Persona (The Island Book 2)

by Amy Cross

  Feeling as if my subconscious mind is turning against me, and as if I'm once again on the verge of insanity, I force myself to stop imagining her voice.

  “It's not much,” Walter continues, stopping and reaching down to toss some more dried wood onto a pile of stones that he must have set up some time earlier on the ground, “but this is where I call home when I'm not at the town. Do you have any idea how long I've been on this island? Go on, take a guess.” He smiles as he works, before glancing at me. “Sorry,” he adds, “I guess that was insensitive, seeing as how you can't actually say anything at all. I'll tell you, then. I've been on the island for roughly fifty years. I started keeping track after a while. I was a young man when I first came here. I was tough and strong and virile. Now look at me!”

  “I don't trust him,” Della's voice says quietly.

  I watch as Walter takes some sticks and starts rubbing them together, trying to get the fire started.

  “I know what you're thinking,” he says after a moment, still working with the sticks. “You're wondering how I've managed to stay alive for damn near half a century. The truth is, I don't know. I guess I got lucky, and maybe I have a knack for slipping along unnoticed. Now that I'm getting old, though, I've noticed myself slowing down and -” He lets out a victorious gasp as he finally gets the fire going, and then he quickly adds some more dried grass. “That's why I decided to try living with others for a while,” he continues. “Look how that turned out, huh? I don't think it's right for people to clump together like that, not here on the island. If you ask me, there's a kind of natural filter that'll always work to make sure communities here never get too big.”

  I watch as he grabs two crude, carved wooden bowls filled with some kind of gray liquid.

  “His story doesn't make sense,” Della whispers. “If he was living in the town, why does he have this camp all set up and waiting?”

  “Hungry?” Walter asks with a gap-tooted grin. “I'll heat some soup. It's not much, but it's nutritious and you look like you need something healthy. I'm good at making soup. They used to call me the Soup-Maker back when... Well, when I was mixing with other people.”

  “Why did he have two bowls ready?” Della asks. “Something's wrong here.”

  The worst part is, she's right.

  “I have plenty of this stuff stored nearby,” he continues. “Never underestimate the value of decent food. Most people on the island just eat rabbits for every meal, straight off the bone, or grass and berries if they're really struggling. Soup's what it's really at, though. Soup'll get you through the toughest days, and by the looks of you, I reckon you could use a little firming up. I usually take two bowls each evening, but I'll share one with you now and I can go fetch some more later.”

  “I still don't trust him,” Della whispers.

  Even though I agree with her, and I know she's only voicing my deep-seated concerns, I step closer to the fire and watch as steam starts rising from the soup bowls.

  “Soup-Maker,” Walter continues, leaning closer to the steam and taking a deep sniff. “Funny old nick-name, huh? Damn, though, this is one of the best batches I've made for a while. I've got my own special recipe, the main ingredient is wild rabbit, but I don't ever tell anyone about the precise combination of herbs I use:” He smiles at me. “Then again, maybe I should start being more open. We'll see.” As the soup starts to bubble, he passes one of the bowls to me. “Don't be afraid,” he says calmly. “I promise, I'm on your side. Just being friendly.”

  Cautiously, I reach out and take the bowl. I want to be smart, to turn down his offer and get out of here, but I could really use something to keep my energy levels up. Besides, Walter really does remind me of the old man from five years ago, and I guess that has to count for something. Raising the bowl to my lips, I take a sip. The soup is hot, but I manage to gulp it down, savoring the rich, meaty taste.

  “Good, huh?” Walter laughs. “Yeah, well... That's why I ended up as the Soup-Maker!” He watches for a moment as I finish the bowl. “So are you sure you've never heard of those people I told you about before? The name Harold doesn't ring any bells? Or Leanne and Ben?”

  I turn to him. He seems very surprised by my lack of knowledge, and I don't quite understand why that might be.

  “What about me?” he continues. “You never heard mention of old Walter, the Soup-Maker?”

  “You should leave soon,” Della's voice tells me. “Better to be safe than sorry.”

  “Well,” Walter mutters, after drinking some soup from his bowl, “I suppose the island's a pretty big place. You spend long enough in one spot, you tend to forget that people at the other end are living their own lives. That's one of the hardest things to get used to around here... The lack of information. Back in the old world, you had everything available to you, but here?”

  He glances toward the forest, and for a moment I follow his gaze.

  “Someone could be getting murdered out there right now,” he continues, “not more than fifty meters from us. So long as they don't scream, there'd no way we'd know.” He turns to me again. “When you die on the island, that's it. There's no fuss, no-one comes looking for you, there's no funeral or mourning. You just drop to the ground and rot. Maybe someone comes across your bones some time, or maybe not. There are no rituals for the dead here. Everyone's just meat and bone.”

  I wait for him to continue, but he seems lost in his thoughts right now.

  “Do you think he's crazy?” Della's voice whispers.

  I watch the old man's face as light from the fire flickers across his features.

  “I don't think there's any such thing as crazy or not crazy on the island,” I imagine myself telling Della. “I think people just do what they do.”

  Suddenly setting the bowl aside, Walter gets to his feet, although he winces in the process.

  “I'm going to need some more soup for this evening. How about you come with me and help carry, huh? I'm getting old, and it'd sure be useful to have someone else who can lug a few bowls to the fire for me.”

  “I really don't like him,” Della hisses.

  “I know,” I want to tell her, “but I owe him. He seems harmless enough.”

  “This could be a trap,” she points out.

  She's right, but if it is a trap...

  I can handle myself.

  “This way,” Walter says cheerily, waving for me to follow as he makes his way between the trees. “Not far to go. I always make my soup a little way from the fire. I don't even know why, really, but old habits die hard.”

  With my knife still gripped firmly in my right hand, I once again start following him through the dark forest. I honestly don't know whether I can trust this old man, but I want to know one way or the other before I get out of here. He seems to know a lot about whatever disaster struck the burned town, and hopefully he'll start giving me some more information. If I could speak, I'd be able to just ask the questions that are on my mind, but he seems pretty chatty. So long as I keep my guard up, I'm pretty sure I can handle anything he throws at me.

  “Don't worry,” his voice calls back to me from the pitch darkness ahead. “Not much further now.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Asher

  “Damn it!” I hiss, as I drop the sticks.

  Fumbling in the darkness, I manage to find them again, and I quickly get back to work. I need to get a fire started, but I'm shivering so much, I can barely keep my hands steady. Finally, however, I manage to get a few sparks, and the mix of dry grass and wood flickers to life. It's not much, but at least it's something.

  After leaning down and gently blowing onto the flames, I glance over my shoulder and watch the darkness of the forest. Having spent five years at Steadfall and then the time before that with Jude, I'd forgotten what it's like to be out here alone. Every faint noise feels like a threat, no matter how much I try to tell myself that there's no-one watching me.

  As the fire starts to grow, I reach my hands closer and start
to warm the palms. I hear a scratching sound nearby, but I refuse to turn and look. It's nothing, it's just a natural sound of the forest. I need to calm down and keep my head together. Not everything out here is a threat.

  I just wish I wasn't so cold.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Iris

  “You're wise to be cautious!” Walter calls back to me from up ahead. “How long have you been on the island?”

  He glances toward me as we pass through a patch of clear moonlight, and I hold my left hand up to indicate the number five.

  “Five what?” he asks. “Weeks? No, you're clearly not that green. Not five months, either. You're hardened and tough. I think you mean five years.”

  I nod.

  He stops and stares at me for a moment.

  “Huh,” he mutters finally. “You look like a stringy little thing, but if you've survived that long...” He pauses again. “Have you been with people? Don't take this the wrong way, it's just... No-one lasts five years in this place if they're on their own. You found yourself some friends?”

  I hesitate for a moment, before nodding.

  “But now you're out alone again,” he continues, with a faint frown. “What's wrong? Did you get sick of hanging around with other people all the time?”

  Even if I had a tongue, I'm not sure I could answer that. Explaining the whole story, about how I came out to look for signs of another town, would take too long.

  “I like people who know how to survive,” he continues, turning away from me and setting off through the forest again. “Most of the new arrivals here end up getting killed almost immediately. There are actually people who lurk around the most common drop sites, waiting to kill newbies so they can take their canopies. Human nature can be a very dark thing when people think no-one's watching them.”

  “You're taking an unnecessary risk,” Della's voice whispers.

  “I can look after myself,” I reply in my head as I walk after the old man.

  “That's what people always think,” she continues, “right before something bad happens.”

  “I've got the knife,” I imagine myself telling her. At the same time, I tighten my grip on the handle, just to be sure. “He's just an old man and I'm -”

  Suddenly, as I take another step forward, the ground gives way beneath my right foot. I try to turn, but it's too late and I fall through a layer of leaves, bumping hard against the wall of some kind of pit and then tumbling further down into the darkness. I try to grab hold of the muddy wall, but I'm powerless to stop until finally I splash down into freezing cold, waste-high water. Dropping my knife in the process, I reach around but quickly find that it must have already sunk. Trying not to panic, I wade forward through the darkness until I reach a damp, muddy wall, but when I reach up I find that I can't find the top.

  “You okay down there?” Walter calls out.

  Looking up, I can just about see him silhouetted against the night sky. He must be at least twenty feet above me.

  “Cold down there, huh?” he continues. “Yeah, the soup only gets heated after I bring it up.”

  I reach under the surface of the water, hoping to find the knife, but instead my fingers bump against something much larger, something soft and ragged but with a firm center. As I reach out and grab the object, my fingers sink through the mulchy surface until I feel the bone at the center. Strands of flesh seem to be trailing in the icy water, brushing delicately against my wrist. I freeze for a moment and then, before I can react, the object seems to pull away. Turning, I try not to panic as I once again look up and see Walter smiling down at me.

  “I see you found where I make my soup,” he says with a grin, as he starts pulling the rest of the leaf-cover away, letting more moonlight down into the pit in the process. “Harold and the others'll be very happy when they get back and find that I've managed to add a new ingredient. Always make the soup much richer for a few days. More nutritious.”

  Hearing a faint groaning sound nearby, I turn and see that there's someone else down here. Most of the pit is completely dark, but a line of moonlight is just about picking out a pale and bloated man just a few feet away, naked and leaning against the muddy wall opposite. The moonlight makes the water seem to almost glow with an ethereal gray energy, and I can see scraps of loose skin floating in the sickly mixture. A moment later I spot movement to my right, and I spot a woman's face barely poking out from beneath the surface, gasping for air as sheets of her skin drift half-attached to her cheeks in the water. Looking down, I realize there are yet more bodies, with rotting corpses down in the depths of the pit. Beneath my feet, I can feel piles of bare bones resting at the bottom of the mixture. Pulling back, I feel my heart pounding in my chest as I realize that the filthy, flesh-filled water looks and smells exactly like the soup I was given earlier.

  Reaching up, I try to dig my hands into the muddy wall and climb up, but I can't get a firm grip. At the same time, I try to cry out, but all that emerges from my mouth is a faint wail.

  “Don't worry,” Walter continues from above. “Most people die within three or four days. Five at most. You won't be wasted, though. Like I told you earlier, all of human existence is basically a kind of soup. When you die, you leave a little extra added to the pot! Nice to be useful, eh?”

  Again I try to scream, but again I succeed only in making a brief gurgling sound, like some kind of monster.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Asher

  “Who's there?” I call out, turning as soon as I hear movement nearby.

  I've been out here alone out here for several hours now, with just the warmth of the small fire to keep me company. I know I heard someone a moment ago, however, and I instinctively grab my knife, ready to defend myself in case someone from town has come to attack me. After a few seconds, I spot a dark figure heading this way, but I feel a rush of relief when I see that it's Harold. I shouldn't be relieved to see him, but I am.

  “Hey there,” he says with a faint smile as he stops close to me. “You got room for someone to share the warmth for a few minutes?”

  “Maybe you shouldn't,” I tell him. “If the others find out that you've been here, they might think you're sick too.”

  “I'll take my chances,” he replies, sitting next to me and holding his hands out to warm them in the fire's heat. “I spoke to them after you left. I told them that this sickness is clearly spread through bodily fluids. Saliva, blood, that kind of thing. Fortunately the fact that I used to be a doctor was enough to make them listen. I won't lie to you, some of them seem to have abandoned all sense of logical and rationality, but they didn't argue too much. I think they'll come around by morning.”

  “That still doesn't explain how Mary got sick,” I point out.

  “It doesn't?” He pauses. “Oh. Then I guess you never spotted her and Emma making out behind one of the huts.”

  “Mary and Emma?” I reply, shocked. “Seriously?”

  “You're shivering.”

  Realizing that he's right, I immediately force myself to stop.

  “It's okay,” he continues. “Shiver if you need to. It's your body's way of trying to regain some warmth. Let's be honest, your fire isn't so great. Don't take this the wrong way, but I'd have thought you might be a little better at this sort of thing by now.”

  “It's getting bigger,” I reply, feeling even colder now that I'm forcing myself not to stay still.

  “It could be better.”

  “It's getting better!”

  “After how many hours of tender nurture?” He smiles as he holds his hands even closer to the flames. “I saw the blood stains on your tunic, Asher, but that's all they were. Stains on fabric. It's clear you didn't ingest any of it, so I'm sure you're fine. Besides, given the speed with which Mary got ill, you'd be showing symptoms by now. You're not, are you?”

  I shake my head.

  Suddenly he reaches out and puts his hand on the side of my neck. I flinch and almost pull away, but after a moment I realize h
e's checking my glands, squeezing hard to check that they're not inflamed. To my surprise, I realize his hands are so much warmer than I'd expected, and I can't bring myself to make him stop. Even the slightest extra heat is welcome.

  “Seems good,” he mutters.

  “I'm fine,” I reply firmly.

  “You're shivering again.”

  I mutter something under my breath as I realize he's right. Stopping myself again, I can't help feeling as if the warmth of his hands is making the rest of my body feel colder.

  “Then you're in the clear,” he continues, letting go of my neck, taking the extra warmth with him. “All you have to do is wait out here so you can walk back into town tomorrow morning and prove it to everyone. You made the right choice by isolating yourself for the night, you showed them that you're not scared to take difficult decisions. I think that'll really discredit the doom-mongers and score you some points.” He pauses for a moment. “Of course, they're still mostly bitter about that Deckard guy leaving, but they'll get over it. If you can navigate the town through this sickness, you should regain everyone's trust.”

  “Is anyone else ill?” I ask.

  “Not so far. Are your teeth chattering?”

  “Then whatever it is,” I continue, ignoring that last question, “hopefully it was contained to just Emma and Mary.” Noticing that the fire is getting low again, I lean over to grab some more dry wood, but I flinch when I feel a flash of pain from my fractured ribs. The pain turns into a shiver, and it takes a moment before I can force myself to sit still again.

  “Let me take a look at that,” Harold says.

  “I'm fine.”

  “You're in pain.”

  “So?” I place the dry wood on the fire, although I can't keep from flinching again. “Everyone's in pain on the island, I just -”

  Before I can finish, I feel Harold pulling the side of my tunic up, and when I look down I see that he's examining the large bruise at the lower part of my ribcage. I want to pull away, but for some reason I let him continue as he traces the bruise's edge with a finger-tip. This is actually the most normal thing that has happened to me in a long time. I'd become so used to ignoring my injuries, it never occurred to me that they should be examined. Every time his hand brushes my flesh, I feel a rush of warmth.