Other Voices, Other Tombs

by Joe Sullivan

  “Yes, sir.”

  Blake’s tone softened. “I know this is hard, son. I don’t like it either, but it’s for the greater good. If what’s gone on here got out, it would destroy us in the eyes of the public, and we’d all hang no doubt, even though we’re just following orders. I promise you; you’ll never have to do anything like this again. You’ll make it off this island and be far away on an easy detail. Just keep it together and remain tightlipped. Otherwise… I meant what I said.”

  McClusky asked if he should start doing a sweep of the buildings in the street. He pointed to the shop where I was hiding and said he could start there. Blake agreed and headed off once more to oversee the dirty work.

  When Blake was out of earshot, McClusky approached the window and now spoke to me once more. “Cover your eyes,” he said. At first, I thought he was going to shoot me there and then, but with the hilt of his rifle, he smashed away some of the shards of glass around the window frame which had cut my thigh. He then climbed over Ross Brady’s faceless body until he was inside.

  I started to hear voices down the street shouting the words ‘clear’ intermittently.

  “Can you just say this building is clear and let me hide?” I asked.

  “No,” said McClusky as he helped me out from under the table. “Once the buildings are cleared of any survivors, they’ll burn them down to make sure there’s no evidence of anything else. Notes left behind or anything like that. You’d burn one way or the other. You need to hide somewhere more permanent until I can figure out a way to get you off island alive.”

  My mother had believed I was a quick thinker. She had always said that I could think my way out of anything. Perhaps she was right. In a flash of desperate inspiration, I uttered the words “Stac Biorach.”

  “What’s that?” McClusky said confused.

  “It means ‘the Pointed Stac.’ It’s a tiny island just off of Hirta which is home to a lot of birds. No people, though. My father used to take me there to watch the guillemots. There’s a small rowing boat hidden in a tiny cove that Hirta folk would use to visit it and the other stacs.”

  “And there’s somewhere you can hide there?”

  A gunshot sounded. McClusky turned and peered through the window frame back into the street before returning his gaze to me. “They must have found someone else hiding. We don’t have much time.”

  He was right. The smell of kerosene now filtered through the window, and a yellow-orange glow from parts of the town set alight by the soldiers was now making itself known. The thought of the flames touching my skin took hold. “There are nooks and crannies on Stac Biorach which will shelter me. They’d only see me if they got close.”

  Footsteps now neared. “McClusky!? Where are you, lad?” bellowed Sergeant Blake from outside.

  “Here, Sergeant Blake. This building is clear,” McClusky shouted.

  “Good! Let’s burn it with the rest of them, then.”

  “Yes, sir!” McClusky shouted through the window to the darkness. Then, he turned to me. “Can you make it on your own?”

  I thought about the years I had spent on Hirta, but even knowing the island so well, in the darkness the hike over hills and cliffs would be treacherous. One wrong foot and I would plunge to the rocks below the towering island. “I need my lamp.”

  “Was that the one on the street?” McClusky whispered.

  I gave a somber nod.

  We both turned to the sound of Blake walking up to the window.

  “Head out the back,” McClusky said, pushing me through an open doorway further into the shop. “Hide somewhere. When you see five flashes of light, go towards them.”

  I would have asked him to explain, but there was no time. Blake shouted once more for him, and McClusky climbed back out into the street. It all happened so quickly after that. Something poured in through the window, then bottles of lit kerosene thrown inside at my feet. The world burned around me. Staggering back at the heat, I looked for a way out. Sweat poured down from my forehead and into my eyes. The smoke caught my lungs, and I knew that one full breath would be the death of me. Staggering blindly, I tried to remember the layout of the shop as best I could. In desperation, I found a pane of glass and threw my fist through it. Something broke inside my hand. The pain was terrible, but before I knew it, I was out in the open black of the night, gasping for air.

  Behind me, the shouts of the soldiers now rose up around the flames. I lay low, and with broken hand and cut leg, I dragged myself through the wild grass and rocks of Hirta, up a small incline, and then lay with my back against the ground. The stars had always peered down at me from the sky, and many a time I had lain on a similar spot looking at them, wondering what they meant, and what secrets they held. But they had been wiped from the sky momentarily. The flames of my home village grew higher still and gave off a consuming glow, and I watched with tears flowing down my cheeks as the last remnants of my life burned to a cinder.

  Soon, the soldiers began their searches as I was certain they would. If no one was to leave the island alive, they would have to search every part of it for human life. But I had one advantage over Sergeant Blake and his men—Hirta was my home. I knew it better than any of them. And so, I disappeared into the darkness. Without my father’s lantern, it would have been impossible for me to negotiate the rocks and cliffs of the island safely, but the irony was that my father and all Hirta now burned. Their flame gave more than enough light to guide me.

  Groups of soldiers wandered the hills looking for prey. Whenever they drew near to me, I lay in the grass then crawled to a safer spot. But this would only aid me for so long. The flames of Hirta were now diminishing, and so too was the light that they gave me. I could see a group of soldiers moving in my direction as I lay flat beneath a piece of curled rock. As they did so, the sound of footsteps joined them from behind where I lay. Another group of soldiers, and where I hid appeared to be their intended meeting point.

  Then I saw it. Five short flickers of light to the East. I counted them silently. Like starlight paving my way to freedom, I moved in that direction. As I did, I heard the soldiers questioning the light. My heart sank as they followed in the same direction. Soon I looked up and saw McClusky standing near to me holding a battery powered torch. “Stay down,” he whispered.

  The soldiers saw him, too.

  “McClusky,” one of the men said with a mainland accent. “What are you doing here? Was that you with the light?”

  “Yes,” McClusky answered, calmly. “I was investigating the sound of something on the rocks by that cliff, but I twisted my ankle trying to climb up them. I think some villagers might be hiding there.”

  “Good man,” the other voice said. “We’ll check. Do you need assistance?”

  “I just need to get my boot off and look. If it’s too bad, I’ll hobble over to the boats and see if I can lend a hand getting us ready to leave the island.”

  “Righto, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up about leaving here. I reckon we’ll be here for at least a day. The villagers can’t hide from us so easily when the sun goes up, especially not in their condition.”

  “No problem. See you lads later.” McClusky pointed at a stony outcrop some way off and the soldiers headed in that direction.

  When the men were far enough away, McClusky signaled that he was ready to go. We moved off Northward and hid behind a small hill.

  “How long before they know you’re gone?” I asked him.

  “I don’t know, 30 minutes, maybe less, maybe more. It depends how full their hands are. Blake will be looking for me, no doubt.” His voice sounded calm, but beneath it I could sense his anxiety.

  “I need to get to the rowing boat at the cove. If you give me your torch, I can find my own way.” I reached out my hand for his torch.

  McClusky looked down at it and sighed. “I wish it were that simple. Those soldiers are looking for unaccounted lights on the islands. They’ll find you. At least with me here, I can say I was looking for
Hirta folk while you hide. How far is the cove?”

  “Not far,” I said. I was not about to argue with him. At that point, my grief and terror had turned into a deep need for survival.

  “Then let’s move.”

  The way was treacherous. Twice we saw lights coming towards us and I had to scramble away and hide in the thick grass while McClusky explained that he was looking for anyone who might have escaped. I breathed a sigh of relief that the soldiers bought his story and headed off on their own deadly searches.

  When the small cove came into sight, we walked down the hillside towards it. I then scrambled down the rocks as best I could with broken hand and bleeding thigh to the stone beach below. Looking up, I saw to my horror that a silent figure was standing silhouetted against the black sky behind McClusky.

  “What’s going on here then?” the voice said gravely.

  McClusky turned. “Serg...”

  “I told you what would happen if you weren’t on board, son,” said Sergeant Blake. He had taken the bayonet off his rifle and was carrying it as a knife, pointing it just inches from McClusky’s throat. “Now what to do…”

  “Serg, please. Let her go…”

  “Anybody gets off this island and we’re all dead. I guarantee it. I’ve got kids.”

  “She’s someone’s kid, and they’re burning back there. What would you want someone to do if it was your daughter?” McClusky asked.

  “I’m a soldier, son. No time for sentiment. I have to look after my own.” Sergeant Blake stepped forward.

  I did the only thing I could. I reached around my feet and found a large stone, hurling it upward. It struck Sergeant Blake on the face. Dazed, he stumbled and lost his footing. As he fell over the edge towards me, I moved to the side. Though the fall was not high on that side of the island, his body crumpled with a thud on the stones below.

  McClusky scrambled down the rocks. “What have you done!?” he said.

  “Done? I saved your life. He was going to…”

  “You don’t know that!” McClusky cradled the head of his Sergeant.

  Blake moaned on the ground, blood coming from his mouth. “Yer dead, son…”

  “I’m sorry, Serg…”

  To my horror, I then realized that Blake had not come alone. Someone was shouting his name in the darkness above us.

  “We have to go!” I said, pulling at McClusky’s arm.

  McClusky shook his head. “He’s not dead…”

  I pointed to the hill above us where the shouting was coming from. “They’ll find us. And if he gives your name, they’ll kill you and me.”

  Just as McClusky tried to barter with me that there was a way of helping Sergeant Blake and getting both of us off the island alive, I smashed Blake’s face in with a rock. I felt nothing.

  McClusky stared at what was left of his Sergeant’s face in disbelief. I walked on and found the small rowing boat moored to a pole nearby in the cove. “Are you coming or not?”

  Slowly, McClusky walked over to the boat without saying a word. We untied it from its moorings and then pushed off into the blackness of the sea, which was calmer than usual. As we did, I could hear the shouts of men over the gentle lapping of the waves against the boat. They were back on the island looking for Sergeant Blake. If I was not mistaken, they found him, or someone had, as a solitary light at the cove suggested a figure standing over his body. But they did not see us.

  We rowed to the stac. The huge grey rock reached high up out of the water like a fallen God pointing to the sky. Pulling the boat up onto the foot of the stac, we hid our only means of travel beneath thick buds of seaweed which we pulled from the rock’s surface.

  “We better hurry,” said McClusky looking to the horizon.

  Morning was coming, and a dark blue was brooding in the distance. “What happens if the sun touches me?”

  “We were told it was permanent. That what we were doing was a mercy killing. If that’s true, then when the sun rises, you’ll burn to death,” said McClusky, not sugar coating it.

  After hiding the rowing boat, I led McClusky up the stac. This involved climbing and walking, but in the end, we were at least sixty feet up a wall of rock when I found what I was looking for. “My father showed me this place. You can watch the birds and see all of Hirta from here.” It was not a cave per se, but it was a deep hole in the side of the rock, which turned at an angle. “I think I’ll be safe from the sun here.”

  I hid in the hole as the sun rose, McClusky covered me with his army jacket just in case. No sun touched me, nor would it ever again. When night fell, we watched all of Hirta in her glory. That place I had called home all my life. Pinpoints of light darted around the island as the soldiers walked with their torches to their boats. They left, nothing smoldering. I wondered how they would explain what had happened there. The history books contain the official story. People left Hirta due to illness and failed crops in the 1930s. But it should read that we were wiped out by order of Her Majesty’s government.

  When another day passed, starving and running out of the water in McClusky’s canteen, we made our escape. It was an arduous, almost impossible journey across the sea, but we made it to North Uist, then a week later to Loch Dunvegan, relying on the kindness and help of local fishing communities on the way. After that, we crossed the waters at Kyle Rhea, and finally, with the disaster of Hirta weeks behind us, we reached the Scottish mainland. Once there, we hid in bothies across the countryside during the day and travelled at night.

  We could not be sure if McClusky’s betrayal was known, but they would be looking for him. A dead sergeant and a missing private was not something the army would take lightly. Over time, his guilt for what had happened at the island consumed him. His only reprieve from that guilt was to help me have some sort of life. Which we did. We helped each other. I suppose in some way, we mended what was broken inside us both.

  Now, he is gone. I am old. I kept silent all these years until he died for fear that the government would kill both of us. I am not sure if we truly loved each other or were just thrown together by circumstance, but whatever we were, we endured together for decades, and I owed him my silence. We left Scotland behind, and eventually I spoke no more of Hirta, until now. It was just too painful.

  I have often wondered at the cause of the burning. McClusky knew very little but for his direct orders and the whispers among his fellow soldiers that night. Something had washed up on the South side of the island; containers from a navy shipwreck carrying some recently discovered material from the old world. They broke open and we were poisoned. The fumes weaponized the sun against us. Made us burn under its rays. I hope that it was an accident, but in my darkest moments I wonder if we were the victims of a vile experiment, one created by humanity’s search for domination over itself. Release a gas, wipe out everyone in the sun. Walk in and claim the land.

  That is my story, and now I have finally told it. Will you share it, or will you pass it off as another fiction? I think my account will probably be buried like the bodies of the Hirta folk in the sea—but I hold out some hope for humanity despite the world we all see around us. Perhaps justice will come. I will not be the one to bring it around, however. For me, the night has become my home. Though old, I still value what is left of my life. Perhaps even more than the reckless young. I will not jeopardize my time with my family. So, believe me or not, I will now do my best to once more forget the Burning Isle, as though it were a bad dream from a teenage girl who no longer exists.

  My remaining concern is one I hope you will act upon. I do wonder what became of that stuff from the old world, and if they ever perfected it.

  Michael Whitehouse is filmmaker, author, and founder of Ghastly Tales, a popular YouTube horror channel. He is a frequent contributor to The NoSleep Podcast and has written countless stories for audio performance.

  Three Lanes Deep

  Gemma Amor

  Lucy is stuck.

  As traffic jams go, it is the worst she has
ever encountered. Hundreds of cars stand gridlocked, nose-to-tail and three lanes deep on the motorway all around her. A broiling midsummer sun beats down mercilessly upon them all, and the air shimmers with a thick, soupy heat. It bounces off countless bonnets and windscreens, and she can see it rippling over the grey, worn tarmac, like wrinkles in a pond when a stone is thrown.

  She has been trapped like this for almost an hour, now: trapped, desperately hot, and horribly miserable. There is no shade, no breeze, and no cloud cover in the sky. Just a blazing white ball of fire, burning relentlessly. Her car ticks and groans gently as the brutal heat forces the metal to expand, warp, contract again, an unwelcome percussive accompaniment to her misery. Her brother Lucas shifts in his seat beside her, a steady trickle of sweat making its way down the right side of his face. He keeps wiping it away with the palms of his hands, then shaking them to flick the sweat off. Little salty droplets splat onto the dashboard and across Lucy’s right arm, making her flinch. It is driving her mad.

  ‘Stop doing that, it’s disgusting!’ she snaps, wiping her arm with the bottom of her damp shirt in disgust.

  Lucas lets out a frustrated moan, ignoring her and wiping his brow for the thousandth time.

  ‘Arrggghhh!’ he says, banging the steering wheel with his hands, letting his frustration and discomfort show. It takes a lot for his usually cool and collected exterior to slip, and Lucy can see that he is on the verge of losing his temper. He isn’t the only one.

  ‘It’s hotter than the devil’s arse crack in here!’ he continues, his face turning an even brighter shade of red than it had been a moment ago. Lucy wonders briefly about spontaneous combustion, and how hot a person has to be before they actually melt, or burst into flames, or simply crumble and disintegrate into a pile of ash.

  ‘Here,’ she replies, listless, passing him an almost empty bottle of water. He takes it and swigs, then grimaces.

  ‘Hot,’ he says, passing the bottle back. ‘Gross.’