Lazarus Island

by Lee Moan

  “Leave it to me,” McNamara said, and disappeared back out through the door to the side of the building.

  “Rachel!” Sam called out. No response.

  Sam rushed towards the spiral staircase, tripping over something large and heavy on the ground. He looked down to find Ted Sheldon. His eyes were still open.

  Fear gripped Sam’s heart.

  69

  Rachel ran up a flight of stairs onto another landing, running blindly now, looking for some kind of refuge and trying to keep her panic under control.

  Then a sound made her freeze in her tracks. She stood in the middle of the shadowy landing and listened. Lightning flickered outside.

  Yes, the sound of a child crying.

  A little girl.

  Goosebumps ran across her back. She looked down the dark landing to a door at the far end.

  “Mummy . . .”

  God it sounded so much like Becky . . .

  “Mummy . . .”

  She walked forward, almost tip-toeing, wondering what more strange events awaited her on this insane night.

  It couldn’t be Becky. Could it?

  She gripped the handle, turned it slowly and opened the door.

  Richard Ashworth lunged towards her, a child’s chair raised above his head. Rachel recoiled at the unexpected attack.

  Ashworth stopped and lowered the chair. “Jesus,” he said. “I thought you were . . .”

  Behind him, his wife and daughter huddled together on the child’s bed, their eyes filled with fear.

  “We heard screaming,” Ashworth said. “We thought there was an intruder.”

  “There is,” Rachel said.

  Ashworth sniffed. “Can I smell burning?”

  As if in direct answer to his query, the fire alarm burst into life.

  Heidi screamed and clutched her mother even tighter.

  “It’s all right,” Marine said.

  “It’s really not all right,” Rachel said. “We have to get out of here. Now.”

  Marine picked up Heidi and all three of them swept out of the bedroom. As they ran out onto the wide landing, Ashworth stopped in his tracks. A dark figure stood in their path, a tall, hulking figure carrying a fire axe, dripping with blood. Marine screamed, clutching her husband.

  Ashworth’s face was a mask of confusion. This was Ben Garrett. This was the very maniac they had tried to rid the world of. Here he was, in his home, standing on his top floor landing, a murderous look in his dead eyes.

  “Richard!” Marine cried out, pulling at his arm. “Let’s go!”

  But he remained where he stood, transfixed by the apparition in his path. There was a sudden flurry of footsteps on the stairwell to their right, and Sam Thorne appeared, looking wet, exhausted and smoke-ridden. He halted at the top of the steps, his eyes flicking from Ashworth to the grotesque figure standing between them. Garrett turned and looked at Sam, no acknowledgement of threat registering there. He turned back to Ashworth.

  “Why?” Garrett said.

  Ashworth stared for a long time, and he knew there was no point stalling, feigning ignorance. This creature, be it real or supernatural, knew the truth, the whole truth.

  “Why?” Ashworth repeated. “Because you deserved it. Look at you,” he said, his lip curling in disgust at the bloody axe. “You’re a monster. You didn’t deserve time to rot in prison. That was a mercy. And after what you did to those girls, you don’t deserve mercy.”

  “So you say,” Garrett replied. “Who are you to judge? I changed in prison. I was . . . rehabilitating.”

  “I don’t know why you’ve come back, Garrett. It makes no sense–”

  “For revenge,” Garrett spat. “What you did, that makes you as bad as me. Worse.”

  Ashworth’s eyes went to Rachel then, and a pleading, sorrowful look came over his features. “Oh, Rachel, the bomb wasn't supposed to go off on that ferry. Lawkins told us the bomb would go off when the van reached the island. Not the ferry. I . . . I am so sorry.”

  Rachel stumbled back a step, covering her mouth with both hands as if to stop the scream that was building within her.

  “I only hope you can forgive me. We were trying to right a wrong. That was all. People like Ben Garrett don’t deserve to live.”

  “And neither do you,” Garrett said. He hefted the axe in his huge hands and charged forward. Ashworth remained frozen to the spot. Heidi screamed as the giant approached, but to him it was a distant scream, a hundred miles away.

  Ashworth stared into the face of death and waited for the killing blow.

  70

  Sam threw himself into the giant's path. Garrett was rushing forward at an incredible pace, axe raised ready to strike. They collided heavily. Sam felt his nose crunch under the impact. His vision exploded with white light for a second. The next thing he knew he was on his back, blood gushing from his nose. Garrett stumbled back, smashing into a large, ornate mirror. Sam raised his arms over his head as the shattered pieces of mirror rained down around him.

  “Run!” Marine Ashworth yelled. “Richard, we have to get out of here!”

  But Ashworth remained frozen to the spot.

  Sam tried to sit up when Garrett’s mud-encrusted boot struck him in the chest and forced him back down. The impact pushed the air from his lungs. He stared up at Garrett.

  “You shouldn't have done that,” the big man growled. He raised the axe.

  Out of the corner of his eye Sam caught a blur of movement. It was Kelly, creeping across the landing. His heart filled with hope and despair. What could she possibly do to stop this maniac?

  In a flash, Kelly scooped up a large shard of the broken mirror glass and charged at Garrett with a banshee-like scream. She leapt onto his back and plunged the glass into his neck. Garrett let out a roar, more from anger than any pain he may have felt.

  Kelly struck him in the neck again, and again, and again.

  71

  Stay in the car, Sam had told her. Look after my little girl.

  Kelly had felt a strange mix of feelings at Sam's instruction. As insane as the situation was, essentially Sam was entrusting the safety of his daughter to her. How things had changed in the past forty-eight hours. Hell, in the past half-hour! And she had so wanted to do as Sam asked, to show that she could be trusted in this most trying of circumstances. But after several minutes sitting in silence with Becky, something told her not to obey this time. Call it instinct, call it fate, but she had a strong feeling that, at some point, Sam would need help in his suicide mission. So she left the little girl in the car, asked her politely to stay put and not to worry, and headed into the house.

  When she had reached the landing and found the raggedy giant standing over Sam with an axe raised ready to strike, she felt that sense of fate coming to fruition. Yes, this was meant to happen. This was the deciding moment in all of this, this whole journey she and Sam were on. This was the moment she saved him—saved him in a physical sense, so that he would warm to her and allow her to save him in another, more fundamental way.

  This was meant to be.

  She rushed forward out of anger at first, no plan, no logic to her actions; then she saw the fragments of shattered mirror on the carpet and instinctively grabbed for the most dagger-like of them. Then she pounced, letting out a warrior-woman yell that would hopefully delay Sam's attacker long enough to allow her to close the gap.

  It worked. Before she knew it she was on the big man's back and she was stabbing, stabbing, slashing and gouging, all fear gone as she went to work fulfilling her destiny.

  Then she noticed there was no blood. Dust and dried flesh flew from the giant's neck and her heart froze for a split second as she realised that this was Ben Garrett and that he was dead, dead like the girl, like Becky, and that stabbing him with anything was going to have little effect. She continued stabbing him anyway because she didn't know what else to do.

  Then the giant backed her into the wall with great force, knocking the wind out of her. The gla
ss flew from her hand, turning over and over in the air and that was when she noticed it was covered in blood – but it was her blood. As she slid down the wall, she looked at her hand. The shard had sliced so deeply into her palm that she could see the sinew and bone.

  She hit the floor and looked up, feeling a strange sense of delirium as her eyes fixed on Sam. Her Sam. He was still alive, staring over at her. She had saved him. Then everything seemed to slow.

  She had a moment to relish the sight of him – then the axe struck, thudding into her chest. Blood rushed up her throat and into her mouth. She tried to say something, tried to at least scream or curse, but nothing came.

  Her eyes filled with water and she looked up through the mist of tears into the killer's face.

  This isn't how it was supposed to end, she told herself.

  She looked at Sam, reached out for him with a trembling hand.

  His face was a mask of sorrow.

  It was the last thing she knew.

  72

  Sam stared at Kelly's slumped figure. Blood dripped from her mouth, her eyes fixed on nothing. He felt a terrible wave of pity for her now. She had just given her life to save him. What did that mean?

  “See!” Garrett roared, pulling the blood-soaked axe from the young woman's chest and whirling on Ashworth. “See what you've created! You wanted a monster. Well, you've got one!”

  Garrett was about to charge again and Sam realised the giant had forgotten about him after Kelly's surprise attack. He forced his aching body up and charged at Garrett. He caught him around the waist and forced him back, back towards the large window halfway down the hall. Garrett had just enough time to thump Sam hard in the middle of his back—Jesus, the pain!—before they both crashed into the window. The glass gave way easily and the wind and rain rushed in. Garrett was going through and Sam was going with him. As the window disintegrated they both tumbled out into the wild night, and in those few frantic seconds Sam grabbed onto a piece of window frame. Garrett's huge frame fell away from him and Sam watched as the big man plunged, clawing at the air, screaming his anger and hate into the night.

  Sam held onto the broken window frame, dangling there with the wind and rain tearing at him from all sides, not caring that the glass was cutting into his fingers, just praying the piece of timber would hold.

  73

  The plunge seemed to last an eternity.

  Garrett expected the impact of hitting the water would be the end for him, that it would rip his body apart and that would be it. But he punched through the rolling waves into the murky depths and after several seconds of frantic flailing found he was still conscious and still in one piece. The axe remained in his grip.

  Still alive! Still alive! Why am I still alive?

  He hit the sandy seabed and began to climb up the gentle gradient. Once out of the water, he lay face down in the sand. He still felt no desire for breath, only exhaustion like he had never known, and that terrible cancerous feeling of anger in the core of his being, a raging need for revenge on those who had sought to remove him from this world.

  They had failed, though, hadn't they? For whatever reason, and he had no desire to try and understand it now, he was still here and still aware. He raised his head from the sand and looked up at the huge house towering over him on stilts.

  They had failed to stop him. He was still here. Why?

  Because your work here is not yet done, Ben Garrett.

  He managed a grin and climbed to his feet. It seemed to take forever. Finally, he stood there on the beach before the house on stilts, stood there with the fire axe in his hands – and then, slowly, he marched forward to finish his work.

  74

  You did it, Sam told himself. You stopped him.

  Then his grip slipped, the glass shredding his fingers a little more.

  Rachel's face appeared above him, beautiful Rachel, her hair floating around her face in the wind. She clutched at his wrists, naked fear in her eyes—fear for him, he supposed, even after all he'd done.

  “Sam, hold on,” she said. “Just hold on.” Then, over her shoulder, she screamed: “Ashworth! Help me!”

  But Sam knew it was too late. His grip was failing. He was going to fall at any second.

  He looked into his wife's beautiful big brown eyes and wondered how in hell he could ever have betrayed her.

  “I love you, Rachel,” he said. “I'm sorry.”

  Then his grip failed and he fell.

  75

  There was a terrible moment of being in space, that awful sensation of falling, before a hand grabbed his wrist and halted his descent.

  He stared up into Richard Ashworth's face and even though the man was trying to save him, he felt an overwhelming rush of hatred for the man. Ashworth had been behind the plot to kill Garrett right from the beginning. He offered the money for the job to be done. It didn't matter that the contract had misfired. In effect, Ashworth's actions had led to Becky's death. He thought Ashworth was a friend, but looking into his eyes now, he realised he didn't know the man at all.

  “I've got you, Sam,” Ashworth said, the light of hope in his eyes. “It's going to be all right. I've got you.”

  Did Ashworth see some sense of redemption in what he was doing now? Did he really think that saving Sam's life would make everything all right?

  “Reach up, Sam,” Ashworth said. “Reach up with your other hand and I'll pull you in.”

  Sam hesitated. He didn't want Ashworth to save him. It was twisted logic but he felt it strongly. He did not want the man responsible for killing his daughter to have the pleasure of saving him. That was wrong, so wrong. But did he really want to sacrifice his own life to deny Ashworth that chance?

  Before he could decide, the entire house shook violently.

  THOOM

  Rachel and Ashworth looked around, terror in their eyes.

  THOOM

  “What the hell is happening?” Ashworth said.

  Sam knew. He didn't need to look down. He knew what was happening down there on the beach.

  The noise came again and the house shuddered.

  THOOOOOM

  76

  Garrett swung the axe with every ounce of his strength and the sound of the stilt wood splintering filled his mind like a narcotic.

  Yes, this was his revenge. He felt certain that whatever forces had brought him back had done so to bring him to this place, this moment.

  He struck the stilt again, chunks of timber flying in all directions, and watched the house tremble and creak above him.

  A laugh escaped his throat. Not a joyful laugh, but a dark laugh, filled with bitterness.

  He raised the axe and resumed his work.

  77

  “Sam! Sam, speak to me!”

  He blinked, focused. Rachel was reaching out a hand to him.

  “Sam, the house is collapsing! Please reach up! Please!”

  THOOOOM

  The sound of Garrett swinging the axe against the stilts.

  The sound of vengeance.

  “Sam!” Rachel screamed.

  He reached up, trance-like, and Ashworth and Rachel grabbed his arm, yanking him up and through the broken window.

  But as he savoured the feeling of being on sure ground again a new sound filled his senses: the noise of wood splintering beneath them. The house lurched forward and the landing on which they were sitting disintegrated. Rachel screamed and dropped to the floor to find a hold, but the entire top half of the landing ripped free with frightening ease, wooden splints ripping from the upper landing like rotten teeth being pulled from diseased gums. Sam felt the floor sway beneath him and he turned to grab onto something—anything—to stop himself from falling into the collapsing crevice, but there was nothing to hold onto and he felt his feet sliding towards the gaping hole in the building.

  Rachel was crouched on the other half of the landing, her eyes full of terror.

  Then everything froze. The house creaked, but everything remained in position
.

  “Rachel,” Sam said. “Just . . . just stay where you are. I'm going to get to you.”

  She looked at him, tears in her eyes, saying nothing.

  Then the worst noise he had ever heard:

  THOOM-THOOOM

  The landing carrying Rachel lurched violently and slipped from view, pirouetting down into the inky blackness of the night. Her screams dwindled quickly, swallowed up by the howling wind which filled the upper floors of Martello. Sam pitched forward as the house twisted on its remaining stilt, and as he slid down the sloping floor he reached out and his fingers closed around a jutting broken balustrade. The force yanked his arm painfully and he grunted with the impact.

  Then everything stopped.

  Sam lay there on the burning landing, staring out through the chasm which had appeared in the wall of Martello House. Rain swept into the opening, heavy drops touching Sam’s face and neck, but not enough to shake him out of his shocked trance.

  She’s gone she’s gone she’s gone

  The words repeated in his mind like a mantra, and all he could think of was that everything he’d tried so desperately hard to hold onto was lost. Becky. His marriage. Now Rachel herself. He felt an all-consuming numbness, an absence of all thought or feeling, as though he was a powerless plaything of spiteful, uncaring gods who had decided to move all the chess pieces of his life around with no other reason than to see how much he could take, how far he could suffer before he gave in.

  He was only vaguely aware of Ashworth on the landing behind him, only vaguely aware that he was speaking to him, imploring him to climb back towards him. But he didn't care. In that moment, he felt empty. In that freeze-frame moment he understood that everything he had ever needed, everything that gave his life meaning and purpose had just fallen to the rocks below.

  In that moment of stillness he cursed himself for not allowing Ashworth to rescue him when he had the chance, before the entire landing gave way. He cursed himself for not being quick enough to save Rachel, and even a part of him wished he’d been able to stop Kelly from dying . . .