Fresh Flesh (7 page)

She couldn't get up for a long time. She
stayed on the ground, dwelling on his angry punch-slap. She never
once thought Dick would hit her and she couldn't understand why he
would lie about the island.

Now she wasn't sure of anything.

The tears kept coming. When would she know
what was happening?

The ocean had swallowed the life she knew and
led, dropped her off for an eternal stay on this hateful island. An
evil Johnny Olson, in hell's version of
The Price Is Right
,
would have gleefully announced: "And you, Jessica Stanton, have won
a grand and disturbing trip to an island with surprises at every
turn! Yes, you will spend an endless vacation with a lifetime
supply of flesh-craving insects and delicious, unreachable
coconuts. And our Price Is Right special bonus is offering you all
the fish you can eat. Forever!"

More tears.

More.

When she finally stopped crying, night had
fallen and Dick had still not returned.

Alone. Frightened. She wondered if he ever
would come back.

She waited.

And waited.

The butterfly danced and landed on the plant
near Kyle Roberts and a smile crept across his lips. Beyond the
trees the morning ocean tide rolled in.

Behind him, Seth Everson repeated what he'd
seen but Kyle had zoned out. He focused on the butterfly.

The butterfly danced.

The year was 1958.

His earliest and fondest childhood memory
involved butterflies.

In middle school he would always try to get
seats close to the window so he could stare out and watch what
happened outside the window. Despite the distraction, his grades
never suffered. He was an exemplary student who rarely received
less than an A grades. In fact, the only negative marks received in
his life came in human form.

Not boys so much, although they would tease
him quietly behind his back. Those that did it to his face would
end up in fights. Kyle was a strong boy and a good natural
fighter.

He had a leader personality among boys and
would be first to raise his hand to lead any group in school and
extracurricular activities which made him semi-popular. But his
personality was abrasive and led other kids to follow him more out
of fear than respect.

Girls deemed him good looking but dark and
brooding. They didn't like the glassy look in his eyes or the way
he would stare through them. Kyle didn't understand or care that
much about girls. They smelled and looked nice but they would
deceive him with their external beauty. When he stared through
girls, he examined the ugliness inside.

This might have had something to do with his
feelings about his own mother a prison psychiatrist would say much
later in life, but all Kyle knew about the woman at the time was
abandonment. Women could cast off their young, it didn't seem
right. She and possibly his father had both left him. He wanted to
blame his mother but he didn't know her, so he blamed her entire
sex. His father he gave a bit of a pass because there was a
possibility his father didn't even know about him.

Butterflies.

But butterflies were beautiful all around.
They danced on the air and in Kyle's dreams. Butterflies had
definition and purpose. The more he learned about butterflies the
more they fascinated him.

Various foster homes he was in would force
him to go to church and listen to preachers. He studied religion
but found it difficult bearing his life to date having faith in
God. He wanted to believe in something, so he tried.

He believed in butterflies.

He would never forget the day he captured his
first butterfly. That changed everything. Imprisoned in the net,
fluttering, Kyle trembled.

"I didn't mean to," he told the butterfly and
in the process of trying to free it somehow he had injured the
beautiful creature.

What have I done? Why did I hurt you?

He watched the helpless butterfly. He looked
around and tried to stop others passing by at the park. "Mister,
can you please help? M'aam? Mister? Sir? M'aam? Please, please I
need help. Please!"

Some would stop and pat him on the head or
pass him quirky smiles but nobody helped him.

He cried his way back home, the butterfly
still stuck in the net. It died before he made it back. He showed
his foster mother, Angela, a big, black lady with a huge heart,
what he'd done.

"It's ok. You didn't mean to hurt, Kyle."

"I tried to get help but nobody. . ." Kyle
pointed at the butterfly in the net. He had wanted to touch and
appreciate the beauty in close range but what he touched had
died.

He cried while Angela held him, rocking him
back and forth. He vowed never again to hurt another butterfly.

This would be the only living creature he'd
grant this promise.

Back to 1993 on the island and Seth Everson
kept calling his name.

"Dammit, I heard you the first time," Kyle
replied and then yelled for his friend, Bobby.

Bobby was never that far from Kyle Roberts.
"Yes?"

"Go investigate what Seth keeps saying he
saw. You know him and his crazy eyes. You'd think we were in the
desert."

Bobby made a move toward the direction of the
butterfly and Kyle raised his knife. "No. The other way."

After Bobby exited, Kyle closed his eyes and
voyaged back to his childhood.

"Butterflies," he whispered.
"Butterflies."

1960
.

As Kyle grew older and with butterflies off
limits he began to collect dozens of other insects. He became
consumed with studying the different types at the public and school
libraries. How to properly mount, store and preserve each specimen.
His fascination with the hobby grew.

He started to enjoy the killing part best.
His experience with the butterfly was a lesson in how not to kill
what you loved but he had no emotion for other insects and bugs. He
would even kill butterflies in other stages as caterpillars. Ok to
kill as long as they hadn't morphed into a butterfly. Once they had
made that transformation they wouldn't be harmed.

He stuck the specimens alive and watched them
cringe until they went still. He found a curious urge developing
inside him watching the creatures dying impaled.

It seemed somehow analogous to his own life
to date. He was impaled in each foster home, forced to stay where
the state dictated he stay, forced to do what they ordered done.
They watched him cringe at first and then be still when he got used
to the new home.

The only freedom he had was when he collected
and mounted specimens. When he chose what creatures to become part
of his collection he became the state.

He never knew his biological mother or father
and it wasn't until Angela took him in at foster home number four
that he found any kind of parental-like figure in his life. The
first few years with Angela were great except for one thing:

Charles.

Charles was Angela's tough, ruddy husband.
Charles took an early disliking to Kyle and would punish him more
than their other children. If Kyle forgot to do a chore or was slow
in getting one done, Charles would be there with his large,
dirty-nail mechanic hands.

Kyle was never abused physically or sexually.
That kind of abuse left questions that the state would demand
answers. Charles was too slippery to leave that kind of trail.
Charles dealt his abuse psychologically.

If Charles knew Kyle enjoyed something,
sooner or later, he would take it away. Favorite books, music,
radio programs all became acceptable punishment lessons from
Charles. Kyle might have learned something positive if Charles gave
the items back but that rarely happened.

It's almost like Charles enjoyed taking the
items away with little promise of return. Whatever Kyle loved,
stayed out of reach. Like the girls he thought he might like at
school.

And the butterfly's safety that Kyle had
violated.

1963
.

The worst ever incident happened the
Thanksgiving after Kyle's sixteenth birthday. By then Kyle had
become the oldest foster child and Charles had been riding him even
worse.

It was the same year that guy Oswald shot
President Kennedy from the book depository. That's all anybody
wanted to talk about: The President was shot, The President was
shot. Kyle was out collecting the day it happened and heard about
it on every radio and from his foster family at home. He was more
interested in Thanksgiving than who shot the President of the
United States.

The timing was ironic though because it was
the first time Kyle thought about killing another human being. It
was a fleeting, odd thought. He pondered why somebody would kill
another person.
No, I wouldn't do that.
Kyle shook the
thought off again. The thought soon crept into his nightmares.

But here this Oswald guy killed the
President. Oswald claimed he was innocent in an interview on TV.
Maybe that's how killing other people works
, Kyle
thought
. Blame the grassy knoll.

"Kyle, dear, can you get the turkey out of
the oven?" Angela asked.

"Sure," Kyle went to the oven, donning the
oversized cloth gloves. He opened the door with heat rushing out at
his face. Sliding the metal rack toward him he started to grab both
edges of the pan and locked eyes with the turkey.

The head was gone and it seemed to be there
staring headless back at him, blaming him for its condition.
Charles had taken Kyle hunting and they'd caught the turkey
together. It was one of the few fond fatherly-like memories Kyle
had of the two of them.

A turkey shoot
, Charles had said too
many times. Charles was fond of clichés. He was the master of C
words: clichés, cruelty,
crime
.

Yes, in the future, a mere two years after
Kyle went to college, Charles would be sent to prison for chopping
up cars. Another C word. Chop, chop.

Back to the headless turkey that Kyle saw in
its death throes. Running around with blood squirting from its head
and now roasting in the oven at their foster home.

We'll be eating you soon
. Kyle licked
his lips.

He pulled it out of the oven and his grip
loosened. Some scalding juice came out of the pan and burned his
flesh. "OW!" He lost control of the pan. The turkey and pan went
flying on the floor.

"Kyle, are you ok?" Angela reached for Kyle's
hand.

"Um, I think—yes, I'm ok. I'm sorry, Angela."
He had wanted to call Angela mom for some time, being that she was
the closest thing he'd ever known to a mom, but couldn't screw up
the courage. He was scared of getting that close to anybody. Even
though he would never be closer to another mother-like figure than
Angela.

The garage door slammed shut and big steps
stomped toward the kitchen. Charles had come home from work. He
worked every holiday including Thanksgiving and Christmas. The look
in Charles eyes seeing the bird on the dirty floor cut through Kyle
like diamond.

"Is this your work, boy?"

"It was an accident, Charles, he—" Angela
started and Charles stuck his big white palm in the air.

"There are no accidents with Kyle. Haven't
you learned that, woman?" He stood, glaring at Kyle.

"It really was an accident, sir, I—"

"Shut it, boy. I come home hungry for a
dinner. What are we going to eat now?"

Angela had started to pick up the turkey when
Charles started stomping it with his foot. Turkey pieces flew every
direction.

"Dog food now."

"I didn't mean—" Kyle raised his hands in a
pleading motion.

"Don't." Charles shook his dirty mechanic
nail finger at Kyle and then headed out of the room wiping the
crushed turkey off his work boot with a towel he'd snatched off the
counter. "Help me build a fire, boy."

Kyle knew better not to say anything more. He
followed Charles to the fireplace.

"We need some kindling to get this fire going
strong. Bring some to me."

Kyle knew what Charles wanted from him and he
started shaking his head. Not his collections. No. Anything but
them.

"If you don't get them, I will."

They stared at each other with Kyle's heart
pounding. Charles sighed and pushed past Kyle, storming toward his
room.

"Please, not them."

Charles had always left his collections alone
but the threat was there.

"You spend way too much time with childish
garbage," Charles told him as he went into the room and took down
three of his wood collections, one of them being the butterfly.

Kyle rushed Charles from behind and knocked
the mounting boxes out of his hands. He reached for the butterfly
one and held it against his chest. Charles could burn the other
ones and he'd miss the hard work he put into them, but if something
happened to the butterfly? Unspeakable.

He would do anything to protect the
butterfly.

"A little vinegar today, huh boy? Good."
Charles chuckled, taking the other two and ripping down four more
wooden mats. He moved back into the other room and broke the
collections into pieces and shoved them into the fireplace.

"Charles," Angela said, muffled in the other
room. Tears started to form in Kyle's eyes, he clutched the mount
with the butterfly.

"The boy is almost a man now, Angela. He can
drive a car and soon he'll be out there on his own. He doesn't need
to play with these any more. It's time for him to grow up and get a
job to pay for things like that turkey he threw on the floor."

"You stubborn fool, it was an accident. Kyle
didn't do that on purpose."