Sister Pact

by Ali Ahearn

They watched as he had a chat with a platter-toting Darryl and a still-fuming Sally. He indicated with hand directions where he wanted Darryl to stand. Sally seemed to interject and Lex sliced his hand through the air, cutting her off.

  Unfortunately, he also upended the platter, and time slowed as it flipped in the air and its cargo became airborne, twisting and fluttering like falling autumn leaves in the firelight before landing on the sandy ground.

  It seemed every person watching let out a uniform gasp.

  Lex slapped himself in the forehead. ‘Good Lord,’ he bellowed. ‘I’m terribly sorry.’ He threw himself on the ground, groping through the sand and leaf matter.

  ‘Fooking hell. Find them!’ Sally screeched at the nearest crew member as she, too, hit the dirt.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Lex announced, springing to his feet. ‘I’ve found them.’ He held up the credit card and the locket, and placed them back on the tray. Then he offered Sally a hand up, which she ignored.

  ‘Let’s just get on with it,’ she hissed, dusting herself off.

  ‘Absolutely, my dear.’ Lex smiled amicably, then proceeded to order the crews into position.

  In two minutes, they were ready to film. Frances and Joni stood beside Darryl at the fire pit. Lex called ‘Action’ and Darryl smiled into the camera. ‘Frankie and Joni failed to convince us about the locket.’

  He lifted it from the silver platter he was holding, and Frances watched as the locket twisted and swung in the warm breeze coming off the Pacific. She felt Joni’s hand squeeze hers and she squeezed back.

  ‘Now both their treasures must be cast into the flames.’ Darryl swept a mournful look their way as he plucked the credit card from the tray as well. The moment dragged as several cameras zoomed in on Frances and Joni’s faces.

  Then, in one swift movement, Darryl tossed them into the air above the hungry flames. They arced perfectly into the night sky. Frances could picture the slow-motion shot that would grace millions of television screens. Then they fell into the greedy flames, a slight sizzle indicating their fiery consummation.

  Frances could just make out her gold MasterCard, melting and curling in on itself, but the locket was instantly lost to the inferno.

  Joni sucked in a breath. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever forgive Lex for insisting on being part of this. He may as well have tossed it into the fire himself.’

  Frances nodded. But if she’d learned one thing today, apart from deep-frying a scorpion and covering it in wasabi didn’t make it any easier to eat, it was that forgiveness could come upon you when you least expected it.

  Day 24

  Standing on the trapdoors and waiting for the moment Darryl stopped his theatrics and read the results never got any easier. In fact, tonight it was harder than ever because their inheritance depended on it. The sea breeze blew a green curl across Frances’s cheek and she shook her head to dislodge it. She became aware of the sweat building on her and Joni’s linked palms and tightened her grip on her sister’s fingers.

  ‘Who shall it be?’ Darryl intoned. ‘Having already lost a treasure to the fire pit yesterday, tonight the stakes are even higher for the Feuding Heiresses. Should they survive tonight, they will go on to be one of two sets of finalists and will inherit from their grandmother’s estate.’

  Frances flicked a gaze at Takahiro and Kazuki, smugly comfortable on their safe seats around the fire pit. Takahiro had tied a bandana around his head, warrior style, and narrowed his eyes even further. She supposed the aim was to make him look frightening but somehow he just looked like the middle management drone he was with one too many sakes under his belt.

  ‘The Sorority Sisters, on the other hand,’ Darryl continued, ‘are one step closer to the hundred thou. One step closer to their perfect bodies. Is it the trapdoor for them or will they get to realise their full womanhood under the surgeon’s knife?’

  ‘Wish I had a bloody knife,’ Joni muttered.

  Darryl’s booming voice drowned out Frances’s strangled laugh. ‘So, who did the viewers decide to vote off?’

  Frances and Joni tensed, waiting, even though they knew Darryl would drag it out for another good minute or so while they got their close-ups for the night’s show. Just as they could bear it no longer, Kandy’s voice rang out from the other side of the fireplace. ‘Joni! Frankie! We’ve learned so much from you both. I hope you guys work it out.’

  Frances felt goosebumps gather on her arms, and guilt wash through her at all the uncharitable thoughts she’d had about Kandy and Misty.

  ‘Likewise,’ she said, surprising herself. ‘If you’re ever in London, look us up.’

  A moment later, a thunk rang out and Frances blinked at the spot where Kandy and Misty had been. She sagged against Joni.

  They’d done it. They’d made the final.

  ‘Well, fook me! Looks like you’re right, old man,’ Sally said briskly as she ran her eye over the latest numbers from London that Miranda had handed her. ‘Blood trumps tits any day.’

  The editing tent was strangely quiet, bar the low buzz of cicadas.

  ‘But of course,’ Lex agreed.

  ‘I think the more concerning thing is this,’ Miranda said, distributing the top stories from yesterday’s UK dailies, ‘burning the locket caused a storm of protest. Twitter went crazy.’

  Sally rolled her eyes, and opened and closed her thumb and forefinger, imitating a cheeping beak. ‘Tweet, tweet, who cares. Bunch of tweenies with no money and no say. Great publicity, though.’

  ‘There’s even a Switch Off Endurance Island Facebook page.’

  Sally gave a loud hoot. ‘Oooh, got us running fooking scared now, haven’t they?’

  ‘It should,’ Lex butted in. ‘Don’t forget it was a Facebook campaign that stopped Simon Cowell getting his Christmas number one.’

  Sally paused for a moment at this sobering fact and Lex pressed on. ‘Too much bad publicity will not do a show that’s been going for ten years any favours. In this industry, we’re well past our sell-by date, Sal.’

  The Stapler rolled her eyes. ‘No compromises. This is Endurance Island. It makes Biggest Loser Boot Camp look like a vacation at Alton Towers. Go hard or go home.’

  Lex ignored her. ‘Still. The family show is coming up at the end of next week. All the contestants will be back for the final vote. And it’s Christmas. We should work on that. Make it poignant and heart-wrenching. Viewers like heart as well as guts, Sal. We’ve seen that now. And you know the number-one rule of showbiz – keep them guessing.’

  Sally narrowed her eyes at Lex as an idea entered her head.

  Family. Something that would really stir the pot. Her eyes narrowed further and flicked to her open laptop, on which the jungle kiss between Nick and Frankie took pride of place as her screensaver. Oh yeah, baby.

  ‘You’re right, Lex, old man. A bit of heart. You’re absolutely right.’

  Lex looked at Sally and didn’t feel reassured. He glanced at Miranda, who had known Sally for longer than he had and who was looking completely horrified.

  Her look confirmed his worst fears. He’d created a monster.

  Chapter 16

  Joni, Day 27

  The scream ripped through the jungle and the terror in it touched Joni inside. That sad, liquid part recognised the stiff mew of fear she’d heard in the cries of a thousand wounded animals.

  She petted Des. His tiny warm body was like a string of rosary beads in her fingers as she stroked and worried at it. A tiny, hairy piece of safety. Of home.

  Another scream, this one less surprised, but more afraid.

  Why, why, why? Why the hell was she still in this jungle?

  They had reached the semifinals. They could finally, legitimately, go home.

  And yet, they were still here.

  Joni wasn’t exactly sure how that had happened. There had been no celebration – at most, a barely audible sigh of relief – in the aftermath of the last Banishment.

  And a thousand tonnes more baggage in t
heir screwy family portmanteau.

  Joni smelled jungle and her own salty fear. She reached out a hand to the nearest tree and leaned momentarily against its reassuring bulk. As her ears strained in the silence, she squinted at the tree.

  Nauclea orientalis. The Leichhardt tree.

  Named after some hapless German explorer, Lex had said. Some botanist who’d come to Australia with a dream, but turned out to be a very poor bushman. He’d died a mysterious death, his body having never been found.

  Strangely appropriate, Joni thought, recalling the non-conversation she’d had with her sister after Banishment.

  Frankie had smiled at her grimly.

  ‘So, we’re off the hook. We made the finals. We got G’s money.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Joni wasn’t sure what her expression had been.

  But it was hard to believe it was all over.

  She’d read once that prisoners released from long captivity sometimes preferred to stay in the area where they were held captive; could only feel comfortable in the state of deprivation they had come to know. Stockholm Syndrome?

  Joni wondered why she didn’t have a greater feeling of victory, or even of relief. She summoned up mental images of all the things she hated about Endurance Island.

  The heat. The food. The Stapler’s beautiful, vicious face.

  Then she tried to run them, split-screen style, through her mind, alongside all the things she missed about home.

  Her flat in Hackney. The off-licence down the street. Seven Sisters Road at peak hour: the smell of smog and jerk chicken.

  She’d tried to think of something fitting to say.

  Thanks? We did it? It’s been real?

  But Frankie spoke first. Her beautiful grey eyes had been steely. Joni was reminded of Frankie as a little girl, always so resolute and confident, hands at her hips.

  ‘I’m staying.’

  Joni should have been shocked, but nodded. She found herself wanting her sister to say she was staying so that they could work it out. ‘The money?’

  Frankie returned her nod. ‘I keep thinking what I could do with even more money.’

  ‘The foundation?’

  A third nod. ‘The inheritance will cover Edward’s embezzlement but with more … imagine who we could reach. The programs we could run. Prevention, even.’

  And then, an unspoken question in her sister’s eyes.

  And along with it, the merest trace of uncertainty.

  It had been the uncertainty that had been Joni’s undoing.

  And so here they were, at the bitter end. Together.

  Joni owed Frankie. For the locket. And maybe for everything.

  But she’d be damned if she were going to suffer the same fate as that hapless bastard Leichhardt in the process.

  Joni holstered her weapon, and tried to peer through the thick trees ahead of her. Frankie had gone south, according to the little compass Joni had actually learned to use over the last two weeks. But the scream had definitely not been hers. It had been a man’s and its shrill edge had become all too familiar.

  Joni would bet a thousand pink iced doughnuts it was Kazuki.

  And, wherever he was, he was vulnerable.

  Good. She was going to find the little fucker. And kill him.

  Hey, it was all part of the game. And better that little snit get paintballed for the sake of the final challenge than it happen to her or Frankie. The scream was probably a ploy to draw them out. And there was no way Joni was going to hand either Kazuki or Takahiro the pleasure of killing her, or her sister. Even metaphorically.

  Or of pocketing the double or nothing offer that, in a sick new twist, had emerged.

  Two hundred thousand pounds!

  More money for the foundation. And Frankie wanted it.

  Joni pushed herself off the Leichhardt tree, and held one grubby hand to her lips. She used the hand and her pursed lips to emit a single loud, bright note. The distinctive call of the chaffinch had echoed around the garden in several of the homes she and Frankie had shared as children. Their father had taught them to mimic it, and they had agreed it would be their signal out here.

  Inspired, Joni had thought, especially as the chaffinch’s nest was highly camouflaged and so difficult to locate. She and Frankie would need the stealth of birds to outwit the two seasoned game show veterans stalking them.

  The answering call was a perfect chirrup that transported Joni home.

  Then the scream sounded again; now, more of a moan. And Joni’s determination to find and exterminate the man who had been taunting them for weeks weakened.

  He sounded as if he were in genuine pain.

  The jungle was dark and solid: a wall of green-black through which every step was hard won. Joni and Frankie had split up about an hour before, agreeing on coordinates for meeting up, and a plan for searching the area that would lie between them. They had two hours left. Two hours to ‘kill’ the two men who stood between them and victory, and to retrieve the silver crucifixes hidden at strategic points along the way.

  The Stapler really was one sick witch.

  But all that remained was to eliminate their competitors and find the final cross.

  The borders of this brutal jungle game had been demarcated with yellow tape that looked to Joni suspiciously like that used at homicide scenes. The square inside which the game would be played had been strewn with cameras of all kinds. She could almost feel the all-seeing eyes peering down at her from trees and rocks. She wriggled uncomfortably as she thought they might be looking up at her from the hiding places within the ground itself. Each team was also required to call in on their satellite phone on the half-hour, to register positions and ensure they were safe.

  Lex had insisted upon this precaution, to Sally’s disgust.

  But, apart from the cameras and phones, they were truly alone. Just four contestants. Four paintball guns. And two men who felt their honour had been slighted.

  We’re so shagged.

  Every twenty metres or so, Joni uttered a single warble, trying to vary the pitch and length in the manner of a real chaffinch looking for a mate. And Frankie would answer. They were moving, slowly, relentlessly, closer to each other.

  And to the source of the moaning.

  Joni saw the darkness begin to thin a little way ahead. She could see small pricks of light dancing through the trees. A clearing of some kind? As she came closer, moving carefully, so carefully, she could hear her sister’s calls getting closer. Frankie could only be a few hundred yards behind. She would be there in a few moments.

  Ten, at the most.

  Discretion demanded that Joni wait until her sister caught up to her, so they could investigate the source of the cries together. But as she waited, the moaning seemed to take on a new level of anguish, and Joni’s heart leaped with empathy. She was sure now it was Kazuki moaning and that he was wounded – or, at least, faking it really well.

  Had Takahiro heard Kazuki too? And would he do anything about his team mate’s cries if he had, or would he not dare risk exposing himself?

  That was one way humans were different from animals. Animals would never leave a mate or friend injured and alone. They stayed around, licking and petting each other, while they waited for the inevitable.

  In that moment, Joni knew she was more animal than human. She couldn’t wait for Frankie. Ten minutes would feel like ten hours out here; alone, afraid and in pain.

  Their father had always said, If you’re afraid, you count it out.

  You just commit, then you start to count.

  And on zero, you go.

  Ten. Joni pushed through the sticky, prickling things towards pinpricks of light.

  Nine. She brought her hands to her mouth, and gave a quick series of warbling wails that she hoped indicated she was about to do something different.

  Eight. She stopped and listened. There was a fainter sound in reply that suggested Joni must now be moving faster than Frankie, now that she was closer to th
e light coming from the gap in the trees.

  Seven. The moaning began again but now Joni could make out words. Japanese. It sounded like an appeal to a mother, or to God.

  Six. She stepped faster, desperate now to get to him. There was no way he was faking that squeaky growl of fear and desperation.

  Five. She slashed wildly at the branches, her heartbeat stepping out a tango.

  Go, go, go.

  Four. Joni felt herself tumble over something as the light caught her eyes. A fallen branch – a large one – caught the edge of her ankle and upended her swiftly.

  Three. Get up and keep counting; just keep counting. Not much further.

  Two. Pause to collect herself. One more step and it will be over.

  One. Joni stepped out into a lighter area, and realised, quickly correcting her sway, that she had emerged onto the edge of some kind of ravine, leading into a creek bed and a swamp below. She could hear the trickling of running water, and see mossy rocks dipping precariously at her feet.

  It was hard to tell the depth of the creek bed, but if Kazuki had fallen – perhaps over the same log as she had – he must have had a serious fall.

  Like the ghost of Christmas past, the memory of the briefing Lex had given them prior to the final challenge reared its head. One word burned hotly in Joni’s mind. Crocodiles. And more. Stay away from the creek beds further inland.

  She pursed her lips in concentration, recalling the layers of jungle she had marched through over the last few hours.

  Yep, they were definitely inland.

  And this was definitely a creek bed.

  Joni loved animals, but reptiles were a whole other ball game. Especially big, prehistoric-looking reptiles whose sole purpose seemed to be to terrify, kill and eat.

  Joni’s resolve wavered. She peered down into the muddy water, which seemed filled with things that threatened ferocity and death. Her stomach churned and sweat beaded on her top lip. A chill assailed her.

  Then the moaning sounded again.

  As Joni looked down, she decided the ravine was not as deep as she had first imagined. The perilous descent was deceptive, with its slippery, jagged rocks and tangled roots. Groups of rock made shallow pools at regular intervals down the slope. On closer inspection, the creek at the bottom was perhaps only ten feet down.