Page 109 of Evil Hearts

Seven

A siren screamed through Oriana’s head, and she winced at the pain it brought. At first, she thought it was a fire truck or an ambulance, but when the wailing sound just went on and on without wanting to stop, she knew something was seriously wrong.

It kind of sounded like one of those World War II air raid sirens that you heard in the movies, telling you all hell was about to break loose outside but if you hid inside your house and closed all the curtains, you might just be lucky and stay safe.

Except she didn’t have a house any more. She’d had to give up her government rental house when she left her teaching job, and she’d left her stuff at her parents’ place, in the childhood bedroom she still thought of as hers, even if it was mostly given over to her mother’s sewing stuff now. She’d have to find her own place when she got home from the cruise, much like she needed to find a new job, but…

The cruise ship. She was supposed to be on a cruise ship, not dry land, where there weren’t any emergency vehicles, and she’d heard the ship’s emergency signal during drills – it was a long, annoying beep, not an antiquated siren, or the horn. The horn which she’d heard earlier, before watching the ship sailing away….

Oriana sat up suddenly, intending to check her surroundings, but instead found herself tumbling to the floor from…a hammock? Made of rough, scratchy canvas, as best she could tell by touch in the dark. Then her eyes began to adjust, and the first thing she saw was the yellowed canvas above her, looking for all the world like the convict beds in the historic prison back home.

Oriana scrubbed at her eyes. Between the horn and the hammock, she wondered if she’d somehow been sent back in time. Then she snorted – as if time travel was possible. She must have hit her head hard, to even be thinking such a thing. What was more likely was that she was in some sort of museum, but who’d stick her in a historic hammock instead of lying her on the ground, like any normal person who’d learned the most basic first aid would?

“Hello?” Oriana asked tentatively.

“I told you that you should give up treasure hunting. Nothing good happens to those who seek to steal that which does not belong to them.”

Shit, it was him. She knew his voice even before he stepped into view, wearing a white shirt, dark trousers and those high boots she remembered from the photo. Up close, the shirt looked modern, though, even if he wore it like some centuries-old pirate.

Almost without thinking, she reached out and grabbed his arm. Yep, it was a normal white shirt, and the arm beneath it was solid muscle. Embarrassed, she released him. “If you really want to look like Dampier’s ghost to scare tourists, you should paint your face white like those sparkly vampires in that movie.”

He shook his head, almost pityingly. “There are no ghosts on this island, least of all Captain Dampier’s. Much as there is no treasure. You should have returned to your boat and left the island.”

“I was trying to get to the ship when I…” Memories sparked. “The ship was leaving, and I was hurrying down the mountain to get back to it when I tripped on the boardwalk. This isn’t the bamboo forest. Where am I?” She surveyed her surroundings. Black rock arched overhead: another lava tube. Except she hadn’t noticed a hammock in any of the ones she’d passed earlier.

“You’re in the captain’s cave.” He pointed behind her. “It has the best view back to the bay where the Roebuck was wrecked. He was here when the rescue ships arrived, though he made it down to the beach quickly enough, before they launched the boats.”

Oriana clambered to her feet and headed for the cave entrance. Sure enough, she could see clear to the ocean from here, including Georgetown and the faint outline of the cruise ship against the setting sun. The ship that should still be moored in the bay, instead of just an empty buoy where it had been this morning.

Now she knew how those shipwrecked sailors had felt, marooned on a desert island with no idea when she’d be rescued. Why had the ship left early?

As if to taunt her, the old air raid siren arced up again, wailing so loud she wanted to join it. Not that she was sure what it was wailing about, as there wasn’t a plane in sight.

“What is that noise?” she demanded.

“It’s the siren they installed during the war, to warn of enemy aircraft,” he replied. “Now they only use it to warn of tsunamis. Big, dangerous waves that…”

“I know what a tsunami is,” Oriana snapped. “It’s a natural phenomenon that happens after an earthquake, volcanic eruption or meteor impact.” Realisation dawned. “Is that why the ship left early? To get somewhere safe because there’s a tsunami coming?”

But where was safe? It wasn’t like the ship could get out of the ocean, and that was the thing about tsunami waves – they were in the water, and they just kept going.

“That’s what I would do. I sailed through such waves once, and have no desire to do it again.” He rolled his eyes. “Captain Dampier was just fascinated by the strange waves, like they were some sort of new bird or seashell. It was amazing the man’s curiosity didn’t get him killed.”

He sure knew a lot about the pirate captain. Well, if he was going to LARP as a pirate, maybe he’d actually done his research first.

“You will be safe here, for Green Mountain is the highest point on the island. The people down in Georgetown will head for higher ground, too, at least until the siren sounds the all clear,” the man said.

Slowly, Oriana nodded. They’d soon have company, in other words, and she wouldn’t be alone with him for long. She might even be able to get a lift back into town, where she could get someone to contact the ship to tell them they’d left her behind. But not before the tsunami alert was over. She felt much safer on land than in a boat. Even with this strange man who’d carried her to his cave and put her in his hammock until she’d woken up and tipped herself out.

“Did you carry me here?” she asked.

He nodded. “If you lie still on the ground too long, the crabs come to investigate. They are timid at first, but they grow bolder if they feel you are food. And to a crab, everything is food.”

Oriana shuddered. Surely she’d have woken up if a crab had tried to crunch off one of her fingers in its claws. But what if she hadn’t? He hadn’t just carried her, he’d saved her.

“Thank you. I’m Oriana,” she said, offering her hand.

After a moment’s hesitation, he took it, before turning her hand over and kissing the back of it. “My name is Swaran.”

Nobody had ever kissed her like that. It was just her hand, not her lips, but she didn’t want him to stop. Added to the way his voice seemed to do things to her insides, and now even her head was woozy…she really had hit her head hard. Oriana tugged, and he released her.

“Perhaps you should lie down in the hammock, before you swoon again,” Swaran suggested.

“I do not swoon,” Oriana snapped. But it wouldn’t hurt to spend a little longer in the hammock, at least while she was waiting for a lift back into town. So she climbed back in, and it was so comfortable, she only wished she had a cocktail, and this wouldn’t be so bad at all.