When it rained worms wriggled through the dirt roof of the cave. I collected them and crisped them in oil. There weren’t enough for a proper meal. I drank sugar-water. I listened and slept. Lifting my head made me dizzy and sick. Voices came and went but the names that went with them wouldn’t come to me. I couldn’t direct my thoughts anymore, they scurried from me like spiders.
Dimly I realised that I was dying. This idea came to me one day as I watched the lights spin on the ceiling. It should have scared me but instead I felt a kind of relief. The decision was out of my hands now. I didn’t have to try and fail at ending my life, nature was going to do it for me.
‘Well then, Maddy, looks like I win – doesn’t it?’
Of course.
I turned my head slowly to the side. The fire must have gone out, or had been out for days. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had the strength to get up and tend to it. Sitting to the side of me, clean and well-fed, sat Duncan. He held the foraging book and flipped the pages like it was a waiting-room magazine.
I tried to snatch the book before I realised what I was doing. He only laughed and held it away from my weak flailing.
‘I have to say I thought you had more in you than’ – he waved a hand – ‘this.’
‘You’re not real,’ I whispered, partially into the dirt.
‘Yes, I am. I’m out there right now, eating and drinking and taking charge. But I’m also in here with you. Because you think this is all my fault.’
‘It … is.’
‘It’s not, though. Not really. I mean, I didn’t strand us here, did I? And I didn’t make the others hate you, blame you. No, you did that with your shitty attitude and by being so fucking inflexible. That’s why you’re alone in here. It’s why you were alone out there – in the real world.’
‘No …’ I muttered.
‘Yes. You thought coming here would make you a better person. Less angry, less depressed. But that’s all you. You’re the one who hates her parents. Bet you were glad when they checked out. But you can’t admit that, can you? That you blame them for the way you are. And they were right, weren’t they? You have to be protected from everything. Weak little Maddy. Too fragile for school, too sheltered for real life. That’s in your head and you brought it here. You can’t get away from yourself, Maddy, no matter how hard you try.’
I said nothing, blinked away tears.
‘So, like I said, I win. Because I get to be the good guy – the leader, the fucking head honcho and you, you’re in here, dying alone like you were always afraid would happen.’ He looked up at the ceiling, which was plain dirt again, hidden in shadow. ‘You don’t deserve this place, how beautiful it can be. And you’ll never see it again.’
‘No!’ It started as a weak denial and ended a shout. I dragged myself into a half-sitting position, glaring at Duncan. He only looked amused.
‘I’m not giving up,’ I grated out, voice like splintering wood. ‘I’m not letting you win.’
‘I already have.’
‘You can’t force me off this island,’ I hissed, remembering how I’d promised myself the same thing all those months ago, alone and cast out of the community. ‘And you can’t force me to die here like an animal.’
‘Oh yeah?’ He started to fade away like the Cheshire cat, until only his hands were there, waving the book like a child playing keep-away. ‘Prove it.’
The words echoed in my head until they were in another voice entirely, raspy as a crow’s. I tasted them on my lips.
My hands, like claws, found the dirt wall and I started to dig. I felt sick, my head banging with an intense ache and my limbs shaking, but I dug like it was all I knew how to do. I heard rain as the hole grew. My mud-slick fingers slid over the ragged stump and I carried on. Splattered with dirt I dragged the mud inside, handful by handful, until there was a hole I could wriggle my starved body through.
I slithered onto the ground outside as if being born again. Rain drummed down on me, clean and cold and shocking. I rolled onto my back and let it fall on my face. For a while I could only lie there, drinking down the rain.
All was quiet except the drumming of the water, the patter of leaves.
Slowly, feeling like an old woman, I got to my feet. My legs were shaking and I’d not stood up straight for weeks. There was no room in the cave. Taking a step made me dizzy and I braced myself with a hand on a tree. Although I was under the trees and the sky was cloudy, what little light there was hurt my eyes. In it I could see how filthy I was. My skin was grey with ingrained dirt and newly painted over with mud. My fingernails were black and my hair hung around my shoulders in ratty clumps.
In the small clearing I could see the remnants of a camp. There was a hole with charred wood in it, though green sprouts of grass showed through the wet ashes. A pot hung over it on a tripod of sticks, but one had tipped and the whole thing now hung drunkenly. The pot held only rainwater and leaves from the trees above.
The cold rain cleared my head a little. Being able to see, to hear and smell and feel, chased away the visions. Everything felt real, more real than anything I’d felt in weeks. I could think and what I thought made bile rise in my throat.
I staggered into the trees. There was a path worn through the undergrowth. My guards had passed this way often enough to leave a trail. I slipped and slid as I made my unsteady way through the forest.
There was an incline down a flinty slope and I stumbled then fell. At the bottom I fought to collect my scattered wits. Getting up took me a few minutes. With the help of a stick from the forest floor I carried on. It was not the last time I fell. My legs seemed not to belong to me and I lost my footing a lot on the slick ground. I could feel my energy leaving me with every step. What little grit I’d mustered to get out of the cave was spent. I knew that before too long I’d fall and not be able to get up. But I couldn’t stop. I had to see for myself.
At last, as night began to creep in, I arrived at the camp. I couldn’t calculate how long I’d been walking. It felt like a year. Details of my surroundings passed me by. I had eyes only for the hut, which was quiet, and its smoke hole, which was clear. The side wall of the hut had gaps in it, charred sticks stuck up like bones.
Inside the walls were scorched, ashes and charred logs scattered on the floor. All around were discarded clothes, pans crusted in mould, mildewed sleeping bags.
They were gone.
That was when my legs finally gave out. Sprawled on the ground with their discarded rubbish, I screamed until I laughed and laughed until it turned to sobbing. When my vision turned to dancing pinpricks it was almost a relief. I felt myself blacking out and let it happen.
Only the thought that I might not wake up consoled me.
Chapter 35
By some awful miracle I didn’t die in my sleep. Or so I saw it at the time. Had I known how close I was to rescue, I might have fought harder, clung to life. As it was, I had no reason to think I was anything but doomed.
Whatever strength I’d had was spent in reaching the camp. I found I couldn’t get to my feet at all. The knowledge that the others were gone hit me again. The injustice of it filled me with a surge of anger so murderous it scared me. While I’d been losing my mind, they’d been saved. While I had starved, they’d been freed from the island. Despair and rage coursed through me. My emotions were as unstable as the rest of me, swinging from one extreme to the next.
Crawling, I searched the hut as best as I was able. I had no real expectation that there would be food around after so long but it was all I could do. In among the abandoned clothes, bedding and tools I eventually came across a jar of Maxine’s jam. It was three quarters full and rimed with green mould. I scraped that off with a finger and ate some of the berry jam underneath. After a short rest I crawled out to the clearing. By the fire a tin plate had collected leafy rainwater. I gulped it down and rested my head on the grass.
When I woke again it was getting dark and desperately cold. I was able to get myself i
nto the hut and realised that I was still wearing my fire starter on a string around my neck with my knife. I’d been terrified of losing it in the darkness of the cave. I made a small fire using the fallen sticks from the scorched wall. With a pile of mildewed bedding scraped together as a nest, I fell asleep by the fire pit.
The following morning I finished the jam, feeling an ounce stronger than the day before. It was like coming out of a long illness and getting used to walking around again. I hobbled about the clearing collecting wild greens to eat and taking in the state of things.
It was clear that the others were gone. I assumed they’d been rescued. After all, if they’d moved to another camp, which they had no reason to do, they would have taken their things with them. No, it looked like they’d seen a boat or something, dropped everything and deserted the camp without a backward glance. There were plates and cups around the outdoor fire hole as if for a meal, and washing rotting on a line by the wood store.
I guessed that the partly burned wall of the hut was deliberate sabotage. This was mostly based on knowing what Duncan and Andrew were like: vindictive, selfish. Just as they’d burned my tipi they’d tried to destroy the hut and its contents. Even though they’d left every-thing behind, the idea of me using any of it must have been too much. Had everything not been so damp with spring rain, the whole hut would have gone up.
By the fire I racked my brain trying to work out when the others had disappeared. The confusion I’d suffered in the cave made this nearly impossible. Real or imagined voices had blurred together until I’d not known who was really there and who wasn’t. From the grass growing in the fire hole at the camp I thought it must have been a while ago. Maybe a week? Two? Really, I had no idea. What month was it? I’d lost track ages ago.
The fact remained that I was alone. The island was now truly deserted and it was unlikely the others would tell their rescuers of the woman they’d buried and left for dead. Not even Zoe, now she thought I’d murdered Shaun. No one was coming back for me. Another boat might come, eventually. Though since it had taken months for the first, I wasn’t expecting another for a while. I couldn’t do anything about that. I also didn’t have to worry about the others. I felt free, safe. After the months of uncertainty and fear that feeling hit me like a drug.
Of course I was still weak. Being on my feet for more than ten minutes at a time was a strain. I gathered what I could close to the camp and stayed in the hut, recuperating. Since coming to the island I’d grown used to assessing my odds. Though improved by being out of the cave, things still looked pretty dire. I had no store of food, no aid and no hope of rescue. I was squatting in a half-ruined hut with no resources and no strength to do anything. I was still in danger, albeit a less obvious kind. The island itself was not my enemy, but if I couldn’t recover my strength fast enough it would kill me all the same.
The wild greens would never give me enough calories to live on, but they could give me a little energy and slow my starvation. I spent a few days grazing close to the clearing and then went further. Mushrooms were my reward; dryad’s saddle and the dependable jelly ear fungus. Sunlight and fresh air did as much for me as the return of nourishing food. My strength returned, little by little.
As I explored the camp it became obvious that things had been deteriorating before it was abandoned. The latrine was still where it had been last time I’d visited. No new hole had been dug, and the shelter had not been moved. There was a stench rising from it and in the woods I found what looked like human waste in small holes and behind bushes.
The clearing itself was littered with bones. They looked to be rabbit but some were a lot smaller – rat or something similar. It looked like the others had eaten and just dropped the bones when they were done. Before, we’d had a sort of compost heap for our vegetable scraps and other rubbish. We’d turned it regularly so it would rot down rather than moulder. It seemed to have overflowed and gone untended. Now it was a sprawling mound with intestines and rabbits’ skins thrown on top, riddled with maggots.
The shower hut was falling down and it looked like they’d been using the wood from it for their fires. The half-finished cabin too. I guessed that they had been starving. Too weak to chop trees and haul logs. From the looks of things they’d been nesting in the hut, letting all work fall by the wayside. Part of me understood. After all, I was in the same position: weak and lacking in food and rest. Yet they’d had more than me. The thought that I’d been shitting in a bucket, forced to bury it where I lived, while they let a perfectly good latrine rot to nothing was infuriating.
With a few days of mushroom-laden meals under my belt, I managed to get down to the beach. I took a rucksack with clothes and a sleeping bag. Getting there and back in one day was not something I was up to. I found the remains of my burnt tipi as well as the fires we’d lit to stay warm as we waited for the boat. In the ruin of my old shelter I found my manicure scissors. They looked like an archaeological find, centuries old. It felt strange, being back there. So much had changed since that first day of fruitless waiting. It had all happened so fast.
The hike wiped me out and I spent that night in my sleeping bag beside a small fire. Each day I harvested blue-black mussels and steamed them, eating well for the first time in months. Judging from the growth in the forest it was late spring. April perhaps, or May. If it was too late in the year, the mussels would be bad, but I didn’t get ill. That was something.
On a warmer than average day I stripped off by the sea. My shirt, which I’d worn so long I couldn’t remember changing it, had started to rot away under the arms. My leggings were almost stuck to me in places. I was shockingly pale under my clothes. The exposed parts of me were deeply tanned and darkened further by ingrained dirt, but the rest was translucent, greyish and marked with red sores and rashes. I’d not looked at myself for a long time and my body felt like it belonged to someone else. Ribs, hip bones and knees poked out like sticks. My breasts were practically gone, shrunk back into my body, leaving pouchy skin. When I wriggled my toes in the sand the tendons and bones shifted like the hammers in a piano.
After scrubbing myself with handfuls of coarse sand, I took my blackened nail scissors and cut my hair off in chunks. I hardly recognised it as it floated away from me on the waves. The brownish-blonde colour was gone, replaced by a greyish cast of oil and dirt. Tangled into it were sticks, dead insects and webs. I rubbed sand into my shorn scalp until it tingled. With my arms wide I spun in the sea, feeling the sun on my raw, clean skin.
Something brushed against my hip. Thinking it was likely to be seaweed I glanced down to check what kind.
The thing floating in the water was long and thin, white and drifting like a strand of weed. It took a moment for me to realise what I was looking at: a bandage. An unravelled bandage carried by the sea. I floundered backwards and my hand touched something else. Bloodied gauze. I spun and saw that there were other things floating in the water, coming in on the tide. A yellow inflight oxygen mask drifted towards me. Shattered plastic, a charred travel pillow and a chunk of seatbelt floated by. Further off an orange life vest bobbed on a wave.
I thrashed my way back to the beach and shoved a long T-shirt on over my wet body. With my hands rammed under my armpits for warmth I stood there and watched the sea. A shiver passed through me that had nothing to do with the cold. Months ago I’d wondered about the possibility of a catastrophe on the mainland. I had no idea of what kind, but one that had crippled the country, led to a total collapse of any services that might be able to find and help us. Now this stuff was washing up. Had there been a crash? If so, where were the search boats and helicopters? I’d not seen or heard so much as a whisper of an engine. Where was this medical stuff coming from? Had there been some kind of accident, or attack? What was going on out there while I was stuck on Buidseach?
For the first time I wondered if I was safer on the island than off it. I’d assumed that whatever was going on out there could not be as terrible as being trapped on Buids
each with nothing, without civilisation. But what if I was wrong? What if it was worse?
And if it was, would the others return to the island, their last refuge?
The idea filled me with fear. I’d not even considered that they might want to come back to where they’d been trapped. But if things on the mainland were as bad as I thought they might be … what other choice would they have?
Looking out to the horizon I tried to tell myself it wasn’t possible. It was not the Middle Ages; nothing could wipe out whole countries within months. We had sanitation and electricity, global aid and treaties. I thought of my glib response to Sasha, all those months ago. Zombies. Just as ridiculous as the notion that the mainland had been completely annihilated. Yet the debris floating in the grey sea told another story. I didn’t want to look at it.
Turning my back I hurried to my improvised camp and started packing it up. I was tired and desperately wanted to sit by the fire and eat some dinner. I looked at my bucket of mussels and swallowed. The idea of eating anything from the same sea all that stuff floated in turned my stomach. What if there were bodies out there? Part of me wanted to throw the whole lot back into the water. The rest of me knew that I’d starve without that much-needed protein. I’d been eating shellfish from the waters of Buidseach for days and feeling no ill effects.
I set down the things I’d snatched up and lit my fire. If the choices were going hungry or eating food from the sea that touched the troubled mainland, it was no choice at all. Having experienced true starvation for the first time, it was the thing I now feared most.
Still, as I lay down under the stars I found sleep reluctant to visit me. The sea sighed and hissed as it rolled into the beach, bringing its clues to the outside world closer. In the darkness I heard the voices returning, laughing and screaming in the trees. Covering my ears did nothing to keep the sounds out but I tried it anyway. I hummed a half-forgotten song until my nightmares grew tired of waiting and came to find me.
Stranded Page 24