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  SAVAGES

  Greg F. Gifune

  Sinister Grin Press

  MMXVI

  Austin, Texas

  Sinister Grin Press

  Austin, TX

  www.sinistergrinpress.com

  July 2016

  “Savages” © 2016 Greg F. Gifune

  This is a work of Fiction. All characters depicted in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without the publisher’s written consent, except for the purposes of review.

  Cover Art by Zach McCain

  Book Design by Brian Cartwright

  My sincere thanks to Matt Worthington and everyone at SINISTER GRIN PRESS.

  This one’s for Dave Thomas.

  “A man cannot destroy the savage in him by denying its impulses. The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it…”

  —Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920 film)

  AFTER

  Flames slashed the darkness. It looked as if the whole world was on fire, and in a way, it was. Spreading rapidly, the flames attached to and burned everything in their path, lighting up the trees and brush as showers of sparks shot high into the air, cascading back to earth with a majesty reserved for those things both beautiful and deadly. This destroyer, burning with furious violence, surged through the night like the seductress it was, and despite a misty rain blowing in off an otherwise calm sea, the fire continued to gain power and momentum, engulfing everything in its brilliant agony.

  But the raging fire was not the only predator here. The other, newly ordained, crouched and waited, mesmerized by the inferno. Nude and concealed in the small pockets of remaining darkness, skin covered in wounds, blood and soot, only the whites of the eyes were visible, wide and alive and teeming with ravenous, primal ferocity. When it finally moved, it was with astonishing newfound stealth, confidently slinking through the fiery night, its movements fluid, efficient and lethal. The heat from the blaze flushed its face, caused its eyes to water and burn. Unmoved, it watched the flames through blurred vision. Discomfort—pain—was part of it now, something to embrace, dominate and master, rather than fear.

  The fire, so vast and powerful that its radiance illuminated nearly the entire island, would burn for hours yet, and perhaps even here, at the ends of the earth, someone might see the flames and come to investigate.

  Or perhaps not.

  Perhaps there was no rescue from this hell, no escape. Perhaps there never had been. Perhaps it no longer mattered because things were no longer the same. It was no longer the same. It feared it was no longer fully human, that it had become something else. Something less.

  Rising from its haunches, the phantom surveyed the carnage with peculiar satisfaction.

  Wake up, a voice deep within it whispered. Wake up.

  But there would be no awakening, not from this.

  It turned and darted into the burning, white-hot jungle, just like the beast of prey it had become.

  CHAPTER ONE

  His mind told him it was only a game, and for a brief moment he was a child again, playing at the beach, lying in the wet sand at the very edge of the ocean’s reach after a long swim. Always a fan of adventure stories and movies, Dallas remembered pretending he was a fearless hero fighting the bad guy at water’s edge, or struggling to survive against the elements, pirates or deadly sharks in the open ocean. Sometimes he was the lone survivor of a shipwreck who had washed ashore on a desert isle, and he’d lie on the beach then crawl his way to drier sand, exhausted but alive. As those fantasies and memories flooded his mind for the first time in ages, all in vivid detail, the irony was not lost on him, particularly as he rolled lifelessly with the surf, turning and moving through the ocean with the push of each new wave. How could he have known all those years ago as a little boy that his favorite playtime scenario would one day become horrifyingly real?

  His world was still dark and blurred, so either his vision hadn’t yet returned and he wasn’t totally conscious, or he’d been knocked out and was coming around while still being tossed about the ocean in the dead of night. Either way, he was reasonably sure he was still in the water, but close to shore of some kind, because his body scraped a rocky bottom, and for the first time in a while, Dallas felt pain, spikes of it shooting up through his ribcage and into the base of his throat. He tasted saltwater and blood, gagged then felt himself moving of his own accord. Flailing, actually, before collapsing into thick wet sand, his fingers sinking deep beneath its surface, clutching at the earth with everything he had, which suddenly was quite a lot. Pushing and kicking with his legs, he managed to propel himself up and forward before flopping onto his belly in what felt like a spray of dry sand.

  I’m on land, he thought. I’m…alive…I—my God, I—I’m on land!

  He tasted grains of sand in his mouth, scraping his teeth and tickling his tongue, felt them prickling his cheeks and scratching his eyes. Far as he could tell the pain hadn’t subsided, but the sensation of motion had left him, as had the tightness in his chest, the shortness of breath and the sensation of drowning. But before he could give any of that much thought, something in the surrounding darkness once again pulled him down into a well of blackness and despair.

  As it took him, Dallas could only hope and pray he really had reached land—impossible as that seemed given the circumstances—and that the sensations he’d experienced weren’t tricks of the mind meant to distract him while the ocean swallowed and dragged him to depths he could never escape. Perhaps what he’d felt were simply the hallucinations of a dying mind. If so, then he was still out in the middle of the ocean amidst a surging tempest and probably already dead. But if this was real, he might have a chance. A slim chance, but a chance nonetheless.

  His eyes blinked. Scratchy with sand and burning from the saltwater, Dallas was cognizant of sight now, but badly blurred vision coupled with the pitch-black night left him violently dizzy. He pushed with his hands, felt soft but solid ground beneath his palms. He coughed and vomited a gush of seawater then slipped once again into unconsciousness, or something similar.

  There, in the dark.

  Dreams of violent struggle shriek at him from the darkness, his body writhing and kicking in blind panic as all sense of direction is lost. Beneath the ocean surface, submerged in an endless maze of water, pressure pushing him down and all sound reduced to eerie echoes and groans, he forces his eyes open despite the sting and frantically searches for a way out. And then just as suddenly, he breaks the surface, his body thrown up and out, inconsequential and useless as the other bits of debris in the water with him. He tries to scream for help but manages only a strangled croak as, without mercy, seawater surges into his mouth and down his throat. Fighting the powerful waves and crashing ocean, he tries to gain some sense of perspective, but he is lost in the night, in the storm and the raging sea, a top spinning out of control, swallowing seawater one moment and gasping for air the next. No up or down, no forward or back—nothing—just a world of water and darkness devouring him, pulling at him, slapping him down as wind rings in his ears and distant sounds of thunder growl in the night.

  He dreams of the lightning too. Jagged spears unlike any he’s seen before, so brilliant and enormous it looks like a special effect from some Hollywood blockbuster. It splits the black sky with great crackling forks, and he is grateful, because now he knows where the sky is, what is above him and what is surely below. But his lungs continue to struggle and he still cannot draw sufficient air. The ocean is absorbing him, filling him. He and it are becoming one. The strong devouring the weak. I’m dying, he thinks. I’m about to die, violently, in this place and on this night.


  Sometime later, the water brought him around. Or perhaps it was the sun. He couldn’t be sure which and didn’t much care. He only knew he was awake, and therefore, alive. And as he raised his head from the hot sand and squinted against the unexpected brightness of daylight, Dallas also realized that the night before was no dream. It was real, all of it. The boat really had gone down in a storm. He and the others abandoned ship, and all but one of them, a crewman named Davis, made it to the raft. Eight people total, only six fit safely in the raft, which meant at all times two had to float alongside, holding on. Though the captain was injured and couldn’t be moved, the others alternated, surviving the blistering days and seemingly endless nights as best they could. For three days and nights they drifted in the Pacific. They saw no signs of land, no planes or rescue ships. And then another storm hit and the raft capsized. Dallas was sure he’d died, but he was alive and really had washed ashore somewhere.

  With a grunt he attempted to move his fingers, and then his hands and arms. His muscles were stiff and sore, but he had a fairly decent range of motion. Next he tried his toes and feet, and eventually his legs. Again, there were sore muscles but apparently no serious injuries. But when he tried to rise up onto his hands and knees using a pseudo pushup motion, the pain from the prior night returned. Harsh and sharp, it tore across his chest from deep inside. His lungs burned and stabbing pain rifled across his chest and up into his shoulders and neck. He’d slammed into something solid with his chest and could only hope nothing was broken or busted up inside. He drew a breath, shallow at first, and then a bit deeper. By the time he’d taken a full breath the pain was excruciating. He’d had pneumonia several years before, and though he knew that’s not what this was, it felt similar. He coughed. His throat and chest burned. Ignoring it as best he could, Dallas crawled, dragging himself further up the beach. Exhausted, he flipped onto his back and lay there a moment, breathing heavily despite the pain.

  The canopy of cloudless sky above him was a brilliant shade of blue. He turned his head and spat, but it did little to lessen the sandy grit and muck coating his mouth. It tasted like he’d swallowed half the ocean floor and then gargled the other half. He wiped his mouth and face with his forearm and spat again. For days he’d struggled with hunger and thirst as he and the others rationed what little food and water they had as best they could, and now the idea of eating or drinking anything made him sick to his stomach.

  In time he worked his way into a sitting position but was still too dizzy to stand, so he stayed put and took in his surroundings as his mind slowly focused. He was on a small island, likely uninhabited, yet he still had the desire to scream for help. He didn’t have the wind, so instead he sat quietly and listened to the ocean waves gently lap shore mere inches from where the current had deposited him the night before. Had he remained there much longer, the tide would’ve eventually swept him back out to sea. He hugged himself at the thought then inspected his body for injuries. He was wearing only a pair of khaki shorts. He didn’t even have shoes on. He, like the others, had already been badly sunburned and littered with blisters, but now his feet were lashed with tiny cuts and scrapes, as were his knees, elbows, arms, shoulders and chest, no doubt from the way he’d bounced in along the rocky coastline, pushed there by the storm and left to tumble to shore like a ragdoll. Like his blisters, the cuts, contusions and scrapes were numerous, but none were life-threatening.

  Shielding his eyes with his hand, he gazed out at the beach and ocean beyond. The water was crystal clear, the sand white and hot. He turned, looked back over his shoulder. Several yards of beach led to a small embankment sprinkled with numerous palm trees. Perhaps another forty yards from the first trees there stood a second band, and then jungle. Dallas forced a swallow, coughed then turned and groggily looked to his right to find a fairly long stretch of beach and more palm trees dotting the embankment in that direction as well. To his left he saw rocks, lots of large dark jagged monstrosities protruding from the surf like ancient stone totems. Had he approached the island from that direction he’d have washed ashore in pieces.

  In the distance, in a small cove near the far end of the island, something out of place on the white sand caught his attention. He watched it a while to make sure it wasn’t a trick of the glaring sun. A patch of yellow material was strewn across the sand, part of it still in the water and moving gracefully with the sway of the ocean. He rubbed his eyes and looked again. It was definitely there, no question. Dallas stared at it for what seemed a very long time, waiting for his mind to catch up. When it finally did he struggled to his feet, and although his legs were shaky and he was still a bit lightheaded, he staggered along the shoreline fast as he could toward the remains of what he now recognized as the rubber life raft. The others, he thought. They made it too, they—please don’t let me be the only one!

  Quinn’s face drifted past his mind’s eye.

  My God, Quinn! Where the hell is she? Is she all right?

  Trauma had stolen his memories of Quinn and the others, and now that he’d regained them they flooded his mind in a furious and uncontrollable montage. Chest aching, head pounding, his body weak and his feet burning on the hot sand, Dallas staggered along the beach beneath the harsh sunshine, unable to think of anything now but Quinn and the others.

  He stumbled twice but kept on without falling, and as he closed on the cove he angled closer to the water and slowed his pace. When he reached moist sand he carefully crawled over a cluster of large rocks then dropped down to the other side.

  Swaying but still upright, breathless and dripping with perspiration, he again found the remains of the inflatable raft. It was flat, tangled and shredded in several places, and a modest plastic paddle was still attached to one section by a thin piece of white nylon rope. While the rear section remained in shallow water, the rest of the destroyed raft had been washed ashore.

  Dallas stumbled closer and dropped to his knees.

  There was no sign of Quinn or anyone else.

  He closed his eyes as his throat constricted. The awful thirst was back.

  “Quinn!” The scream was louder than he’d thought himself capable of, so he called her name again and again with as much fury as he could muster.

  There was no answer.

  In time his calls became a horrible weeping sob, her name mangled by his cries of rage and fear, confusion and frustration. He desperately clutched a scrap of raft with both hands and held it to his chest as the world blurred through tears.

  After a moment his body slumped and he fell silent, kneeling in the wet sand.

  When he heard what sounded like a disembodied voice beckoning him from very far away, Dallas assumed he’d slipped back into unconsciousness and the realm of nightmares.

  But the voice not only persisted, it grew louder, closer.

  He raised his head, pawed tears and sand from his eyes and looked to the far side of the cove. Through the bright sun came a figure, running and stumbling along the waterline, arms waving. Calling him—the figure was calling him—and he knew that voice, knew who it was even before her face came into view.

  “Quinn?” he asked softly, his voice raspy and labored but laced with hope.

  Fighting his exhausted and battered body, Dallas struggled to his feet and headed toward the figure. The prospect of having lost his wife once had nearly destroyed him, if this was a dream or turned out to be some cruel trick, he’d never recover.

  They collided, a frenzied bundle of limbs and torsos clutching at each other and spinning, collapsing down into the sand together as both ran their hands over the other to be certain they were real and intact and as they’d remembered them. Their cracked lips met and both spoke but neither was really listening.

  “Quinn! God—Quinn, I—”

  “I thought I’d lost you, baby, I thought—”

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’ve been looking for you, I—”

  “I’m here.” He pulled her to him again and hugged her tight.
“I’m here, it—it’s okay, I’m right here. You’re alive, my God, you—you’re alive.”

  “I love you.” Quinn kissed his neck and cheek on the way to his lips.

  “Love you too, I—I love you too.”

  Out of breath, they sat in the sand awhile, hugging quietly, thankfully, and allowing their raw emotions to run roughshod.

  Dallas looked her over more closely. Barefoot like him, she was dressed in faded nylon shorts and a bikini top. Her hair, light brown and short, was mussed and wet and caked with sand in places, and she was traumatized and as exhausted and blistered as he was, but otherwise seemed unharmed. In fact, but for the golden-brown tan she’d sported days before that had largely since turned scarlet and sunburned, she looked remarkably strong considering everything they’d been through. Thin and lithe, hers was the sinewy body of an athlete, and even at thirty-four she’d lost nothing of the lean but powerful swimmer’s build she’d had when they’d first met in college and Quinn was a star member of the swim team. “You’re okay?”

  She nodded, cupped his face with her hands. “Are you?”

  “I’m thirsty—and starving—but I’ll be all right.”

  “You’re all scratched up.”

  “I’m fine.” He grabbed her wrist, pulled her hand to his mouth and kissed it. “What about the others?”

  “Everyone’s here.” Quinn stole a glance back over her shoulder. “Except…”

  He looked at her fearfully.

  “Andre,” she finally said. “No one’s seen him.”

  The horrors of the night before and hellish days preceding it were gradually coming back to Dallas in flashes. Murdock, the captain and owner of the vessel, had been injured just before they’d abandoned ship. Dallas remembered jumping into the water after the raft along with the others, and how once it inflated they’d all made for it. Davis, the lone crewman, was the only one who’d come up missing. They all screamed and searched for him as best they could, but to no avail. He never made it off the boat.