by Matt Drabble
“Look, I’ll get you somewhere safe, okay?” Anderson said as he started to pull her towards town.
“No..., let... me go,” she said, but she was unable to stop him from pulling her.
“If Torvan’s out here, then we have to get away,” Anderson continued, ignoring her pleas.
She could only stumble along in his wake as he ran from the possible danger, one that Caleb was currently facing alone.
“In here,” Anderson said as he pulled her through a hole in a metal chain-link fence.
“Where..., are...” she stammered as he pulled her through, dragging her towards a building.
It took a few minutes to realise that they were at the Clayton timber mill.
“It will be safe in here. He won’t find us,” Anderson promised as he propelled her through a back door.
The mill had been closed for some time and there was a foul smell in the air that seemed stronger than any lack of occupation could account for.
“This way, this way,” Anderson pressed as he moved quicker, dragging her with him.
Quinn tried to resist him, but she felt almost drugged and unable to focus properly.
Anderson pulled her along a long corridor until they moved out onto the mill’s main floor and then the smell really hit hard, even through her confused state.
“What is that?” She gagged.
“Don’t worry about it. This way, this way.”
“Dammit..., let go!” she finally cried out as she managed to shake her arm loose. “I have to... I have to find Caleb.”
“No, it’s too dangerous out there. Stay here. Stay with me. I’ll keep you safe,” Anderson pleaded in his usual whiny voice as he grabbed her arm again and tried to pull her forwards.
“Look, Anderson...,” she said, concentrating hard on her thoughts and words. “I know that you’re just trying to help me, but you’re really not right now.”
“You love him that much?”
“Jesus Christ, Anderson! What are you, 12?” she exclaimed, immediately regretting her tone with a man who was just trying to save her. “Look...,” she began in a quieter tone of voice. “I know that you used to have some sort of crush on me when we were young, but right now this is bigger than any of that old shit. You want to help me, then help me find Caleb, okay?”
“No... it’s too dangerous. I’ll keep you safe here. Look - I have food, water… everything you might need,” he said, pulling her forwards again.
“No!” she yelled, finding a little more strength at the thought of Caleb all alone. “What? Wait a minute... why do you have supplies here? The mill closed down a couple of weeks ago.”
“You fucking bitch,” he suddenly said in a cold deep voice that she had never heard before. “After everything I’ve done, you still won’t give me the time of day.”
“Anderson?” she said warily, starting to back away, suddenly not quite recognising the man in front of her.
Anderson seemed to be standing straighter than she’d seen him before. His back was stiff and his body language was confident, and all of a sudden, she felt a little afraid of him. The somewhat simple boy who had followed her around like a lovesick puppy now seemed to be a whole different animal, one that seemed abruptly dangerous.
“Have you any idea what I’ve done?” he continued. “Have you any idea what I’ve become? And it’s all been for you.”
“What have you done, Anderson?”
“Can’t you feel it?” he asked, smiling an odd little smile that was part shy little boy and part predator.
“Feel it?”
“It’s already in you, my love; it’s in you like it’s in me, and soon we’ll be the same.”
Quinn’s head was still reeling and she fought hard to try and centre her full attention on the man in front of her. He seemed a completely different person from the one who had slinked around the island in Cooper Fox’s shadow for all these years. Now there was a power about him, as though someone had suddenly pulled him into focus.
Anderson Jennings had been one of the people whom she had grown up with and someone that she had barely noticed. She knew that he’d carried a torch for her and she didn’t ever remember being particularly cruel to him when rebuffing his advances. But now he stood before her with a burning intensity that seemed so alien to the timid boy she’d once known.
She staggered past him and headed forwards. Instinct told her that she needed to get away from him; however weak the man had once been, he was no longer that man.
“There’s nowhere to run to,” Anderson said happily as he followed her without trying to touch her; instead, he paused by a switch on the wall and flipped it.
Machinery sparked into life around them. Hungry machines with razor teeth clanked into action, ravenous jaws demanding to be fed.
She stumbled across the mill floor, her head thick with confusion but knowing that Anderson had done something to her, presumably when he’d found her unconscious.
“It’s all for you,” he shouted after her above the machinery din. “Everything I’ve done, all that I’ve sacrificed: it’s all been for you.”
His words echoed after her but she kept pressing forwards, not knowing where she was going but only sure that she had to get away.
It took a while for her to notice but at some point the foul stench got stronger until it was washing over her with tainted fingers and burying itself into her skin.
She gagged and almost vomited as the smell stuck in the back of her throat. Her legs were weak now and threatening to give way under her, and sending her to the floor.
There was music and she thought that she must be hallucinating. A piano sang a soft and slow melancholy tune, the music rising high in the mill, the acoustics lending an even eerier quality to the piece.
She found herself heading into a large room and prayed that it led to an outside door. The stench hit her hard, hard enough to send her reeling backwards. Light bulbs were smashed and the only light in the room was from flickering candlelight, but the dancing shadows showed her more than she’d ever wanted to see. The assault on her senses was overwhelming. Between the sights and smell, it was almost too much to bear.
There was a long dining room table placed inside what appeared to have once been a staff changing room as there were metal lockers along the back walls, but the benches had been removed.
There were multiple high-backed chairs placed around the table and the reasons for the overpowering stench sat upon them.
The bodies were in various states of decay and discomposure, but all had clearly died bloody and violently. Even though she hadn’t been a resident of Clayton for almost 20 years, she still recognised the faces of friends and neighbours.
Taylor Cole, the town drunk whom Caleb had been searching for when she’d first arrived, was the oldest of the corpses, his flesh sagging from his bones.
Bernard Hale and Ieuan Clark sat side by side, propped up at the table; both men’s faces were open with frozen expressions of fear and pain.
Dottie Peck sat with her head lolling loosely to one side, her neck severely damaged and unable to stand on its own.
There was also her boss, Jeremy Haynes. His face was almost blue and his eyes were still bulging. He appeared to be the freshest of the dead men.
Her father sat at the head of the table, his body still wearing dozens of nail-gun holes.
“I..., I...,” Quinn stammered, unable to process what was laid out before her.
“An offering,” Anderson replied calmly as if the grotesque scene before them was all perfectly natural.
“Why...? How could...?” she said as she gripped one of the lockers to keep herself upright.
Anderson put his hand in his pocket and she flinched, but when he pulled it out, he wasn’t holding any kind of weapon: it was something small and brown, with an earthy smell that she caught even over the death in the room.
“Such power,” he said with reverence as he held up the mushroom. “Grown from the earth with al
l the right ingredients to change the world.”
“Mushrooms?”
“Not any old mushrooms, my love; these are a gift from God.”
“What?” she asked, shaking her head, wondering if any of this was real.
“He came to me, you know.”
“God?”
“Oh yes. The first time that I took a taste of his fruit, he came and showed me the way - the way to a glorious future for those of us who were the true chosen.”
“Chosen for what?” she asked from her sagged position.
“To change the world,” he cried with his arms stretched out wide.
“You’re insane,” she replied, the words out of her mouth before she could stop them.
To her relief, he just laughed.
“That’s what they said about every great visionary. Did you know that Giordano Bruno was burned alive and Galileo was convicted of heresy when they challenged the church’s assertion that the earth was at the centre of the universe? Darwin, Mendel, Pasteur… all brilliant visionaries who were persecuted for their beliefs.”
“And you think that Anderson Jennings will one day be added to that list?”
“Oh most certainly.” He smiled back, both warmly and insanely. “You see, Cooper wanted to sell these little marvels. He set up a deal with some mainlander.”
“Morrison?”
“Yes, that was the man’s name. He was a pig. Neither of them had the vision to see what they’d discovered. Even Tunstall couldn’t grasp what he’d grown.”
“Tunstall?”
“A Niner. He was a talented farmer. God chose to use his hands but not to show him the light.”
Quinn was trying hard to keep him onside and not agitate him any further. The man was clearly crazy but that only made him doubly dangerous.
“And the rest of them? Torvan? I mean, how?” she asked. “I mean how...” She trailed off, feeling the question was almost too big to ask.
“The honey mead,” he replied, looking down lovingly at the mushroom in his hand. “The Niners brew their own supply. I slipped into the monastery one night and added a little ingredient to their homebrew. God told me to,” he added as though that made any sense whatsoever.
“You poisoned them?” she said, not only thinking of the Niners but also suddenly remembering the change in Morrison after he’d taken a drink of the honey mead that he’d found in the monastery basement.
“I set them free,” he replied quickly. “This is a gift,” he said, thrusting the small brown mushroom towards her. “What a man or woman decides to do with that gift is determined by their very soul. This sets us free and allows God to separate the worthy from the damned.”
“That’s why..., I mean, that’s why they went crazy up there?” she said, trying to grasp what he was telling her. “You slipped that into what they were drinking and you caused them to go crazy and start killing people… killing us!”
“God has told me his plan for the island. I understand that it is too much for you to grasp… yet,” he added ominously.
Quinn felt herself slip a notch. Her breathing seemed to be becoming more erratic and she slipped down against the locker behind her until she was crouched.
“The people - our people?” she asked. “What about Clayton?”
“Oh, yes. Once the storm hit, I added a little something to Casey Parker’s water supply in the shelter under her bar. I’m guessing that by about now we should have our winners and losers.”
“And them?” she spat, jerking her head towards the gathering around the table.
“God demanded sacrifice from me, a showing of my faith, to prove that I was worthy of his word. Five souls to be given up on his altar to show him love.”
“There’s six,” she said, her words slurring a little now.
“Ah, your father was my gift to you. I know how he treated you. I know what he put you through, my love; consider it an offering in your name.”
“And Haynes? You weren’t attacked by a Niner?”
“No, I had to give myself a little bump,” he said, tapping the wound on his head.
“Why? I mean, if it was just the two of you there, why the pretence?”
“Honestly? I think that I was starting enjoy it,” he said, smiling to himself. “I don’t think I’ve ever been any good at anything else.”
She knew then that there was something very wrong with her, mainly because his words started to make sense.
“What did you do to me?” she demanded, suddenly aware of her own changing state.
“I fed you,” he replied simply with a shrug. “You will be chosen too, my love, I just know it,” he enthused. “We will be together forever; it is our destiny.”
“Fed me?”
“The flesh of Christ,” he said, raising his mushroom-holding hand up again. “When I found you at the bottom of the hill, I knew that God was pleased with me and had handed you to me; it was my reward. I also knew that he wanted you to be with me, in all senses of the word.”
“You made me eat the mushrooms?”
“A concentrated dose, but I know that you can take it. You’re just like me. I know it in my heart that we shall soon be joined as one.”
“How much of that stuff have you eaten?”
“I’ve honestly lost count.” He laughed as he threw the one he was holding into his mouth and chewed it down. “But each one makes me stronger.” He grinned through brown stained teeth.
“But if the others only ingested minimal and watered down amounts, how are you even still standing?”
“Because I’m chosen.” He simply shrugged. “And if the others are chosen too, then they will be like me - like us.”
“You drugged the Niners and set them on a course to kill islanders: your friends, your neighbours - they’re all dead.”
Her words were strong but she doubled over as pain hit her stomach hard now. Her hands were clenched together, driving her fingernails into her palms hard enough to draw blood. Her heart was racing fast and it was getting harder to function.
The thought about what Anderson had done here was bringing the rage in her veins to the boil, and all she wanted to do now was to tear the flesh from his bones in retribution.
She thought about the dead sat around the table in front of her. She thought about her father and about the unwitting part she’d played in Dottie Peck’s death at the station.
She thought about the innocent men and women of Clayton and even the Niners. True, Torvan must have been unstable to begin with, but Anderson had taken that instability and created a monster with a plan.
She thought about the pain, suffering and death that a sick insignificant little man had caused - all in her name.
She thought about Caleb and whether or not he was even still alive.
And then she wasn’t thinking about anything at all; she was only moving on animal instinct as she gave in. The pain left her body to be replaced by a purpose that felt utterly divine and she knew what she had to do, and she relished the blood that was about to be spilled.
CHAPTER 27
Unlikely white knights
Simmons had made sure that the man’s bonds were secure before she did anything else. There were some plastic zip ties in the back office and she’d used them to bind his hands and feet together before taking some bungee cord from an old and unused hiking kit that had been given to her as a present from an old friend a lifetime ago.
Once she was positive that the man couldn’t move and wouldn’t be a further threat to her, she got to work.
Her hands moved quickly as she could feel an almighty pressure bearing down on her shoulders. She had left a scene of barbaric chaos in the shelter, and however the toxin had gotten into the islanders, she had to find an antidote while there were still people left to be saved.
While she may have been a doctor by trade, here on the island of Clayton she had to be far more resourceful than any mainland doctor as here there was no one else to turn to for help. If there was a pr
oblem - and the island threw up plenty of curveballs - then she had to solve it and normally solve it quickly.
It took her more time than she’d have liked, but finally, she was ready to try out what she’d created.
On her last trip to the mainland, she had been given a supply of a new mild tranquiliser called Zithrotasol that worked by increasing serotonin levels and decreasing dopamine levels in the brain.
Fortunately, this new drug had been in a liquid form and she’d hopefully managed to combine it with a beta blocker designed to slow the heart rate.
The triple threat would, with any luck, counteract whatever had been given to the affected. She just had to test it and pray that she didn’t kill her subject.
“Okay, my friend,” she said as she knelt down by the bound man. “If this does more harm than good, then I’m very sorry, but I hope that God’s watching over us for once.”
The Niner suddenly opened his eyes and started to thrash about at his binds.
The thin plastic ties didn’t suddenly seem strong enough to hold the thrashing man, and Simmons knew that he would break free in seconds. She could run, or she could trust herself.
In the end, she decided that she just couldn’t leave her patient. She said a silent prayer and leaned in to inject the man, just as he broke free.
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Cooper Fox was running blindly for his life, and not for the first time in recent memory.
There seemed to be threats in every direction now and he had no idea where was even safe anymore.
Part of him did genuinely feel bad for abandoning Caleb and the others at the monastery but not bad enough to go back and help. He was sure that none of them would do the same thing for him - at least that was what he kept on telling himself.
His first instinct was to return to town and look for help, but the thought of Niners hunting their way through Clayton was not something he wanted to check on. Instead, he’d simply run away from every light and sound that he’d come across, figuring that the island was still big enough to hide one man.