Vicious Memories

Chapter 47

Heat and unrest competed for dominance in the clearing.

My head ached horribly, throbbing in time with the cramps running up and down my legs from the sprint home. I fought to stay on my feet as I stood next to Alice and Arun. We surveyed the rest of the village, seated before us as Gabriel slowly approached the speaker's block.

Forty-five minutes ago had marked the first time I'd seen his face take on an expression of utter shock. His dark eyes had expanded into perfect circles, his mouth dropping open, his eyebrows attempting to meet his hairline.

According to the file, Gabriel had moved to the United States from Portugal at the age of four. He'd grown up in Minnesota with over a dozen relatives, all living in the same house. Flash forward about thirty years and something went terribly wrong in his marriage. According to the police report, they thought it stemmed from something Gabriel had confided to wife, which their friends had told the authorities resulted in a chilling of their marriage. He had started to domestically abuse her (I balked at the thought) and before long she left him. A few months later he descended into drug addiction and, in a fit of rage, visited her home, raped, and subsequently killed her. Over the following months on the run he raped and killed three more women across Minnesota and Wisconsin; neither state carried the death penalty and he was sentenced to life in prison...

...but now, somehow, he was here.

Was the island a prison? Were the rest of the villagers Neema's and Gabriel's jailers? Had the loss of all our memories been a horrible accident as the ship was on the way here? Nothing explained the random supplies on their ship, why there were so many jailers, or any of hundred other inconsistencies.

Today the facts in the file all came down to the same truth: Gabriel was a serial rapist and murderer.

Before he'd lost his memories and transformed into the leader who saved the village from destruction he had been a horror of a human. If the file was to be believed, of course.

Beneath our heavy stares, Gabriel stepped up to the speaker's block. Dark features looked back out at us. The muttering around the clearing dissolved into quiet.

"Are we all here?" he asked, the air reverberating with the bass of his voice.

"We are," Finn said. He tossed the deflated football forward.

Gabriel caught it and nodded. "Welcome to day 723. Today, unfortunately, I find it difficult to count our blessings. Our judge is Tana."

Tana stepped up to the front of the group, the wind blowing her hair about wildly, her hands trying in vain to tuck the strands back behind her ears. She frowned along with the rest of the group at Gabriel's refusal to recount the things they were thankful for. It all seemed so terribly surreal.

Gabriel reached behind the block and produced the black briefcase. It settled on the wood with a satisfying thunk, and a collective intake of breath went through the crowd. A mixture of shock and fear marred their faces further. Alice and I surveyed them stoically, doing our best not to reveal anything before Gabriel had his chance.

"This morning, far to the north, near the island's edge, Oliver and Alice found an abandoned settlement. It was much like ours, though smaller. Within it they found wreckage from our ship, and in that wreckage they found this briefcase. It contains another file like the one we found a few days ago."

"Who?"

"Who's in it?"

"Oh god, is it me? It's me. I know it."

A dozen people cried out, but Gabriel silenced them all by holding up the football.

"Who is it?" Tana finally asked. Her eyes narrowed in the face of the breeze, and the corners of her lips tugged down twitchily.