Blood Beach

Blood Beach - A Story by Qwantu Amaru

They couldn't say they weren't warned. From the brochure to the front desk manager who checked them in. Everyone told them about the do's and don'ts of the Pink Beach. Still, it felt a bit like overkill to Washington - a travel veteran who had been all around the world. His girlfriend Bela listened more closely, but in the end it didn't matter.

The excitement was palpable between the young couple as they ate their expertly prepared breakfast the morning of their soon to be epic adventure to Komodo National Park and Pantai Merah or Pink Beach located 90 minutes or so away from their exclusive resort by speed boat - which was how Washington had arranged for them to travel. He hated the group travel thing and had the means to make travel both more efficient and more luxurious. Bela ate her caramelized banana pancakes slowly, savoring each bite as if it were her last meal - which is how she ate all her meals. Washington, as usual, wolfed his eggs fried over easy with a side of bacon and a croissant down in a matter of minutes and then chased the impending heartburn away with a Pepcid he'd bought in a recent return trip to the US. Couldn't buy quality medicine in Indonesia - he always lamented to Bela, his half Indonesian half Italian girlfriend who told him that he didn't know what he was missing with the expert remedies her grandmother on the Indonesian side was famous for concocting for everything from stomach ache to migraines.

Leave the medicine to me, Washington would always reply, unnecessarily reminding Bela that he was a big wig in the legal drug business working as an associate at one of the worlds largest pharmaceutical companies on a year long rotation. Still, medicine or the lack there of is what had brought the love birds together six months ago. Washington was a resident in the luxury condominium where Bela was working as the head art buyer and when by accident he broke one of the paintings in his apartment, the fateful meeting between them occurred.

Now, here they were, hundreds of miles from the buzzing of Jakarta, nestled in Flores mere minutes away from seeing one of the earths fiercest predators.

"Got everything, Lovey?" Washington asked Bela whose mouth was full of her last delicious piece of pancake.

She gave him the look that meant just a second you idiot, I'm eating here, swallowed and then answered. "All right here in the back back, Honey."

"Great, because Asep is here with the boat! Let's get this show on the road."

Soon they were on the high seas with smiles plastered to their young and sunny faces. The strange looks this black man and his exotically mixed girlfriend regularly received in Jakarta were nonexistent from Asep and the two man boat crew. Asep, the guide procured for them by Discover Asia - the US based travel agency Washington hired for the trip, regaled them with tales of his tribe and random facts about the Komodo dragon. Bela listened rapt, but Washington's mind was swirling around on what he'd heard about the Pink Beach. He could only hope it was true.

A month earlier, back in the US, he'd accompanied his mother on a very different kind of trip - this one to a skin cancer specialist in Philadelphia. Stage 3 skin cancer was the diagnosis and without chemotherapy and radiation his mother's five year survival rate were less than 25%. They agreed to start a course of treatment immediately, but as Washington flew back to Indonesia, he kept thinking about the story Bela had told him on one of their early dates.

He'd asked her about the long but very faint scar on her right forearm. She'd confessed that it had been burned in an accident when she was a child. But her grandmother had "saved" her arm by applying a miracle salve with the secret ingredient of one spoonful of sand from the Pink Beach. How long did it take to heal, he'd wondered then, long before skin cancer entered his list of worries. The burns and scarring lasted a week, and then a scale had grown on the burn which peeled away a month later to reveal the arm he had caressed as she unspooled the story.

When he'd arrived back home in Indonesia, he'd googled in earnest for stories about Pink Beach miracles. And there were many. Pink beach sand was sold in most pharmacies but was so diluted to have almost none of the miraculous effects that Bela had experienced. But there were stories of a few brave souls who had traveled to the Pink Beach themselves and gone to the mystery spot - an alcove off the eastern side of the beach where the ratio of the red corals which gave the beach it's color and medicinal properties was at its most favorable. They were brave souls indeed, because to get to this special spot one had to spelunk 50 feet to the bottom of the pitch black Eastern cave, brave vampire bats, and the guardian of the pink beaches magical sand - Colossus, a giant Komodo dragon said to be the length of 5 full grown men and weigh a ton.

Now, Washington didn't believe any of this of course, but it didn't hurt to be prepared. Which is why he'd paid Asep a small fortune to escort him down into the cave to fill six empty water bottles with the sand. He hadn't yet trusted Bela with his REAL reason for taking this vacation - but she'd find out soon enough. They had arrived at Komodo National Park.
The tour was quite amazing and they were fortunate enough to encounter four adult Komodo dragons and two baby dragons, but Washington couldn't enjoy it. Every time he saw these very impressive specimens, he couldn't help but imagine Colossus. Eager to get it over with, they didn't dally at the national Park. Instead they made the short trip from the land of the Komodo's to the Pink Beach in a matter of minutes.

His plan was to get Bela distracted with snorkeling - using the excuse that he was feeling seasick and wanted to explore the beach. With Bela off with one of their guides frolicking in the sea - Asep gave him a head nod and reached into a secret compartment on the boat for the spelunking gear.

"Are you sure you want to do this, Mr.?" He asked.

Washington was sure the admonitions he'd been hearing ever since they checked in would come up now. "Yes, Asep. I know that taking sand from the Pink Beach is illegal and if I am caught the penalty is punishable by death."

"Think about your pretty girlfriend, sir. It's not worth it." Asep pleaded.

"Just do what you are being paid to do," Washington ordered and that was it.

They got to the opening of the cave in no time, but Washington hesitated at the cave's mouth. It really was pitch black in there. Then he saw his mother's face and visualized her 100% healthy without chemotherapy and radiation - a truly modern miracle. That shifted him into gear. Asep refused to dive into the cave with him, but kept sentry and monitored the hook point for Washington's ropes.

It was a shear drop to the bottom with no rock face for repelling. Washington trusted the rope with his full weight and used the slip to slide his way slowly down. Once the light from the entrance grew faint, Washington dropped his glow sticks. The fall was a bit longer than he would have liked but at least they did eventually hit bottom and cast a vague illumination upward. He could sense movement around him - the bats he imagined, and kept his eyes closed as he slowly descended. This is gonna be a pain in the ass to climb back up he thought - but luckily he'd been inadvertently training for this moment for most of his life. That and Asep's motorized pulley would bring him back to the light.

His foot touched bottom just as his first glow stick was fading. He cracked another and looked around. He appeared to be standing on the shore of another beach. He could hear waves crashing nearby and saw where the sand line began. Get over there, fill up your bottles with sand, get back to the rope, and get the hell out of here, he thought.

So he got to moving toward the "shoreline". He was almost there when his right foot connected with a large rock or something and he fell to his knees. "Oww!" He hissed. After quickly assessing his foot, he shined the glow stick at he object and couldn't believe what he was seeing - it appeared to be the skull of an adult male. Really? He wondered to himself - how cliche is this?

Still the cliche didn't lessen his fear or alertness any. His eyes had adjusted to the dark and he could now see the outline of the waters edge. When he'd fallen he'd noticed the spongy soft sand. It felt like the most luxurious mud bath exfoliant he'd ever touched. He sat there for another few minute just tracing his hands in the wet sand before he remembered his mission. He got out the first water bottle and filled it and then did the same with the following five before packing them away in his backpack.

Then he retraced his steps back to where the rope was. Except it wasn't where it should have been. He saw the dead glow sticks marking the spot, but there was no rope. He stood there unbelieving and then he stood there yelling until he was horse and then he kneeled there realizing the worst.

* * * * *
Bela and Asep and the speedboat crew arrived back at the resort just before sunset. While walking down the pier, Bela felt a slight pang at Washington's fate but knew that the Island had to be appeased. The part of the story she hadn't told her "love" was that everyone who was saved by the sand of the Pink Beach was obligated to return and bring a sacrifice or else their condition would reverse. Just as she'd not told him that it hadn't been just her arm that had burned, the entire right side of her body including the face he loved had been a decrepit 3rd degree burned mess before her grandmother had procured the sand and saved her future.

Beauty, it seemed, had a very high price to pay indeed!