The Swimsuit Contest
by Andrew Mason aka Dr. Amazing

This is a work of fiction.  Tombraider and Lara Croft are both trademark and copyright of EIDOS Interactive and Core design.  All other characters are copyright of the author.

            This story contains violent and sexual content and is suggested for mature readers (18 and over).
            Comments, complimentary or critical, can be addressed to: dramazin@alphalink.com.au

She glared at him.  It made no sense to keep the men here until the magazine group arrived then send them home while Lara’s group was still on the site.  She could tell, however, that Crombie would offer no further explanation.  Unless forced.

            She put aside that thought.  She did not want to put her hands on him; he might enjoy it.

            She returned to her hut, eager to get dressed in less revealing attire.

            She had thought that nothing Maia did would surprise her, but surprised she was when she entered the hut.  Maia was crying.  She sat on her bed, head forward, hands clutched together in her lap, and sobbed.

            Lara stood in the doorway for a few moments, uncharacteristically unsure of what to do.  Such displays of emotion had always discomforted her, probably as a result of her ‘stiff upper lip’ upbringing.  Also, she was unsure of how to offer comfort to Maia, who appeared to live in a world of her own.  The answer was very simple.  She walked to the bed and sat beside the distraught girl and put her arm around her.

            “Lara,” acknowledged Maia between sobs.

            “I’m here,” said Lara, hoping it was not too obvious a remark.

            Maia snuffled and tried to control her weeping.  “Do you feel it too?  Can you feel it moving?”

            “Feel what?”

            Maia looked at her through red-rimmed desperate eyes.  “You don’t feel it then?”

            Lara was more uncomfortable than ever.  Maia’s eyes gleamed with an urgency that bordered on madness.

            “Listen to me Lara!  You, of them all, must believe me!  There is evil on this island, ancient evil!”      

            “The visit inside the ruin has upset you,” said Lara, aware of the patronising tone of her voice but unable to disguise it.

            “Yes, because I could feel it, and no-one else could!  The altar was hot to the touch, hot as Hades.  It wanted to take me!”

            “The lights had heated it...”

            “No, no, no!  It was alive!  It wanted to take me!”

            Lara wanted to slap her.  This was complete lunacy.

            “It’s an ancient site Maia.  Anything that could harm you died a long time ago.”

            Maia stood, her posture defiant, her eyes glaring at Lara.  “Don’t treat me like an idiot!  I would have thought, with all you’ve seen and done, you’d be a little wiser!”

            Lara began to wonder if there was some substance to what Maia was saying.

            She had also felt something strange about the site when the plane had first landed.  She remembered gathering the group together as if they were about to be attacked.  Would she have done that normally, her uneasiness based only on one monkey killing?  She had been spooked too, but she had then become distracted, by Crombie’s unwelcome attention, by the shoot, by Chifley, by the site.

            Had her initial instinct been correct?  Was there something evil here?

            She remembered what Crombie had told her of the altar room being sealed by the stone door, trapping those within.  What if something had been released when the door was re-opened?

            “Calm down Maia.  Then tell me what you believe is going on here.”

            Maia slumped down onto the bed.  “I don’t know what’s happening, I only know that something is.  Something dangerous, something that terrifies me.”

            “Then we’re in the same boat,” said Lara.  “Let me get changed, then we’ll confront Crombie and get some answers.”

            Lara stripped off her robe and swimsuit then began to dress in her combat garb, brief shorts and blue-grey leotard top.  She was uncomfortably aware of Maia watching her.  Not her too?

            “Sorry,” apologised Maia, even before Lara had complained.  “After all that Peter has said about you I feel like I’m watching Superman change into his costume.”

            “Let’s hope we won’t need Superman,” replied Lara testily, “because all you’ve got is me.”

            She donned her Magnums, strapping the holsters to her strong thighs.  She slipped her backpack onto her back.  Her hair was already braided.  She was ready.

            Then a scream tore through the air, coming from nearby, probably from one of the other huts.

            Maia looked more terrified than ever.  “Wait here,” ordered Lara, then exited the hut.

            The huts were haphazardly placed in a circle and Lara guessed that the scream had come from a hut opposite her own.  To her left she could see Chifley and Lorna emerging from their meeting, frightened curiosity on their faces.

            “Where did it come from?” she asked.

            “Next door, I think,” said Chifley, pointing to Christina’s hut.

            People emerged cautiously from all the huts bar the one he had nominated and she cautiously moved to its door.  Before entering she turned to do a quick head count on the group.  Maia had remained indoors, as instructed, but all others were looking out their doors to determine what had happened.  The only people unaccounted for were Christina and Jack.

            She turned to face the door to Christina’s hut then opened it.  She looked in before entering and could see someone lying on one of the beds and blood seeping into the mattress.  She moved inside the room, her eyes on the unmoving body on the bed.

            Then Jack was on her.

            He moved from behind the door, armed with an ornamental dagger.  He stabbed at her back and came close to finishing her in one deadly attack.  She heard him coming and twisted away from his attack, his knife flashing through the space she had recently occupied.

            She stepped back from him, feeling the hut’s wall behind her.  She trained her Magnums on him and yelled, “Drop it Jack!  Don’t make me shoot you!”

            Jack only grinned.  It was a madman’s grin, with no trace of the man she had recently worked with.  His eyes were bright with a ferocious insanity and the dagger in his hand was red to its hilt.  He raised the dagger and rushed at her.

            She had no choice.  She aimed at his vital centres, needing to kill him quickly, before he could kill her.  Two bullets tore through the left side of his chest, accurate heart shots, then a third opened a hole over his right eye.

            His body continued forward, still propelled by its momentum, or by the madness that ruled him.  His knife sliced through her left upper arm and his body crashed into her, knocking her to the floor.

            She grunted in pain and pushed his corpse off her.  She studied the wound on her arm and was relieved to see that it was reparable.  She then turned to the bed where Christina’s body lay.  Jack had stabbed her through the left side of her chest and had sliced her throat as well.  The neck wound had bled profusely, her blood soaking the sheets she lay upon and squirting onto the wall above the bed.  The horrified expression on her pallid face was grotesque.  In death she retained none of the beauty that had defined her life.

            Lara was aware of movement again behind her and turned to see something that should have been impossible.  Jack had risen to his feet and was grinning wildly at her.  The right side of the grin was a palsied grimace and his left arm hung uselessly at his side but he still held the knife in his right.

            Lara felt her stomach tighten in fear.  This could not be happening.  She raised her Magnums, her aim still steady despite the terror she felt.  “Get down Jack.  Don’t make me kill... shoot you again.”

            He lumbered towards her, his left side reluctant to move.  She watched his shambolic gait for a few moments, in horrified fascination, then put two more bullets through his brain.

            He fell and the knife dropped from his hand.  She stepped up to him cautiously, holstering her left-hand gun.  She felt his neck for a pulse, keeping her right-hand gun aimed at his wide, staring eyes.  There was no pulse.  No life flickered behind his vacant gaze.  He was dead.

            A few moments later a timid voice from outside the hut asked, “Lara, are you all right?”

            She exhaled slowly.  Something very weird was going on here.  “Yes Peter, I’m OK.  Christina and Jack are dead, however.”

            Chifley entered the hut, an expression of horror on his face as he viewed the bloody corpses within.  “What... what happened?”

            “The first screams were Christina’s.  Jack killed her with his knife, then tried to do the same to me.”

            “That’s crazy!  I’ve known Jack for years--he’s no killer.  I know he hated Christina, but why... do this... why now?  This makes no sense!”

            She looked closely at him.  She could hear the edginess in his voice and she tried to assess whether she should tell him what she suspected.

            “I’m OK Lara,” he said, understanding her scrutiny.  “This is...  I’ve never seen anything like this, but I won’t need to be slapped out of hysteria.”

            “Good, because this isn’t over.”

            “Why do you say that?  Jack is dead.”

            “Finally, yes.  It took five bullets to stop him, any one of which should have been instantly fatal.”

            She bent down to Jack’s body again.  She pointed to the knife in his hand.  “That’s one of Crombie’s artefacts.”

            “Again, why?  Why steal a centuries old weapon?”

            “Especially when he could have stolen a gun from one of the worker’s huts.”

            Chifley was frowning in concentration.  “Maybe he wanted to kill her with his own hands.”  He shook his head.  “I can’t believe I’m speculating about this.  Jack was not a violent man.  Or never used to be.”

            Lara rose to her feet and moved closer to Chifley.  “Maia warned me there was something evil on this island,” she said in a quiet voice.

            He replied, also in a conspiratorial tone.  “Yes, she got really freaked during the shoot.  You think there’s some sort of curse on this place?”

            She was relieved that he wasn’t dismissing her concerns.  “I haven’t ever come across a ‘Curse of the Mummy’ scenario in my work, Peter.  Before seeing Jack keep coming at me with three bullets in him, I’d have scoffed at your suggestion.  Right now I’d prefer to keep an open mind.”

            “What should we tell the others?”

            “I’m not sure.  Usually, when I get into strife I’m in it alone.  You know them better than I do, Peter.  What do you think?”

            His face was stern.  “I thought I knew Jack too.  Well, we have to tell them that Christina and Jack are dead, and that he killed her and you killed him.”

            “And they’ll want more explanation than that.”

            “Yes, so you tell them what you told me.  It may spook them a little, but it should keep them on the alert.”

            “I think you’re right.  I think they’ll need to be on the alert.”

            They left the hut to find that everyone, Maia excepted, had gathered outside Christina’s hut.  She could see the tension, the fear, in every face.

            “What’s going on?” demanded Lorna.  She was staring at Lara’s arm.  Lara looked down to see that her upper arm was bloodied to the elbow with her own blood.

            Lara replied to Lorna’s question while taking a medical kit from her backpack.  “Jack killed Christina with one of Crombie’s ornamental knives, then attacked me,” explained Lara.  Gasps of surprise greeted her announcement.  “He... was quite insane.”

            She paused, waiting for them to accept the facts as she’d stated them.  “I suspect that there is something macabre occurring here on this island.  I believe it affected Jack and caused him to act as he did.”  There was bafflement on every face she saw and she pressed on, wanting to get it all out before they protested.  “I believe this... this evil remains, and may yet affect the rest of us.”

            “That’s a bit of a leap, my dear,” objected Crombie.  “I’ve been here for years and I’ve seen no evidence of what you suggest.”

            “But I’ve seen it in you,” retorted Lara.  “You’ve behaved appallingly, like a pervert, not a scientist.  I suspect it may be this place that made you behave so.”

            Crombie did not respond but his face was chagrined.

            There was an uneasy silence.  Lara began to clean the blood from her arm, a task made more difficult by the fact that the wound was still bleeding.

            “For God’s sake Lara, sit down before you bleed to death,” said Chifley.

            She sat on the step of Christina’s hut and Cassie stepped forward to assist her.  Lara gave her a wad of gauze to hold on the laceration and stifle the bleeding.

            “What are you suggesting?” asked Lorna, in her matter-of-fact way, completely uninterested in Lara’s injury.  “We all know that Jack hated Christina, and you think this island made him act upon that hatred?”

            Lara was impressed by her analysis.  “That’s my best guess, at present.”

            “We should remain together,” recommended Chifley.  “If anyone else is affected we will be aware of it sooner.”

            Lara nodded.  “We should also contact the mainland.  The sooner we’re off the island the better.”

            “Easier said than done,” said Crombie.  “I’m afraid your man Jack sabotaged our radio before he took after Christina.”

            Lara frowned, not only because they were effectively isolated on the island, but also because such an act showed a premeditation that she would not have thought an insane man capable of.

            Cassie, still pressing on her wound, said, “You’re going to need stitches here.  It’s not stopping.”

            “We’ll just wrap it up tight, until I have time for repairs,” replied Lara.

            “I’ll do it,” said Chifley.  He took a bandage that Lara gave him.  He wrapped it over the bloodied gauze that Cassie held, effectively stopping her bleeding.

            “I’m not sure you’re right about this evil influence,” said Cassie quietly.  “Leastways it’s not affecting me and my basic instincts.  Ever since we met at the airport I’ve wanted nothing more than to get my hands on you, honey, but right now I don’t care nothin’ about that.  I don’t want to kill anyone either.  I just want to get out of here alive.”

            Lara put her arm around her.  “As we all do.  As we all will.”

            “How about it?” asked Chifley, addressing the whole group.  “Does anyone feel different?  Angry?  Confused?”

            “No more than usual, Peter dear,” said Jason.  They all laughed.  Lara’s suggestion was beginning to seem a little absurd.

            But two people were dead, violently killed.  Things were anything but normal.

            “I’ll get Maia,” announced Lara.  “As Peter said, we should all stay together.”

            She gave one of her guns to Chifley, deciding he was the most level-headed of the group.  She then moved toward her hut, wondering how she would tell Maia about the killings.  Again, Maia surprised her when she entered, this time by throwing herself at her, snarling like a wild animal.

            Lara had no chance to prepare herself for the attack.  She was knocked backwards, Maia falling with her.  Lara’s back crashed into the washbasin, then she landed heavily on her injured arm.  She cried out in pain, then Maia moved on top of her, raking her nails across her neck.  She managed to grab hold of Maia’s hands, then struggled beneath the woman’s weight.  Maia seemed so much heavier, so much stronger, than she would have imagined.  It took a huge effort to keep Maia’s hands away, the nails already red with Lara’s blood.  Maia’s face, looming above her, was wild with madness.  Her eyes gleamed with hatred and her mouth was distorted by a savage snarl.

            “Maia!” yelled Lara, hoping to somehow reach her.  “Why are you doing this?”

            Maia did not reply, instead she turned her head toward Lara’s left hand and opened her mouth to bite it.

            Lara cursed fiercely, surprised by the ferocity of her assailant.  With a desperate effort Lara managed to roll Maia off to one side then scrambled away from her assailant.  She did not even have time to look at her injured hand before Maia was upon her again, crashing into her back.  Lara had her hands at her sides, trying to draw her gun, and she was knocked forwards heavily onto her chest, the breath knocked out of her lungs.  Maia jumped onto her back, sitting astride her, then grabbed her plait and pulled back fiercely on it, tugging Lara’s head back and exposing her throat.

            Lara did not wait for the nails to come.  She rolled to one side and raised an elbow, crashing it into the side of Maia’s head.  There was clearly no way to resolve this violence without responding in kind.

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