by Matt Drabble
Marjorie took a deep breath and suddenly felt very foolish; that was until she lowered the lantern down and its flickering light caught the end of the hoe stick, revealing a splash of dark red liquid on the tip.
The scarecrow leapt from its moorings before she could move or even defend herself. The thing’s coat now fell open before her, exposing the telltale robes of a Niner.
Marjorie stumbled backwards in terror and fell to the ground in a petrified heap.
The man threw the straw hat aside and paused to pick up the hoe stick from where she’d dropped it in fright. He raised it high over his head in a killing arc.
“Well..., get on with it then!” Marjorie exclaimed breathlessly from her prone position, determined not to show the man any more fear than she had already.
She felt the Niner smile rather than saw it and then he obliged.
Marjorie was yanked to her feet in an effortless manner. The Niner held her in one powerful hand and used the other to drive the hoe handle deep through her body at a downward angle until it thrust through her back and embedded itself into the ground below, pinning her upright.
Before the man left, on a whim he snatched up the straw hat and placed it atop Marjorie’s head, leaving her pinned to the ground in much the same position as the previous scarecrow had once stood.
----------
Jacob Marlow was one islander enjoying the peace and quiet of a deserted island as he zoomed about the land on his quad bike, splashing through muddy rivers of sludge and flying over stacked mudslides, using them as a ramp.
While his parents had fled to the town shelter, he had preferred to stay behind at the family farm. His parents had pleaded for him to go with them, but he was over 18 now and a man in his own right - free to make his own decisions and mistakes.
He flung the quad bike to one side in an expertly controlled skid as he thought about his life here on the island. The storm had come at possibly the worst time for him personally.
He had been intending to head to the mainland after the harvest. His parents had finally relented, allowing him to leave, but now, as he took a tour of their farmland, he could see the damage done and the work to come. There was no way that his father would let him leave now.
The ridge where he skidded to a halt overlooked the farm and he stared down at the extensive injuries done to his homestead.
The farmhouse itself was largely intact, but most of the outbuildings were heavily damaged with the barn being the worst hit. Debris littered their fields with wooden slats, roof tiles and various bits of broken machinery scattered across their land. The sight gave him pause and it felt like a fresh anchor had been tied to his ankle.
For the first time, he noticed that amongst the wreckage stood a lone man. He couldn’t tell whom it was from this distance, but he figured it must be his father returning to assess the damage.
Jacob looked back over his shoulder, and from this raised elevation, he could see the trail that led all the way out to the docks and freedom. He revved the quad bike and a very large part of him just wanted to gun it and leave, head for the harbour, get on the ferry and never look back. But in the end, he was his father’s son and duty ran deep whether he liked it or not.
With a long heavy sigh, he slipped the bike into gear and headed down the hill towards his father and a life that he desperately wanted to avoid.
His mind was filled with self-pity and regret, so much so that he didn’t bother looking at his father until he was almost upon him. The problem was that he didn’t realise the man wasn’t actually his father until he was upon him.
He hit the brakes just in time. The man in front of him wore the white robes of the Niners. He was a large man who filled out the billowing outfit impressively, but with his hood up, it was impossible to see his features clearly.
Jacob had always found the religious order to be more than creepy, and thankfully, he rarely crossed paths with any of them. Now a very large one was standing in the middle of his family’s land and the man didn’t look like moving anytime soon.
“Help you, buddy?” Jacob called out loudly over the bike’s engine. “You lost?” he asked when the man didn’t answer.
The Niner slipped his hand inside his robe and slowly brought out a long, wicked-looking knife which he held by his side, and Jacob saw, with rising horror, that the blade appeared to be stained with something dark.
Jacob didn’t like the look or feel of any of this. The man in front of him was not moving, nor speaking, and while Jacob couldn’t see his expression, he couldn’t feel anything good coming from the man.
His father’s blood ran through his veins, and his first instinct was to defend their land, but it was a only fleeting thought; he wasn’t an idiot, after all. Instead, he revved the quad bike and spun around in the opposite direction before zooming off and heading for the trail into town.
He had to ride towards the farmhouse before breaking right to the dirt track that served as a road out beyond their boundary. As he raced in that direction, he suddenly saw another man emerge from the family home. A flash of a white outfit told him instantly that this was another Niner.
Jacob veered to the right, avoiding the farmhouse and the newcomer, but another flash of movement caught his attention, and when he turned to the right, he saw yet another man emerging from the orchard.
The two men stood either side of his path and both were now running inwards. There was a small gap between a small outbuilding and an old oak tree that stood tall on their property. With the two men closing in and threatening to cut off his escape, Jacob gunned the quad bike and shot forwards as fast as he could manage.
The gap was narrow, and with the two men closing fast, he knew it was going to be tight but he went for it.
The bike juddered under him as it protested at him dragging every inch of speed out of it. His head was straining forward and he’d forgotten to breathe as he battled for his escape.
He could feel the two men on either side of him closing fast rather than see them out of his peripheral vision; his entire attention was now taken with trying to pass through the narrow gap.
There was a flash of white to his side and he could only pray that he was quick enough. A hand brushed against his arm but he was too fast to allow purchase and then he was through the gap.
His eyes bulged as he was suddenly airborne but somehow staring down at his body below him. His brain desperately tried to calculate what was happening as the world spun around and around with dizzying speed.
The thin sharp wire tied between the outbuilding and the tree had been too fine for him to notice as his attention had been focussed elsewhere.
His head landed hard on the ground, and there was only just enough time for his eyes to process the image of his headless body slumped on top of the quad bike as it ground to a halt.
----------
Karl and Evelyn Rainer waited out the storm in their own shelter. Karl was feeling particularly smug as the shelter had been his idea and his wife had opposed the expense.
“Not bad, eh?” he said aloud, more to poke her than for any other reason. “Too expensive… not worth the effort… never have a storm bad enough to need it,” he said in a mocking impression of her voice while she silently brewed in the corner.
He regretted his short tone with her even before he’d finished speaking. They had been married almost 5 years now but sometimes it felt more like 10 - other times it felt like 20.
She was a beautiful woman - far above his league, and both of them knew it - and she wielded it like a weapon.
He’d always supposed that marriage was supposed to be hard; he’d just never envisaged it would be this tough.
They were a poor match for sure, but when you lived in a small community, there often wasn’t much choice to find a mate and settling was common practice. He wasn’t under any illusion as to her attraction towards him - his perceived bank account.
“We would have been fine in the town shelter. Complete waste of money,” Evelyn m
uttered under her breath.
Karl bit his tongue at that comment and tried to remind himself that this woman was his wife, no matter how much he wished it wasn’t so. He was a good Christian man and firmly believed that a man should honour his wedding vows. He had loved Evelyn dearly, but he’d quickly come to learn that the woman he’d loved was an illusion.
Evelyn had made it clear from day one of their marriage - not day one of their courting, mind you - that she had plans to leave the island behind and seek out a better life on the mainland.
Karl had come very quickly to the conclusion that she had only agreed to marry him in order to lay claim to his inheritance. He’d told her that his father had left him a very large nest egg and that had been what Evelyn had set her sights on all along.
She had been all sweetness and light during their courting, and he’d firmly believed that she loved him wholly; that was, until after the ceremony when she’d started to demand that they leave.
Her eyes were set on a mainland life financed by his money. The trouble was that it had all been a lie; there never had been any money. It had just been the only way that he’d thought he could get a woman like Evelyn to look twice at him. This was a fact that he was waiting to inform her of in the vain hope that she might come to love him for him before she found out he was broke.
“Better still, we should be on the mainland in a proper house rather than some hillbilly shack,” she continued, only this time not bothering to mumble her annoyance.
It was a well-worn argument between them, with her being the aggressor and him trying to placate his bride.
“Maybe after the winter,” he said pleadingly.
“After the spring… after the summer… after the winter!” she cried out in an angry mocking tone. “When are we going to leave this godforsaken place, Karl? There’s nothing here for me - either of us,” she added as an afterthought.
“Soon. I promise,” he responded quickly, knowing he was lying but praying for a miracle to intervene.
“Maybe I should just divorce you and take half of your father’s money,” she sneered. “Take the money, as much as I can get my hands on, and then just leave. See how you’d like that.”
“Please don’t say that.”
“Why not? It’s what you deserve. You promised me a better life and all you’ve done is drag me down into the gutter with you.”
“Please,” he begged.
“Do you know how many offers of marriage I had? I could have had my pick of the men on this island, but no… stupid me, I had to pick you and now you’re going to let me down too.”
“But I love you.”
“So what? I wanted a new life away from this shithole and you promised to take me there, and now we see that you’re not just mainly worthless - you’re a total waste of a man.”
To hear her speak for the first time so openly about her reason for marrying him hurt. Even though he’d always suspected her reason, he had naively hoped that there was some real love underneath, but now she was making her intentions crystal clear.
“That’s it,” she continued. “I’ve had enough of all this shit. When this storm’s over, I’m packing a bag and leaving and I’ll be looking to take all of your money, not just half. I figure I deserve it for emotional distress!”
He reached out for her and she slapped his hand away hard.
“You don’t get to ever touch me again, not ever again; do you understand me? I’ve put up with your pathetic pawing for too damn long: lying under you, thinking about anything else just to pass the time until you’ve finished your feeble efforts. I’m taking your money and then I’m finding a real man. Have you any idea how many men I’ve been screwing behind your back? Half the town!” She laughed. “And we laugh at you, Karl. My god, how we laugh!”
He reached for her again, but this time there wasn’t any love in his grasp. His hands were around her throat before he’d even thought about what he was doing. To her credit, she was still trying to insult him even though he was squeezing tightly.
It took a while before her hands slipped from his arms but he kept his grip strong, starting to weep as he strangled her.
It was only after she was still that he noticed the deep painful grooves on his forearms where she’d dug her nails deep into his skin.
He sat there for a long time without thinking as his brain shielded him from what he’d just done.
At some point he became aware that the storm had passed and all was quiet outside the shelter as well as now inside.
He stood up and moved to the door. There was a reinforced plastic window in the centre of the door, large enough for him to look outside after he’d wiped the condensation away.
The shelter was buried into the earth several feet down with a metal staircase leading back to ground level. The bulk of the bunker was covered in the ground with only the front exposed.
His hand moved to the door handle but a face suddenly appeared at the door, making him jump backwards in shock.
The man outside wore long white robes and he reached for the door, only to find it securely locked from the inside.
Karl’s first instinct was that his crime had been discovered, but the man outside was a stranger; more than that, he was a Niner.
He had no idea what a Niner was doing this far inland from the monastery but right now he didn’t care.
“Hey! What are you doing out there?” Karl demanded, but the man merely stood rock still and continued to stare into the shelter.
“My wife..., my wife had an accident,” Karl stammered, but the man didn’t seem to care.
There was a distant look in the Niner’s eyes, one that Karl didn’t like one bit. He stepped back from the door and was suddenly very glad that the door was nigh on impenetrable, even more so when he saw the knife.
The man pulled it out of his robes and then, in a slow and deliberate motion, stuck his tongue out before drawing the blade down it and slicing the delicate flesh.
The Niner tried the door again and started to kick it in frustration. He yanked on the handle with increasing force but it wouldn’t budge. He hammered on the door with pure rage until his knuckles left a bloody smear on the plastic, and then he left.
Karl’s heart was pounding hard and he moved slowly back to the door to try and ascertain if the Niner had indeed left. There was no sign of the man on the staircase and no sound of him.
The next thing Karl heard was a splatter of something against the door. He moved closer just in time to see a second dirt-coloured rain hit the window and realisation dawned: the Niner was going to bury him down here.
He made a quick decision to face the man outside instead of being buried down here, but when he tried to unlock the door, it refused to open. Peering through the window and down, he could just make out the Niner’s long knife shoved through the door latch, trapping it shut. This time, it was Karl’s turn to rail against a door that wouldn’t open.
It took a long time before he finally plunged into darkness as the man outside appeared to be using a shovel to bury him alive. All the while, Karl was trying to run mental calculations to try and see how long his supplies down here would last; it didn’t seem all that long.
As he was slowly plunged into darkness, shovel by shovel, he began to think about his dead wife, and before the light completely disappeared, he would hear her start to laugh at him again.
----------
Rex McCoy left his family in town while he headed back to their cabin. He had a six-year-old son and didn’t want him running about the place before he’d made sure that everything was safe.
Jenny had wanted them to return as a family but he had insisted she stay behind. The cabin was their home and had been built by his own two hands. His wife adored the place and he couldn’t bear to see her face if it was no longer standing.
He had slipped out of the town shelter, leaving the others to pontificate over larger town matters. He had his own opinions regarding the rampant rumours spreading amon
gst the islanders, mainly that he thought they were all full of shit. Let them sit around with their wild stories; he had real work to do.
The island had an eerie quiet to it after the storm had passed, leaving behind a trail of destruction. Trees that had stood for centuries were lying split and scattered across the woodlands, and it broke his heart to see such damage.
Like most of Clayton’s inhabitants, he was an island man through and through, and this land was more than his home - it was part of his very soul.
He hiked his way back home double time, both eager and nervous to see what remained of his homestead. While the cabin was relatively new, it stood on land that had been in his family’s hands for generations.
He’d had to take down his father’s home in order to rebuild, but such was the way for McCoys; renewal was always necessary, like the changing of the seasons.
Coming up over the ridge, his heart was in his mouth as he prepared himself for the worst and he wasn’t disappointed.
His first thought was one of sheer panic as several tall trees were felled and currently lying on top of the cabin. But as he approached with a heavy heart, he was relieved to see that while the uprooted trees were lying across the roof, they hadn’t broken through.
A quick scout around the building settled his nerves when he saw that the damage was minimal with no structural problems. He felt a strong sense of pride in his work and knew that his father would have been even prouder.
Of all the trees around the cabin down, there was still one standing and he was pleased to see it in one piece. The oak in question was an old family favourite, a huge monster of a tree with a secret hollow hiding place deep within the massive trunk. As a child, it had been a play area that he had sought out, an imaginative doorway to another world where he could go and be alone.
He was pleased to see his old childhood friend still standing despite the storm’s best efforts to fell her, and he couldn’t help but pat her gently as he passed on the way to his shed.
The shed itself, however, had been completely flattened by a heavy trunk, but most of his equipment was sturdy enough to have survived with only minor damage.