Islanders

by John Barlow

Silver thought about it. Hard. It annoyed her to admit it, but Ben had a point. She tutted, huffed, grimaced, clicked her tongue...

  “All right,” she finally managed to squeeze out, “it’s a good idea.”

  “Okay, fellas!” Terra said, marching right up to the commandos. “Get yer kit off!” She lifted the barrel of the gun and gestured with it playfully, as only Terra knew how. “Come on, strip!”

  The commandos stared at her in amazement. Apart from anything else, it was cold, far too cold to take even your coat off. Then they began to cast sneaky glances at each other, whispering a word here and there, considering the probability that this mad, short-haired woman in ultra-tight jeans that rode a Harley Davidson was capable of blasting them to bits if they didn’t take off their clothes.

  They decided not to risk it. Slowly they began to unbutton their jackets, keeping an eye on the gun, which hovered in the air as if it were making fun of them. Off came the jackets, and the shirts, until each one of them was down to his little light blue vest.

  “Troooooooooosers as well!” Terra hollered, as Ben and the others tried without much success to conceal their laughter. “Silver, avert your eyes! This is not a sight for ladies!”

  “But you’re looking!” Silver retorted.

  “I assure you,” Terra said, “I am no lady! Come on, boys! Quick! Get yer trousers down, or it’ll be underpants off as well. Quickly does it!”

  Harman was the last commando to undress. Slowly he pulled down his dark blue trousers, to reveal the biggest pair of Y-fronts anyone had ever seen.

  “Cor, Harman!” Terra shouted. “Look at you! We could set up camp inside those! Why, they’re big enough for all of us! Hey, look everybody. Harman’s wearing a parachute around his bum. Now that is what I call sexy. Mmm!”

  Throughout all this, Sullivan sat calmly amongst the commandos, fully clothed, and showed no sign of taking anything off. He looked bored, as if all this was a tiresome game that he must endure, for the time being.

  You know something, thought Ben.

  Then Jason whispered in Ben’s ear: “What about my dad? Are we going to...”

  “He’s coming with us,” Ben said.

  But then there was a flapping sound. Tah screamed:

  “Get off me! Get... get...!”

  He was racing around in a circle, a chunk-hen after him, pecking his ankles.

  And there were more of them, about a dozen of the birds.

  “I told you!” Terra said to the twins. “Once they take a liking to someone, they’ll go anywhere. And...”

  She stopped. They all stopped, and looked at the hens, who were walking jerkily towards the commandos. The bare pink flesh had attracted their attention. Because there is nothing a chunk-hen likes more than to take a chunk out of some nice, pink flesh.

  One of the birds extended its head.

  “Agh!” cried a commando, half in pain and half in disbelief.

  “Are they playing?” said Bad, as the commando rubbed a beak-mark on his arm.

  With that the other hens began stalking the group of men, biting wobbly thigh meat, snapping at toes and kneecaps, their powerful beaks taking a shot at any bit of pink flesh that seemed interesting.

  “Who cares!” Worse said. “Let’s leave ’em here.”

  *

  Five minutes later they were outside the gates of the graveyard, ready to go back to the Complex. For a moment they listened to the very pleasant sound of a dozen very excited chunk-hens clucking fiercely, and the screams of pain from the commandos.

  But then it was time to go. The twins and Ugly would take the Jeep, with Sullivan on the flatback, lashed down with ropes, just in case. Ben, Coby and Silver were going on three spare emus that Tah had brought. Terra and Jason would take the Harley, the shotgun strapped to its side.

  Terra, meanwhile, had opened the bonnet of Sullivan’s Jeep and ripped out a handful of battery cables.

  “Just in case,” she said. “And don’t forget the uniforms!”

  The stun commando uniforms had been brought out of the graveyard and lay in a pile on the ground. There was no use keeping the clothes, because they were far too big for any of them, apart from the twins, and they already had their stolen uniforms on.

  “Come on,” Ben said to Coby. “Help me.”

  He dragged the pile of clothes over to the edge of the water. Coby scrambled after him, collecting the stray boots and the odd commando shirt. They kicked the whole pile into the water.

  For a second nothing happened. Then there was a familiar buzzing noise. A second later the water was churning with the demented flipping of piranha-stars. A hundred of them had swarmed in, and the water turned a frothy white, with a fleck of orange here and there, as one snapping piranha-star after another leapt into the air.

  “Wow!” Coby said. “Cool!”

  “Yeah,” Worse said, punching him in the back. “That’s exactly where Harman was gonna drop you in. Right there!”

  Coby’s face turned white, whiter than the foaming water, and he said no more about the piranha-stars.

  They got ready to leave. Then, as they were about to drive off, the driver’s door of the Jeep flew open, and Worse jumped out, shouting and arguing with his brother:

  “I’m gonna do it! Just don’t try and stop me... I’m gonna...”

  His face was bright red, and his body pumped up with wild, uncontrollable energy. Whatever he was about to do, no one in their right mind would have tried to stop him.

  He jogged back to the graveyard like an assassin stealing up on his victim. The others watched him go, saying nothing. A moment later he emerged, frog-marching one of the commandos, the one who’d shot Ugly Pig with the stun gun.

  “Oh, no...” Ben whispered, “I don’t like the look of this...”

  “You!” Worse said, shoving the cowering, shivering commando out in front of him, “you’re going for a swim, buddy.”

  With that he picked the commando up, as if he were a sack of potatoes, carried him to the water’s edge. Fortunately for the commando, it was the other side, where everyone just prayed there were no piranha-stars.

  There was a booming, ear-jangling roar, followed by a great splash.

  “Go on!” Worse cried, a vicious, deathly smile on his face. “Swim for yer life!”

  Disorientated and blind with panic, the commando actually paddled further out, away from the edge, and found his way to the withered remains of a dead tree which stuck up from the water. He hauled himself up and clung to the branches, trembling like a frightened baby as, with wide eyes, he saw something pink-brown moving beneath him in the murky depths.

  “There,” Worse said with satisfaction. “Touch my pig again and I’ll make sure there’s no tree to save you!”

  He got back in the Jeep.

  With that, they set off back towards the Complex.

  Inside the graveyard, a bunch of very stunned stun commandos sat, shivering in their underpants. Outside, another commando clung to a dead tree, whilst beneath him in the dark, cloudy water of the sea rivers, a man-sized octopus hovered, flexing its long sucker-arms, licking its lips, slithering patiently around the tree’s roots. Waiting.

  Chapter Forty-One

  The emus sprinted like maniacs, keen to get away from the land of the sea rivers. Ben, Coby and Silver gripped their bird’s necks, which were as hard as steel, as if underneath the soft exterior these mad speed machines were Ferrari-emus, or Daytona-emus... They held on as best they could, air blowing like a tornado into their faces, beneath them the road racing by.

  “This is great!” Coby shouted, grinning so widely that his mouth seemed to stretch right around to his ears. Then he lost his balance, and grabbed a handful of the big bird’s tail feathers.

  Big mistake. The emus’s shoulders suddenly tensed. It’s legs twitched. And Coby was almost left behind as his emu flew forwards at an incredible, brain-squashing pace. His legs flew out behind as he slithered and struggled to hang onto the rump of this overgrown, f
eathery speed machine.

  “Aghhhhhhhh!” was all they heard as Coby and the emu disappeared in a cloud of dust.

  Tah watched all this from way down the road, trotting along on his emu next to the Jeep. He sighed to himself: Why do I keep forgetting to tell people how to stop?

  Terra also saw it. She was riding the Harley, with a nervous Jason behind her, holding tight. She opened up the throttle and the bike reared up, its front wheel lifting off the ground, its back wheel spitting out a stream of dirt. Terra and her petrified son shot forwards at full-tilt. She may have been giving Jason a ride, and she may have been the responsible adult of the group, but she was not going to let a bunch of stupid emus beat her Road King 750. No way.

  “Aghhhh!” Jason wailed, as this crazy, short-haired maniac-mother of his took the Harley faster and faster.

  “Look at them go!” Worse said, knowing that the Jeep was not capable of going anywhere near as fast.

  “Yeah!” Bad whispered, jealously.

  Then there was a tapping sound. They turned their heads...

  The window behind them exploded, showering them both with a thousand tiny fragments of glass.

  “What the...” Worse shouted, braking hard.

  Sullivan was there, his head and shoulders right up in the space where the back window of the cabin had been. He held up a hand, the skin cut to ribbons where he had punched through glass a second time, fresh blood dripping down onto the seat and onto the twins’ shoulders.

  “Don’t panic, boys,” he said, as if he didn’t even feel the pain of his injured hand. “I only want to talk.”

  The twins sized him up. They could take him on between them, no trouble. Why should they listen to what he had to say?

  “You didn’t tie me up very well!” Sullivan said. “Or, perhaps,” he said, smiling, “perhaps I’m just a natural survivor. Like you two!”

  He peered into their eyes, first Bad then Worse. And there was something about Sullivan’s eyes, black and cold, something which told the twins that he was no ordinary person.

  Those eyes narrowed:

  “You see, I’ve been watching you two fight, I’ve seen the way you handle yourselves. And I think you’re both a little bit special.”

  The twins shrugged.

  “I’m impressed. You know, you boys have a great future ahead of you.”

  “Nice of you to say so, Mister,” said Bad. “Funny, I don’t think we can say the same about you! You’re a prisoner, remember?”

  “Ha!” Sullivan said, and brushed a few fragments of glass from his chest. “Whose prisoner? Little Ben Brewer’s? How long do you think that lot’ll last when they get back to the Complex? The mainland is no place for kids. No, no. But let me tell you: we have a great future ahead of us. You and me. Together.”

  “Oh, yeah?” said Worse, screwing up his dirty face and pushing it right into Sullivan’s.

  “I guarantee it,” Sullivan said, very gently. “But first, where are you from? Where did you men spring from? You’re not like those kids.”

  “We’re from right here,” Bad said. “Born in the western zone, during the war. Our dad was a fighter.”

  “And so are we,” added Worse, slowly.

  “I see,” Sullivan said. “I see...”

  “Look, what’s your point, Sullivan,” Worse said. “We haven’t got all day,” and he stroked Ugly Pig between the ears.

  “Born out here in the western zone, you say?” Sullivan said, lowering his voice. “During the war? Do you know what I think? I think we should have a little talk about that.”

  “Well, make it quick, cos we’ve...”

  “Oh, it’ll be quick. It’s simple, really. You two are carriers. Infected.”

  “What?”

  So Sullivan told Bad ’n Worse about the germs in the western zone. The germs that had created big, overgrown men, huge, immensely strong men... The twins listened, unable to speak, their hands balled up with growing rage.

  “And you’ve already met some carriers, haven’t you?” Sullivan said, with a smile that was almost sympathetic.

  The twins shook their heads violently.

  “Oh, but you have! I use them as low-level police. Melted men? You’ve seen them? They used to be strong! Toughest lot you could imagine. Then, well, then they began to deteriorate.”

  “You’re lying,” Bad said. “You’re lying. We’re not gonna end up like...”

  “We,” Worse said, right on the verge of punching Sullivan’s big, cynical face, “we’ve lived all our lives on the Island. We’re not infected with anything!”

  “An island?” Sullivan said. “An island, eh? Where?”

  “Out east, miles away. Miles away from all this,” Worse said, shaking with indignation.

  “Too right!” Bad added. “We’re not contaminated!”

  “All the better!” said Sullivan. “We’d make such a great team, you know. Such a great team. The things we could achieve together! The lives you two could have! Why don’t we chat about it as we go?”

  The twins thought for a moment. They didn’t even need to look at each other. Twins sometimes don’t. They know exactly what the other one is thinking.

  The Jeep pulled off again, Sullivan leaning in through the back window.

  None of them had noticed that close up to the side of the Jeep, padding softly along on his emu, was Tah. And he had heard everything.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  From his galloping emu, Ben watched as the four chimneys grew taller. The dark strip of the fence which circled everything came gradually into focus. But something was wrong. Smoke rose from the four chimneys, but not a constant column of it, like before. The smoke now bellowed upwards in irregular clouds, thick and black, and then almost nothing. A second later more clouds. Something was wrong.

  Behind them, Terra pushed the Harley as hard as she could, but Ben and the others were still ahead, hurtling forwards so fast that, if they had fallen from the birds, they would have smashed every bone in their bodies. And that kind of thought really makes a person hang onto his emu, or her emu.

  Suddenly, they were at the western gate. The emus stopped, off-loading their riders, who toppled down and landed in a pile against the hard, steel pillars of the fence, speechless, their faces white and dazed, their limbs tingling and achy. A few seconds later the throaty roar of Terra’s Harley filled the air as she made it to the gates. Braking abruptly, she pulled the bike into a massive, semi-circular skid, the back wheel spinning wildly, covering them all with grit from the road.

  “Hey!” Silver shouted, immediately finding that her complaining voice was still in working order. Secretly, though, she was pleased to see Terra arrive.

  “You win!” Terra said, yanking off her helmet.

  Behind her on the bike Jason didn’t move, his arms still clamped tightly around her waist, as if he would never let go of her. Terra looked at the emus.

  “By the way,” she said, “do you know how to stop those things?”

  They shook their heads.

  “No, neither do I.”

  Ben got to his feet and looked back down the road. The twins were still a long way off in the Jeep.

  “Mmm,” Terra said, peering through the western gate. “It looks as if something weird is going on.”

  Something strange was definitely happening inside the Complex. The gates were wide open, and there was no one in the guardhouse. In the background they could hear the distant roar of an angry crowd.

  Terra switched off her bike and swung a leg over the petrol tank, as her timid son finally let go of her waist.

  “Terra,” Ben said, “there’s a thing I want to know.” He lowered his eyes. “Something about the twins. We all want to know.”

  For a moment Terra remained exactly where she was, her leg hovering above the petrol tank.

  “What’s all this about being born in the western zone?” Ben continued.

  Nothing. She stayed right where she was. Then, suddenly, she swung her
other leg right off the bike, slammed her helmet down on the seat, and searched her pockets in vain for cigarettes.

  “Damn it!” she snapped. “All out!”

  “Terra!” Ben insisted. “We need to know. Please.”

  She let out a big, frustrated gust of breath that seemed to make her body shrink to half its normal size. Running a hand nervously through her hair, she looked around, as if she wanted to be somewhere else. Then she flopped down on the ground, where she sat, her fingers playing with the dirt in front of her.

  “Chaos,” she said, so quietly that they had to strain to hear. “Chaos. Mad, deadly chaos. That’s all there was here, Ben. And out there,” she nodded west, “out there we just don’t know. We don’t know exactly what went on. Some say genetic experiments, some say mutations, unknown diseases... I’m sorry. I really am. But if the twins were born out there, no body knows what those two might... have.”

  They froze, almost choking on lumps in their throats that hardly let them breathe. The thought that Bad ’n Worse were... But they couldn’t even bring themselves to think it. Bad ’n Worse, the troublesome orphans from the Island, the kids that everyone hated, that no one had ever wanted.

  “Sullivan said genetic experiments,” Ben said, finally managing to speak.

  “Did he?” she replied. “He said that to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I guess he did. That’s what he always says. You know, the melted men, the way they are?”

  “Is it true?” Ben asked.

  She buried her face in her hands: “I don’t know!” she whispered. “No one knows!”

  Just then Coby looked up, startled.

  “Who’s that?” he said, suddenly dithering with fear, as from inside the Complex two people appeared at the gate.

  “Isn’t that...?” Silver said, squinting to make out the large figure on the left, who was waving his arms.

  “Sawyer!” Ben said. “It’s...”

  “You’re right,” Terra added, struggling to her feet. “But who’s that with him?”

  “Pol,” Ben said, breaking into a smile. “It’s Pol.”