"See it?" he said.
"Ho-lee shit!"
A creature, there really was no other name for it, loomed in the darkness. It towered over the tree beside it which seemed to be as big as the ones in the forest but that couldn't be right. They had to be fifty feet tall which would make this thing close to one-hundred. It had too many appendages and they were too strange to be labelled arms or legs. Tentacles would have been more accurate but still not quite right.
It was like something from a nightmare.
As she watched more creatures joined it. Different creatures with different sets of strange nightmarish features. She couldn't see them clearly in the dark and she was glad of that.
"They're never going to let us leave," she said.
"What do you mean?" said Billy.
"She means," said Annabel behind them. They turned around to see her pointing a gun at them. "That you're going to die here. Drop the gun hero."
Billy dropped the gun. It rattled on the ground and then slid beneath the rickety fence and down the hill. Annabel smiled from inside her fishbowl.
20
They recruited her straight out of secondary school. Samantha Black had been both top athlete and academic since she'd started school. She had managed to avoid the temptation of drugs and politics. She had a few close friends but no one who would miss her after a few months. She was the perfect candidate.
She had come home from school after her final A-level exam to find a man in a suit waiting outside her front door.
"Can I help you?" she'd asked, trying not to betray the fear she felt that something had happened to her mum or dad.
"Miss Black?" said the man.
She nodded slowly.
"I understand congratulations are in order."
"What for?" she said, starting to get suspicious now.
The man held up a stack of paper that she recognised as the exam she had handed in less than an hour ago. "Top of the school in every subject."
She smiled. Despite the strangeness of the situation she was glad to know that she'd done well. "How did you get that?"
Then it was his turn to smile. "There's a lot I can get Sam. I'm very resourceful."
She didn't know what to say and for a moment they just stood on her doorstep staring at each other. Her mum and dad weren't due back for another three hours and most of the houses on the street were empty.
"Who are you?" she said. "What do you want?"
"My name's Walter Pittman. I'm a recruiter."
"A recruiter for what?" She already had an offer for Oxley and if her results were as good as he claimed she wouldn't have any trouble confirming.
"May I come inside?" he said. "This is a rather delicate situation."
"I'm not going to let a stranger inside my house," she said.
He nodded. "Very wise. Will you take a walk with me then?"
She hesitated.
"Public places only. There will be lots of people about."
She nodded. She had to admit that she was intrigued by the situation and flattered by the idea that someone wanted to recruit her.
They walked through the high street, just a man in a suit and a teenage girl. They could have been a father his and daughter. It might not have been as private as her house but they were anonymous among hundreds of other people. Walter would later tell her that being outside had the added advantage of making it more difficult for their conversation to be bugged.
"I work for the government," he told her. "In a secret organisation."
"You're a spy?" she said, perhaps a little too loudly but the young woman with the pram didn't even look up from her phone.
"Very astute," he said.
"Like MI5?"
"Sort of but even more secret. The organisation I work for doesn't have a name. Officially we don't exist."
"Wow," she said. "And you want to recruit me?"
He nodded.
"What about school?" she said. She thought about the ancient Oxley buildings and how much she'd been looking forward to studying in them.
"Oh we still want you to go to school," he said. "In fact we will pay your fees and your accommodation."
"On the condition I work for you afterwards?"
"On the condition that you train with us and, based on your performance at school and with us, we might offer you a position at the end of it."
She couldn't help smiling and nodded along as if it all made perfect sense to her. She was going to be a spy, her, little Samantha Black.
"What do you say Sam?" he said. They had stopped outside an anonymous grey building covered in blue graffiti. She had a feeling that if she tried to go inside she wouldn't be able to.
Of course she accepted the offer and they were as good as their word. They paid for everything she needed and all she had to do was train with them twice a week.
When she graduated from Oxley with a First they were waiting for her. Walter Pittman was at the ceremony with a handshake and a job offer. The moment she had spent three years working towards was finally upon her. She accepted the job with a satisfied smile.
Working for 'The Agency', as they called themselves, was every bit as exciting as she had imagined. There was international travel at a moments notice and fights and explosions. It was like living in an action film at times. The money was excellent but she didn't need it, almost everything was paid for.
Samantha loved her job so, when Walter Pittman returned and asked her to work deep under cover for a number of years where she would be completely cut off from the organisation, she was reluctant to accept. When he told her what might be at stake she didn't feel as if she could turn it down.
21
Annabel directed them away from the fence at gunpoint. Samantha turned to look at Billy but he was staring intently at the woman's back. She wanted to ask Billy about the gun. Where had he got it? Did he know how to use it? Who the fuck was he really? They walked on in silence. She could hear the moans and groans of the creatures behind her and occasionally the ground shook.
Billy looked at her and nodded. She found that she didn't need words to understand what he wanted. She knew situations like this. She knew that when the moment felt right they would rush the woman and try to get the gun. She still wasn't sure that she wanted Billy to have a gun but rather him than the woman marching them towards some unknown danger.
The moment came sooner than she expected. Unseen by any of them one of the three-eyed bear creatures had been climbing in the branches above their heads. It dropped down with an ear piercing screech and took them all by surprise.
Dr. Chong might have been brilliant in her field, whatever that might be, but she was not a trained spy. Samantha, and to some apparent degree, Billy were. Even though her body hurt and she was tired, hungry and dehydrated, she recovered from the shock of the bear-thing quickly. Billy wasn't far behind but the doctor continued to flounder. At one point she very nearly dropped her gun.
Samantha and Billy charged towards her. He struck her first, the weight of his body driving her first up into the air and then back to the ground with a thud. Samantha pulled the gun from the woman's hand and instinctively checked that it was loaded before turning it on her.
Billy climbed off the ground and dusted himself down. The bear-creature that had been their unwitting saviour was nowhere to be seen.
"Tie her up," said Sam.
"Sam I don't..."
"Yes you do and we can have that conversation later. Just tie her up."
He nodded and pulled vines from the trees. With one powerful arm he dragged her to the side of the path and tied her to the tree.
Samantha hadn't held a gun for more than a year. She gripped the handle tightly. It felt good. It felt right.
"You can't just leave me here," said the doctor.
Billy finished securing her and stood up next to Sam.
"Why shouldn't we?" she said.
"Because..." her voice trailed away. "I can't tell you."
Sama
ntha released the safety catch. "Sure you don't want to try?"
Annabel sighed. "I'm dead whatever way you figure it."
Samantha walked towards the woman, keeping the gun trained on her. "The question is how slow and painful do you want to make it? How about we start by getting you out of that thing," she said and reached out to press what looked like a quick release button for the helmet.
"No don't," said the woman, her voice panicked.
Sam wondered what was so dangerous that she needed to wear a full haz-mat suit. She and Billy had been on the island for more than twenty-four hours without any kind of reaction. "Tell me what I want to know then."
She didn't take her eyes off the gun that was hovering in front of the quick release button. "Fine. They know you're here and their evacuating the island. If security don't catch you everyone will leave and the island will be destroyed."
With practiced skill Sam didn't react to the news although it was about as bad as it could get. "How long?" she said.
The woman shrugged. "Twenty-four hours, maybe."
She walked back over to Billy. "What do you reckon?"
"You want to get out of here? Find the dock, steal a boat?"
"We've got twenty-four hours," she said. "How do you feel about a little adventure?"
He smiled in a weary sort of way. "What about her?"
Samantha looked back at the woman tied to the tree and then back at Billy. She shrugged. "If she's still here when we come back we'll take her with us."
They left her beneath the tree screaming that her air would run out and calling them names. They ignored her and set off to try and find the other survivors.
22
Peter stood with his back against the tree. He could hear the skinny bitch pissing in the bushes behind him. The dirty girl was back on the floor, making a point of not looking at him. He could feel a cool breeze on his face, it was nice, it carried the smell of sand and sea and reminded him of childhood holidays.
The skinny girl came back. She was rubbing her hands on her trousers. Unless she'd pissed on them he doubted they would get any cleaner when she was done.
"You want to go?" he said to the dirty girl. She'd probably piss her pants before taking a favour from him. She hadn't even accepted water since the previous night.
"Get bent," she said.
He shrugged. "Your loss." He unzipped his trousers and started taking to piss, aiming it so it pooled right in front of her. She was probably getting spayed with the splash but she just stared at him, her face a mask of hatred.
When he had finished he pulled the long vine that he had wrapped around her wrists like a dog lead. "Up," he said.
She stood up. They started walking again.
The skinny girl had her hands tied together but he was sure she was on his side now and that he didn't need to keep her on a lead. They had been walking since sunrise, following the trail. Samantha Black and William East hadn't been very careful as they made their way across the island.
He examined the ground as they walked. He could tell by the way the bushes were flattened which direction they had travelled. He could tell by the smell that it had been less than two hours ago. He could even tell by the depth and spacing of the footprints which side Samantha had been walking on and which side Billy had been walking on.
The air continued to heat up. It hung over him like a poisonous cloud that he couldn't get away from. He stopped when he heard the noise. He yanked hard on the vine and the dirty girl let out a choked breath.
"Watch it," she said.
He ignored her. At first he couldn't tell what the sound was. It sounded like people talking. Lots of people, all merged into one sound. "Wait here," he said. He looped the skinny bitch's wrists around the lead and then tied that to a tree. Then he walked into the bushes towards the voices. He didn't really care who it was. Chances were it was the rest of the passengers. But he had to look to make sure it wasn't a threat to him.
On the other side of the bushes there was a clearing of about a hundred metres across. There were people standing around, talking and laughing as if standing in the middle of a forest on an island was the most normal thing in the world.
He watched them for a time. They walked around, changing groups and patting each other on the back, shaking hands and hugging. They showed no sign of concern or desire to leave. They might have been at a dinner party rather than in the middle of an island.
Peter stepped away and let the bushes close again. Whatever they were doing it was no concern of his. But he stood there for a while longer and even considered taking another look. It was the strangest thing. A part of him saw and understood that what they were doing was completely insane, certainly illogical. But there was a part of him, just a small part but a part nonetheless, that thought it might be a good idea to go and join them.
He shook the idea out of his head. He had a job to do and he did not turn his back on a job, never had, never would. People paid his extortionate fees because he could do two things; get the job done, whatever the cost, and be discreet about it.
When he got back to the tree the dirty girl was gone. The skinny bitch had big bags under her eyes as if she'd been crying. He approached her and she started snivelling.
"I'm sorry, I tried to stop her, she wouldn't listen."
Anger flared in his chest for a moment and he grabbed her throat. The scream she would have given was choked off as he squeezed hard enough to feel her windpipe start to give. He looked at her for a moment and let her go. She fell to the floor in a heap. He didn't need the dirty bitch as long as he had her. Maybe he wouldn't even need her when it came down to it but it didn't hurt to have a hostage.
"Get up," he said.
She leaned on the tree to pull herself up. With her free hand she rubbed the red marks on her neck where he had gripped her. She stood up and looked at him. He could see the desire to please on her face. He thought he could ask her to do anything at that moment and she would happily comply. It was amazing what a bit of water and some food bought you.
He started walking. He didn't have to turn around to know that she was following behind him like a good skinny bitch.
23
Ahead she could see the creatures. They were a hundred feet tall but seemed placid enough despite their ugly, unwieldy bodies.
Billy walked ahead, he hadn't turned to look at her since they had abandoned the woman on the mound. She drew a deep breath and jogged towards him. Every foot fall sent shock waves of pain through her legs and up through her spine.
"Do you want to go first?" she said when she caught up to him.
He turned and looked at her but he didn't speak.
"Because I'm pretty sure you didn't learn any of that from watching films."
He glanced at her but quickly looked away. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Cut the shit Billy." Despite her best intentions she was starting to get frustrated with him and angry. "Is that even your real name?"
"It's real enough," he said.
"So who do you work for? Did they send you? Are you here to kill me?"
"Of course I'm not here to kill you."
"It's that old story is it; spy gets sent to kill someone but falls in love with her. Is that what happened?"
He flinched at the word spy which told her more than he intended. "They didn't send me to kill you," he said which told her the rest.
His non-denial of being in love with her hung in the air. Billy stopped walking and she stopped beside him.
"Pittman sent me," he said.
"I knew it."
Billy sighed and she realised this bit was difficult for him. If he worked for The Agency then he had been trained never to give up details of his mission. It would be better to die than risk betrayal.
"You can tell me," she said. She took his hand. "We're on the same side." She hoped that was true but she had no way of knowing. All she did know was that he'd had plenty of opportunities to kill her and now she was t
he one holding the gun.
Behind them the creatures made their weird noises, like angry elephants. She wondered what the hell this place was but that was another question. If there was time she would ask it later. This situation with Billy had to be dealt with first.
"He sent me to look after you," he said.
"To look after me?" She was surprised. She and Pittman had always gotten on well but she thought that had ended when she walked away. Apparently not.
Billy nodded. "He was worried about you."
"Why was he worried about me?"
Billy shrugged. "Maybe he didn't think you could handle it in the real world?"
"So he just set you up on a cruise ship and told you to keep an eye on me?"
"Pretty much."
"We should eat," she said.
He looked at her like she was mad.
"We've got a lot of work to do," she said. "We'll need our strength."
He nodded stiffly and a part of her felt sad. She had lost clumsy in-love Billy, although she realised he had never really existed. Things were different between them now, he was a different person and, now that she didn't have to hide it, so was she.
As well as the creatures of every shape and size the island seemed to be teeming with rabbits. Billy caught a brown one and wrung its neck while she built a small fire beneath a tree. She cooked it in silence and they ate in silence. She wondered if he was annoyed with her was because she had forced him to break cover.
24
He couldn't move his arms or legs. They had even tied his head to the chair. It tilted back so that he could only see the ceiling, swarming with the black dots, and the face of whoever was working on him at the time.
It was cold in the room. He couldn't hear any air conditioning or feel a breeze but he had goose pimples on his arms.
He was thirsty. They had hooked him up to a hydration drip but his throat was still dry and his mouth stuck together.
Trevor didn't know how long he had been in the room for. It might have been hours or it might have been days. He hadn't slept and his mind was playing tricks on him. He wanted to sleep, if only to escape from the relentless brightness of the room. But they had pinned his eyes wide open with metal frames.
Three Stories Tall Page 21
