The Island by Peter Benchley

descended into the pit, Katherine knelt on the floor and spoke to them. “Be very still. No coughs or sneezes. If you pray, pray silently.” She shut the trapdoor and replaced the rug.
    She checked the table one last time, brushing away bread crumbs and mopping up drops of chowder with the hem of her dress. Then she unlocked the front door and stood on the rattan rug, her hands folded in front of her, praying.
    Footsteps crunched on the sand, then scraped against the concrete steps. The door was pushed open.
    There were two of them, black silhouettes against the starlit sky.
    She could not see their faces, so did not know if they were the same ones who had come before. A breeze blew through the doorway, carrying their smell, and she trembled at the memory.
    They did not speak.
    As she knew they would, as they had the last time, they forced her onto the table and raped her, once each. They were not gratuitously brutal. Her feeble resistance was quietly accepted and easily overcome. The knife held to her throat was more a gesture than a necessity. She closed her eyes, so as not to see them, held her breath (as long as possible) so as not to smell them, and let her mind shout prayers so as not to hear their grunts.
    It was all very matter-of-fact—they might have been service men come to read her meter—and when they were done, they helped her to her feet.
    She grasped the edge of the table, swallowing bile and trying not to faint.
    “Mercury,” said one.
    She nodded. The last time, she had not known what they meant, and they had, as seemed to be their custom, tortured her while trying to explain. They had slashed the inside of her thighs with the point of a knife and had rubbed lemon juice and pepper into the incisions. Finally, by piecing together words and phrases, she had understood.
    She led them to the refrigerator. The bottles of drugs were in boxes of twelve. She brought out a box of penicillin and two syringes. “This will spoil if it isn’t kept cold,” she said. “How many are sick?”
    “Many.”
    “Take it all.”
    “Rum,” said the other.
    “I have no rum.”
    The man shoved her aside, reached into the refrigerator, and brought out a plastic quart bottle of isopropyl alcohol.
    “Don’t drink that,” Katherine said. “It’ll make you very sick. I use it for ear problems.”
    “I hear you not. I have an ear problem.” The man laughed aloud. He unscrewed the bottle cap, splashed alcohol in his ear, then took a great swig from the bottle. A tremor shook his chest. He coughed and sputtered. “Aye, that’s a noble hot.” He closed the bottle and tucked it inside his shirt.
    “Go now.” Katherine shut the refrigerator door. She heard a sound—faint, indistinct. She could not tell where it came from, whether from the pit beneath her feet or from outside. She shuffled her feet noisily on the sandy floor.
    “Aye. Good night, lady, and Lord love you.”
    She waited, expecting them to depart.
    Instead, they stood, listening.
    And then she heard what they were hearing: light footsteps running in the sand, and a happy girl’s voice calling, “Look what I found!”
    Katherine released a visceral wail of despair.
    Mary was in the room before she saw the men. “A baby bird!” She cradled it in her hands. “Look . . . Oh!”
    “Leave her be!” Katherine cried. “She’s a baby!” It was absurd, and Katherine knew it: Mary was twelve, tall for her age, and robust. But there was hope. It had been only ten minutes since the men had taken Katherine.
    Mary backed against the wall. “Who are you?”
    “A good question,” said one of the men. “Who are you?”
    Mary whimpered, “Miss Katherine . . .”
    Blindly, thoughtlessly Katherine hurled herself at the nearest man.
    Barely troubling to look at her, the man stiff-armed Katherine in the throat and knocked her to the floor. He grabbed the bird from Mary’s hands, crushed it, and cast it aside, then took Mary’s elbow and led her to the