Sinister Paradise, Robert Moore Williams [short story to read .txt] 📗

don't see something that does exist."

"Um," Parker said, then was silent. The explanation sounded reasonable enough, as far as it went. The trouble was it didn't go far enough, not nearly far enough to[Pg 130] quiet the thought lurking deep in the big pilot's mind. He worked with the paddle. "When you hired me to fly you down here, you told me that you knew where this island was located but you didn't tell me it had a bad habit of vanishing."

"I didn't believe it myself," Retch answered. "So far as I was concerned, it was just a wild rumor."

"Um," Parker said again. As he spoke, part of the thought that he had been keeping buried in his mind came blasting to the surface. "She said it was a mirage too!" he blurted out the words. "And that goddamned Dr. Yammer—" He caught himself. Into his mind had come a vision of a woman he had once known, and a psychiatrist called Dr. Yammer. Pain crossed his face.

"What?" Retch asked. "Who are you talking about?"

"Nobody," Parker answered. "Just a woman I once knew."

Her name had been Effra. Effra of the Green Eyes, he had called her. Rigidly he forced the thought of her from his mind, forced himself to think of what Retch had said. But it was no good. His mind kept going back to Effra and Yammer.

"She is caught, trapped in a net of delusion and hallucination that is as solid as a block of steel," Dr. Yammer had once said, his voice precise with authoritarian certainty. "I cannot get her out of this steel block unless I hospitalize her, perhaps operate. There is no other choice, no other decision that can be made. Putting it bluntly—she is insane. A delicate thing, insanity. We still work in the dark with things of the mind."

At the memory of Yammer's words, Parker twisted uncomfortably. He used the paddle much more vigorously than was necessary. It was as if Yammer's face showed in the water into which he thrust the paddle.

Mercedes was studying Parker. "About this woman—"

"She was just a woman I once knew."

"You loved her, yes?"

"Well—" Parker was silent.

"Tell me what 'appened."

"Nothing," Parker said. "Oh, hell—all right. Up in LA three years ago I knew Effra. She was a pilot too, and we got to running around together. She liked to fly out over the Pacific all by herself. I don't know why; she just liked to flirt with danger, maybe. One time she came in a couple of hours over-due. Figuring she was down in the drink, I was about to rouse out the Navy to hunt for her when she came in." He paused.

Mercedes was silent. In the front of the raft, Retch said nothing. His eyes were still searching the skyline.

"She was wildly excited," Parker went on. "She said she had made a forced landing on an island somewhere off the coast of Southern Cal. She also said there were a lot of strange people living on the island." He shook his head. There was a feeling in him he did not like.

His eyes came to focus on a ripple in the water. A shark. It made him think of Dr. Yammer.

"What 'appened then?" Mercedes asked softly.

"I helped her look for the island," Parker said. "We spent months looking in our spare time. We flew[Pg 131] over more ocean than I ever knew existed. But we didn't find it."

"No?"

"That island was awfully important to her. She thought something wonderful was there, what it was, she could not tell me, just that it was there. When we could not find it, she began to doubt herself, to think perhaps she had not seen it, that she had not landed there. She reached the conclusion then—well, she went to see one of these fancy mental specialists who know everything about nothing and nothing about anything."

Under the water, he could see the eyes of the shark. They reminded him of the expression in Dr. Yammer's eyes, except that the shark's eyes looked more honest.

"And then?" Mercedes said, very softly.

"She—vanished," Parker said. "Yammer was going to stick her into a hospital, use something that he called 'shock' on her, maybe operate. She ran away."

"Did you try to find her, Beel?"

"For asking that question, Mercedes, I ought to choke you!" Parker said hotly. "I hunted high and low. All we knew for certain was that her plane was missing. I think she decided she would simply fly out to the sea she loved, and never come back." Again his voice sank to a whisper as he visualized Effra of the Green Eyes flying out over this wilderness of waters.

"I am sorry, Beel," Mercedes said gently. "Will you remember one thing, Beel?"

"Sure. What is it?"

"You saved my life back there. I will not forget it. If the time ever comes, I will pay my debt."

"Thank you," Parker said. "But there is no debt."

"You think this island we are hunting might be the same island your girl claimed she found?" Retch spoke from the front end of the boat.

"And if it is the same island?" Mercedes said.

Anger came boiling up in Parker. "If it is that island, and if I ever get back to Los Angeles, I am going to hunt up a psychiatrist by the name of Yammer and take care of him!" Parker dug the water savagely. Gradually, his anger subsided. "Where did you run into the rumor about this island?"

Retch shrugged. "It was just one of those things you hear." He studied the landscape. "We should spot a boat soon."

"We are not exactly on the well-traveled ocean lanes," Parker pointed out. "Does it happen that there are any other little things about this island that you forgot to tell me when you chartered my ship to fly you down here?"

Retch flushed. "Such as—"

"Such as how it happened that my 'copter threw a vane just after we sighted the place?"

Retch did not answer.

"Seemed as though somebody shot at us."

"Oh hell no! The loss of the vane was accidental."

"Accidents like that can happen but they usually don't. I checked the ship before we took off." Parker turned silent. There was no proof that the wrecking of the 'copter had been anything but an accident. "What do you expect to find on[Pg 132] this island?"

"I told you—"

"Just before the 'copter started down, Miss Valdar was yakking about how we were all going to be rich," Parker interrupted.

The glance Retch gave Mercedes had no love in it. "Sometimes she's got her mouth open when she ought to have it shut."

Mercedes was silent. "I see," Parker said. "When you chartered my ship, you told me you were a scientist and that you wanted to investigate certain phenomena on this island. You said your investigation would take only a few hours. I was to fly you here and wait for you. You said you might want me to fly you back to the mainland, or might not, depending on what you found here. Is this correct?"

"Certainly," Retch answered. "I'm sorry you lost your ship but the insurance will take care of it."

"Insurance will take care of the 'copter but not of my neck. Are you a scientist?"

"Of course. Didn't I tell you—"

"What kind of a scientist are you?"

"I—ah—What do you mean?"

"What's your specialty? Are you a biologist, a physicist, or what?"

"I—"

"I don't believe you are a scientist at all. You don't talk like one."

"Damn it, I told you what I am and that's what I am!" Retch's face showed sullen and his hand moved toward the gun. Parker tensed. Retch stopped the movement of his hand. He glared at the big pilot.

"Okay," Parker said. "It doesn't make any difference anyhow." He resumed paddling.

The sun slid down the western sky. Retch and Mercedes huddled in the front end of the raft and whispered to each other. From time to time, the woman glanced at Parker. He paid no attention to her.

The sea was calm. In the distance, a school of flying fish skittered over the surface. A dozen gulls played near the surface. A high-riding fin cut the water. Shark, sensing food.

The sun reached the horizon and wallowed in the sea like a fat, round shining pig on fire.

Mercedes screamed, pointed, jerked a terror-stricken face toward Parker. "Beel! Beel!" She scuttled across the raft, threw herself into his arms. "Look, Beel, look!"

Terror and panic almost beyond understanding were in her words.

Parker looked where she was pointing. His heart climbed up into his mouth and threatened to choke him. He had thought he was shock-proof, that nothing could jar him. But here was something that made his mind reel.

Walking across the water toward the raft were three men.

Clad in knee-length breeches, wearing cloaks, the three men looked as if they had just stepped out of the 17th century. Two wore big, broad-brimmed hats, the third had a handkerchief wrapped around his head. He also had a wooden leg and he stalked across the surface of the sea with all the sureness he might have had with concrete under him. He carried a curved cutlass in one hand. The[Pg 133] other two men were armed with swords, in scabbards. In addition, heavy, clumsy-looking pistols were thrust into sashes at their belts.

They looked like men out of a nightmare—or like pirates out of the olden days; swash-buckling buccaneers who had somehow managed to survive their proper period in history and to live into the 20th century.

"Ghosts!" Mercedes screamed. "Devils! They've come up out of hell because of our sins!" She wrapped her arms around Parker's neck. "Save me, Beel, save me!"

Parker caught her wrists, jerked her arms loose from his neck, and rose quickly to his feet. He hoped fervidly that his eyes had been deceiving him and that standing up would cause this mirage to disappear.

His eyes continued to deceive him. The three men did not disappear. They continued to walk across the water toward the raft. They moved with the sureness of men who know where they are going.

Behind them, suddenly outlined against the fat sun that was wallowing in the sea, rocky, grim, and forbidding, the mysterious island was now visible. It had reappeared. They had found it.

Three men coming from it had found them.

The shark found the three men.

Parker saw the triangular fin cut through the water toward them. Like a speed boat taking off on a race, the fin gathered momentum.

The three men saw it coming.

"Ho!" one yelled.

"A shark!" the second said.

"Have at him, boys!" the third shouted.

The shark charged them. Drawing their swords, the three men executed a nimble dance on the surface of the sea. They thrust downward—their swords entering the water with no difficulty whatsoever although their feet did not enter it—drew them back dripping red. They skipped lightly out of the way of the wounded and infuriated monster.

"Zounds!"

"Chop the sea pig down!"

"Carve his heart out!"

Old battle cries rang in the air as they fought the shark. Blood colored the surface of the sea.

The wounded shark suddenly took its death blow. It dived, was gone from sight, then broke the surface a hundred yards away. It beat the water into foam, threshing out its life.

With pleased interest, the three men watched the shark die. Dipping their blades into the sea to clean the blood from them, they wiped them dry on their pants legs.

Again they moved toward the raft.

Parker's hand went to the pistol inside his leather jacket. He loosed it in its holster but did not draw it.

Mercedes moaned and covered her eyes. At the other end of the boat, Retch had risen to his feet.

Bracing himself, Bill Parker waited for—whatever was to happen. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Retch slowly drawing his gun.

"Damn it, Retch, put that gun[Pg 134] away!" Parker shouted. "Don't shoot until you know what the hell is going on."

Retch turned, the gun visible in his hand. "What the hell—" Retch didn't put the gun away. He lifted it. Parker found himself staring into the muzzle.

"Get your hands up!" Retch snarled the words. "Mercedes, get that gun out of his holster. Get your goddamned hands up or I'll blow your blasted head off!"

The last was spoken to Parker as the dazed pilot tried to understand what had happened. He could hardly believe his own eyes. Automatically he lifted his hands. Mercedes slid past him, got behind him, taking no chances on getting between him and Retch's gun. He felt her fingers go inside his jacket. Expertly she lifted the gun from its holster.

"Toss me the gun!" Retch said. He caught the weapon the woman tossed toward him,