The Hostaged Island

10

Crying with shame and rage, Jack Webster ran from the back of the savaged house. He heard shots and voices in the houses down the block, motorcycles on the streets. Not wanting to chance going over the back fence, he slipped into the decorative hedges screening one yard from the other. For a minute or two, he lay there on his stomach, his face pressed into the rotting leaves, and cried.

But the rifle in his grip reassured him. "I'll show them. I'll kill some of them."

Hidden by the hedge, he crawled along the fence, searching for a hole. The rotting wood slats crumbled when he touched them, but the neighbor's chain link prevented him from crawling through. He continued to the corner of the yard.

In the corner, dogs had burrowed under the fences. The dog holes had been blocked with bricks. Jack pulled out the bricks, crawled under the fence, coming out in the backyard of the house diagonally behind the house where the others still hid.

The shooting continued as the Outlaws searched. Jack crawled through the untrimmed bushes of the backyard until he came to the back door. The door hung open, a ragged hole where the knob and lock had been. Crouching there for minutes, he listened for voices or steps inside the house. He heard nothing. Struggling to work the rifle's action, he jerked back the cocking lever. A cartridge flew out.

He marvelled at the size of the cartridge. He had only fired .22 rifles before. The bullet was huge. He put the .308 NATO round in his pocket. Holding the rifle at his hip and his finger on the trigger like he'd seen in the movies, he crept into the house.

Broken dishes littered the kitchen floor. He slid his feet over the linoleum, gingerly pushing the fragments of glass and china away rather than step on them. Once onto the dining room and living room rugs, he walked quickly to the front windows.

Down the street a few addresses, he saw the Davis house. The front door hung by one hinge. Looking up and down the other side of the street, he saw all the front doors had been kicked in or shot open.

Creeping to the blasted front door of the house, Jack eased it closed, then carefully blocked the door with a heavy cabinet. He went to the back door, blocked it also.

Sure he couldn't be surprised, he searched the house. In one of the bedrooms, he found clothes almost his size. He changed his stinking pants. The evidence of his fear and shame gone, he felt bolder.

He found jewelry, wristwatches, and money. He wore the man's wristwatch, pocketed the other loot. In the children's room, he found a knapsack. He filled the pack with food, soda pop, and a bottle of vodka from the kitchen. Then he had a breakfast of white bread and sandwich meats.

"This ain't a bad time at all," he laughed. After breakfast, when there was no further sight and sound of bikers, he looted all the other houses on the street.

Glen Shepard couldn't find the boy. He searched all the rooms of the house, the garage, then the backyard. He didn't risk the street or the other houses on the block. He couldn't believe Jack would have been so stupid as to go into the street. Finally, Glen returned to the others.

"Anything on the walkie-talkie?" he asked, clambering into the attic.

"Glen," Ann seethed, "you talk about responsibility? What about me? What about these kids? One minute you're ready to kill that jerk, the next you're out trying to save him. Why don't you worry about your own child? You're so dumb — you think just because you're right, just because you're the true believer... " Her anger became sobbing.

"Okay, okay," he whispered, "you're right. Forget that punk. If they haven't got him yet, he can take care of himself. Because I tell you, just walking down there scares the shit out of me!"

He tried to make his voice sound patient, if not serene. "Roger, how's your arm?"

"It hurts."

"A month from now you'll have a scar to show your girl friends. Chris, what did you see?"

"Bikers. What's going on down below?"

"I think the radio will tell us more than anything we can see. What did you hear?"

"Something happened on the other side of the island. They said they caught a commando. They sent a bunch of bikers to bring him back to town, but they disappeared."

"The commandos?"

"No, the bikers!"

"All right! Help is on its way. This'll all be over soon. Oh, God. I want it over right now. Will you two keep watch for a while, listen to the walkie-talkie?"

"You're not going anywhere!" Ann told him. "You promised."

"Going to sleep! Only to sleep." He lay down beside his very pregnant wife and held her, one arm across her belly. "And you too, mother-to-be. Last night wasn't too restful for us. For the three of us."

Sunbathing on the flat roof of a two-story house, Jack smoked dope, drank vodka. He was rich. He had found jewelry, gold coins, rolls of ten-dollar bills, platinum wristwatches. After the island returned to normal, Jack would shuttle back and forth to the mainland, selling a few things at a time. Theft was not new to him. That was how he paid for his Hawaiian grass and his new surfboards. When he stole from tourists and burglarized homes, he disposed of the articles through connections in Los Angeles. He hoped his connection could raise the thousands of dollars the loot was worth.

Motorcycles passed. The Outlaws! Wow, if he were an Outlaw, he'd have it made. They got the best stuff. He got what was left. If he were an Outlaw, he'd play it smart. Take the island, get his share, then before the SWAT teams and Marines showed up, he'd steal a boat and sail away with the loot.

The sun warming his face, Jack worked it out. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and jewelry. Gold and diamonds. Sailing the Pacific, selling the booty when he needed money. Living like a pirate. Wow, what a life.

Another long hit of Hawaiian brought the dream to life in color. Girls' brown bodies stretched out on the deck of the pirate's yacht. Riding the winds and waves forever.

Asshole Outlaws. What would they do with their money? Buy motorcycles. Live in Beverley Hills and strip their Harleys on the carpet.

What if he could take it away from them? What if he could shoot an Outlaw, take the dead biker's loot? What if he could shoot Outlaw after Outlaw? Then he could buy the yacht. And he could leave the island a hero, the kid who wiped out the Outlaws. He'd stash the loot, then claim the glory. Sail away.

He sucked down a last hit and gulped some vodka. He staggered with the M-14 to the edge of the roof. The frame of the boxy house continued eighteen inches above the asphalt of the roof, like a very low railing. He saw a drain hole through the wall. Laying down on the asphalt, he peered through the four inch by four inch hole. It viewed the far end of the block. If he shot through the hole, he could kill any biker at the other end of the block, and they couldn't even see him! The shots would come from nowhere. When he killed two or three, he'd sneak down there, take whatever cash and jewelry they had, then come up here and repeat it. He would have his yacht!

Still on his belly, he tried to put the barrel of the M-14 through the hole. The front sight caught on the stucco. Jack twisted the rifle to force it through the hole. His fingers touched the trigger.

A burst ripped the quiet neighborhood, the rifle jumping in his hand, slamming back against his bicep. He tried to jerk his hand away, another wild burst sent slugs punching into houses and parked cars.

Motorcycles raced down the block. They jumped the curb. Boots kicked down the front door.

Chris woke Glen. "Mr. Shepard, there was some shooting. And then the Outlaws talked on the radios. They said, 'Some young kid with Acidhead's M-14.' Then that Stonewall said, 'We got a hero, alive.' Then Horse says, 'Bring him in. We'll make an example of him.' I think it was Jack they got."

"Me too," Glen agreed. "What do you think they'll do to him?" Glen slipped on the belt of shotgun cartridges. "That's not what I'm worrying about."

Horse put his .45 to Jack's blond hair. "I didn't — I didn't shoot at your guys," Jack pleaded. "I dropped it and it went off. I was up there hiding out and I dropped it."

Keeping the muzzle of the automatic against the boy's head, Horse glanced to Stonewall. The barrel-chested biker stood behind the teenager, holding the knapsack full of money and jewelry they'd found on the roof with Jack. Stonewall shrugged.

"Then how come you had the rifle?" Horse continued, "if you weren't going to shoot my men."

"I took it from a house. I wanted it."

"What house?" Jack told them.

Stonewall searched the attic himself. He found the blankets, the soda pop cans, the bloodstains where one of the people hiding up there had been wounded. He reported to Horse: "They're gone. We must have just missed them. These blankets are still warm. Man, just by two or three minutes."

"Search the neighborhood again," Horse ordered.

"They couldn't have gotten off the block." Stonewall turned and shouted to his men. "Burn it! Burn it all!"

"Okay, kid," Horse said to Jack. "You helped us. We missed them by just a couple of minutes. Now..."

"I told you. I didn't..."

"Punk! You want to live?"

Jack nodded.

"Now, punk, what I want you to do is help us some more. I'm going to take you to the Casino and put you in there with the rest of your people. We've been seeing some funny stuff going on in there. And I want you to tell me all about it. You're my Private Eye."

"What if..."

"What if what?"

"Nothing's going on."

"I told you, something's going on." Horse pulled out his knife. "Charlie, this kid don't learn. He's useless. Pull down his pants and hold him. I'm going to fix him."

Thrashing in Charlie's grip, Jack screamed and pleaded. Horse held the eight-inch blade of the Bowie near the boy's naked crotch. "Now, I told you something's going on. You're going to find out what it is. We'll give you an hour. You don't have something to tell us, we'll stand you up on the ballroom bandstand and cut that little thing off of you. Do you understand now?"

Jack nodded, pulled up his pants.

With tears streaming down their faces, Jack's mother and father hugged him. It was the first time in his life he could remember emotion from them. "We thought you were dead."

"So did I. They're killing people out there."

The residents crowding around Jack questioned him:

"Did you see the Davis boys?"

"Did you see any police?"

Max Stevens pushed in front of the others. "We want you to tell us everything you saw and heard. It's very important to us."

"Why?" Jack asked. "What's going on?"