Twins of prey 1 3 the co.., p.39
Twins of Prey 1-3: The Complete Trilogy, page 39
Uncle had always picked up the smaller, civilian glow stick lights on his trips into town, and the boys knew he must have gotten them from The Hawk’s Nest, because it was an item they often stocked overnight while working in the store.
Drake fondly thought about that first Halloween they spent in Pine Run and how the kids all adorned the lights as necklaces and various parts of their silly garb. Tomek and he acted like they found the entire thing pointless, but both secretly liked the idea of dressing up to hide their identity in plain sight. Plus, there was candy, which was the rarest of all rare treats in their woodland life with Uncle.
Now, he stood basking in the glow of a chem light in a shack, alone on an island in the middle of Lake Michigan, and found himself feeling nostalgic and alone. He was thankful for the chem light. It brought a sense of comfort to his situation, but his circumstances could not be any different now than the last time he relied on them for light.
The light also provided Drake with a boost of motivation to go through the contents of the drawers again, on the chance that he may have missed something useful while previously doing so in the dark. Sadly at first, the remnants of a once-useful toolshed provided him with nothing more than some duct tape and screwdrivers he placed in his pack for no other reason than possibly using them as stabbing weapons.
The leftover kitchen utensils included plates, bowls, and a few random assortments of forks and spoons.
Not even a butter knife? Drake thought to himself.
His despair faded upon opening the second drawer from the bottom, again looking over the multiple, old hand tools, when he saw the mill bastard file. The file opened a whole new world of opportunity to him. Not only could he sharpen the screwdrivers’ flat heads into useful, puncture-sharp weapons, he now had everything he needed to improvise a broadhead.
With a few knives and at least one good arrow, Drake was confident he could reach the cabin, where he knew the rest of his supplies would be.
At least, they were there yesterday, he thought to himself, remembering that the helicopter had headed that way after the death of Sven.
Opening the utensil drawer, Drake selected what appeared to be an ordinary spoon. Being that the contents of the drawer were wet from a leaking roof and there was not a speck of oxidization on the spoon, Drake knew it was made of stainless steel. While he had never made broadheads from stainless steel spoons before, he had made them from just about every other material, including rocks and the leg bones of deer. This process, he figured, would be no different.
Without a heat source present, Drake struggled to flatten out the concave bowl of the spoon head. He was thankful that a hammer was included in the leftover tool kit but knew he could have done the same with the right size rock and a little more time. As happy as he was to have the hammer, he was glad upon being done with it. He knew the sound of the impact on the metal would let anyone in the general area know he was inside the shed. Drake only hoped that the sound of the waves lapping around the shores below and the interior walls of the shelter were enough to hide the sound. But with each strike, his ears throbbed with pain a little more as the sounds reverberated inside the small, enclosed area.
Using the file, Drake started at the back edge of the blade and slowly stroked forward. Knowing Uncle always preferred his edge blades at a precise, twenty-two-and-a-half degree angle, Drake tried his best to make each stroke replicate the next. Feeling the burr starting to form, Drake spun the spoon around and repeated the process for the opposite edge. Within a few minutes, Drake had a respectable edge on both sides of the spoon head. He knew that it was not up Uncle’s standards, but he was proud of his ingenuity either way.
Dragging his thumb across the edge he knew it was sharp enough to kill just about anything. Drake reached down to remove the arrow shaft from his quiver and quickly remembered that the quiver itself was crafted from old, worn leather. Uncle would often claim that old leather just happened to be “the perfect material for stropping a blade in any situation.” Drake did not fully agree with Uncle on this, as he liked the simplicity of using his denim pants to strop a knife on his thigh. The cotton, military surplus, cargo pants he currently wore would not do the trick, so Drake reverted to Uncle’s time-tested technique.
Laying the quiver down and pressing it flat against the maple workbench, Drake spat on the flat leather and rubbed in the moisture to liven the hide up just a bit. Stropping the blades back and forth across the worn leather of the old quiver, he caught himself counting down the strokes out loud, just as Uncle did with each pass. Building a rhythm with the sound of the blade edge’s stropping across the leather, it was almost musical in syncopation and chant.
1, 2, 3, on this side.
1, 2, 3 on that side.
1, 2, on this side.
1, 2, on that side.
1, on this side.
1, on that side.
“If you’re never sure about your life, always be sure you have a sharp knife.”
Drake ended the songful, stropping sequence the same as he always remembered Uncle doing so.
Lifting the flattened, and now deadly sharp, spoon head up against the green glow of his chem light, Drake marveled at what he had done. Holding the head in one hand and the spoon handle in the other, Drake worked them up and down vigorously and felt the metal grow hot at the fulcrum of the bend he was creating. Keeping at this for a few more seconds weakened the spoon enough to make it snap, and it left him with a detached, two-blade, Howard Hill-looking broadhead.
Uncle would be proud, he thought to himself.
Drake then turned his focus to the arrow shaft and was relieved to find that it had snapped relatively clean at the end. This gave him enough length to attach the new head to. Drake splintered the end of the arrow’s wood with a single slit of his knife and wedged the spoon head into its new home. He was surprised at how well the wood held on to the head, but he knew that it would take more than this to keep it in place.
Drake laughed as his eyes focused on the roll of duct tape.
Really? he said in his head.
However, given the circumstances, the roll of silver-gold was just the thing he needed. Pulling a full-width stripe from the roll and then slicing it down into a thin strand, Drake wrapped the arrow shaft around the area where it met the razor spoon head. Drake’s technique mirrored the exact thing he would do with natural sinew. The only thing he was missing was a dab of pine tar as glue, but he figured the adhesive of the duct tape would provide plenty of holding power.
Drake nocked the arrow and pulled it back to test the length and feel.
Perfect, he thought.
With his task complete for the night, Drake peered between the rocks of the wall to see the moon close to crossing the sky. He knew that the sun would be rising within a few hours and figured he should probably attempt to get at least some sleep. Lying on the ground, the glow of the light was more than his eyelids could filter out. Drake hated to waste the chem light’s effectiveness, but he slid it down into the quiver to drown out its cast.
Drake quickly drifted into sleep but remained awake enough to know that tomorrow the only thing that mattered was finding Tomek. Dead or alive, they must be together.
19 Cuts
The metallic, iron taste of blood jolted Tomek as he woke up. Pain radiated throughout his head, and his sight was obstructed from a massive amount of swelling. Tomek knew that he must have taken one hell of a beating and was at least thankful that it happened while he was unconscious.
His hands again were bound behind his back with a zip tie-type of handcuff as he looked at the fire pit. A thick rope had been wrapped around his chest, securing him to a wooden chair. The rope was very tight and did an excellent job of preventing him from fully expanding his lungs for a deep breath. Short, pulsating puffs of air were all Tomek could muster in order to keep his body oxygenated.
Greggor’s body had been removed, and he found it odd that a man would cook his meal over a bed of coals that had contained human remains; but that is just what Garran was in the process of doing. Tomek didn’t want to admit it to himself, but he did think the hotdog roasting in front of him smelled absolutely enchanting.
“Good evening, sunshine,” Garran said as he slid the dog off of the skewer and into a bun.
Tomek didn’t answer him.
“Wanna bite?” Garran asked as he bit into the meat, laughing.
“No, thanks. Already had a barbecue earlier tonight with your buddy. You know, the one who was well done?” Tomek said, referencing the missing, charred body of Greggor.
Tomek regretted his response the minute Garran’s knife slammed down into the top of his foot, pinning it to the ground beneath him. Tomek kicked and squirmed at the protruding handle, dislodging the blade while rolling around in pain.
Garran sighed. “I don’t know who the hell you are, or how the hell you got yourself on my island, but I can assure you this, you will soon be talking to me with respect.”
Tomek decided to break his silence in an attempt to show his newest captor that he knew some information about him. It was a bluff, but he had heard Archer say the name.
“Fuck you, Tony.”
Garran enjoyed another mouthful of his frank and smirked. “Nice try. Tony is my boy, and that pussy is in the cabin right now, thinking about why he couldn’t take the shot. He had the perfect opportunity to kill that Archer fuck, but no. Tony—my own, goddamned son—didn’t have the balls, the intestinal fortitude, to pull the goddamned trigger. So, no, you little, black spook fuck, I am not Tony. The name is Garran, in case you actually give a shit.”
“Nice to meet ya,” Tomek said, spitting out blood and a piece of broken tooth onto the ground.
“It is nice to see that after I beat the hell out of you and stab your foot that you still have a sense of humor.”
“I am going to kill you, just like I killed that axe-toting, ass-fuck friend of yours,” Tomek said, taking credit for Archer’s removal of Greggor. He knew that Garran wouldn’t know or need to know the truth.
“Now you are straight up telling jokes,” Garran replied. “I love it.”
Tomek felt himself becoming dizzy and drifted in and out consciousness. The next time he awoke, he was now sitting in what he thought was some kind of metal chair. His hands were still bound but now laid in his lap. A belt was strung across his thighs and around the bottom of the seat. That, combined with the rope used to originally secure him to the tree now being around his chest, meant he was again fully imprisoned.
“Welcome back,” Garran said, “I have some questions for you.”
Tomek doubted that he had any of the answers that Garran would be looking for and knew that he would most likely refuse to give him any information. After all, what could he do to Tomek that could be worse than what Greggor had already done with his branding of his face?
“First things first, how did you get on my fucking island?”
“I swam,” Tomek said as he shrugged his shoulders.
Garran’s fist slammed into Tomek’s chest, impacting his ribs.
“To be honest, your face is a little fucked up. Time to hurt the rest of your body,” Garran said, explaining his new line of punishment for Tomek. “Let’s try this one: Where is Ricardo?”
“If he was up your ass, you would know where he was.”
Tomek’s defiant answer earned him another blow to his opposite ribcage, and he tumbled to the side, unable to breathe. Rolling around in the chair, Tomek gasped at air and eventually was able to quench his lungs’ desire for life.
“I don’t know who you are, or who Ricardo or Tony is either. I haven’t seen anybody on this island until you arrived in your fucking chopper.”
Tomek saw no reason to shed light on the existence of Drake, being that he had no clue if he was alive or not and the only other person he somewhat trusted on the island, Archer, was dead.
Garran lowered his brow, looking at him with a mouthful of hotdog. “So, you’re just out here all alone and mysteriously swam up to my island, huh?”
“I am a good swimmer,” Tomek replied.
Garran again smirked and seemed to enjoy the little bit of humor that Tomek had left in him. “Well, then, you must be awful lonely.”
“There is a difference between being lonely and being alone,” said Tomek.
“Clever. Who taught you that? Your daddy?”
“No, my Uncle.”
Garran stood up to stoke the fire, adding another log to it. “So, this uncle of yours, did he bring you here to poach my animals?”
“No,” Tomek replied, looking down. “He is dead. He is a ghost.”
Upon hearing the word ‘ghost,’ Garran froze in his tracks, and even Tomek could see through his swollen eye that the comment had resonated with the man.
Tom H. had become the man that the island’s murderous hunters now referred to as “The ghost.” The name had been unfamiliar to Tony, but the twins knew Tom H. all too well. Tom H. was not known to Drake and Tomek as “The ghost” but as “Uncle.”
“So, you know of The ghost?” Garran asked, breaking his silence.
“I know a lot of things,” Tomek replied.
Garran sat back down in his camp chair, across the fire from Tomek, and searched his mind deeply in regards to exactly who Tomek could possibly be and if he really did know the island’s ghost. Garran pulled a knife from a scabbard on his belt; Tomek recognized it as the same one he had taken off of Greggor after he met his demise in the fire.
Garran placed the needle-like tip of the blade on the top of Tomek’s sternum, pressing it against the indent at the top of brachial tube. The knife’s pressure alone, without cutting, caused pain, and it intensified as Garran sadistically began thinly slicing upwards, cutting across Tomek’s throat, and stopping at the chin. He then wiped the blade clean of blood on Tomek’s shoulder.
“I know that you have some knowledge about the things I am asking. And I know you think you have knowledge that might keep you alive. Well, I would have to remind you that the greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance. No, not at all. The greatest enemy of knowledge is the illusion of knowledge.”
Tomek began to shake nervously as the blade was slicing. The thought of choking on his own blood had caused him to momentarily lose his composure. He found it a great relief when Garran stopped at his chin and that the cut was purely superficial. Garran could have easily slashed his throat, but for some reason, he did not.
“So, I’ll ask you one more time. Where is Ricardo?”
Tomek looked him defiantly in the eyes and replied, “Just kill me.”
“You see, life is strange, and as you watched earlier with our dear departed dipshit Archer, I have no problem with ending a life. Just to be clear, I don’t want to die. My son does not want to die, and my friends don’t want to die. It is just a damn shame that you are in such a hurry to.”
“Were you not listening?” Tomek asked. “I said just fucking kill me.”
Tomek was almost pleading at this point, pushing Garran to see how far he could get the man to go.
“I don’t know much about you, but I bet if you had a crystal ball and could see the future, you didn’t see yourself dying like this, like a little bitch asking to be put down,” Garran replied as he pulled his side arm out, racking a shell from the magazine into the chamber.
Tomek looked at him with disgust, ready to die, and said, “Everyone wants to know their future, until they do.”
Garran pulled the hammer back and placed the gun against Tomek’s forehead. Impressed, he said, “I’ll have to admit it, son, those are some epic last words.”
The tiny sound of the hammer hitting the brass percussion cap of the primer reverberated like a slow-motion carnival in Tomek’s ears. He had not expected to hear the percussion blast of the pistol as the round exited the barrel as clearly as he did from such a close range. His eyes were clenched tighter than they ever had been, and he felt that at least now he could be with Uncle.
Tomek was glad that at the moment of the gun’s discharge he felt zero pain. There was no bright light; there were no pearly gates, no flames, no eternal damnation, no demons, or even angels. Tomek opened his eyes, and the only light he saw was that of the same, cracking campfire.
Is this heaven? he wondered.
If it was, in this version of heaven, there was only one angel, and that angel was named Tony. Tomek looked across the fire to see a boy his own age standing there, shaking in pure shock. Tony had just killed Garran, his own father, who now lay motionless at Tomek’s feet.
20 Rattle
The sound of the distant gunshots earlier in the night, coming from the cabin side of the island, had been muffled by the wind and waves of the island. However, the pistol shot that took Garran’s life at daybreak echoed across the island like a symphony of death carried upon the wind.
Drake awoke. Stretching his legs, he was surprised at how refreshed he actually felt. Being that a helicopter and now a gunshot served as his morning alarm clocks the last two days, the fact that he had two nights in a row with decent sleep was appreciated.
“Time to find Tomek,” he thought to himself as he unlatched the shed’s metal door and stepped out of the bunker. The sun illuminated the east side of the cliffs as it broke from the horizon. Watching the sun erupt over the crest of the bowl from the cabin area below was definitely impressive, but as Drake watched the sun rise first over the lake edge and then the island edge, he knew that the previous sunrises he had encountered failed in comparison to this one.
Drake thought back to the map of the island they had found in the book of names. Checking his backpack, he was disappointed that it was missing. He knew that if Tomek was not dead in the now bridgeless gorge that he would be on the opposite side. Drake figured Tomek would have looked for him and then headed back to camp to avenge his death. Peering over the edge of the inlet, Drake was not only relieved but also motivated by the lack of a body in the rocks below the fallen bridge. With a clear-sky morning and zero fog, Drake searched the bottom with his eyes from the ledge, confirming that just like him, somehow, Tomek had not fallen to his death. The only question now was if Tomek wasn’t dead, where was he?
