by David Moody
Another husband dead. Emily Tyler, you are a black widow.
She had lost control, they would say. Just like last time.
She gave the flirty emails from Ross’ various women another cursory look, but found none of them particularly enlightening. The fact that her husband had been screwing around seemed unimportant now – his death had brought closure on that – so she flicked through the more mundane messages to see what she could find: the internal memorandums and intercompany correspondence. Of most interest was anything from Tom Gladstone. She opened up the most recent message from him.
Ross: Sorry to hear the sample had cracked open by the time it got to you. Mr Sai’s team will be sending out a new one immediately. I’ve been told that the formula can cause allergic reactions in some people, so make sure you get it all cleaned up. Speak soon.
So Ross had received the sample. That must mean the deal had been signed. Good news, she supposed, but the excitement of running her own company had gone away as quickly as it had arrived. She didn’t care about business deals and farming. She was just kidding herself.
Starting to get upset, Emily stood up and brushed herself off. The Coast Guard would arrive any moment, and she needed to be in control of herself. Ross’s had been a messy death, and one that would arouse incredulity. If Emily were a mess, her story – the truth – would be less believable.
She left the pilothouse and went back out on deck. Alex was still missing after having left to return to his boat. She felt bad that he had got hurt, but glad that he had been there to save her. Ross would’ve killed her for sure.
The moon shone down on the yacht and made everything shimmer like it was plated in silver. Emily hadn’t even realized that night had fallen, but now that it had the summer breeze was a gusty chill. She still wore her swimsuit, so went and grabbed her long cardigan from a hook on the outside of the lounge cabin. Wrapping it around herself, she shivered.
Alex’s sailboat bobbed alongside the EMILY-DEVINE, the moon bouncing off its metal hooks and rivets. No sign of Alex though. He must be inside the wheelhouse, or down below in the living space. Ross still lay on the rear deck beneath a blanket. In near-darkness, he was nothing but a grey mound that could have been anything. She couldn’t kid herself about what lay under the blanket though.
She climbed down to the rear deck and took a moment to find her balance. Under the pull of the moon, the waves crested higher than they had during sun-up, and the constant wishy-washy sound unsettled her. She wanted to find Alex. It was difficult to trust herself under stress, so she would feel much better having somebody with her – to shake her if she started acting crazy.
Was she crazy?
At the edge of the deck, Emily grabbed a hold of the railing and stepped over. Alex had lashed the boats together tightly, so there was less than a foot-gap between the two hulls, but it was still nerve-wracking hopping between the two. When her feet came down on Alex’s deck, she stumbled and fell to her knees.
A buzzing sound came from somewhere. Emily looked around for it and saw that there was a waterproof radio attached to the main mast. It was tuned in to a station, but imperfectly – the voices interrupted by static and crackling. The reception improved when she got near and a clear BBC-English speaker came through loud and clear.
‘…mainland officials have yet to confirm the nature of the disease, leading some experts to fear it is something never before encountered. Sufferers are presenting flu-like symptoms progressing towards haemorrhagic fever and death. In some cases, the final stages of the disease seem to bring on some kind of seizure, characterized by delirium and rage. Medical experts are reporting of near-death patients displaying surprising strength and resistance to pain…’
‘Jesus,’ Emily muttered. Had Ross caught the virus the man on the radio was talking about? How could he have, though? He’d been out on the yacht for almost a week. How would he have become infected with something like that?
The sample was cracked.
Ross would have received the sample at his headquarters in Stoke.
Emily thought about Tom Gladstone’s last email and shuddered, still cold but also afraid. Had the chemical that Ross purchased from the Far East made him sick?
She was being silly. The news reporter had described some sort of epidemic. No way could Ross have been involved in something like that. Liquid fertilizer did not cause infectious disease.
Or did it?
Now that Emily thought about it, she was sure there were movies about chemical companies polluting the water table and making people sick, or giving them cancer. Wasn’t Erin Brockovich about something like that? Can cause allergic reactions, Tom had warned. The sample had cracked.
Emily cursed herself for having no practical experience beyond what she saw in the movies. She realized now that by marrying money – and even by ambitioning for it beforehand – she had failed herself. Her entire self-worth had become a mere extension of her husband’s, and now that he was gone she was nothing. The feminist inside of her screamed.
And yet she was powerless to break the cycle. Even now, she looked to Alex – a man – to make her feel better. This was her own life – her own situation – yet she was relying on someone else to sort it all out for her. Maybe if she hadn’t buried her head in the sand at the beginning, none of this would have happened. The entire mess could have been cleaned up. Ross would likely still be alive. She’d screwed up bad.
Screwed up because she was a screw-up.
Whether Emily liked it or not, Alex was now involved. She needed to tell him what she had just heard on the radio. If Ross had been sick, then maybe they were both infected too. Alex had gone to clean his wound, but perhaps he could be more thorough if he knew he had to be.
Unfamiliar with the cramped sailboat, Blessed Betty, Emily held onto the railing and scooted along the edge. The hatch to go downstairs was on the side, so that was where she headed. Not wanting to enter Alex’s private living quarters uninvited, she stopped to call out. ‘Hey, Alex. Can I come down? I need to talk to you. Alex?’
No answer.
The boat was too small not to hear someone shouting, so Emily didn’t know what could make Alex fail to reply. She swallowed a lump in her throat. Took the first step down.
Below, she found a cramped living space: a tiny kitchenette and breakfast table along one wall, stocked bookshelves all along the other (most of the spines had titles relating to history, spanning from the Roman Republic to the Second World War). Alex obviously enjoyed living in past times more than existing in the present. Perhaps that was why he lived on a boat, removed from society with only books to keep him company. Hadn’t stopped him from coming to her aid though. There was no doubt in her mind that Alex was a decent man.
But where was he?
‘Alex? Can you answer me, please?’
She still heard nothing. Up ahead lay a door to where she imagined his bedroom would be. Privacy was even more of an issue now, but she was beginning to freak out, and that was his fault for not answering.
‘Okay, Alex, I’m coming in.’
She pushed open the door and blinked as the light from a bedside lamp assaulted her eyes. There was little in the room except for a bed – and no sign of Alex.
She saw the blood.
On the edge of the bed was a round puddle of fresh blood. Had Alex bled over the bed? Been sick or had a nosebleed?
Where was he?
There was an en suite bathroom to her right. The door to it was closed, but the light inside was on.
‘Alex, are you okay? I think maybe Ross was sick. If he was, then we might be too. Do you feel unwell? There’s a lot of blood out here.’
Thunk!
The door rattled in its frame, not so hard that somebody had barged against it – more like somebody had cupped their ear against the wood.
‘Alex, are you in there? I can hear you.’
A grunt.
‘Alex, you’re scaring me. Please, come out.’
> Silence.
She reached out to the doorknob, wondering if it was locked. If it was, and he refused to come out…
What could she do?
Why was he doing this?
The door burst open, hitting her in the face and knocking her back onto the bed. She felt the cooling blood beneath her thigh and squealed.
Alex appeared from the bathroom, snarling at her like a hungry beast – just like Ross had. He leapt towards her. Emily managed to tumble into a backwards roll, landing off the other side of the bed. While Alex clambered over the mattress after her, she raced around the bottom of the bed and made for the door.
Screeching like a vulture, Alex snatched a hold of her cardigan. Dragged her backwards. Emily let her arms flop behind her and squirmed until they slid free of her garment.
Alex tumbled back, clutching the cardigan.
Emily was free.
She raced through the sailboat’s main cabin, smashing her hip painfully on the wooden breakfast table as she went, adding a bruise to the one she already had, and then rushed up the stairs.
Alex was right behind her. A hungry wolf.
Getting back up on deck was like emerging from a swimming pool. The cold, salty spray on her face distracted her, but woke up her senses at the same time. The ocean was unsettled: the deck rolled beneath her bare feet. She managed to keep her balance long enough to sprint towards the ship’s bow. A glance over her shoulder showed that Alex was only one step behind.
The deck was short and she quickly ran out of it. Desperately, she searched for the nearest thing with which to defend herself. It turned out to be a large hook on the end of a pole that probably had a name known to a fisherman. She pulled it off its brackets and span around with it, wielding it like a long, cumbersome baseball bat.
It cracked Alex right above the eyebrow. Blood soon covered his entire face.
‘You’re sick, Alex,’ Emily cried, ‘Just like my husband was. Please calm down.’
He came for her again.
This time Emily thrust the pole out like a spear, aiming for Alex’s chest. She miscalculated and hit his collarbone. The metal hook bounced off the hard bone and entered the soft tissue of Alex’s throat. Yet, impaled through the neck, he still continued trying to grab her, swiping with both hands. She held him at bay with the pole like an animal controller restraining a pit bull until its fight ran out. But Alex’s fight never ran out.
The pole bucked and twisted in Emily’s hands, tearing at her palms and making her skin burn. She yelled out. ‘Please, Alex. Stop. Last. CHANCE!’
She yanked and twisted the pole in her hands, felt the hook catch on something inside Alex’s neck. Rather than shy away from the resistance, she yanked harder, pulling the pole – and the hook – towards her. Alex bellowed, a demon that was once human.
Then his voice was cut off by a short, sharp snap!
The hook slid free and the pole fell from Emily’s hands. Before she could catch it, it clattered to the deck at her feet. She had lost her weapon, but no longer needed it. Alex flopped to his knees, head resting awkwardly on one shoulder. The white slither of his spine dangled out of a hole in his neck where she’d snapped it in two with the hook. When he collapsed onto his face, Emily knew that he was dead. Just like Ross. Two boats, two dead men. Yet, she was still alive.
Emily Tyler. The black widow.
SIX
Back on board the EMILY-DEVINE, Emily stared out at the black, featureless sea. It could have been Hell surrounding her, vast and endless, with neither joy nor pain – just foreverness. Land could be a hundred metres away and she wouldn’t know it. She had called for help – and got Alex killed as a result. Perhaps she should have just got behind the wheel and tried sailing inland. It was her yacht after all – a gift – yet she had no clue how to manoeuvre it. Just another example of how useless and looked-after she was. No more useful than a pet.
She was fucked. Ross’s death had been an accident, and in no way her fault, but Alex’s had been all her doing. He was only there to help her and had ended up with a sliced throat and a severed spine.
The authorities would never believe her. She could try explaining that Ross had attacked her and fallen on the anchor recall, and that Alex had left her with no choice but to defend herself, but all they would see was a rich widow and two dead men. She’d be in the media for the rest of her life, probably painted as some man-hating monster like Charlize Theron in that move. She likes to break men’s necks, they would whisper.
Christ, there she went again with the movies. Her go-to reference included the name of an actress, rather than an actual person. What did she even have to live for? Maybe she should just take the rap for the entire thing in exchange for privacy. They could lock her up in some quiet cell where she could read books and actually learn something beyond movie trivia – things that would be of no use to her, of course, because she would spend the rest of her life in prison.
Or, maybe, they would buy her story because the virus had been released in other places too. The radio said as much, and if that were the case then what was awaiting her back on land? She was probably infected too, and her husband’s company might even have been responsible for letting the sickness out. The sample had cracked…
Emily’s mother had been right. She’d always said she would amount to nothing. Sure, she might have had it all for a while, but she’d been kidding herself. It had all gone to Hell in an instant. She was either sick, dying, or heading back to the loony bin.
The utter darkness outside matched her mood, and if not for memory, there would be no suggestion that she were standing on a luxury yacht with her name on it. Her head buzzed as though it were full of bees, and her skin felt numb. Salt clung to every inch of her. She barely felt human.
Was this strange feeling she was experiencing the sickness? Was some tiny, sinister microbe swimming around her bloodstream right now, snaking through her vital organs with its nasty little edges? Would she end up like her two dead husbands, broken and bleeding?
She tried arguing with her own mind, offering herself a little solace and hope, but she could find nothing. The opaque cloud engulfing her wasn’t just inextinguishable, but comforting also. It was a soft blanket wrapped around her that she didn’t want to fight. Could she just slump to the ground right now and leave her inert body, her shattered mind, in the hands of fate? Oh, to just give up.
No, she had to stay strong. It was time to take control of her life.
Time to stop being a passenger in her own life.
It felt right to say goodbye to Ross, even though the truth was he had been gone the moment this had all started. Still, he was her husband, and she would miss him. It would do no good looking under his blanket, for it was not how she wanted to remember him, but she knelt down and placed a hand on his middle. There was no warmth, but neither was there cold.
‘Thank you for giving me another shot at life, Ross, after I thought there was nothing but a sucking black hole waiting for me. You weren’t perfect, but neither was I. We both knew what we were getting into, I suppose. I loved you, and I think you loved me.’ She was about to cry but stopped herself. She needed to stay in control. ‘I feel like I’m living in a horrible movie, but I’ve realised tonight that life isn’t like the movies. Things don’t end the way they’re supposed to. They do end though. I’m going to make a decision, be in control. For once in my life I am going to take action.’
Emily got up and went over to the edge of the deck. For once in her life, she was certain of what she was doing. No doubts in her mind as she climbed up and stepped over the top rail. She would never go back to the clinic. Would not allow them to put her in prison. This wasn’t her fault.
But that didn’t change what they would do to her.
The wind buffeted Emily’s bare skin. The salt stung her eyes.
The black, endless Ocean waited for her, and she saw light.
SEVEN
The light was so glaring that it made Emily�
�s eyes throb. She stepped down from the railing and shielded her face. Her ears picked up the sound of parting water, something large cutting through the waves.
She heard an engine.
‘THIS IS THE SPANISH COAST GUARD,’ came an accented voice, projected through some kind of loudspeaker. ‘WE HAVE RECEIVED A DISTRESS CALL FROM THIS LOCATION.’
Still struggling to see against the tremendous glare, Emily waved her free hand. All thoughts of suicide were swatted aside now that someone in authority had arrived. Emily went right back to giving herself over to another’s command. Part of her didn’t mind. It was comfortable, like slipping into a warm bath.
The ship came closer and dimmed its light. Emily could finally lower her arm and see. At least six Spanish sailors glanced over at her from the other deck, all of them gruff, serious looking men.
It took them only a few moments to moor their ship to the EMILY-DEVINE, and as soon as they had, two of the crewmen hopped aboard and took a look around. They each carried two-handed guns. One was a small, boxy man with a long nose. The other had dark eyes, dark-hair, and a dark expression.
