by David Moody
“I’d never met a couple more nauseatingly in love than Stuart and Ruth.” A rogue tear rolls down Natalie’s cheek.
“It was enough to make you sick,” Rajesh agrees with a flicker of a wry grin.
“Honestly, you should have seen them … so loved up all the time. Ruth told me that they sold up and moved to the island because they’d realized that all they needed in their lives was each other.”
“Vomit inducing,” Paul says.
“Pretty sweet, actually,” Natalie corrects him, unimpressed. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter now. It scares the shit out of me, though, because if what’s happening is enough to do that to a couple as in tune and devoted to each other as Stuart and Ruth, then I think we’re all in trouble. None of us are safe.”
* * *
Rajesh and the others brought the radio over with them when they left the main building after barricading Ruth in the dorm. Seven of them are now crowded around the tired old transmitter, which they’ve placed on a coffee table in the middle of Stuart and Ruth’s living room, each of them praying they’ll finally be able to make contact with the rest of the world. It feels like they’ve become cocooned here, locked away until the last one’s left standing. It reminds Matt of that Japanese film he saw once … Battle Royale, he thinks it was. It feels like they’ve been here forever, though it’s not yet been a full week. Tomorrow, he realizes, it’ll be seven days since he last saw home and spoke to Jen. This unwanted and unexpected anniversary makes his personal situation feel all the more out of control. It feels like the two of them might as well be on different planets.
It’s getting dark outside. Another day is drawing to a close. Ronan counts up the number of people who died today and wonders how many of them will be left by morning. He can see the main building from where he’s sitting. A dull yellow glow is coming through the windows of the empty base. It looks disarmingly cozy, though he knows inside it’s anything but. “Shouldn’t we turn the generator off?”
“Why?” Matt asks.
“Save fuel. Keep the noise down.”
“Does it really matter? We need to keep the power running for the radio.”
“Suppose.”
“And it’s not like we’re trying to stay hidden,” Rajesh adds. “Everyone left alive on the island is here already.”
Ronan nods, then slides down the wall and sits in the corner. Not on a chair in the corner, but literally right in the corner of the room instead. Knees drawn up to his chest and head bowed down like a frightened kid.
The door to the bedroom is fully open, and Natalie keeps an eye on what’s going on next door. Stuart’s sleeping fitfully, occasionally trying to move and growling with pain like a dying bear. Louise hasn’t shifted. Natalie’s ready for when she does, one hand resting on the bow and arrow at her side. She keeps telling herself she’ll do what she has to do when the time comes, but her guts churn whenever she thinks about it. She can’t imagine killing a child. She can’t imagine killing anyone.
Stephen and Paul are sitting at either end of a three-seater sofa like a married couple who’ve fallen out and aren’t talking. They’re watching Rajesh and Rachel intently. Rajesh has been messing with the radio for the last half hour, but Rachel has just taken over. They’ve lashed the antenna to the side of the bungalow and have fed the cable through a narrow opening in the window. It’s only a slight crack, but it’s enough to let the wind whistle through. It howls tirelessly, rattling the glass in its frame.
“You sure you know what you’re doing with this?” Rajesh asks Rachel as she messes with the controls and dials on the dashboard of the radio.
“I watched Ruth. And I grew up with these things. My granddad used to have an interest in radios. He was a real nerd. He used to shut himself away in his shed at the bottom of the garden and speak to other nerds around the world. I used to sit in and listen to him when I was little. Never thought it would ever come in useful, though.”
“If only he could see you now, eh?” Rajesh says, and Rachel glances up at him, unsure whether he’s being sincere or mocking her.
It’s just as they expect. Crackles and pops and nothing else but white noise. The bursts of static give them teasing, split-second moments of hope, but it doesn’t sound like there’s anyone out there.
“We look like the cast from one of those crappy end-of-the-world movies,” Paul says, glancing around the room. “Just look at the state of us. Dirty clothes and unshaved faces.”
“You think this is the end of the world then?” Stephen asks.
Paul looks across at him and shrugs. “Dunno. You tell me.”
“I don’t. It’s not though, is it? Can’t be.”
“It is starting to feel that way,” Matt says.
“Yeah, but that’s only because our view is restricted. It’s all gone to hell here, sure, but you can’t tell me the same thing’s going to be happening everywhere else.”
“Rod said it was,” Natalie reminds Stephen.
“Your mate Rod was full of shit,” he answers quickly. “He told us he wasn’t going back to the mainland either, if you remember. Soon changed his mind when things got shitty with Ruth this morning.”
None of the Hazleton Adventure staff jump to the defense of their missing boss.
“I think Stephen’s right. We’ve got a distorted view of things here,” Rajesh says. “It’s an unnatural environment. Our perspective’s all skewed, and because we’re confined, all of us are affected by everything that happens. There’s no escape, no way out. I reckon that’s made everything feel a thousand times worse than it is back home.”
“I hope you’re right,” Matt says.
“Tell you what, I’ll head home tomorrow, then I’ll come back here and prove to you I was.”
“Deal.”
Another crackle of static comes from the radio. It’s unexpectedly loud, abruptly silencing the conversation. “It’s nothing,” Rachel says, looking around and seeing six expectant faces staring back.
“Is this what it’s usually like?” Paul asks. “I guess you don’t get a lot of chatter out here.”
“You’d be surprised,” Natalie tells him. “Ruthie was a bit of a geek like Rachel’s granddad. She had mates all over the place she used to talk to. You’d often find her in the back room talking to somebody somewhere on the radio. She and Stu liked the solitude of living out here together, but everybody needs someone to talk to sometimes, I guess.”
Rachel’s still playing with the controls. Matt’s starting to think it’s a pointless exercise. In some ways he thinks this is worse than if they didn’t have the radio at all. At least then they could kid themselves that everything’s all right elsewhere. This oppressive, never-ending silence seems only to confirm his worst suspicions.
Wait.
A voice. It’s there just for a second, then it’s gone.
“Hear that?” Rachel’s eyes light up in the yellow-green glow from the radio display. She reverses the tuning, carefully working her way back through the frequencies to try to locate the signal again. After a few seconds, frustration kicks in. “Must have imagined it,” she says, sounding dejected.
Matt’s not so sure. “Well, if you imagined it, then I imagined it at the same time. There was definitely something there.”
The harder Rachel forces herself to concentrate, the less control she seems to have. The sudden weight of expectation increases the pressure until her fingers feel swollen and numb, tips tingling with nerves. Her throat is dry. This job needs tiny adjustments and careful coordination, but with clammy hands and a racing heartbeat, right now that feels nigh on impossible. If there is a voice there, she thinks, she’ll struggle to hear it over the noise of her racing pulse, which bangs and thumps like a drum solo in her head.
Got it.
Lost it.
Stay calm.
Got it again.
She finds the frequency and does everything she can to strengthen the signal. There’s a little fading and washing, but she eventua
lly locks onto the voice. It’s male. British, by the sound of things. Detached and unemotional. Outwardly friendly, but clearly controlling. It’s one of those plummy, relaxed, but authoritative BBC voices designed to keep the population calm and reassured when the situation is clearly spiraling out of control.
“Sounds like one of those old public-service broadcasts,” Ronan says from the corner. “Protect and Survive. Remember that? Survive a nuclear war by building a shelter from doors and covering it in cushions.”
“Fuck me, is this for real?” Rajesh asks.
Matt’s thinking, If I wasn’t sure things were bad before, I am now.
The recorded voice is on a short loop. Same message, same five lines, over and over and over.
Remain calm.
Do not panic.
Take shelter.
Wait for further instructions.
The situation is under control.
There’s silence in the room for the first few loops, then Natalie says what everyone’s thinking. “Seriously? Are we supposed to believe this shit?”
“It’s got to be good news, hasn’t it?” Rachel looks at the other faces around her hopefully. “Can you not hear him? This situation is under control.”
“Come on,” Rajesh sighs, “really? It’s just a recording. It’s propaganda. Bullshit. I think you can take every line of that and turn it on its head. The situation is clearly not under control. Truth is, now I’ve heard that, I’m pretty much certain we’re fucked.”
FRIDAY
20
First light.
“I’m gone,” Rajesh announces to whoever’s awake enough to hear him. “I’m out of here.”
“You really going to do this, Raj?” Natalie sits up quick, still half-asleep.
“Don’t see that I have any choice. I’ll go and see what’s going on back home, then I’ll find a way of getting back here to fetch you all.”
“So what’s your plan?” Matt asks, watching from the other side of the room. He’s been awake for hours. “You do have a plan, don’t you?”
“Of sorts. Get home and see how the land lies, then get hold of a decent-sized boat and get back here and get you lot.”
“Where are you going to land?”
“Grimsby,” Rajesh answers quickly. “I figure I’ll have more chance if I head inshore up the Humber. I’ve done it a couple of times before.”
“Makes sense.”
“Glad you approve.”
“I’m not being difficult,” Matt says. “Just wondered what you’d got in mind, that’s all.”
“I know what I’m doing. Much as I want to get you lot home as quickly as I can, I’m not about to take any unnecessary chances.”
“Good luck with that,” Paul says. Matt looks around. He thought Paul was still asleep.
“Thanks for your support,” Rajesh mumbles.
“I don’t hold out much hope of you getting there and getting back, that’s all.”
“Well, maybe you should,” Natalie tells Paul. “Because hope is just about all we’ve got left right now. We’re running out of food and fuel, and half of us are dead. With our lord and master Rod having fucked off home without us, Raj is the only way we’re going anywhere, remember? He’s our last chance.”
“Need any help?” Matt asks.
Raj shakes his head. “No, thanks. Like I said to your mate here yesterday, I work better on my own. I just need to grab a few things, get my kayak out from the stores, then get onto the water. Don’t forget, this is what I do for a living.”
Matt listens intently. As alien as this place still feels to him, he knows that it’s a second home to Rajesh, Natalie, and the others. It’s where these people live. And where many of them have died.
“You sure about the weather?” Natalie asks. “You’re the one who’s always telling us how it can change in seconds out there.”
Rajesh smiles wryly as he looks out through the window, gazing up at the swirling white clouds overhead. “I know, I know. The wind’s a bit unpredictable, but I should be okay. It was raining earlier, but it cleared up about an hour ago. There’s a few clear patches overhead. Looks like the cloud’s breaking up. I’ll give it a go, anyway. I’ll turn around and come back if I have to.”
“I reckon I’d rather take my chances out there on the ocean than stay here,” Paul says. “And I’ve never been in a bloody canoe.”
Before he can talk himself out of it, and with the minimum of fuss, Rajesh is gone. He gives Natalie a bear hug (more for his benefit than hers), then lets himself out. She watches him from the door to the cottage as he sprints back to the main building. He disappears inside, then reappears a minute or so later with his waterproofs on, carrying various other odds and ends of equipment. He heads for the stores building, and Natalie pictures him having to work around the corpses to collect his kayak, paddle, and life jacket. She can’t imagine how horrific it must be in there this morning.
She watches her friend until he’s disappeared from view.
* * *
Rachel emerges from the bedroom a short while later. “Stuart’s dead,” she says casually. The news of his passing is met with a collective shrug of inevitability.
“It was only a matter of time,” says Ronan, and he’s right. There was never any chance of his recovering. Not having lost all that blood. Not with a carved-up body and a broken heart.
“I’m amazed he lasted as long as he did,” Paul says, and as Rachel comes out, he goes into the back bedroom. He stands in the doorway watching Stuart’s graying corpse like he expects it to come back to life and start attacking. They’re not zombies, he keeps telling himself over and over and over, but he can’t shake the feeling. He feels like he’s stuck in a slasher movie, but in the films he remembers, it was easy to work out the rules and trace the killer. You knew where you were with Jason and Freddy.… Here on Skek the rules—if there even are any—feel like they’re constantly changing. How can you avoid the killer when you don’t know who it is? When it might even be you?
Something catches his eye.
On the floor on the far side of the bed is that damn girl. Louise is still unconscious, but she moves slightly as if she’s trying to subliminally remind him, Don’t forget me.… I’m still here, I’m still watching you.… He moves a little closer. It’s hard to believe that this slight, deceptively fragile-looking creature is responsible for so much fear and death. He checks that the electrical flex is still tied tight around her ankle and traces its route back across the room. Rajesh did a good job. He wrapped it twice around the foot of the double bed, then plugged it into the wall and pushed the bed hard up against it. She’s not going anywhere fast.
I could end all of this right now, he thinks. I could get a knife, or the bow and arrow, or a rock from outside, and I could kill this little bitch before she wakes up again.…
“Problem?” Rachel asks, startling him.
“Not as long as she stays like this.”
“Leave her alone, Paul.”
“What are you, her guardian angel? Her keeper?”
“No, I’m just not as quick to write people off as you are.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen what I’d seen.”
“Doesn’t make any difference. She’s a sick kid. She’s not going to harm anyone.”
“She already has.”
Rachel doesn’t react. Paul waits a second longer, still standing over the girl, then he returns to the others.
He finds Natalie and Matt in the cramped kitchen. Matt’s helped himself to a box of dry crackers from a half-empty cupboard and is stuffing them into his mouth, one after another.
“Can’t believe you’ve got an appetite,” Paul says.
“I haven’t,” Matt replies, spitting out crumbs, “but we need to eat.” He offers the box around but both Natalie and Paul decline. “We need to keep our strength up.”
“I couldn’t eat a thing. Think I’d throw it straight back up again,” Paul says.
; Matt takes a swig from a plastic bottle of water. “Did you not hear me? I’m not hungry either, but we have to eat. We’re working against the clock.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Natalie asks.
“We’re running out of time, don’t you think? Look around you, Nat. We need to be ready to move.”
“You’re starting to sound like a broken record. There’s no way off the island without a boat, and until Rajesh comes back, there is no boat, remember?”
“I remember, but we have to make sure we’re ready for whatever comes next. You don’t really think that’s it, do you? That those of us who’ve made it this far are all going to sit here in this frigging cottage happy as anything, just waiting for your mate to come back and save the day?”
“Don’t mock me,” Natalie says.
“I’m not. It’s just that we’re on a slippery slope here, or had you not noticed? The population numbers are getting lower, the stakes are getting higher. Chances are it’ll be our necks on the line before long, and we need to be prepared. That’s why I’m forcing myself to eat, and that’s why I want you to eat something too.”
She reluctantly does as he suggests. “This is just to stop you going on at me, right?” She struggles to force the first tasteless biscuit down.
“It’s Rachel we need to watch,” Paul says, taking Matt’s advice and helping himself to food. “She’s spending too much time fussing around that kid.”
“Totally agree,” says Stephen, standing in the doorway uninvited, virtually filling it. “She wrote me off without giving me chance to defend myself when Vanessa attacked me. She’s a bloody liability, that one, always has been. Ronan only took her on because he fancies her. Practically told me as much, he did.”
Natalie is appalled. “Fuck’s sake, just listen to yourselves.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you knew her like we do,” Paul says. “And like I said, she’s inseparable from that kid.”
“I don’t know her as well as you do, but I do know she’s got a kid back home, hasn’t she? She was telling me about her when you lot first arrived here last week. Tracey, isn’t it?”