X-Isle

by Steve Augarde

  Baz stood completely still, too shocked to move.

  The huge bulk loomed before him, awful in its silence. Then it began to alter shape, shifting, diminishing, as it moved back through the door frame. Preacher John’s face became visible, cracked and weather-worn, the orange hairs of his beard glowing like electric filaments in the flickering light. He motioned Baz into the room with a wave of his hand, and pointed to a far corner. Here stood a small table and a single wooden chair. The table was covered with a white cloth, laid diagonally, and at the center of the tablecloth a candle burned in a glass jar. Baz hesitated for a moment, then stepped across the threshold.

  A dark wooden bed with a white coverlet. A wooden cabinet next to the bed. A Bible – the same black leather Bible that was used on Sundays; a crucifix hanging on the wall above the bedstead. Baz took in the sparse features as he crossed the room. The candle flame danced away from him at his approach, sending forth a twisted plume of black smoke. Baz rested the tray on the tablecloth. He noticed that there was a kind of cushion-thing lying on the floor, just beneath the table. It was covered in thick carpet material, heavily em broidered. Baz recognized it as being a kneeler, or a hassock. Like you’d see in church pews... or before an altar—

  “And before the altars of God, the righteous lay their offerings.”

  Baz jumped at the deep sound of Preacher John’s voice – and at how his own thoughts had been snatched from him. It was as though his head were transparent, everything in it visible. He was aware of Preacher John’s towering presence behind him, black and threatening as a tidal wave. A creeping coldness flooded his insides, ran like icy needles through his veins, pricked at the very roots of his hair.

  “So the other one has gone.” The room seemed to vibrate as Preacher John spoke again. His words made no sense, and yet an answer was demanded.

  Baz turned his head, instinctively cowering, still unable to properly face the monstrous figure behind him.

  “Other one?” He just about managed to get the sounds out.

  “The other boy.” Preacher John pointed to the tray. “The other purveyor of these... offerings.”

  “Oh.” Baz risked a quick glance up at the great battered face above him. “You mean Cookie? Yes. He’s gone home.”

  “Ah. He has gone home – as all must, in the end.”

  Baz found himself looking directly into Preacher John’s fearsome eyes, drawn beyond the bloodshot rims and pale grey irises to deeper and darker places within. And then it was as though he was being sucked forward into that darkness, pulled into the night, unable to resist. Like a moth he fluttered, directionless, beating his way through the ruined cities, shattered belfries, slimy streets. Ugly things were hidden here... amidst smoke and fire... wild dancing creatures—

  “Take the tray.”

  “Ah...” Baz blinked, and the terrifying visions whirled away into nothingness. “What? Oh... yes.” In a daze he turned once more, and lifted the shimmering plates of food from their tray, slid them across to the table. Oh God. His hands quaked, beyond his control, so that the knife, fork and spoon that he’d brought clattered onto the white cloth in a heap.

  “Leave them be!” Preacher John’s voice pulsed at the very walls, too big for such a confined space. “Go.”

  “Yes. Thank you. I’ll pick... later – I’ll...” Baz was gibbering, stumbling, backing away across the room, desperate just to get out. As he groped behind him for the door handle, he saw Preacher John stoop to retrieve the hassock from beneath the table. Baz wriggled round the door and pulled it shut. His last glimpse was of the dark-suited figure going down onto one knee, a heavy palm already covering his brow.

  “O Lord, look down upon your servant...” The muffled sounds drifted away as Baz fled down the empty corridors, the scent of candle smoke lingering deep in his nostrils, the taste of it upon his panting breath. It was still with him as he burst into the kitchen.

  For a while Baz leaned against the stainless steel cooker, head down, gripping the cool metal with both hands. Now he understood. Now he saw why Isaac and his brothers were so in awe of their father, so completely at his command. Only when he looked at you, deep into your eyes, could you experience the full weight of his power. The terrifying hypnotic power of Preacher John.

  It was late by the time Baz had finished his duties, and he felt completely shattered. The atmosphere in the slob room seemed unusually gloomy. Nobody was saying much. Baz lay on his bed and waited for Ray to come back from the washroom.

  “Everything OK?” he said. “What’ve you been doing?”

  Ray fell onto his mattress, rolled over and looked up at the ceiling. “Collecting wood,” he said, “is what we’ve been doing. We had to go up to the copse and find dead wood – branches, whatever. Drag it all down to the jetty. Then we’ve been sawing it up.”

  “Yeah? What’s it for?”

  Ray turned his head to look at him. He had a smudge of green across his brow, and scratches on his forearms – evidence of his day working in the copse.

  “The altar. That’s what we reckon, anyhow. To burn on the altar. What the hell’s Preacher John gonna be burning on there? That’s what we want to know. There’s that blinkin’ great cross sticking up – it’s scary. Yeah. So that got us all worried. And... I dunno. We’ve all been feeling bad about Cookie as well, I s’pose. Really bad about that. He didn’t deserve what happened to him. And maybe if we’d kind of stuck by him a bit... you know... he might still be here. Poor guy.”

  “Yeah. Poor old Cookie. I sort of liked him. Still’ – Baz tried to be positive – ‘maybe he’s got family – friends – whatever, back on the mainland. A home. He might be better off there than here, for all we know.”

  “What?” Ray looked at him as though he’d said something particularly stupid.

  “Well, you know...” said Baz. “I mean, it might not be as bad for him over there as—”

  “Baz, it’s Friday. Don’t you get it?” Ray lay back on his mattress and stared at the ceiling again. “Friday’s a diving day.”

  Baz had a brief memory of Moko, then, coming along the corridor, carrying wetsuits over his arm...

  “Ohhh... God,” he groaned.

  “Yeah, that’s right,” said Ray. “They took Cookie out on the boat this morning, but it came back this afternoon loaded with salvage. The boat never went over to the mainland, and neither did Cookie. He never got there.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Sunday. Baz had been dreading it. He’d sorted through his recipe books and found a number of interesting ways of preparing rabbits – rabbit stew, rabbit pot-roast, rabbit jointed and deep-fried – but the books didn’t say anything about slaughtering the beasts to begin with. Nobody around him had much in the way of advice or sympathy to offer. What he served up to the divers, or how he did it, was none of their concern.

  And that was another thing. He was beginning to feel separated, estranged from the other boys. His role and his position had changed. He worked alone now, and ate alone, and was no longer part of the general crew.

  “Yeah, but it’s not your fault.” Ray at least was understanding. “You got no choice but to do as you’re told. None of us have.”

  Ray was up and dressed early as usual. Baz was still pulling on his trainers. One of the soles had come away from its upper – the things were completely rotten – and this didn’t help improve his mood.

  “It’s like I’m... like I’ve changed sides or something. It’s horrible. I’ve got to wear this stupid white jacket – look like a prat – and you know what’s worse? I don’t even get Sundays off. The divers need feeding whatever day it is. While you’re all up at the sports center this afternoon, I’m gonna be strangling rabbits.”

  Ray laughed at that, and it made Baz madder than ever.

  “Listen, it’s not funny, OK? It’s all right for you – tucked away for the afternoon. I’m still gonna be hard at it, and doing some pretty nasty work, and getting treated by everyone like I’m a trai
tor or something.” Baz looked around the room as he said this, making sure that those nearby were fully aware of his grievances.

  “Nobody thinks you’re a traitor.” Ray got serious. “And don’t forget the rest of us are having a pretty hard time too. I am, anyhow. That Hutchinson, he keeps needling me. And once Steiner gets per mission to smash that drain cover – which could easily be today...”

  “Yeah. Yeah, sorry.” Baz immediately backed down. Ray had more problems than he did, that was for sure. A lot more. “I just... oh, I just wish I didn’t have to do this. And I don’t want you – anyone – I don’t want to be treated like Cookie was, that’s all.”

  “Hey, don’t worry.” Ray stood up and pulled at the waistband of his shorts. “I still love you.” He smiled, dark eyes looking down at Baz for a moment. “Come on. We’d better get lined up for chapel.”

  He wandered off down the room, hands in his pockets. Baz stared after him. Then he realized that Dyson was looking his way, and he quickly returned his attention to the split in his shoe.

  The boys were all standing outside the slob room, lined up and ready for chapel, but for some reason they were being made to wait.

  “Just shut up and keep still,” was Steiner’s only comment. The two capos moved further away, standing by the main entrance and looking out through the glass doors. They muttered to each other in low voices.

  Eventually there was some activity down at the dark end of the corridor, and Preacher John appeared, striding towards them, followed by the diving crew. They were all dressed in their Sunday suits – suits that Baz had watched Cookie pressing only a few days ago. That job would be his now, he supposed.

  The capos quickly returned to take up positions at the head of the line of boys.

  “Send somebody for the hymn books.” Preacher John spoke to Steiner as he marched by.

  “You’ – Steiner nodded at Ray – ‘run down to the assembly hall and get the hymn books.” After a blink of hesitation Ray was off.

  Isaac stopped outside the storeroom door. He undid the padlocks, drew back the bolts and pushed the door open. Then he reached round it, picked up some object and stepped back into the corridor. Fuel can? Yes, it looked like a plastic fuel can – black, with a red screw-on spout. Isaac snapped the padlocks back into place and then turned to face the line of boys.

  “Get down to the jetty,” he said.

  As the bewildered boys began to shuffle off, following the capos’ lead, Isaac spoke again.

  “Oi, you – Cookie.”

  It took Baz a moment to realize that Isaac was addressing him. He came to a halt, stumbling slightly as Dyson bumped into him.

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you. Where are those rabbits? I told you to look after them.”

  “Rabbits? Uh... they’re in the kitchen.”

  “Well, go and get them, then. No use to us there, are they?”

  Baz stared up at Isaac’s black-bearded face, trying to find some connection, some meaning to what was being said. “You want me to bring them down to...?”

  Isaac wasn’t going to ask him again, that much was plain. Baz hurried away.

  There was a definite atmosphere to the kitchen now, the smell of living creatures overlaying the everyday staleness of food scraps and cooking oil. It reminded Baz of Saturday morning trips to the petshop when he was little – buying food for his guinea pigs, or a new water bottle to strap to the side of their cage...

  Baz peered into the cat box and watched the rabbits for a few moments, their pink noses snuffling around the few limp scraps of greenstuff he’d provided. Then he grabbed the carrying handle. Better go.

  The school building was eerily quiet as Baz hurried along the corridors. He had to hold his arm out at an angle in order to keep the cat box from banging against his legs. This took effort and concentration, and so the sudden sound of a voice made him jump.

  “Baz!”

  It was Ray, entering the main corridor from another direction, and struggling to stay in control of the hymn books that he carried, his chin resting on top of the tall pile. “Where is everybody?”

  “Down at the jetty,” said Baz.

  “Well, I wish someone’d told me. I’ve been wandering about like an idiot. What’ve you got there?”

  “Rabbits,” said Baz.

  “Rabbits?”

  “Yeah.”

  It was a strange cargo they carried between them, hymn books and rabbits. But it was also a rare moment of peace, to be the only ones in the building. They walked side by side along the empty corridor towards the light of the main entrance.

  “Hang on,” said Baz. “I’ll get the door.”

  As Baz and Ray rounded the bend in the steep pathway, the jetty below came into view. Gene’s wooden cross stood tall and imposing behind the stone construction of the altar, making the jetty itself look vaguely like a boat being launched into the waves. The boys were throwing wood onto the altar, piling up logs and twigs and branches under Preacher John’s direction.

  Baz and Ray reached the jetty and hurried along it as quickly as they could. Preacher John stood on the concrete platform before the altar. His congregation were now arranging themselves into their usual rows, boys at the front, then the two capos, then the divers. There were no chairs.

  Baz and Ray hovered to one side of the gathering, uncertain as to what they should do next. Preacher John looked at Ray and said, “Hand out the hymn books.” Then he pointed to the concrete platform, indicating to Baz that he should lay down the cat box beside him. “Take your places.”

  Baz added himself to the end of the second row, and Ray stood directly in front of him.

  “Hymn number three-three-three. ‘Lord Behold Us with Thy Blessing’.”

  Preacher John waited for the hurried flipping through of pages to die down, and then he began to sing, his voice deep and powerful on the muggy air.

  “Lord behold us with thy blessing,

  Once again assembled here...”

  The ragged crew joined in, uncertain of the tune. Baz was glad to be hidden away in the second row, where he hoped that his feeble mouthing of the words would go unnoticed.

  The last line of the hymn was ‘With thy choicest gifts array’, and Preacher John took this as the first line of his text.

  “With thy choicest gifts array,” he said. “Aye. To us the choicest gifts are given. But God expects gifts in return...”

  Baz avoided looking directly at Preacher John. He was wary now of that all-seeing gaze, but also horrified by the thought that whatever had happened to Cookie would have been on Preacher John’s orders. The man was a monster.

  Instead Baz stared up at the cross that Gene had made, and studied its construction. The cross-piece itself had been fashioned from one of the round fencing posts they’d used as rollers, split in half and then let into the upright. His eyes dropped to the pile of brushwood that festooned the top of the altar. There was something vaguely Christmassy about this – bits of holly and ivy poking out here and there, as though someone in the local church had gone a bit overboard with the festive decorations.

  Finally he looked down at the cat box, standing at an angle on the concrete platform, a meter or so away from Preacher John...

  “... the Promised Land!” Preacher John swung his arm out in a broad and dramatic gesture towards the seascape behind him. Baz was dragged from his thoughts as all turned their heads to where the preacher was pointing.

  “There it lies, within our grasp, a clear and visible sign from God. What must we do to bring it closer?”

  Was he talking about the line of blue water? It seemed further away than ever now, a glimpse of brightness on the horizon, fading before the overwhelming force of a murkier tide.

  “God has given us a sign that we are doing right in His sight, and shown us what our reward might be. Clear blue water. Aye. In clear blue water are God’s choicest gifts arrayed. No more shall we be left to grope in the darkness, but shall see our way to all that God has
in store for us, his chosen people.”

  He was talking about diving, Baz realized. Preacher John wanted the waters above the cities to clear so that he could find more supermarkets! He was bargaining with God for the chance of another warehouse or two.

  “And on this spot we shall light our beacon. Here we shall guard our altar’ – Preacher John raised his arms as he spoke – ‘and thus we shall make our sacrifice – whatever God shall ask of us – until the waters become clear or draw back altogether.”

  Before the silently watching congregation the preacher stepped to the side of the altar and picked up the black plastic fuel can. He unscrewed the lid and began to pour the contents over the piled-up brushwood that festooned the giant slab. Up and down he walked, and when the last few drops were shaken from the can, he took a cigarette lighter from the pocket of his long black coat.

  Baz instinctively braced himself for an explosion of fire, narrowing his eyes, head turned to one side. If it was petrol that had been poured onto the brushwood, then those nearest might do well to shield themselves.

  Preacher John flicked the lighter and held it to the pile of wood. Was he crazy?

  But nothing seemed to be happening. Again and again the lighter clicked, and still there was no sign of fire.

  Eventually there came a wisp of smoke – a crackling of twigs – and the brushwood began to catch. There was more smoke than flame at first, thick white plumes that swirled up towards the cross. Perhaps the wood was too damp, or too green, or perhaps it was diesel rather than petrol that Preacher John had doused the altar with. Either way, it took a while for the fire to get going properly.

  Baz was caught up in the hypnotic effect of the rising smoke, the sinuous forms that grew and intertwined. With no breath of air to break it down, the smoke wreathed itself into a single corded column, a gently twisting tornado, rising from the altar to reach for the heavens.

  When Baz lowered his gaze again, still in a half-trance, he saw that Preacher John had hold of one of the rabbits. There was barely time for this to register, or to question why this should be. The preacher’s stooping bulk was turned away from the congregation, so it was difficult to see exactly what was happening. He appeared to be holding the rabbit across his knee. His elbow gave a sudden jerk, a sharp backward movement, and he straightened up. The rabbit dangled lifelessly in his grasp. Preacher John dumped it on top of the cat box as casually as if it had been a scarf or a tea-towel, then he leaned forward again and reached inside the open flap...