The Island

by Ben McPherson

  ‘Number 47,’ said Leela. ‘Past the first bunch of cabins, down the path towards the generator block. I put my towel and my elephant washbag on your bunk. You utter rando.’

  She stopped at the first line of cabins. This feeling – it was more than nerves. More than paranoia. She was sure of it. She sat cross-legged on the grass, slid the metal box out of her backpack. Weird that it would be so rusty, so old-looking, when everything else about the policemen was so new. Like it had been stored in a barn, or something.

  The combination lock had three digits. She tried the easy combinations: all the 1s, all the 2s … People were still streaming up the hill and into the clearing. The metal of the box felt cool against her lap; the edges dug into her thighs. On 555 the latch flicked up. The inside was lined on both sides with dense grey foam, custom cut. In the lid was a row of flattened grey metal boxes. She turned one on its end, saw the bullet readied at the top, the brass casing and the jacketed tip. Pistol magazine, she guessed. In the bottom of the case the magazines were larger, wider and longer, recently painted green.

  Her thoughts stopped her in her tracks. Because the boat, the uniforms, the guns, the holdalls … She snapped the box shut, slid it into her backpack, left the pack standing at the side of the path, turned towards the main building. So much here that wasn’t right … Those were not police uniforms; that was not a police boat: she was sure. She could not believe she had not realized sooner.

  She began to walk in the direction of the main house. There were marshals on the path, guiding people towards it. She could see through the bay windows the people thronging the front room.

  ‘Come on,’ said a boy in a slogan T-shirt. ‘Come on!’

  Important not to panic. Don’t arrive out of breath.

  ‘Please,’ she said, as soberly as she could. ‘Stop people from going in.’

  ‘But the police—’

  ‘They are not police,’ she said.

  ‘They have come to speak about the explosion—’

  ‘Those men are not policemen,’ she said. ‘Stop people. Tell the other marshals. Everyone must leave. Ring the real police.’

  The boy smiled at her blandly.

  ‘But the police are—’

  She stifled the urge to scream at him. She was running now, at the side of the path, overtaking the people who were making their way towards the house. She was at the steps. The front door led directly into the main room. She pushed abruptly into the room, found herself standing beside the men in their too-new uniforms.

  The shorter one looked directly at her. ‘Take your place.’ He motioned towards the people crowding the back of the room. ‘Don’t block the door.’

  For a moment she felt compelled to obey. It took all her strength to pause, to stand tall, to shout.

  ‘No!’

  The policeman heard her. The crowd did not.

  ‘No!’ she shouted again, louder now.

  ‘What did you say?’ said the man, quietly.

  She looked towards the faces at the back of the room. ‘These are not the police!’ she shouted.

  The room fell silent. All faces, all staring. Where was Leela?

  ‘You are mistaken,’ said the shorter officer. The tone of his voice was reassuring, friendly almost. For a moment she doubted herself.

  ‘We are here to provide information,’ said the other officer. ‘You are mistaken.’ But she saw his hand tighten on the grip of his pistol and she knew that she was not mistaken.

  Her eyes found Leela in the crowd, near the back, her black hair hanging sleekly by her right shoulder, half-frowning, half-smiling. A moment of stillness.

  ‘Leela,’ she mouthed. ‘Leela!’

  Leela’s half-smile froze. Her eyes began to dart.

  ‘You need to get out,’ she shouted, as clearly as her breathing would allow. Her voice sounded hoarse, unreal.

  ‘All of you,’ she shouted. ‘Now!’

  She turned. She was at the door. She heard the movement of bodies as behind her people pressed forward.

  She felt the force of the bullet as it tore through her right shoulder, heard the shouts behind her, then the screams. She brought her left arm up, folded it across her chest and on to her left shoulder, pushed through the door, ran limping along the path.

  A marshal tried to stop her. ‘Are you hurt? What happened?’

  ‘Run,’ she said. ‘Please, run.’

  She could hear gunshots now, in pairs, distant, unreal. But the shouts and the screams were very real indeed.

  She turned, saw people piling out through the front door, saw a window thrown wide, saw a distant flash, and another. People began to pour from the window. Beside her the marshal, a girl of her own age, eyes wide, frozen. Still the gunshots came, in pairs.

  ‘You need to run,’ she said.

  The other girl seemed to see her suddenly, to notice the wound in her shoulder.

  ‘You’re bleeding.’

  ‘I’m shot. You need to run.’

  ‘The police are here.’ The marshal put an arm around her shoulder, pointed towards the house.

  ‘Those are not the police.’

  ‘Look,’ said the marshal.

  The gunshots stopped. As she watched, the taller of the men appeared on the veranda, walked slowly down the steps. His pistol was holstered. He had a rifle slung across his back.

  ‘Don’t be alarmed!’ he shouted. ‘We are here to prevent further trouble.’

  ‘You see?’ said the marshal. She took her hand, tried to lead her towards the house.

  She slipped her hand from the other girl’s. ‘He is not a policeman.’

  ‘I’m going to get you some help,’ said the marshal. She began to walk towards the house.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Please.’ It hurt to talk; she wasn’t sure if the girl had heard her.

  ‘Everybody!’ yelled the false policeman. ‘Everybody, come! You’re safe! We have the situation under control.’

  She looked about her. People were arriving from all directions, converging on the house. People who did not know, though they must have heard the shots.

  The second man joined the first. They stood, arms folded, waiting.

  No, she wanted to scream. No.

  When the marshal girl was three metres from the men, they drew their pistols. The girl stopped. Around her the others stopped too. The shorter of the men raised his pistol and shot the marshal girl twice. She stayed upright for a moment, swayed, then collapsed to the grass. The second man aimed carefully. Two more shots. A tall boy fell forwards. His body struck the girl standing next to him. The girl stood frozen. She did not turn and run. The man shot her twice, and she too collapsed to the ground.

  Why aren’t they running? she wondered. There must have been two dozen people, standing fanned out around the men in their police uniforms. Not one of them moved. She made to turn, but found that she could not. Two more shots. Another body hit the ground.

  You cannot look. You must not look.

  The men, she knew, had seen her.

  Turn.

  They would come for her. She had to move.

  Run.

  She could not run. She could barely move, but she set off down the path towards the cabins. Still the shots came, always in pairs. At any moment, she thought, two more bullets will come for me.

  Think.

  The dormitory cabins. A single room, four bunks, a window at each end and door in the middle. There were sixty of them. Would they search every one? Something told her that they would. These men were methodical, efficient. They knew what they were doing.

  Once they were inside, you were dead.

  Think.

  Her backpack, ahead of her, to the side of the path. Her phone; the boat key.

  Sharp crack. A bullet tore into a tree to her left.

  Don’t turn.

  A stray.

  Don’t turn.

  She had to believe the bullet was a stray. She had to keep going, towards her backpack. She had to g
et to the water. Then she would figure out how to get to the boat.

  She knew she must not turn, but she turned.

  In front of the men were bodies, unmoving on the ground. Six figures stood, facing the men, rooted to the spot. As she watched, one seemed to come to life. A girl. She turned, began to sprint towards the nearby trees. The tall man raised his weapon, fired twice. The girl dropped to the ground.

  She forced herself to turn away. Five pairs of shots, five more bodies, and then they would come for her.

  Two paces and she was at her backpack. She hooked her left hand into the shoulder strap, winced in pain, carried on down the path.

  Another pair of shots; then another.

  It was obscene to be counting off the shots, counting off the lives of the girls, the boys, who stood, rooted by fear, in front of those men.

  Don’t look.

  Two more shots.

  She was at the trees now. From here the path snaked around the edge of the lake, then led down some steep steps cut into the rock to the sea. Off to the right were the dormitory cabins. She wondered if she might be safer there.

  She reached into her pack, slid out her telephone and the key to the boat. Then she thought again. She held the pack around the ammunition box, shook her possessions on to the side of the path.

  Pain rooted her to the spot. She forced herself to breathe through it. She found the ziplock bag with her toothbrush and soap in it, tipped them out of the bag. She dropped in her telephone and the boat key, sealed the bag, dropped it into her backpack.

  It bothered her that she couldn’t find a wound on her front. She knew – perhaps she had read – that it was best if the bullet passes right through you. When she reached her hand round to the entry wound it was small. The wound itself didn’t hurt a lot, but every time she moved her shoulder nerves shrieked and her jaw clenched shut; it was all that she could do not to sit rocking in pain. Still, not having an exit wound on her chest meant she could draw the straps of her backpack tight.

  This had to be survivable. There were two hundred young people on the island. Plus a few adults. Those men couldn’t kill every last one of them. If she could make it down to the water, perhaps she could swim along the shoreline to the dock.

  How many people would the boat carry? Eight, she guessed, easy. Maybe ten or twelve. Maybe more.

  ‘Do not be alarmed.’

  The voice was chillingly close. She pushed her clothes under a bush.

  ‘There has been an incident on the island.’

  She held her pack in her arms, threw herself into the trees, not thinking about her shoulder. The underbrush was dense here; she could not get more than a few metres in.

  ‘You may have heard shots. We have the situation under control. Be assured that you are safe. Please approach my colleague and me for assistance and further information.’

  She heard the approach of footsteps. She saw a shadow on the path in front of her, saw it turn this way, then the other. She crouched down, forced herself to slow her breathing.

  Hold out, she thought. You have to hold out.

  A second shadow followed the first. A single muttered word.

  The shadows moved off towards the cabins.

  A hand reached for hers in the gloom. It took all her strength to keep from crying out. A boy. A tiny little boy.

  In truth, she realized, he couldn’t be much younger than she was. Her sister’s age, maybe. Thirteen, but small. His skin glowed dully. His eyes were wet.

  ‘De er ikke politi,’ he said. Not the police.

  No, she said. Those men weren’t the police.

  Were they safe here?

  No, she said, she didn’t think they were. He should come with her to the boat. He could swim, couldn’t he?

  Yes, he said, he could swim.

  Well then, she said. But she could not persuade him to leave the cover of the woods, no matter what she said.

  A pair of shots. A pause. Another pair of shots.

  He was clinging to her very tightly. He was hurting her. She was injured, she explained. She couldn’t stay here. She needed him to loosen his grip.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said in English. So sorry. He hadn’t meant to hurt her.

  You didn’t, she told him, though the pain was more than she had ever known. She bit the inside of her cheek hard, clutched at her thighs with her nails. The boy was looking at her hands. She could hear his breathing, and her own, ragged and hoarse. She knew she was frightening him. But more than that she knew she must not cry out.

  When the pain subsided she asked him to take her pack, to unzip it and take out the metal box, and to place the box under a long piece of rotting pine bark on the forest floor. The boy did what she asked, wordlessly. His face was streaked with dirt and tears. In the forest gloom the blood from her wound was black on his white T-shirt.

  When she told him it was OK, that he would be OK, she saw how hard he tried to smile and it almost broke her. You’re being very brave, she told him.

  ‘I don’t want to die.’

  ‘What’s your name,’ she asked him.

  ‘Arno.’

  ‘Then we have to go, Arno,’ she said.

  He nodded. She promised him he would not die. But he would not leave, and she knew she could not stay.

  She kept to the trees on the left side of the path, by the lake. It was heavy going through the underbrush. She had imagined she would slip past the dormitory cabins in the cover of the trees, but as she drew near, panting – her body twisted in anticipation of the pain that increased with every step – she realized that it would not be simple. The cabins were arranged in four straight rows on the other side of the path. Anyone standing outside could see directly on to the path. Worse, the trees on the lake side had been cut away opposite the cabins to give a view directly on to the water.

  Why hadn’t she rung someone? Her father? The police? Too late for that now; she would give herself away.

  She came to the edge of the wood by the lake, turned to face the cabins. They were small, square, cheaply built, with miniature terraces and mean little windows.

  The pattern of the gunshots had changed. Short, jagged bursts. Had they run out of pistol ammunition? She heard another burst of gunfire, saw, she thought, a muzzle flash, heard the sound of a heavy object collapsing against wood, forced herself not to think of bodies. Though it could only be a body.

  In the second row, in the nearest cabin, a face appeared at a window. The window frame was pushed roughly out, breaking a hinge. A boy of her own age pulled his arms through, braced them against the outer wall of the cabin, pushed hard. He forced one shoulder out, then the other, snaked his body through. He hung, upside down, then landed, catlike on the faded grass. He paused, listened, then sprinted up the path towards the clearing. As she watched another face appeared at the window, a girl this time, looking out.

  The unmistakable sound of footsteps on the grass, heavy, relentless. The sound of a door swinging open. She saw – she felt – the panic in the girl’s face as she stared towards the door of the cabin. She heard a commanding male voice.

  ‘Please remain calm.’

  She saw – she felt – the girl’s confusion. The girl stood there, her face in profile, framed by the window. How close she was. Three metres, perhaps four.

  The girl made to say something.

  A sharp burst of gunfire. The girl stood there still, expression draining from her face. Then she fell out of sight. She heard the girl’s body as it collapsed on to the wooden floor.

  Christ.

  She pushed herself in among the trees, stared at the path. That girl – there and then not there.

  Please Lord Christ make this stop.

  The face of the taller man appeared in the window, looked out. As he did so, his companion rounded the corner, stood on the path between her and the cabin. She hunkered down, made herself small.

  Please Christ. Oh, please. Please Lord.

  She had to control her breathing. She knew th
at she was approaching panic, and that panic would kill her. Weird that she could remember the school drills so well. Macabre. She had to quiet her breathing, her raging pulse. She had to damp down the desire to stand up and scream. Because these men, she knew, would cut her down.

  It was dark here in the cover of the trees, and the men were standing in direct sunlight, and perhaps that simple fact would be enough to save her. She began counting as she breathed.

  In, two, three, four.

  Hold two three four.

  Out two three four.

  It hurt to breathe deeply, made her wonder where the bullet was lodged, made her hope her lung was OK.

  Both men were in front of her, though she had not seen the short man move.

  ‘Re-up?’

  She saw the smile they exchanged: confident, ready, friendly.

  ‘Yep!’

  There was nothing about them that betrayed the horror of what she had witnessed. Their eyes were bright, beady, like dogs on the chase. She could see no aggression in them, no malice. She saw the tall man take what looked like a pill, then wash it down with water from a small metal flask. The short man did the same. She heard the water in his throat as he swallowed, smelled on his breath the chewing tobacco, sickly and sweet.

  The taller man took something from a pocket. Three flat metal boxes, which the short man dropped into his own pocket. Pistol magazines, like the ones in the rusted case. Then he bent down, picked up his rifle. She saw him disengage something boxy, which he handed to the short man.

  ‘BRB, buddy.’ Both men laughed. Be right back.

  The tall man fitted a new magazine to his rifle, turned, walked towards the third row of cabins. She leaned forwards, watched the small man till he was out of sight, then crossed the path. She flattened herself against the first cabin in the third row. She heard his footsteps in the cabin, felt the slow, deliberate cruelty. But he did not fire his weapon. She heard and felt him move towards the door, forced herself forwards along the side of the cheap wooden building, made herself watch him leave this cabin and enter the next.

  She walked as briskly and as quietly as she could across the gap that divided the third row from the fourth. At any moment, she thought, another bullet will tear into me. A burst of bullets, and they will shatter my lungs and my heart and my liver and all that is me will end, and Christ, please Christ …