by Kovacs, Jase
Below me is a forest of reaching hands. Lifting, beckoning, welcoming. Waves of love fill me as the cold mist flows through my veins. It reaches my heart, and the muscle flexes and relaxes and then is still. But the mist that is the love of the dark star still flows, and I feel my changing begin. Tickling in the roots of my teeth and in my skin as things... start to change. To become... and then—
"Matty!"
Like a bucket of cold water over my face, I wake up.
"Matty! Out here!" Zac calls from the centre of the resort.
I snap out of it.
Whatever it was. Where was I?
I'm looking up at the picture. The crude painting.
The picture is just a picture. I tell myself that again and again.
It's just a picture.
Solomon shivers with fear. “You alright, Matty?”
"Matty!"
"Just a minute!" I yell at Zac. We need to finish here first.
Solomon and I get to work. Clearing the bar, checking the lockers and under the tables and in the back storeroom. Even with the lingering chill fresh in my mind, I can't help but be astonished when we discover cases of liquors and spirits, apparently untouched.
I step out of the gloom of the bar—
— my dream, that's my dream on the wall —
— MATAI...
— and into bright sunlight that washes my skin clean. The other teams have pushed ahead, to the far side of the resort. Some of them look pale and ill, and I wonder if they too found their nightmares. But there have been no shouts of panic, no gunshots. No screams that would greet the lunging attack of the undead or the fanatics of the Lost Tribe.
Zac stands in the wide-open centre of the resort. The structure here is the least traditional, the most western. A series of long carved hardwood ribs rise up to meet five metres overhead. Fabric flutters from one of the ribs and a few ropes droop like the vines from a jungle. This was once a large shaded area, the ribs overhead forming a vast awning around which the whole resort circles.
My mind circles back on its own thoughts.
A few men have climbed one of the ribs to cut the tattered canvas free. This is where Zac stands, looking up at the material that they are cutting down.
He drops his eyes to me. Eyes that confirm what I am suddenly suspect.
A man overhead calls out, "Look out below."
The canvas drops between us like a curtain falling on the stage. The red canvas, faded by years of sun, but unmistakably the same material as our enemy's sails.
CHAPTER SEVEN: ZAC
My solo visits out to Aotea were a sojourn in the cramped cabins of a madman's mind. The yacht is filled with ranting diaries or grotesque mementos and shamanistic talismans. As Larry pointed out, each visit out there was a journey into my own dark places. The way I dredged up long suppressed memories was masochistic. But it also was an experience that is uniquely mine.
And now, as I wander around the resort, I find the same madness writ on a larger canvas. I recognise the language but the handwriting is different, as this is the work of his acolytes and followers.
I wander down to the beach, my thoughts heavy and dark. I sit on the sand and draw my knees up to my chest to rest my head. I force my mind to consider the banal logistics of our expedition to avoid lingering on the disquiet that wells up within.
With only a few hours of daylight left, Matty has taken half our warriors on a quick clearing patrol through the jungle around the resort. Four canoes have been dragged above the high water mark, which the waves now kiss. Two other canoes work their way along the narrow zigzag channel, marking the edges with long bamboo poles they drive into the reef. Surveying this passage is critical to safely bring the yachts inside of the reef – but no one thinks it can be done properly before sunset.
The last two canoes sail with the yachts. It doesn’t look too comfortable out there in the heavy swell, but it's a far better option than trying to navigate an unsurveyed channel— and once within the reef, it would be impossible to escape during the night. So, rather than split our forces between the land and sea, we’ll withdraw to the yachts tonight and return in the morning.
Abigail sits next to me. She wears an old men's shirt and baggy cotton pants and her hair is pulled back into a thick ponytail. She doesn't say anything as she rests her head on my shoulder. I caress her cheek. She murmurs something indistinct and kisses my neck. Her breath warms my chest and just like that I feel better.
For a while, we can almost forget the insanity of the resort. But we can't escape entirely. This whole island is like some bizarre negative of Madau. The sand is black, a volcano looms and the reef is smothered with ash. Many of the people I love and cherish are here, but we are all unnerved by what we have found, and we armour ourselves as each new horror is revealed.
Storm clouds gather around the volcano's peak, hiding its broken summit in darkness flaked with dry lighting. Sitting with Abigail is a solace but the sight of the volcano, swirling with clouds, kindles a deep anxiety. "Do you think it will rain?" I ask.
"No." I wait for her to elaborate, but instead she burrows under my arm and pushes her face into the hollow of my neck, rubbing her cheek against my jaw. A hot jag lodges in my chest, and I sigh as she snuggles against me like a kitten seeking comfort. Then she pushes up, and her lips find mine.
Time stops for a long while. All I hear are the waves rushing to spend themselves onshore and the call of Jacka's sailors sounding the treacherous channel. But, despite the need her warmth and hunger kindles in me, I can't stop the images rising up inside. Images that rob her love of its kindness and prevents my fall into her embrace.
The first time I saw her, when she cleansed me for my execution.
Her face in the lynch mob who followed Deborah and the Green Lord.
The monster himself, five years ago, leaping from the hold of Aotea, scattering men like sticks, my adopted uncle falling victim as we fled to the safety of Madau.
A pair of eyes looming in a dark cave, feral and alive with fire.
A deep booming rumble rolls off the mountain and across the bay. The sand quakes and the bass trembles our viscera. We break apart and look to the volcano. Sheets of lightning crack and leap as clouds spill down the slopes like ink tipped into a warm bath.
"Are you sure that's normal?" I ask.
She laughs, an honest sound that acts as a balm. But then she looks back at me and her eyes are sad. "Why are you holding back?"
"I don't want to. Hold back, that is. But should we do this here?"
"What could we do otherwise? The soldiers and the sailors are doing their work. Our time will come."
"Then at least we should be exploring the camp. Are you up to showing me around?"
She frowns as she sees my evasion for what it is. "As ready as I'll ever be."
We walk around the resort. Provided you didn't look too closely at the painted walls and the scratched spirals, or at the suspiciously dark stains that pool beneath windowsills, you could see how this was once a paradise, a refuge from the rat-race for the well connected and wealthy.
Our people have lit a fire to boil water for sweet potato and rake out hot coals to barbeque sago and fish. Blong and the bailer, whose name is Molo, chase each other around the stilts of the beach houses, delighted to have a new playground to explore. People joke with one another as they search through the huts and cabins, pulling out old books and mouldy linen and torn mosquito nets.
I don't blame them really — for most of them, especially the young ones, this is the first place off Madau they've ever seen. It's exciting — I understand that. But I want to grab them and shake their shoulders and say, "can’t you tell something horrible has happened here!?"
Matty and her patrol come out of the jungle. They are muddy to their knees and their faces and arms are scratched and red from forcing their way through the underbrush. But they wear the comfortable glow of people who have done a hard job well.
"Anything?" I ask as
she and Larry come over to us. He wears his battered cap pushed back from his brow and a torn flannel shirt settles around his sunburned shoulders like a highlander's tartan.
"We pushed out about a kilometre." Matty draws a mud map with a stick. "We found a track, pretty good, that leads along the northern shore, then splits up. I think the main path goes to the volcano."
"There's an old village about halfway across the island. The track goes there first," says Abigail. "And then to the Japanese bunkers on the volcano."
"Right, well, anyway. We followed the southern path; it hooks back around to south side of the island which is all cliffs and drop offs. No landings there. Then we swept the jungle between here and the paths; pretty rough going." Her hand rises to touch a harsh scratch on her cheek. "But I wanted to confirm the area was clear. No dead ground or caves where an attacker can hide. At least, none that we could find."
"So we're staying here tonight?" asks Larry.
I shake my head but Matty speaks first. "No way. This resort is indefensible. We'll go back out to the boats and stand off. Sail tacks north and south out to sea until dawn. Then we can come back in and clear from the paths towards Abigail's village."
"That's all right," says Jacka, who joined us at some point. "The big boat is coming into pick us up."
"What do you mean?" Matty drops her stick with a frown.
"The bossman, Michael. His boat is coming in."
"You can't be serious." Matty looks out towards the beach. But her view is blocked by buildings and trees and she starts to walk. "You can't have finished sounding the passage yet."
"No, no. He is coming straight."
"Straight over the reef!?"
"Its high tide," says Jacka helpfully. "He can make it."
"I know he can bloody make it in. But the tide's about to fall. He won't be able to go out again!"
A harsh clattering sound jangles from the anchorage. It's so unexpected that it takes me a moment to place it; the noise of an anchor chain running over a yacht's bow.
"Jesus Christ, the idiot is anchoring!" Matty takes off at a run and the rest of us follow.
Michael is stepping from a canoe onto shore as we reach the beach. Shiloh lies serenely within the reef, only a hundred metres away. His crew are busy zipping up the giant sailbag that holds the mainsail. Michael himself looks tired, pale, and angry. He starts up the beach.
"Our plan was—" Matty begins but he shouts over her.
"What the hell are you playing at?!" he roars. "We have been hailing you all day! You didn't answer a single message. A sail! We saw a sail and chased it and no one else came!"
"What—"
"Shut up and listen to me! You lot have spent the day hanging around on an island while I've been doing actual proper work. Who do you think you are, disobeying orders? We could have caught this sail if—"
"Steady on, mate." Kev has come up behind Michael and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Let's just find out what happened before you get too carried away."
Matty is pale beneath her tan, and her voice trembles with anger. "We had a plan and followed it. You did not. The resort isn't secure. The anchorage isn't secure. You shouldn't have come in. Why the hell did you do that?"
"It's too rough outside!" says Michael, shrugging Kev's hand away. "And why isn't it secure? Wasn't that your job?"
"It's secure when I say it's secure. We're going to stand off tonight and come back tomorrow."
"Impossible. It's too rough." Michael sets his hands on his hips and stares past Matty at the first line of buildings. "Deserted?"
"Only recently."
"Then why can't we stay here? It looks fine."
Michael seems oblivious to Matty's fury and part of me admires her self-control. Yet at the same time, I fear Matty's course will shortly take us onto rocks, so I change tacks. "What sail are you talking about?"
"We saw a sail! A yacht, away to the south. I would have thought making contact with another sailor was more important than looting a deserted resort."
"Is this true?" Matty asks Kev, who wears a deeply uncomfortable expression.
"I didn't see it," he says.
"Yes, you did!" says Michael.
"I said I couldn't make it out."
"The others saw it. Anyway, I'm the captain, and I saw it." Michael's lip is set defiantly as he turns back to Matty. "And I gave you explicit orders to follow."
"We got nothing over the VHF."
Michael says with withering scorn, "Of course not. The VHF is only for emergencies. Too much use will blow out the circuits. Don't you know that?"
This, of all things, is what snaps Matty. She steps forward, and my heart leaps as she begins to raise her shotgun. Then Larry is at her arm, holding her and saying, "Easy! Easy now!" as Kev moves in front of Michael, saying, "Hey, hey, hey."
Michael steps back, his face purple as he raises a shaking finger. "You saw that! She was going to shoot me!"
"No, she wasn't," says Kev. "Everyone is just a bit excited."
"Fuck that!" spits Matty. "I'll knock your bloody head off, Michael!"
"What did you say?! Did you hear that? I'm on the council!"
"So am I," I say. "So is Larry, Kev, and Abella. Do you want to vote?"
"I outrank you! I outrank you all!"
"No, mate. You don't." Kev puts his arm around Michael. I get the feeling Kev has had a challenging day himself, and it was not for the reasons he might have expected. He walks Michael away. "Come on. We'll talk about this later."
For a moment, Matty looks like she is going to pursue. Her face is still pale, but her voice regains its usual calm. "Get everyone into the canoes. We're getting off this island right now. We need to get Shiloh outside of the reef while we still can." She looks around. "Jacka!?"
He stands ten metres away, with a group of his sailors, deep in conference. He turns back to us. "Big storm."
"Abigail says it won't rain until this afternoon," I say, looking up at the peak.
"No, not there," he says, pointing out to sea. "Big storm."
The northern horizon has disappeared into a grey haze. Palm trees sigh as the wind picks up.
"Shit. Shit!" says Matty. "It's a white squall."
I’m not much of a sailor but even I can tell the easterly will push the grey haze away. "But the wind is blowing—"
"The squall will draw the wind and turn it. It’s going to hit us.”
The far yachts fade as the wall of grey reaches them. Still the wind here blows from the east, and it seems surreal that the storm approaches against the wind as if in defiance of natural law.
"What can we do?"
"It is too late,” says Jacka. “We can only hold on.”
Matty runs to Kev. "Get out to Shiloh! Set every anchor she's got."
Michael begins to argue, but Kev just nods and sprints back to the canoe. The wind snatches his forage hat from his head, but he doesn't look back. Michael shouts nonsense at Matty, but she dismisses him utterly, leaving him spluttering and alone on the beach. By the time she comes back to us, my face is damp with spray that seems to materialise from the air itself as the wind turns to blow onshore. Just as Matty said it would. A hiss fills the air like a nest of angry snakes. A white line on the water sweeps towards us at incredible speed.
"Get the canoes into the treeline. This wind will surge waves up the beach," she says to Jacka. But the order is unnecessary; his men are hard at it already. He still takes the time to acknowledge her with a raised thumb.
The rain's hiss has become an angry moan as the grey haze reaches Shiloh. The bay dimples like my burn scars. Kev paddles madly, but he's barely half way out before the storm hits. The last thing I see Kev do is bellow at Shiloh. Then the curtain of white rain falls, and he is lost to my sight.
Abigail pulls at my arm. "Come with me! We must find shelter."
"No!" I pull away from her. "We have to help." Matty and Larry are working with Jacka to tie down the canoes, and I take a step towards them.
>
Abigail holds onto me, raising her voice to shout over the storm striking the trees and the beach with heavy drops whose impact flings sand hard enough to sting my legs. "We'll just get in their way. Let's go!"
The howling wind snatches my words away. The rain lashes us. She pulls and I follow, and we run blind with our heads down until we are suddenly safe under the eaves of a nearby building. The wind whips the palms back and forth, their fronds flailing like the hair of dancing women. The storm reaches a new peak and my eyes and ears fill with water as the rain comes in sideways. Again, we run; until we find shelter behind a hut.
I hear a harsh crack as a tree gives way somewhere, and Abigail presses against me. Her lips are blue. We embrace each other, and I wonder what we will find when this storm has passed.
***
We are an island of two beneath the eaves. Cut off from the rest of the world by a torrent of falling water. I hold her. Her shoulder is hard under my arm. Her skin pale and damp. Her teeth chatter, and I wish I could warm her with the fire that burns within me.
What madness is this? To have a woman like Abigail cross paths with me and, for reasons I don’t understand, find me worthy of her attention. She stood against her own people, first to grant me some dignity in my death and then again when Rueben, Deborah's chief disciple, turned Judas. And now she wraps her arms around me, strips my scar tissue away and finds the raw places beneath. My wounds itch as she heals me with her presence.
Every living person is a miracle. The survivors of a disease that swallowed the world and left us in purgatory. To live is to suffer a death of a thousand losses. I wonder what is the true insanity – the Green Lord's screed or my own foolish attempts to find God's love in a world where our families became monsters who would rend us limb from limb.
I don't understand any of this. And I understand Abigail least of all. All I know is that she makes me feel whole in a way that defies sense. We are lashed by a storm on the threshold of a monster's den, and her thin arms around me are more reassuring than any weapon, any ship, any army.