by David Moody
He realizes the noise the kid’s making has changed. No longer being choked, his cries are now muted in a different way. Matt stumbles farther away from the side of the building and backs into Paul, who’s coming from the other way. “Fuck me, Nils,” Paul shouts. “Great shot.”
The killer is tugging at the side of his face. Matt’s mouth starts to water and he thinks he’s going to vomit when he realizes Nils’s arrow has pierced the kid’s left cheek, gone straight through his mouth and skewered him to the wall. He’s still struggling to get away, and every move he makes rips the viciously torn holes in his mouth open wider. The fiberglass shaft of the arrow acts like a gag. He bites down on it, tries to shout over it and slide himself off it, but he can’t get the angle and it’s not budging. The boy’s making a terrible noise now: a frantic gargle-scream that’s both pitiful and menacing.
Matt can’t tear his eyes away. He feels an avalanche of emotions: anger and relief, but tinged with a definite sense of distress and regret as the kid squeals like a pig. Surely there were better ways of doing this?
“Fucker got what he deserved,” Paul says.
“Doesn’t this make us as bad as him?” Matt says without thinking.
Gavin, who’s finally ventured outside now the danger’s passed, glares at him. “You saw what he did. He got what was coming to him.” Gavin walks right up to him, stopping just short of his flailing right hand, full of bravado now the kid’s not going anywhere. He tries to reach for Gavin, temporarily forgetting he’s stuck, then yells again as his flesh tears. Gavin barely moves when the kid’s clawed fingers rake the air just millimeters from his face.
The kid screams again, and his mutilated cheek rips open like a sagging mouth.
Stuart’s nearby, spectating. “How can anyone do that to another human being?”
Matt’s confused. Is Stuart talking about what the kid did, or what they’ve done to the kid? The gang’s all here now, Matt realizes. Everyone’s outside. They’re standing in a rough semicircle as if this were the climax to some savage ritual hunt, as if it were a wild animal they’ve captured and sacrificed. Right now Matt wouldn’t be surprised if someone suggested they skewer the kid and roast him on a spit.
Nils pushes his way through to the front of the group. He grabs a handful of the kid’s hair and roughly yanks his head farther back, leaving him looking up at the sky. His legs threaten to give way but the pressure on his punctured cheeks whenever his body starts to sag just about keeps him upright. The pain must be unbearable, Matt thinks, the fear even worse.
Nils takes his vicious serrated hunting knife from its leather holster and slits the boy’s throat.
There’s a moment of stunned disbelief. Silence. Even the wind seems to drop.
“Nils,” Natalie says. “What the fuck?”
“Good man,” Frank says, and Rachel, standing just behind him, agrees.
“It’s all he deserved,” says Gavin.
Even Stephen has ventured out from the base and is nodding approvingly from his position a short distance back from everyone else.
The kid’s holding his throat, trying to stem the flow of blood he can feel but can’t see. It’s everywhere now, all over him. His hands, chest, and torso are dyed bright red, glistening wet. Nils pushes the side of the boy’s head against the building, then grips the arrow with his free hand and yanks it out. The kid doesn’t have the strength to scream anymore. He doesn’t even have the strength to stand. His legs buckle and he sinks to his knees, looking up with flickering eyes one last time. A crowd of emotionless faces stare back, all of them watching him bleed out, no one helping.
He lurches forward and falls face-first into the mud with a sickening slap. Then nothing.
Show’s over. Muted conversation as the others start to head back indoors.
Matt doesn’t move.
“Problem?” Paul asks.
“No problem. I’ll move him into the stores with the others.”
Paul goes in and Matt crouches down beside the dying boy. He knows he’s not quite dead yet because the blood’s still flowing and his body is twitching. His eyes are moving. Fingers clawing.
Matt thinks, I did this, and feels nothing but guilt because he was the one who stopped the kid from getting away. And then he thinks, But I had to do it. He feels like maybe he’d have been lynched if he’d let the killer get away.
Matt thinks again about Jen alone at home and about getting back to her, and he tries to convince himself that if he hadn’t done what he just did, he might have been the kid’s next victim. He might have killed more people, maybe all of them, given half a chance. Matt imagines never getting back and pictures Jen on her own in the house, and for a few seconds that appeases the guilt. Then he remembers the boy’s parents will be sitting and waiting instead. Stomachs tied in knots. Waiting by the phone for news that’s never going to come.
The kid looks at him. Barely breathing now, life trickling away. He groans—one last rasp. Then freezes.
The rain’s driving down, but Matt doesn’t even notice. He takes the boy’s hands in his, flips him over onto his back, then drags him down toward his final resting place alongside all the other corpses in the stores.
12
When Matt returns to the base just minutes later, the atmosphere inside the building has rapidly deteriorated. It was bad enough before, but it’s impossibly oppressive now. Nauseating. Bilious. There’s none of the relief they might have expected to feel now that they know the killer’s dead, just a whole load more questions and uncertainties. And worst of all, Matt feels like it’s all eyes on him; everyone watching.
Soaking wet, he takes himself off to the dormitory and changes, stripping off wet clothes and putting on crumpled, dirty clothes instead. Everything he brought with him to Skek has already been used. Shivering with cold, he puts on the least dirty trousers, shirt, and underpants he can find, then hangs up the other stuff to dry.
He pauses before he goes back out. The pressure feels unbearable. He leans his head against the wall and breathes in deeply. He tries to think thoughts like We’re okay now that Nils stopped the killer, but all he keeps thinking is I watched Nils slit a teenage boy’s neck and I did nothing to stop him. I helped him.
Matt forces himself out. He walks past Ruth, who’s standing guard to the dorm where injured Louise remains under sedation, then enters the mess hall and sits on his own in the corner with only a trashy paperback novel for company. He flicks through the pages and finds his place, but doesn’t read any more than a few lines. His mind is too full of other stuff to focus, and he looks around the room, wondering if the others are feeling the same way he does, asking themselves the same questions?
Will we still be on this island this time tomorrow, or will someone come and take us home?
When they find the bodies, will we all be suspects?
Are we all killers now?
Before Matt came back into the building, he wiped his boots clean. They were covered with the dead boy’s blood. He dragged the corpse a fair distance, and he’s sure his clothes and skin will be covered with traces of the boy’s DNA. Or his DNA on the dead kid’s corpse? Matt thinks there’s probably enough evidence to connect him to most of the deaths. He left the body next to Joy’s. Will a rogue splash of her blood on his clothing or a misplaced hair be enough to convince the authorities that he was the one who smashed her face in?
“You all right, Matt?” Stephen asks, distracting him from his thoughts. Stephen’s more animated than he has been since Vanessa died. Relaxed, almost. He sits down next to Matt uninvited, invading his personal space, and leans in too close, wheezing.
Matt’s hesitant. Should I even be talking to you? “I’m fine,” he says, giving Stephen only the most cursory of replies.
“Yeah, right, sure you are. I don’t reckon any of us are fine. I reckon we’re anything but fine, actually. But at least we’re all in the same boat now.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“We’re all in this together. We’re all suspects. They can’t put all the blame on me now.”
“What are you on about?”
“Everyone was quick enough to blame me for what happened to Vanessa, but at least there’s a plausible explanation for how she died. How are you lot going to talk your way out of what happened to that kid? Now you know and I know why you all did it, but it doesn’t matter what you tell the police, fact is you’ve left him with arrow holes in his face and his throat slit.”
“I didn’t do it.”
“You all did.”
Matt doesn’t need to be reminded. When he closes his eyes, the kid’s face is all he can see. He tries to focus on his book again, but Stephen won’t let him.
“One dead body’s the same as the next, isn’t it? Way he is now, that lad doesn’t look any more guilty or innocent than any of the other corpses. The fingers will point at those of us who are still alive when it comes to finally getting off this rock.”
Across the room, Ronan’s getting animated again. “You need to calm down, Ronan,” Stuart tells him. “You’ll give yourself a heart attack.”
“I am calm,” Ronan says, but he’s clearly not.
“You’re winding yourself up, and that’s winding everyone else up.”
“I’m just finding it difficult to understand why you still can’t give me any information or any idea when we’re going to get home. I’m not prepared to spend another night on this damn rock.”
“Feel free to leave at any time,” Nils grunts at him.
“Don’t treat me like an idiot.”
“Then don’t act like one.”
Stuart positions himself between the two of them and shoos Nils away. Ronan leans back against the wall, struggling to compose himself. “Look, Stuart, I need to get back.”
“It’s out of our hands, you know that. We have to wait.”
“But if what Ruth said last night is true, there’s a chance no one will come.”
Frank’s nearby, eavesdropping. “You were talking yesterday about Rajesh getting help by canoe. When can he leave?”
“Not until the weather lifts. Judging by the wind speed and low cloud, I think it’s going to get worse before it gets any better.”
“You think? You don’t know?” Ronan says.
Stuart is exasperated. “Which part of this are you having trouble understanding, Ronan? There’s no internet on Skek, all we’ve got is the radio. And if no one can get through on the radio, then no information’s going to get through at all.”
“So how long’s it take to canoe back to the mainland?”
“You volunteering?” Rajesh asks as he returns to the room.
“No,” Ronan says quickly and definitely. “Anyway, where’ve you been? Why d’you keep disappearing?”
“I was in the quiet room if you must know. I pray, okay? Sorry, I didn’t realize I had to keep you updated.”
“Can’t you do it out here?”
Rajesh just looks at him aghast. “No.”
“So what about the canoe? How long’s it take?”
“It’s a kayak,” Rajesh corrects him, “and like Stuart says, I’m not going anywhere until I’ve got calm seas, blue skies, and plenty of daylight ahead of me. You want to get home quicker, feel free to take the boat out and try it yourself.”
“He’s right, Ronan,” says Matt, looking up from the book he still isn’t reading. “It’s too much of a risk.”
“When I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it,” Ronan snaps.
“I wouldn’t listen to anything he has to say,” Gavin says, giving Matt daggers.
“What’s the problem?” Matt asks.
“You tell me.”
Frank looks as confused as Matt clearly is. “Did I miss something? What’s wrong, Gavin?”
“Ask him. He’s the one who spent an age fussing over that murderer out there.”
“Have you completely lost the plot? Matt just got rid of the body, nothing more than that. There’s nothing to worry about with him,” Frank continues, talking as if Matt were not even there. “I reckon there’s other people you need to worry about more. He’s not the one who slit the boy’s throat.”
“I just put the body with the others,” Matt says, not sure why he’s being singled out.
“Have you been drinking, Gav?” Paul asks. “Let’s get this straight. Joy and Vanessa are dead, you watched Nils slit that kid’s throat, and it’s Matt you’ve got a problem with?”
Frank’s had enough. He’s older than the others, and the constant bickering is wearing him out. “Give it up, for bloody hell’s sake,” he tells them. “Seriously, all of you give it a rest. Haven’t we got enough to worry about already without turning on each other?”
* * *
The day drags.
Minutes feel like hours. Hours feel like days.
Paul thinks sitting waiting like this is harder than anything else. It emphasizes the total lack of control he has right now. It reminds him of being on the start line of a race, or of the minutes leading up to an important meeting or job interview. It feels like everything’s going to kick off at any second, and all he can do is wait for it to happen. The longer the wait, the more pressure he feels building up inside.
It’s dark in here, and only now does he sit up and look outside and realize how late it’s getting. Another day drawing to a close. He gets up off his bunk, eager for a change of scene, and is distracted by voices coming from the small room behind the kitchen. He finds Natalie and Nils there, hunkered over the radio, desperately searching for hidden voices amid the endless waves of static. Natalie acknowledges Paul when he enters, then returns her full focus to the task at hand.
The radio set they use on Skek is cumbersome and ancient looking. Paul knows little about tech like this (if this can even be called tech), and he struggles to place its age. He wonders if it was a relic left behind by the scientists in the eighties or the military before them? “This is the twenty-first century,” he grumbles. “No wonder you can’t get through. There can’t be anyone else in the world using kit as old as that thing.”
“Radio waves are radio waves,” Natalie tells him dismissively. “Doesn’t matter how you receive them, as long as you shut up long enough to listen.”
He’s been standing there for a good few minutes, wondering how long they’ve been at this, when it happens.
“Back up,” Nils says. “Did you hear it?”
“I heard nothing,” Natalie tells him.
“It was a voice. I’m sure of it.”
“I heard it,” Paul says.
Natalie reverses through the wavelengths. The room is silent save for the hissing of static. They strain to pick out anything that sounds even remotely man-made amid the white noise and distortion.
But there it is again. A brief burst, less than a second. Just a faint flicker of noise.
Natalie’s face is a picture of concentration as she operates the radio with hands shaking with nerves. It seems the harder she tries, the more her fingers tremble, but she eventually, locks onto the source. The wash and fade of the radio waves makes the man sound as distant as he inevitably is. The language is hard to decipher. It sounds Nordic.
“… är attackerad av flera personer. Mina barn är med dem. De har dödat mannen som…”
Both Natalie and Paul instinctively look at Nils, but he just shrugs his shoulders. “Sounds like Swedish. I’m Danish.”
“Danish, Swedish … what’s the difference?” Paul says.
Nils ignores him, returning his full attention to the radio. “He’s saying something about being under attack. Something about his children…?”
“Can you hear me, over?” Natalie hands the mic to Nils. “Here, you try.”
“Kan du høre mig?”
A pause, then a reply: “Hallå … Hallå … är det någon där?”
“Kan du høre mig?” Nils repeats. “Kan du fortælle mig hvor du er?”
“What’s that?” Natalie asks
.
“I’m asking him where he is.”
“Jag talar inte danska. Kan du tyska? Franska?”
“Great,” Nils says off-mic. “He doesn’t speak Danish. Either of you two speak German or French? I think that’s what he’s asking.”
“Barely,” Natalie says. “I did GCSE French, but that was years ago. I’ve forgotten most of it now.”
“Hvor er du?” Nils asks again. This time there’s no answer. Just one more crackle of static, then nothing.
Silence. Collective breath being held in anticipation. Seconds evaporate. The pause becomes a wait, then a delay. He’s gone.
“And that’s it?” Paul says, less than impressed. “You lost him?”
Nils throws down the handset and leaves. Natalie rubs her eyes and massages the bridge of her nose. “Sounds that way.”
“Aren’t you going to try to get him back?”
“Did you see me doing anything to the controls?”
“So is your equipment crap, or do we have a bigger problem than we thought here? Was your boss right?”
“The radio’s not the best,” she admits, “but we don’t usually have this kind of trouble making contact. I don’t think this is a technical problem.”
She gets up and leaves, and Paul follows her out through the kitchen, into the mess hall. “So you’re saying you think there is a problem elsewhere?”
“I’m saying there might be.” She doesn’t slow down.
“What’s up?” Rajesh asks when she sits down next to him.
“We heard something on the radio. A guy in Sweden. He wasn’t making a whole lot of sense.”
“What did he say, Nils?”
“I couldn’t understand it all. Don’t you people get it? I’m Danish, not Swedish.”
“Same difference,” Rajesh says. He swigs from a bottle of water, then wipes his mouth on the back of his sleeve. “This is getting stupid. I’ll have to try to kayak back if the weather’s not too bad first thing. I’ll take my chances.”
He finishes a packet of crisps, then helps himself to an apple. “You can take whatever chances you want with the weather,” Ruth tells him, “but do me a favor and take it easy with the supplies.”