Survival Island

by Matt Drabble

  He didn’t bother arguing, and instead, hoisted his leg across and stamped down hard on the accelerator pedal.

  Simmons squealed in pain as his large boot stamped down hard on her foot but he didn’t let up.

  In a perfect world, they would have been driving something large and impervious with a kick-ass engine. Instead, they were driving a 20-year-old VW Bug that trundled towards the man at an alarmingly slow rate.

  Instead of causing the man to leap out of the way at their rapid approach, the man had time to actually start to charge them.

  The car was finally starting to gain some speed, but Caleb couldn’t tell if it would be enough. The old engine coughed and spluttered in indignation at the strain being put upon it. Fortunately, they were running downhill which helped them gain enough speed. Caleb now expected the man to leap out of the way, but instead he just kept running right at them.

  “Caleb?” Simmons wailed in panic.

  “He’ll move,” Caleb snapped back.

  The car ran faster and faster. Although Caleb had now drawn his foot back from the pedal, he reached over with one hand to grip the steering wheel and keep it straight to stop the doc from being the chicken in this particular scenario.

  “Move, you bastard,” he whispered to himself, and right up until the last second, he still expected the man to throw himself clear. Instead, the man leapt straight ahead, right at them.

  Both Caleb and Simmons yelled out in shock as the man’s head hit the windscreen. He landed on the curved front of the car and was now holding on for grim death.

  “DRIVE, DRIVE!” Caleb yelled at Simmons, who had started to lean back in her seat as the man outside stared back at them.

  The man outside was now battering the glass with his face, splitting open the skin and smearing the windscreen with blood. Mercifully, he seemed to have lost his weapon when he’d leapt onto the car.

  He was gripping the two wiper arms for purchase while pulling his head back and smashing it down again and again.

  “Holy shit, holy shit…,” Simmons was muttering under her breath, all the while trying to peer around the man and keep on the road.

  Caleb saw with horror that the maniac was starting to have some success with the glass as spindle cracks appeared amidst the bloody smears. Being this close, they were staring directly into each other’s eyes and Caleb could see that the man was clearly insane.

  “What do I do? What do I do?” Simmons asked in a high-pitched panicked voice.

  “Straight! Until I say stop,” Caleb replied as a seed of a plan grew.

  There was a period of less than a minute but it seemed eternal. The two of them were driving, trying not to stare directly at the crazy man who was trying to smash his way into the car and kill them using only his now-ruined face.

  It seemed like a suspended quintessentially English moment where, despite the man’s actions, they didn’t quite feel able to do anything but politely ignore him and stare around his crazed form.

  “Ready? When I say stop, you hit the brakes hard,” Caleb instructed as he stared over the man’s shoulder at the road ahead.

  “Wait for it… wait… NOW!” he yelled, and Simmons closed her eyes and stamped hard on the brake pedal.

  The car screeched to a halt on the gravel track. The two of them inside were jerked forwards hard and Caleb, being far larger, collided painfully with the dashboard, feeling the wound on his shoulder cry out in pain. The man outside was suddenly jerked off the car and flown backwards from his point of view into midair.

  Caleb had seen the broken tree snapped at the trunk from some way off. The tree had been broken in half and shunted forwards so that the half left was now a jagged protrusion pointing directly at them.

  “Keep them closed,” he whispered to Simmons as the man flew through the air before impaling himself on the half tree, and in that moment he wished he’d taken his own advice.

  The tree stump exploded out of the man’s chest, and his eyes bulged in shock and pain as he was speared onto the jagged tip.

  Caleb took the steering wheel and aimed it around the man.

  “Forwards, but don’t open your eyes until I say so,” he told the doc, not wanting her to see the mess that she might blame herself for.

  “I have to check him, make sure he’s okay,” she said, quickly opening her eyes.

  Caleb leant across her and placed a large hand alongside her face, blocking the view.

  “Trust me,” he said. “There’s nothing we can do for him now. Let’s just go and find Quinn.”

  ----------

  CHAPTER 16

  A long night ahead

  Luther Quinn wasn’t overly concerned. His family’s cabin had stood for over 200 years and he was sure that it would withstand the latest storm, although it had to started to creak worryingly as the wind battered it mercilessly.

  The inside was basic, but then again, so was he these days. It had been a long time since he had required anything other than the bare necessities and his promise had held firm for the past 10 years or so. Not a drop of alcohol had touched his lips since then, and it never would again.

  There hadn’t been a single moment of clarity, only a slow succession of them. After his wife’s death, he had been angry at the world and everyone in it, and he had lashed out accordingly. No one had been spared his wrath, least of all his own daughter.

  He still shuddered at his treatment of Ashley, but it was something that he could never take back nor be forgiven for. Her presence in town had startled him even though he’d been expecting it. Clayton was a small place and nothing stayed secret for long, no matter how much that weasel Dale Clayton might try.

  His daughter had looked every inch her mother’s child, and he was eternally grateful for that; no one should be cursed with his genes.

  She was a grown woman now, no longer his child, no longer his at all and he intended to keep it that way. It was only his own selfishness that would force his attention upon her. His showers of apologies and clumsy attempts at reconciliation would only hurt her further, he was sure of that. Instead, he would stay out of her way and life, and hopefully, he wouldn’t poison her any more than he had done so already.

  The storm outside continued to grow and now he was starting to become concerned. Most of the town would be heading in to Casey’s basement shelter by now and he was beginning to think he’d made a mistake in not joining them.

  Word was that this storm was going to be a particularly bad one, but the old-timers on the island clucked worse than chickens. Perhaps, though, this was the one time he should have listened.

  Another huge gust shook the cabin like it was made of paper. The whole place leaned worryingly to one side. The windows rattled inside their frames, and he heard several tiles rip free from the roof above and fly off into the sky.

  The back door suddenly blew outwards, and the storm raged inside. Luther ran to the opening and tried to drag the door shut again, but the wind had hold of it now and refused to let go.

  He fought against the storm, but it was a losing battle. The door was torn from its lower hinge, and Luther had to keep hold of it as the door threatened to fly away.

  He stepped outside into the hard, whipping rain and leant his weight against the door, pushing it back towards its moorings. Even with his whole body lying on the door, it still bucked beneath him like a wild bronco. He lay that way until the gust passed and he and the door dropped down.

  Taking advantage of the momentary lapse, he pushed the door back into place and then a little further, wedging it inside the opening.

  He ran to the shed and snatched up his nail gun and some heavy-duty nails. He ran back, just as the wind was starting to pick up and pull the door free again. He dropped the nail gun by his feet and took hold of the door, waiting for the wind to drop once more.

  Leaning against the door with his arm stretched wide and flat palms pressed down, he held the door in place once more and waited for a moment of calm again.

&
nbsp; The pain that suddenly stuck him arrived too quickly for him to even process. One second he had been pressed against the door, the next his hand was screaming in agony.

  He looked down in shock and horror to see a six-inch nail now sticking out the back of his right hand with the tip driven into the door. A second jolt of agony hit him moments later as a nail was hammered into his left hand.

  The wind and rain still raged around him as the storm grew in intensity and he found it hard to see clearly, but someone had just nailed him to the door and now he couldn’t turn around properly.

  His hands were now in agony as blood started to trickle from the wounds. He pulled his arms to try and free them but they were pinned tightly to the door.

  A third nail was driven into his right foot and through into the concrete path below, then a fourth went into his left. Another fired into his lower leg and then more; these ones didn’t reach all the way through his body but merely lodged into bone.

  The nail gun fired again and again, the wielder oblivious to his cries of pain and then bellows of anger as nail after nail was fired into his body with dull thunks.

  At some point, he was dimly aware that whoever was behind him had stopped to reload before it started all over again.

  ----------

  Calvin Morrison and his men finally managed to make it ashore and they only lost one doing it.

  Morrison couldn’t quite remember the guy’s name: it was Lenny or Billy or something else with a ‘y’ on the end. The man had gone overboard during the storm and had vanished beneath the raging waters.

  The rest of them had managed to hang on and the old boat captain had miraculously gotten them ashore.

  They were currently anchored near the harbour. The boat they’d come in was at present being battered by the sea, but the old captain had sworn that it was better to leave the boat here than risk it against the harbour wall.

  The boat lunged from side to side and up and down, threatening to tear free from its anchor any second, but they were here and they were mostly still alive.

  Morrison was now sitting in a shitty office over at the docks, one that looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in a year. The place stank of stale pipe smoke and he’d had to put one of his men’s coat down on the chair before sitting.

  “Looks like it’s passing over, Boss,” one of the boys said, poking his head around the office door.

  “What does our illustrious captain say?”

  The man stared back at him, confused for a moment.

  “Go and ask the man who brought us over here what he thinks about the weather situation,” Morrison explained slowly, regretting the calibre of employee he had to work with.

  The man reappeared a few moments later.

  “Says it’s the eye? Or some shit like that?” the man explained without knowledge.

  Morrison had wondered if it was something like that; he’d heard that everything suddenly got calm in the middle of a storm and that’s what got a lot of people hurt or worse, thinking the worst was over when it was yet to come.

  “Boss?”

  “Tell the boys we wait. Tie the captain up somewhere safe; we’ll need him to get home again, so do it carefully. We wait for the rest of the storm to pass and then we move.”

  The eye metaphor seemed to sum up his own intentions perfectly. There were people out there who thought that Calvin Morrison was done, people who would take what was rightfully his and think they were safe, but they were wrong - dead wrong.

  ----------

  Quinn was sitting on an office chair in the holding cell when two men burst in through the front door. She hadn’t moved in she didn’t know how long. She was just sitting staring at Dottie’s purple face.

  “BOWMAN?” Jeremy Haynes called out at almost exactly the same time that Dale Clayton yelled the same thing.

  “Dammit, man, where are you?” Haynes insisted as they started to look around noisily.

  “Quinn?” Haynes exclaimed as he poked his head around the cell door and saw her sitting there.

  “Jesus!” he exclaimed a second time when he laid eyes on Dottie’s corpse. “What the...? Who the...?” he said as his eyes flicked around the room.

  “What is it?” Dale said as he burst in. “Niners?” he asked Quinn, who could only look down at the floor.

  “What the hell is going on here?” Haynes demanded. “What kind of town are you running here, Clayton?”

  “I warned you,” Quinn said quietly to Haynes. “I told you that you were playing with fire but you didn’t listen, did you? Maybe men like you aren’t capable of listening to anyone.”

  “Hey, don’t you dare put this on me.”

  “What exactly have you done, Mr Haynes?” Dale demanded.

  “Nothing I’m guessing that you haven’t already tried,” Haynes replied, and Dale dropped his gaze.

  “You two are as bad as each other.” Quinn sighed heavily. “All you’ve ever cared about is yourselves, and now the rest of us have to pay the price.”

  “QUINN?” a voice roared as the front door was kicked in again, and Caleb came staggering in as the storm started to kick up again outside.

  This time Quinn stood up and walked to the cell door. Caleb came staggering into the station with Dr Simmons in tow.

  “Jesus, I’m glad to see you,” he said as he spotted her. “What is it?” he asked, looking beyond her into the holding cell.

  “Don’t,” Quinn said as he tried to pass her.

  “Where’s Dottie?”

  “Don’t,” was all she could repeat again, but he pushed her aside and looked into the room.

  He didn’t say anything but had to lean against the doorframe to steady himself.

  Doc Simmons pushed her way past all of them to examine Dottie’s body on the floor. She checked the pulse even though it was obvious the woman was dead. Then she examined the noose and then the stab wounds across the woman’s stomach.

  “Jesus, what did they do to her?” Caleb finally asked.

  “The stab wounds were fatal,” Simmons said firmly. “The rest was unnecessary.”

  Quinn looked up into the other woman’s eyes and Simmons held her gaze firmly. She didn’t want to be absolved of her own culpability, however unintentional; that wasn’t right.

  Simmons looked her firmly in the eye. “The stab wounds were fatal. She never could have survived those,” she reiterated. “Never.”

  “What about the mainland? Did you get through?” Caleb asked her.

  “No.”

  “Why the hell not?” Haynes demanded.

  Quinn nodded towards the radio rig and Caleb followed her eyes to the destroyed unit.

  “Someone want to tell me what the hell is going on?” Haynes exclaimed.

  “The townies got themselves riled up. I’m guessing with a little help,” Caleb replied pointedly. “They formed a posse and went looking for the Niners and instead they found trouble. Two groups met each other and now a whole bunch of people are dead.”

  “So what the hell do we do now?” Haynes said, exasperated.

  “Well personally, I’d like to find out just who exactly has blood on their hands and then serve them up a little justice,” Caleb said coldly, staring right at Dale and Haynes. “But right now, I just want to find what’s left of my people and make sure they’re safe.”

  “You think that the Niners are still coming for us?” Haynes asked the room in general, but no one answered, which was an answer in itself, and not a good one.

  ----------

  By the time that nightfall started to arrive in earnest, the residents of Clayton who had gathered beneath the town hall were scared and scared badly. Rumours were flying - not only about the potentially dangerous weather but also now about the Niners.

  In a small community such as theirs, nothing stayed secret for long, but the downside was that no one was ever quite sure what was true and what was an embellishment.

  Pearl Christian was telling anyone who would listen that
the group of islanders who’d gone out to reason with the Order over the land sale - politely, of course - had yet to return.

  Several men, including Sam Cartwright, had made their way back into town through the storm and all of them spoke about being attacked by a group of Niners. Only Sam seemed reticent on the details about what he’d seen, but his eyes had been haunted.

  The gossiping locals had little to do while they waited out the storm except speculate over the retuning men’s stories. The common consensus was that the so-called tough guys had just got their asses kicked by a bunch of monks and were now trying to cover their bruises and blushes.

  There were around 20 of them now, all hunkered down in the storm shelter while the extreme weather battered the island outside.

  Casey Parker and Tommy O’Brien were deep in conversation away in a corner.

  “You believe any of that?” Tommy asked the bar owner as he jerked a finger towards one of the returning men.

  “That the Niners have turned into homicidal monks hell bent on killing us all?” she replied sarcastically with raised eyebrows.

  “Yeah, sounds pretty far-fetched to me, too.” He nodded. “But...”

  “But what?”

  “But I thought there’d be more people here.” He shrugged.

  “Maybe,” she admitted, looking around. “I guess we’ll see what’s what when the storm finally passes.”

  “Have we got enough supplies down here?”

  “I keep the larder fully stocked, mostly canned goods that’ll outlive the lot of us,” Casey said, pointing to a tall door off to the side.

  “And water?” Tommy asked, looking around the room at the hungry and thirsty faces.

  “I’ve a top-of-the-line filtration system. It collects rainwater from outside in a tank on the surface before being filtered down here clean enough to drink.”

  “Poor thing,” Tommy said, nodding subtly towards Mary Clark as she wandered into view. “When Ieuan went missing, I think most of us thought he’d come back at some point, but not now - not in that weather; he’s gone for sure.”

  “Either of you seen Bernard?” Sam Cartwright asked as he moved over towards them.