It was cold and cramped inside the narrow closet. It was the sort of closet that would barely contain a couple of coats before it was overfull. A useless closet for most bedrooms. This one was empty of clothing, though a few stuffed animals were smashed up into the back corners. The rest of the closet was taken up by Mbabi. He wished he could sit down or even crouch inside the closet but he was too tall a person to do that without pushing the accordion closet doors open with his protruding knees.

Several hours had already passed since he’d heard the last set of screams. Over the past couple days, hiding in the closet and not daring to venture out, he’d had to listen as, one by one, everyone else was found and…well, he didn’t want to think about that. If his count was right, then everyone else had been found. Everyone else was dead.

This was such a messed up job. Everything had gone sideways the moment they’d arrived. Maybe if he’d been smarter he would have realized the futility of the job, the danger they were all in. Maybe he could have escaped. Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe just coming here was enough to seal his fate. Maybe trying to escape that early on would have only hastened the inevitable.

Mbabi licked his lips and he tasted blood as his parched lips cracked anew. The air here was incredibly dry and he hadn’t had anything to eat or drink in a couple days. What little supplies he’d had when he first arrived were long gone now.

How many days had it been now? Inside the closet it was almost impossible to tell day from night but he was pretty sure it had been a couple days at least since he hid in the closet but…but how many days had he and the others been here, in this cursed place? Five days? Six maybe? He couldn’t remember. Fear, lack of sleep, dehydration, and so much more added up and made it difficult to concentrate, to remember. Even so, he tried to remember, tried to see if there was anything he could have done differently.

Something out in the hall shifted and Mbabi braced himself.

Six Days Previous

“Hey Mbabi!” Johan shouted out over the noise of the helicopter they were riding in. “We gonna get paid on time for this job, yeah?”

Mbabi shot him a glare but quickly shifted to a grin and a chuckle.

“You already got paid, remember?” Mbabi shouted back to him. “Only way to get you mercs to do any work anymore!”

“Oh right,” Johan said with false surprise before turning to Sheza and giving her a not-so-gentle nudge in her ribs with his elbow. “See we already got paid, why you needing to ask me for money again?”

Sheza elbowed Johan right back and followed it up with a solid hammer strike with her fist to his  inner thigh.

The rest of the crew laughed as Johan grimaced and clenched his leg.

“I think it’s more the fact that you owe her money, Johan,” Kess shouted over to him.

“Mmmm, I don’t think so,” Johan said, still rubbing his leg and shifting a few inches further away from Shaza.

“Really?” Sheza asked, cocking an eyebrow. “We had a bet. I won, you lost. Everyone else coughed up already. I’m just waiting on you now.”

“Ah, but I don’t think you won,” Johan said.

“I won Johan,” Sheza stated flatly.

“Ah, but –

“She won, Johan,” Mbabi interjected. “She out shot you, out shot all of us. Now pay up.”

“What, here?” Johan held out his hands as if to emphasize his lack of physical money.

“I’d accept your new muzzle break,” Sheza offered.

“My…you…I.,” Johan stammered in mock horror but when he met Mbabi’s eyes he seemed to know he’d taken it as far as he could and relented. “Oh, okay, Sheza.”

He pulled a duffle bag from beneath his seat and opened one of the side pouches. From within, he removed the muzzle break in question and handed it over to Sheza. She took it and examined it briefly, smiling all the while, before stowing it into her own duffle bag.

“That cost me three times what I bet,” Johan grumbled loudly enough they could all hear.

“Don’t make any bets you aren’t prepared to lose,” Kess said with a shrug.

A lot of their missions started out this way. A few bets, a few arguments, a few laughs. It helped ease them into the stress of whatever was to come.

“We’re getting close to the island,” their pilot announced over their radio headsets. “Maybe another fifteen minutes.”

They all nodded to one another and began grabbing their gear and loading their weapons. They had no idea what to expect, but assuming the worst was always a good policy in their line of work.

“Communications are still down on the island,” the pilot told them, “Just got word that this morning’s satellite images showed that the relay tower’s collapsed. Your short range radios should work just fine to talk to each other but only your sat phones are going to be able to call out.”

That wasn’t good. Communications had been down for a while on the island but as far as anyone had been able to tell from satellite images there hadn’t been any signs of physical damage.

“Any other new updates?” Mbabi asked.

Going into any scenario without every bit of information available was never a good idea.

“Nothing else,” the pilot replied after checking. “Resolution on the image isn’t high enough either to determine the cause of the collapse. Could have been geological for all we know at this point.”

“Yeah,” Mbabi muttered skeptically, “geological.”

There had been a minor quake detected shortly before the mainland lost communication with the island but it hadn’t seemed strong enough to explain it.

Before long, Mbabi was able to see the island. It was a few miles across in each direction and rose up a couple hundred feet out of the ocean. It wasn’t a conical island. Instead there were several sloping hills with deep valleys between that ran down almost to sea level in many places. Dense trees covered most of the island. Mbabi doubted they were native to the island but stranger things had happened. Between the trees and sloping hills he could make out the tops of buildings. A few winding roads cut through the island, connecting the various villas together. A helipad sat on a manmade jetty that stuck out from the shore.

“You’ve got supplies for at least a week,” the pilot reminded them. “You get into trouble, call us and I can be back here within a couple hours. If you go more than twenty four hours without checking in, I’ll come back as well.”

“Sounds good!” Mbabi called out, “We’ll see you when we see you.”

They arrived at the island and the helicopter lowered slowly onto the helipad. As soon as they touched down, Mbabi and the rest of his crew leapt out and hurried quickly up the jetty to the cover of some nearby trees. The helicopter lifted back up at once and flew away. Chances were slim that there were combatants on the island, but just in case they didn’t want to take any unnecessary risks. Private islands were sometimes targeted by those who thought they could hold the inhabitants for ransom. In those cases, though, ransom demands were made right away. The sooner they got paid, the less time and effort they had to invest in holding their hostages. In this case, there had been no ransom demands made. Just silence.

“Let’s get a little ways in,” Mbabi told them, “Kess, scout us a place to set up camp. Johan, watch the gear. Sheza, with me. Stay in radio contact.”

There were no arguments. Now was the time for business and everyone set to work. Kess slipped away into the forest, her rifle at the ready, while Johan began piling their duffle bags beneath some large ferns to keep them hidden for the time being.

Mbabi and Sheza worked their way over to the main road that led up from the helipad towards the nearest villa. There were half a dozen villas, each one capable of housing several dozen visitors. The owner of the island loved his elaborate parties. Most recently he’d been hosting some sort of film festival with all of his favorite movie directors and producers. From what Mbabi had heard of it, it sounded like an opportunity for famous movie makers to just show off their famous movies to other famous movie makers. Not exactly the sort of thing Mbabi would have enjoyed, but then again he didn’t go to the movies all that often.

“Road’s clear down here,” Mbabi whispered into his radio.

“I’m near a summit,” Kess’s voice crackled from the radio soon after. “Should get a view of the lower villa from there.”

Mbabi and Sheza continued up the road, watching and listening for any sign of what had happened. Unfortunately, everything looked perfectly normal. No oddly parked or abandoned vehicles, no bullet casings, nothing.

“There’s a good spot up here,” Kess’s voice came again over the radio. “First hill due South from the helipad. Natural little clearing in the trees, good view of the surrounding area. Defensible too. I can see the first villa. Looks empty.”

“Good, hold there Kess” Mbabi returned to her. “Johan, start moving gear that way. Sheza and I will head back and help shuttle the gear as well.”

“Copy that,” Kess replied. “Holding position.”

Mbabi and Sheza began making their way back down the road but after just a few paces Mbabi halted. Johan hadn’t confirmed he’d heard them.

“Johan, come in,” Mbabi said into his radio.

Silence.

“Kess, do you have eyes on Johan’s position?” Mbabi asked.

There was a moments pause before Kess responded.

“I can see the location but the tree cover is too dense to make anything out.”

“Copy that,” Mbabi grumbled and he and Sheza hurried their pace for a bit until it was time to leave the road and cut back into the trees. It wasn’t long before they began to smell it. A sort of acrid, almost putrid smell. It was the sort of smell that burned your eyes and nostrils even when it was faint. Sheza glanced to Mbabi who returned her puzzled and concerned expression. They each readied their weapons and proceeded forward. The smell grew stronger until they reached their first signs of what had happened to Johan. Sheza was the one who spotted it and she pointed with her gun barrel to draw Mbabi’s attention.

Draped across a low hanging branch in a clearly deliberate fashion, was Johan’s grinning face. Or more precisely, it was the flesh from his face. How or why it had been made to smile without muscles or bone structure beneath it, Mbabi didn’t know. He didn’t really care either. All that he did care about was the fact that Johan had been attacked, almost definitely killed, and his face skinned. All in the matter of a few minutes and without raising a commotion.

“Kess, come in,” Mbabi whispered immediately into his radio. He and Sheza continued forward but with even greater caution than before.

“Kess here,” she responded.

“Someone got to Johan, skinned his face and left it for us to find.”

There was silence for a moment and Mbabi began to worry if she’d just been attacked. Thankfully the radio crackled and she spoke.

“Did you say they skinned his face?”

“Yeah, that’s all we’ve found of him so far.”

“How’s our gear?” was Kess’s follow up question.

Mbabi and Sheza had just reached that point in the forest where Johan had been stashing their equipment. They looked, hoping to find Johan and the gear.

“Gone,” Mbabi told Kess. “And no other signs of Johan or who attacked him.”

Already this mission was not going according to plan.