Fresh Flesh (3 page)

She didn't realize tears were streaming down
her face. Dick laid a gentle hand on her knee.

She turned from the ocean swells and shot
Dick a stare. "Do you think there's any chance. . .that Edward is
still alive?"

Dick looked away. "You know, it looks like
it's going to be a nice day."

"Not the ignoring thing again, please." She
wiped away a tear with the back of her hand. "Just give it to me
straight."

"Sorry." Dick paused. "Okay, I'll say this,
if you survived, he might have survived too. He might have—"

Jessica was too immersed with self-pity to
pursue where Dick was going with that statement.

The sound of the waves pounding the beach, a
heavenly sound to her at one time, now seemed very depressing.

"Dick, please take me back to the cave so I
can sleep some more. I've heard all I can handle today."

Without saying another word he took her
back.

After he was sure Jessica was sleeping he
left the cave, went outside and stared across at the east side of
the island.

He'd almost blown it, had almost said:
Edward might have washed ashore on another beach
. It would
have been a huge blunder talking about the other parts of the
island. Jessica might have wanted to go see if they could find her
husband. Maybe tomorrow she'd want to do that anyway and that
wouldn't be good. No. He must keep Jessica focusing on herself.

Jessica thought of him as having a name that
some childhood friends once used to call him: Dick. And oh how
appropriately it described what he was being at the moment.

The trees swaying in the breeze were the
perfect mask for the terrible secret. Perhaps too perfect? He
wondered if he'd be able to pull off his plan. It would be quite a
test and he could see many advantages if successful.

But if he failed?

A pleasant hour passed while Richard, the man
Jessica knew as Dick, sat on his rock seat and admired the sleeping
woman. Despite her ruined blouse that the ocean had wrecked,
Jessica was still more beautiful than any woman in his wildest,
most vivid fantasy. She had the most captivating, entrancing
ash-blond hair; it laid there, oh so natural, without the added
four-hour curling and combing and hair spraying (which left most
women with oily stiff mop heads, instead of hair).

Her piercing brown eyes happily reminded him
of his favorite candy, Hershey's Kisses, and when she was sad those
Kisses appeared to melt like the famous chocolate. Her petite,
inviting lips. She had a very natural look, unlike his nose which
had been broken a handful of times and looked like a Rorschach ink
blot. She had a tiny mouth, opening to a full set of gleaming
whites, and a wonderful smile. She was just like his dream told
him.

Something fresh.

He stood up, his tree branch honed to a fine
edge, and walked over to her. He stroked her hair with the
branch-spear. "So. . .fresh."

Five minutes later he left her alone in the
cave.

Jessica awoke and sensed being alone. She
sprung up and searched around.

Where was Dick? The rock where he had been
whittling was vacant. The sun still shone brightly through the cave
entrance, and she told herself that he had probably just stepped
outside to find another branch to whittle. She must not have been
asleep that long. An hour? two? At least, Dick had not left her
alone in the dark.

But he had left her alone.

Fear strangled her body. Tiny ripples of
gooseflesh rose like weeds all over her body. The cave reeked not
only of fish, but of a worse odor, a fouler stench: loneliness.

She got up and went quickly to the cave
entrance.

"Dick? Dick?"

The wind howled. Mocked.

Louder: "Dick?"

Nothing. No echo.

She walked ten feet down the beaten trail.
Stood alongside the makeshift bathroom. Called again.

"Dick?"

He was gone.

Looking into the jungle's confusing mixture
of plants, vines, rocks and trees, she remembered his cautionary
words:
Still plenty big enough to get lost in
.

Yes
, she thought and his other words
resonated inside her brain:
if you know what I mean
.

The wind drove a few icy chills up and down
her spine.

Where could Dick have gone? The beach?
Fishing?

"Dick?" she called out again. No doubt, he'd
left her alone.
What's wrong with that?
Her conscience was
annoyed,
it's broad daylight
and you're being
(Edward's words):
chickenshit
.

But even in their Valford mansion she
couldn't stand being left alone. And Edward seemed to leave her
alone too often. "Stop being so yellow honey," he'd say with his
annoying chuckle. A sound like billiard balls cracking together
during an aggressive break. "What's so bad about being home alone?
Turn on the TV or radio if you want some company."

Sometimes that worked.

Except now she didn't see any big screen TV
or high end stereo receivers popping out of the bushes.
Let me
charge that to my Mastercard too please
.

Jessica turned and stared back at the cave
entrance. It was approximately ten feet in diameter with long green
and brown vines twisting around the creepy opening. It reminded her
of the hungry, spittle-dripping mouth. Darkness and evil dominating
over light inside the cave. There was nothing positive Jessica
could say about her new home, even from a good distance.

There was something wrong with this
"freakishly unknown" island. She felt something dark and disturbing
churning inside her stomach.

She decided it wasn't wise for her to have
left the cave. She started back. She made it five feet before she
heard something rustling in the bushes nearby.

Something alive.

Something moving closer.

Her heartbeat shifted into overdrive,
pummeling the ventricle walls. Hairs on the back of her neck rose.
Prickling sensations nipped at random spots on her body:
fingertips, toes and palms.

Her eyes searched for the intruder. Found
none. She was disturbed and on the verge of executing her best
shriek.

Nothing, Jessica.
Edward's click-clack
(eight-ball corner pocket) chuckle:
chickenshit
.

A harsh wind blew and the whole ravine came
alive; shiver-dancing to the ocean tide's music.

Damn imagination. Her heartbeat slowed,
returned to normal. A minute passed before she felt silly being
scared of nothing.

That was when something cold, something real,
emerged from the ravine, grasped her naked shoulder, and
squeezed.

"Gotcha."

It was only Dick.

"Hey! You scared the shit out of me." Jessica
trembled.

"I—I was just teasing, sorry." Dick yanked
back his icy hand. "I was watching you."

"Then why didn't you answer me?"

"I thought. . .I just—"

"I don't enjoy being frightened, Dick, and
this island scares me enough. Please don't. Don't do that
again."

He held up his spear, a string of fish tied
onto it. "Peace? I brought dinner."

"Don't do that again." She was still in
reprimand mode. "My nerves aren't steel, okay?"

"Okay."

She looked at his despondent eyes. "I don't
like being left alone."

"You don't have to explain yourself, Jessica.
It's not the first time I've screwed up. "

"Then," she said, eyeing the fish with a
grimace. "Let's go. . .eat."

"Grouper," he explained, chewing the roasted
fish, "I catch them near the shore. They're close relatives of the
bass family. Come in all sizes too. My grandfather said the best
tasting fish in the world was grouper. He caught a few jewfish in
his time. Hung 'em right on his wall."

She was puzzled. "Why hang a twelve-inch fish
on the wall? Why didn't he try to catch something a little more
ambitious?"

"Ambitious?"

"Bigger. A shark, whale, you know?"

"Jessica, the spotted jewfish is the largest
type of grouper you can catch. Some of them weigh up to six-hundred
pounds."

Her eyes widened. She didn't know her fish
because she didn't like anything outdoorsy beyond sunning out the
deck of a yacht or a tropical beach. "Tomorrow," Dick said. "We
start your training."

"What training?"

"Survival training, of course. We can't have
you fidgeting every time you see a cockroach or—"

"Cockroach?"

"Yeah, you said you were going to Hawaii,
right? Hell, that place is, pardon the pun, crawling with them. You
should know that, you've probably been there tons of times."

Not the places where we stay.

"Surely, you're not serious?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"Because. . .because why does everyone stay
where there is cockroaches? We didn't."

"Hey, they're not deadly or anything. They're
not even known as disease carriers."

"How come you know so much about fish and
insects?" She wanted to add: and about gross, repulsive living
things?

"You think I didn't go to school? That I've
been stranded here all my life? I'll have you know I was a good
student. I. . ." he stopped and sadness overtook him again."I
should have graduated with honors."

"Should have? You didn't graduate?"

"No, I dropped out. Long story."

She could tell Dick didn't want to talk about
why he dropped out of school. She made a mental note to revisit
this topic again someday.

She thought about touching his shoulder, but
declined. She didn't want him to think of her as any more than a
fellow stranded person on the island. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to
imply you were dumb."

He perked up. "Hell, that's the past. Forget
about it. Doesn't matter here. The only thing that matters here is
survival."

As they finished eating she asked him to
explain what survival entailed.

"I'm gonna teach you everything I can. How to
catch red and black grouper. Berries that will keep you alive,
berries that will kill you. Climbing trees for coconuts. How to get
to the ocean and back to my home here: my cave. Excuse me,
our
cave."

Oh no
, she thought,
he's starting
to use 'our'
. Bad omen.

He nodded, held up his pocket knife and
sharpened tree branch.

"What are those for?" she asked.

"Tonight I'll teach you how to make a spear.
Just in case."

"In case what?"

"I don't want to alarm you but we do have
some wild animals on the island. Mostly night creatures. They
probably wouldn't bother you but I'll feel better knowing you can
protect yourself."

"With a tree branch?"

"Don't knock it. A finely-honed tree branch
can go through you like butter."

He held up one of his whittled spears as an
eerie example.

Sometime later she lay down to sleep. He sat
on the rock and started whittling again.

"Don't you ever sleep, Dick?"

He was staring at her again. Staring with
weary eyes. "Everyone sleeps."

"Can I ask you a personal question?"

"Sure."

"How old are you?"

He leaned forward curiously. "How old do you
think?"

She thought for a moment how strange it was
that Dick and she both played mind games; they shot question after
question at each other, giving few direct answers. They would have
made, when time mattered, lousy game show contestants.

"I don't know. Fifty?"

He dropped his whittling project, aghast,
"Fifty?"

"I'm sorry, you're older?"

He glared at her, disturbed. "Come on now,
you really think I look fifty?"

"I don't mean to hurt your feelings. People
don't like to talk about age. I don't. I'm thirty-nine and
regretting every day. Can't see the forties. How was it? I mean,
how did it feel hitting forty?"

He shook his head. "I wouldn't know, Jessica.
I'm only twenty-nine."

After Jessica had fallen asleep—another
mistake telling her his age—he got up and walked outside. He'd
spent too much time explaining that his physical appearance was
accelerated by living on the island in the elements and she didn't
take it well. She liked being beautiful and this island had already
begun to age her mentally. She saw the haunting physical effects of
spending too much time here.

He stood by the cave entrance, hands in blue
jeans long since rags, watching the sky as he had Jessica. There
were very few night skies he enjoyed anymore. Loneliness tended to
do that to you; ripped you apart like an old couch, found your
insides and stomped them flat.

The sky seemed awkward tonight. More stars?
Darker? He couldn't tell. He felt an emotion that hadn't been in
his heart for a long time, he was happy. Something he was never
supposed to be here. Perhaps he saw fate in the sky. An hour glass
refilled with sand.

You can't break me
, he raised a fist
to the night sky,
you'll never break me
.

He left the jungle eyes and went back inside.
He would never tire of watching her and fantasized about the day
she would touch him like a lover. The day she would decide to make
love with him on the sandy southwest beach. He would not rush
anything, they had time. She had to get over her husband.

Maybe tomorrow he would tell her that while
she slept he searched all over the island and couldn't find any
sign of other survivors, including Edward.

Had she accepted Edward's death yet? She
would in time.
Our time won't run out
. He fell asleep with a
big smile on his face.