Stranded

by Sarah Goodwin

  After nightfall I left the cave, replacing the panel behind me. I’d let the fire go out and hoped that this was not the night the others chose to come looking for me. The idea that I might go back inside only to be met by one of them, waiting for me, had been the cause of many a nightmare in the past week. I was carrying only what I needed: a knife, an empty bag and my torch. I wore my camera almost as a talisman. An all-seeing eye to protect me from their anger and violence.

  I took the journey slowly, though everything in me wanted to run and get it over with as soon as I could. Every few feet I stopped to listen for footsteps, voices. There were none. The snow was almost completely gone now but an iron-hard frost had taken its place. This was good for me as it meant I left no footprints. Hopefully the intense cold would also keep the others beside their fires and not out in the woods.

  With the portacabin in sight I paused, trying to see if anyone had been posted to keep watch on it. I couldn’t imagine any of them volunteering to spend the night in a building with no fire and two corpses for company. Still, I took my time and approached carefully. It was only when I got within a few feet that I saw why there was no need to watch the place.

  The door, which had hung open, swollen with damp, had been wedged closed. Across it, nailed in place, were two planks taken from a pallet. I went closer and saw the charred edges. These planks were from my tipi. The cruel irony of my ruined home being used as parts to keep me from getting supplies was not lost on me. There was no way I could remove those planks and pry the door open without making a huge amount of noise. I couldn’t rule out the possibility that someone was camped near enough to hear. Even if I chanced it, they’d then know I’d been to the cabin. They’d go looking for what I’d taken and possibly carry off anything I had to leave behind. No, I had to get inside without leaving any sign of my presence.

  I circled the cabin as quietly as possible. The windows were no good; they were all shut up and locked from inside. Breaking one would be as obvious as getting in through the door. I crouched in the undergrowth, trembling with nerves. I couldn’t leave without blankets and warm clothes. I wouldn’t last until spring without them. I was about to go back to the door, to hell with thoughts of caution, when an idea struck me.

  A lifetime ago I’d gone to a primary school with two portacabin classrooms. I remembered that in the centre of the classroom there had been a little trapdoor, neatly filled in with a square of nylon carpet.

  Eyeing up the bottom of the cabin, I circled it again until I found a panel in the wood lattice at the base. I removed it and crawled into the space beneath the floor. I chanced shining my torch around and saw what looked to be a trapdoor at the end of the passage I was in. There was a smell in the crawl space, one of rot and fungus. I held my breath as much as I could, taking sips of air when I absolutely had to.

  At the trapdoor I struggled with the aluminium clips holding it in place. The hatch was slick with something brownish and thick. Around it seeped a circle of darker wood, soaked through. I gagged, dropping the torch. Both it and my hands were smeared with the brown grease; the seeping remains of the body above. I lost my nerve, scrubbing my hands on the dirt below me, feeling the grease squish between my fingers. I coughed and retched.

  It took a great amount of effort but I forced myself to stop moving, to stop making sound. I had to do this. I had to keep my head together. That didn’t stop me flinching as I finally levered open the trapdoor and found myself right beside the bunkbeds, in a corner by the console. I pulled myself up through the hole, trying not to recoil from the feel of the sticky, saturated carpet. I got into a crouch and with effort forced myself to look away from the corpse and instead search for the clothes I hoped to find.

  After scrubbing my hands on the cleaner areas of the carpet, I started to scan the walls for more cupboards and storage spaces. I had already checked the bathroom, and a quick look in through the door confirmed there was nowhere for an extra cupboard to be hidden. Under the console was empty of the wires and things I’d left last time. Clearly the others had taken those. Above the computer screens there was a long, shallow cubbyhole, but if there had been something there it too was now gone.

  The feeling of defeat was agonising. I’d come this far for nothing. As a last-ditch effort I checked the corner opposite the hatch, on the other side of the beds. There I found a plastic wastepaper bin, half full. I wanted to kick it, but didn’t dare. I’d taken enough risks already.

  Then I noticed the shine from a chrome stripe, going up the wall. I felt for it, pulled and a floor-to-ceiling cupboard opened up, knocking the bin on its side. I winced at the sound. Behind the narrow door was a small, but packed, wardrobe.

  I only narrowly kept myself from shouting out in relief. Inside the wardrobe were several shelves of folded clothes; jeans, T-shirts, hoodies. At the bottom a cloth hamper bulged with worn clothes. The scent of fabric softener wafted out like a memory of another time. I leant forwards and rested my forehead on a heap of folded clothes, inhaling.

  I glanced at the bunkbed with its sightless occupant and shivered. I told myself that it didn’t matter, not right now. I needed these things and that was all there was to it. How they got there, why they were there, was not my concern.

  There was too much for me to take. There was also no guarantee that the others wouldn’t come back and find the wardrobe later on. I had to make the most of the opportunity. I packed my bag with several thick jumpers, woollen socks and a cheap fleece blanket to block the cave’s draft. I almost cried in frustration when my backpack refused to fit through the hatchway. I had to remove half the stuff and after some thought, dropped it into the crawl space. I would pack it all again once I was outside. I tried not to think about what might soak into it in the meantime.

  It broke my heart to close the wardrobe and leave so much stuff behind. I told myself that I could come back for it, though the likelihood of me doing so was low. Once the warmer weather came I would not be able to crawl through the mess under the cabin, no matter how desperate I was. Maybe the others would find the rest and maybe they wouldn’t. Hopefully by the time it mattered we’d be off the island.

  I was backing away, lost in thought, when my foot crunched down on something. I shone my torch down and saw that it was a ball of paper. Without thinking I picked it up, it was a reflex from a more normal time; see a mess, tidy it. Once I had it in my hand I stuffed it into my pocket. Might as well keep the kindling.

  After escaping through the crawl space I repacked my bag. Only then did I truly become aware of the smell that was now on me. My hands were covered in the stink of death and decay. Away from the horror of the bodies I couldn’t suppress it any longer. I desperately needed to be clean.

  My small store of courage used up for the time being, I hurried back to the cave. As soon as I came across a waterlogged gully I dropped to my knees and scrubbed my hands in the filthy water. I scooped up a handful of silt and scoured under my nails until the skin hurt. With dripping fingers I snatched up my bag and made short work of the trip back to the cave. Inside I built up the fire under my billycan of water. I didn’t relax until I’d scrubbed my hands three times with boiling water and plenty of my precious soap. They looked red raw in the firelight, but at least they were clean.

  I wasted no time in using my newly acquired clothes. With a thick pair of socks on and a blanket wedged into the opening to the outer cave, I relished the warmth. Rebuilding my fire had left the kindling bucket virtually empty. I scraped up the few dry leaves that lingered in the cave and then pulled the paper from my pocket.

  I don’t know why I opened it out. Maybe it was simple curiosity. I had after all been reading the same few books since coming to the island. Maybe I was just hungry for new words to run my eyes over. Maybe it was instinct. Perhaps. Either way, I smoothed out the page and was confronted with a familiar image of amanita muscaria. Familiar, because it had come from my foraging book.

  I stared at it, waiting for the image to make sen
se. What was the missing page from my book doing in the camera guys’ portacabin? There was no way one of the camera crew could have taken my book without someone at camp noticing. Why would they even want to? No, someone from the camp must have taken the page. Then, somehow, it had ended up in the porta­cabin. Had they taken it there to show the camera guys? Why?

  It was like a magic eye picture. One moment I was looking at a useless scrap of rubbish, the next I was looking at something quite different. The answer. What better to trade to two bored dudes than some ‘magic mushrooms’? One of the islanders had taken the page and used it to identify fly agaric to trade for extra food, or booze. For whatever reason, perhaps to hide what they had done, they had discarded the page at the portacabin.

  When had the page been taken? I’d only discovered it was missing after moving to the beach, but it could have been ripped out way before then. Any of them might have taken it at any time. But then … why had they all eaten the fly agaric? All of them apart from Zoe anyway. Whoever had the page must have known what the mushrooms were. Had they just not known that yet, or were they stupid enough to think a little soup wouldn’t hurt them?

  Perhaps I was giving whoever had taken the page too much credit. Clearly they had not known enough to correctly identify fly agaric. To have killed the camera guys so quickly, so violently, it had to have been something else. The reverse of the fly agaric page was a warning on amanita virosa: the destroying angel. Even one of those was enough to kill an adult and the resultant liver and kidney damage would have likely been excruciating. There were various other species just as deadly.

  Someone on the island was responsible for their deaths. Accidentally, perhaps, but they had poisoned them all the same. Whoever it was had to have some idea that giving the mushrooms to the cameramen might be connected to their deaths. Two healthy men did not just drop dead without help. Still, whoever was responsible hadn’t said anything. Were they too afraid, trying to hide what they’d done?

  Perhaps the page had not been left behind out of laziness or fear of being caught, but rather to guarantee it would be found. My page, from my book. Beside the dead men. Implicating me. I remembered Gill and her insane accusations that I had poisoned the two men. Was it just that she hated me, or was she trying to throw suspicion my way to protect herself? Or had it been Zoe, who hadn’t eaten the soup? Had she tried to trade the mushrooms for something to bring her period on? Was it Frank, always desperate for some booze? He hadn’t eaten any of the soup either, I suddenly remembered. He’d been passed out, drunk. Any of them might have done it. Easier to blame me than to risk reprisals themselves.

  Not only did I now know that someone had killed the camera crew, I could also imagine their last moments. Perhaps the first had died in his sleep, but the second … The realisation that his companion was dead, searing agony as the toxins attacked his organs. Had he called for help? They’d had power. Perhaps he’d been too delusional by then. In too much pain. If he had called, no one had come. No one, it seemed, had even heard. Even if they’d been too late, they still would have tried, if only to collect the bodies. Someone would have told us. But there was no one.

  No one had sent a boat. No one had worried that the cameramen hadn’t been in touch for months. Why? Something had to be going on. Had the company gone under? What if the project had been abandoned as everyone jumped ship to new companies? Could our current situation be as simple as no one taking responsibility for a failed idea? No one being in charge of retrieving us and all of them just going after the next pitch, the next job? I thought of those interviews, of Sasha and Adrian. The lack of a real presenter, the tiny boat, slapdash video call interviews. What if their shoestring budget had finally broken? What if we’d been written off as a loss, just like the equipment that still hung in trees all over the island?

  If not Adrian or Sasha, what about the families of the other islanders? Zoe’s parents, Maxine’s husband and daughters? Even Frank had a brother who featured in all his fishing stories. Everyone else had someone to miss them. We were meant to be home by now. There would have been arrangements: people waiting at the train station, calling for coach times, driving up north. So, where was the outcry? Where was our rescue?

  Besides, if everyone else was blissfully ignorant of our situation, we were off the coast of Scotland. Why had no one stumbled across us? We’d seen no boats, not even in the distance. Why was the world just pretending we didn’t exist?

  An idea occurred to me then, so frightening that for a moment I forgot to breathe. I was just so horrified to be peering into the deep, dark pit of sudden realisation. I felt all hope leach away from me like blood from a mortal wound.

  There was no one out there.

  The idea felt so paranoid, so preposterous, that I almost laughed. The only thing that stopped me was the feeling that once I started I might not be able to stop. I might laugh until I couldn’t breathe and then scream.

  Of all the people who knew about us, or who might come across us, we had not seen or heard from a producer, a family member or stranger since we arrived. No one had answered the radio. No one had sent fuel or a rescue team. No one had so much as sailed past looking for fish.

  There was no one out there. Something had happened to the world. Something terrible.

  I wanted to scream, to run or throw up and punch and kick at everything in sight. I reached out to do just that but the need to stay silent and invisible held me back. Instead, I threw myself down on the dirt floor and dug my fingers into it like claws. I banged my forehead against the earth and cried as silently as I could into it. When I turned my face to the side I saw the bag of clothing and blankets, mocking me. I’d thought I could survive, but for how long? For ever? Trapped here? I shook my head against the dirt, answering some question only I could hear. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t live like this without hope of rescue. I couldn’t take this new and terrible idea that had blossomed in my head.

  ‘I can’t,’ I whispered into the dust.

  The cave and all its shadows, the yellow flames and the roots twisting through the crumbling dirt, seemed to sigh. The night wind crept its cold fingers into my hovel to chill my wet cheeks. ‘You must,’ it seemed to say. ‘You must.’

  Chapter 29

  ‘I knew they’d kill me, if they found me,’ I say.

  Even under the lights of the studio, tasting lipstick on my mouth and feeling the butter-soft leather of the sofa beneath me, it’s all too easy to return to that cave. I go there in my nightmares often enough. The dark and the wet, the insects and the smoke.

  ‘How did you manage, living like that?’ Rosie asks.

  ‘I don’t know. If someone had proposed it – living in that tiny cave for weeks on end, I’d say, no one could survive that without going mad.’ I give a small laugh that comes out all wrong. ‘To live like an animal, less than an animal … It’s beyond anything I thought I could endure. But the alternative was death. I was surprised what I’d do to avoid that, even at my lowest.’

  ‘But at that point no one had done more than chase you, or push you. Nothing to suggest they might have murderous intent,’ my interviewer points out, in a way she probably thinks is diplomatic. ‘You didn’t necessarily know what they’d do, at that time, did you?’

  ‘Ironically, that’s what nearly killed me then,’ I say, looking her in the eye and watching her instantly regret her words. ‘There’s this … compulsion, bred into us. To be polite, to be civilised, as if by ignoring a threat we’re somehow safe from whoever or whatever is out to get us. That as long as we stay silent, as long as no one acknowledges the fear we feel or what might happen … it won’t.’ I allow myself a small sip of water, feeling anger burning into my cheeks. I put the glass down. ‘It’s bullshit.’

  I almost hear the indignant squeaks of some producer. This is live after all. The horror of my ordeal is one thing. Starvation, deprivation, murder and madness are fine, but please, spare us the language.

  ‘There was a moment whe
re I had to choose between everything I’d ever been taught about how to stay safe, and reality. I had to either play the game of appeasement, negotiating just how much I was going to be hurt, or believe my instincts and try to save myself, whatever the cost. And if I hadn’t trusted that part of myself … I wouldn’t be here.’

  Chapter 30

  When my parents died, it changed me. All at once, the people I’d loved, who knew me the best of everyone, were gone. I’d lost what felt like the only two people who’d cared about me. My world, already small, shrank until it was just me, alone. I carried with me the terrible ache of that loss. Yet I never spoke about it. I didn’t look directly into that absence because I didn’t dare. If I did, I knew it would consume me.

  I dealt with the near certainty that we would never be rescued in much the same way; I refused to acknow­ledge it. It hung over me, day by day, as blinding and searing as the sun, but I did not look at it directly. Instead I did what I had always done; I found distractions. In my old life that had meant watching inane YouTube videos just to hear a voice until I was too tired to stay awake. On the island it meant trying to find enough food and fuel to keep myself alive. As distractions went, it worked better than anything else. Strangely the knowledge that one of the others had caused the deaths of two people didn’t weigh on me as heavily; I was already under no illusions as to their selfishness, their carelessness. They had lied and hidden the truth of many things to make me the bad guy. Why should the deaths of two men be anything other than fuel to the fire of their group hatred?

  I never went out during the day. However, I also wasn’t able to sleep during daylight hours. The idea of being discovered, asleep and vulnerable, was a constant fear. I had to be awake to listen for approaching footsteps. Equally I couldn’t sleep at night because I needed to go out under cover of darkness. I was therefore operating on the little amounts of sleep I could get in the period after sunset but before the darkest part of the night. Then I slept again in the hours around sunrise. Even so I never slept deeply and was for the most part exhausted.