Anthrax Island

by D. L. Marshall

  ‘How do you know he didn’t shoot her twice? Her face is a mess.’

  ‘The shot killed her instantly. Why fire a second time if she was already dead?’

  ‘I guess maybe he squeezed a couple off in quick succession? Double tap?’

  ‘So he did miss first time?’ Greenbow added.

  I reached for the door handle. My hand stuck to spots of congealed blood.

  ‘Careful, he could still be in there,’ said Hurley.

  Given my suspicions, I seriously doubted it. I eased the door open and looked in on what was essentially the same common room as that in the main base. After swinging the torch beam around a few times I could see it was empty so I stepped inside, flicking the light on. A few items of clothing were scattered on the sofa, a mass of empty food wrappers piled next to a microwave on the sideboard. Next to them was a radio identical to the one back at the main base. I do mean identical – this set was also completely destroyed. I walked closer, running my hand through torn wires spilling from the back of the set. The speaker had been completely smashed in.

  A TV set on the shelf displayed the entrance chamber. I grabbed the remote and clicked rewind, thinking it might reveal clues about Ingrid’s murder – but an error message flashed up.

  ‘So we’re too late.’ Greenbow shuffled up behind me, pistol still shaking.

  ‘We were always going to be. How does this CCTV work?’

  ‘Continuous recording, each forty-eight hours has a memory stick for audit purposes.’ He pointed to a stack of memory sticks. ‘They get overwritten after a couple of weeks.’ He switched his gun into his other hand, pulled a box from the shelf, passed it to me. I opened it, skimming through neatly labelled memory sticks of CCTV footage.

  ‘I can’t find one for today.’

  ‘It’ll be in the recorder,’ he snapped.

  It wasn’t. Whether the memory stick had been removed or never been in there, I’d no way to tell, and Greenbow was no help.

  I returned to the corridor and, satisfied the base was otherwise empty, switched the light on – to find that Hurley had disappeared. I looked again at the windows, at the rain being driven through the neat holes, running down to mix with the puddles of mud and blood on the floor. The holes had punched straight through each pane of glass, which I guessed was laminated safety glass, otherwise the whole lot would have shattered.

  ‘Where’s Hurley gone?’

  ‘Checking the labs to see if anything’s missing.’

  How had Demeter got past us? I envied Greenbow and the others, unburdened with the knowledge that the window in the radio room was sealed shut. How easy it was for them to believe he’d simply jumped out the window and then come here.

  ‘We should get back,’ said Hurley, creeping towards us along the corridor. ‘It’s not safe.’

  Greenbow nodded. ‘There’s nothing we can do here.’

  I agreed. ‘Let’s suit up.’

  Greenbow led the way back to the HADU, only too happy to be leaving; proximity to real death and danger was too distasteful. He could still hardly grip the gun, his arm was shaking that much.

  A few minutes later we were back out in the storm, trudging back to the main base. Convinced that Demeter had somehow fled, they had their torches on this time. I didn’t – a marksman could easily have picked off one of the dancing lights. For the same reason, I hung back, putting some distance between us. It might sound callous, but I reckon putting self-preservation first is the best way to stay alive.

  Fortunately there were no shots, and a few minutes later I was passing the dark stone cairn, dropping over the other side, within sight of the main base. It was in total darkness; no lights shining from the windows, just that dismal amber glow by the main door. Silhouetted against it, Greenbow and Hurley marched ahead, marked only by their torches sweeping side to side. They’d built up a couple of minutes’ lead. I started down the slope, buffeted by the gale. No respite from the wind and rain; shouldn’t have mattered much, clad in the waterproof suit, still, it slammed into the mask, blinding me. I turned, walking with my back to the wind.

  Lightning flashed as the storm moved in from the open ocean behind me, and in the following black lull I saw it.

  A light out in the darkness, off to the left, far from the base.

  I stopped, knelt to wipe the visor, shielding it from the rain, staring hard. I could just about make out where the charcoal sky hit the coal-black ground. Right where they touched was a tiny bright pinprick. Hurley and Greenbow were below me, nearing the steps to the HADU. Everyone else was barricaded in the base. There was no one else on the island. No one except Demeter.

  Thunder rumbled over the waves.

  I reckoned the light to be over by the beach, near the ruins of the old cottage. Right where I’d left Kyle. Another dead body, more spirits swirling in the fog. I thought of Ingrid again, easy to laugh off in the daytime, when the sun bleaches everything clean. Easy to be sceptical when you’re reading about it, or watching a film, safely protected by a page or screen. I said I’m not a superstitious man, but that doesn’t stop an overactive imagination.

  The light was gliding slowly towards the base. Pitch black night, unfamiliar territory. Ancient land, rich with legend. Stories bounced round my head, including recent history, strange wartime experiments. All topped off with the knowledge that somehow Demeter had killed Gambetta and passed straight through a solid wall, had killed Ingrid not far away from where I squatted, and now I was out here on my own. I felt a twitch in my arm, a tremble in my hand. I balled it into a fist.

  Get a grip.

  I’ve seen more than my share of real horror on jobs, know that nothing in the spirit world can begin to compare to human cruelty. I’d faced real devils before, ghosts were nothing.

  I looked again at Greenbow and Hurley, who’d reached the base. One of their torches bounced up the steps while the other hovered and disappeared around the side, towards the sheds. Neither seemed to have seen the phantom light, which by now would be hidden to them round the other side of the huts.

  There was a whisper somewhere behind me, I turned to empty moorland. I squinted at a black shape, a crouched person or the pile of boulders marking the summit of the island? As I stared, the darkness swirled, forming a figure that became unmistakable, one I hadn’t seen for years, one it was impossible to see out here. I screwed my eyes shut, lifted my head to the rain, breathed deeply, forced myself to be aware of my emotions.

  Fear, paranoia, they come first. Worse under stress, worse when I’m tired. Be aware of it, they’d said. Picture it, pry it out, don’t let it grip, don’t let it slow me. Concentrate. On the decisions. On the experience. On the tools. My right hand was still trembling slightly. I calmed it by resting my fingers against the heel of my pistol through my suit. When I opened my eyes there was no crouching figure, no whispers, just an old pile of rocks.

  But the light was closer now. If I discounted ghosts – which I had to, imagination or not – and natural phenomena – which I had no knowledge about and couldn’t possibly determine – what else could a light mean all the way out there? What if Gambetta really had seen divers coming ashore? I’d been sceptical, but Dash’s words came back to me, the island could be crawling with Spetsnaz.

  Either way, whoever the light belonged to couldn’t possibly know I was watching them. I had the advantage.

  ‘Fuck it,’ I said to no one, taking a bearing, setting off quickly, jogging diagonally across the springy bracken on a course to intercept. Another glance at the base, a slice of light disappeared as the door shut – which meant the other two were now inside. I was alone out here, just me and the mystery light. It wasn’t too comforting to think that for all Greenbow and Hurley knew, I could have fallen and injured myself. I could have been lying on the ground with a smashed mask, suffocating on anthrax. Worse, I could have been jumped by Demeter. I made a mental note to thank them for their concern then put it out of mind, concentrating on the light, which was now only
a hundred metres or so away, still floating towards the base. I slowed, adjusted my angle, creeping forward on an intercept course, still without much of a plan.

  It was closer now. This was no ghost, or natural phenomenon. A conical beam lit up the rain; undoubtedly a torch. It bobbed along, not deviating from the path, when suddenly it snapped off. The empty space was swallowed by the black.

  I flung myself down as quietly as possible, pressing flat into the grass. Boots squelched in mud, approaching slowly. Then something else, rusting in the undergrowth. The familiar whisper of branches on plastic, another suit moving parallel to the path. Then more, all coming towards me. I stared hard, saw a shadow, an impossible blackness, a shapeless absence in the dark that could only be a figure. Another off to one side, as my eyes adjusted there was another, more fanned out across the moorland. Impossible to tell how many.

  It was around this time I regretted discounting Gambetta’s divers.

  A tiny, dim red light hovered nearby, almost imperceptible, a star on a dark night from the corner of your eye. Infrared. Night vision. There was a shout from my left, something swept quickly through the bracken.

  I’d been spotted.

  I leapt to my feet, snapped my torch on, whipped it round. Shouts as dark figures swarmed, jerking in the strobe of the whirling torch. Gas masks spinning, gun barrels moving, confusion everywhere. It wouldn’t last long. I pointed my torch at the nearest figure, straight into the night-vision goggles hanging in front of their gas mask. The rifle spun in their arms as they threw their hands up to their face. I chucked the torch at them and launched after it, driving an elbow below their ribs, grabbing for the rifle. A muffled scream as they fumbled, pressing the trigger, an automatic stream of bullets hammering the sky, deafening next to my head. A green tracer round ripped into the clouds like a laser. Lightning flashed in response, briefly illuminating the figures rapidly surrounding me. I pulled the rifle, dragging it from their grasp, at the same time kicking out and knocking them onto their back.

  A rifle butt appeared in my peripheral vision, a blow aimed at my head from one of the other figures. I ducked, rolled backwards across the mud, came up on one knee, rifle ready. My finger tensed on the trigger, taking up pressure, left hand feeling for the torch clipped under the barrel.

  I found it, flicked it on, illuminating several soldiers clad in camo overalls and gas masks. Rifles swung towards me. Trigger fingers flexed. I was outnumbered and outgunned, with a couple of seconds to live.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  It took me half that time to put two things together.

  Firstly, the rifles trained on me, the one in my hand – SA80, a bullpup automatic rifle, very distinctive. Secondly, the muted green Union Jacks on the shoulders of the soldiers’ NBC suits.

  ‘Bates!’ I bellowed.

  ‘Stand down!’ came the unmistakable Glasgow patter from just behind my right shoulder. ‘Friendly!’

  It was the corporal from the flight up, and his section of Marines. I turned, nearly clouting my mask on the barrel he had levelled at the back of my head. The other guns lowered, torches clicked on, suits rustled as everyone relaxed. I felt a quick pang of regret as a sorry-looking Marine picked himself up off the ground, clutching his ribs. Bates flicked his night-vision goggles up onto his helmet and glowered.

  I was livid. ‘I gave you clear instructions.’

  ‘You don’t give me orders, son, not here.’

  ‘Like fuck.’

  ‘There’s been divers reported in the bay, and no contact since the seven o’clock radio check-in. I’m securing the base, we evac at first light.’

  ‘Reported by who?’ I narrowed my eyes.

  ‘Frenchie on the radio. Chopper’s been up but—’

  ‘There were no divers, it was a misunderstanding.’ I still wasn’t entirely sure, though I couldn’t fathom why Gambetta would have invented it. Either way, no one could check with him now.

  ‘You’ve had your chance, it’s out of your hands.’ He started to walk past me.

  ‘Nothing’s changed.’

  No point telling him everything had changed, that the shit had hit the fan, the ‘Frenchie’ on the radio was dead along with another of the team, and there’d been a failed attempt on my life.

  He turned, frozen in a flash of lightning. ‘Even without trespassers, the biggest storm in years is coming in, a dead body’s gone walkabout, and now you’re keeping radio silence.’ Thunder rolled off the distant mountains. He gestured for the others to follow him.

  I raised the rifle. ‘Let me do my job.’

  ‘Let you earn your blood money, you mean. Meanwhile you’re risking the lives of everyone on this island.’

  He started to walk away again. If the Marines went in now it’d be over. Yeah, everyone might be safe, but how would I catch Demeter or make sense of everything that’d happened? And, okay, he was right, how would I earn my pay?

  The gunshot tore across the moorland, freezing the Marines, seeming to stop the rain in mid-air. Flashes of lightning as Bates turned again, fists up. The thunder rolled in quicker now, scoring every movement. I lowered the rifle, aiming squarely between his cold eyes staring out from the mask. I glared back through a wisp of steam rising from the barrel.

  ‘Can’t let you go up there,’ I said, finger twitching.

  ‘It’s true what they say, you’re a fucking nutjob, Tyler. I have orders. I know you’ve made a career out of not giving a fuck about those, but I do. Secure the base, seize any anthrax samples, await evac to escort you off the island.’

  ‘There’re things you don’t know.’

  ‘All the more reason for us to go in. You’ve lost control.’

  ‘You go in now, we’ll never get the truth. You got a radio?’ His eyes involuntarily flicked to the guy next to him, at the pack slung across his shoulders. ‘Let me speak to the ship.’

  ‘Orders, Tyler.’

  ‘And a good soldier follows them. But a fucking great soldier knows when to read the situation on the ground.’ He was wavering. ‘You don’t wanna be the one who fucks this up. Five minutes,’ I added.

  He slapped the guy next to him on the shoulder. ‘Not a second more.’ He looked around his section, held his fist up. ‘Hold here,’ he barked.

  I lowered the rifle. ‘Gimme that night vision.’

  Bates took a knee, balancing his rifle across his legs. He detached his night-vision goggles and threw them to me.

  ‘What’s your name?’ I asked the radio operator.

  ‘Jarrett,’ he replied, charging his rifle.

  ‘Right, Jarrett, follow me.’ I didn’t wait for a reply, marching off up the hill I’d just come from. I wanted some shelter from the weather to use the radio, and needed to be out of sight of the base when we did.

  Navigating in the black and white of the infrared goggles, I found my way back to the path, following it up and over the hill. From there I could see the crooked fingers of lightning stabbing the nearby islands. I needed to get this done quickly, didn’t want to be up here in a storm for longer than necessary.

  When I’d first come this way with Marie (Jesus, had it only been this morning?) I’d noticed the crater depressions in the ground, like bunkers on a golf course, filled with heather instead of sand. As we descended the other side of the hill I scanned the moorland. No more than ten metres away was one of the deeper hollows I’d seen. I slid down into it, sinking into the undergrowth, thicker here out of the wind and rain. Jarrett crashed down beside me, hunkering low. I was amazed at the difference it made – with the rain skimming above us, the shelter from the wind meant we could almost talk normally.

  ‘Right, Jarrett, get the colonel on the blower.’

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Fifteen minutes later I was stepping out of the shower and dressing quickly. It’d taken every centimetre of good favour I had owed, but I’d convinced HQ on board the ship to give me until ten in the morning. I’d managed to convey the genius of Demeter, the unanswer
ed questions, the reason we had to let this play out a little longer. It was a gamble I had to win, because in the morning Bates’ section of Marines would be back to quarantine the lot of us, and if that happened there’d be no effective resolution.

  Or payday for me, though I hadn’t mentioned that.

  The base looked abandoned. The door swung open silently onto darkness, broken intermittently by explosions of lightning as the clouds raced overhead. The wind played a frenetic drumbeat along the roof, drowning out all other sound as I crept into the first corridor. Tables and chairs were lying discarded all the way along; they hadn’t bothered barricading it.

  I kept the lights off, could just about see the door to the common room was shut – I placed my ear against it, but still couldn’t hear anything over the storm.

  Had Demeter come back whilst I’d been alone outside? What had happened to the others?

  Another thought dropped through my guts like a laxative, a thought far worse because it was more believable. After killing Gambetta, had Demeter ever left the base at all?

  As I reached for the handle the door trembled. I withdrew. The handle turned, slowly, almost imperceptibly. I slid to the wall alongside the door, heart slamming my ribs. The handle pointed straight down and hung there as the person on the other side decided what to do next. Friend or foe? I held my breath.

  The door creaked open, an arm appeared holding a pistol. I stepped forward, pulling the arm out of the room. At the same time I pressed my thumb deep into wrist, into the well just below the palm of the hand, digging in hard. The stranger’s hand sprang open. I caught the gun in my other hand, still pulling them into the corridor. As their head came towards me I extended my arm backwards, smashing my elbow through the face. There was a muffled scream as the stranger went limp, dropping to the floor. Still holding on I stepped over their body, pulling them with me, twisting their arm behind their back, my other hand aiming the pistol into the darkened room beyond. I took up the pressure on the arm, knowing any more would tear the ligaments in the rotator cuff, rendering the offending arm useless. They screamed again, louder, more urgently. I thumbed back the hammer on the pistol, ready to shoot the next face that appeared.