The Memory Thieves

by Darren Simpson

  Footsteps. In the corridor.

  Instinctively, Cyan shot to his feet and slammed the drawer shut.

  Ruby’s head popped through the doorway. She knitted her brow and entered, with Teal and Jonquil just behind. “Hey. Where’d you disappear to?”

  Cyan was about to tell his friends what he’d found, but he caught himself and bit his tongue. He thought back to what Dr Haven had said, about what would happen if Cyan mentioned anything to anyone. About consequences.

  What exactly were those consequences? And were they just for Cyan, or for the people he told?

  He swallowed and mimicked Ruby’s frown. “Me? Where’d you disappear to? I saw something through the window and said we should check it out. Didn’t you guys hear?”

  “Obviously not. What did you see?”

  While everyone looked through the window, Cyan glanced at the bedside table. His throat felt tight and coarse. “Nothing, I guess. Must have imagined it.”

  “Pfft.” Ruby turned from the window. “You’re being weird. Even by your standards.”

  “Cyan?” It was Jonquil. She looked concerned. “Your face is all flushed. Are you okay?”

  Cyan wiped his forehead, felt hot sweat on the back of his hand. “Shipshape. It’s just a bit…toasty in here, right?”

  “Hardly.” Ruby was exploring the cabin’s large, stately dressing table. She picked up some lipstick, which must have rolled along the sloping table before stopping against a stained, battered make-up box.

  Teal joined her and screwed up his face. “You’re not actually going to use that, are you? It’ll probably make you ill.”

  Ruby pulled off the lipstick’s silver lid and studied its contents. “Probably would. It’s not for my face, though…”

  Grinning all the while, Ruby used the lipstick to trace her reflection on the dressing table’s wide mirror, with dots for freckles and long squiggles for hair. She passed the lipstick to Teal, who shrugged and traced his own reflection. It had a little less height than Ruby’s and a broader face, with oval spectacles and a short, rounded afro.

  Jonquil was next, tracing her face and long, centre-parted hair. She handed the lipstick to Cyan. Glad for the distraction, he added his own outline, finishing with his floppy fringe and chunky glasses.

  Four doodle-friends smiled outwards from the mirror. But Cyan needed more distraction.

  “A masterpiece!” He clapped his hands, almost wincing at the cheer he’d forced into his voice. “Are we done? Let’s show Jonquil why we’re really here.”

  They left cabin 7270 and continued on their way.

  Jonquil moved slowly at first, clambering against the slant of the decks. But by the time they reached the decrepit lobbies she was in her element. She threw herself up staircases steepened by the hull’s tilt and soon took the lead, so that the others had to shout directions from behind. Flushed and grinning, she vaulted over the chairs, luggage and debris that had fallen prey to gravity and piled up around doorways and mezzanines.

  “She’s fast,” panted Ruby.

  Cyan skirted a fallen chandelier, which gleamed like a mound of jewels on the mouldy carpet. “Tell me about it.”

  Eventually the trio staggered through a steel door and into fresh air. They found Jonquil gripping a rail not far from the door, staring down the slope of the cruise ship’s top deck.

  Cyan joined her and followed her gaze. Loungers, deck chairs and drifts of sand were piled against rusting walls, battered terraces and ghostly cocktail bars. At least three empty swimming pools pitted the deck, before it reached the ship’s nose at the base of the chasm.

  Jonquil looked at him with her mouth hanging open. She seemed unable to speak.

  “Yup,” agreed Cyan.

  Jonquil’s gaze returned to the slope. “So what now?”

  Cyan shuffled to the deck’s edge, where rows of plastic drums were fixed to steel brackets. Ruby was pulling a long cord from one of the barrels.

  “We go to the bottom,” he replied.

  “What? We’ve just climbed to the top!”

  “Yep. So we can get back down.”

  “Then why not go down through the decks?”

  Cyan smiled at the thought of what was coming. He felt a flutter of excitement rise from his stomach, cutting through the thoughts that had followed him from the cabin. “Some things, Jonquil, are more about the journey than the destination.”

  He found the cord attached to another plastic drum and unwound it until he felt it jar. With his eyes meeting Ruby’s, they yanked their cords and leaped back as one. Both drums popped open, and there was a steady hiss while their contents unfolded and expanded.

  Cyan pointed at the two inflated life rafts, each one bright orange and big enough for four. “This is how we get down.”

  Jonquil rubbed her forehead. “Lifeboats? I don’t get it. There’s no water.”

  “No, but they’ll protect us –” Cyan kicked his life raft’s inflated base – “while we shoot down the biggest slide in the world.” He tipped his head towards the sloping deck, then took two oars from inside the raft’s orange canopy. “We’ll need one of these each, so we can steer away from any…bumps. Come on. Hop in.”

  “You’ve got to be joking.”

  “Do we look like we’re joking?”

  Ruby and Teal had already dragged their own raft to the centre of the deck and climbed in. They leaned out from the opening in the canopy’s front, so that their oars protruded at each side.

  Ruby grinned. Her curls were fiery in the light that pierced the canopy. “It’s safe, Jonquil.” She held a hand to Teal’s mouth before he could say otherwise. “We’ve done it a million times before and we’re all still here, aren’t we? So hop in. You won’t regret it.”

  Jonquil looked at Cyan, who’d dragged his raft next to Ruby’s and clambered in. He held an oar out to her. “You were pretty fast coming up here. You think you’re as fast going down?”

  Jonquil’s eyes narrowed. Cocking her head and smiling slightly, she grasped the oar and got in next to Cyan.

  “Super. All hands on deck.” Anticipation was still bubbling in Cyan’s belly, but not with its usual keenness. Silently, he cursed the whale bones and drawers, and did his best to push all thoughts of them aside.

  “Last ones to the bottom are rotten eggs.” He craned his neck to Ruby and Teal. “In fact, they’re the flies that eat the rotten eggs. Or actually: the bacteria that live on the flies that eat the—”

  “We get the idea.” Ruby was jerking on her knees to shunt her raft along the slope. Teal grumbled but jerked in sync, so that the raft gathered momentum and started slipping down the deck.

  Cyan shot an imaginary starter gun into the air – “BANG!” – and began lurching with Jonquil, until their raft was moving on its own. They’d gained enough speed to make its canopy flutter when Cyan clocked some jacuzzi steps on collision course ahead.

  “Jonquil!” he shouted, but there was no need. She slammed her oar against a passing wall so that their raft skidded left, just enough to miss the stained jacuzzi.

  Cyan beamed at Jonquil, who grinned back and laughed. But the moment’s distraction cost them; the raft clipped some awning and spun to send them speeding down backwards.

  Cyan cackled at the sight of the ship’s raised, dwindling rear; heard the joyful clatter of loungers knocked aside by the raft. His worries disappeared. There was only the race now. Only the adrenaline and the wind and the hurtling deck.

  As one, Jonquil and Cyan barged their oars against the floor; by the time they’d revolved they were bouncing across an astroturf putting green. While golf flags whipped and lashed the canopy, Cyan saw Ruby and Teal’s raft some way ahead, narrowly dodging a cocktail bar and scattering aluminium chairs and tables.

  “They’re too far ahead!” shouted Jonquil. “We can’t catch up!”

  Cyan wriggled his eyebrows. “Not unless they mess up.” He hollered as loudly as he could. “Watch out! Ruby! Teal! On your right! Stair
s going down! Hard to see!”

  There was no stairway, but the pair must have believed him. He heard a frenzied thumping of oars and the raft drifted left. Cyan whooped when it bounced off a hot tub and spun towards a gaping swimming pool. His own raft caught up while the other one spiralled, and he saw Ruby and Teal plunge out of sight. There was a rubbery thump, followed by a puff of sand and a howl of rage from Ruby.

  Cyan and Jonquil were both laughing so hard that their eyes watered. With the aid of some frenetic oar-work, they dodged the pool and closed in on the mattresses stacked against the ship’s bow. Cyan threw down his oar, struggling to stay upright while he opened his arms to Jonquil. “Hold on tight – brace for impact!”

  Jonquil tossed her oar aside and they clutched each other just as the raft crashed, sending them tumbling across mattresses and old life rafts. The canopy was a blur of orange rubber, above them one moment and below them the next. By the time the raft came to a stop it was alive with hysterical laughter.

  It took some time for the laughter to die away. Cyan and Jonquil lay still in the orange light, waiting for the dizziness to pass.

  Jonquil’s breathing gradually slowed. She broke the silence. “Ruby was right.”

  Cyan pulled himself up. “About what?”

  “I don’t regret it.”

  It took a while for Cyan to get his bearings and find the raft’s exit. “Quite a rush, isn’t it?” He stuck his head through the opening. Outside, the chasm’s base was immense and dark with depth.

  Jonquil shifted behind him. “Talking of Ruby… What’s the deal between you two?”

  “Deal?” Cyan glanced back to see Jonquil winding some hair around her finger.

  “Yeah. Are you like…boyfriend and girlfriend or something?”

  Cyan’s laugh echoed along the chasm. “No way. No way at all.”

  “Oh.”

  Jonquil looked thoughtful in a way that confused Cyan. He scratched the tip of his nose. “The sanctuary doesn’t have stuff like that.”

  “Really?”

  Cyan frowned and pinched his bottom lip. “Never really thought about it, but it’s true. It’s just the way things are, I guess.” He snorted a gentle laugh through his nose. “Just the idea of it seems funny, you know? Kind of weird.”

  “Weird…” repeated Jonquil. Her dark eyes flickered downwards.

  Cyan began to feel uncomfortable, although he couldn’t fathom why.

  He cleared his throat. “Come on. Let’s get out of this thing.”

  Cyan and Jonquil took the sandwiches from their packed lunches and munched in silence. They were on the chasm’s sandy base, perched on some dining chairs pilfered from the Serenity.

  It wasn’t long before the second raft hit the ship’s bow.

  When Teal and Ruby reached them, Ruby gave Cyan’s shoulder a wallop.

  “There wasn’t a stairwell,” she grumbled. “I checked, after we spent ages dragging our raft out of that pool. You cheated.”

  Teal took a seat. Cyan straightened his glasses. “All’s fair in love and…races down giant shipwrecks.”

  “No, it’s not.” Ruby’s scowl sent dark freckles gathering around her nose. She kicked a rusty basket at the centre of the ring of chairs, then began filling it with wood from a mound of broken furniture. “I see you didn’t get the fire going. You know the first one down’s supposed to do it. And yet you never do.”

  “Um…” All moisture left Cyan’s mouth. He pushed his chair further back from the metal basket, and watched uneasily while Ruby used a lighter and some rolled-up menus to get the fire started.

  Flames were soon rising. Cyan kept his eyes off the fire, but could feel its heat against his hands and face. His shoulders tensed with every pop from the crackling wood and he took deep, discreet breaths to steady his heartbeat.

  What was left of his sandwich sat untouched on his lap. The smoke had killed his appetite and his throat was too dry to swallow. But he noticed Jonquil peering at him, so he put the bread back to his mouth, doing his best to hide his unease.

  The four friends sat in silence, until Jonquil used her toe to nudge a fish skeleton half-buried in sand. “Animals,” she sighed.

  “Hm?” Cyan eyed what remained of the fish.

  Jonquil tipped her head back and gazed at the grey sky framed by the chasm’s mouth. “It took me a while to figure it out – what’s missing. There’re no animals on the island. Not even birds. The sky’s always so quiet. I haven’t seen a single creature since I got here.”

  Teal’s lips curled into a playful smile. “There used to be loads. ’Til Cyan scared them all off with his driving.”

  Cyan’s eyes were rolling. “Hardy har.” He looked at Jonquil. “Ignore him. There’s never been animals here.”

  “But isn’t that weird?” asked Jonquil. “To have no animals around? Not even bugs or something? All I’ve seen here is bones and shells.” Her forehead creased. “There’s something sort of…dead about this place. Don’t you think?”

  Cyan frowned at the frail, crystallized skeleton. “Probably something to do with the sea being gone. You know, ecosystems and all that.”

  Teal nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah. That’s probably it.”

  Jonquil didn’t look convinced. “No. Ecosystems exist anywhere. Life always finds a way. But not here. Here on the island there’s just… There’s just us.”

  Cyan was struggling to tear his gaze from the dead fish’s eye socket. Each crackle from the fire sent him deeper into its darkness, and he found himself thinking again about the message in cabin 7270.

  A sniff from Jonquil. “Guys,” she began. “I can call you friends now, right?”

  “Sure,” said Ruby. Teal and Cyan nodded.

  “In that case…”

  Cyan managed to look up. Jonquil was kneading her knuckles. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I know it’s not allowed, but I was wondering whether you guys would mind if…if perhaps I talk about what happened to me. You know. Before I came here.”

  Three pairs of eyes widened. Teal tensed, pushing himself into his chair’s backrest.

  “No.” Ruby’s voice was firm. “Sorry, Jonquil. You know we can’t do that.”

  Jonquil shrugged meekly. “I know. But—”

  “You’re not allowed to talk about your past,” interrupted Cyan. “No one is. It’ll compromise your treatment. You might even compromise our treatment.”

  “But no one has to know,” insisted Jonquil. Tears were gathering on her eyelids. “I just feel like…like I need to let some of it out. There are things I need to say.” Her voice thickened. “Things I need to share…”

  Cyan threw his palms up. “Don’t do this, Jonquil.” His heart was racing again. He’d never been in this situation before; no one had ever tried to talk about their past. But he knew the rules. He’d have to alert the sanctuary if Jonquil kept going. And he wasn’t allowed to listen.

  The legs of Ruby’s chair scraped backwards through the sand. Teal had a hand on the side of his seat and was raising himself from its base. Sweat glistened on his forehead. His chest began to quake with panicked breaths. “The rules…”

  Jonquil saw them all shifting. A tear rolled down her cheek. “Please listen,” she croaked. “It happened months ago, just after Diwali. My mum was—”

  Teal was the first to flee. Jonquil stopped when Cyan and Ruby followed suit, knocking back their chairs and sprinting in separate directions.

  Cyan made a dash for the Serenity. He glanced over his shoulder, saw Ruby and Teal running for a rocky mound.

  Jonquil was alone by the fallen chairs, revolving on her feet to watch the trio scarper. “Come back!” she wailed. “Pleeeeease!”

  But the three of them kept running.

  Cyan crouched in the shadow of the Serenity’s keel. He peered around its edge to see Jonquil staggering back and forth, unsure which direction to run in.

  “Mum was driving us home!” she screamed. “Me and my sister! My beautiful little sister
…” She fell to her knees but continued to wail. “Mum was in a bad mood ’cos we’d—”

  Cyan threw his palms over his ears but could still hear Jonquil’s dull screeching. He pushed an ear against his shoulder and used his free hand to yank his locket from his trousers. After thumbing it open and pressing its screen, he held it to his mouth and panted, “Disclosure! It’s Jonquil! Disclosure!”

  He made out a few words that flew from Jonquil’s direction – something about an argument – and thrust the locket into his pocket before slamming his palm back against his ear.

  Cyan wasn’t sure how long he’d been waiting before swells of wind began racing along the chasm. The air pulsed and howled, and he peeked around the keel to see Jonquil standing rigid with her back to him, her long hair flailing in the gale. Up above, the sanctuary’s helicopter appeared at the chasm’s mouth.

  Its steady descent whipped up a storm of salt and sand. Cyan could only just make out Mr Banter as the helicopter’s side door opened.

  Jonquil backed away through miniature cyclones. Mr Banter stepped out casually, brandishing something in his hand. Cyan squinted through whorls of yellow and white. It was some sort of cartridge; rectangular, plastic and pale.

  Mr Banter aimed the cartridge at Jonquil and a long needle sprang from its top. Its thin metal winked in the helicopter’s lights.

  Jonquil screamed and turned, but Mr Banter was too quick. He leaped forward and smothered her head in his giant forearm.

  A surge of sickness hit Cyan’s stomach. The violence of Mr Banter’s grip sent him out from cover, and as he ran to Jonquil he saw her eyes – wide and white with terror and betrayal – fall upon him.

  He continued to run with his arm stretched towards her, and cried out when Mr Banter plunged the needle into her neck.

  The screaming stopped. Jonquil stiffened, then dropped to hang limply from Mr Banter’s arm. He dragged her into the helicopter and slammed the door shut before it rose through sand and shadows.

  Cyan fell to his hands and knees. His chest heaved and his ribs felt brittle against his hammering heart.