Free Devil's Keep by Phillip Finch

“That was me. Who are you?”
    “Me, I’m Junior. Junior Peralta. From Vigan City.”
    Marivic took the last couple of steps toward the door, moving slowly to keep from getting dizzy once more. She placed her palm against the cool steel and pushed. The door didn’t budge.
    “I am a prisoner,” Marivic said, as much to herself as to the disembodied voice on the other side of the wall.
    “Yes. Me too.”
    “Were you kidnapped from Manila?”
    “Yes.”
    “Why are we here?” Marivic said.
    “I don’t know.”
    “Who are they?”
    “I don’t know. Foreigners, that’s all. But it’s not so bad. There’s lots of food. And anyway, we’ll be leaving soon.”
    “How do you know?”
    “Wilfredo told me. He figured it out. Fredo is very intelligent.”
    “Who is Fredo?”
    “He was in the place you’re in now. We talked all the time. He was here for almost one month, and he paid attention. He said they were getting ready to let him out, and then this morning they took him away, so I guess he must have been right. He really did leave after all.”
    “What makes you think he left?” Marivic said.
    “We’re on an island,” the voice said. “A small one. I didn’t see it, but Wilfredo said he got a good look when they brought him here. He said it’s small. You can probably walk around it in ten or fifteen minutes.”
    Another dreamlike image drifted up into Marivic’s consciousness. She was being lifted out of a boat. … No, it was the airplane, a plane that floated boatlike on the water, tied up at a dock. She was put into a motorized cart, bright green and yellow, and then driven up a hill toward a clump of concrete buildings among some coconut trees.
    That’s where I am now,
she thought.
    And yes it seemed to be an island. Not a big one.
    “Think about it,” Junior said. “If Wilfredo is not here, where else can he be? He must have left.”
    Somewhere outside, an engine stuttered to life. It made a loud buzz that flowed in through the grille at the top of the outside wall and rattled around the concrete cell.
    The plane,
Marivic thought.
    “The plane!” said Junior. “You see? Fredo must be leaving.”
    The buzz became louder and more insistent. It grew into a roar that reverberated off the concrete walls, reaching an angry pitch so loud that neither of them tried to talk.
    Then it began to recede. Gradually the sound diminished. Marivic knew that the plane was flying away. She imagined it climbing into the sky, disappearing. It had brought her here, and now it was leaving.
    The thought saddened her. She was lost. Truly.

    Junior and Marivic chatted for hours that day, each talking to a blank concrete wall, never seeing eachother’s face. Junior was twenty-two years old, son of a fisherman, fourth in a family of eight. A poor family, he told Marivic. Junior didn’t like fishing. He was saving to buy a taxi. Junior’s story was the same as hers: a job offer from Optimo, a long bus ride, met at the terminal by the creepy
matrona
and the thug, the ride in a van, the offering of
siopao
…
    “That’s the last time I ever take
siopao
from a stranger,” Junior said.
    Before the end of that first day they had become friends. They talked about their homes and families, about school and neighbors. Marivic had never been to Vigan, but she could imagine the little house where Junior had grown up, and all the people who lived in it.
    Around nightfall, a key turned in the lock. Two men entered. Foreigners. They were a ridiculous pair: one slight and wiry, the other massive, so large that he had to bend his head in order to get through the door. Their faces were impassive. They didn’t make eye contact, didn’t even seem to notice her. One carried a tray with a bowl of food and a full pitcher of water. The other carried a clean chamber pot.
    Marivic tried to speak to them in English. She said, “Where am I? Why am I here?”
    They didn’t say a word. They briskly switched out the chamber pot and the