Boy X

by Dan Smith

  Soldiers blindly fired into the forest. Brrratatat! Bullets found their mark, slamming into the animals, knocking them from their perches, sending the others wild. The screaming rose in pitch as they encircled the camp like an attacking army.

  Still disorientated, Ash turned his attention to Pierce, standing just a few metres away. He steadied himself, then moved towards him as another detonation tore through the trees. Several monkeys were caught by the explosion, ripped from the forest and propelled into the camp. Ash stumbled in the shock wave but kept going as a series of hollow pops, like balloons bursting, came from the forest. White smoke filled the air and shapes moved in the haze as the howlers began to descend from the trees.

  Brrratatat!

  ‘STOP FIRING!’ Cain ordered. ‘CHECK YOUR TARGETS!’

  ‘Get them away from me!’ Pierce’s voice came out of the smoke.

  Ash jogged through the fog towards the voice. He was almost on Pierce now. But something else was coming too; low muscular shadows were closing in like demons.

  The monkeys wouldn’t harm him, though. He was sure of it. They were here to protect him. He could walk past them, take the messenger bag, and they wouldn’t do a thing to hurt him. He had nothing to be afraid of. But as he took another step towards Pierce, surrounded by chaos, fingers grabbed at the back of his shirt.

  Ash spun round, putting up his hands, ready to fight, but Isabel barrelled into him, yelling in his face. ‘Get down! Flashbang!’

  Without time to think about it, Ash let Isabel push him towards the fallen log, shoving him into the place where the old tree met the ground. He clamped his hands over his ears as Isabel jammed herself in beside him, then a fraction of a second later a deafening BANG! thundered in his head and a mind-numbing, intense light flashed across the clearing.

  It was as if the sun had burnt itself out right there in the camp. Even with his eyes closed and his face buried in the nook of a fallen tree, Ash’s whole brain lit up. Cain and Pierce and every other living thing nearby would have been blinded by the flashbang.

  Once it was over, Ash opened his eyes and got to his feet. The camp was a mess, debris scattered all over, smoke wafting in from the trees. The lid of the wooden crate was splintered, but the large howler that had tried to smash its way out had been caught in the crossfire and was slumped, half in, half out, its lifeless arms trailing on the ground. Many other monkeys – more than Ash could count – sat huddled and afraid, blinking, trying to see. They growled and bared their teeth at the slightest noise. Cain was crouched in the same place Ash had last seen her, both hands covering her eyes. Winter was on the ground, doubled up in pain, and Petersen was lying dead. Around him, the clearing was littered with the corpses of howler monkeys.

  Pierce was writhing in agony, holding his hands to his face.

  ‘Quick!’ Isabel grabbed Ash’s arm. ‘There’s another soldier out there.’ Her voice sounded quiet and distant even though she was shouting.

  ‘Stay here.’ Still woozy but recovering quickly, Ash stumbled back into the camp.

  Cain was kneeling now, with her head up and the stock of her rifle pulled tight against her shoulder. Her hearing was beginning to return, but Ash could tell she was still blind.

  ‘Thorn?’ she was saying. ‘We didn’t want to leave you in there, but there was no choice. Everything was going wrong and we had to get out.’

  Some of the monkeys were coming to their senses now. They turned their heads, picking up the voices. Some leapt to their feet and stood on all fours, muscles rippling beneath their fur. They were strong and adaptive; it wouldn’t be long before they were on the attack once more.

  Ash moved out of Cain’s line of sight and snatched up a rock, throwing it over her head to land close to Petersen’s body. She spun round. ‘Thorn?’

  While she was facing away from him, Ash picked up Thorn’s survival pack. He slung it over his shoulder and ran to Pierce, grabbing his knife from the forest floor beside him and slipping the blade under the strap of his messenger bag.

  ‘Please.’ Pierce became still and put out his hands as he looked up without seeing anything. His eyes were open, but they moved from side to side as if he were searching for something, and Ash knew the flashbang had blinded him.

  ‘Please, Thorn. Please. We had to leave you.’

  Cain whipped round again, her weapon pointing towards them. ‘Thorn? What are you doing?’

  Ash put the point of the blade against Pierce’s chest, letting him feel it digging in.

  ‘Don’t do this.’ The pitch of Pierce’s voice heightened as his throat constricted and panic gripped him. The stink of burnt rubber flooded from every pore, mixing with the metallic smell that hung in the smoke. ‘Don’t kill me. Cain, don’t let him kill me.’

  Ash looked at his face, glad to see him so afraid. After everything Pierce had done, he deserved this. Dad was dead because of him. Ash began to wonder what it would be like to push the knife harder, to force it all the way through to his shrivelled heart.

  ‘Don’t,’ Pierce begged. ‘Thorn. Please.’

  Ash snapped out of it and leant down to whisper in his ear. ‘Type Twenty-four worked better than you thought. I’m not what you think I am, Uncle Damian. I’m even better.’

  Pierce froze. His mind struggled to process who had just spoken and what they had just said. ‘Wh . . . what?’

  Ash sliced upwards, cutting through the strap and pulling the messenger bag away from Pierce.

  The scientist stared at nothing, his face fixed with an expression that lay somewhere between fear and confusion. ‘Better . . .?’

  Ash held the bag in his left hand, the knife in his right, and stepped away. Cain was still pointing her weapon, the barrel aimed directly at Ash, her eyes looking left and right, blinking hard as her sight returned.

  Ash moved further to the side and began to walk backwards, careful not to make a sound.

  ‘Better . . .?’ Pierce said aloud, questioning himself. He half sat up, his head turning as if he was looking for something, but his eyes still failed him. ‘Better how?’ His voice grew louder as Ash moved back across the camp. ‘Better how?’ Pierce scrambled onto all fours and began running his hands along the ground, searching for a weapon. ‘Tell me. Stop. Stay where you are, you little brat. You think you can just walk away from me? Stay where you are.’

  Ash reached the log and climbed over it, looking back at Pierce who was turning his head in desperation, crawling about, coming closer to where Petersen’s body lay.

  ‘Cain,’ the scientist shouted. ‘He’s getting away. Stop him. Shoot him! Don’t let him get away.’ His hand brushed over the body and he patted along it, finding the right arm, prising the pistol from Petersen’s dead fingers. Without hesitating, he raised it up and fired into the air in front of him.

  CRACK!

  Ash flinched, even though the pistol wasn’t pointing anywhere near him.

  ‘Where are you, you brat?’ Pierce was saying. ‘Where the hell are you?’ The pistol kicked in his hand once more, the shot flying wide and crashing into the trees to Ash’s right. He then swivelled and began firing in different directions so that bullets cracked into the forest and thumped into the ground around the clearing.

  Ash jumped for the cover of the fallen tree and looked over at Pierce, firing at anything that made a sound.

  Cain, on the other hand, was almost perfectly still. She was on one knee, her weapon lowered. Her vision was still hazy, but she knew she was not alone. All around her were the dark shapes of the howler monkeys. They emerged from the forest and the thinning smoke, moving along the ground on all fours, tails held high, muscles flowing beneath their fur.

  ‘Put your weapons down.’ Cain’s voice was calm. ‘Pierce, stop shooting.’ When she unslung her weapon and placed it on the ground, some of the monkeys came forward to swat it away. They stayed close to her, pushing their faces close to hers, baring their teeth and growling.

  Cain held her hands out to either side
and lowered her eyes in submission. ‘Don’t aggravate them.’

  Behind her, Winter had followed her order, and was now on his knees, surrounded by monkeys. Pierce, on the other hand, was on his feet, pistol pointed in front of him. He fired again, but it was the last time he pulled the trigger.

  With a savage outburst of howling, more monkeys came forward as one, seething from the trees, heading for Pierce. A terrifying tidal wave of teeth and nails, they clawed at him, beat at him with their fists and pulled him to the ground, swarming over him like a pack of rabid wolves.

  Pierce didn’t even have time to scream.

  04 hrs and 26 mins until Shut-Down

  Ash and Isabel ran into the night as if the hounds of hell were on their heels. They didn’t care how much noise they made or how the undergrowth whipped at their legs; all they had to do now was get to the boat. They were almost there. They had almost won. No one would be taking Kronos off the island, so the world was safe from the virus, and now Ash just had to concentrate on calling Thorn’s helicopter and saving Mum.

  They ran and ran, pushing deeper into the forest.

  ‘How . . .’ Isabel panted, ‘are you not tired?’

  ‘Type Twenty-four. That’s what Pierce called it.’ Ash was still trying to process it all. Adrenalin was firing through his system, making his mind work at a million miles per hour. ‘It’s the island. And something Pierce did to me when I was younger. Something to do with the monkeys.’

  ‘I heard what he said, Ash, I was there, setting my trap, but . . . can it be real?’

  ‘It must be. It explains everything that’s happening to me. And I think the monkeys really were protecting me, but I don’t know how much. I mean, they left Cain alone when she put her gun down, so maybe it’s just guns they don’t like.’

  ‘Or maybe she was not a threat any more. But they gave us some time.’ Isabel looked at her watch as they ran.

  ‘And you. You were amazing. That was such good thinking. Why did you come back? I mean, I’m glad you did, but—’

  ‘As soon as I left, I knew it was a mistake. And when I saw they had caught you . . . I started throwing . . . HEX13 into the forest. It was lucky I didn’t blow us all up.’ She gestured at the messenger bag. ‘Is it all there?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Ash said. ‘Looks like it. Pierce’s keycard too. For the lab.’

  As they continued through the forest, Ash began to recognize the first signs of dawn breaking. The sight of the reddish glow over the forest in the distance was bittersweet, though. It would be good to chase away the dark, but the rising of the sun reminded him that time was running out for Mum.

  Isabel stopped and reached up to take hold of a vine. ‘We need to rest for a moment.’

  ‘We need to keep moving,’ Ash said.

  ‘I’m not like you.’ Isabel took the knife from Ash’s belt and sliced through the vine. ‘If I don’t rest and drink, I’ll be in trouble. The sun will be up soon and it will get hot. Very hot. You need to drink too. There’s another vine there.’

  ‘A few minutes then, but that’s all.’ Ash sliced through it in one go and waited for the sweet drips to fall onto his tongue.

  ‘Let go or I’ll bleed you like a pig?’ Isabel’s mouth cracked a wry smile. ‘That’s what you told Pierce. I heard you when I was planting the HEX13.’

  ‘Is that really what I said? I don’t remember. I was so scared.’

  ‘Me too,’ Isabel admitted.

  ‘We did it though, didn’t we? We got away.’

  ‘We haven’t got away yet.’

  Ash waited for more drops to fall into his mouth, then swallowed. ‘You think Cain will come after us? You think the monkeys will let her?’

  Isabel continued to hold the vine as she looked over at Ash. ‘What did they do to Pierce?’

  Ash stared out at the forest and let the vine water drip onto the carpet of leaves by his feet. ‘You don’t want to know.’

  ‘But he’s dead?’

  ‘Definitely.’ Ash felt no sympathy for the scientist. ‘But maybe if Cain doesn’t pick up her rifle, the monkeys will let her just walk past them. Can she follow us?’

  ‘She doesn’t need to. She knows where we are going.’

  ‘Then we just have to move fast,’ Ash told her. ‘You OK to keep going?’

  Isabel nodded.

  ‘And is there any HEX13 left?’ He unfastened Thorn’s pack and looked inside.

  ‘Yes. Detonators too.’

  ‘And you still have the handset?’

  Isabel dug into her pocket and pulled it out for him to see.

  ‘Then I say we finish this once and for all. Let’s get to that boat.’

  03 hrs and 46 mins until Shut-Down

  They went back up to the ridge and jogged along the old path, where the jungle was thinner. To their right, the sun was rising, evaporating last night’s rain and shrouding the forest in mist.

  As Isabel grew tired, they slowed to a quick walk, and after a while, Ash stopped completely and listened. He closed his eyes and reached out for any further sign of pursuit. The gentle breeze in the canopy whispered with the sound of autumn leaves tumbling on the pavement. Insects creaked and birds chattered. In the undergrowth, creatures foraged. Even the trees hummed as they drew nourishment from the ground. Ash focused beyond all of those things, reaching out as far as he could until he heard a different type of movement. The regular fall of boots on dirt.

  ‘They’re coming,’ he said. ‘Four people. Maybe three. Running. The howlers are still in the trees. I can hear them too.’

  So they picked up their pace and hurried on, trekking for almost an hour before they eventually emerged from the embrace of the forest into the full glare of the sun.

  They stood, parched and red-faced, looking out at an expanse of thin and rocky dirt, where only the hardiest plants grew in ragged tufts. It stretched ahead of them to a point where it seemed to fall off the end of the world, and teetering on the edge was a large, derelict two-storey building.

  ‘The bay is close now,’ Isabel said.

  Ash looked out at the end of the world. ‘You think the boat’s there?’ he asked.

  Isabel shook her head. ‘It has to be.’

  They jogged across the open ground, knowing that Cain would be close behind, and when they neared the cliff, Ash stopped. From where he was standing, a one hundred and fifty metre sheer drop fell to the bay below, where the surf broke on a large beach of shining black sand. But beneath his feet was a pot-holed road that trailed away to the right, snaking along the edge of the cliff. In the near distance, the cliff height began to drop and the road sloped down until it reached sea level at the far end of the bay. At the midpoint of the beach, a small wooden jetty extended out from the shore. Moored to the end of it was what they were hoping for. The boat.

  The beach itself was empty, apart from a shabby, square concrete building with an ancient radio antenna protruding from its roof. Attached to the antenna was a thick wire that ran up to the plateau and connected to the tower of the building to the left of where they were standing. But the majestic two-storey building was a phantom of its former self. The white paint had faded and peeled from the stone, and the red-tiled roof was now a soft garden of emerald and gold moss.

  The house on the cliff is the boy’s favourite place on the island. With its white walls and gold-trimmed windows, it’s like a castle in a storybook, overlooking the sea that twinkles in the sunlight. From the tower, he can look out and see the whole world . . .

  Being close to it gave rise to a gnawing, sickening feeling in his stomach. ‘I’ve been here before,’ Ash said. ‘I think this is where Pierce injected me with Type Twenty-four. I’d forgotten it, but after what Pierce said . . . and actually being here . . .’ He stared at the building, trying to recall the distant memories of a small boy.

  ‘Come on.’ Isabel looked behind them. ‘We don’t have time.’

  Snatched away from his thoughts, Ash turned and saw Cain and the others as cl
early as if they had been only a few metres away, their faces contorted with the effort of having pushed so quickly through the jungle. It was also easy to spot the shapes of the howler monkeys in the distant trees. There were hundreds of them now, moving from branch to branch. And when they reached the jungle edge, they came to a halt, forming a thick line that stretched twenty metres in each direction. They settled, like an army on a battlefield, then began to howl. The sound flooded across the rocky plateau like a tidal wave: a mournful call that Ash knew was a warning to him.

  01 hr and 26 mins until Shut-Down

  ‘This way!’ Isabel took off at a sprint, racing around the right side of the building. Ash followed close behind.

  They passed beneath a crumbling balcony, heading towards an ornate stone railing built right onto the edge of the crag. On the other side of the railing, the cliff fell away in a sheer drop to the beach, more than a hundred metres below. It would be easy to tumble over and fall to a messy death.

  They followed the railing around the building, until they came to a break in the barrier.

  ‘Apart from the road, this is the only way down,’ Isabel said.

  ‘My God. You’ve got to be joking. That’s it?’

  The black steps were little more than fifteen centimetres wide, carved into the cliff face, zigzagging down to the beach. There were metal posts buried in the rock at regular intervals, with wire strung between them to form a flimsy handrail. Even when it was first built it would have been dangerous, but right now it was a death trap. Some steps were broken away while the rest were coated in slippery moss, and to make matters worse, the railings had all come loose so the wires hung limp from their securing.

  Ash summoned all his courage and sidled close to the edge, but it was like looking into a void and his vision began to swim. He felt woozy, his stomach lurched. If he fell down there he would bounce off the rocks like a water-filled

  (blood-filled)

  balloon, smashing from crag to crag until he finally landed dead in the black sand. The world spun around Ash and he stumbled forward, foot slipping on loose rocks. For a second he teetered over the brink of the void, then he felt Isabel grab the back of his shirt and pull him away.