Stranded

by Sarah Goodwin

  At night I ventured out to fulfil my needs. Firstly to empty my slop bucket and bury the contents. I had another bucket hidden in the undergrowth to gather rainwater and periodically refilled my filtering apparatus from it. This was also how I charged my camera, leaving the solar packs out, hidden as best I could. There wasn’t much point other than having something to talk to, that and the hope that if it came to it, the idea of being recorded might save me. An idea that had almost worn away, along with my hope.

  I foraged as best I could without light or access to the shoreline. Pickings were slim given the time of the year and the fact that I couldn’t go far. I averaged a few mushrooms or handfuls of greenery to add to my ration pile. I did my best not to think of what would happen when those rations ran out. I was already eking them out as much as possible. There was nothing more I could do.

  Although there were several long hours in which I could leave the cave, I had to work so slowly that I made little progress on hunting for supplies. In the darkness it was hard to see what I was doing and I also had to move slowly for fear of making noise. Wood, for example, had to be gathered piece by piece from what had fallen on the ground. Each piece had to be pushed through the cave entrance and to the side so I could still get in. Kindling, moss and leaves for cleaning myself, water, food – all took precious time to find and then get into the cave.

  Although I now had more clothes to layer and a blanket to keep the draft out, the cave still got very cold at night. I developed swollen, itching chilblains on my hands and feet from going from the freezing cold to the fireside. I’d lost my manicure scissors with the tipi and now had jagged nails, chewed down or cut with my penknife. I was also unable to wash for fear of wasting precious water. Living in a dirt cave made any attempts to keep clean moot anyway. I got used to finding beetles and spiders in my hair, millipedes on my clothes. They crawled over me while I slept and I was too exhausted to bat them away. In the perpetual darkness I lived in I probably ate more than a few by accident.

  During the long waking hours spent trapped inside, I tried to read. At this point I could practically recite every page of my one novel from memory. More often than not I found myself coming out of a kind of trance, just staring into the fire. Sometimes I heard sounds that couldn’t possibly be there: a PC booting up, a phone ringing, a car driving past. I decided it was probably birds imitating other sounds. Though it happened even in the dead of night.

  There was a relief in getting outside. The fear of discovery and the tension of being as silent as possible were still nerve-shredding, but the feel of fresh air and the openness of the starry sky were my only pleasures. As much as I was afraid of being trapped on the island, I couldn’t blame the place itself for that. After all, Buidseach was my only ally, my protector. I sheltered within it, I fuelled my fire and myself with what it provided. Sometimes, when I tried to sleep in the small hours, I found myself talking out loud as if the cave walls could hear me. I whispered my inner thoughts to the roots and the cobwebs and the sighing wind.

  Sometimes I wished the walls could talk back as I thought they’d done before, the words coming in on the wind. If I was going to be trapped on Buidseach I could use someone to talk to. Anyone with a friendly face. If just one of the others had been cast out with me, things would be so different. I’d be so much less alone. At times I would have even settled for the fabled witch. Anyone. Anyone at all.

  *

  One night I chanced heading a little further from camp. It was unavoidable; I needed wood and there was simply none to be found around my cave anymore, save small sticks that burned for mere minutes. I was also in need of more spruce to make into tea. The needles provided crucial vitamin C, something I was desperate for.

  I took with me only the essentials: my penknife on a string lanyard, a canvas bag and my rucksack to carry wood home with me. I crept out into the night and took a few breaths of clear, cold air. The ground was frozen hard as iron and the chill cut like glass. Frost furred the trees and rimed the fallen leaves. My breath rose in dense white clouds and the woods were still and quiet. It was as beautiful as it was formidable.

  With the cave to my back I started to walk uphill. I went quietly but didn’t bother to keep my head down. It had become fairly obvious that no one was looking for me at night. In fact I’d not heard anyone in the woods near me for a while. Perhaps they also felt the teeth in the cold wind. They were looking inwards to their fire and food supplies.

  When I reached the top of the hill I rooted around for pieces of fallen branch and log. Most of it was riddled with rot and woodworm but it would burn fine after a bit of drying. I started to fill my rucksack, fixated on my task. Getting it done as soon as possible meant returning to the safety of my cave.

  When I had as much wood as possible packed up, I turned to gathering spruce. Using my penknife on the wiry branches I cut sprigs of needles and dropped them into my canvas bag. The scent was lovely, fresh, after the fusty cave and my own unwashed self. I cut as much as I could, until the bag was bristling with sharp-smelling needles.

  Through a gap in the trees I saw the moon. It wasn’t full, but the thinnest sliver of bone-white in the sky. Around it the stars really did seem to twinkle. A vivid memory came to me of going on holiday, leaving for the six-hour drive in the small hours. As my dad dragged suitcases to the car and Mum asked endless questions in a hushed voice, I had stood in the street and looked up. The stars had been like a show just for me, a secret for those awake when the world slept. I’d spun and spun, looking up, until Mum ushered me into the car. Even inside, I’d pressed my face to the cold glass and looked up until each star was swallowed by dawn.

  The stars blurred and I realised I was crying. My eyes welling up as I travelled back so many years to a time when I had been warm and safe and loved. I was lost. So much so that I didn’t hear the footsteps until it was too late.

  I realised I wasn’t alone only when someone said my name, alarmingly close.

  ‘Maddy?’

  I whirled around, recognising from the voice that it was Shaun. He was across the clearing, maybe twenty paces away. I struggled to make out more than his outline in the shadows. As if he knew this he took a step forward into the clearing.

  Even in the washed-out light of the moon he looked haggard. His cheeks were dark hollows, exaggerated by the shadows. His beard was still patchy but longer and unkempt and there was a rip in his orange jacket that had been crudely sewn up with blue nylon cord. Over his shoulder was a length of string with a rabbit on each end, hanging by the foot. In one hand he carried a folding spade.

  ‘Where were you?’ he asked, voice hushed, as if I’d just appeared, like a magic trick.

  I was frozen, staring. I’d worried about this moment for weeks and here I was, confronted by another person. I couldn’t move, yet when he took a step forwards my body jerked back without my input. It felt like I was two separate things, my mind and my body. While my brain floundered the rest of me acted on instinct.

  ‘Maddy … Stop,’ Shaun said, holding up one hand. My eyes were on the other though, the one with the sharp-edged shovel.

  I shook my head, taking another step back. I saw his hand tighten on the handle, raising the spade.

  ‘Maddy!’

  I ran. In the second before I turned around I saw Shaun start to run towards me. Then it was a chase. He thundered after me, crashing through the frosty plants and stumbling over the holes and gullies the rain had left. He was shouting, I didn’t know what. I heard my name but the rest I just couldn’t process. My blood was deafening me, hammering in my ears.

  Halfway back to the cave I realised where I was heading. Forcing my brain into gear I turned to the left. Shaun was too close behind. I couldn’t lead him straight to my shelter. Instead I hurtled downhill. As I approached the treeline I realised my mistake. Beyond it was the rocky beach and the tidal pools, then nothing but sea. A dead end.

  Shaun was still behind me, I wasn’t sure how close. Had his shout
ing brought the others running? Were they surrounding me even now? I had no idea. I couldn’t get away. I grabbed at my penknife where it bounced against my chest, tugging the string over my head. With it in my hand I flicked it open and prepared to fight. I stood almost no chance but there were no other options.

  I was almost at the treeline, sliding down the edge of a sheer drop. The idea came to me to break out into the open and then charge back at Shaun. Perhaps he’d been too surprised to do anything. I could get round him and back into the woods to hide somewhere.

  Then from behind me came a yell, a series of thuds and silence.

  My legs carried me a few more paces before I could convince them to stop. When I did I realised my legs were shaking and my breath was sawing in and out of my lungs. My chest burnt and I staggered, aware of my own exhaustion.

  About a hundred metres behind me, almost hidden in a gully, was Shaun. He was sprawled on the ground, not moving. For a moment I considered running. If he was winded, I could get away. But he wasn’t moving at all and that felt wrong. Very wrong. I crept over to him.

  I was alert for any sign of movement, but Shaun didn’t so much as twitch. Once I was within a few metres I saw why. There was a steep drop on that part of the hill, down into the crater where a tree had been uprooted. I’d come down the slope to the side of it, but Shaun had apparently not seen it and fallen straight down. He was lying in the hole left by the fallen tree, his head and arm the only parts to have landed over the edge. It looked like he’d been knocked out when he fell, hitting his jaw on the raised edge of the hole.

  ‘Shaun?’ I whispered. I couldn’t leave him unconscious in the freezing night. I knelt and reached out to touch his shoulder, pushing at him. His head rolled on his neck. Something was wrong with the movement, it was too loose, lolling too far. I flinched back.

  With careful fingers I found his throat under the layers of coat and scarf. The skin was hot and sweating from the chase, but there was no pulse. I gasped out a plume of icy breath, no answering cloud rose from Shaun’s parted lips. He was dead. From the way his head moved when I touched it, I thought his neck was probably broken.

  The suddenness of Shaun’s death, not to mention the chase itself, sent me reeling. It didn’t seem real. I shook him, hoping for a response. His head only rolled sickeningly. I cast about, helpless. Then my fingers brushed the fur of the rabbits he’d carried. They were still slightly warm, recently killed. I looked at Shaun’s unmoving form and let a partition snap down in my mind. Shaun was dead. I was still alive. If I wanted to stay alive I needed what he no longer had use for.

  I pulled the rabbits free of him and slung the string over my shoulder. He’d dropped the folding shovel but I found it on the ground and stuffed it into my bag of spruce, which I’d kept hold of unconsciously, the handles wrapped around my wrist. I was about to check his coat pockets and take his gloves when I heard voices. They weren’t in the woods but to my left, along the beach. I looked at the stretch of open ground between the crater and the dense treeline. I was stuck.

  ‘Sounded like this way!’ came Andrew’s muted cry, echoing out over the sea.

  Crouched in the shadow of the trees I saw the three of them – Duncan, Andrew and Gill – all running towards me. Their torches shook as they jogged, sending crazed beams across the beach. As they came closer I saw that Andrew and Duncan also had shovels and Gill had two more rabbits over her shoulder. They’d been hunting by night, digging into warrens to get at the hibernating animals. I thought all of this in a flash. I felt another wave of adrenalin crash over my exhausted body. How could I get out of this alive?

  That’s when my body did something stupid. While my mind was still whirling, deciding whether to stay frozen and hope no one saw me, or wait for them to see Shaun and escape in the confusion, I felt myself uncoil, leaping to my feet and pelting off across the open ground. Behind me I heard startled yells, then running. After a few moments, as I forced myself uphill, I heard Gill scream. They’d found Shaun’s body.

  Behind me I heard swearing, shouting, as Duncan and Andrew followed me up the hill into the denser woods. Gill’s screams grew fainter. She was still at the beach. I clawed my way uphill, hauling against trees and grabbing fistfuls of frosty plants to pull myself up the steeper parts. Any thought of keeping them away from my cave had flown from my mind. I was filled to the brim with prey instincts to go to ground and hide away.

  I made it to the clearing. Ahead of me was the opening to the cave. I threw myself to the ground and pushed the panel inwards, crawling in after it. I heard the crunch of glass and knew my camera was done for. My rucksack, packed with wood, scraped across the tunnel wall as I twisted to the side to accommodate it. One of the rabbits was crushed beneath me. I’d lost my bag of spruce as I ran.

  In the outer cave I threw off my rucksack and was twisting around to replace the panel when a hand grabbed my ankle. I screamed, a bloodcurdling sound that for a moment seemed to come from the cave itself and not from me. Then I kicked out and felt my hiking boot connect with flesh. There was a yell and I twisted away, snatching up my penknife and shuffling backwards until my back hit the cave wall.

  In the entrance I saw a shadowy shape and then it started to crawl towards me. I brought the penknife down in a frenzy, stabbing at the hands that appeared on the dirt floor. The shape withdrew with a yell and I sat, holding the knife and feeling blood drip onto my hand from its blade.

  I listened, ears pricked against the rushing of my blood. Outside came footsteps; whoever had caught me was being joined by the other pursuer. Then I heard Andrew swear.

  ‘That bitch fucking stabbed me!’

  ‘Where?’ Duncan said.

  ‘Look!’

  ‘Fuck! She in there?’

  ‘Yeah. There’s a hole, some kind of burrow down there. Can’t get in though, she’s like a fucking animal with that knife.’

  ‘And she already killed Shaun.’

  ‘I didn’t!’ The words flew out of me without thought. ‘He fell! I swear to God he fell!’

  There were a few seconds of silence. Then, ‘Go get the others. They need to know what she did,’ Duncan said.

  A moan slipped through my lips as despair flooded me. They were going to tell Zoe I’d killed her boyfriend, the father of her baby. Would she believe me if I told her it was an accident? Not with the others there, not once Gill and the rest had poured their poison in her ear the whole way up from camp.

  ‘What about her?’ Andrew said.

  ‘We’ve got her cornered,’ Duncan said grimly. ‘She’s not going anywhere.’

  Chapter 31

  ‘Do you feel responsible?’

  For the first time, I sense judgement under her tone. Up until now, Rosie has been sweet and conciliatory. Full of appeasing platitudes like ‘Oh, how awful for you’ and ‘That must have been devastating’. But now we are coming to the razorblade under all that coating. Am I responsible?

  ‘I think, out of everything that happened, I feel the worst about Shaun,’ I say, truthfully. ‘In the moment I was running for my life, I didn’t have the luxury of rational thought. It was instinct, and instinct isn’t clever. It’s not reasoned or logical. It’s just what your body tells you to do to keep it safe. Sometimes survival comes at the cost of pain – to you or someone else.’

  ‘Do you think Shaun was trying to catch you then? That he wasn’t looking for your help, for Zoe, but to bring you to Duncan?’ Rosie asks.

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t want to make that choice for him, not when he can’t defend himself,’ I say, feeling her eyes crawling over my face, hungry for something to sink her perfect teeth into. I hold firm against her, answering only what I can live with. What I can honestly believe.

  ‘When I look back, I’m not sure Shaun knew himself what he was going to do. Maybe he needed my help, or he wanted to please Duncan. Maybe he didn’t know yet and it was just his instinct that told him to catch me, work the rest out later. When it comes down to it, we’
ll never know, will we? I’m here, and he’s not.’

  Chapter 32

  I heard Andrew leave. As his footsteps faded away, Duncan sighed and there was a rustling as he sat on the ground. When he spoke, his voice was frighteningly close. Only a few feet separated us. He sounded so normal, just as he had done all those months ago when we first met; friendly, gracious.

  ‘Well, Maddy … look where we are now. You led us a merry chase, didn’t you?’

  My mouth was dry. I said nothing but tightened my hold on the penknife. It seemed ludicrously small and inoffensive. How much good would it do me when the seven of them came with shovels to dig me out? None whatsoever.

  ‘Not so talkative now, are you?’ Duncan said, cutting into my thoughts. ‘Surprising really, you’ve always had such a lot to say for yourself.’

  ‘What are you going to do to me?’ My voice was a rasp. I sounded like a wizened crone.

  ‘I don’t know, Maddy, what were you going to do to us? I mean you did poison us, maybe even the camera guys too. You steal food, you hoard supplies that we desperately need … and now you’ve killed Shaun. Did you expect to just get away with that?’

  ‘He fell.’

  ‘Or you pushed him, hmm? You expect us to believe he just fell down and died? And what about the generator, huh? The emergency phone? Did you sabotage them as well?’

  ‘I haven’t done anything!’ My voice cracked like a dead leaf under a boot. ‘It was one of you – you poisoned them!’

  ‘I don’t think you know what you’ve been doing. I mean, I only saw you for a second there, but you look mental. Living in this hole out here. Why? Because you thought we were going to kill you?’ He laughed, like he was amused by the stupid antics of a child. ‘Really? You honestly thought we would kill you – over what? A book? Jesus Christ.’