Carpet Diem

  After a few minutes, Sean stood, fully dressed and carrying a rucksack over one shoulder.

  “Fuck it. Who wants to live forever, right?” the Irishman asked.

  “Ha, yeah, like Queen.” Simon answered, as they walked up the corridor.

  “Does she?”

  “Who?”

  “The Queen?”

  “What about her?”

  “She wants to live forever?”

  “Does she?”

  “Isn’t that what you said?”

  “No…”

  “Oh.”

  “I meant the song.”

  “What song?”

  … “Never mind.”

  ----

  They arrived at Harriet’s room to find everyone ready to go, including – unexpectedly - Harriet.

  “She woke up,” Amelia explained, helpfully.

  “I’ve woken up before with men trying to undress me,” said Harriet, “but women trying to dress me is new.”

  She sounded remarkably clear-headed.

  “I fixed her,” Cassandra explained, answering Simon’s unasked question. “We need her to be able to walk. We’ve also brought her up to speed.”

  “Yeah, I hear the nutjob turns invisible,” said Harriet. “That would have been good to know yesterday.”

  Sean looked at Simon questioningly.

  “I’ll tell you on the way,” he answered. “We need to go.”

  “We?” Harriet asked, surprised. “You’re coming?” she asked the pirate.

  “If that’s OK…” Sean answered.

  An odd look crossed Harriet’s face momentarily, before she shrugged and said, “Why not?”

  “So, where are we going?” Simon asked.

  “The beach, for the boat,” said Cassandra. “It’s the easiest way off the island. It should be in dock. We need to move.”

  They all moved aside to let Cassandra lead, followed by Bob - still carrying most of Calderon - Amelia, Sean and Harriet.

  Simon brought up the rear. He was suddenly struck by the thought that these people were all here because of him. They were all, one way or another, helping him.

  How had that happened?

  Harriet dropped back, grabbed Simon’s elbow and slowed him down.

  “You brought him for me, right?”

  “I suppose so,” Simon answered, nervously. “Sort of.”

  “Nice thought. But has it occurred to you how happy he’s going to be when he finds out he gave up this life for a pensioner?”

  No. It hadn’t.

  “Didn’t think so. Here’s hoping he’s a granny grabber, eh?”

  She stalked forward again, leaving Simon wondering whether the nice thing he thought he’d done had actually been deeply, deeply stupid.

  There was a good chance.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Halfway down the rocky steps to the beach, Cassandra suddenly put up a hand. Everyone stopped.

  “There’s somebody down there,” she whispered to the group. “It’s probably Carlos. Stay here.”

  She handed the sack with Calderon’s head in it to Amelia and carried on down the steps.

  ----

  Cassandra moved quickly, but not so quickly as to appear to be in a hurry. She needed to be rid of Carlos as soon as possible, but without raising suspicions. He surely knew how Priest went about keeping his women on the island, and was exactly the type she’d expect to call his boss the minute anything seemed unusual.

  As she got closer, however, she could see that it was not Carlos at all. The man was wearing the same white suit he'd had on when they saw each other less than an hour ago. He was staring down at the ground, fixated on something she couldn’t make out. It looked like a pile of red blankets.

  Ten feet away, she snapped a shell beneath her feet and he turned.

  “I did not do that!” Prisoner yelped.

  Cassandra looked at him quizzically. He stepped towards her, holding his wrists out as an offer for handcuffs.

  “Didn’t do what?” Cassandra asked.

  “That!” he answered, pointing at the pile he’d been standing next to.

  Cassandra moved past him to get a better look.

  It wasn’t blankets.

  She didn’t have to worry about Carlos calling Priest.

  ----

  It didn’t take the rest long to get down the rocks once Cassandra waved them on.

  “This was you wasn’t it?” Cassandra held the sack up with one hand and hit it with the other.

  Simon had thrown up as soon as he realised what he was looking at. It was the nice man who’d welcomed them to Paradise. He didn’t look so nice now.

  “Jesus,” Harriet said. “Is this normal for him?” she asked Bob.

  Bob nodded, silently.

  “We should bury him,” Simon said.

  “We don’t have time,” said Cassandra. “But I do need to let him know this wasn’t me.”

  She took a pen and notebook from her bag and quickly scribbled a note on it, then placed it near Carlos, pinning it down with a rock.

  It read: “Not me. Calderon. Cass.”

  “What are you doing down here?” Bob asked Prisoner.

  He smiled and shrugged.

  “Escaping. ‘Cept I been caught again, huh?”

  He nodded at Cassandra expectantly.

  “Actually, we’re leaving too. You want to come with us, come now,” she answered.

  “What?” Prisoner was clearly surprised. “Well, sure, but I warn ya, I got a habit of…”

  Before he could finish, Cassandra waved her hand. There was a clicking noise and the steel monitor around Prisoner’s ankle dropped out of his trouser leg.

  “Oh,” he stopped. “So this is for real?”

  Cassandra nodded, then turned on her heel. “Come on.”

  Everyone moved to follow her, except Prisoner, who was rooted to the spot.

  After a moment, the roots came free and he ran awkwardly down the beach towards the dock, shouting, “Wait!”

  “Christ, are we leaving anybody on this island?” Harriet asked.

  A siren wailed like a lost dog from back on the island. A big, demonic dog. Prisoner stopped in his tracks and began searching himself frantically for some missed device.

  “It’s not you!” Cassandra yelled back at him. “Priest is awake! And he knows we’re missing!”

  Prisoner resumed running for the boat.

  ----

  They all clambered onboard as quickly as possible. There was blood there too, and a blood-soaked shirt. Chances were they’d find Captain Alexander’s body somewhere at the other end.

  “Right, who knows how to drive this thing?” Cassandra demanded.

  They all stopped. Harriet and Simon looked at each other. This was a really bad plan if nobody could drive the boat.

  Sean rolled his eyes and pushed his way forward.

  “’Scuse me ladies, ancient mariner coming through.”

  He looked around the wheel and on the dashboard nearby.

  “Keys?” he asked, turning to Cassandra.

  She waved a hand and the engine rolled into life. Sean moved back and began to untie the mooring rope.

  “Come back here!” boomed a voice that Simon could feel in the pit of his belly.

  They all looked up to see Priest bounding down the steps they’d just come down. He really was huge.

  “Get out of the boat!” he bellowed again.

  Simon really did not want to do that. In fact, it was an odd thing to say. Who, when escaping from someone, would just stop and come back when they were told to? It was … he stopped mid-thought.

  Harriet was climbing out of the boat.

  “Shit!” Simon yelped and grabbed for her legs. He caught one, but the other wriggled free. Sean had managed to start reversing the boat, but they were still alongside the pier for the moment and Priest was reaching them quickly. Very quickly.

  Bob clambered over Calderon's body, lying in the middle of the dec
k,and caught her other leg. She flailed like a fish on a hook, desperate to reach the water again. Prisoner reached across, getting a hand-hold on her belt.

  Predictably, with so much weight on one side, the boat began to tip.

  Cassandra and Amelia quickly moved to the other side to keep the boat in balance. They were in very real danger of capsizing.

  Harriet was unusually strong. Had she been in her own mind, she most likely could have escaped from all three of them and dived back onto the pier herself. Her fighting, though, was rocking the boat. Literally. Sean was doing a decent job of backing them out, but they kept bumping the pier. Thankfully, they were almost at the end. Less thankfully, Priest was at the other end - and advancing.

  Simon felt someone clambering over him and the boat ditched heavily towards their side. It was Cassandra. What was she doing? They were going to go over! Simon threw himself backwards to compensate for her weight and landed next to Amelia.

  Cassandra reached over the edge and grabbed Harriet by the hair. Yanking her head back, she pulled her upright. Harriet shrieked with pain and fury, and clawed at the witch’s face. Calmly, as if swatting a fly, Cassandra punched her in the face. She was out instantly, and collapsed into Prisoner’s arms.

  “Gun it!” Cassandra shouted to Sean, who duly obliged.

  They reversed more quickly now and Sean took them off at a right angle from the pier, giving him room to turn and start moving forward at speed.

  “Cassandra!” Priest roared from the end of the pier.

  Cassandra gave him a not-remotely-magical gesture, with a smile.

  With a grunt, Priest leapt off the pier and landed … on the water. He continued running towards them, his feet splashing slightly as he did.

  This was bad.

  The boat turned left and picked up speed. Priest lunged for it, trying to catch the edge, but his fingers only scraped the side. Having lost concentration as he jumped, he belly flopped into the sea. Sean accelerated and the island faded away behind them.

  Simon looked back to see Priest climbing up, back onto the water's surface again, as if out of a hole in the ground. He still looked huge. And very, very angry.

  “Jesus,” said Simon. “That was scary.”

  “We’re not out of the water yet,” Cassandra warned.

  “What do you mean?” asked Amelia.

  A distant booming noise was followed by an increasing whistle and, finally, a huge splash just off the side of the boat.

  “That,” Cassandra shouted over the roar of the engine, “was a cannonball.”

  “You don’t think he’d kill us, do you?” Amelia asked, horrified.

  “Us, he can bring back if he wants to, sweetie,” her stepmother explained.

  “I really thought I was done with this shit,” Sean grumbled, before shouting, “Right, everyone hold on to your bollocks!”

  The boat began to bob and weave as cannonball after cannonball smashed into the water nearby. Simon grabbed hold of Harriet with one hand and a bar on the side of the boat with another. Then he ducked.

  They weaved and turned as the whistles came again and again, growing and growing until they banged into the water.

  Simon wondered if this was what war felt like. Certainly, he was terrified, and he’d always imagined that’s exactly how he’d feel in a real battle.

  Boom. Whistle. Splash.

  Boom. Whistle. Splash.

  Boom. Whistle. Splash.

  Again and again.

  The weaving of the boat was starting to make Simon feel sick. But if he threw up now, God knows where it would end up. Surely, they’d be out of range soon?

  Then, suddenly, it stopped. Simon looked up. The engine had stopped too. Were they out of range? Then he realised.

  Where Calderon’s body had been, there was a gaping hole torn in the base of the boat; water flooding up through it.

  They were hit.

  They were going down.

  ----

  Sean was frantically strapping a lifejacket on to Harriet. She was still out cold, which might have been the only thing stopping her from swimming back towards Priest. Bob was holding Amelia, who was crying. Could she swim? Surely, living on an island like this, she would be able to swim. Prisoner had already begun to swim away from the boat and Cassandra appeared to be floating just above the water - which was weird.

  Jerkily, the boat lurched to one side and began to sink. Simon braced himself to begin swimming. He hadn’t been in anything deeper than a bath for 20 years, but how hard could it be? He kicked away from the boat with his leg.

  But it didn’t come away. He kicked, but it wouldn’t move.

  His foot was caught. Bloody hell, his foot was caught!

  With a yank, he was under water and sinking. He looked up to see the legs of his friends above him, fading away quickly.

  Frantically, he tried to reach down, grabbing at his foot, but he couldn’t work it free. What the hell was he caught on? He hadn’t been prepared to go under so he hadn’t taken a deep breath. He could already feel the urgent pleading of his lungs to breathe out, expelling the poisonous carbon dioxide and sucking in more precious oxygen. Now.

  Now.

  Now!

  He looked up in panic. Was someone swimming down towards him? Was it Sean? He seemed to be trying to reach him, but Simon was sinking as fast as the boat. Could he reach him before they both ran out of air?

  How ironic. After all the things he’d survived this week, with the fate of the world on his shoulders, Simon Debovar was going to drown, here, stuck in a speedboat sunk by a cannonball.

  At least it would look interesting in the newspaper. ‘Tourist drowns in speedboat accident’ would be better than ‘Rotting corpse found in bath after stench causes local dogs to howl incessantly’.

  Ha.

  After years of shutting himself away, Simon had finally come out into the sunshine. He’d made friends. He’d got closer to his family. He’d had sex. Several times. He’d learned to love a shower. He’d had a grand adventure. All the things he’d been avoiding for all those years, he’d actually enjoyed.

  And look where it had got him: drowned!

  As the light started to fade, Simon’s resistance to his lungs’ constant pleading became weaker and weaker. He began to hallucinate. Well, he assumed he was hallucinating. It was hard to tell.

  Lights danced around him in the darkness of the abyss. Hands beckoned him downwards; down to join the others. Merchant seamen; lost fishermen; executed pirates; they all gestured to him with open arms.

  “Come, join us in a watery grave,” they called. A lobster sang to him.

  It was over in moments.

  As the lights faded completely, Simon’s lungs finally gave out and the bubbles that represented his last hope, his last breath, escaped forever. Even if Sean reached him now, Simon would never make the surface alive.

  An odd calm came over him. At least it was over. No more weight of the world on his shoulders. No more responsibility. No more worries. Just quiet. Cool, dark quiet.

  The last thing Simon Debovar saw before his eyes closed was Death’s bony hand reaching for him. The pale white claw grasped frantically at him, searching for his soul to drag away. The fingers were tipped in red; the red of blood and death and the end.

  Simon’s end.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Jean-Claude had very quickly gotten used to the luxury afforded him during his brief stay in Faunt’s home. Cooking for him was a pleasure – he had excellent taste - though it was always odd serving breakfast in a bowl on the floor.

  He’d slept soundly, but something had wakened him. He wasn’t sure what, but it was a strange, wailing noise. Wondering if something was wrong, he’d crept out of his bed, pulled on a dressing gown and opened his door, slightly, just to get a better listen.

  It was hard to say for sure, as it wasn’t a noise one heard often, but now it sounded less like wailing and more like something possibly even more disturbing.


  Laughter.

  The hysterical laughter of a small deer.

  ----

  Simon awoke in heaven. Clearly, it was heaven, because everything was soft and nothing hurt. He was warm and felt the heat of the sun on his face. Opening his bleary eyes, he saw a figure in silhouette. The head was surrounded by a circle of light, which seemed to be the source of the heat.

  It must be an angel. So, whatever else he’d done, it seemed he’d ended up in a good place. Ah well, all’s well that ends well.

  “Hello,” Simon said, peacefully, “I’m Simon.”

  “I know who you are, you bloody idiot.”

  The angel sounded disconcertingly like Harriet.

  Simon sat up and rubbed his eyes.

  “Harriet?” he asked, confused. “Did you drown too?”

  She roared with laughter.

  “You’re not dead, you nipple!”

  “I’m not? Why not?”

  “Because your teleporter hottie saved your arse, that’s why!”

  “Cherry? Cherry’s not dead?”

  Simon bounded off the bed like a giddy labrador.

  “What the hell is wrong with you? Nobody’s dead! Everyone’s alive! Well, except for the boat guy with the vomit shirt and the nice guy who met us on the beach. They’re both mince.”

  “Yeah, I knew that. Scary Spanish guy. Did you hear about him?”

  “Hear about him? I’ve met his head.”

  This, finally, stopped Simon’s bouncing. He sat back down.

  “So, everyone is here? Everyone made it?”

  “Yep. Cassandra fished out most of us and Cherry got you. The ghost directed Cass to get us back here to the boat.”

  Simon looked around as if the room had just appeared about them. Only then did he notice that the halo of light he’d seen earlier was, in fact, a porthole.

  “Oh yeah. We’re on a boat. Cherry has a boat?”