The Island

by Amy Cross

  “My vision's really bad,” she replies. “Like, everything's bright, but it's also blurry.” She pauses. “What does it mean? The tattoo on your shoulder, what is it?”

  “It's nothing,” I reply, setting the piece of wood aside and crawling over to her. Putting a hand on the side of her face, I tilt her head slightly and see that although her wound doesn't seem to have improved, it also doesn't appear to be any worse. “How much do you remember?” I ask.

  “We were attacked,” she replies. “We were out in the forest, and then these Australians...” Her voice trails off for a moment, and then she leans past me and looks across the clearing. “What's that?”

  Turning, I realize she means the fence. “It's not much,” I tell her. “I just built it while I was waiting for you to wake up. I guess I needed to get started with something simple.”

  “You built it?” she asks, clearly shocked. When she turns to me, there's a faint, stunned smile on her lips. “No way did you build a fence!”

  “Half a fence,” I point out. “It's not finished.”

  “Still...” She pauses. “Why would you even try to do that? Are you thinking... Are we going to stick around here?”

  “You're still not well,” I tell her. “You need to rest, and I figure this is as good a place as any. While you're getting better, we can give this settlement idea a try. Maybe you were right, maybe we need to stop moving around all the time. This can be a test-run. If it goes well, that's great, but if it's a flop we can always -”

  Before I'm able to finish the sentence, she lunges at me and puts her arms around my shoulders, hugging me tight.

  “Thank you,” she whispers into my ear.

  “No problem,” I reply, genuinely stunned by her reaction. “Maybe it was a good idea all along. I guess there's only one way to find out.”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Iris

  As I start to stir from a long, numb sleep, the first thing I hear is a faint creaking sound, like old wood. I try to open my eyes, but the lids feel impossibly heavy and I have to wait. Slowly, I become aware of a strange swinging sensation in my body, as if I'm twisting in mid-air.

  I try to open my mouth, but I can barely even breathe, let alone get any words out.

  “Where am I?” I try to ask, but it's hopeless.

  For several minutes, I focus on the slow, creaking rhythm of my body. I feel more and more as if I'm dangling in mid-air, but I can't imagine how that could be possible. I try to think back to what happened, but my thoughts won't stay still long enough for me to get a handle on them. I came to the island, and then I was with Logan in an interview room... No, it was the other way around, first Logan and then the island, and then...

  Something else happened...

  The rope creaks above me.

  My mind is so foggy, it takes a moment before I realize that my wrists are tied together, and that I'm hanging from something.

  Suddenly a scream fills the air. My eyes snap open and I find that I'm still on the beach, suspended from the wooden frame I saw earlier. I turn and see that the scream is coming from Tash. We're both naked, bound by our wrists and ankles, and Liam is headed this way, dragging one of the white canopies in which we arrived.

  “There's no need to make a noise,” he says matter-of-factly, as if nothing is wrong. “No-one's gonna come running to help you. In fact, screaming'll just scare anyone away, so feel free to carry on. I don't really mind one way or the other.”

  “What the hell are you doing?” Tash shouts, struggling desperately to get free. When she turns to me, there's pure terror in her eyes. “Can you get down? You have to try! Try swinging toward me, maybe we can help each other!”

  Looking up, I try to slip my hands out of the ropes, but the knot is way too tight. I look back down, just as Liam places the open canopy beneath Tash and adjusts the edges, as if he's getting ready to fill it with something.

  “The good thing about these,” he explains, “is that they're water-proof. Why they bothered with that, I have no idea, but they did and I've been making full use of that fact. I mean, you have to deal the cards that have been dealt to you, right?” He steps over to the fire and grabs a knife, before making his way back toward Tash. “I'll do you first,” he says, stopping next to her. “I've experimented with various ways of getting this job done over the past few months, but unfortunately for you this is the most effective. I need your heart to be still pumping, so that as much blood as possible comes out nice and early, while it's still warm. I don't want to waste a drop. Then I can cut you up later. You two ladies should keep me fed for a while, especially if I salt the meat.”

  “No!” she screams, trying but failing to kick him with her bound feet.

  Without saying anything, Liam reaches up and grabs her ankles, holding her still. He pauses for a moment and then, as Tash continues to scream, he digs the blade deep into her belly, just below the breastbone. She cries out louder than ever, but all I can do is stare in stunned horror as Liam digs the knife down through her stomach, splitting her open until finally he slices the blade out through her crotch. Tossing the bloodied knife aside, he takes hold of her shuddering body and uses his bare hands to pull the wound apart, and then he reaches in and pulls out her intestines until they slop down and start hanging all the way to the ground. He rearranges them slightly, before pulling her wound even wider, allowing a steady flow of blood to start running down into the canopy. He's clearly done this before.

  She's still screaming, but there are no words twisted into her scream, not anymore. Instead it's a pure, primal scream, a howling wail of pain and fear, a last desperate cry as she slips away.

  Like an animal.

  I turn and look toward the sea, my whole body shaking with fear, but I can still hear the sound of Tash's blood dribbling into the canopy, and her scream continues for several more seconds, becoming increasingly guttural until finally it comes to a stuttering halt.

  Suddenly I feel Liam grabbing my feet, and he twists me around until I see Tash again. Her eyes are fixed on me, and her face is twitching just a little. The rest of her guts have sloughed out through the hole in her belly now, and more blood is spilling out. The flaps of loose skin on either side of her belly are hanging down.

  “I really won't waste an ounce of meat, you know,” Liam mutters, letting go of my feet as I stare in wide-eyed horror at Tash's body. “This is an act of great respect. Some people here, they'd just stab you in the forest and let liters and liters of blood just flow away into the soil. Not me, though. Oh no, I value your bodies way too much to do that. You're too important to me.”

  With my eyes fixed on Tash's face, I realize she's stopped moving. Her dead gaze stares back at me, until I turn away and close my eyes, trembling with shock.

  “It'll just take a few more minutes,” Liam explains, as I hear him walking away. “I need to let the last of her blood drain out, then I can do you.”

  Too stunned to react, I open my eyes and stare out to sea. I feel as if I should be screaming and trying to find some way to fight back, but it's as if the sight of Tash being gutted like that has frozen my body. I keep replaying the moment when the blade dug into her belly, and the sound of her scream, and the sight of her dead eyes staring at me. At the same time, the sea is lapping gently at the shore just a few meters away, beneath a vast, calm gray sky, and a cold wind is blowing against my bare flesh as I hang here, waiting for my turn.

  Over by the fire, Liam is humming a song.

  “Della,” I whisper, with tears in my eyes as I watch the waves. “I'm so sorry...”

  Finally I hear footsteps approaching, and I turn to see that Liam is dragging the canopy toward me. When he gets closer, he starts arranging it directly beneath my feet, ready to catch my blood and intestines when he cuts me open. As he does so, Tash's blood sloshes about, ready to be mixed with mine. I start twitching slightly, trying to wriggle my feet free of the ropes around my ankles, as my overpowering sense of fear starts to give way to
pure panic.

  “No,” I whisper, with tears in my eyes, “please...”

  “You saw,” he replies, picking up the bloody knife. “It's pretty quick.” He steps toward me, looking up at my bare belly. “Don't think I take this for granted. I truly respect the value of your life-force and -”

  Stopping suddenly, his attention seems to have been attracted by something behind me. He mutters a few words under his breath before stepping around my hanging body, and I realize I can hear another set of footsteps coming closer across the beach.

  “I don't want any trouble,” Liam's voice says, from behind me. “I'm not sharing either, I just -”

  There's a loud thud, followed by what sounds like a struggle. I wait, too scared to make a sound, before finally Liam rushes past me, bumping into my legs and sending me swinging wildly. I try to look around just as another figure hurries between Tash and me, and when I turn again I realize Liam is bleeding heavily as he limps past the fire. The other figure, with a head of pure white hair, walks quickly over to him.

  “Don't!” Liam screams, stumbling down onto the sand. “I swear, you can -”

  His voice bursts into a gargled cry of pain as the figure leans down, and after a moment I realize that he's stabbing Liam repeatedly in the chest. I stare in horror until finally the figure steps back from Liam's corpse and then turns to me, and I see that the new arrival is an older man, in his fifties or sixties.

  I wait, and after a moment he comes over and walks around behind me. He pulls the canopy out from beneath my feet, and then I feel the rope shuddering as he cuts it loose. When I drop down, with my hands and feet still bound, I slam into the sand and fall onto my side, shivering with fear as I look up and see the old man towering over me. I don't dare to say anything, but finally he reaches down and cuts the ropes that are binding me; then he grabs my tunic from nearby and tosses it onto my naked body.

  “Get dressed,” he says with a deep, warm voice. With that, he turns and takes a few steps away, walking over to Tash and starting to cut her down.

  All I can do is stare as he takes her into his arms and sets her on the sand. He checks for a pulse, but I can see from the look in his eyes that he's found nothing and a moment later he uses his knife to cut her intestines, tossing them into the canopy.

  “I'm sorry I didn't get here sooner,” he says, turning to me. “I've been searching for you since I saw you being dropped, but I couldn't reach you ahead of this cannibal. Was the girl a friend of yours?”

  Shivering and terrified, I don't dare move a muscle. I know I should run, but at the same time I doubt I'd get very far.

  “Get dressed,” he says again. “I'm not going to hurt you. I'm going to bury your friend, if that's okay. It's not much, I'm not a religious man, but... I always bury them. I figure it's the least I can do.”

  Turning, I look over at Liam's body on the sand nearby.

  “He's dead,” the man continues. “Don't worry, he can't hurt anyone else.” He steps over to him and grabs him by the shoulders, before dragging him toward the water's edge. After stopping for a moment, he tosses Liam's corpse into the waves, causing an immediate crackle of sparks and smoke. “I assume you were told not to go into the water,” he explains, as Liam's body continues to twitch. “There's an electric current in the sea all around the island. I don't even know exactly how it works, but that's not important for a moment. What's important is that it's deadly”. With that, he leaves Liam's body and heads back over to Tash.

  I pause for a moment, staring at Liam's body as it continues to sizzle in the charged water, and then finally I turn to look back at Tash as the man closes her dead eyes.

  “There are some true monsters on this island,” he mutters, setting a spare white canopy over her body to cover her from view. “I know it's hard to survive here, but I don't believe one should be so enthusiastic when it comes to abandoning the traces of civilized behavior.” He tucks the canopy around her body, before getting to his feet and stepping toward me. “I must -”

  “No!” I scream, scrambling away from him. “Don't touch me!”

  “I'm not going to touch you,” he replies, stopping with a sigh. “I understand, you're right to be wary. Please, get dressed. I'm going to bury your friend, unless that's something you'd prefer to do alone.”

  Staring up at him, I feel an overwhelming sense of fear rising through my chest.

  “Okay,” he continues, “so I'll do it. Not on the beach, though. I'll take her to the forest and dig a proper grave, I'll bury her deep so that no-one comes along and digs her up. Believe it or not, we're not all cannibals on the island, and some of us refuse to let our souls get dragged quite so far into the darkness.”

  He pauses, as if he's waiting for me to reply, and then he sighs again.

  “I get it,” he mutters. “You don't want anyone around. I'll be on my way, I won't take anything. If you want my advice, though, you'll gather everything useful from here and head into the forest. Don't stay on the beach, for some reason it seems to attract a particularly vicious brand of maniac.”

  He turns to walk away, before stopping and glancing back at me.

  “Stick to higher ground if you can. If you see red berries with purplish leaves, you can eat those, they're nutritious. If the leaves are green, however, they're poisonous, so be careful. Only purple leaves. I could teach you more, but I understand why you want to be alone. I'll be gone soon.”

  With that, he makes his way back over to Tash and reaches down to scoop her up into his arms. A small amount of blood dribbles down from under the canopy as he starts carrying her toward the trees.

  Shivering and naked, all I can do is watch him leave.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Asher

  “Someone was watching us during the night, you know,” Jude says as I place more branches on top of the shelter.

  “It was too dark,” I reply, glancing down at her. “There's no way anyone was out there in the storm.”

  “I saw him,” she continues. “I told you, my eyesight is all messed up but everything seems brighter. There was a man out there between the trees, about thirty feet away, in the rain. He was just standing and watching us.” She points past me, and I turn to look toward a spot where two particularly large and thick trees rise up from the forest floor. “Between those two,” she explains. “He was there for a couple of hours. He only left when the sun started to come up.”

  I pause for a moment, before looking back at her. “Well keep me posted,” I say, forcing a smile to hide my nerves. “If you see him again, let me know.”

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Iris

  Keeping a safe distance, I duck down behind a bush and watch as the old man continues to dig. We're not far from the beach and I can still hear the waves, but I don't dare let him know that I've followed. Instead, I simply watch him using his bare hands to scoop up more and more soil. He's digging the grave with his bare hands, and there's something defiantly calm and almost noble about the guy. I think I'd trust him, if I was still capable of trusting anyone.

  I stay in place for a couple more hours, watching as the man works steadily. Tash's body is nearby, still draped in the white canopy, and there's a part of me that almost expects her to sit up suddenly and show signs of life. It's crazy, I barely knew her at all, but I miss her now that she's gone. I keep thinking about the time we spent together, and I feel as if we'd have worked as a team on the island, at least for a while. Then again, deep down I'm fairly sure that the reason I'm thinking so much about Tash is that it saves me having to think about anyone or anything else.

  I'm probably wrong.

  She'd probably have abandoned me eventually, or stuck a knife in my back.

  Finally, the old man gets to his feet and gathers Tash's body, carrying it to the grave and then climbing down. After a moment, he gets back up without her and immediately starts pushing the mound of soil back in to cover her. I watch in stunned, horrified silence, until he puts the last of
the soil in place and looks around for a moment, as if he's lost something. And then he does something so surprising, I genuinely wonder if I'm imagining the whole thing.

  He kneels next to the grave, bows his head, and waits in calm silence, as if he's praying.

  After a few minutes, he gets to his feet and brushes soil from his hands, and then he glances in my direction. I duck down and wait until I hear his footsteps heading away, and then I peer around the bush and see that he's disappearing into the distance. I glance over my shoulder to make sure that there's no-one else nearby, and then I hurry over to the grave and look down at the patch of disturbed soil. It's hard to believe that Tash is down there now, still wrapped in that canopy, with her guts having been pulled open and ripped out. I want to do something, or say something, but I know words won't help. I never learned how to pray.

  “Sorry,” I whisper finally, before turning and seeing that the old man is almost out of sight now.

  I don't know why, maybe I'm just desperate, but I start following him.

  ***

  When night falls, the only light comes from a small fire that the old man has carefully built on a patch of rocky ground. I keep well out of sight in the darkness of the forest, watching from a couple hundred feet away as the man's silhouette flickers in front of the flames. He caught a rabbit a little earlier, and now he's cooking the meat, and after he spends a little time eating he seems to just stay in place, as if he's thinking or maybe waiting for something.

  It's the first normal thing I've seen anyone do since I got here.

  Looking over my shoulder, I can't help but shudder at the sight of the forest's vast darkness spreading out behind me, and I can't help wondering who or what might be out there. I'm wearing my tunic now, but I'm still freezing cold and the fear in my belly has begun to share space with pure, ravenous hunger of a kind I never experienced before, not even when I was first learning to steal food at the market. The hunger is like a thought, pushing all other thoughts from my mind.