by David Moody
“Just some random crazy?” Paul asks.
“I guess. But you should have seen him. They stopped him and dragged him out of his car and he was kicking and screaming like it was everyone’s fault but his. Like the whole world was ganged up on him. Fucking crank. Guy was clearly a psycho.”
“Sounds that way.”
Ronan’s up and pacing again. “Fascinating story,” he sneers sarcastically, “but I’d be very grateful if someone wouldn’t mind telling me what the hell that’s got to do with what’s happened here?”
“Take it easy, Ronan,” Ruth warns.
“Take it easy? Don’t you dare tell me to take it easy. Two of my staff are dead and we’re stuck on this bloody island because of your firm’s ineptitude. Who the bloody hell do you think you are, telling me to take it easy?”
“Like I said earlier,” she answers, completely calm, “I’m in charge. So you need to get your ego in check and keep your mouth shut. It’s not just your staff who are affected. Don’t forget the kids on the boat, and don’t forget my people either. We’re all in this together, right?”
No response.
“Right?” Ruth says again.
Ronan just nods.
The room falls quiet. It’s an uneasy, fragile calm.
Matt coughs and clears his throat, a nervous habit. He’s not sure if he should, but he’s been going over and over this in his head and he needs to ask Ruth another question. “Sorry, but how exactly do you think any of this is connected?”
“She’s talking rubbish,” Frank says quickly. “There’s nothing to it. It’s bullshit. The world’s full of crazies, and there’s stuff like this happening all the time out there. You can’t go trying to find connections where there aren’t any. That’s the job of the media.”
“Don’t judge people by your own standards,” Stuart says. “There’s never any bullshit where my Ruth’s concerned. She’s the one who keeps the rest of us sane.”
Ruth doesn’t react to Stuart’s flattery. The room is quiet save for the electric hum of the strip lights and the wind blowing across the island, buffeting the building. The place feels distressingly exposed and insubstantial just now.
“That woman I was speaking to,” Ruth eventually says, taking her time and choosing her words carefully. “She said there was something going on. She said it was something big.”
“Like what?” Gavin demands.
“I don’t know. She didn’t know. She said it was a feeling more than anything else, a thousand tiny things adding up to make one big problem.”
“Now you’re just talking crap. I don’t have time for this.”
“Then you explain to me why we’ve got a ferry full of dead kids out there and why two of your friends are dead too? Come on, Gavin, if you’re so bloody smart, quit criticizing and come up with some answers.”
Gavin has nothing. He shuts up and looks down at his feet.
Matt’s not going to let this go. “Ruth, are you saying that you think the deaths here are connected to whatever’s happening on the mainland and what Rajesh saw last week? That’s impossible.”
“I know it is, but at the same time it’s too much of a coincidence for them not to be. The woman on the radio … she sounded terrified.”
“But do you think she was genuine? Did you believe her? Was she making any sense?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said she was talking about hiding from someone.”
“That’s right. Someone she knew. A friend, I think.”
“And did she say why?”
“She said she thought they were going to kill her.”
TUESDAY
11
The morning comes too soon. Matt’s lay awake all night on the bed he thought he’d finished with yesterday, thinking about the bed he should have been lying in instead, and the woman he should have been lying alongside. No matter how bad he’s feeling, he thinks Jen will be feeling a hundred times worse. This is exactly the kind of thing she didn’t need. She’d been telling him all along he should have refused to go on Ronan’s stupid off-site weekend, and he wishes he’d listened. She says he never listens. She said he should have told Ronan where to stick it. He thinks he’ll take her advice next time. If there is a next time, that is.
He’s been lying still for way too long. He should have got up and gone to the bathroom, but it’s too cold and too quiet and he didn’t want to be the first to move and wake everyone else. He thought he heard a door creak open a while back, but the more time that passes, the more he convinces himself it was just his imagination.
There’s definitely movement elsewhere in the building now though. Light seeps under the dormitory door as the fluorescent lights in the mess hall reluctantly flicker into life. Then he hears the bang and clatter of movement in the kitchen. Probably Stuart and Ruth, he thinks, beginning their usual morning routine. They’re the only ones here who have any semblance of routine left to follow. Half of the people here on Skek should be hundreds of miles away at home, and the rest should be looking after the bunch of innocent kids who are lying dead on the boat on the rocks.
It’s like a bad dream. None of it makes sense. How can there be any link between all the deaths here and what he’s told is happening back home? Then again, how can there not be?
Matt can’t hold on any longer. He’s out of bed and on his way to the bathroom before he can talk himself out of it.
He pauses at the door, paralyzed by a sudden, terrifying thought. What if it’s not Stuart and Ruth? What if it’s whoever killed Joy and beat up that girl Louise? What if it is Louise…?
He checks the hall, feeling completely unprepared as he stands there shivering in his T-shirt, socks, and boxer shorts. There’s no one there. The lights are on but no one’s home. “Hello…?”
A hand on his shoulder.
He spins around and jumps a mile.
It’s only Paul. “Sorry, mate, did I scare you?”
“What do you think?” Matt hisses at him, heart pounding. “You idiot.”
Another crash comes from the kitchen, over to their right. A cacophony of noise as pots and pans are moved. The two men look at each other, equally anxious. “Come on, there’s two of us,” Paul says as he pushes Matt toward the kitchen door.
“Yeah, and there were about thirty people on that boat yesterday, and look what happened to them.”
Natalie has bigger bollocks than the pair of them combined. She emerges from the female dorm and goes straight into the kitchen without hesitation. A couple of seconds later the serving hatch opens. It was Stuart after all, getting ready for breakfast.
Paul visibly relaxes. He leans against the wall next to the hatch and watches Natalie and Stuart work. Matt disappears for his long-overdue trip to the toilet. “Morning, both,” Paul says. Stuart mumbles some kind of reply, Natalie doesn’t even bother. “Anything I can do to help?”
“Don’t think so,” Stuart tells him. “We’ve got it covered, thanks.”
“How’s the girl?”
“Louise? She’s still sleeping, far as I’m aware. No change. Ruth spent the night with her.”
Stuart’s answers are cursory. Neither he or Natalie is interested in small talk this morning, but Paul doesn’t get the message. “What’s on the menu this morning, boss?”
Stuart barely looks up. “Not a lot. We need to be careful with our supplies.”
“But there’s enough, isn’t there? You told me the other day that you kept plenty of stuff in stock just in case there’s a problem.”
“Yeah, but there are problems and there are problems, aren’t there?” Natalie says. “It’s one thing making sure we’ve got enough food, water, and fuel if we’re delayed getting people home for a couple of days, but we don’t know how long this is going to go on for. If Ruth’s right and things really have gone shit-shaped back home, we all might be stuck here for a while.”
The realization is sobering. Paul wonders if they’re painting a deliberately dark pict
ure, making it sound worse than it is. “You were expecting a boatful of kids here yesterday. What about all the stuff they were going to eat?”
“Most of it was on the boat with them. And I don’t know if you noticed when we were on board yesterday, but there wasn’t a whole lot of it left. What hasn’t already drifted out to sea will probably be water damaged. I doubt there’s anything left worth salvaging by now.”
“Then shouldn’t we have done something about that yesterday?” Paul asks.
Stuart finally stops what he’s doing. “And when were we supposed to have done that, Paul? Before Vanessa fell off the cliff and died, or should we have waited until after Joy was attacked? Should we have gone out after dark last night and risked being killed too? Fuck’s sake, man, think before you speak.”
“I was just saying—”
“Yeah, well, don’t.”
Rajesh appears at the serving hatch. “Stu, you got a second?”
“Trouble?”
“Could be.”
Stuart’s legs weaken with nerves. He tries not to let the others see him holding on to the kitchen counter for support, but he doesn’t know how much more of this he can take. Whatever it is that Rajesh has come to tell him, he’s not sure he wants to hear it. Mouth dry, he forces himself to ask, “What’s up?”
“It’s Nils. He’s not here. Bloody idiot’s gone vigilante. I’m going out to find him.”
Ronan emerges, drawn out of the relative safety of his bed by their voices. “Shouldn’t we stay in here?” He’s doing all he can to keep the door to the outside world firmly shut. “If Nils is stupid enough to go out on his own, he’ll have to face the consequences.”
“He’s out there trying to make things safer for the rest of us. Are you suggesting we leave him to fend for himself? There’s a psychopath loose on Skek, in case you’d forgotten.”
“Of course I haven’t forgotten.”
“Or is Nils not as important because he’s a member of our team and not your team?”
“No, of course not. It’s just that…”
“Just that what?”
Ronan pauses, uncharacteristically tongue-tied. Like the rest of them, he’s spent sleepless hours going over and over in his head the events of the past day, trying to make sense of what’s happened and looking for explanations. He clears his throat and looks directly at Stuart. “How well do you know him?”
“What?”
“Nils. How well do you know him? Did you carry out full background checks before he started work here?”
Rajesh is appalled. “What are you insinuating?”
Ronan swallows hard and massages his temples. “It’s just that we don’t know for certain when Joy and that girl on the beach were attacked, do we? Do we know where Nils was all that time?”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.…”
“He keeps going off on his own.”
“So does he.” Stuart points at Matt.
“This has got to be a frigging joke,” Rajesh says.
“Nils didn’t want to be here with us last night, did he? We were all pulling one way, he was heading in the complete opposite direction.” Ronan turns his back on Rajesh and faces Stuart instead. “I’m just saying that until we know for certain where he—”
Rajesh spins Ronan around and grabs him by the scruff of his neck. The rest of the building falls deathly silent. No one moves. Barely anyone breathes.
“Nils is as much a killer as you or me,” Rajesh tells him, his face just millimeters from Ronan’s. “I’ve known him for years. I’d trust him with my life. Put it this way: I trust him a hell of a lot more than I trust you.”
Rajesh lets Ronan go, but Ronan just can’t help himself. He doesn’t know when to give up. “I’m just trying to—”
He shuts up when Rajesh threatens to come at him again. This time Natalie gets in the way, separating them. She holds Rajesh back.
“If Nils was a killer, we’d all be dead by now,” Rajesh tells him.
“Come on, ladies,” Frank says, pulling on his boots. “Put down your handbags and let’s go find your friend.”
* * *
From some approaches it’s hard to believe this tumbledown, ragtag collection of lichen-covered stone was ever anything other than a naturally occurring rock formation. From other angles, though, the illusion is revealed. There are man-made corners and edges. Roughly hewn blocks. Weathered walls with gaps where doors and windows used to be. The crumbled remains of a basic cottage.
Nils has been hunkered down here for hours, since before first light. This is a place he comes to often, usually to find some escape from the kids, creeps, or clowns that Hazleton Adventure Experiences frequently attracts. The ruins offer him a little respite: they’re far enough away to drown out other people’s noise, but close enough to still be able to see them.
When he was growing up in Denmark, Nils liked to hunt. He’d go out with his grandfather and stalk red deer. His fascination with outdoor life began there, and there Granddad helped a boy become a man. That was what Mother always told him, anyway. Hunting is in his blood now. He’d rather be outside like this, living on his instinct and his nerves, than cooped up indoors with other people. Other people irritate Nils.
Though there’s nothing but outdoors here on Skek, there’s next to no wildlife to kill. Incessant, blizzardlike flocks of birds nest on the eastern cliffs, but other than that, nothing. Stuart offers a class in clay-pigeon shooting every once in a while, and Nils and Rajesh have taken shots at gulls from the archery range on quiet, drunken nights, but that’s all.
Not today.
Today, the hunt is most definitely on.
This morning Nils is watching the killer from a distance. He’s seen the kid, but the kid hasn’t yet seen him. He noticed his tracks near the beach yesterday, then saw the same footprints outside the base this morning. The killer is biding his time, Nils thinks, waiting for people to emerge from the building so he can pick them off one by one. Nils thinks the kid must surely realize that some people here can handle themselves. You need decent survival skills just to stay sane on Skek if you’re here long enough.
Nils is in no rush this morning. He’s seen the carnage this little bastard has already caused and is not taking any chances. The killer kid looks like he’d be easy to take down, but appearances can be deceptive. He must be out of his mind to be able to do the things he’s done, and Nils knows such craziness could give the kid the edge. The kid’s got nothing left to lose.
He’s currently sheltering in the small generator shed, hiding like a child playing a game. Nils’s plan is simple. He knows the others will come looking for him sooner or later, and as soon as they’re up and out of the main building, he’ll force the kid out into the open and drive him straight into their arms.
And then he’ll strike.
Fucker won’t know which way to turn.
* * *
“That kid could be anywhere, so we stick together, right?” Rajesh says as they peer out from the front of the building. Frank, Paul, and Natalie are close behind him, bunched up tight.
“Stores first, then the beach,” Natalie suggests. “Okay?”
“Okay,” Rajesh agrees, leading the way.
They set out en masse, heads down into the wind. Behind them, Matt closes up the building as instructed, keeping the heat in and the danger out. He crosses the mess hall and watches the group through the narrow safety-glass windows. Natalie is up front with Rajesh now, both of them all legs and Lycra. They move quickly, well used to the conditions. Frank and Paul have already dropped back. Matt moves to get a better view, but it’s much the same through all the windows on this side of the building—bleak scrubland in every direction. Nothingness.
Wait.
What’s that?
He sees movement in the near distance, though the featureless landscape makes it hard to gauge exactly how far away it is. Someone moving. Running toward the base.
It’s Nils.
Matt’s instinct is to go out and call the others back, but he’s not sure what to do. He looks around for someone to ask, but no one’s around.
Sod it.
Matt opens the door to shout to them and runs straight into a kid he doesn’t recognize, coming from the other way at breakneck speed. The two of them collide with brutal force, butting heads and both ending up on their backsides in the mud, staring at each other in absolute terror. Matt scrambles away on all fours. “It’s him!” he yells. “It’s the killer!”
The kid’s face is ashen white, cheeks sunken and eyes wide. He’s an awkward, gangly creature; spiderlike limbs everywhere as he rolls over onto his front and picks himself up, using the building for support. Panicking, Matt looks up and sees that although the others have heard and are pelting back toward base, they’re too far away to help. Nils is coming from the opposite direction, and the killer kid knows he’s cornered.
Matt’s up on his feet now. The kid grabs him with unexpected force and the two of them literally roll around the outside of the building together, clattering against the wooden cladding, feet slipping in the claggy mud. Matt locks his elbows and holds his attacker at arm’s length, but the kid’s squirming and fighting violently. He bucks and flinches constantly, and Matt loses his grip. He instinctively goes for the kid’s face and, more through luck than judgment, manages to shove his hand under the kid’s chin and keep him at a distance.
“Hold him still,” Nils orders, and Matt looks across to see Nils’s standing about five meters away now with a bow and arrow. The kid turns his head, then looks back at Matt with wide, fear-filled eyes. Desperate. Terrified. More victim than attacker. He tries to talk but his voice is strangled and Matt won’t let go. He can’t let go. If he does, the kid will kill him in a heartbeat, same as he did all the others.
An arrow thuds into the side of the building, and the kid’s grip immediately loosens. Matt staggers away, and when he looks back, he sees the lanky teenager is still thrashing, but he’s now pinned into position. He knows Nils has hit him, but for a second Matt can’t work out where.