Pulp Fiction part 3

This is the 3rd post of my foray into fiction, you will have to go back and start where you left off...somebody stop me? I need to come up with a proper title I guess

The Sun had moved in it’s arc just enough to put the sidewalk in shadow as they paid the check. They crossed to opposite side of the street lined with island cabs and were immediately engaged by a young local man leaning on the side of a battered passenger van. “Where you going Mon?” the driver asked.  He pulled the ripped page from his shirt pocket and said “Sapphire Beach resort”, “Can you take us?”. “No Problem Mon, Carleton Jones at your service!” Carleton reached behind him slid the side door open and beckoned them into the worn bench seats and the sticky sweet smell of way too many air fresheners placed about the cabin.  It had been many years since he had been in the Islands but as the van left the small commercial street he could see that not much changes. The van creaked and suffered from a life of potholes and narrow, winding roads. If the van ever did have shocks, they were long worn out, it creaked and pitched almost in time with the ska music playing from the radio. She held tightly to the arm rest and grabbed his knee each time the van would dive around some blind corner with a wall of rock or a cliff within inches of the window.  It takes some time to adjust to “wrong” side of the road traffic.

They were heading for the far end of the island, he thought it would be good to get out of town, away from the airport, away from the noise.  She was staring out the window as Carleton drove out of town and the road became less busy and hectic. They passed through the shanty towns and goat farms of the central hills getting glimpses of the blue Caribbean sea in the distance. He was thinking about something she said before they left the airport in Toronto, only a day before but it seemed like ages ago…

Funny thing about an Island, it can be a refuge, protecting those that are there from the outside world or it can hold you captive, stuck, with no means to escape. I think the British first realized it when they decided that Australia was the perfect prison, no way out. Island life is like that, it can look so attractive from the outside, but if you’re trapped, a prisoner of the island, and it can become hell.  His own life was like living on an island in many ways, and this trip, the events of the last couple days, an escape, “a run for it”...only he had never planned for an accomplice.  

He had only met with her to tell her that he was going on a short vacation, he felt that he owed her that, but at some point over coffee that morning, 3 days ago, he spilled the beans… She had that way about her, easy to talk to, interested and interesting to talk with. Time seemed to go by much too fast and at the same time, stand still when he was with her. Sharing his plan with her may have been foolish but to him it seemed so natural and as the story poured out she looked down into her coffee, expressionless. When the coffee was done, they stood, she gave him a hug and wished him good luck, “be careful, take care of yourself”. He was only a few miles down the road when the text message displayed on the phone “Wait for me, I am coming with you”.