed off his mounted insect
collections in his room, especially the butterfly one, in any of
his other homes. He kept the collections hidden under the bed or in
other secret places.

By his eighteenth birthday he had become
independent and moved out on his own, but he didn't even show his
collections in his apartment.

He wasn't mounting insects any more. Charles
had been right. That was something he needed to grow out of doing.
It had come time to graduate with his collection efforts.

He moved onto bigger mounting subjects. Kyle
could thank Charles for the hunting training. He had to be more
careful about how he trapped and mounted the animals in the wild as
he found the danger increased dramatically with bigger targets.
He'd create mounting boxes out in the middle of the woods and had
some close brushes killing wild animals. He almost died in a match
with a cougar and a bear (separate collection efforts).

He earned several scholarships and started
junior college while working. Nobody except Kyle knew what he did
in his spare time. With the hobby and sports days gone, now he did
it because he enjoyed killing.

He became restless and bored with his weekend
wilderness trips killing everything as small as ducks, geese and
grouse to as big as black bears. Cougars were a favorite to hunt
and kill. They were a special kind of prey. Cunning, fast and
predatory. He could kill with a knife, bow and arrow or gun. He
preferred using bladed weapons.

He cut the heads off the animals and stuck
them high up in trees encased in boxes made of wood. He became
skilled at working with wood, especially in the wild.

He first met Stacy in a junior college
English class. She wore a blue scarf with butterflies on it. Like
the other girls she thought he was handsome and even went on a
couple dates with him.

But she broke it off for some other guy who
wasn't as, she claimed: "distant." It was true he wasn't the
typical doting boyfriend type. He had his time where he enjoyed
going out into the woods and collecting. He needed to do this by
himself. This wasn't the kind of thing he'd take his dates on. Hey,
you want to go grab a movie and kill Smokey The Bear?

It saddened him to lose Stacy though. She
felt like his first true love but the time was short.

He kept calling her and being rebuked. She
ordered him to stop calling or she'd go to the police. Kyle didn't
want any trouble so he let her go.

Kyle didn't blame her for abandoning him for
a boring boyfriend. He wouldn't hurt Stacy while she was protected
by the blue butterfly scarf.

A virgin until almost his twenty-first
birthday, Kyle grew tired of masturbation. He had only made it to
third base with Stacy. She was saving herself for marriage. She was
one of the few girls in the flower era of the late sixties Kyle
knew that felt that way.

He wanted to try the real thing. He had heard
from some guys at work that there were some massage parlors in town
that provided more personal service if you gave the masseuse extra
money, a wink and a grin.

His massage parlor experimentation was a
failure. He learned to be careful because there were tons of
legitimate massage therapists and one just couldn't walk into any
massage parlor and ask for sexual favors but the women masseuses
didn't do anything sexually for him. He didn't even get hard half
the time they rubbed his body.

When he masturbated he often didn't think of
any specific sex, women or men. He thought about them both. He'd
always thought he was bi-sexual because he liked body parts from
both sexes. He liked big breasts and he liked firm chests of men.
He liked women's lips and the asses of men. He enjoyed strong
shoulders of men and the eyes of women.

His first sex was with a transvestite named
Donni that he met at a gay-friendly club. Kyle loved the sex and
imagined it to be better than anything he could have had with
Stacy. Donni and Kyle would begin a relationship that would last
until Donni discovered what Kyle enjoyed doing on the weekends.

She had no idea.

1969
.

Kyle's first collection rule: only
strangers.

This meant he had to follow a strategy and
M.O similar to Ted Bundy who he had surely shared some kills during
the same timeframe. Although it is believed that Bundy's main
killing spree happened from 1974-1978 there is considerable
evidence that it began earlier.

Roberts and Bundy preferred to prey on young
women. Most of Kyle's victims were college students and/or young
people who enjoyed the outdoors like him. Bundy was into
necrophilia but Kyle never had sex with his victims after they were
dead. He bound and raped them in the woods several times before
dicing them into pieces.

His first human victims he met on trail near
a campground. They were hiking in the back woods where Kyle liked
building mounts. They had found his collection and thought it might
be some kind of weird taxidermist. They ridiculed his
collections.

Kyle shot the man between the eyes with an
arrow.

The woman tried to run but Kyle knew the
wooded area well. He'd been coming to this same place for several
years. He caught up with her by shooting both her legs with two
arrows, dead center in both thighs.

"Don't worry," Kyle said, "I'll stop the
bleeding. I'm studying to be a male nurse."

The woman screamed. She knew Kyle was no
nurse when he broke off the arrow tip and left both arrows sticking
in her legs and gave her nothing for the pain but strange
stares.

"You shouldn't have made fun of my
collection."

"Why are you doing this? Why me?"

Kyle pointed to his collection of wild
animals. "They are boring me."

Kyle was disappointed that he couldn't mount
the humans like he did the insects and animals. He'd surely be
caught mounting them. He had to keep his human killing a
secret.

So he learned to cut his human victims into
pieces and burn them in the fire. The sound of the crackling
reminded him of Charles burning two of his mounted collections on
Thanksgiving.

"C is for Cunt" were the last words his
female victim heard.

He had no final words for the three men he
killed during his pre-death-row spree. He would produce more C
words years later on the island.

1975
.

As the murders accumulated, as was common
with most serial killers, Kyle got sloppier and the cops began to
close in. Even sliced, diced and cremated flesh left clues. And one
recent victim, Amanda Worley, had seen Kyle's face and escaped.

He let one get through the butterfly net.

After having sex, Donni and he were watching
TV at her house when the news flashed his picture as a suspect
wanted by the authorities. A warrant had been issued for his
arrest.

"Kyle," she said, pointing in surprise.
Kyle's face was on TV.

"I don't know what this is about. I will go
and talk with them," Kyle said. And then he dressed and left. He
ran the opposite direction, ran away from turning himself in.

A manhunt led to the woods where Kyle had
first started killing. He climbed a tree and sat high up on the
branch clutching his very first collection.

The butterfly mounting.

When they finally brought him down, he was
crying in a fetal position. He didn't want to go to prison. He felt
like the butterfly caught wrongly in the net, its wings
fluttering.

1976
.

Kyle did see his foster father Charles one
more time.

He would testify in court to Kyle's "creepy
tendencies as a kid." Not that one convict's testimony would matter
that much to a jury but the prosecution pulled everybody they could
out of Kyle's past to prove how much of a monster threat Kyle was
to society.

Kyle gave Charles the middle finger in
court.

"See," Charles pointed. "That's evil, I'm
telling you. Don't let him run free out there so he can ever hurt
anybody again. I hunted with that . . . that
thing
. He likes
killing too much."

Kyle stood up and screamed: "Tell them what
you did to me, you rotten bastard!" His attorney tried to restrain
him.

The jury would later say it wasn't the
testimony of Charles that convicted him, it was the testimony of
Roberts' only surviving victim, Amanda Worley.