by David Moody
What about the wreck?
The more he thinks about it, the more it makes sense. It’s a relatively safe place—as safe as anywhere on Skek, anyway. As far as he’s aware, nothing is on the ferry but death and destruction. It’s reasonably solid (providing it’s still afloat), and there will likely be some supplies he can scavenge. Most important, there’s no fresh blood left to spill there. Everyone on the Heavenly Vision is already dead. No more killing. No one else left to turn. He sets off with pace, keen to get there fast. If Natalie’s not there already, he’ll claim it for himself.
When he finally reaches the cliffs on the east of the island, he stops. He crouches in the long grass, both to catch his breath and settle his stomach. He suffers with vertigo, but now’s not the time. He looks down at the Heavenly Vision far below and tries to decide whether the ferry’s in any worse condition than when he last saw it. It looks pretty much exactly the same, and that’s something of a relief. It will be cold and uncomfortable, and it’ll be fucking horrible belowdecks, but spending the night on the boat feels like his only option just now. Is Natalie down there? He can’t see any indication, but he thinks she probably must be.
Nothing’s ever straightforward, he thinks. Getting down to the boat is going to be a problem. He looks for the footpath Nils and Natalie took when Vanessa fell near here on Monday. He finds the beginning of the precarious route, but the way down is narrow and far from straightforward. He’s struggling to see where the path actually goes and has just decided that taking his chances and abseiling is a marginally safer option when he stops and spins around, sensing someone behind him. He’s immediately tense, braced for attack, weaponless but ready to defend himself if he has to.
He relaxes. It’s only Paul.
“What do you want?”
“I’ve come to kill you,” Paul says, deadpan. He holds Matt’s terrified gaze for a couple of uncomfortable seconds longer before breaking into a broad grin.
“That’s not funny.” Matt reverses back up the path and then steps away from the edge of the cliff on the off chance Paul actually has lost his mind and really is about to shoulder-charge him over the edge. “Why are you here?”
“I figured you and Natalie had the right idea. I’d rather take my chances with you than Stuart and Frank and the rest of them. It was getting a bit oppressive in there. Ronan’s winding himself up again. Never mind the Haters, I reckon it’s only a matter of time before the whole lot of them gang up and attack him.”
“Great.”
“Seriously, though, it’s getting out of hand back at base. They started having a go at Stephen again after you’d gone. I figured it would probably be my turn before long.” Paul walks toward the drop and peers over the edge. “Natalie’s down there then?”
“Not sure. Think so.”
“Shall we?”
Paul starts to put on one of the climbing harnesses that have been left on the cliff top. He hooks himself up to an anchored rope, takes the strain, and starts to slowly walk back toward the edge.
“You sure about this?” Matt is on the verge of talking himself out of it and trying the path down again.
“Rajesh showed me how to properly rope up on Saturday. Come on, mate.”
Several permanently hooked-up climbing points are here, complete with all the necessary metalwork. In the hurry to get back after Vanessa’s death, Rajesh and Nils left the harnesses and ropes. Paul shows Matt how to secure everything, then shows him how to feed the rope through as he abseils down. Matt tugs on the rope and checks it’s secure. The harness is tight around his waist and crotch. Almost too tight. He readies himself for the drop.
Paul casually disappears over the edge. Matt’s vertigo is threatening to kick in, but he makes himself do it. He takes a deep breath, then steps out, and suddenly nothing but air is below him. He plants the soles of his boots against the rock face and steadies himself as the swirling wind buffets him from every direction. He looks around for Paul and immediately wishes he hadn’t because he’s already descended halfway with almost semipro speed. Matt’s looking past him now, all the way down to the rocks. Bodies from the wreck are there, several of them tangled together in a rock pool like human-shaped flotsam and jetsam. He makes himself focus on his feet as he walks painfully slowly down the sheer rock wall. “I should be wearing a safety helmet,” he chunters pointlessly to himself, complaining to take his mind off the nerves.
When he’s had enough of looking down, he looks up. Dark clouds swirl ominously overhead, heavy with rain. His head feels heavy with the pressure of an impending storm.
Another few minutes and he’s almost made it. A sudden gust of wind threatens to blow him into the cliff face before he takes the last downward steps, but Matt just manages to keep his balance. It’s a massive relief when he finally plants both boots on solid ground again, and he wastes no time disentangling himself from the rope and harness.
When the two of them finally turn around, a bow and arrow points at them. The tip of the arrow moves from face to face. “Fuck off,” Natalie tells them. “Both of you turn around and fuck off right now and leave me alone.”
Matt knows she means business. She has that no-nonsense look in her eyes he’s seen a few times before, and he thinks she’d let that arrow fly in a heartbeat. “Come on, Nat. Please…”
“I said fuck off. I came here to be alone. If I’d wanted to be surrounded by dickheads, I’d have stayed in the warm.”
Despite that she’s aiming a lethal weapon at his face, her comment is enough to make Matt laugh out loud. His reaction disarms her momentarily, but she immediately regains her composure and increases the tension in the bowstring.
“We were worried about you,” Paul says.
“Bullshit. Worried about yourselves, more like.”
“It’s true.” Matt does what he can to present a united front. “I didn’t like the thought of you being out here on your own.”
“I’m fine, thanks for your concern.” It’s clear that she is. “Anyway, how do I know you’re not here to try and kill me?”
“Says the girl pointing the arrow at us,” Paul answers quickly.
She’s not impressed.
Matt looks from face to face and clears his throat. “Because if one of us was going to try and kill you, I reckon we’d have probably done it already. And from what I’ve seen and heard this last couple of days, I reckon we’d have tried to kill each other too. We wouldn’t have turned up here together like a bloody double act.”
“A really shit double act at that,” Paul says, noticing that the tension she has the bow string under is making the muscles in Natalie’s arm tremble. “Come on, Nat, please.”
She relaxes slightly—just slightly—and lowers the bow. The arrow’s still ready to fire, her fingers still tightly gripping the cord.
“He got kicked out,” Paul tells her, gesturing at Matt.
“What?”
“They threw me out. Reckoned I was probably a Hater.”
“And are you?”
“No, of course not. That’s stupid.”
“How do you know?”
“He doesn’t,” Paul says quickly. “To be fair, though, neither do I. Or you. None of us do, come to mention it. All three of us could be Haters, if Haters even exist.”
“Of course they exist.” Natalie lowers the bow still farther. “What do you think happened to Nils, for fuck’s sake? Cabin fever? Have another look inside this boat. Normal people don’t do that.”
“Or maybe they do,” Matt says.
Natalie just glares at him. “Are you trying to be deliberately awkward?”
“No, it’s just that we don’t know what’s normal anymore. We all turned on Stephen, and they all just turned on me. We don’t know who to trust now, so no one trusts anyone. But you know that already. That’s why you came back down here, isn’t it?”
“Maybe. But look at Nils … he killed that kid, then he turned himself and killed Gavin. Explain that?”
“I can’t,” Matt says. “I can’t explain any of this. I’m just doing what I can to cope with it.”
Natalie lowers the bow completely now, arrowhead pointing straight down. “I don’t know who to believe. I figured any one of us might be the next to turn. I thought I’d be safer out here on my own, which is why I’d be very grateful if you two would just turn around and fuck off back to base.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Matt sounds more defiant and confrontational than he actually feels. “Don’t reckon I could, as it happens. They probably wouldn’t let me back in.”
“Three is the magic number,” Paul announces.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m serious. I think three is the optimum number to keep us alive. I was thinking about it just now. It’s one of the reasons I followed you out here, Matt.”
“You never said anything.”
It’s clear Paul’s making this up as he goes along, but he seems to think he’s onto something. “Think about it … if there’s just the two of us and one person changes, the other one is likely completely screwed. You agree? But if there’s three, there’s a better chance of two of us making it if the other one loses their mind.”
“He’s got a point,” Natalie says.
“So can we stay?”
“No.”
“Come on…”
“No. One is my magic number. If I’m on my own, there’s no problem either way. Doesn’t matter what side I’m on if there’s no one else here with me.”
“Please, Nat.” Matt wonders if he sounds as desperate as he’s starting to feel. “I’m not going to give you any trouble.”
She looks him up and down. He’s not like the other blokes left on the island. Not cocky. Not arrogant. Not full of himself like the rest of them, talking in business-speak or trying to impress her with exaggerated machismo. She weighs the pros and cons. “Okay, you can stay. Your mate can piss off, though.”
Paul protests. He can’t help himself. “What the hell? That’s completely out of order.” He points at Matt. “He’s fucking useless.”
“And you’re fucking irritating,” she tells Paul.
Matt maneuvers himself between them, well aware that he’ll be first to get it if she changes her mind and decides to make use of the bow and arrow. “I’ll keep him under control, I promise. We won’t cause you any problems.”
She thinks for a few seconds longer. “Okay, you can both stay. Short term. And you keep well out of my way, right?”
“Right.”
“And I reserve the right to kick both of you off the boat if I change my mind, got it?”
“We get it,” Matt tells Natalie. “Understood.”
“Good.”
She turns her back on them and returns to the wreck of the ferry. Matt takes that as a sign of implied trust, because right now he thinks there’s a good chance that if he turns his back on anyone on this damn island, he or she will stab him as soon as look at him.
The two men follow her onto the Heavenly Vision. It feels like it’s listing at a more acute angle than before, and everything looks different. As soon as Paul gets belowdecks, he can tell that Natalie’s been working hard since she got here. “She’s shifted a load of the bodies,” he whispers.
“Has she? Fair play to her. Must have taken some guts to do that.”
Paul has a bad joke on the tip of his tongue, but for once he keeps his mouth shut. Some of the corpses are in pretty bad shape, and all of them have started to rot. A sickly sweet stink is in the air, slightly tempered by the salty sea spray. Matt gags and spits. “Bloody horrible, isn’t it?” Paul says. “I remember hearing people on TV talking about the smell of death, but I never experienced it until now.”
Matt’s focused on trying to keep control of his stomach. He can taste the decay above everything else. “I reckon if we were stuck here for a year that smell wouldn’t even have started to fade.”
Natalie’s busy, doing everything she can to keep to herself, but she notices Paul looking at the unruly mound of bodies she’s hastily assembled near the stern of the Heavenly Vision. It’s a waist-high heap. “I had to move them. I couldn’t leave them like we found them.”
“Don’t suppose they’re too bothered,” Paul says dismissively.
“It matters to me, though.” For a split second he thinks her demeanor is about to change. He detects a chink of vulnerability, but it’s almost immediately covered up with armor plating and aggression. “Couldn’t stand having all those dead faces watching me.”
Matt hasn’t been in here before. He does what he can to hide how badly he’s affected by what he’s seeing. He can only begin to imagine how terrible it must have been to have walked into this slaughter unprepared. He’s still feeling bilious and grabs a nearby wooden handrail for support. As if the blood and the bodies weren’t enough, the constant unsteady rocking of the beached ferry and the unnatural angle at which it’s come to rest have combined to increase the violent churning in his guts. Nothing’s level in here. The deck is sloped downward and is tilted to one side. It’s like something out of a gothic horror movie, but this is real, not a camera trick.
“You okay, mate?” Paul asks. “You’re looking a little green around the gills.”
Matt takes a deep breath of ice-cold, salt-tinged air to compose himself. He’s in a short and narrow space, almost a square, with a door on either side. He feels increasingly claustrophobic. To his right are the toilets, to his left some kind of office. He reaches for the office handle, but Natalie stops him. “Not in there. That’s my space. Keep out.”
He holds up his hands in submission. “Whatever you say.”
Paul’s more confident than his seasick work colleague and stands on tiptoes to try to look in through the porthole-shaped window. “What are you hiding in there?”
“My food, my clothes, my stuff. Butt out.” She makes it clear she’s still ready to use the bow and arrow if Paul doesn’t back off.
Fortunately, he does. “Where are we supposed to go then?”
Natalie gestures back toward the main cabin and the rows of empty, blood-soaked seats where the majority of the bodies were found. “Plenty of space down there.”
“You’re fucking kidding me.”
“Well, it’s either that or you go back to the others. Your choice.”
“Jesus, Natalie, why be such a bitch about it?”
“Leave it, Paul,” Matt warns, his nausea beginning to subside. He walks deeper into the sarcophagus-like shipwreck. “We’ll be fine here. Honestly, Nat, it’s okay. We don’t want any trouble.”
She mutters something unintelligible under her breath at Paul as she pushes past to get into her room. Paul tries to snatch a proper look inside, but the door is slammed shut in his face before he has a chance. He hears her blocking it from the inside. “Stay away, right?” she yells, her muffled voice still loud enough to be audible.
Paul shrugs. “She’s a bit highly fucking strung, don’t you think?”
Matt sits down on a relatively stain-free seat and holds his head in his hands. “She’s scared, Paul, don’t you get it? The aggression is how she deals with it. It’s an act, I think, but you’re not going to do any of us any good if you keep winding her up.”
“Silly cow. Like she’s the only one who’s got problems.”
Matt slumps forward, shoulders hunched. He stares at the wooden floor between his feet and traces a watery gore stain that trickles along the planks then disappears between them. “Leave her alone. She’s done things here that I don’t know if I could have done.”
“What, shifted a few bodies? Give me a break.”
Matt doesn’t bother arguing, because he knows there’s no point. He makes himself as comfortable as he can on the seat and tries to rest. Paul’s still chuntering about Natalie, but Matt makes a conscious attempt to change the conversation. “It’s already getting dark out there.”
“It tends to do that at this time of day. Thanks for stating
the bleeding obvious.”
Another day already drawing to a close.
Another day they didn’t make it back.
“What do you reckon things are really like back home?” Matt asks.
“Honest answer?” Paul replies after a few seconds’ thought. “I don’t think it’s as bad as they’re all making out. There’s something going on there, sure, but they’re all starting to talk like it’s the end of the world. It’s paranoia. Things just feel worse here because we’re stuck and because this bloody island’s so small, know what I mean? Everyone’s feeling a thousand times worse because everything’s confined and we can’t get away.”
“Suppose.”
“And when you’re in a situation like this—”
“You make it sound like you’ve been in situations like this before.”
“—when you’re in a situation like this”—Paul ignores Matt—“it’s easy to let your mind run away with itself. Every little thing gets multiplied by a factor of ten thousand.”
“What, every little thing like Joy or Nils? One minute he’s normal, the next he’s carving out Gavin’s innards in front of us.…”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean.” Matt sighs, unconvinced.
The conversation falters. Just the noise of the waves now.
“So what do we do now?” Paul asks after a minute or so.
“You tell me. You’re the one who reckons he’s usually got all the answers.”
Paul is uncharacteristically reserved. “Yeah, but what do you think we should do?”
“Right now I think we should get some rest. As for the morning … who knows? I think Natalie’s got the right idea. Keep away from everyone else as much as we can until we find a way of getting home.”
“Sounds logical.”
“And for what it’s worth, I also think she picked the right place to stay. Why would anybody bother coming back here to kill when everyone’s dead already?”
THURSDAY
17
Natalie doesn’t emerge from her office hideout all night. Matt knows because he spends hours watching the door, waiting for her to move. It’s freezing in here, so cold that it hurts his bones. He’s lying across a couple of seats a short distance from where Paul is sleeping, and Matt only gets up when he absolutely has to because he needs the bathroom. He slowly shuffles toward the hull of the boat. Every step he takes in the gloom feels fraught with danger. He convinces himself the bodies are closer than he remembers, or that maybe he’ll stumble on a couple Natalie missed. Perhaps they were hiding in the toilets while their friends were being massacred out here? He pictures himself finding a kid still trapped in a cubicle, cowering. What if some are still alive? Right now he can’t decide if it would be better or worse to find them dead.