Spiral

in places, less like random slashing and more like careful cutting, as though the intention were to expose certain parts. Her forehead was lashed to the trunk of the tree, her wrists around the back of the trunk, and her ankles to its base, all by wire cable like a trendy outdoor cafe might use to secure its tables and chairs after closing time. I didn’t quite understand the reason for the wire as opposed to rope until I could see her neck and shoulders.
    The skin looked as though acid had been dripped on it, the flesh scoured down to the bone in some spots. Through the gaps in her dress, more burned areas. And on her arms and legs...
    Anywhere that had been in contact with the tree.
    Which is when I heard the chuffing noise grow louder, a little farther along the curve. Fighting the reflex to run, I stayed to the inside of the arc, but not stopping as frequently as I could have. Or should have.
    Though I’m not sure that would have made a difference, either.
    At each stop, I turned to look back at Dujong. She was still in sight as I rounded a protruding tree limb and saw Justo Vega, thirty feet in front of me.
    He was lashed to another tree, his eyes bugging but still in their sockets. His left arm seemed to be tied around the back of the tree, as Dujong’s had been, but his right arm was bound at his waist in front, what I thought was the little Cuban flag I’d seen on the dashboard of his car now dangling limply from that hand.
    And given the way his chest heaved and neck strained in time to the chuffing sounds, Justo was the ”creature” making them.
    I watched and listened for as long as I could bear just standing there. Then I ran in a zigzag pattern toward Justo, finally coming into the range of his eyes beneath the band of wire that restricted his head movement. He began waving the little flag frantically, his eyes rolling up as though he were trying to gaze at the moon.
    Reaching for the tape over his mouth, I managed to get out, ”Justo, I’ll get these off—” before a whooshing sound above and behind me made contact with the back of my head, and I felt the tree take a shot at me, too.

    Nancy remained just beyond my reach, but this time she wasn’t drowning. Somehow we’d moved from the Bay area to Hawaii, and she stood in the path of molten lava, flowing down the hill toward her. Nancy was tied to a tree, her hand extending out to me. But the faster I ran toward her, the farther she and the tree receded toward the lava flow. I lunged as the hair on her head caught fire, nearly exploding into flame. And then the flesh on Nancy’s hand began to melt away, down to skeleton. I could feel the heat, her pain on my own hands.
    ”John?”
    And when Nancy called out to me, it wasn’t even her own voice, but that of a man, a voice I thought sounded familiar, though—
    ”John!”
    I opened my eyes to deep-set, hooded ones staring back from less than a foot away, my hands and shoulders and neck all burning so intensely I nearly cried out.
    David Helides said, ”For a moment there, I was afraid you weren’t going to wake up.”
    I tried to talk, realized my mouth had been taped shut.
    Just like Justo’s.
    Helides stepped back by executing a little dance step, a runway model at triple speed. He wore a dark shirt and pants, but not his usual sweats. These were fashionable, like something in a Banana Republic display window, and his hair was brushed and gelled stylishly back over his ears.
    ”The real me, John.”
    A searing flash on my left shoulder. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to swallow the scream, creating that same chuffing noise I’d heard Justo making.
    Could still hear him making over the sound of my own.
    ”You’re tied to a manchineel tree,” said Helides. ”I mentioned them to you the first time you came to visit, remember?”
    The torture tree the Native-American tribe used on their prisoners.
    ”You might recall that I described the sap as being ‘caustic.’ Well, I’ve come to think of it more as arboreal ‘lava,’ really. Perhaps you’d now agree?”
    I probably would have nodded reflexively, except my forehead was lashed, and I realized that the part of my scalp against the tree felt wet.
    Helides pointed toward his left and my right, but out of the field of vision I had. ”Your friend Mr. Vega agreed with me on that, after he promised not to scream if I took the tape off his mouth. Though frankly, I doubt anyone could have heard him anyway.” Helides cupped his