'Kill her.'
He pulled back William East's head and ran the knife across his throat. When he let go the body finally crumbled to the floor where it landed with a thud.
Peter looked at the body, face down on the forest floor. It disgusted him, the way that some people were so willing to give up without a fight. He hadn't expected it of an Agent. He felt like spitting on the boy.
"Come on," he said gruffly and held out his hand towards the girl.
She bowed her head and walked over to him. Offered no resistance as he grabbed a fistful of her hair. He pushed her in front of him and they started walking again.
It couldn't be far now. It wouldn't be long. He could taste her on the air like sewage. He spat as if he had a foul taste in his mouth and kept moving.
35
She found nothing of interest in the lab so carried on down the stairs. In the glass walled corridor she found offices. Most of them were locked but at the end she found an open door.
It was still cool inside. There was an air conditioning unit built into the wall but the lights were off and no air was flowing through it. Around the walls there were black metal racks filled with computer equipment. The lights still blinked away and she thought she could hear the hum of a generator somewhere nearby.
She looked at the racks and felt disappointed. All of the information she wanted was probably inside these machines, millions upon millions of lines of code and she couldn't get to any of it.
Samantha was about to turn around and leave when she noticed an old laptop on one of the shelves. She walked over to it and picked it up.
The thing had to be older than she was. The black case was scruffy and there was white residue where stickers had been pulled away. She looked at the side of it. There were USB ports so it wasn't that ancient.
She opened it up not expecting anything to happen but after a moment the screen flickered to life.
Sam looked around for something she could plug into the computer and found a cable dangling from the back of one of the servers. She picked it up, plugged it in and began to find out what the island was really all about.
36
Some of them she recognised from the ship and some of them she didn't. Her job had mostly confined her to the casino and the Sea View dining room. There had been eleven other eating establishments on the boat and not everyone wanted to gamble.
"Rachel!" said a familiar voice.
She turned around and saw a man standing there. It took her a moment to realise who it was. "Jack?" she said.
He walked towards her with a beaming smile on his face and his hand out. She didn't think she had ever seen him smile before. She took his hand and he dew her in to a hug. "It's great to see you Rachel."
She staggered back and looked at him. He looked different, changed somehow. She couldn't put her finger on why. "What's going on Jack?" she said.
He looked around at all of the people who had gathered there and suddenly she realised what a stupid question she had asked. It was obvious what they were doing there. It was a party.
"I mean," she said, correcting herself so as not to look stupid, "what's the occasion?"
"Occasion?" said Jack, "do we need one? We're all here, we're all happy. Isn't that enough?" He looked over her shoulder and his smile broadened. "Ah, Billy, there you are."
She turned and saw that it really was Billy. She found that she could see him clearly now, although it wasn't any brighter.
It occurred to her that he was really a William and that the mad man that she had run away from was looking for him. She thought this should have concerned her more than it did. Then she stood in front of Billy and it all became clear.
His throat had been cut. The wound gaped like a hideous grin. He was shirtless and there was a second bloody wound on his chest.
"Hi Jack," he said and then turned to her. "Hi Rachel."
While he spoke blood bubbled from the wound in his neck. Rachel realised that she didn't have to worry about the man coming to look for Billy because he was dead, they were all dead.
She vaguely wondered how she had died.
"Have a drink," said Jack. When she turned back towards him. He held out a drink and that seemed like the most natural thing in the world.
"Thanks," she said.
"Have you met the captain?" said Jack. She shook her head. "Come on then, I'll introduce you."
She walked beside Billy through the party. The other guests, some of whom she recognised, others she didn't, stepped aside to let them through.
37
Sam devoured the information she found. She knew a little about the Grigori but most of it was rumour and speculation. The Grigori received public funding but, unlike The Agency, it was not a public body. It operated in its only little sphere. Until she'd opened the computer Sam hadn't known much more than that.
They had found the island in 1902 and immediately realised that it had some strange properties. Not least of which was that it absorbed radar signals so as to remain undetectable. By the time satellite surveillance had become an issue the Grigori had been able to implement technologies of their own to hide it.
The island was home to a plethora of animals not found anywhere else in the world which the Grigori had taken full advantage of, instigating breeding program's and discovering that they shared more with sub-terrestrial species's than anything else. The island, however, was a dangerous place. Shortly after the Grigori moved in a series of fatalities led to the discovery of a strange gas that caused hallucinations and mutations.
There was more, lots more, but Sam realised she couldn't read it all. She needed to take it with her, the experiments alone were enough to have the Grigori declared a terrorist organisation. She closed the laptop and looked around for a bag she could carry it in but didn't see one. So she tucked it under her arm and wondered how long she had left.
Now that she knew what the lab was used for it seemed creepier than it had done. She could only imagine the sort of sick experiments that had been conducted there. She walked to the door as quickly as she could.
She sprinted down the corridor and burst through the door and out into the night. On the other side of the fence she ran in the opposite direction, no longer thinking about the other survivors. The most important thing now was to get the laptop back to England.
38
Even if Mikey was with them she didn't think it would make any difference now. He was intelligent enough to understand her and respond to her but she didn't believe he would be able to pass on anything to the others. What would she say anyway, 'I wasn't trying to steal your eggs, I just wanted the baby because my people are planning to kill you all.'
She sprinted through the forest but she couldn't keep that up for long. Her muscles were already burning and she was painfully aware that each gasping breath was just bringing more poison into her system.
The ground shook with heavy footsteps behind her and the air seemed to vibrate with deep growls. Low hanging branches whipped her face and she was constantly aware that at any moment she might run into a tree. She wondered what they would do to her if they caught her.
'Tear you apart at the seams,' came the reply from somewhere deep within her head. She had been trained to recognise the warning signs of over exposure to the poison.
She had to get to cover, somewhere she could lock the doors and get her senses back, otherwise it soon wouldn't matter whether the creatures caught her or not.
Grace had all but given up on the idea of finding Mikey now. She realised that it had been a fools errand from the first. She should have just waited like a good girl and then gone to the dock with everyone else.
'Except it's not that, is it?'
Except it wasn't just sentimental attachment to Mikey that had compelled her to recklessly ignore orders. The scientific glory of presenting a one of a kind creature to the world had played a part as well.
Ahead she saw the shelter. She slowed down a little so that she could rub her
eyes and make sure it wasn't an illusion. When she looked again it was still there which didn't mean she wasn't imagining it but it made her feel a little better.
In the early days, before field researchers had been kitted out with haz-mat suits, Grigori had built a series of shelters across the island. Most of them had long since been torn down but a few were still standing. It was fortunate that she had managed to stumble across one.
'Seems like more than good fortune. Seems a little suspicious, don't you think?'
She pushed open the door and practically fell into the darkness. She sealed herself off and listened to the creatures stop and circle the cabin.
She was panting for breath and her heart felt as if it might jump out of her chest and vibrate across the floor. It was pitch black in the shelter and not atmosphere sealed. It would slow the effect of the poison but it wouldn't allow it to be worked out of her system.
She fumbled for a light switch. The neon bulb clicked and flickered into life casting dark shadows around the edges of the single room. There were a couple of beds, a gas oven and a table with a wipe clean red chequered cloth on it.
"Hello there."
A man with a dirty swollen face was sitting at the table. Next to him there was a young girl with blond hair and a vacant expression. Grace stepped back when she saw them.
"Leaving so soon?"
She shook her head. He shouldn't have been there. He must have been one of the survivors.
"Take a seat," he said. "We need to talk."
Grace still hadn't said a word but she slid out a wooden chair and sat down at the table opposite him.
He smiled. "You're Grace?"
She nodded, didn't ask how he knew her name.
"Would you like a drink Grace?" he said. He slid an empty glass across the table to her. She looked down at it and then up at him. Dust crawled up the side, it didn't look as if anything close to liquid had been near it for years.
The man lifted a similarly empty cup to his mouth and did a grand impression of someone drinking. She smiled at him and hoped that she could last long enough for him to cease being a danger to her.
39
He looked at the woman sitting across the table and he tried to smile. His skin was painfully dry and it felt as if it was cracking. He realised what was happening; the island was taking care of him. The island was making sure that he could complete his work.
They hadn't given him a map. He worked on a strictly need to know basis and he, apparently, did not need to know how the island was laid out. The idea was that he would never make it as far as the island. But that was alright, plans changed, the island was making sure that he would be able to do his job.
He could see that she didn't recognise him. She looked at him with fear and he had no doubt that it was partly due to his grotesque appearance but mostly because she didn't really know what was going on. That didn't matter, she didn't need to know the background of his job, she just needed to tell him what she knew.
The island had sent him to the cabin. He had been lost in the forest and it had led him towards the shelter.
'You will find answers there,' it had told him and now he had no doubt that he was about to find them.
"Where is she?" he said.
The woman looked at him, her lip curled up into a snarl. She did not look pretty. "I don't know what you're talking about," she said.
He picked up his glass and sipped the water. It was cool and refreshing but it didn't taste of anything. "You know who I'm talking about," he said. "Where is Samantha Black?"
The woman, her name was Grace, shook her head. "I don't know anyone called Samantha Black."
He put the glass down and leaned across the table towards her. He could smell the soap on her skin like she'd recently had a shower. He couldn't remember the last shower he'd had, wasn't even sure he would know how to operate one. "It's okay," he said. "We're on the same team here."
She looked at him like she didn't believe that for a second. How could she possibly be on the same team as a maniac like him? Obviously she was very junior, she couldn't have any idea what the Grigori was really like. That was okay though and maybe she didn't know where the girl was. If Samantha was any good at her job she wouldn't stay in one place for very long.
He sat back and tried to think. He trusted the island, he knew that she had the information that he needed. The problem had to be the question he was asking. Grace didn't know who Samantha was or where she was but she knew something that could help him work it out.
Peter thought about what he'd been told before he was sent after her. He'd been called into the little room they used when they needed to meet with him, a tiny grey room deep underground, no windows and only enough space for three chairs. He sat in one, two nameless men in grey suits sat in the others. A light dangled from the ceiling. "We want you to find this girl," they said, he couldn't remember which spoke and which stayed silent. They handed him a photograph.
She was a pretty girl, blond, not skinny like the rake sitting next to him now. She looked alive, her dark eyes seemed to leap off the page. But she was the enemy.
"She's working on a cruise ship with," and then they handed him another photograph, this time of the boy he had gutted in the forest.
"Where's the lab?" he said to Grace.
Her eyes widened for just a fraction of a second but it told him all he needed to know. Even if she denied all knowledge of it now and tried to make out that she had just been a passenger on the ship, he would know that she was lying and, one way or another, he would be able to make her tell him.
40
She walked along the ridge that separated the forest from the sea. The laptop was clutched under her arm. Breathing was becoming difficult, the air seemed heavy and difficult to swallow.
'He's going to kill you.'
She ignored the voice. If he found her then she would fight and she thought she might win.
She couldn't see any boats. She was beginning to think she had come the wrong way. She kept going but if she didn't see something soon she would have to reconsider.
The moon looked huge floating above the sea. The water seemed to sparkle like a silver blanket. She could hear music. It was a strange sort of tune and it seemed to be coming from everywhere at the same time. Samantha stopped and looked down at the forest. It was dark and still, it would have been easy to believe that there was no one else on the island with her.
'No one except you and me babe.'
But she knew that wasn't true. There were dangers that she could see and others that she couldn't. She wondered how long she had left before the evacuation was complete and what would happen if she was still there. She kept walking. Her whole body ached and she longed for sleep.
'Lay down, rest your head.'
She saw shapes moving in the distance but she no longer trusted her eyes. There was nothing there except lies. She kept walking. They looked like people dancing, throwing themselves through the air like acrobats. She kept walking.
The music became louder and the dancers moved in time with it. She shook her head and rubbed her eyes, when she looked again they were still there.
'Not long now. Soon you'll be like all your friends; dead. Dead!'
The voice seemed to laugh at her but she knew it wasn't real. The dancers and the music were utterly convincing, they didn't fade in and out of reality like her other fantasies. She felt as if she could see weight and substance within the music. She felt as if she too might start to dance. The rhythm was infectious, she could feel it in her bones. She gripped the computer more tightly and forced herself to look away.
41
She turned on the spot and Billy caught her in his arms, dipped her backwards so that her hair almost touched the floor and everything was upside down. The music hung on its final note and then there was silence, followed by applause.
Rachel blushed as Billy helped her to stand. They turned together and bowed. She could feel her heart racing but it wasn't reall
y, how could it be if she was dead?
She hooked her arm through Billy's and they walked together towards the refreshments that had been provided. There were little sandwiches without crusts cut into triangles, colourful cakes and bowls full of punch. It all looked delicious but when she tried to eat she couldn't taste a thing.
"Don't you think this is strange?" she said to Billy as he filled two cups with bright green punch.
"Strange how?" he said. The wound on his neck was crusted with blood and flapped as he spoke.
"All of this, on an island in the middle of nowhere."
He looked around and spilled some of the punch on his chest. Then he shrugged. "I don't know what you mean."
Everyone there was the same. They appeared perfectly at ease with the fact that they were dead which wasn't particularly strange, she wasn't really concerned about it herself. She was, however, anxious about still being on the island. She liked Billy, they had a good laugh, but the idea of spending eternity with the same sixty or seventy people did not appeal to her.
She sipped her tasteless punch. "Just, don't you think it's strange that we're still all here?" she said.
"I guess. We're not all here though, are we?"
"What do you mean?"
The music had started to play again and behind them another couple were preparing to take to the dance floor. "Well, there's still Sam and probably others. We weren't the only ones on the island."
"Sam?"
He nodded and sipped his drink, it dribbled out of his neck wound but he didn't seem to notice. She followed the stream of it down his bare chest to his navel.
She remembered with painful clarity her time with the man who had taken her. She remembered what he had done to her and...
"A new arrival!"
Her train of thought was lost as she turned around. The music had stopped and Jack was walking towards a young woman with his arms out wide. She followed Billy away from the table towards the welcome party.
Three Stories Tall Page 24
