Savage Island

by Bryony Pearce

  I looked at the sad piles of stones. Will was right. Who was there to see the plea?

  “They had to be desperate.”

  Will shrugged.

  “So how many teams are still hunting, do you think?” I kicked a stone, dislodging the top end of the P this time.

  Will held up a finger. “The team that almost found us on the moor, that’s one. Reece’s team, that’s two.”

  “Do you think An’s is still out there?” I looked around again, as if they would pop up from behind a rock.

  “Could be – that’s three. And there was that girl we saw with the machete. That’s four. Somia’s team are probably still looking for them. She said it was a guy called Liam. I reckon that’s Liam Jones – team seven. Reece told Carmen he saw someone with a girl on a lead, didn’t he? So that team are sorted. Still in the game, but not after anyone else.”

  “I still think at least one team would’ve dropped out at the second checkpoint,” I said.

  “Probably.” Will nodded.

  “So where does that leave us?” I bit a nail. “Four teams definitely hunting for ‘spare parts’.” I winced at my own use of the phrase. “One team looking for Somia, but who would probably take anyone they came across. One likely dropped out – they’re probably back at the jetty – and one ahead of us with a prisoner. That’s seven. So there’s just one team out here with us, looking for help. Who do you think it is?”

  Will frowned. “You want me to guess a name?”

  “I suppose not.” I started to walk forwards, preparing to break into a jog.

  Will moved into step with me.

  As we sped up, I glanced back at the word on the beach. I’d made a mess of it. Now it said HELL.

  Will pressed his fist into his side as he jogged. “Lizzie still thinks there’s going to be help at the end,” he said.

  “I know.” I had a stitch, too. It felt as if we were running so slowly, every step hampered by the sand. “There might be.”

  Will looked at me. “Really?”

  “There has to be someone at the end of this … doesn’t there?”

  “Someone who intends to help us?”

  “Someone from the Gold Foundation,” I panted. “They’ll deal with the saboteurs.”

  Will blinked. “You don’t still think one of the other teams changed the boxes? You aren’t that naive…” He kept pushing forwards.

  “Why wouldn’t they – for a million pounds?”

  “It’s not that much money!” Will paused and leaned on his knees. “Not these days. You couldn’t even live off the interest.”

  “Other people might not see it that way.” I stared at him. “You think the Gold Foundation brought us here to do this on purpose?”

  Will nodded. “Why only raise the crossing every three days? Why not build it so it’s permanent?”

  “Privacy – like they said?”

  “A gate would be a lot cheaper. No, it’s to make sure we can’t leave until they’re ready to let us go. I could understand none of our phones having reception here, but Grady’s Iridium? They have to be blocking the signal somehow.”

  “But … why?”

  “I don’t know yet.” Will was irritated; angry that there was a puzzle he couldn’t solve. “We’ll find out at the end.”

  I stared at him. “That’s why you really want to finish the course. That’s why you’re on Carmen’s side – so you can find out what’s behind this? You’re as bad as Grady. Sometimes you don’t get to know everything, Will.”

  “Don’t you want to find out?”

  “Not that badly.” I closed my eyes. “I just want to get us all home safe. That’s it.”

  Will regarded me coldly. “You know you can’t guarantee that,” he said. “Use your brain. If the Foundation did set this course, will they want anyone going home and talking about it?”

  I gasped. “What are you saying?”

  Will looked at his pick. “I think someone got us to the island and set this course on purpose. Maybe it was the Gold Foundation, maybe it was some fake—”

  “Now you really do sound like Grady.”

  “I don’t know what their reasons are, but I do know that when we find whoever is behind this, they aren’t just going to help us. But they might be willing to cut a deal.”

  “We agree to say nothing about the game and they get us home?”

  “Something like that.” Will’s eyes glittered.

  “Then hiding won’t help.” I sagged.

  “If I didn’t want anyone leaving the island to tell tales, I’d be hunting down all the groups before they leave. I’m not sure the jetty is going to be safe. I wouldn’t want to be in the team waiting it out there.”

  I groaned and turned to start running again, but Will wasn’t moving.

  “This isn’t all your responsibility, Ben,” he said eventually.

  “I do know that.” I met his cool gaze.

  “You don’t, Saint Ben. Not really.”

  “I’m oldest. I brought you here.” I clenched my fists.

  “Lizzie brought us,” Will said. “Blame her.”

  “I-I can’t.”

  Will nodded. “Mother made you like this. She trained you – like a dog.”

  I stiffened.

  “She made sure you’d look out for me,” Will continued. “Especially after Dad left. But now you feel like you’re answerable for everything.”

  “I’m not some animal,” I cried.

  “I know about Cardiff,” he sneered. “Mother told me you didn’t get in, but it wasn’t hard to find your offer letter.”

  I hesitated as my rage burned away. “In the recycling,” I said.

  He nodded. “I didn’t ask for that.”

  “Yeah, well, Mum didn’t give me much choice.”

  “You can’t be my shadow for ever.” He looked out to sea. “I’ll speak to her.”

  “She’s right though. I should be there for you. University will be hard.”

  “Harder than this?” He gestured at the beach. “I can handle it. Look at me. I. Don’t. Need. You.” The night wind shifted his hair across his face and he pushed it back impatiently. “Give up your life if you must, but I won’t feel guilty about it.” He turned his gaze back to the distance. “I just don’t know what you expect from me.”

  “You’re my brother. I don’t expect—”

  “Well, don’t,” Will’s voice continued, inflectionless. “Don’t expect anything from me. I don’t owe you.”

  “I-I know. I never—”

  “All this ‘poor Ben, he has to look after Will’ stuff has to stop.” Will’s top lip curled and he faced me again. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough of it. Don’t come to Oxford. I don’t want you there. You’ll hold me back.”

  “Hold you back…” I echoed, but Will was already moving, striding along the shore. “You ungrateful bastard,” I called. “My whole life revolves around y—” I stopped.

  There was a seed of resentment inside me. I tried not to acknowledge it, but oh yes, it was there. And it was growing. How long before I loathed him? Before I demanded the debt be repaid?

  A week ago, Will wouldn’t have had a problem with me keeping an eye on things in Oxford. But now he didn’t want me there. Why not?

  I thought of the way he had called me ‘Saint Ben’. Perhaps there was room for resentment on both sides.

  I jogged after him and when I caught him up, we ran without speaking, our feet thudding in time.

  Finally we ground to a halt. We seemed to be alone and at the very edge of the island.

  “Where is it?” I turned.

  Will frowned.

  “We did get the right coordinates, didn’t we? Maybe we haven’t seen anyone because we’re in the wrong place!”

  “We haven’t seen anyone because it’s five o’clock in the morning,” Will said mildly.

  I gripped his elbow. “Will, what’s that?” I pointed out to sea where something was being moved by the
waves.

  “A seal?” Will said, but he lifted his binoculars.

  After staring out for what felt like a long time, he passed me the glasses. I hesitated before I held them to my eyes. For a second I thought I was seeing a seal and I started to lower the lens. Then the sea exhaled and something green billowed in the waves. A camo jacket floating around a body. As the waves shifted, a pale forearm twisted up and down. I almost leaped forwards, but Will’s arm slammed into me and then I saw what he had seen. The body was face down, moving only with the sea.

  “Someone tried to swim for it.” I shook as I handed him back the binoculars. “They’re … dead.”

  Will nodded. “They shouldn’t have tried to swim.” He turned me to face inland. “Don’t look. Focus. We have to find the fifth checkpoint.”

  I nodded and let Will redirect my attention. Where was the box?

  Shells curled in among the sand, and worm casts wound around my feet. When I moved my boots, a crab burrowed quickly away. We rotated. Nothing in view.

  “It could be underwater,” I said abruptly. “In a rock pool.”

  Will nodded and we started to look between the rocks, in the puddled water and seaweed.

  The box was at the bottom of a dark pool of about an arm’s depth. Its chain curled around it like a tentacle and jellyfish floated on either side.

  “Stingers?” I asked.

  “Probably.” Will used his pick to drag the box out of the water.

  We looked at it.

  “You reckon this’ll work then?” I asked him, suddenly nervous.

  “It had better.”

  Will took the clay imprint of Lizzie’s thumb out of his pocket.

  “Has it dried?” I reached out for the clay. It was flaky around the edges, but had hardened. Will unwrapped the mess of melted gummy bears, which had turned into soft gelatine. Then, while I held the clay, he pressed the gummy bear ‘finger’ on to the imprint.

  “Just hope it’s a lo-res scanner,” Will said, and he pressed the fake finger on to the screen.

  Nothing happened.

  “Try again,” I breathed.

  Will rocked the ‘finger’ over the scanner; there was an eternal pause and the screen lit up.

  “Yes!” I punched the air and Will turned back to the keyboard.

  “Fire,” I reminded him. “What grows when it eats, but dies when it drinks?”

  He typed in the answer to the riddle and the locked-room game appeared.

  “I hope this is right.” I flicked on the lighter and held the flame close to the sensor. “Nothing’s happening.”

  “Give it a chance to warm up.” Will blew on his own fingers.

  After a few more seconds, there was a click and the box opened.

  Just like last time, the riddle and coordinates were engraved on the underside of the lid.

  “Where’s the pencil, I’ll—”

  “Got it,” Will said.

  “What?”

  “It’s easy.” He tilted his head at me. “You haven’t worked it out?”

  I ground my teeth. “No.”

  Will sighed. “What’s the twenty-fourth letter of the alphabet?”

  “X.”

  “What’s X with a friend?”

  “Um …”

  “XX, dummy – twenty in Roman numerals.”

  “And XXX is for dirty movies. OK, I get it. What about the coordinates?”

  Will shook out the creased and dirty map. “There.” He pointed and I moaned with relief – the next box wasn’t too far away. Back to the others and then another half-mile further. It would be somewhere on the edge of the loch that filled the bowl between the three of the highest points on the island.

  Finally, we turned our attention to the geocache box.

  “It’s a lot bigger than the last one,” I whispered. Will reached out and I caught his hand. “Why open it?”

  “Don’t you want to know?” Will shook free and touched the box with his fingertip, almost reverently.

  “Not really.” But I didn’t move. My eyes caught Will’s. “What would happen if…”

  “If what?”

  “If we just threw this box away,” I said. “The teams behind us wouldn’t know what to put in the cache. They wouldn’t have a reason to keep hunting.”

  Will froze, his eyes flickering as he processed the idea.

  I grabbed the box from him, stood and pulled my arm back to throw.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Don’t do it!” The words were roared from behind us in a familiar deep voice and I dropped the box as if it burned. Roosting birds, disturbed by the shout, burst from the cliffs. We spun round and stared as a team of five guys pounded towards us along the shingle. Dawn had turned the sky red behind them.

  There was nowhere for us to run. We were trapped.

  Will raised his pick. The team were still a distance away, but there was no route around them.

  “Hold this,” Will growled. Automatically I closed my hand around the checkpoint box as he thrust it at me. Sparks flew from rock as he used his pick to smash the links of the chain. Separated, the chain slithered back into the pool. Then he snatched the box from me.

  “Grab the one you dropped,” he yelled as he ran towards the sea.

  I obeyed and followed him, trying not to think about exactly what was thumping against the cold metal in my hand.

  “Oi! What’re you doing?” I looked over my shoulder to see the other team running faster, powering after us.

  The headland shattered into rocks. Will leaped on to the furthest. We were at the very end of the island. He balanced there and dangled the box with the coordinates over the water. I stood behind him and did the same, suspending the geocache over the waves.

  The other team skidded to a halt.

  “Cheats.”

  Will shook the checkpoint box. “You want this?”

  The guy who had spoken was a redhead like me, but his face was so freckled he looked almost tanned. Patches of white skin stood out like islands on his forehead and chin. He grimaced. “You gonna drop it, mate?”

  In answer, Will gave the box another shake.

  “Stop him, Curtis,” one of his mates said. He was the smallest and thinnest of the group. He wore thick glasses over pale eyes that glittered with a familiar sharpness. I glanced at Will.

  “All right, what d’you want?” Curtis demanded.

  “We want you to let us past, unharmed,” I snapped.

  Five faces glowered at me.

  “What’s yer name?” Curtis asked.

  “Does it matter?” I licked my lips.

  “What’s in the box?”

  “We haven’t looked.”

  “You put the box down and we’ll let you walk past.” Curtis glanced at his mates. “Right?”

  They all nodded, expressions unreadable.

  “Bull.” My voice came out higher than I’d have liked. “I don’t know what’s in here, but I know what was in the last box and none of you have given up an ear.” I shook the box and it came open in my hand. I yelped and leaped back as something thudded on to my foot and then rolled towards the sea.

  Curtis lunged forwards, his arm outstretched, but froze when Will gave a jerk, as if to throw his box.

  Carmen’s hand teetered on the edge of the rock. Her delicate fingers were curled into rigor mortis, one of them missing.

  I threw up. Sick spattered into the sea.

  “I-it’s Carmen’s hand.” I looked at Will. “Look at the tattoo. Do we t-take it back to her? Can they … sew it back on?”

  One of the lads behind Curtis swallowed loudly. “Don’t you watch telly, mate? It’s gotta be on ice.”

  “It’s too late,” Will agreed.

  We all stared at the hand. Curtis raised his hatchet; I brandished my axe. “Stay back!”

  “What now?” Curtis asked.

  “You all go stand over there.” I pointed to the rock face beneath the nesting birds. “Or I’m going to kick Car— the
hand into the sea.”

  Curtis jerked his head and his mates backed away.

  “This is out of control, Curt, mate,” the lad with the bruised face muttered loudly. “A tooth … even an ear … not so bad, innit? But this is a hand. I mean, there’re two more checkpoints left. What’s in the last one? A head?”

  “Shut up, Kyle.” Curtis stared at me. “Now what?”

  “We take the box with the clue and the coordinates as far as that rock.” I pointed to a rock shaped like a curved beak, sticking out from the cliff, further along the beach. “You stay right where you are. When we get there, we’ll put the box down. You can pick it up when we’ve gone.”

  “How do we know you won’t take it with you?”

  “You don’t.” Will raised his eyebrows. “But you have no reason not to trust us.”

  “You were gonna chuck it,” Curtis yelled.

  Will looked at me. “Well, now we’re leaving one box here and the other one over there. Right?”

  I carefully put the empty box beside Carmen’s hand, trying not to look at it.

  “All right.” Curtis gestured. “Go on, then.”

  “You make any sudden moves and I toss the box as far out to sea as I can,” Will warned.

  “We’re staying right here.”

  My heart pounded as we stepped off the rocks and edged past Curtis and his team. They watched us with hunters’ eyes. When we were past, Curtis gave a nod and two of his friends went to retrieve Carmen’s hand and the box that had held it.

  “I don’t like leaving her hand with them,” I groaned.

  “I know.” Will’s arm was still poised ready to throw. He didn’t take his eyes from Curtis. Eventually we reached the rock I’d pointed to. Slowly, as if he was holding a bomb, Will put the box down.

  “Run!” he yelled.

  Curtis’s team started sprinting after us. Shouts chased us down the beach and I could hear the crunching of their pursuit.

  Will grunted as a rock bounced off his right shoulder, but he didn’t stop. He turned and grinned at me, his eyes alight.

  Despite my fear, I grinned back; we were outpacing Curtis. His team were bigger, slower and hadn’t taken the time to ditch their rucksacks. We were getting away.