AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“They will be busy. They always are.”
Dessaline said, “Enough worrying, Anson. Take these two out to the camp. We will be along soon.”
Ariel feigned unconsciousness as they carried her into the closed garage to a black Escalade and put her in the back, under a blue plastic tarp. One of the men groped her breasts as he pushed her in far enough to make room for John, but did nothing else. She lay under the tarp and thought about trying to escape, but by then the men were back. They slid John in and dropped the tarp, then hopped in while someone worked the automatic garage opener.
The Escalade backed out, then drove forward. Ariel thought she might lift the tarp, but felt one of the men’s hands draped over the seat in front of her and touching her shoulder through the plastic. She would wait, then.
The travel was smooth, except for occasional sheets of wind driven rain bumping the vehicle. She felt John stir, and touched his arm, whispering, “act like you’re still out.” He stopped moving.
She felt the road surface change when they slowed and made a right turn. With no watch, it was hard to tell how much time they had been on the road, but her guess was less than an hour. The next turn was to the left, and about fifteen minutes later, onto another, rougher surfaced road. When it stopped several minutes later, Ariel knew they were at the camp.
The rear hatch of the Escalade opened and someone snatched the tarp off them and stepped back. Jean Claude told the others, “I have a Taser, in case they are pretending. Carry them inside.”
Ariel felt John pulled away from her, then seconds later half a dozen hands grabbed her and slid her out of the vehicle, carrying her by her hands and feet with her limp head hanging face down.
Opening her eyes to slits so they wouldn’t notice, Ariel watched as they climbed homemade steps up to the door and inside. The floor was wooden and water stained, but no rot showed. The men dropped her beside John, and the two prisoners lay on the cool wood as the others moved things around in what sounded like a very large room.
A woman’s voice said in Creole, “Bring the altar in from the back. Be careful of alligators and snakes. There’s a twelve-foot bull that’s around here all the time.”
With her eyes closed, Ariel noticed smells. Marijuana was pungent, and spilled chilli rum. Incense was in the air. Near the floor, it smelled of old blood and offal. Ariel imagined it was what an abattoir smelled like.
Those in the room stayed busy obeying the woman’s orders. Occasionally one would come by and kick them. The woman came by once, kneeling by John and pulling up his face to open an eyelid with her thumb. She touched his eyeball with her finger. John didn’t flinch. She dropped his head so it plonked on the wood and said, “They will be out for another hour. We have plenty of time to get things ready.”
The others arrived an hour later, including Dessaline, Bazin, and Villard. Marc, holding a human skull in one hand, leaned down by the two and said, “Open your eyes now. You’re not fooling us.”
John sat up, and Ariel followed. “Good,” Marc said, and he placed two plastic bottles of water in front of them. “I’m sure you are thirsty.”
He rose and walked to the woman arranging candles on the table shrouded in red satin. He put the skull he carried in the center of the table, saying to her, “Rosalie, make sure to dress the table the way my mother likes it.”
Rosalie said, “Always.”
John opened his water bottle as he said to Ariel, “Drink it, we might not get any more.” They drained their bottles, and sat close together, watching the people preparing for a ritual that would end in their deaths. Four of the men were dressed as Tonton Macoute, including the straw hats and sunglasses. They also wore machetes in scabbards on their belts.
When the back door opened, John checked to see what was visible outside: A small yard of crushed limestone and seashells, and a narrow, dark water canal bordering one edge. Sawgrass was all the way to the horizon. At the edge of what he could see in the yard was the side of a small shed. Twenty feet beyond the shed was an airboat where someone slid it up on the grass.
As they sat close, Ariel whispered, “I stole this from their kitchen. I don’t know if it will help.” She touched her hand to his, making sure no one was watching. John opened his hand, and Ariel slipped it in his palm.
John felt it with his fingers and realized it was a plastic spork.
Ariel said, “I told you I didn’t know if it would help.”
John said, “
It’s okay. I’ll work with it.” As the people bustled about, smoked dope and drank rum, John moved his hand between his legs down to the flagstone and used his legs to hide his actions. Working the plastic hilt of the spork on the rock, he gradually formed the handle into a knifelike point. Not much, but better than what they had. He said, “We have to wait for an opening. When I move, you come right behind me.”
“I will.”
The woman, Rosalie, worked on arranging things until the entire room, a large rectangle with an open kitchen near the back door, was filled with lit candles, religious icons, red and black figures on tables, and lastly, the white images and figures she painted on the floor. The door to another room was closed, but not blocked by tables. The Haitians came and went through it, but John could not see inside to know if it was only a bedroom, or some other way they might escape.
Rosalie chanted as she drew the center of the crossroads in the middle of the room, and the long white lines extending to each of the four walls seemed to glow in the dimming light. The lowering, overcast sky seen through the windows added to the pall.
Wind rattled the panes, and sheets of hard rain hit the glass like pellets, only to die off as the rain bands passed. More ominous were the rising and lowering moans of the hurricane’s breath blowing across the everglades. Ariel’s voice carried her worry as she said, “The storm’s growing stronger.”
Rosalie said something to two of the men and they went to Ariel and John. One of them nudged John with his boot, “Move away, we are starting a fire.” The two prisoners attempted to stand, but were shoved down. “Scoot on your butts. Don’t stand.” They scooted to a place beside the small kitchen stove.
John watched the men bring in armloads of wood and several quart bottles of charcoal lighter fluid. One of the men piled the wood in the hearth and the other liberally squirted on the fluid. They used one match to produce a roaring, hot blaze that lit the room with yellow light. One of the men went out and brought back a second armload of wood, putting it down midway between John and the fire.
Club sized, John thought.
