Primal (13 page)

Darting left, she realizes that with no gun she must hide.
Moving around is making too much noise and she looks for a place. Ahead a couple
of downed trees and a few rocks form a bit of a covey. She settles into it.
Minutes go by. No movement. No noise. Ben learns very quickly, how to place his
foot on the center of the rock, as he moves so if it is unsteady it doesn’t
buckle. He learns some leaves make crackling sounds when he steps on them and
others are silent. He learns, like she learned, and at a staggering speed.
Where Alison hides there is a small pool of rainwater in a cup of granite and
it looks like life itself to her. Her throat is sticking together. She leans in
and puts her lips to the pool. She drinks and it is heavenly as it soothes her.
Ben sees a footprint near the fallen logs. Stealthily, he moves around the
little cubby. From an angle to the right, he can get a view through some
branches and he sees her bent over the water. He puts his weapon in his pants.
He moves in. His hands itch. He needs to kill her with his bare hands. He will
not deny himself that pleasure. He needs to close his hands around her throat
and slowly strangle the breath out of her while she looks him in the eyes
knowing what is happening. Alison lifts her head from the pool. The first rays
of the rising sun break through the trees behind Ben and cast his shadow across
the rock in front of her. He’s right there! She lunges out of the cubby. He
dives and grabs her shin. They both go down. She bends at the waist over a log.
He goes down hard on the granite. He reaches to grabs her other leg. She
clutches a medium-sized stone into her fist. Eyes! Eyes! She whips her hand
back and strikes him in the eye. He recoils for a split second. She crawls over
the log and stumbles to her feet. She goes! He is right behind her. She breaks
out of the woods and stops just short of sheer drop to the beach fifty feet
below. Ben emerges from the woods and walks deliberately toward her. Taking his
time. Step after slow step, he walks toward her slowly, because she is trapped
and he wants her to feel it. She drops her hands to her sides. They stand
looking at each other. His family dead. Hers soon to be. The waterlogged ground
shifts from Ben’s added weight. She sees what’s happening. In his rage and
triumph, flooded with the euphoria of revenge, he sees only her. She jumps with
all her might sideways and catches a small limb of a baby tree with one hand as
the ground triggered by his added weight gives way to a mudslide that carries
Ben down the drop. She pulls herself up to solid ground. On her hands and
knees, she crawls to the edge looks down. He stands directly below, his entire
body black with mud, his eyes white fire. His hatred sears her skin.

The roar of two helicopters interrupts the force field
created by their keen singular concentration. They both look to the sky and see
the police choppers zooming in. Then, locked eye-to-eye in a scorching
intensity Ben speaks softly and even though his words are too faint to be heard
over the roar and the distance, somehow, she hears him as if he were whispering
directly into her ear. “It’s not over.” And in an instant, he is gone. Frozen
on her hands and knees, she does not move. Her eyes remain glued to the spot
where she lost sight of Ben. She waits. She watches. She could not tell you how
much time passed before she hears something behind her.

“Alison?” Hank approaches with caution because while he can
see it is his wife, something unnamable warns him to be careful. Alison doesn’t
move from the edge. Dan and Grant hang back as Hank crawls out to her on the
shifting mud. Gently, Hank pulls her back to him. He looks into her expressionless
face. He gathers her up in his arms and rocks her back and forth. He is crying.
Her pants are ripped and what’s left of her shirt is stiff with Gravel’s dried
blood. Her right eye is swollen almost shut. Her face and body are cut, bruised
and filthy. They sit wrapped together in the mud. He does not feel her hugging
back. He assumes this is exhaustion. He cannot see her face. If he could, he
would see her eyes are still on the spot where Ben disappeared. She is still
looking for him. “Alison.” Hank holds her with all the force he can without
hurting her further. He tries to reach her, “Alison…Allie?” Finally, she turns
her attention to him. She sees him. It is Hank. He sees a flicker of herself in
her face. He holds her rocking back and forth. “Jimmy is fine. Jimmy is fine.”
Hank scoots her back from the edge. Dan quickly removes his shirt and places it
around her. She cannot move. And so no one moves for quite a long time. Dan and
Grant sit down now too, and begin to grieve in earnest for their lost friends.
They are a profoundly pained little group sitting in the mud. Just sitting. The
three men crying. Alison staring, but not crying.

When they can, they start back. Alison, who is unable to
support her own weight, is being physically supported between Grant and Hank.
Dan has walked ahead clearing an easy path. They emerge into the small clearing
by the lodge. The police are already in high gear. Each of the hostages is
giving statements. Yellow tape surrounds the shed. Hobbs, Mike and Bruce’s
bodies are laid-out and covered respectfully with blankets while they wait for
the body bags.

In a chair on the porch, Jimmy has been watching the woods,
traumatized. And then, he sees them. He flies out of the chair. “Mom!” He runs
into her arms. She falls to her knees on the ground holding her son fiercely.
He cries. She does not.

“You’re hurt. You’re so hurt. Mom, are you okay?”

“Are you?” she asks him. These are the first words she has
spoken and it gives Hank a little solace to hear her voice.

“They killed Hobbs and Mike and Bruce, too.”

“Yes. Terrible. Terrible. But you’re okay.”

“I’m okay, Mom.”

Alison notices Curtis sitting on the edge of the lodge
porch. She takes Jimmy’s hand and she walks over to him.

“Hey.” He nods at her.

“Hey,” she responds.

He almost smiles, “You sure can kick-ass for someone
unprepared.”

“You sure can haul-ass for someone immobile.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah. I thought your hero days were over.”

“Some people never learn.”

“Come back with us. You can stay in our home until…”

“Until I get back on my feet?”

“Metaphorically.”

“And leave all of this?”

“All of what?”

“I think I’ll run Hobbs’ camp for a while. Break my way back
into the peopled world slowly.”

A stretcher passes them holding Kent’s dead body. His chest
is ripped wide open where the harpoon had penetrated and been removed. Jimmy
grabs his mom around the waste and buries his face in her side. It is so
gruesome, Hank and the others glance away. Alison stares like a predator.
Curtis watches her and feels a little alarmed by it. She keeps her eyes on Kent
until they have laid him on the ground next to Gravel. Then, she looks back.

“Excuse, me, Ma’am?” A young policeman approaches with
Detective Coby. She moves her gaze slowly. She never lets go of Jimmy’s hand.
She never breaks down; she never cries; she never shows any emotion at all.
Hank takes her hand in his. He is completely bewildered about what to say or
do. He is helpless and he desperately wants to clutch her in his arms and let
her cry, but something stands between them; something unseen has taken shape
and is fixed between them.

The Detective begins. He is at a very high energy level. The
scene in the camp is overwhelmingly gory even for a veteran Detective. “Ma’am,
there seems to be some confusion.”

“And a shitload of dead bodies,” The young policeman adds.
He gets a derisive gaze from the detective. “Well, there are.”

Alison waits. She emits a strange vibration: an icy,
unnerving fatigue.

Detective Coby prompts her, “I was told that you may know
what happened to those two men?” He indicates Kent and Gravel. They walk a
little way toward the two Burne brothers. When Alison begins to speak everyone
quiets down to listen. Everyone wants to hear. Even hearing it from her mouth,
it is hard to fathom. Dan, Grant, Ed, Julie and Bella move closer. Alison
explains with a lifeless flat tone.

“I shoved the first one off the cliff.” She points.

“There’s another one?” He indicates for the policeman to
check it out.

She continues indicating Kent, “I shot that one with the
harpoon in the shed.” Then pointing to Gravel, “That one, I stabbed but then I
shot him over and over in the stomach and then once in the head.” She looks at
Detective Coby. “One got away.” There is a silent pause as this sinks in. Then
she says with powerful intensity, “You need to get the other one now. You have
to kill the other one.”

“We’re searching. We’ll find him. There’s no way off here.”

The policeman yells from an unseen spot in the woods, “Yeah!
There’s another one down there. A big one.”

Detective Coby looks at this petite woman and all these
corpses. It doesn’t make sense and he asks, “Ma’am, are you a police officer?”

“No.”

“Armed forces?”

“No.”

“Do you mind if I ask what kind of training you’ve had?”

“I’m a mother.”

She takes Jimmy by the hand, turns around, and leads him away.
Detective Coby asks after her, “Ma’am…”

“It’s Mrs. Kraft, not ma’am,” Hank corrects him.

“Right, well,” he starts after her to regain her attention.
“So, Mrs. Kraft?”

She keeps walking toward the porch.

Hanks steps forcefully in front of Coby. “My wife is in
shock, injured, and exhausted. Your questions will wait.”

Alison sits down on the edge of the first porch step. Jimmy
sits on the ground between her legs and rests his head on her thigh. One by
one, all of the hostages stop talking and walk over. They settle in all around
her. They are all damaged, and they all know no matter how impossible it seems,
they are alive because of Alison. Dan rests his hand softly and in comfort on
her shoulder. Bella places her hand on Alison’s knee. Julie sits behind on the
second step with her knees up against Alison’s back. Ed puts his hand on
Alison’s hand. Grant rests his palm on her other shoulder. And in silence, they
sit and breathe as one, forming a human bandage around Alison.

* * *

The Coast Guard boat cuts effortlessly through the lake
water. It is nothing like the trip to the island: with the storm spent, the
lake is placid, almost friendly. Jimmy sits between his parents and all three
hold hands. Alison has received some first aid. She has a butterfly bandage
closing the gash by her right eye, and several sterile pads covering wounds on
her knees, her elbows, and her stomach. Although she has changed into her sweat
clothes, it is not enough because she is cold from the inside and so she is wearing
Hank’s coat, and still, in the bright sunlight, she shivers. Most of the mud is
gone, but not all.

Back at the cabin, Hank had become concerned when she had
stepped into the shower. He checked on her and he found that she’d forgotten to
turn on the hot water and was standing inert and oblivious in the cold pour. He
jumped in, wrapped his arms around her naked beaten body, and held on as he
cranked up the hot water and waited for it to come through the pipe. Tenderly,
he washed her body and her hair as best he could while cursing the teeny travel
shampoo bottle that kept slipping from his hands. Jimmy yelled in every minute,
“You okay, Dad?” He did not like that he couldn’t see his mom and dad. He sat
with his back up against the shower door waiting.

As the boat carries them along the water, Alison’s head is
angled back so she can watch the island recede. The others on the boat sit and
stare at the floor. Grant’s eyes brim with tears and Dan comforts him with a
pat. His broken wrist is vigilantly wrapped. These two will never lose touch.
They will know each other for the rest of their lives.

“Dad?” Jimmy whispers, “Mom’s not okay.”

“She needs some time, Jimmy. We all do.”

Hank squeezes her hand. She does not respond. She can’t take
her eyes off the island. She wonders, where are you? I know you’re there. I
know you’re watching. I feel you.

The Coast Guard vessel pulls into its slip. Coast Guard
Officer Frank steps out and extends his hand to help the others get onto the
dock. Once they are all off the boat, they begin the walk toward the Station
House. Coming from the end of the dock a mass of reporters race toward the
group. They are yelling. They’ve done their homework fast and know exactly
which one is Alison Kraft. Coast Guard Officer Joe leaps quickly onto the docks
and joins Frank. The two try to shelter and shuttle the group toward the
building.

“Mrs. Kraft?”

“Alison?”

Guard Frank says, “Who let these guys in?”

Guard Joe responds, “Freedom of the press.”

Hank yells, “What about her freedom?”

“This isn’t freedom. It’s harassment,” Dan adds.

The hostages press through the chaos.

“Get back!” Ed pushes one of them.

Jimmy’s eyes are wide with confusion. He doesn’t understand.
One of the reporters reaches in and grabs Alison’s shoulder to make her turn
toward him. Jimmy kicks him hard in the shins. The reporter recoils. Another
one says, “Oh, like mother like son!”

A reporter yells “Mrs. Kraft! Have you ever handled a weapon
before?”

Everyone seems to be yelling at her.

“Alison!”

“Mrs. Kraft!”

“Alison, were you scared?”

Alison puts her hands over her eyes. Hank takes the lead and
pulls her through behind him trying to shield her and Jimmy with his body. A
reporter reaches his arm inside the protective shell and clicks his camera near
her face. Her eyes shoot up, and when they do, she doesn’t see the dock she is
on, she sees the woods. She is back in the woods, back up on the tree limb
pointing her gun at Ben. She pulls the trigger and click…click. The reporter
near her face…click…click. Alison flails out suddenly and violently smashing
the camera away from her face and sending it to the dock where it shatters.