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Island Recess, Chapter 9.
The brightly colored casings of the public phones shone like wet candies under
the increasing cascade of rain. As she waited for a connection to her mother’s
home in Seattle, Helena cursed the slick strands of hair dripping over her
forehead and into her eyes. She checked her waterproof wristwatch. For the past
two weeks, the weather had been growing steadily more unstable with cloudy
skies, sudden thunderstorms, and increasingly plentiful rain and wind Since the
beginning of last week, both locals and tourists alike had been glued to the
local radio and television stations, and last night, their worst fears were
realized as an approaching tropical storm swung in the direction of the Virgin
Islands. Strengthening rapidly, the storm had just this morning been upgraded to
a hurricane and was predicted to make landfall by late afternoon. Barely ten in
the morning, and the winds were already sending sheets of rain slapping
violently against the island. Her thin wind-breaker was soaked through and
Helena shivered with cold and nerves. According to the emergency broadcasts,
schools and businesses were closed for the day, and Helena fervently hoped that
the parents of her students were already up and fortifying their homes against
the fury of the coming storm. The waters of the bay were becoming choppy, and
she watched with growing alarm, the violent heaving of the ocean farther out.
Sailboats usually moored on the periphery of the pier had been re-located to
more protected harbors, and the unoccupied warm waters of the tiny bay seemed
suddenly to be ominously vast. Even the ferry service which ran daily between
St. Thomas and St. John had been suspended pending the storm’s arrival. She
drummed her fingers impatiently as she listened to the telephone ringing
thousands of miles away. Then, barely audible over the driving of the rain,
Helena discerned the reassuring rhythms of her mother’s speech.
“Mom?” she began in a tremulous quaver, struggling to keep the rising lump in
her throat from transferring to her voice. She longed to regress to her twelve
year old self, to sob out her worst fears and to be lulled into the sense of
security that only her mother could provide. Helena swallowed her tears bravely.
Sixteen years past twelve, she reminded herself, and committed to keeping her
mother from worrying more about her than she already did. Bound by her desire to
reassure rather than alarm, Helena quickly outlined the weather situation,
informed her of the tropical storm that had recently strengthened to hurricane
force, and warned her mother that for the next few days, contact by computer and
telephone might be impossible. Despite Helena’s precautions, the elder Ms.
Travis was obviously distressed, and it was evident that she, too, was fighting
to keep her emotions from spilling over into tears. They bade each other an
emotional good-bye, and it was as Helena was about to replace the receiver that
she heard the tinny echo of continued speech over the line. Quickly, she
returned the receiver to her ear.
“Helena…?”
“Yes, mom, I’m still here.”
“Just one quick thing, dear. Not to alarm you, but there was a message from Karl
the other day on the answering machine. He said to tell you that he’d be seeing
you soon.”
Helena felt her skin prickle and tasted the cold metallic thrill of fear on her
tongue. She swallowed hard.
“I wonder,” she paused, scarcely daring to voice her thoughts. “I wonder if he
means he’ll be seeing me in Seattle, or he’ll be seeing me, here.”
A sudden gust of wind swept the rain into the shelter of the phone booth,
driving the droplets against her skin in a furious blast. Slapped by the
relentless whip of the wind and the angry surge of the waves, the tiny island
paradise was quickly becoming a potential setting for a nightmarish journey into
the past. As she again said her farewells, Helena struggled to soothe her mother
with a falsely casual air.
Heart pounding, Helena replaced the receiver and stood for a moment,
considering. Her sanctuary stood to be invaded, and she was seemingly powerless
in the face of her pursuer. With nothing but an e-mail account she could no
longer access, and a few scenes she alone had witnessed, she had no way of
proving to anyone else the danger that Karl posed. After all, who would believe
quiet, scholarly Helena Travis could have forged such an unspeakable alliance
without assuming she was aware of, or even complicit in, Karl’s criminal
behavior? Even if she was believed, who would keep him from her when her pitiful
attempts to escape had not proved sufficient deterrent? She had traveled from
urban Seattle, cross-country to a small island community where, despite the open
ocean that surrounded her, she now felt hopelessly trapped. With his affable
charm, obvious criminal connections, and copious financial resources, there was
no one Karl could not manipulate or intimidate into doing as he pleased. Feeling
suddenly faint, Helena saw her home, her job, a fledgling romance, and her
friendships vanish as if they had never been, swallowed up by the vacuum of
Karl’s greed. Taking a deep breath, Helena dug in her pocket for her phone card,
picked up the phone, and made the call that connected her to directory
assistance in Washington.
“Give me the number of any private investigator in the Seattle area, please. I
don’t personally know any, so anyone will do.” said Helena, in response to the
droning request for city and business name.
“There are dozens, Miss. What is the name of the business for which you require
a number?”
“Just pick one, please,” Helena hissed, drumming her fingers impatiently and
covering her free ear against the driving wind.
“Okay,” sighed the operator. “Here’s one: Franklin Skye, Skye Investigations. Is
that what you’re looking for?”
Helena scribbled the phone number on a dampening scrap of paper, hung up and
re-dialed.
Franklin Skye himself answered, leaving Helena to wonder if he was the sum total
of Sky Investigations. At this point, she didn’t care, as long as he had the
ability to provide her with the protection she so desperately needed. With time
ticking out on more than her rapidly depleting phone card, she was forced to
make her request as succinctly and expediently as humanly possible.
“I need to know everything I can about a man, a man named Karl Pennington,” she
began. “And whatever you find out, I need proof: documents, pictures, numbers,
names, whatever. This will be the only insurance I have, and I’m going to need
it as fast as you can get it.”
“It’s gonna cost you,” Mr. Skye predictably replied.
“If it takes my last dime,” retorted Helena, already fishing about in her
shoulder bag for the credit card with the lowest balance.
For the next ten minutes, Helena told Skye Investigations everything she knew
about Karl. All the while she wondered what information was actually real and
was simply another lie Karl had fed her under the guise of the truth. Maybe all
she really knew was a name, a phone number, and an address. But to whom did they
really belong? Suddenly, Helena was very grateful for Skye Investigations. No
matter what happened, at least she wouldn’t be the only one who knew the truth
first-hand.
Her phone call concluded, Helena held onto the receiver for a moment, as if
afraid that hanging up on Mr. Skye would leave her defenseless in the face of
the coming storm. Replacing it gently, she turned, pulled her jacket tightly
around her and bowed her head to the wind’s assault.
Her walk back to the apartment building was an increasingly physical battle
against the growing strength of the storm. Trees snapped back and forth as if on
springs, their foliage ripped from branches and shredded like confetti in the
churning air currents. With the stinging slap of storm-swept road debris slowing
Helena’s progress, she held her hands protectively before her face, and walked
at an angle to the relentless fury of the wind.
Struggling to remain upright as the wind picked up speed, it was all Helena
could do to keep an eye on the path ahead and dodge the most treacherous
obstacles as they flew by. Panting raggedly with the effort of her exertion, she
reached the front steps of her apartment building in time to see her elderly
landlord being hustled roughly into a pick-up truck so obscured by the slanting
rain that identification would be impossible.
“Ben!” she called out in panic. Her voice was caught by the wind and seemed to
vanish before the word was out of her throat. She broke into a run toward the
truck, fighting to stay on her feet in the driving rain. As she neared the
truck’s open door, first a bronzed forearm, and then a familiar shock of blonde
hair appeared, and she ran into a pair of open arms.
“Helena.” She read her name on his lips as the rain slicked across his face.
Then, Neil was grabbing her roughly, pushing her up and into the vehicle, and
slamming the door behind her. Ben was seated next to her, staring dismally at
the tumble-down apartment complex. Cautiously, Helena put an arm around his
waist and then leaned her head on the older man’s shoulder. “Oh Helena,” he said
with a sigh, and then lapsed into silence. He patted her arm absent-mindedly as
he continued to gaze through the rain pounding the windows. The wind whipped the
torrent into blinding sheets, and Helena looked about frantically for Neil. He
seemed to have been swallowed up by the storm. A sudden bang jolted both her and
Ben from their thoughts.
“Let them go!” she heard Neil scream, and then both front doors opened and in
clamored Neil and one of Ben’s nephews. Both of them held saws, hammers, and
boxes of nails. Neil turned in his seat. His face was wet and streaked with
dirt, his hair plastered against his skull.
“We were trying to board up the windows,” he said by way of explanation. “But
the wind’s coming too strong. We lost half our planks, and we’ll lose more than
that if we don’t get out of here now.”
The truck roared to life, and Neil gunned the motor as he pulled away from the
curb. Rainwater pooling on the streets seemed to swallow up their tires as they
slipped and skidded on the near-empty road-way. Helena slipped her hand into
Ben’s.
“Everything will be okay,” she murmured quietly to her silent companion.
Shredded leaves and debris careened over the flooded roadway and whistled past
their vehicle or smacked against the windshield. The volume of the storm’s cry
was increasing, and Neil had to yell to be heard. “We’re almost there.”
The wipers were powerless to clear the sheeting rain from the windshield, and
the winds had whipped the falling rain into an impenetrable wall. Helena would
never know how he got them there. Half-dragged, half-pushed by strong arms,
Helena found herself stumbling into a building. The windows of the old public
school had been hastily boarded over, but the concrete block and
steel-reinforcement construction looked reassuringly solid. Shuddering, Helena
felt a warm arm about her shoulder, and then another about her waist. Neil’s
mouth moved against her ear, murmuring reassurances as he rocked her gently
against his body. Looking about her, Helena saw that Ben had joined his sister
and her family, and had been locked into a group embrace. This was a time for
family, she thought, and suddenly felt intensely grateful for Neil’s presence.
At least she wasn’t alone. Strangely suspended from the normal passage of time,
she watched the growing power of the storm through the chinks of the window. It
seemed that only minutes passed, cradled in the silence of her companion’s arms,
before the full fury of the storm struck the tiny island. Pulled away from the
windows toward the centre of the shelter, Helena stood surrounded by the close
press of friends and strangers. Across the polished cement floor, a pool of
rainwater was forming, sloshing around their ankles in chilly rivulets. The
wood-plank door, sparsely reinforced before their arrival, groaned under the
wind’s onslaught. Helena trembled as she watched the shuddering of the fragile
barricade. Then, her companion’s warmth left her side, and she watched him,
dream-like, striding through the pooling rainwater, pulling the hammer from the
belt at his waist. Re-aligning loose planks, he banged nails back into place,
seemingly heedless of the wind spitting rainwater through the chinks in the
boards. Having quelled the sickening heaving of the door, Neil knelt by the
door, feeling around in the cold swill of water for materials with which to
reinforce the barrier. Scooping a shattered piece of plywood from the water, he
began nailing the warped fragment over the criss-crossing network of boards.
Another man left the group standing stunned into immobility and sloshed across
the floor to join Neil. He was followed by another. Helena started as she felt
the fingers of a stranger intertwine with hers, but squeezed them gratefully as
she was led up a flight of stairs to the upper-story of the school. Linked by
their hands, the group huddled in silence, eyes turned fearfully toward the
naked gaps in the metal-grille of the tiny air vents.
A frightening spectacle was unfolding. In the distance, small trees snapped off
at the base and flew through the air like umbrellas. The tin roof of a sandwich
stand began to flutter as if levitated by a magician and flew off, skipping
wildly with the rest of the debris that traveled the wind-tossed road. A broken
power line fluttered in the wind like a kite string and shot streams of sparks
as if touched. Nearby, a transformer on a pole exploded with a deafening pop.
Someone began to cry, softly, their voice soon matched by the keening of
another. Helena’s eyes filled with tears, the fear of the moment matched by her
dawning understanding of what might lie ahead for the island’s residents. Across
the room, cradled against the shoulder of his sister, Ben’s head hung low, his
thin frame wracked with quiet sobs. Feeling Neil’s absence, Helena unlocked her
neighbor’s hand with a quick squeeze and crept to the stairway to watch him at
work. Huddled on the landing, Helena’s eyes swept over the flooded floor, the
piled-up sandbags, and the boarded up windows, and came to rest on Neil’s tired
face. Sensing her gaze upon him, he looked up and his expression softened.
Moments later, he was again by her side, his arms tight around her waist. Bound
together, they watched, and waited.
An unearthly moan filled the skies as the wind gathered strength and struck the
shelter with its full force. The voices of those within fell away until the only
sound was the voice of the storm outside. As the solid roof began to breathe
with each gust of wind, others around her began to pray. Just as it began to
seem that the roof would fly off, the winds seemed to tire. Those in the shelter
waited, holding hands and breath, until it seemed that the worst had passed.
Then, one by one, people began to rise, shaking themselves and embracing their
neighbors as they stood. Silently, they made their way in single file down the
stairs to the main level of the building.
Across the cement floor, the wash of water increased, sweeping the rooms with a
tide of oily debris. Outside the shelter, the wind’s howling was falling away to
a persistent moan. Someone passed Helena a flimsy white bucket, and looking
around her, she saw that several of the men had begun the arduous task of
bailing water from the rapidly filling shelter. Helena joined in, scooping up
pails full of water and tossing them through the now partly-opened doorway.
Around the base of the walls and door, sandbags were being tightly wedged,
stacked neatly together. Together, the group of some twenty-odd began to reclaim
the shelter from the clutch of the storm. They worked together in unceasing
rhythm, bailing and sandbagging, arms aching and limbs chilled from the wind and
wet, but their spirits strong and their force united.
It was dark and still raining when someone pushed a tin cup into Helena’s hand.
She sipped the grainy coffee gratefully, reveling in the sweet warmth. Glancing
around her she noted with surprise that the pooling water had diminished to a
mere trickle. Across the room, an elderly woman was busy sweeping the watery
debris over the uneven floor, and depositing the silt in the farthest corner.
The pace of their labor had slowed with their exhaustion, and now, here and
there, were others who had paused in their efforts to enjoy the rest and the hot
cup of coffee. Sniffing the air, Helena caught the scent of home-cooked stew.
She glanced around her, the details of the room suddenly coming into focus after
hours of concentrated labor. In their collective need to match the fury of the
hurricane with their own defense, Helena and many others had lost track of both
time and space. In a corner, on a cleared table surface, two of the women had a
portable propane stove lit and were warming the contents of a battered aluminum
pot. Called upstairs for a hot meal, Helena felt tears springing to her eyes.
Together with the others, she found a place to sit and accepted a steaming bowl
of stew. Scooping the soft vegetables and ragged bits of meat into her mouth,
she could have cried out her gratitude. Breaking off bits of the crusty bun she
had been handed, she sopped up the last of the stew and reluctantly rose to her
feet. Spying the clock affixed to the classroom wall, she realized with a start
that it was nearly midnight.
“Stay, stay,” urged a stout matron, placing a hand on Helena’s shoulder. A
cotton blanket was pressed into her hands, and Helena looked about her to see
others making preparations to sleep. The woman leaned toward Helena, her
wrinkled face reassuringly calm.
“It’ll be all right Helena-ah,” she said with the familiar sing-song cadence of
the islands. “It was not as bad as some had been thinking. Tomorrow we clean up.
Tonight, well, we must get the sleep we can.”
Helena smiled gratefully. She looked about without catching sight of Neil.
Swallowing her doubts, she felt a familiar tingle creep up her spine.
“Yes, soon, I will. Thank you, Mavis. Just not quite yet. First, I’ve got to
find my friend.” Helena patted the woman’s arm and slipped past her, making her
way quietly down the staircase. She found Neil alone, perched on a sandbag,
sweat and rain-soaked hair falling into his eyes. He leaned tiredly against the
wall, an untouched bowl of stew supported on his thigh by one scratched and
bruised-looking hand.
“Hi,” she said softly, coming to stand in front of him. He looked up and smiled,
his face creasing under its coat of sweat and grime.
“Hey you,” he reached out a hand and took hers, pulling him toward her. “I was
just about to come looking for you.”
Neil made a sweeping gesture toward the piled up sandbags.
“I’m going to spend the night down here, just to keep an eye on things,” he
said, darting a questioning look in Helena’s direction.
“You need to eat something before you do anything else,” she said softly,
cupping the bowl in her hands and lifting it toward his mouth. Reaching for the
spoon, he obligingly began to eat, relief apparent on his face as he partook of
the comforting food. Helena watched until the bowl was empty, and some color had
returned to his pale cheeks, before reaching for his free hand.
Rising, he set the bowl down on the damp floor, and led Helena by the hand to a
higher spot on the uneven concrete. Here, the floor was relatively dry,
betraying its recent soaking only by patches of darker staining. Neil released
Helena’s hand for a moment, tiptoed cautiously upstairs and then returned again
quickly, two gray blankets in his hand. He spread one out neatly across the damp
floor, and sitting down, placed the other in his lap.
“Put your head down for a bit, Helena,” he whispered, patting the folded
blanket. She did as he asked, curling up into the fetal position and snuggling
her damp curls into his jeans-clad lap. Slowly his hand moved against her back,
rubbing a slow pattern on her skin through her rain-soaked t-shirt.
Helena leaned against him, the chill dampness of the floor unnoticed for the
moment. The voices of those upstairs were becoming muted, fading into a quiet
jumble of words as the people fell into heavy, exhausted slumber. Flickering
candles were extinguished one by one, points of light swallowed up by darkness.
Outside, the rain continued its steady tattoo, dimpling the surface of the water
pooled in the streets. Softly, Neil’s hand stroked her hair, twining its fingers
in the tangled strands, and pulling them away from her damp cheeks. Helena
sighed, turning her face to meet his, just as he bent to press his mouth against
hers. Gently, his tongue probed her mouth. She slid over to make room for him on
their make-shift bed, just as he shifted his body to lie against hers. The last
light twinkled out and the room plunged into darkness. Helena felt Neil’s warm
breath against her ear as he whispered to her.
“We’ll have to be quiet or we’ll wake the parents,” he teased softly.
She laughed quietly, the fear and tension of the day fading with their small
shared joke. Her giggle turned to a moan of pleasure as his hand worked against
the hem of her t-shirt, moving leisurely under the fabric and over the soft
curves of her belly. Shifting her hips to ease his movement, she felt the warmth
of his hand cup her breast through her flimsy bra. His breath against her ear
quickened as he stroked her, and tightened the fit of his leg against hers. They
writhed entwined, each plundering the other’s clothing as their hands sought the
touch of bare flesh. Struggling to a seated position, Helena pulled her t-shirt
over her head, and hastily unclipped her bra. She tossed the garments to her
side and reached for the second blanket, snapping it open and draping it lightly
over them.
“Just a cautionary measure, you know,” she whispered, “in case of sudden
parental appearances.” Neil laughed, smothering the sound in a stagy cough.
“Now - where were we,” he murmured into her ear, his tongue beginning to trace a
slow line down her neck.
“I think here…”
Her words trailed off as she placed his hand against her breast, and felt his
work-worn fingertips tease her nipples into hardness. His lips quickly replaced
his hands, his tongue flicking heat over her damp breasts. Against her moistened
skin, the cool wafts of night air played in sensuous duet with the ministrations
of her lover. Eyes open in the indigo blue of the evening sky, Helena caught the
flash of Neil’s irises as he gazed openly at her. She arched her back with
pleasure as he gripped her about the waist, moving up her body to caress the
curve of her neck and shoulder with his mouth. Shuddering, she felt the light
tough of Neil’s hand against her belly, and moaned as he struggled to release
the fastening of her shorts. Impatiently, she jerked at the zipper, pulling the
garment down past her hips. Then, his hand was inside her cotton panties,
stroking her to a level of arousal that had her snatching greedily at the
hardness straining taut against his jeans. With a sharp intake of breath, he
fumbled with his fly, tearing open the buttons and shucking off his jeans in a
fury of impatience. Helena pulled at his loose-fitting t-shirt, drawing it over
his head and then reaching for him, relishing the smooth fit of his body as it
tumbled against hers. His hand returned to her panties, pushing them aside as he
explored her wetness with eager fingers. Panting, teetering crazily on the edge
of her pleasure, Helena reached for the length of his cock, gripping the silky
heat with trembling hands. She guided him toward her slick opening, thrusting
her hips sharply upward as he slid inside. He rocked against her as she held him
tight, grabbing his buttocks as he plunged into the depths of her. Covering her
mouth with his, he matched the surging rhythm of his body with the darting of
his tongue. Then, he pushed himself up on his knees, grasping her by the hips to
hold their connection as he pulled her higher, onto his lap. Slowly, Neil
continued the gyrations of his body as his fingers sought out her hard clit.
Gently, he rotated his thumb over her eager nub as he continued thrusting into
her. Running her hands across his tightly muscled chest, she began to stroke and
pull at his nipples, and tightened the walls of her canal around his hardness,
squeezing him as hard as she could. A hot wave surged suddenly through her as
her body tightened and climax became inevitable. Helena bit her lip hard,
stifling the scream rising up from her throat. Then his full weight was upon
her, her legs wrapped tightly around his waist, pulling him into her as her body
exploded with pleasure. His warmth flooded her as he groaned Helena’s name
against her ear. They collapsed together, sweat-slick bodies entwined on the
floor of the old school house. Lying together, still connected, each panted
softly as they explored the other’s unfamiliar shape. Helena giggled as she
whispered.
“I only just noticed: this certainly isn’t the most comfortable bed I’ve ever
used.”
Neil murmured back, “Sorry, too busy to notice.”
His hands and mouth continued their idle exploration, raising excited
goose-flesh with every light stroke, until Helena pulled away abruptly.
“What’s the matter?” whispered Neil anxiously as he reached for her.
Helena was on her hands and knees, groping about in the darkness for her
discarded garments. Locating her clothing, she began the awkward dance of
pulling on, zipping up, and re-fastening. Then, she leaned over and kissed Neil
lightly on the forehead. Helena whispered back softly,
“Purely routine, Sweetheart. Lonely schoolmarms can’t afford idle gossip,
especially not when it involves mysterious drifters.” With those words, she rose
and began making her way furtively back up the stairs.
Pulling himself up on an elbow, Neil watched her go. A stray shaft of moonlight
caught her as she mounted the steps, and he laughed suddenly, smothering the
sound behind his hand. The smooth line of her naked back in retreat was not
conducive to the demeanor of a prim schoolmarm. At the sound of his laughter,
she pivoted abruptly on her heel. Her light footsteps echoed as she ran back
down the stairs, and Neil ducked just in time to avoid her playful slap. Then,
she snatched her balled-up t-shirt from Neil’s hand, pulled it over her head,
and disappeared into the velvety night.
Chapter 10,
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