Water (26 page)
"It is?"
"It is. They’re taking the nutrients. Can’t you sense the sulphate disappearing?"
I paid more attention, and did feel the mass start to dwindle. It was so slight that I wouldn’t have noticed if she hadn’t said anything. "Yes! I do feel it!"
"Keep holding it, if you can. Let’s let the phytoplankton finish off the iron sulphate," Susan nearly cooed, like they were a pet of hers, or worse, a child. We both sat down and even though we were tired, as the iron sulphate dwindled off it got easier to hold what was left. It had to have been approaching four in the morning by the time all of the sulphate was gone. Just as the last of it disappeared, the tide started to recede, noticeably.
"That was a fast tide," I said.
"
That
was an unnatural tide." Susan stood, suddenly alert, looking out into the ocean.
The chills on my spine were back. The world darkened even further. I looked up to see the moon disappear.
It didn't have time to register. Not until Susan screamed, "Wave!"
We ran, but we were no match for it. The cold water crashed into me like a freight train. My feet slipped out from under me. My head hit the pier, hard.
I choked up the salty ocean water, the taste clinging to my tongue. I turned around to search for Susan – she was nowhere in sight. The wave must have washed her off the pier.
"Susan?!"
She’ll be fine,
I told myself.
She can handle the water
.
I heard the next wave before I saw it. I froze. I did the only thing I could do in preparation. I took a deep breath in, and hoped it wasn’t my last.
Perro Gaurdian
Silence and darkness. I slowly, hesitantly, became conscious. Separated from my senses, I concentrated on recovering them. My limbs felt weighted and not just from the humidity. I was drained.
One at a time
, I coaxed myself.
Sound came to me. There was a soft wind rustling through trees and grass nearby. Taste came next, something salty but acidic. Now for the hard one; sight. After several more minutes of mental coaxing, I mustered the strength to open my eyes.
I half expected to be floating in the ocean, but I wasn’t. I was lying in a large soft bed, covered lightly in sheets. From the feel of them against my skin, I knew I was bare. Even the familiar weight of the butterfly necklace had been stripped. Netting draped down over the bed from a central loop anchored into the ceiling above. I strained my eyes further and focused beyond the netting. The room wasn’t much larger than the bed. Two expansive glass doors took up an entire wall on either side. The doors were pushed open, letting the wind pass through. It made the net flutter open and closed.
The ground outside the doors was covered in low-lying, lush, green vegetation. Sparsely placed trees blocked most of my view, but I could hear surf pounding against a rocky shore in the distance. It wasn't the same surf as Costa del Sol, or the island of Simuleue. Out one set of doors was a large generator and further back sat what looked like a large, old feeding trough. Out the other door was nothing but nature and several small, two-man tents dotting the landscape. Occasionally, wisps of conversation floated in with the wind.
Dama…barca…isla.
Men, without a doubt. Spanish, most likely. But a different Spanish than I had heard in Spain.
Movement out of the corner of my eye caught my attention and I cocked my head. A small, white and dark-gray penguin waddled into the room.
A penguin?
I blinked several times, willing my eyes to conjure something more believable. A dog, a monkey, hell – I would have even taken a tiger. In this humidity an exotic cat would have been more appropriate.
The penguin took a few more steps to the bed, looked up at me and squawked. Surprised that such a cute and tiny thing could make such a loud and annoying noise, I lifted my head and gasped. A sudden gust of strong wind came in from outside. It took hold of the glass doors and blew them in hard enough to shatter; tiny shards of glass flew toward me and the penguin.
The penguin, as startled as I was, jumped onto the bed and flailed its flippers irritably, squawking the whole time. I crawled backwards to the other side of the bed. My movements were weighted, as though I were in thick mud. Just as my gasp was met with a strong wind, my crawling was met with a slight rumble under me. The ground didn’t shake; it rolled, enough to toss me off the bed. I lay on the floor deathly still, fearing what another movement might bring. The vicious penguin now stood on the end of the bed, towering over me, still squawking.
I heard cautious footsteps enter the room, crunching glass under them. Suddenly, a squat, dark man with curly black hair poked his head into view. Another face appeared beside him, then another, and another. Soon I was surrounded by them.
Someone from the back of the group shouted, "
El pingüino la paró.
"
The rest laughed and cheered.
One of them picked up the penguin and they started chanting, "
Perro guardian, perro guardian
".
The penguin looked down from its newly established pedestal and I could swear it was smirking at me. I had never wanted to kick an animal so badly in my life. I placed my hands flat on the floor in order to lift myself up, and the earth rumbled in warning. The men felt it too and their cheers turned to fearful gasps as they struggled to keep their balance. I slowly laid my arms back down by my side.
"What’s going on?" a familiar voice interrupted. Shawn pushed his way through the group of men and stopped by my side. His scanned the scene. As his eyes passed over me, I realized I still had nothing on. I reached up to grab a sheet from the bed for protection, but Shawn stopped me.
"Don’t move," he commanded. "You’ll sink this island right out from under us."
I believed him.
After he was satisfied I would obey, he pulled a sheet off of the bed and flung it over me, barely covering the essentials. Turning to the group of men, he began giving orders in Spanish. They jumped into action, cleaning up the glass and disassembling what was left of the broken doors. The penguin was ushered out; giving one last squawk which I was sure was directed at me.
After the bed was made up and the netting put back in place, Shawn lifted me from the floor, taking no notice that the sheet slipped off, and laid me in the bed. He turned me to one side and started pulling out small slivers of glass that made their way into my back. I heard packages of Band-Aids being ripped open and discarded. After I was bandaged, he rolled me on my back and pulled the blanket up to my chin. The other men were finishing up their tasks and began filtering out.
"Now listen carefully," Shawn leaned over me. "We are on one of the most active islands in the world. This place contains things found nowhere else on Earth. Just as the Chakra gave you strength, these islands will drain you. If you’re here long enough, they will kill you. This place reacts to your every movement – it doesn’t want you here."
Moving my lips as little as possible, I asked, "Can I talk?"
Nothing happened, no wind and no earthquake.
He laughed, "Yes, although I wouldn’t try yelling."
"Galapagos?" I guessed the location.
"Smart lady.
La Isla Isabel
, to be exact. You are on the wild, remote, and forbidding northern end, home to the largest Marine Iguanas on the islands as well as the Galapagos Penguins, to which I see you’ve already been introduced." Shawn gestured outside to the penguin, now happily accepting fish from one of the men. "A new addition to our little tribe found yesterday snooping around the food supplies. I believe they have just named him dog, as in guard dog, in honor of your little incident."
I huffed, pushing thoughts of the annoying little penguin out of my mind. I tried to remember what I knew about the islands. I’ve seen documentaries before. They were in the Pacific Ocean, several hundred miles west of Ecuador. From what I remembered, they were directly over the equator and atop something called the Galapagos hotspot, a place where Earth's crust was being melted from below, creating volcanoes. Shawn wasn’t lying; the volcanoes were still highly active.
"Why am I here?" I asked, still speaking as slow and softly as I could. If Shawn wanted me dead, he had plenty of chances by now.
"Don’t get me wrong, I’d love nothing more than to bury you six feet under," he said, brushing a strand of hair out of my eyes. "But I need you for a few experiments – something that Cato would never agree to."
"But why–"
"Don’t worry; there will be plenty of time for talking later. For now this bed is your prison, and I am your only visitor." His fingertips went from my hair and lightly traced my lips. "That is, unless you know Spanish. Or perhaps, you can speak penguin?"
I squirmed.
"Tsk, tsk," he scolded. "Remember what happens when you move?"
I forced myself to relax. "Well, I can’t just lie here all the time. I need to eat, and what happens when I need to use the bathroom?"
He stood, walked across the room, and picked up a bedpan.
"You have got to be kidding me." I wrinkled my nose at it.
He wasn’t. "I’ll have one of the men help you the first few days. It will take time but you’ll be able to learn to move a little on your own without causing a 6.0 on the Richter scale. I’ll teach you how."
"Why bother?" I asked. "Why not just leave me completely immobile?"
Shawn smiled and set the bedpan back down. He came around to the side of the bed, and pushed the netting aside to sit. "You and I are going to be here together for quite some time, and if I must endure you, I’m going to do my best to enjoy it. When I speak to you, I want you to speak back. When I play with you, I want you to play back." The smile left his face. "And when I fuck you, well, you get the drift." He took my chin in one hand and turned it slightly so my ear was exposed. "This time, Princess, I will have my cake and eat it, too."
Another prison.
I watched Shawn leave as I fought down the lump in my throat.
Where were Susan and Micah? Did he do something even worse with them?
The fear and confusion flooding my system was slowly replaced by anger.
Not Quite
As the sun sank below the horizon, the temperature grew much cooler. I was thankful for the thick blanket. I had spent the afternoon lying in bed, only daring to move my eyes. The same men from earlier were hard at work in the room, and I could hear several more pairs of feet on the roof above me. I turned my head carefully, mindful not to make any sudden or dramatic movements. I was painfully aware of how much effort it took.
"You are getting better at it already." Shawn observed from the other end of the room. His sleeves were rolled up and dirt covered his arms up to his elbows.
"Assimilating to the natives, I see." I wanted to bite my tongue. I wouldn’t mind spending the better part of my day offending Shawn, but turning the entire group of men against me when I was so vulnerable wouldn’t help matters. I glanced around.
"Don’t worry," he said. "None of these guys know English." Shawn turned around to continue his work.
I looked down. Several two foot tall dirt piles surrounded the bed. Further out from the dirt piles were lit candles, side by side, making a wall of muted flame. After that were shallow bowls, each filled to the brim with water, and furthest away from me the men had started to set up electric box fans. The fans faced outward, plugged into a network of cables leading to the generator.
Shawn stopped what he was doing and walked outside. I watched his silhouette as he washed his hands and face using water jugs. He changed clothes as the penguin wobbled around his feet. He walked back in the room to inspect the men’s work, the penguin still following him closely. Once satisfied, he nodded to someone standing at the generator. A switch was flipped on and all of the fans whirled to life, blowing air out and away from the room. The penguin, startled by the sudden wind and noise, gave an irritated squawk and ran off into the shrubs. I snorted. Served him right.
Shawn stepped over each circle of obstacles to join me on the bed. "You laugh but remember what I said. The island doesn’t want you here. That penguin could very well be the death of you."
"Oh, I’m not too worried about it. I have complete faith that if anything puts me, how did you put it? I think it was 'six feet under', it’ll be you."
"Good." He smiled. "So let’s begin. First step is to sit up." He placed a few pillows upright against the headboard and slid his hands under my back as if to help me. I groaned at the thought of moving.
"Just go slowly," he coaxed.
My actions were awkward as I tried using just one hand to push myself up while the other clutched the blanket tightly to my chest.
"Oh, for Christ sake, I’m not going to try anything now. You aren’t nearly ready for that." Shawn blurted. He reached over to the side of the bed and produced a white, oversized t-shirt. He slipped it over my head and helped guide my arms into the sleeves.
