The Purgatorium (14 page)

“What are you playing at?” Stan asked Larry.

Daphne and Pete both stepped back and stared at Stan in disbelief. Daphne’s knees felt weak as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

“Hortense wants them brought back,” Larry said.

Daphne searched Stan’s eyes and was horrified by what she saw. Admission.

“Sorry, kiddo.”

“How could you? Why?”

“It’s not why, but what.”

Pete took off running toward the beach, a wall of dust rising on the hillside. “I’ll send help, Daphne!”

Larry followed but couldn’t catch him. Pete reached the kayak and ran with it as far as he could before paddling to the east and out of sight.

“He won’t get very far,” Stan said.

Daphne pivoted and ran in the opposite direction of Pete, back toward the center of the island. Stan caught up to her before she reached the base of Sierra Blanca.

“You never hurt your ankle!” She gasped for breath and struggled to free her arm from his grip, but he held on. “It was a lie, like everything else.” She hit his chest and slapped at his face, but he wouldn’t let go.

“Not everything was a lie.”

“I’ll never believe another word you say, whoever you are!” She hit him once more before he put the gun away and pinned both arms at her sides.

“That’s too bad. I hope you’ll change your mind.”

He pulled her back to the horse and to Larry, who stood hunched over, catching his breath.

“Please let me go.” Her voice was soft. She stopped struggling. “I just want to go home.”

A flock of gulls cried out above them and then disappeared beyond Sierra Blanca.

“Sorry, kiddo.” He hooked his arm through hers, gripping her forearm, and walked her down the road, toward the beach, while Larry led the horse behind them. “That’s not an option.”

“Why? Can’t you tell me what you’re going to do with me?”

“I know this won’t make sense to you now, but, ultimately,
you’ll
decide.”

“Whatever. Is your name even Stan?” Tears formed in her eyes.

“Yes. Yes, it is.”

They hiked the serpentine trail, turning away from the beach and onto a ridge overlooking a lagoon. Daphne glanced back to see the island fox was still following them. She stuck out her tongue, not to the fox, which was as innocent as she, but to the watchers—Hortense and her lot—or whoever else might see. To make sure she was understood, she raised her free hand and shot the finger.

Larry chuckled behind her, making Daphne grit her teeth.

“I’m hungry and thirsty,” she said after a while.

Stan said. “There’s a little cave down at Laguna Harbor. We can rest there and eat.”

“Then what?”

“It’s about another half hour to the resort from there.”

They followed the road down a steep incline towards a lagoon, passing an old wooden sign that read “Laguna Harbor.” Here there was little sand compared to the beach at Punta Arena, mostly boulders and gravel along the shoreline, and one stretch of rock that formed jetties on the eastern side. The road then turned sharply back toward the north, up a steep hill, toward the center of the island, along a stream pouring into the lagoon from a five-foot drop. Larry led the horse to the stream above the falls for a drink, while Stan pointed the gun at Daphne and ordered her to refill the three canteens. Daphne complied, thinking only of escape.

Once the canteens were filled and the horse content, Stan led the party down the rocky embankment from the road toward the lagoon to a cave nestled behind the falls.

“Isn’t this a pretty place?” Stan spoke loudly to be heard over the sound of the falls as he took two of the canteens and handed one to Larry.

Daphne drank the cold water without giving Stan the satisfaction of a reply.

“One of my favorites.”  Larry let the reins drop. He then found a rock to sit on inside the cave.

Stan dragged his pack into the cave and rummaged through it for food. The gun was near him on the ground and both hands deep in the pack. Daphne was hungry but worried this might be her only chance. She dropped her canteen and jumped onto the horse.

Larry tried to climb to his feet, but fell over like a crab on its back, arms and legs swinging. “Ah!”

Stan leapt from the pack and grabbed Daphne’s leg, but she kicked and kicked till it was loose and then caught him with her shoe beneath his chin. Stan yelled and bent over, clutching his jaw as Daphne dug the stirrups into the horse and cried, “Go! Giddyup!” She slapped the reins and dug the stirrups, and the horse took off. Stan chased her, calling out commands to the horse. She kept the horse at a run up Sierra Blanca until the terrain got steep. She could no longer see or hear Stan.

“Good boy,” Daphne said, petting his mane. “Thank you!”

She knew she would be a sitting duck at the top of the mountain, so she took the horse down to the east along the base hoping to find Central Valley, which she would cross to Prisoners Harbor to get help. The base of the mountain became difficult to navigate, because huge slabs of white granite jetted out of the ground, but as terrified as she was of the beast moving beneath her, she was even more frightened of Stan and Larry. She couldn’t find a trail and kept stopping, turning back, and stopping again. She knew she couldn’t turn back the way she had come, so she plowed onward, but it was taking a long time to get anywhere.

The sun shined down, hot and unrelenting, burning her skin. The salty sweat dripping down her face and chest stung. The drink from earlier seemed to have little effect on her thirst and only made her hungrier for something to eat.

She couldn’t believe Stan had betrayed her. She had grown so fond of him in the short time they had spent together, but obviously she was no good judge of character. Hadn’t Cam told her Stan was a patient? So either Cam had been lied to or he had lied to her.

Of course he had lied. Her mother never would have sent her into such danger. This whole place was crazy and the sooner she could get off the island the better.

But she’d known Cam her whole life. He was her friend. How could he do this to her?

What had Larry meant when he said the therapy was for the watchers? She imagined she must be like a character in a reality TV show to them as they watched her fighting for her life. From where were they watching? And who were they? Or was this more nonsense meant to confuse her about the true purposes of the island?

When she cleared the granite spikes, she came upon a stream and decided to follow it down to what she hoped was Central Valley. Too frightened to dismount for a drink, she kept the horse at a walk, fearing she might be headed for an ambush, and began to wonder if she wouldn’t be better off on foot so she could more easily hide in the brush and boulders. She lacked the horsemanship to outmaneuver any who might spot her. Plus, she was frightened of getting bucked off again.

Before she could decide what to do, she heard voices calling out ahead of her. Crap! She turned the horse back toward Sierra Blanca and made a run for it. The granite spikes slowed the horse down at first, but then she turned up the mountain, and soon they were flying toward the top. Despite the fear and adrenaline pulsing through her, her mind was clear. She commanded herself to think and act because she had no one else to depend on but herself. In answer to this command, she decided she would use the horse to get a head start, and then she would send him off, down the mountain, and hopefully they, whoever they were, would follow.

She found a cliff edge shrouded in dense brush with footholds up the steep side.  She pulled the reins and stopped the horse, dismounted, and sent him running back down toward the stream. When the horse was out of sight, presumably headed toward Central Valley, she climbed up the steep cliff edge to the top to hide.

She wedged herself into the dense foliage at the top of the cliff, thankful to have shade, as the sun was at high noon and bearing down hot. Although she was only halfway up the mountain, this spot afforded her a clear view down the east and south sides of Sierra Blanca, all the way to the stream, where she had heard the voices, and to the south, almost to Laguna Harbor. If any approached from this side, she would see them. If any came from the west or the north, she would likely hear them.

As she lay in her nest, clenching the thin, smooth branch of whatever bush was shading her, she wondered again about Stan and how easily he had deceived her, but before she could think too long, a party ascended the mountain from the east—probably the source of the voices she had heard by the stream. She stiffened and held her breath, listening.

“You think she rode up the mountain?” The voice belonged to Cam.

“Only one way to find out,” another man, maybe Phillip, said.

So sending the horse without her hadn’t worked.

“Over there!” Cam said.

She lifted her head. Larry and Stan made their way up the mountain. They didn’t seem to be in a hurry. Phillip and Cam were both astride horses. She ducked down when Stan and Larry reached the cliff edge below her.

“We lost her,” Stan said.

“How?” asked Cam.

“We underestimated her,” Larry said. “
We
, not just
me
.”

“Phillip and I’ll go to the top and look around. Why don’t you guys head back and rest.”

“I won’t argue with you,” Stan said. “She kicked the shit out of my jaw and I’ve got a bloody damn headache now.”

Daphne listened to the horses climb the steep edge to the west of her as Larry and Stan descended to the east. She lay there, not breathing, waiting. When she could no longer hear the horses or see the men on foot, she took a deep breath and let her body relax.

Then she noticed a trail of tiny red ants crawling along her hand and arm. Without moving the one arm, she swept her hand along the trail on her skin, killing the insects in one sweep. She released the branch, seeing it was infested, but not without receiving two painful stings on the back of her hand. She wouldn’t be able to hide here after all.

She scrambled out of the brush and scanned her surroundings, wondering how to proceed. If she followed Cam and Phillip, it would be harder to get away if discovered. If she climbed down, she would be going closer to Stan and Larry, who could be waiting to ambush her. Their speech about returning to the resort might have been a ploy to cull her out of hiding. She skirted along the cliff edge, weighing her options, wishing she could find a cave to hide in until dark, but not sure if one could be found on Sierra Blanca. If it did have a cave, the others would know of it, and that’s exactly where they would look. No, she needed to go down, down into Central Valley and head for Prisoners Harbor without being seen or heard. She crouched low, behind the rocks along the mountain, heading for the spikes of granite when she spotted the fox a few yards away, staring at her.

Great. Just what I need.

If he continued to follow her, they would always know her position. She had to do something. She hated to take his life, but that seemed like the only way to save her own.

Maybe she could disable the tracking device on his tail without killing him. She crouched behind a boulder and collected a pile of rocks, the size of lemons, and waited for the fox to get closer. When he was about three yards away, she grabbed the biggest one in the pile and flung it like a baseball toward his tail, expecting to miss. The rock hit the fox right at the tail-head, and he flinched and stammered a few feet back. She wondered why he didn’t run off. She took another rock and threw. This time she did miss. She threw again and again, causing the fox to dance as it evaded the rocks. She had two stones the size of ping pong balls left in her pile. She threw one right after the other, and the second one hit the fox on the side of the head. He faltered to the ground as tears poured down her cheeks.

I’m so sorry!
Then, inexplicably, she looked at the fox and cried out, “Kara!”

Glancing in all directions, Daphne moved quickly toward the fox. She cradled him in her arms. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. She found the tracking device and twisted, but it wouldn’t come loose from the tail. The fox was breathing rapidly and was frozen stiff, as she had been on the cliff under the brush moments ago.

She was sobbing now, sobbing uncontrollably and as hard as she had ever sobbed before. “I’m so sorry, little fella.” She found a rock, one she had thrown, and, flattening his tail against the rocky ground, she used it to crush the tracking device. The fox winced as the rock struck his tail, but she hit it several times to be sure. Then, as quickly as she could, she carried the fox and ran toward Central Valley before the watchers found their way to the base of Sierra Blanca.

Daphne found a shady place near the stream and left the fox, praying he would be okay. Then she followed the stream to Central Valley. Luckily, as she moved to the interior of the island, away from rock toward grassy fields with small trees and shrubs, she found better places to hide. She was anxious to get to Prisoners Harbor but willing to take her time so as to not get caught.

She knelt over the stream beneath a shade tree and scooped up handfuls of water, saying a silent prayer for the fox and wondering if she should have kept him with her. The fear that she hadn’t successfully destroyed the tracking device kept her from running back for him.

The fresh spring water tasted so good, she couldn’t get enough of it. She allowed it to run down the front of her shirt, splashed some on her cheeks and the top of her head, but avoided getting her shoes and shorts wet, not wanting blisters or chaffing. Now that she was cool and her thirst had been quenched, she realized how exhausted she was. She decided to crawl into a thicket beneath a tree, a few yards from the stream, and rest. Checking for ants and other stinging insects and finding none, she hunkered in on her bottom, stretched out her legs in front of her, and leaned against the tree. Stan and Larry were ahead of her to the east, toward the resort, and Cam and Phillip would likely not double back, but would continue down Sierra Blanca to the north or west. Even if someone did pass through here, she was nicely covered. She closed her eyes.

As tired as she was, she could not sleep. She lay there thinking on the night she heard Joey in Kara’s room, the night he killed her. He later said he was choking a demon from her body, trying to save, not kill, her. The banging of Kara’s headboard as Joey strangled her and the pounding of the rock against the fox’s tail thudded in Daphne’s head, over and over, until she was sobbing again. The grief and regret Joey had expressed when he’d realized what he had done equaled to that shown on the day he had accidentally electrocuted their grandfather, except this time he went catatonic for three days. If only Daphne had gotten out of bed and had gone to check on the noise, she could have spared him that pain and saved her sister.

It occurred to Daphne now as she sat within the brush that she could easily take her life there in the stream. What was stopping her? Why go to all this trouble to be rescued if she didn’t care to live?

Did she care to live? She wasn’t as sure of her plan anymore, but she dismissed her doubts, believing she was just tired, hungry, and weak. She told herself that if she weren’t on the run, she wouldn’t hesitate to see her plan to the finish.

She scrambled from the thicket and followed the stream to where it pooled more deeply between two knolls covered in purple morning glory. A swarm of butterflies rushed from the flowers as she marched past. She tiptoed into the icy stream to the middle where it deepened to her knees and lay down, prone, submerging her face.

The water was clear when she opened her eyes, green moss visible on white rocks, and a few plants tilted and danced wildly with the flow. So that was what was meant by “going with the flow,” she thought, as she held her breath. A turtle darted past, and she flinched, not expecting to see him there so close to her. She lifted her head from the water for a breath and returned underwater to try again.

This way the pain would be brief. If she had surrendered to Stan and Cam, who knows what other terrifying games and torture she must endure. This way, she had control over when and how. Her parents would be sad, but they were already so sad, and she wasn’t convinced her death would add much more misery to their lives. At least they wouldn’t have to look at her.

And Brock could go on with his life, if he hadn’t already.

She sputtered when water got in her mouth and into her lungs. She lifted her head for air, trying not to cough, and submerged again.

This is it. No more air, Daphne. Just let it burn.

Her lungs did burn and, beneath the water, she coughed, and more water entered her lungs. She fought to hold her head under and tried to find pleasure in the burn, imagined the end, the nothingness, which was better than a life where she would continue to see the pain of her family, tried to embrace the burn and the sharp pain emerging around her eyes, hoping there was no eternity, just nothing, but it was too easy to come up and give in to the urge to cough and breathe.

She coughed and gagged, her throat burning as she glanced around, hoping she wouldn’t be heard.

A gull overhead cried out and startled her.

This wasn’t as easy as she had hoped. Maybe she should fling herself off a cliff. But when she imagined her body hitting hard against the crashing waves, being thrust against the sharp rocks, bones crunching and skin being split open, she cringed. No, drowning was definitely better than jumping.

She knelt there in the cold water and shivered. The sun was arching over to the west now, meaning it was past noon. Her stomach growled, but she felt nauseous and very tired. Too bad she couldn’t simply lie in the water and fall asleep. She decided to turn the other way, to lie back in the stream and simply go to sleep. Then she recalled the painting in Dr. Gray’s office and her heart stopped.

Daphne was the lady in the painting.

No, that was crazy. A coincidence. She sat on her knees, catching her breath, waiting for the dizziness to subside. Daphne was the lady in the painting, the painting brought to life. That couldn’t have been planned. Dr. Gray wasn’t
really
like Prospero, capable of such magic. Was Daphne meant to be lost on this strange island just like Ferdinand in Shakepeare’s play?

If this was all just one big ruse to get Daphne to want to live, it was failing miserably, for she had just tried to kill herself. She climbed to her feet, angrily shouting to the air around her, “Did you see that, Dr. Gray? You’ve failed! I’m no more glad to be alive than I was before I got to this God-forsaken place! Get that? You failed!”

She fell to her knees, trembling and wondering what the heck she had just done. Had anyone heard her? What would they do if they found her?

The sound of a jeep in the distance caused her to lift her head and scan the valley, and that’s when she realized she was kneeling in the very place she had seen the two actors—the man pulling the hair of the girl the morning she had arrived. This meant the road was about twenty yards away. She swam down the stream toward a group of tall reeds and waited. She heard the jeep stop.

“This has gotten out of hand, guys.” It was Hortense Gray. “Tell me again where she was last spotted.”

“The base of Sierra Blanca.” This sounded like Roger.

“If we don’t find her, it will be the end of us,” the doctor said. “When the rest arrive, organize a grid and search every inch. I want her found today.”

“We’ll find her.” This was definitely Stan. “She’s around here somewhere. Between here and Prisoners Harbor, no doubt.”

“Don’t say anything we wouldn’t want her to overhear,” Dr. Gray said. “We may still be able to salvage this.”

“Of course,” Roger said.

“Here comes Larry in the other jeep,” Stan added.

Daphne heard the second jeep pull up beside the first, and more voices added to the conversation, Dave’s rowdy voice among them. She couldn’t make them all out, but there were at least eight. A third jeep arrived. As they gathered, they were reminded again to watch what they said.

Daphne would be unable to cross Central Valley until after they completed their search. Even there among the reeds, she would be found, and if she made a run for Prisoners Harbor, she wouldn’t make it across the valley in time to avoid the search party. Now was the time to move, while the group organized itself, but she’d have to go another way. She crept low in the water, moving against the stream, back in the direction she came, hoping Cam and Phillip wouldn’t head her off. Her best hope was to go around the resort along the coastline while everyone else was in Central Valley. She would have to go all the way around the island to Scorpion Anchorage.