Red Sand

by Ronan Cray

  “Humans breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. Trees breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen. Do not fuck with this system! Humans cut down trees to grow food for more humans who will cut down more trees. No plants equals no oxygen equals no humans. Do the math.

  “I’m sorry, Carter. Forgive me for proselytizing to such a captive audience. You’re probably wondering, ‘Why am I here? What are you talking about?’ I assure you, Carter, this discussion is directly relevant to your current situation.

  “The Bible teaches us that man was placed above all beasts. Well, I can tell you, the Bible was wrong. We are an integral part of the ecosystem. Once we place ourselves above it, we lose.

  “Man was not put on this earth to eat. Like every other creature, we are meant to be eaten. We began our descent when we learned to defeat those who would devour our weak - the saber-toothed tiger, the bear, the bacterial infection. The more we try to preserve life, the closer we come to extinction. By preventing death, we are now so numerous that our very existence threatens the entire planet.

  “Recognize the truth. Humans are nothing more than food for others, from ticks to tigers. That was God’s plan.

  A voice filtered in from Carter’s left. “And God said, ‘The days of their life shall be 120 years.’”

  Another disembodied voice said, “When a certain Ms. Calment died at 122, it disrupted God’s plan.”

  Tuk joined back in, “You may disagree. You may see the battle against death as one of advancement. How solipsistic! It is human advancement. We’ve ignored what that action will do to the rest of The System!

  “I know what you’re thinking, Carter. You’re thinking, “How trite! A desert island filled with cannibals! It’s like something out of a bad silent movie. And perhaps you’re right. But there is more to it, Carter. Much more.”

  Carter fixated on one word. Cannibals? What did he mean?

  “Carter! Carter! “

  Someone gripped his head in two powerful hands.

  “I want you to understand, Carter. It’s important to me that you understand the… beauty of what we’re doing here.

  “Do you know what waste is? Cremation. No bacteria eats the flesh. Your ashes sit in a stainless steel urn on your children's shelf in a sanitized, climate controlled drone home, never to reenter The System. Even in death we set ourselves apart, robbing the earth of our nutrients.

  “Humans are meat. Cannibalism is an affirmation of life. When your time comes, shouldn’t you use that meat to nourish your family? Jesus understood this. Jesus offers his flesh to his followers at every communion.

  “We are not hungry, Carter. We have plenty of fish. We honor you by eating you. What we cannot eat is composted to nourish plants we will eat later. Nothing is wasted. Your body reenters the ecosystem. We celebrate your life at every meal.

  “I can read your mind, and you make a good point. ‘You aren't waiting till we're dead to eat us.’

  "Clever, Carter. Clever. It’s only a matter of timing. We’ve seen hundreds die here. We've developed a keen sense for those who have a chance. We eat only those who would not live. We will not protect the weak. It is this protection that has weakened our species.

  “Oh, I can hear your argument as if you were speaking it out loud. ‘Our compassion for the weak makes us human.’ Believe me, Carter, we’ve had this discussion a hundred times. We’ve come to our own conclusions. But you don’t really believe that either, do you.

  "Compassion sets us apart from the animal kingdom, but it only serves to unbalance that system. Look what we’ve done for every other species. We've killed those who threaten us, domesticated the useful, caged the attractive, devoured the tasty, and ignored the slow destruction of the rest. So I ask you, in the wake of human thoughtlessness, is the eating of human flesh so bad?"

  At last, Carter regained the faculty of speech. He moved his lips and tongue a few times before he could eke out one word. "Yes."

  "I’m afraid I can’t take your opinion at face value, Carter. You’re biased. You only say that because you're being eaten."

  Only then did Carter realize, much too late, exactly where he was, and what was happening.

  Carter lay prostrate on his back, staring up at a ceiling draped with curtains of plastic. He recognized it as the roof of the dining hall. He tried to lift his head, roll over, sit up, but none of his limbs responded. He heard Tuk speaking over a low ringing in his ears.

  “You can’t move, and you’re wondering why. I’ll tell you. Our tide pools are littered with beautiful little shelled creatures called cones. The species itself is surprisingly common, but we don’t believe our local brand exists anywhere else on earth. Ados had to name him: conus gradyconus. Named after the unfortunate fellow, Grady, who discovered it. I like the way it rolls off the tongue. He has a gift for Latin, Ados.

  “It’s a type of snail. They’re carnivorous, as everything on this island seems to be. They have a barbed and venomous tongue that is quite toxic. Of course we always find out the hard way. Grady had the misfortune of stepping on it. The toxin in our local cones only causes paralysis rather than the nasty side effects of other species.

  “In Grady’s case, in the water, paralysis led to drowning, but in small doses the venom makes a wonderful anesthetic. Ados had great success during the odd appendectomy. He discovered just the right amount. Do you know what anesthesiologists get paid in the real world? A small fortune. Entirely justified.

  “In your case, he analyzed your weight, height, body mass, and remarkably low fat content to arrive at the appropriate dose necessary to keep you anesthetized, paralyzed, and now awake. We wouldn’t want you to miss this.”

  Despite the paralysis, Carter could feel something. Someone was tugging on his stomach, shifting it about. He couldn’t lift his head.

  “Don’t bother trying to look, Carter. It’s a gruesome sight. I’ll explain it to you, and I’ll try not to spare any details.

  “We’ve been here for nearly an hour, while you slept.” Someone burped loudly and the others laughed. “In fact we’re almost done.”

  “We’ve split your arms and legs open. We diced up the muscles one by one.“

  “Carter tartare,” someone said. More laughter, but less so, as if the joke had been used several times already.

  “We cut open your chest to expose your ribs. Most of those we’ve removed for storage. Ados is a master with the scalpel. He knows just where to cut to avoid an artery or a particularly foul organ. We’re working on your abdominal muscles now. If you feel movement, I apologize. Our steak knives have gone dull over the years.

  “We’ve become accustomed to sushi. Our first years here, the secret of storing fish in salt eluded us. There’s not much to burn on this island, so fuel was in short supply. Every morning we went fishing. Every afternoon we ate our fill. Every day we repeated the cycle.”

  Carter stared at the plastic sheeting above him. He couldn’t see anyone, couldn’t turn his head. Then something appeared above him, floating in mid-air between his cornea and the ceiling. He made out a crimson lump speared on a fork. Shiny red droplets pooled along vertical ridges. A warm liquid dripped beside his unblinking eye, and someone wiped it away. The fork disappeared again, and he heard the snapping and popping of meat above a flame. Tuk’s voice continued, “I prefer my meat cooked, myself. Humans have too many communicable diseases. I’d rather not take any chances. Even a fish-oil lamp is hot enough to eradicate most contaminants.” The wet sounds of mastication followed.

  Carter’s eyeballs rolled to follow the sound. His jaw slackened. With no small amount of anticipation, he realized the anesthetic was wearing off.

  “You don’t have much time left, Carter. I wonder, do you have any last requests?”

  Carter never felt emotions the way others did. He knew this. From birth he was naturally anesthetized against the vague passions that prey on humankind. Even now, as he grasped his own imminent demise, there were no moral questions, no ent
reaties for more time, no sobbing confessions or frantic response. He was no stranger to death, albeit the death of others, and at his hands. He recognized his current position as remarkably similar to the little bird of his childhood, all those years ago. The only emotion consuming him was the same he felt then – curiosity.

  He made the effort to speak. His tongue felt like a gym sock. Someone poured water down his throat. He choked and swallowed. That motion loosened his jaw further. Confident now, he carefully teased out the final syllables of his life. “How does it taste?”

  He felt a bit more tugging. The fork reappeared with a fresh lump of meat. He opened his mouth mechanically as they brought it near. He suckled it, pulled the juices out, marveled at the incredible tenderness, broke it apart with his tongue. He swallowed.

  Darkness brought him mercy before the pain set in. As he slipped away, his mind had time for one last reflection. Is it narcissistic, he thought, to say that this is the most delicious meat in the world?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Stuart MacInness died an old man, but not before he spent every last year on spirits, self-loathing, and regular beatings administered to his son. Stuart’s parents bore him one generation too late. The last of a line of coopers going back to the Middle Ages, he soldiered on with that tradition despite almost zero demand for bespoke shoes in Northern Scotland at the turn of the 21st century. His career was doomed from the start. Lacking any other vocational knowledge or the willingness to learn, he stubbornly persisted in maintaining a shop and tools that grew moldy in the damp Scottish mist.

  Stuart bore a son. Colin had the misfortune of growing up in one of the poorest families in Oban. To make matters worse, Stuart insisted his son learn the craft. There is no legitimacy in a father’s profession until his son is impressed into it. Colin spent many a night with leather and awl when he should have been studying. Any reluctance or backtalk resulted in a lashing.

  Oban is famous for one thing: whisky. Before long, Colin’s father acquired a taste for that warm amber liquid. A man of a lost profession, society expected him to take to the bottle, and so he did. A man of tradition, he insisted on only the best for his vice. The best is expensive. A second cousin in employ at the distillery kept him in good stead through a back door. The result was an addition to Colin's upbringing, the boot and the belt, which Colin's father administered with the earnestness of a convert.

  In his teen years, Colin escaped through a nearly homeless existence. He snuck out before his father rose in the morning and returned only long after Stuart passed out for the night. Colin’s mother, meek and dutiful, prepared him meals to last the day.

  He spent the evenings perched on the wet, green ruins of Dunollie Castle, overlooking the bay, watching the fishing boats come and go. Oban remained a busy port. Before long, Colin hatched a plan.

  He read and re-read the novels of Conrad, Melville, and Stevenson until he knew every captain’s soliloquy by heart. He dreamt of sailing on tall-masted ships, of high adventure in distant lands. Eventually, he summoned the courage to speak to the fishermen on the quay. He performed odd jobs here and there, but he couldn’t cajole a spot on board so long as his schooling got in the way. He hid this new ambition from his father.

  He dreamt of the sea the way a starving man dreams of haggis, ignorant of any long term danger. He began to see his father’s business as more than literal. It was symbolic. Shoes are meant to trod the earth. To make a complete break, Colin would have to forsake land altogether. He determined to catch the first boat that would take him to sea. If he could help it, he would never step foot on land again.

  The Great Red Wall traversed the Flow from the base of Mount Elvis to the lip of the ocean. There it cantilevered out over a cliff. The ocean licked it like an ungulate, as if it hadn’t enough salt of its own, leaping upward off the rocks below to wash off a few crumbs with tongues of mist.

  It was here that Colin spent his days at the junction of land and sea. He spent so much time there the others called it Colin’s Leap, expecting in that melancholy air of his a final act of eradication.

  Colin’s soul wore out. He spent sixteen years trying to free himself from his father. Then he spent six more trapped on land with even harsher men.

  His father forced him into making shoes, and, for just that reason, Tuk forced Colin to make the rough footwear that protected them all from the shredders installed by the fiery gods of Mount Elvis.

  His hands clutched a shoe, his shoe, in the midst of repair. Lost in reverie, he empathized with his father. Landlocked, mending a shoe, nursing emotions of regret.

  Despicable.

  Colin formed the shoe from a complicated mesh of plastic, leather, and fabric, stitched together from a hundred odd pieces. No matter how much he fiddled with it, he couldn’t prevent them from poking and prodding his foot at some odd angle.

  As cobbler of castaways he was rich in the currency of abuse. His father’s ghost screamed epithets in his ear as he did his best with the materials at hand. He never improved. He caught himself thinking, I should have listened to my father more, should have focused on what would become his one, true calling.

  Such thoughts reminded him of his failures. He failed to pilot the Prince Edward. He failed to escape the land. He failed to save his friend. He failed to make shoes. Even speech failed him without a tongue to form it. Unless he tore himself away from such thoughts they would plunge him into months of misery.

  He stared out across the bilious sea under a violet sky. This storm was his only hope. Whatever he paid out in karma, the weather would give him change.

  He’d heard men say, “Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

  Lies.

  Knowledge tortures most the impotent. The only thing worse than believing the impossible is having done it once. To pilot a ship at sea for even those few hours taunted him with the knowledge that, in another life, that could have been his daily existence. How he longed to take that for granted!

  Dragos found his peace. There were no more bitter days for him.

  He was the only person who seemed to know, instinctively, what Colin would say in any given situation. The island had no paper, except what Ados controlled, no chalk and slate, and no other way for Colin to communicate in writing. Not only had Colin lost his friend, he had lost his voice.

  He blamed Tuk.

  Six long years of agonizing guilt did not dull the memory of that last night at sea. Colin ran the ship aground. He felt personally responsible for everything that came after. Every death, every scream, every missing person, each subsequent life he took. Thousands of lives were the cost of his inexperience at the helm.

  Or so he thought.

  He’d lived with his guilt for so long that he wore it like armor. He volunteered to be the sapper. Why should anyone else have blood on their hands? He was the Cruise Ship Killer. Once he lit that fuse, he added another thousand souls to his collection. He built that murderous menagerie for six years, taking any life Tuk asked of him.

  Watching Tuk smash all the radio equipment filled him with gratitude. Colin never wanted anyone to find them, never wanted anyone to know his shame. He felt the loss of his tongue was some kind of penance. He bore it stoically, silently.

  Then that bint Emily threw a wrench in the whole process.

  That night, replayed so many times, now played out from a different point of view.

  Tuk had an ulterior motive. He might not have known about the island, but maybe he’d left Colin in charge for a reason. Sure, Colin was an Able Seaman. But his first time on the bridge, piloting alone, at night? Who would make such a mistake? Only a Captain yearning for a pink slip. Or a Captain with something to hide.

  Colin felt lucky to be alive. Last night, Colin sat at the table, not on it. Tuk wasn’t fooled. Colin and Dragos were inseparable. Yin and yang, the man who couldn’t talk and the man who wouldn’t shut up. There was nothing that Dragos would do without Colin, but no one could prove he h
ad been there. He felt Angel’s eyes all night, waiting for a slip-up. When they served the soup, the only way to prepare Dragos’ remains, Colin slurped it down like shark fin, as if every ounce were liquid gold. He forced himself to swallow the tiny cubes of meat. He demonstrated solidarity to waylay suspicion even as a plot took shape in his mind.

  If he could not escape, he would have revenge. He would destroy Tuk, body and soul, and take out Angel for the hell of it. Of all the people on the island, Colin was uniquely qualified to make that happen in the most violent way.

  He needed time, only a few more hours, to put his plan in motion. He’d waited years for a storm big enough to make this worth his while. Those clouds building in the East? Deliverance.

  He always had a plan, a scheme, to get off the island or punish those who trespassed against him. Always a plan, never the balls. He assumed Dragos would back him up, like he did with the balloon, and the raft before it. Now who would fill in?

  Morale crumbled. Colin could see it all around him. The first balloon may have failed, but rebellion rumbled through the ranks. Now was the time to find a new accomplice, but who?

  Colin surveyed the Gate.

  The wind picked up. Chuck and Cliff huddled in the narrow confines of the arch, but it didn’t do much to keep the wind from billowing their clothing and tossing them about.

  Chuck saw him coming first. “Oh, look. Here comes a little lost puppy! Where’s your friend? You come to terms with your loss, or are you still ‘digesting’ it.”

  For a change, Cliff didn’t laugh. "No one misses him more than me!"

  "That’s right. Cliff here's been crying over Dragos more than anyone."

  "He was the only one on the island who knew how to make Pruno!"

  "Cliff's been sober for almost 24 hours! It's been worse on me than it has for him. I’ve never seen him like this."

  Cliff ran into the wind and clutched Colin at the collar. “You were his best friend. Please tell me he left you his recipe!”