by Philip Henry
‘Been tried?’
‘Many times. It is the most obvious escape route.’
‘No one ever managed it?’
Joshua shook his head. ‘You can try it if you wish, most of us have, even me.’
‘And what happens?’
‘You get close, then you wake up the next morning back in your domicile with a tranquillizer dart hangover. And your computer won’t let you order anything for two weeks afterwards.’
‘You’ve tried to escape?’
‘Why does that surprise you?’
‘I… well, I know I just met you, but you seem pretty settled here.’
‘Even a cage with all the luxuries this one has is still a cage.’
‘Haven’t you monopolised our new inmate long enough, Joshua?’
Joshua turned and smiled. ‘Mandy, may I introduce the island’s top chef, Donna.’ Nicholl shook her hand. ‘She’s the one you go to when you get tired of microwave food.’ Donna was an attractive woman with long, black hair and a curvy figure.
‘I’m in number twenty-two. Drop by anytime.’ She still had hold of Nicholl’s hand. Nicholl noticed a hungry look Rek sometimes got after a few drinks. She removed her hand as politely as possible.
‘I’m in… Oh, I didn’t look when I left the house.’
‘You’re in number six,’ Joshua said.
‘Right.’
‘Twenty-two is more like the island’s restaurant. Donna’s making you a welcome dinner tomorrow. We’ll all be there. About one o’clock, Donna?’ She nodded to Joshua.
‘Come on, then,’ Donna said. ‘Let me give you the full SP on this place.’ She put her arm around Nicholl’s waist and led her away. Nicholl waved to Joshua over her shoulder.
‘You were talking to Joshua about escaping.’ Donna smiled to herself. ‘I know you’ll have to discover this for yourself, but there really is no way off the island. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you’ll settle here.’
‘Haven’t you ever tried to escape?’
‘Of course I have. And I had a lot more inventive ideas than stealing the supply boat.’
Nicholl was interested. ‘Like what?’
‘I tried overdosing once. I wasn’t trying to kill myself; I just thought they’d take me to a hospital.’
‘They didn’t?’
Donna shook her head. ‘I did it right there in the communal circle, too, so they definitely saw me. Joshua eventually made me vomit and I was OK after a few days’ rest.’
‘So in a genuine medical emergency they just leave us to die?’
‘Fifty domiciles on this island and they never get full. That’s why. There’s a diagnostic program on the computer in your living room and some of the people here have some medical background. If you can figure out what you have, you can order the drugs for it, but if you can’t, you roll the dice. I saw a guy called Ted collapse and die in the communal circle. Heart-attack. No-one came out of the plinth to save him.’
Ted. The guy who had built the glider.
‘We put his body back in his domicile and it was gone the next day.’
‘How many are here at the moment?’
‘Your arrival brings our population to thirty-two.’
Nicholl let it sink in for a moment, then asked, ‘What else have you tried? To escape, I mean.’
‘Getting pregnant. I figured they wouldn’t let a baby grow up on the island, so I started having unprotected sex with everyone, as often as possible.’
‘But you didn’t get pregnant?’
‘No one on the island does and no one uses protection. I thought they were putting something in the water to start with, so I only drank bottled stuff for six months. Still nothing. I don’t know what they did, or are doing, to us, but it works.’ She gave Nicholl a gentle nudge. ‘Still, I keep trying.’ She smiled and winked.
Donna kept a discreet distance from the crowd but they were still close enough for her to pick out individual faces and give them scores.
‘Bosco. What an asshole. Still, if you ever just want a quick – and I do mean quick – shag with no questions asked, he’s your man. The guy’s a walking hard-on. Four out of ten; all for enthusiasm, none for technique.’ Nicholl looked at the moustachioed man with his shirt open halfway down his chest. He saw her look, wiggled his tongue and winked at her.
‘Now, Ralph, on the other hand, is all about the technique, but he is somewhat lacking in confidence and does tend to burst into tears when he comes.’ Ralph glanced at Nicholl then blushed and turned away so quickly he toppled a table of hors d’oeuvres.
Nicholl winced. ‘He cries?’
‘Not out of dismay, out of… gratitude, I think.’ Donna shrugged at Nicholl in a I-just-work-here kind of way. ‘It’s the quiet ones you have to watch, though. See that guy reading by the plinth?’ Nicholl looked over and saw an older man, engrossed in a novel. ‘That’s Rex Stevens. Did Joshua tell you about him? He was going to expose all the Ministry’s secrets in a book he wrote; that’s what got him sent here. He writes horror novels now and gets special dispensation to send them out into the world. He uses the pen-name… Oh, I won’t spoil it; I’ll let him tell you. But you will have heard of him. So, if you want a scary story or an orgasm, he’s the man to see. He makes me squeal in three octaves. Like Mariah Carey or something. Every time. I don’t know how he does it.’
Nicholl didn’t bother to ask if he made her squeal with fright or delight.
‘Oh, you’ll end up screwing them all, I imagine. We all have. Even an asshole like Bosco, after a while you begin to wonder if you’re missing anything. Sometimes I do him just to kill the boredom.’
‘You’ve slept with everyone here? Even Joshua?’
‘Joshua’s not half bad since he started on Viagra. I’d give him a solid six out of ten.’ Donna looked at Nicholl’s puzzled face. ‘Hey, I’m not a slut! It’s not like I can go bar-hopping and find some stock-broker with a Porsche. What you see is what you’ve got to choose from. So you may as well try before you buy.’
‘Right. That seems fair.’
Donna stepped closer and lowered her voice. ‘You might find yourself trying a lot of things you never tried before after you’ve been here a while.’ She raised her hand and gently stroked it across Nicholl’s cheek, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear.
Nicholl smiled and stepped back. ‘OK.’ Nicholl looked behind her and saw the crowd was breaking up and heading back to their living quarters. Some alone, some had paired off. She turned back and saw Donna blow her a kiss and walk off towards domicile twenty-two.
Nicholl walked back across the circle. She stopped and looked at the plinth for a while but could see no panels or wiring she could mess with. She was alone when she looked up again. She started to walk back to her domicile. She noticed an orange speck of light in the darkness. The smoking girl was still up. Nicholl knew she was way too pumped up to sleep, so she wandered over to the girl.
‘Hi, I’m Mandy.’
‘They don’t talk to me. If you want to stay tight with them, you’d best go back to your domicile.’ The girl pulled her coat and scarf tighter around her.
Nicholl sat down. ‘It’s got a bit chilly, hasn’t it?’ She looked at the girl now, head on. She was beautiful. Long, brown hair, piercing blue eyes and voluptuous in all the right places. ‘I didn’t catch your name,’ Nicholl persisted.
The girl smiled. ‘It’s Eileen. Eileen Brown.’
‘How long have you been here?’
‘Four months.’
‘Trouble making friends?’
Eileen smiled, shook her head and took another drag on her cigarette.
‘Everyone else I’ve spoken to has tried escaping. You tried it yet?’
Eileen looked off across the dark waters. ‘There’s only one way you leave here. Feet first in a body bag. I’m starting to think that maybe it isn’t such a bad idea.’
Nicholl looked down, unsure of what to say. She saw a photograph clutched in Eileen’s
hand. ‘What’s the photo?’
Eileen glanced down then handed it to Nicholl. It was a picture of two children, a girl and boy. They were holding ice-creams and seemed to be trying to push each other out of shot while laughing. ‘Yours?’
Eileen nodded.
‘I guess they don’t allow you to…’
‘No phone calls, no letters, no emails. I don’t even know what they’ve told them. Probably that I’m dead, right? That would be the logical thing to tell them since I’ll never see them again.’
‘How old are they?’
‘Geraldine’s ten and Luis is eight.’ Eileen sniffed back the tears and changed the subject. ‘I know you.’
‘You do?’
‘We’ve never met, but everyone always talked about you at HQ. Never thought you’d end up here.’
Nicholl said nothing. Eileen flicked her cigarette into the ocean and got to her feet. Nicholl got up and walked back with her to the domiciles.
They stopped at number twelve. ‘This is me.’
Nicholl nodded as Eileen opened the door.
‘You’re in…’
‘Number six, I know. The irony isn’t lost on me.’
Eileen smiled.
The door was just about to close when Nicholl said, ‘Hey.’ Eileen paused. ‘That escape plan of yours, don’t try it just yet. Give me a day or two, I might come up with something better.’ She gave her a smile and walked away. Eileen looked puzzled, but also, for the first time since she got here, hopeful. If anyone could escape from Section Zero it was Agent Nicholl.
Nicholl got back into her domicile and went straight to the bathroom. A few minutes later the toilet flushed and she was washing the pill-sized device in the sink. ‘The things I have to do to save the world,’ she mumbled under her breath. When it was clean she got a sharp knife from the kitchen and cut the rubber cover off. She took the metal and plastic device from its casing and twisted it. An LED started pulsing inside it. She slipped the device into her ear.
‘Hey, you guys hear me?’
There was a few seconds of ominous silence, then, ‘Yeah, we’re here.’ It was one of the Daves.
‘You got a GPS location on me yet?’
‘Just zooming in now.’ The seconds ticked by slowly.
‘You were right by the way,’ Nicholl said, looking at the circular burns on her palms. ‘They did electrocute me while I was unconscious.’
She heard the other Dave in the background say, ‘See, the rubber coating was necessary.’
Nicholl smiled.
‘OK,’ Dave said slowly. Nicholl could hear the rapid clicking of a keyboard. ‘We’ve got you… that’s weird.’
‘What?’
‘Well, according to the maps online, there’s no island where you’re standing.’
For a few seconds Nicholl panicked. The Ministry had discovered her transmitter and found a way to re-route the signal. Her throat went dry. Was she really going to be stuck here for the rest of her life like everyone else?
‘Wait a second.’ It was Chloe’s voice. ‘I’ve got an old Atlas here from the 1950s and your island’s in it. Týndi Island. The Ministry must have erased it from all modern maps.’
‘Where am I?’
Dave spoke again. ‘You’re kind of halfway between Ireland and Iceland, but over to the left a bit.’
‘Did everything go as planned at your end?’ Chloe asked.
‘Oh, yeah,’ Nicholl said. ‘I think we’ve found our warriors.’
pale riders
Hal was almost too ashamed to go back to the house. He was burned and his clothes were soaking after an impromptu dip in the ocean to extinguish himself. Added to which, he had come back without the thing the Master had sent him for. He wasn’t going to like that one bit. Hal thought back to the guy the Master had tortured for three years and a shiver went up his already cold spine.
He closed the door and looked into the darkness of the living room. He couldn’t see anything or hear anything, but then he never could.
‘Hello?’ There was no reply. Hal turned to go upstairs and find a change of clothes.
‘You have failed me.’ The voice cut through the dark like a laser.
Hal swallowed hard. ‘I couldn’t touch it. The cardboard tube. The priest, dirty scumbag, carpenter-follower that he was, must have worked some mojo on it. Plus, they sent someone for it, too. The Ministry. They got it. And Jacqui, she was no fuckin’ help at all. She…’
‘Jacqui is dead.’
Hal began to seriously worry now. The Master had some kind of special affection for Jacqui. She was a child in a woman’s body and he had some kind of paternal need to protect her. Was Hal going to be blamed for Jacqui’s death too? Tortured for three years. He might even try to break his record. Maybe he’d manage five years this time, or ten.
‘You saw her die?’ Hal asked.
‘I felt her presence disappear. I have a connection with all my children, even you.’
Hal knew the Master could sense his guilt; he could tell by the tone of the silence. Why the hell was he feeling guilty? He hadn’t killed her.
‘Your anxiety is misplaced.’
He had been reading Hal’s mind. Hal briefly thought of making himself a hat out of tinfoil. Isn’t that what the crazies in Sycamore Acres do to stop aliens reading their brains? He was so scared that the words the Master had said hadn’t been processed in his brain for what they actually meant. He replayed them and this time he understood, and hoped he was telling the truth.
‘I have no reason to lie.’ His voice had moved in the darkness again. ‘I mourn Jacqui’s passing like I would mourn any of my children, including you, Harold, should a stake find you. I know you were not responsible for her death. Whoever was will pay for what they have done. That I guarantee you.’
Hal took a deep breath and tried to be brave. ‘What about that cardboard tube? What was in it?’
‘That I don’t know. I only sensed its importance to the Nazarene’s slave who carried it. His mind was filled with vengeance and he regarded that cardboard tube as a mighty weapon.’
‘You could read his mind, even before he was in the country?’ Hal asked.
‘His presence created a ripple that I sensed. Like a stone dropped in a lake, it’s quite easy to trace the ripples back to their source.’
‘Can I do that?’
The voice had moved again. ‘Maybe you’ll develop the talent if you live as long as me. Anyway, we will soon see how the mortals use this weapon. The riders have come. It was prophesied that they would be here when the world of darkness began. There is no doubt. The time is at hand.’ There was excitement in the usually flat voice. ‘Long have I waited for this season of evil.’
Hal wanted to ask. He wanted to know how old the Master was. What had he seen in his time? World War I? Maybe he saw Shakespeare’s plays performed while the ink was still wet on the parchment. Shit, maybe he was even a day-labourer at Stonehenge. The Master must have known what he was thinking but didn’t answer. Hal took that as a sign that he shouldn’t ask. ‘I’m going to go upstairs and change.’
The darkness said nothing. Hal went upstairs.
There were a lot of clothes in the house. All the vampires who had used this house over the years had one thing in common: they had all fed on tourists. And with tourists came luggage (and cash). Most of the clothes were horrible, garish shirts, unbecoming of a vampire looking to establish an image at first sight. Still, after a fair amount of rummaging, Hal found himself a black suit and black shirt that were a passable fit. He discarded his burned and sodden clothes on the floor and was about to leave when he went back to the mound of rags.
He looked behind himself, ashamed of his actions. He found the photo of him and Sarah. He took it out of his pocket gently so it wouldn’t fall apart. It was soaked through and flopped in his fingers.
He meant to spend eternity with her and one way or another, it was going to happen. Sure, she had set him on fire earlier that nigh
t, but all good couples fought; it showed there was passion in the relationship. Maybe when vampires overran the Earth she would feel differently about him. Maybe if she were a vampire she would feel differently.
Hal smiled and put the photo into his dry pocket.
Tom sat in the huge house alone. Lynda had gone with Sarah to find Rek. With Lynda being married to a doctor she had picked up enough knowledge over the years to serve as a good field medic. He had shared a coffee with Lynda earlier. He liked her. Not like he liked Sarah, but there was definitely a connection between them. Hollywood folk would call it chemistry maybe. She was easy to be around and had a lot of great stories.
His mum, one of the Daves and Chloe had gone to get Agent Nicholl back from Section Zero. The other Dave had gone to Mussenden Temple. After deciphering the architect’s name on the blueprints as Michael Shananhan, it didn’t take long on the Internet to match the drawings to the local landmark. The Daves had been very excited about what they thought they had found, but neither of them wanted to say. They had even rock-paper-scissored for who would get to go to the temple. It gave Tom hope. If the Daves’ excitement wasn’t misplaced, maybe, just maybe, they might win this thing after all.
They all had their assignments. They were all out there being brave. And he was sitting here… twiddling his thumbs. He wondered if his mum had secretly spoken to the others and arranged this little exclusion to keep him safe. Chloe had said they were leaving him behind to guard The Fist of Merlin. Even though it was locked in her safe she said she still wanted an extra layer of security should someone come looking for it. She said that was why their strongest warrior had to stay and protect it. As Tom replayed the conversation in his head now he was amazed he had fallen for such an obvious line of bullshit.
The phone rang. Tom lifted it quickly; expecting some of the others needed his help.
‘Hello?’
‘Yes. Chloe knight, please,’ the voice said impatiently.