Last Resort (13 page)

The road levels off. I turn to Gwen. “Why are you helping us?”

“This may shock you to know, Phillip, but I care about Bill, too,” she replies in a tone that makes me look stupid for asking. “Besides, it’s good for me to do something; it’s better than sitting in the resort, slowly losing my mind,” she continues, her expression calm and self-possessed. “I can’t stop thinking about what happened to my parents, to our home and everyone I knew… I’m not like you. I haven’t completely given up hope that our parents and all the other people we care about are still alive—even if it’s only a shred of hope. In that way we are very different, Phillip. You do the sensible thing. When it is pointless to hope for something that is not going to happen you accept it…you move on. I’m the fool who keeps believing, keeps thinking that suddenly things can change.”

It is clear she refers to more than just the whereabouts of our families. For Gwen to be so transposed and self-aware is odd. It is unlike her. I want to tell her how much I admire her perseverance, long after other people would have surrendered. I want to tell her that she is not wrong or foolish for clinging to her dreams, but I do not get the chance.

“What is that glow in the sky?” Pamela calls our attention to a pulsing, orange light that fills the horizon.

It takes a few seconds for me to realize what I am looking at.

“Fire,” I say. “Rio Galera is burning.”

Chapter Ten

The ominous glow acts as a beacon, guiding us onward. The closer we get to our destination the brighter the glow. It illuminates the hillsides, turning the land an unsettling red. The smell of charred wood fills the air.

“Huh, what’s that light?” Bill rouses himself and struggles to rise.

“Something is burning,” Gwen answers in a soothing tone. “We’re taking you to a doctor. Lie down…conserve your strength.”

“Pamela! Where’s Pamela?” He tosses his head from side to side, anxiously looking for her.

In an instant she is at his side, stroking his face and murmuring, “Shhh, Bill, I’m right here. We’re heading into town to find a doctor for you. Rest, darling.”

The sound of breaking glass comes from one of the large vacation homes atop the nearest hill. In the crimson light, I spot the black outlines of two men furtively running from the back of the house to the front. They notice us on the road below.

“Looters,” I mutter, and prompt Pamela to get in front of the cart again. “Let’s keep moving.”

Unmoving, they stand together, looking down on us—silent, foreboding sentinels.

We proceed with renewed speed, and as we go, I check over my shoulder to see where the men atop the hill are. They remain in place. Perhaps the house they are no doubt looting is not worth leaving to harass us. Either way, I do not breathe easier until we are out of their sight.

As we near the town, women pass us—some with children in tow—heading in the opposite direction. They carry bundles of clothes and jugs of what I assume to be fresh water.

“Doctor. We need a doctor. Can you tell me where to find the doctor?” Pamela stands before some of the fleeing women, but they brush her aside and continue on their way.

We reach the final stretch of road that leads to the heart of Rio Galera. A section of the town—where tiny homes press tight to each other like captives in the hull of a slave ship—belches forth great jets of flame. From this distance, each burning home resembles a smoldering lump of charcoal. Fire floats into the night sky in rolling sheets and waves, filled with thousands of incandescent sparks caught by the updraft.

Scattered around the town other buildings burn, one of which I recognize as the office to support the airstrip. Nearby fires cast swirling shadows on the untouched façade of the white clapboard church.

The carnage brings us to a halt. Awestruck, we stand before the conflagration without speaking.

Gwen breaks our paralysis and points to a section of Rio Galera unscathed by fire. “The clinic—I spotted it on the way to the resort.”

Islanders pass us on the streets, none stopping to offer aid. The scorched hull of a burnt out car sends plumes of smoke billowing our way. Shadows skulk down the narrow alleyways. I hear a woman’s terrified scream, and from somewhere else the shouts of men fighting. I take the knife Gwen gave me and hold it with my free hand.

Even from afar, I can tell the glass doors and windows of the one level clinic are shattered. As we roll Bill up the cement ramp to the clinic, a gaggle of children clutching stolen goods dash through the shattered doorframe and vanish down the alleys.

Light from Pamela’s torch reveals a long hallway strewn with office supplies.

“Wait here,” I tell them, and then take the torch and enter the building. With the knife firmly in my grasp, I walk down the corridor, shining the torch light into the various rooms, all of which have the appearance of a building ravaged by a hurricane. Anything that could be broken is broken: computers, chairs, glass cabinets that just a few days ago likely held medical supplies but now are bare. As a macabre joke, vandals placed the clinics demonstration skeleton in a chair behind the doctor’s desk, seated upright, nonchalantly resting its skull on one bony hand.

I hurry back to Gwen, Bill, and Pamela. “Everybody’s gone. The clinic staff probably abandoned the place to protect themselves. The place is a wreck. Looters stole all the medical supplies.”

“No, no, no,” Pamela trembles. “What are we going to do?”

“Don’t worry, love,” Bill struggles to sit up. “I feel stronger now…getting my second wind.”

Pamela buries her face in her hands. “This is madness. Where are the authorities? Why don’t they put a stop to this?”

“I could be wrong, but I think we passed the police station,” Gwen looks about us warily. “It was burning to the ground. It’s not safe for us here. We should get back to the resort.”

Pamela grips the cart handle to prevent us from moving it. “No. No. We must get a doctor!”

Plaintively, I gesture to the vandalized clinic. “Pamela, the doctors are all gone.”

“They must be somewhere,” she insists. “You didn’t see their bodies in there, did you? No? Then that settles it. Someone here will tell us where the doctor is.”

“Even if we find the doctor what could they do for Bill without their supplies and the clinic looking like this?” Gwen asks.

Pamela hesitates as doubts shake her resolve, but then she stands firm and says, “You don’t know the supplies were stolen. Maybe the clinic staff removed all the supplies to protect it from the looters.”

Pamela is determined to scour the island for a doctor, and looking at Bill laboring to breathe I cannot fault her devotion. Gwen exchanges an uneasy glance with me, but we both know turning back without finding a doctor is not an option.

“Okay,” I agree. “Let’s make this quick.”

Backtracking, we propel the cart over the pitted, debris-strewn streets. Behind the shutters of a home, we glimpse the light of an oil lamp.

Pamela pounds on the doors. “Please, can you tell us where to find a doctor?”

I see movement behind the shutters—at least one person is definitely inside the home, but they do not answer the door.

“Please!” Pamela kicks the door. “Just tell us where a doctor is and we’ll leave!”

Gwen urgently taps my arm, and points towards a tall island man watching us from the shadows of a nearby building. On the other side of the street, another man also observes us with keen interest. My heart freezes when I realize they hold machetes in their hands.

“Pamela!” My whisper is an urgent hiss. “Pamela, we have to go.”

Weeping with frustration, she scratches at the door. “I know you’re in there. Why won’t anyone help us?”

I rush up to the door and gently drag Pamela away while Gwen labors to get the cart rolling again. Methodically, without haste, the two men follow us. We pick up speed, almost running now.

“Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God,” Pamela sees the men and whimpers with growing panic.

The cart jostles Bill incessantly, but we cannot slow down.

As we race towards the end of the street, two more machete-wielding men, visible only in outline, step out of the darkness. They stand in the center of the street, blocking our way.

“The alley!” Gwen shouts, and immediately steers the cart down the nearest alley.

We sprint down the alley, crashing through piles of trash and stumbling over the uneven terrain. At the end of the alley, we strike a gutter. A wheel snaps off the cart, sending Bill tumbling to the ground.

“Bill!” Pamela screams.

I rush to lift him up, and then I see a flash of white that snaps my head back and flings the knife from my grip. Falling flat on my back, my vision clears and I see Action standing over me clenching the fist he used to punch me in the face. Before I can move, a handful of men surround us. One of them seizes me from behind and hauls me to my feet while another places the pointed end of a machete against my throat.

Pamela backs against a wall, hands raised defensively. One of the men stands behind Gwen. With one of his hands, he clenches a fistful of her hair, jerking her head back, and with the other hand, he places the sharp edge of a machete on her neck. Bill is facedown on the pavement.

“Let us go! We have no money,” Pamela screeches. “My husband needs a doctor.”

Dispassionately, Action prods Bill with his feet. Bill does not move.

“Husband needs a grave digga,” Action laughs, deep and malicious.

We stand in the flickering light from a raging fire down the block. Action wears shorts and an unbuttoned vest without a shirt. The fire light causes his gaunt face to appear unusually cadaverous. His baleful eyes lock on mine; the malevolence in his dead, black stare makes it clear that begging for mercy is pointless.

“Well, well, what a pretty fishy caught in de net,” Action slides a skeletal palm over Gwen’s face and over her breast which he roughly kneads.

Panting with fear, she whimpers, and a tear slides from her eye

“Get your fucking hands off her,” I seethe.

Action mockingly cups a hand to his ear. “What’s that, you say? I’m sorry. You made a mistake, mon. You must be tinkin’ we still work for you. Maybe you wan Action to do a trick for you?”

He does a herky-jerky dance towards me, like an evil marionette, causing the men with him to laugh.

Drawing his face near to mine, his lips pulled into a leering grin. “Dis island is ours—not yours. Life…she roll de dice. Now we on top and you on de bottom. De water, de food, de women…” he nods knowingly to Gwen. “Dey all belongs to us. Now we are de ones in control.”

My heart thuds in my chest and my skin feels strangely cold even as sweat gushes from my pores. This is a feeling of bone chilling terror—the trembling pulse of a man who knows he is about to die, but despite my fear, a fury builds within me.

“You’re a fool,” I sneer. “We should be working together, not burning homes to the ground, raping and stealing.”

Action’s face twists into a cruel mask. He yanks the machete from his comrade and raises it to strike.

“Kneel,” he commands.

“Phillip!” Gwen cries.

Held by the man behind me, I cannot escape this execution. Time slows to a crawl. Life is pointless. All my hopes and fears, my tiny tragedies and puny triumphs—the love I felt and lost—none of it matters. Six billion lives vanished overnight; the loss of one more is beyond insignificant. In a moment, my head will roll into a trash-filled gutter, my blood pooling into the hard packed dirt. My life is a thing of no consequence, just as the lives of kings or heroes will cease to matter with no one alive to remember them, and their monuments blasted to dust.

“Kneel!” Action roars, and one of his men punch me in the solar plexus. The wind rushes from my lungs in a hoarse gasp and I sink to my knees.

I look to Gwen, my poor Gwen, the wife I could not save. In a moment, my suffering will be over; Gwen’s is just beginning. Our eyes meet and I know the only kindness this absurd life will ever give me is to look upon her face as I die.

Suddenly, Bill crashes into the man standing next to Action. In all the commotion, none of us observed Bill rise to his feet. Like a kamikaze, Bill hurls his weight into the man who yelps in pain. I take a second to realize that Bill took my fallen knife and buried it in the ruffian’s ribs. Howling in pain, the ruffian slumps to the ground and pulls the knife from his side. Blood spurts from the wound like a geyser.

“Run!” Bill yells, his voice faltering.

The man holding Gwen is so distracted that she whirls on him with a kick to the groin and breaks free. I roll to the side and dash towards Gwen

Bill wobbles and falls. Standing in shock, Pamela screams his name, but Gwen seizes Pamela’s wrists and yanks her away. As we flee, I dare to look back. Bill is on the ground. Machetes descend as Action and his men hack him to death.

At the end of the alley, Pamela digs in her heels and tries to run back to Bill.

I spin her so that we are face-to-face and state, “Bill’s dead. They’re coming for us.”

I cannot see the thugs, but their shouts echo through the twisting alleys as they fan out to trap us. Hysterical, her cheeks streaked with tears, Pamela looks in the direction of where her husband’s body lay. The sound of feet slapping on the hard earth increases. Fear of the murdering ruffians overcomes her grief; without a word, she runs with us. We dart through the maze of alleys, not pausing for a second. I cannot see the men, but I hear their shouts from several different directions, like the howls of wolves tracking their prey.

Through the curtains of a ramshackle home, I glimpse light. Frantic, I try the door. Locked. The voices close in, encircling us. I kick the door. It shudders. I kick it again and it swings open. We race inside, Gwen slamming the door behind us and holding it shut with her body.

“Whatcho doin’? Git out! Git out of my house!” A petite woman pummels me.

I swat her blows away , and hearing men approach, I seize her and clamp a hand over her mouth. Her struggle is so fierce that despite her small size she drags me to the floor where we grapple like Olympic wrestlers. I must not lose my hold on her mouth. If she screams, the men will know where we are.