Fresh Flesh (26 page)

But now his eyes could see nothing.

Blackness.

Seth held the knife to his abdomen. He moved
his train of thought to a different place, a different time. It was
World War II and he was a Japanese soldier. The Japanese people had
the highest honor for their country. They would live and die for it
in the name of honor. And when a Japanese soldier disgraced his
country there was only one option.

He stopped when he heard a voice.

He felt around, "I hear you? Who's
there?"

The voice called out to him and he followed
the sound.

At some point he stopped thinking about
suicide. The voice had saved him. A voice that he thought called
him
Satan
.

While the blind man helped untangle Torque
from the tree, he sensed the deliciously dark aura around the man.
He asked how he became blind.

"It doesn't matter any more."

"I'm Torque, what's your name?"

"Seth."

"Seth, the voices led me here. I've been
waiting a long time—
years
—for this moment. There must be
some reason you were the first person I've met here." Torque's eyes
were watery. If only his shotgun Sally could be by his side.

"This place isn't what you think. I've been
here since almost the beginning. It will betray your eyes."

"I saw it from above. It's exactly as I
imagined."

Torque looked into Seth's dried-blood gouge
sockets. He felt something was in there. Something strong and
powerful that the human form of the man seemed unable to
understand.

"I need to see the special place."

"Special place?"

"You know the place I'm talking about. Or
maybe you know a guy who knows about it. I was cellies with a guy
at San Quentin who told me that once I got here I should look for
Saruwatari Naoki. Do you know him?"

"Yes, Sar, I know him."

"Take me to Sar. Describe how to get there
and I'll be your eyes."

Seth liked this Torque guy. He described
Sar's clearing and the directions how to get there by following
west until reaching Templin's cave. Although everything remained
black, Seth felt useful helping Torque locate the clearing. As
Torque walked he described their surroundings. He was a good
guide.

"Somebody lives in this cave?"

"Yes, his name is Templin. And a woman
shipwrecked here a couple months ago has been staying with
him."

"A woman, huh? Which way now?"

"Head due east from the cave. You'll pass an
area that Templin uses as a bathroom. You can't—" Seth pinched his
nose. "Yeah, we are there. Keep to the right."

"It's getting darker," Torque said. "But I
can still see. I love this place!"

They traveled for another ten minutes and
Torque told him what he'd done in the states to be sent here. "It
was bloody business, Seth, but it had to be done. My destiny is
here. This is my home."

Home.

Torque's excitement was contagious. Seth
didn't want to die any more. He wanted to live. When Kyle had left
him blind he thought his life was over but the more Torque talked,
the more he began to appreciate his new situation.

"We should be coming upon Sar's
clearing."

"I see it. It's about 75x75. Berries on vines
around the edges."

A long silence. Seth could hear the sounds of
Torque digging in the dirt.

"I don't see Sar. He lives here?"

"No," Seth said and the memory of that fall
day returned. The day that changed Sar forever. He told Torque the
story.

Fall 1984.

The storm had moved in, pounding the camp
with rain. The cons in the east camp tried to take cover under the
trees. Lightning bolts struck in the blackened clouds and loud
thunder cracked. Sar left the group, saying he needed to check on
his clearing. Seth offered to go with him and Sar nodded.

They headed north from the east camp under
heavy tree cover so they wouldn't get as wet. About fifteen minutes
from the camp, close to the east island cave area, Sar stopped and
turned to Seth.

"Do you hear that?" Sar knelt down in the wet
grass and mud and put his ear to the ground. He slapped the ground
and said something that loosely translated to "the ground is
awake."

"I only hear the storm, Sar, sorry."

"There is another clearing near here. I must
come back."

"Sar was always talking about the dirt," Seth
said. "He thought if he found another clearing he could grow even
more vegetables for all of us."

"So you came to this clearing that day? What
happened?"

"He came here and started crying. He said
that this ground had been 'put to sleep.' We would have no more
vegetables in this location."

"I don't see any more vegetables," Torque
said.

"Yes, Sar was correct. No more vegetables
ever grew here again. So we went back to the east side of the camp
and the leader of our group, his name is Kyle Roberts, maybe you've
heard about him?"

"Yeah, my cellie told me to watch out for
him. Said he's a slick bastard."

"Roberts can be bad at times, real bad,
yes."

"So what happened to Sar?"

"Sar spent the next two weeks trying to find
the other clearing. He told me it was our secret and if I told the
others he might never be able to find it. Something about it being
a hidden clearing."

Seth stopped, remember what happened
next.

"Go on," Torque said.

"It was a cold fall afternoon and we all were
sitting around the fire when. . ."

Not again.

Kyle pounded the dirt around the campfire. He
searched until the darkness took over and he could no longer see.
Even by torchlight, he felt he was passing by areas he'd seen
dozens of times. He'd even tried following the butterflies and they
wouldn't tell him where to find Sar's secret place.

Kyle went into his fort and found the broken
pop bottle with dirt. He dug in the ground outside and picked up a
squirming nightcrawler and placed it in the dirt in the bottle.

The nightcrawler moved around for a few
seconds and then went still.

"Where did you find the
dojō
, Sar?
Tell me."

He reached in and touched the dirt. It made
his fingers tingle and he dusted it away on his hole-filled jeans.
There was a faint foul odor to the dirt.

"Where can I find more
dojō
, Sar? Tell
me."

Fall 1984.

Seth heard the noise first. Sar emerged the
bushes, his eyes bulging. His stomach and hands were covered in
bright red blood. He made a loud noise like a wounded dog. One of
Sar's hands held his entrails wrapped over his hand like sausage
and covered in blood and dirt. The other held a broken glass jar
filled with dirt. Whenever Sar opened his mouth nothing came out
but that terrible, pained noise.

"Who did this to you, Sar?" Kyle Roberts
yelled. "Tell me?" Roberts took the jar out of Sar's hand. He
ordered the other men to get anything they could get to try and
stop the bleeding. Several men crowded around Sar and tried to stop
the bleeding.

"Sar, what happened?"

When Sar opened his mouth dirt fell out in
clumps.

Seth understood what Sar kept saying but he
didn't tell the other cons, especially Kyle Roberts. Instead, he
lied and said: "Sar keeps saying he's in great pain. Great, great
pain."

Sar then did something that shocked all of
them. He said one word in English, a word every man on the island
knew.

"
Escape
."

And then Sar fell over, eyes rolling back in
his head.

"We buried Sar here in the clearing," Seth
said, feeling his eyes watering. "So yes, I have brought you to
where Sar is currently at. His remains, anyway."

"What did Sar really say that day?" Torque
asked.

"He said he found it," Seth replied. "He
found the other place."

"That's the place," Torque said. "I must go
there. If you can lead me back to the general area the day of that
storm. . ."

"I'm sorry, Torque. I don't know where the
place is. I can describe the place we were at the day of the storm
and maybe you can try to find it. A lot of us have tried over the
years."

"I know I can find it. Go ahead."

Seth described what the place looked like the
day of the storm and where it was in relation to the east camp.
When he was done, Torque asked: "What about you, Seth? What's your
plan?"

"Think I'll stay here with Sar for
awhile."

"I won't forget your help, Seth," Torque
replied and Seth listened to his footsteps exit the clearing.

Seth sat down cross-legged and rubbed a hand
across the dirt. He smiled for his old friend, Sar, and wished his
new friend Torque well.

With matches he'd been given for his
permanent stay on the island, Torque created a torch. He moved
through the night ravine quickly, pushing aside branches that tried
to slow him.

He kept the image of the island from the
plane in his mind's eye. The clearing Sar had found on the west
side was located about where the island-face's right eye. He
decided to try and stay straight as possible east and locate the
position of the island-face's left eye.

Talk to me Dark Lord
.

I AM HERE.

On my way.

The longer they lay there kissing and holding
each other on the beach, Jessica found it easier to put aside the
many bad things that happened the last two months. She focused on
the fun times Richard and her had shared. How he taught her to
catch fish and coconuts and pick edible berries. His patience and
understanding with her.

She had another sense, a deep and eerie sense
about this night on the island. Something was special about this
night and the one thing Richard seemed to tell her through his
passion.

She wanted him right now. In two months, she
had grown so used to life with him that she felt more loved now
than ever before. She should tell him that she loved him. She had
been sickened by him in the beginning but it didn't take long for
the physical stuff to matter less in her tortured surroundings.
Somehow his behavior, attitude and personality polished his ugly
physical exterior. Richard Templin was not the man she had seen in
the beginning. He was caring, sweet, even charming in his own way.
He had interior charisma, not exterior.

The quarter-moon smiled. The wind feathered
each of their cheeks.

The kissing led to disrobing.

Soon Richard was entering her, all the fears
of the island transformed into passions. He moved in and out of her
rhythmically, moaning pleasurably, kissing her all over.

He caressed her breasts and wet her rock-hard
nipples with his tongue.

As he gently stroked inside her, she stared
up at the sky and while Kyle Roberts' face was faintly there she
blinked it away. She felt like if she didn't have sex with Richard
that moment she might never have sex with any man again.

Richard climaxed inside her, filling her with
warm seed. He didn't stop.

Jessica hoped he'd never stop. This was the
paradise at sea she set out on for two months ago from San
Francisco. Paradise isn't a place; it is being loved and loving,
and you can never truly know when and where you might find it.

"I daydreamed about this moment," Richard
said, exasperated. He had had virtually a lifetime full of sexual
energy to expel. Jessica had taken it all and was a bit exhausted
herself. But damn, how good it felt!

"Here on the beach?"

"Yes. Us making love on the beach you washed
in on. Night sky with the moon up there watching us. This was my
dream."

"So dreams do come true?"

"Yes."

Sweet silence.

"I think it's time for me to show you my last
secret." Richard said, putting back on his rotted tennis shoes. "I
think it might surprise you."

"Quit teasing, what is it?"

"Come on, it's not far. I'll show you."

Torque had found a spot that matched Seth's
description. He reached down and put his head against the ground as
Sar had done the day of the storm in the fall of 1994.

He didn't hear anything.

"Which way do I go from here?" Torque said
aloud.

Silence except for the soft crash of ocean
waves in the distance.

He waved the torch over the ground.

Dark Lord, what am I supposed to do? I've
traveled all this way to see you. To complete my journey.

SLEEP.

Here?

YES, ETERNITY AWAITS.

Torques lied down in the dirt and felt
something beginning to tingle in his skin. Soon the tingling began
to burn. He tried to rise, but the dirt stuck to him like mud. He
felt the dirt wriggling and pushing its way into his skin,
puncturing his flesh in a few places at first and prickling all
over his body pushing inside him.

Dirt rustled on the ground over the
firelight, stamping the light. He felt dirt inside his pants and up
his legs, entering in and around his anus and penis. Dirt on his
face and in his mouth digging into his tongue and between the
spaces of his teeth.

Torque began to understand why Sar had said
the word "escape." Sar did not want to become one with the soil.
Sar had feared where that would lead.

YES, YOU UNDERSTAND. SAR WAS WEAK.

I can do your bidding.

SOON, WE WILL SEE.

As the soil coursed inside every inch of
flesh, Torque straddled the line between the living and dead.
Torque was becoming the soil's human puppet.