Strangeways

by Matthew Samm

  Dom never looked back. “He hates being called ‘Mad Jack’, and he doesn’t call them a gang. They are his people. There’s more than just low-life’s here, as you saw back in the village. Do you think Keira is a part of his gang?”

  “He calls them his people? Does he think he’s a king or something?” Alix mocked the idea, scoffing at someone like Mad Jack thinking himself as regal.

  “Call him what you want, but he rules this place and you know it. Why do you think he gets to see the new recruits first?”

  “What do you mean?” Alix thought about the words. Did Mad Jack get some sort of special privilege? How? Why?

  “It doesn’t matter,” Dom said. “Jack rules this place and for better or worse, this place works. It has a law. My dad’s the law.”

  “Sounds like a scum lord to me,” Alix scoffed again.

  Dom stopped and turned to face her. Alix didn’t stop until they were in each other’s comfort zone. She couldn’t be seen to back down. Their ‘team’ was still tremulous and the wrong phrase; the wrong words, could send the house of cards tumbling. Alix realized she may have allowed herself to get too comfortable and ruined things.

  Dom backed down first, stepping backwards slightly and growing smaller in conversation. “Look, my dad’s not perfect, but a lot of people owe their lives to him, others owe their deaths to him. It’s a harsh place this, but as you probably think, don’t we all deserve to die if we’re here anyway?”

  Alix felt sorry and her mind flashed to Keira, the little girl from the hut who’d shown Dom such affection and forgiveness, even after what he’d nearly done to her. She didn’t deserve death. Once more, Alix felt her outlook on the world challenged. “I’m sorry, Dom. I didn’t mean to offend you.” Her father’s disapproving eyes merged into the image of Keira in her mind’s eye. ‘Never apologize! People saw apologies as weakness. She had done just that, and to a criminal as well.

  She thought again about why Dom was here. His father being what he was, it made sense that Mad Jack’s kids joined the family business, but not someone like Dom, surely? Alix knew it was probably a bad time to ask him, but she couldn’t stop herself. She was curious. Why was Dom here, threatening to strap little girls, when he should be creating fine art or teaching kids like Keira in a city school? She knew he wouldn’t answer, so she smothered her question in courtesy. “Dom? Would you mind if I asked why you’re on Strangeways? You’re clearly a good person and it doesn’t make sense that you’re here.” Alix stepped back once she’d asked the question, a subtle invitation for him to come forward and speak.

  Dom looked her in the eye but didn’t speak for a long moment. Was he about to divulge the answer to her? It looked like he was going to, but then he stopped. He just couldn’t bring himself to open up, although Alix couldn’t tell whether this was because he’d be talking to her, or whether he didn’t like the story.

  “I can’t…I can’t tell you. Just…look, I deserve to be here. I know what I’ve done and it’s awful. You wouldn’t believe some of the things I’ve done. You think hitting a little girl is bad? I’ve done ten times worse than that. I am bad. On the inside, Alix…and you shouldn’t ask.” Another long pause, where he looked like he might begin to cry again. “I’ll help you find your brother, but you should forget I exist after that. Get off Strangeways with your brother and never look back.”

  Alix reached out a hand and placed it on his shoulder. “It can’t be that bad, Dom.” There was no movement in him. He’d turned to stone and she knew the answers would elude her for now. “OK, I get it, you don’t want to talk. If you feel you want to tell me in the future, you know you can.”

  Dom chuckled and shook his head forlornly. “You don’t know…”

  There came a snap from the trees off to their right and they both instinctively dropped to the ground, out of sight. They listened. Two different sound trails diverged meaning there were more than one of them. It couldn’t be an animal. A deer would have made noiseless steps through the green. It had to be people. At least two people.

  It sounded like they were fanning out, searching for something. It couldn’t be the two of them. No one knew Alix was on the island except the women in the hut, and they couldn’t have overtaken them to snitch. Alix knew they wouldn’t snitch anyway. She began to believe they were people, not just criminals; if they were criminals at all. These people were either patrolling, heading back to the village for some reason, or looking for something entirely unrelated to Alix’s presence.

  Suddenly, like a lightning rod to the brain, Alix realized a possible giveaway. She defeated Bannon and two others. Hellcat had killed Bannon, but the other two disappeared with Mad Jack and his entourage. They would have spilled about Alix as soon as they had the chance. These strangers in the forest might be looking for them.

  Alix and Dom lay still, not daring to breathe as the sound got closer. It wasn’t a tread through the forest. It was more like these people were dragging something. Had they been hunting and were dragging the corpse back to the village?

  Before it was too late, Alix motioned to Dom to conceal himself in the greenery. She mimicked to him silently; slide your legs underneath the low branches and cover yourself with the leaves. He did and Alix had a quick check. He looked covered. Unless one of them stood on him, they’d never know he was there. Alix did the same, silently scooting herself under the low-lying plants and detritus before laying her head flat to the soil and turning to look outwards, away from Dom.

  The sounds grew nearer. It would be close. ‘Don’t tread on us. Don’t tread on us. Don’t tread on us,’ Alix repeated in her head, willing it to be true. There would be inches in it, and soon it sounded like the movements through the trees were coming in stereo. Alix and Dom were in the middle of the stalkers’ paths.

  Willing her heart to stop, so the hammering wouldn’t give her away, Alix took as deep a breath as she dared. When the boot came down, she was calm enough not to react. It landed a foot’s width from her nose. She begged for them not to notice the two prone forms right next to their boots. And of course, it wasn’t just herself she had to worry about. She had trained in how to maintain mental calm and clarity through stressful events; her career was a series of stressful events, but this was different.

  As her father had said, there were no rules here. The first indication she’d been spotted could be a spear through the back, and it wasn’t just herself she needed to worry about. What about Dom? He’d had no such training. He might crack under any pressure from what she’d seen of him so far! It was out of her hands now. All she could do was hope.

  Finally, the boots moved past them and she imagined she could feel the presence of the men walking overhead, moving down her body. They’re at the belly. Now they’re down to the knees. Now they’re at my feet.

  As the men moved down her figure, she heard the slither of whatever they were dragging start its descent down her frame. Alix had closed her eyes, trying to enter the meditative state that allowed utter control, but as the men left and this new sound began, she opened her eyes.

  The eyes of a dead man stared back into hers.

  She recognized him immediately. He’d been with Bannon. It was the one she’d uppercut with the spear shaft, the unhealed welt visible on his lower jaw. Alix immediately closed her eyes again, trying to regain the calm she’d felt before. She didn’t come close, but she did manage to keep a lid on her screams until the body slithered past and she felt she could chance breathing again.

  The men moved off, deeper into the verdure. They were out of sight, but Alix could still hear their voices and the rustle they made in the unforgiving overgrowth.

  “Over there!” she heard one of the men yell and her heart stopped. They’d seen them and she sprang to her knees, her eyes open, assessing the danger. Dom lay still but turned his head as she moved. The difference between professional and amateur; prime and base. He climbed to his knees as well.

  No attack came. There was no eruption of gre
en as the men charged at them. Silence ruled around them. The man must have been talking to the others out there with him.

  Dom whispered first. “I know that voice, I think. It’s the boy from last night!”

  Alix’s head whipped around, and she grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking his body. He flinched away, a conditioned response. “How sure are you?” she asked as she ran the voice through her mind as well. Did she know it? Was the voice Isaac?

  Dom thought. “70%. It sounds like him, but I was tired. I wasn’t at my best. I don’t think anyone new would be hunting.”

  Alix knew then that he’d had his eyes closed the entire time. There was slithering on his side as well and Alix assumed it was the other guy she’d knocked out when she’d beaten Bannon. Dom had no idea he’d been inches away from a human corpse. Relief pressed in Alix’s chest. Thank God he kept his eyes closed.

  “I don’t think they were hunting,” she murmured.

  They both strained their ears to listen. The men, however many there were, struggled with the dead weight. Whatever they were doing, they were finding it challenging, but eventually, the grunting and cursing ceased, and the forest returned to nature.

  “That’ll do,” the other one said from off to their left. “Let’s go see if he’s done it.” They moved off in the direction of the village.

  Alix began to follow and Dom, pulling at her, tried to get her to stop. “We shouldn’t follow them,” he whispered. “They’re going to find me and see if I’ve done what Dad wanted. We need to move on. If it’s your brother, we’ll know for certain if we get to Hellcat’s place”.

  Alix remained unconvinced and continued to move back the way they came. She only managed about fifty feet when she saw the body.

  He hung from the trees, an unholy sacrifice to fear, designed to keep anyone entering Hellcat’s territory quaking and subdued. It was a warning. We are capable of the most depraved acts. You will find no mercy here. This is the price of failure. It was how Mad Jack kept order. The spectacle of fearsome acts.

  They stared into the faces of the first dead man. It had frozen in his last agony. Over to the left, another twenty to thirty feet, they saw the grim outline of the second man.

  Dom seemed surprisingly calm. “We can’t go back that way. We have to keep moving.”

  Alix realized she couldn’t hear the footsteps or their path through the trees anymore. She couldn’t safely follow them. They had to keep going. She turned to Dom and nodded. “You’re right. Let’s go.”

  As they went, they both took one final look at the warning hanging limply from the branches imagining their own faces gazing back, unseeing.

  11

  There was a space between the treeline and the fence. The space was a matter of feet, but they would be exposed as they moved out of cover; out of safety and up to the wall. Like almost everything on the island that didn’t grow naturally, the wall was hammered together as a Frankenstein’s monster of crate pieces and natural rubble.

  There were gaps, where glimpses of life inside the compound could be seen, but there were also death traps of jagged metal, some of it rusted, some of it fresh. Everything on the island was being reclaimed by nature in some form and whoever built this wall had covered up the loss of wall by patching the holes with new metal from the crates. It would be a significant challenge to climb.

  They would not be able to go over the wall. There were too many unknowns on the other side and on the structure itself. What if there was an unseen metal razor on top that sliced through their hands as they pushed their weight on top? How could Alix save her brother and fight Mad Jack if her hands were torn to shreds? They’d be in view as well, and a guard from inside the compound would certainly spot them.

  They had circled the camp already, and Alix remembered numerous times when she thought they’d been found. The most terrifying moment came when they crossed the clear trail in front of the main entrance to the compound. The trail was narrow, but it was often in use and there was a guard permanently stationed at the entrance.

  Thankfully, he wasn’t particularly attentive, and he kept heading back into the compound whenever one of his buddies passed by. On the third time, they’d managed to cross the trail, getting back into cover just as he returned, a smile on his face and a cigarette jutting from between his lips.

  They found where they were going to enter the compound. It was on the rear side, away from the front entrance. The whole place was poorly planned. It had to be. Alix couldn’t imagine they used architects to draw up plans and licensed construction workers to execute those plans.

  There was a wide tree stump, rooted there in ancient times until it grew thick and indomitable. There were hackings at the base. They’d tried to uproot it but had given up. In the end, someone had simply built the wall over the top, and there was a clear space where they could see into the compound. The metal surrounding the stump looked flimsy.

  Alix reckoned she could pull it free without too much trouble, leaving them enough space to squeeze through and being at the rear of the compound would give them the best possible chance of going unseen.

  Alix nodded, satisfied her plan would succeed. In moments, she could be in the compound and searching for her brother. He might be in any of the ramshackle huts, or he might have been one of the men who walked over them out in the forest when they were stapling their grotesque totems to the trees.

  She turned to Dom. “Are you ready?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “I’m not going with you.”

  A dumbfounded, defensive look of shock spread across her face. “What do you mean, you’re not coming with me? You have to. I don’t know where I’m going.”

  “It’s easy. We’re at the back. Not many come back there. It’s just the holding rooms and storage. I’m going to go through the front. They’ll see me and be distracted. You could get in, look around and then…I don’t know. Move on I guess.”

  Alix’s trained sixth sense flashed her a warning. Would he snitch on me? Alix thought for a moment but truly didn’t think he would. If Dom had wanted to scupper her plans, he’d have given her away back in the forest.

  She relented. “Be safe, Dom. He’s my brother, not yours and you’ve helped me. Thank you.”

  Dom smiled, feeling like a hero for once in his life. “Your brother shouldn’t be here.” There was a lingering look in his eyes as he said this. It wasn’t intentional, more a forlorn hope and longing rather than a suggestion of belief, but Alix recognized the look. Dom didn’t belong here either.

  “I’ll go to the gate now, Alix. Give me a few minutes. I’ll shout a ‘hello’ to them and that will be your cue to go. OK?”

  Alix nodded and felt an urge to give him a hug but stopped herself. She saw his forlorn look again. Maybe he’d felt the same urge but had slapped it down also.

  Then he was gone, slithering into the forest with experienced feet and Alix waited. Birds chirped and the sun flew through the sky, turning the island into a potential paradise if it weren’t for the human garbage infesting its shores. The birds seemed to chirrup unseen insults at their human gate crashers.

  Suddenly, she heard a friendly greeting faintly carrying across the still air. Dom had approached the gate and, if all had gone to plan would be bringing the inhabitants of the compound to him, leaving her free to progress.

  She darted out of the tree shadows and towards the tree stump, sliding through the mud and feeling her back contact the corrugated section of fence. It gave under her weight and she had the sensation of falling backwards, terrified the fence would give entirely, leaving her prone in the mud while guards surrounded her.

  Luckily, the fence section swayed but didn’t buckle. Alix was certain her plan would work; the fence was flimsier than she’d expected. As such, she carefully edged towards the tree stump and the gap of light from inside the compound.

  She curled her head under and sneaked a peek behind the fence. Dom had been on the money. There were several huts, each
of them rundown, but made of sturdier stuff than the last village and the fence. The material was of a higher quality, barely rusted and taken from the reinforced edges of the crates. Island material covered the crate skeleton to create a structure as rundown as the others, but twice as durable.

  The nearest hut looked more like a log cabin, the framework contained bits of a crate, but the walls were made from oak wood, slotted together with care and diligence. There was even a chimney where a thin wisp of smoke curled into the air. Had this cabin been set away from the fencing and placed on top of a mountain somewhere, bathed in serenity, Alix thought she’d be happy living there.

  Noting there were no guards, Alix pulled her head back through the gap and placed her palms on the underside of the fence panel. It gave with little effort but wouldn’t come free enough for her to squeeze through.

  She pulled harder and the panel eased a little, scraping on the overlapping section, the sound seeming to echo through the compound. Alix held still, not daring to breathe again, but there were no suspicious movements and Alix renewed her tugging quickly.

  It didn’t take much longer for her to widen a gap big enough through which to ease her shoulders and head. With some effort, she managed to wriggle through, feeling a sharp scratch in her shoulder as she did.

  A flash of red on her wrist readout told her the suit had been breached. The image on the screen matched exactly the pain she felt on her flesh. She knew the same warning would be flashing inside her helmet, safely secured on her back.