Avenge, Revenge, Justice?
~GCS~
”I’ve been talking to Apollonia....”
I could feel my throat tighten. The look on his face told me all I needed to know as my brain shot into defensive mode. At this moment, I wasn’t sure what was making him more angry - Apollonia’s disclosure or the fact that I had kept it from him. I felt the need to bide time. After all, I didn’t know exactly what he had been told.
“Oh? How is she? Is there a problem?” I stood as I spoke, raising myself from the ground in an effort to eliminate a subordinate posture. My voice was higher than usual and I coughed as if something was caught in my throat to disguise my anxiety. “I haven’t seen her today.”
I didn’t think it was possible for the muscles in his face to tighten any more but they did. He didn’t say anything but kept his eyes on mine, challenging me. A moment later, thunder cracked overhead, causing me to jump and reveal my apprehension. When the rumbling subsided, he sighed heavily, cast his eyes to the ground and walk to the rear of our shack. There he stood, gazing through an opening in the fronds, staring at nothing, waiting for me to come clean. I tried to swallow the lump in my throat.
“Kevin, I...”
His eyes flew to mine and held me once again. The y were so full of anger that I felt myself take a step backwards before he spoke. He was trying very hard to control himself but his attempts appeared to be bound for failure.
“Why didn’t you tell me, Glynnis?”
His voice was low and accusing. The question was a simple one but the answers were complicated. Still, I didn’t really know how much Apollonia had told him. As the seconds ticked by, I could see his irritation growing.
“I-I didn’t want to upset you...” I stammered. “Brad has been such a thorn in your side and it was over and I didn’t see what telling you would accomplish and...”
“ENOUGH!”
The thunder cracking outside punctuated his screamed command. Silence followed as Kevin closed his eyes and gulped air, trying to calm himself. When his eyes opened, he stared into my face for a moment before beginning his interrogation. Although the timbre of his voice was fairly calm, there was an edge to his tone that made me shiver. He looked a little crazy.
“Now tell me what happened and don’t sugar-coat it. I want to know. I need to know.”
“What d-did Apollonia say?”
“I want to hear what YOU have to say, Glynnis. Tell me what happened. Now.”
“What difference does it make now? It’s over. Apollonia told you...”
“TELL ME!” he screamed, taking a step towards me. Then in a whisper, “I swear, it almost sounds like you’re trying to protect him.”
I wasn’t trying to protect anybody. It was over. No one had been hurt. I just couldn’t see going crazy over it now. We both knew that Brad wasn’t ‘right’. What was Kevin going to do about it besides get himself all worked up? We didn’t need this crap and neither did the camp. I told him what happened. He questioned and pushed every detail.
“Did he touch you?”
“No,”
“But he planned to. He was going to do more than touch you....”
“You don’t know that, Kevin.”
“FOR CHRIST’S SAKE, GLYNNIS!”
My remark had made his temper flare to greater heights. He paused, closed his eyes for a moment and I could see him trying to pull the rein on his emotions and anger. When he continued, his voice was like a hiss.
“He ordered you to strip while he held Apollonia with a machete to her throat. What do you think he had in mind? You think he was going to take a peek and then leave you two alone? He’s nuts! He want’s control. He wants sex. He wants you!”
“He doesn’t need me, Kevin! He has a partner who’ll give him all the sex he wants!”
“God, you just don’t get it, do you? Don’t be so fuckin’ naive! You’re a challenge to him. Even on the plane, he was making passes. He doesn’t take rejection easily! Then, on top of that, you’re with ME! By taking you, he kills two birds with one stone. He humiliates, punishes and controls you AND me!”
“But he didn’t ‘take’ me!”
“Not this time!”
I didn’t know how to answer that. I couldn’t deny that Brad’s attack had made a difference on how Apollonia and I lived day to day - at least to a degree. Then he asked another question.
“Even if you didn’t want me to know about this, what about the other women in the camp? Didn’t you think they should be warned?”
“I didn’t think that they would be in any danger,” I shot back.
Kevin’s mouth formed a thin, unhappy smile. “Exactly....”
For the next minute, frustration fought silence.
“What are you going to do?” I was practically whimpering.
Kevin sighed, suddenly looking very tired. “I don’t know what I’m going to do but I do know this: Brad needs to be gone....”
**********************
~KSR~
The anger I felt was unlike any I had felt before - at least, any I could remember. I felt thirsty for retribution but vengeance on a crazy man brings little satisfaction. In the days that followed, I was short tempered with Glynn. I didn’t mean to be. Part of me understood why she hadn’t spoken about this but finding it out from someone else felt like some kind of betrayal. Maybe even some kind of failure. Not only had she been physically threatened but my manhood had taken a severe blow. Come to find out, I wasn’t the only one....
Nick was having a very hard time. He’s really not the sinister type so his own feelings of pure hatred confused him, I think. He was the first one to come out and say what I had been thinking.
“I wish he was dead.”
Frankly, so did I. We had no courts here - no justice system except a primitive, tribal one. Hell, I’m not even sure we had that. In the months since the plane crash, we hadn’t really had to deal with this kind of thing. We were all doing the best we could and making out fairly well under the circumstances. Now Brad had to go fuck everything up.
Nick wasn’t the only other person who seemed bent on primitive justice. Jamal had become very tense and angry. Vivian was also vocal about avenging her daughter. Others disliked Brad intensely - women and men. Many had been threatened and embarrassed by his cruel actions and remarks. When word got out about what had happened to Glynnis and Apollonia, a type of mob mentality seemed to creep into the camp and I found myself torn between trying to be a fair leader, reassuring and calming people, and a caveman, standing for his woman and his territory, letting everyone know that you don’t fuck with me or with what’s mine.
The caveman was winning.
Time did nothing to ease the tension. In fact, a weird paranoia had set into our settlement. Less time was spent repairing nets and seeing to daily needs while more time was spent sharpening sticks and rigging up barricades of thorns and brambles. Sam had become clingy and easily frightened. I knew that, if the problem wasn’t resolved, positive camp dynamics would dissolve and we would truly be thrown back to the stone age. That couldn’t happen. We had to remain a civilized society. I could only come up with one answer to the problem. In order for us to hang on to any hope and humanity, we had to be rid of the threat. Nick’s words looped through my brain - ”I wish he was dead.”
Code of Silence
~GCS~
It was very late when I awoke to find myself alone. This was the second time. Last night, a bad dream had startled me out of my sleep and I discovered that Kevin was not there.
I got up and made my way to the doorway, stepping over Sam and his red nylon bag. The camp was very quiet. Almost too quiet. As I stood on the rise, looking for movement, the sound of muted voices seeped from the trees. I heard several voices but I couldn’t make out what was being said. As they drew closer I heard someone go, “SHHHH...” and then they were quiet except for the sound of breaking twigs and rustling branches as they came closer. I stepped back into the shadows and waited.
After a few moments, the small group had circled the perimeter of the camp and seated themselves in a circle near the far end of the fire pit. Kevin was among them, as were Les, Jamal, Stuart, Malcolm and Brian. They were deep into an animated discussion as I crept closer, curious as to what was going on. The area around the fire pit was open so I couldn’t get too close but after some maneuvering, I was able to crouch behind a pile of firewood and hear pieces of the conversation.
“I don’t think we can get him without hurting him.”
“So? We’ll have to hurt him, then! The man is crazy! You saw what was going on!”
“Yeah. Linda has lost it. And now Brad is fucking Shirley.”
“That’s not all he’s doing. You saw the marks and burns....”
“
“He can’t do it. He’ll end up dead.”
“They’ll all end up dead.”
“Yeah, and then he’ll start coming after us.”
“He can’t get all of us.”
“We can’t let him get any of us.”
The group fell silent then. I couldn’t really see them too well, but I knew what was going on. Apparently, they had made a trip to Brad’s camp and what they saw merely confirmed their fears. This group had banded together to take some kind of action but seemed unsure of what to do.
“What if we do catch him? What do we do with him? We can’t exactly lock him up.”
Silence fell again before another voice responded.
“I think we know what needs to be done...”
“He’s a human being!”
“Is he?”
“What do you do with a rabid dog?”
“We’re not talking about some kind of contest or ego trip. We’re talking about survival!”
“It’s gonna be him or us.”
Finally, I heard Kevin speak and I risked peeking around the edge of the woodpile.
“Brad has to be stopped. He’s already
assaulted our own and we saw what was going on at his own camp.
“What do you suggest then?” It was Malcolm.
“I guess what I’m suggesting is that each man here has his own thoughts about this. Does the end justify the means? Maybe it does. I think we should agree to band together in support of each other and whatever may happen. In other words, we may have to take matters into our individual hands.”
“Are you giving us permission to kill?” Stuart asked bluntly.
“It’s not up to me to give or deny permission,” Kevin answered. “Believe me, I’m in no position to judge one way or the other.” Then he pointedly added, “No one is.”
Jamal nodded.. Kevin’s point had been taken. The group was agreeing to support each other’s judgement and to become a team in doing so. Any action taken by an individual or pair would be protected. It was like a secret brotherhood. Even Brian seemed to go along. I heard him murmur something about self-defense.
As I watched, Kevin dipped his fingers in the ash and brought them to his face. The others did the same, leaving behind dark lines on their skin. I think the lines represented an understanding between the men who had decided to bear the weight of protection and responsibility.
Then, in my peripheral vision, I detected movement and jerked my head towards the flickering shadows. Also watching the scene that had unfolded, was Nick. It was hard to read his expression in the moonlight. As I stared at him, his head turned towards me and he returned my gaze. Then he nodded slightly and bent down to the dirt, where he scratched the ground with his fingers and then brought them up to his cheek, marking his own skin as the men around the fire had done.
*******************
~KSR~
She was waiting for me when I returned to our hut.
“What are you doing, Kevin?”
“I went out for some air. Took a walk.”
That wasn’t a lie. It just wasn’t the whole truth. A wave of guilt swept over me as I remembered our last heated exchange. She hadn’t ‘lied’, either but her keeping things from me - things that affected both of us - had hurt. Now, I was doing the same thing and I wasn’t just doing it now, I had been doing it all along. It had started with Kirstin and now my omissions included Brad. My rationale for both of these ... these lies had been the same as hers. How could I be so damn sanctimonious?
“I know that.”
Her response caught me off guard. “You know what?” I blurted.
“I know you took a walk. To Brad’s camp. With the others.”
This was not a situation where ‘omission’ was a factor and I couldn’t out and out lie. I stalled. I was a little pissed. I felt like she was accusing me of something and I hadn’t done anything wrong.
“Why do you think that?”
“I don’t ‘think’ it, Kevin. I know it. I know you and the others....”
“What others?”
Glynnis let out an exasperated breath. “You, Jamal, Brian, Les, Stuart and Malcolm.”
“What else do you know?” I felt my face fall into a scowl an my own tone became accusatory.
“I heard you all talking...”
Her admission angered me. “What are you doing? Spying on me?”
“I was worried. I woke up and you were gone. This wasn’t the first time.”
We were trying to keep our voices low so we wouldn’t wake Sam but he was beginning to stir as our words became more emotional. I tried to simmer down. “What did you hear?”
“I heard you all deciding what to do about Brad.”
“I don’t recall us ‘deciding’ anything,” I countered.
“Not in so many words,” she spat, “but the implications were clear.”
“What implications?”
Of course I knew what she was talking about - or I thought I did.
“That you all are going to get together and...and... ‘take care’ of Brad.!”
“You’re wrong, Glynn. We’re not going to get together to do anything.”
I thought I had eased past her accusation but I didn’t give her enough credit. Already, she knew me too well.
“You might not actually do anything ‘together’ but you all have formed an alliance! I think this is a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ agreement and...”
“Glynnis! This doesn’t concern you. We have a problem. We have to take care of it and...”
“Take care of it?” she interrupted
I continued. “ And....we will. There is no secret agreement or ‘club’.”
“Really?” she said sarcastically. “Then what are those marks on your face?”
I didn’t even try to answer. I didn't want her involved in this. I just turned and went to our bed and laid down with my back towards her, hoping to end the stand off. But she dropped a final bomb - one that pierced my gut.
“If there’s no pact, then I think you’d better let Nick know. He was there. He heard you, too. And he marked his face right along with the rest of you.”
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