Dogs howling under a full moon meant someone was going to die soon. That’s what her mama used to say. Barbara yawned and wondered just how many stray dogs roamed the village at night. They were disturbing her good sleep with their half-minute howls. She scratched a mosquito bite on her neck and tried to focus her mind. Was today Saturday or Sunday?
Barbara rolled over and adapted to the jagged mattress coils that pressed against her naked buttocks. A stab of homesickness made her sigh. She was in Dominica. Nice island, but nothing could touch Barbados. Dominica was too green, the beaches were mostly polluted with black sand, and the mountains rose and fell like careless dictators. God would never pass his hands over the island. He wouldn’t risk being cut by a mountain peak.
Someone muttered outside the door of her clapboard shack. Had Father Williams brought Troy home from camp? At that hour of night? The time was most likely between eleven and three. Where was her watch? She groped for a matchbox on the concrete floor.
The front door burst open and crashed against the wall, shocking her into thrusting both hands upward. They dropped to shield her eyes from the yellow dazzle of a flashlight. Footsteps trooped in, and the louvered window shut with a clang.
“Here stinks of witch,” a raucous voice said.
The bedspread she pulled over herself was ripped away. The shaft of light played across the floor, picking up a coal pot, another mattress, and a kerosene lamp. Three shapes in the moonlight moved, resolved into male silhouettes.
The flashlight switched off, and the door slammed, plunging the shack into darkness. Something metallic struck the floor, throwing out a shower of sparks. Barbara smelt alcohol.
“We bring the sounds and sights of justice,” another man said with a Barbadian accent.
She blocked out the glare of the flashlight once more.
“We’re not here to set you on fire.” The third voice intruded with a loud bass.
She crossed her quaking legs. “Take my purse, take everything here. Everything.”
A pair of hands forced her legs apart.
“No, no, no,” the bass voice said, turning the words into gunshots.
The hands lifted from her thighs.
She unblocked her eyes and wiped the tears streaming down her face. “Please leave me alone.”
The men laughed, drowning out the howling dogs. The flashlight turned off. Barbara rubbed her eyes and tried to sit upright. A pair of hands pinned down her shoulders.
She lashed out in desperation and struck one man’s elbow. “Leave me alone.”
A fist slammed into her cheek. Something struck near her feet, the vibration through the mattress shaking her thighs.
“Can’t believe I missed the bitch.” The bass voice delivered no emotion.
The flashlight blinded her again, for a brief moment before switching off. She tasted more fear than blood in her mouth, vaguely conscious of her warming body. The curse wanted to emerge, and she couldn’t let it, couldn’t let them see. “You mistake me for someone else. Please don’t take me away from my son.” The tears gushed out. “Don’t take me away from Troy.”
The mattress quivered.
“How old is he?” The bass voice blew up into a hammering laugh.
“Just thirteen,” she stuttered.
“Damn blade’s stuck deep in the foam.” Two seconds of deathly silence followed the voice. “Troy’s a big boy. He doesn’t need you anymore.”
The mattress shuddered, and one man snorted out a laugh. Barbara screamed as she felt her thigh split open.