CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
In the sixty years since Professor Bukoski’s death, the observation room atop the old tower had fallen into disrepair. Many of the windows were broken, the frames splintered. The floorboards had warped under the barrage of the island’s weather, and a section of the roof had collapsed. Here, at the top of the building, the wind blew strongest. It whipped over the island carrying stinging droplets of freezing seawater. It licked its hungry tongue over the building, tasting the torture of countless victimized souls.
The irony of this location was not lost on him.
On his back, spread-eagled, Alex lay in a pool of his congealing blood. His clothes had been torn from his body, and lay strewn throughout the stairwell that led to the tower’s upper reaches. After the asylum ghosts had disrobed him, they’d shredded his flesh.
He sucked a pained breath into his lungs and air slurped through blood lining his airway. Alex longed for a heart attack to end this agony, yearned for shock to render him unconscious and ease the intense discomfort, but feared he’d drown instead. A finger jerked in spasm, the digit weighted down by the strand of flesh still attached. Imprinted onto his mind was the recollection of their torture; his skin peeling away in long slow strips, the uncovered fat becoming fodder for their hungry mouths. They hadn’t left yet, and were picking him apart piece by piece.
The asylum’s spectral inhabitants surrounded him. A young boy sat closest, smiling with a grimace that appeared truly agonizing. Pus dribbled over his thin, grey lips; patches of loose hair pasted tight to a discoloured scalp. One cheek was recessed, the cartilage of his nose absent, both eyes colourless orbs sunken in their sockets. More lurked in the background, some as shadows blending with the gloom of their surroundings, others resembling the wretched figures they’d become after death. They gathered around him, perhaps seeking the revenge they’d been denied in life, or maybe they simply wanted to feed.
Overhead, the thunderclouds had lost their darkness, the sky a churning mass of grey. It continued to rain, and each drop that found him exploded upon his ravaged flesh with an eruption of extreme agony. The wind caressed him harshly once more, and he trembled in suffering.
A silhouette emerged from the mass, leaning down towards him. This face wasn’t as rotten as the others, but it contained the twisted grimace of a grotesque death. Blood ran in sticky rivulets from its gaunt eyes, meandering like tears across its cheeks. Even the orbitoclast, still embedded in the brain, contained a wraithlike appearance. It knelt closer, reaching out an emaciated arm. The island breeze lifted spectral tendrils clear from its body, dispersing them like smoke into the air. Its fingers pressed into a deep laceration on Alex’s chest, and ripped a strip of muscle clear.
Rampant pain erupted in Alex’s body, his scream a bloody gurgle.
The apparition pushed the flesh between its dead lips, and began to chew.
Alex looked away, gazing at a heaven that appeared so much darker. His vision had begun to deteriorate; his eyeballs dry and rubbery. The natural urge to blink overwhelmed him, but they’d ripped away his eyelids.
The rain fell, the wind howled, and Alex Webb suffered.
~~
The boat bobbed at the surf’s edge, where waves began to develop into breakers that crashed onto the rocky coast. It’d drifted out too far, beyond the surge, and Kristen doubted the ocean’s natural swell would carry it back towards shore. At times it disappeared from view completely as a wave rolled in, and each time it appeared to have drifted further out.
Wind whipped off the strait, splattering her with stinging needles of spray. The storm had already soaked her, so she barely felt the extra water. A heavy cold seeped through her clothes to coat her skin, sinking into her pores to chill her on the inside. It was colder here on the beach, out in the elements despite the natural cove created by the island’s curving shoreline. Further out, near the mainland, gulls swooped effortlessly on the air currents. She wished they had the strength and ability to glide over and carry her away.
Staggering over the slippery rocks, Kristen scrambled onto the wooden jetty and ran along its length. The old timber creaked under her progress, the entire pier in motion as the tide buffeted its posts. Near the furthest pillar, she noticed the flash of metal before she’d approached it, and the way it protruded from the wood caused her gut to twist in anger. The handle appeared darker when coated with rain, but the water ran in beads off the knife’s clean blade. She had no doubts who had deposited the blade there, in full view so that it would be easily found. She only wondered when Alex had found the time to sneak back here and cut the boat free.
Leaning forward, she snatched at the threadbare rope secured around one of the jetty’s mooring bollards. She dragged its severed end from the surf, staring at it as though needing confirmation of her assumptions. Nature hadn’t cut the rope, the knife had, and with a scream she dropped the rope’s end back into the sea.
She stood, narrowing her eyes as she stared through the storm’s driving wind to find the boat. It dipped on a tumultuous sea, and the longer she waited the further out it would drift. She’d always been a good swimmer, loved the water, but this scenario washed a deep anxiety into her emotions. Never before had she braved waters kicked into a swell by strong gusts of wind. Once she cleared the breakers she figured she’d have a good chance of reaching the boat, but a swim in these conditions would sap her strength. The alternative would be to return to the beach, or retreat to the asylum, and she would do neither.
The wind brought her the sound of stone knocking against stone, and for a moment she thought the noise emanated from the ocean battering rocks beneath the water. She glanced into the buffeting tide below the jetty, couldn’t see the rocks in the gloomy morning light, but knew they’d be too big to move, the water’s depths too great to deliver the sound. The noise came once more, not just a solitary knocking but a multitude of clapping stone on stone.
She turned, strained to look back towards the beach, and gasped as a new fear swept down her gullet to steal her breath. The shore moved, undulating over itself, rippling as if the coastline itself were part of the tide. As the shapes defined themselves in the gloom, terror unravelled inside her.
The sound wasn’t stones rattling against each other.
It was the cracking of bone on the island’s rocky shoreline.
A tide of corpses slithered along the coast, clambering over desiccated bodies in an effort to get to the jetty.
They pulled themselves over the stones with arms devoid of flesh and muscle. Worse than wisps of fog morphing into shapes to clutch at her clothing; it was more terrifying than the fleeting glimpse of a child in a hallway or indeed the teenage girl outside the bathroom. This was a horde of the dead, scuttling over the beach, a visage of the damned too terrifying to be real.
It’s all real, Kristen; these horrors are more real than anything else.
Why weren’t they walking? A macabre curiosity overcame her, diluting Kristen’s desire to flee. She took a step away from the pier’s edge, closer to shore, shielding her face from the rain to see more clearly. Some didn’t have legs, their bodies ending in a mass of torn flesh and trailing innards. The sight immediately sent an image of Codie’s intestines uncoiling from his belly in the operating room’s darkness. With a grieving whimper she edged back towards the water. Some of the cadavers dragged their legs behind them, broken limbs clattering against the rocky shoreline. The wind shifted to blow directly into her face, hauling with it the smell of seawater mingled with the stench of rotten meat. Seaweed curled in ribbons around the mass of carcasses. They advanced in a wave, crabbing over each other. The beach’s northern shore, where countless bodies had been tossed to the sea, had unleashed its dead.
When the lead cadaver scraped its bony hand onto the jetty’s wet timber, Kristen jumped into the water.
The ocean sucked the breath from her, chilling her legs immediately, sending a piercing cold into her gut. Her shoes slipped as she landed on the r
ocky seabed and she stumbled forward, sinking deeper into the water. It lapped up to her chest, causing her to cry out. The surging tide flowed into her open mouth as she lunged forward, fighting for balance. The taste of saltwater made her gag, and she retched into the water. Struggling to regain her footing, she stepped onward, the ocean currents licking at her shoulders. She kicked up from the seabed, twisting onto her back as she did so in order to keep her face out of the water. A wave grabbed her, lifted her, and she stared towards shore—watched in horror as corpses writhed across the jetty’s wet timber. Many of them tumbled over the edges into the sea, and she feared a bony hand would clamp around her ankle at any moment.
Gasping for air, Kristen rolled onto her belly and kicked hard, swimming crawl into another wave rising towards land. The ocean splashed against her face, flowed into her nostrils, its saltiness dribbling down her throat. She spluttered and coughed, expending energy to keep her mouth clear of the water. The urge to stand on the seabed and blow water from her nose almost overcame her, but she’d already gone too far. If she stopped to recover from the battering she’d taken entering the water, she’d sink. Her clothes weighed her down—the thick jumper and comfortable sweatpants drinking in the surrounding ocean.
The world around her filled with the splashing of water, yet she didn’t know if the noise came from her, the waves battering the shoreline, or the island’s dead spilling into the sea.
She tried to focus, treading water for a moment to expel water from her mouth. The ocean’s coldness leaked through her, seeping deep into her muscles and sucking the energy from her limbs. Her clothes became heavier with each push of a passing wave, and Kristen realized the current had taken her closer to shore—the boat further away.
She couldn’t discard the sweater now; doing so would pull her under, and so she leaned forward and kicked. Bringing her arms over to swim through the battering sea exhausted her. Seawater wallowed in her stomach and the taste of it almost made her vomit once more. Spray peppered her face; water whipped off the strait’s surface by the wind coupled with that splashing from her saturated clothing. Locking her stare on the row boat, she thought it seemed closer now, its bulk kicking hope into her chest. Only a few minutes of strong swimming then she would reach the vessel and sanctuary from the crippling sea.
Don’t give up; for Codie’s sake don’t give up.
In her mind she pictured him in the boat, leaning over the side with his arm reaching towards her. His strong hand was there, ready to grasp her tight. If she could swim these last few strokes, take his palm in hers once more, she’d be safe. She’d always be safe with Codie, he’d protect her forever. The howling wind became his screams of encouragement; the sea against her mouth became his resuscitating kiss. Even as the sea’s icy grip wrapped her tightly she felt the warmth of Codie’s touch.
One final stroke and Kristen grasped at a hand that wasn’t there.
Her fingers scraped painfully against the hull of the boat.
Exhaustion dragged her beneath the surface.
Calmness wrapped her, a vacuous silence filling her world. Gone was the crashing surf and the screaming wind; no longer could she hear the clatter of dead bodies scuttling over the rocky beach. She welcomed the peace; a blissful contrast to the roar of a thunderstorm or the screams of her fear. Bubbles rose from her sinking form, and she watched the pockets of air expand as they neared the surface. Her hair wafted gracefully on the current, flowing with elegance as if caught by the comforting warmth of a gentle summer breeze. She drifted, weightless and free.
Her lungs screamed for release, the agony too much to bear.
How easy would it be to close my eyes?
How good would it be to simply let go?
How much relief would it give to breathe the sea?
In this new sanctuary she could shelter in the ocean’s embrace and wait for Codie to find her.
Outlined against the dense grey of a storm-filled sky, the boat’s black hull rocked on the pulsing tide. Particles drifted by her face: sinew attached to rotten slivers of flesh.
She couldn’t do it. She wouldn’t succumb to the cold or the fatigue that crawled through her very essence. She refused to become what the island had shown her.
With the last ounce of energy she had remaining, Kristen kicked towards the surface.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The door opened with a stubborn groan and the wind pushed him into the tavern. A wall of heat smacked him, the air tainted with the odour of burning firewood and cheap bourbon. The soft drone of idle chatter melted into nothing.
Forcing the door closed with his back, Paul James surveyed the bar’s gloomy interior and wondered if he’d just stumbled into The Slaughtered Lamb.
Thick oak beams stretched across the ceiling and cowered amongst darkness so deep it resembled the cold night seeping through the building’s cracks. A scattering of weathered tables played host to ancient men more gnarled than the timber they sat around. Shadows thrown by the fireplace cavorted over walls decked with paintings of maritime adventures.
No pentangle on the wall. That was something, at least. Paul shrugged off the cold and a few drops of water, and stepped through the smoke of disconcerting stares to the bar.
Heavyset and imposing, the elderly barmaid stood cloaked in gloom—static and unmoving, as if she’d been standing there so long the wall had accepted her as its own. She gripped a pint glass in one hand, working a dishcloth across the glass in slow movements. “Good evening,” she said. “What can I get you?”
“Oh, nothing to drink, thanks; just some information please.”
“Not sure I have any of that.”
Paul smiled, pulled out a creased photograph, and laid it on the counter. “I’m looking for a young man, goes by the name of Codie Jackson. He may have been through here with a small group of others.”
Without pausing in her wiping of the glass, the barmaid leaned forward and glanced at the image. “Doesnae look familiar. But there was a group of young-uns stopped in here a few nights back. They didnae stay long; don’t know where they was headed.”
Paul waited a beat, studying the woman’s face for any sign of an untruth. He found none, her expression as stoic as her unwavering stance. “In that case I’d like to speak to an old man who frequents this establishment.”
“Take a look around, this establishment is frequented by nothing other than old men.”
He glanced over his shoulder, studied the bar’s gloomy interior.
Four men were huddled around a table nearest the blazing hearth. A bottle of scotch—probably not their first of the evening—stood almost empty in the centre of their card game. A man sat alone near the main door, head bowed and hands in his lap. His lips moved as if he offered a mumbled prayer, or perhaps recounted the memories of a childhood long since lost. Against the far wall, two males hunkered over the table, their backs to the pub’s interior. They leaned together, shoulders touching, either holding each other upright or quietly sleeping.
Paul turned back to the barmaid. “This man goes by the name of O’Connell. I’m afraid I don’t know his first name.”
“Are ye a cop?”
The voice cut through the inn’s silence, and the man by the front door fell silent. Paul looked to the card table by the fireplace. One man studied his hand intently, as if deciding which card to play next. Two others directed their stares into shadows fluctuating over the old walls. The fourth man had laid his cards face down and leaned back in the wooden chair. His gaze pierced the smoky interior, the man’s eyes holding an air of suspicion.
A log shifted in the hearth, and sparks danced for a while.
“I’m a family friend of the young man in this photograph,” Paul said. The lie came easy to him, he used them often. If folk knew he was a reporter fishing for background information about a bunch of missing people then he doubted any of them would talk at all. Leaving the bar, Paul ambled to the table and displayed the picture of Codie Jackson. The old m
an didn’t even look at it. “Codie told me he was coming here to meet a man named O’Connell, and I was just wondering if he could give the family some sort of closure.”
It took ten seconds before the man moved. He gripped his tumbler in distorted fingers and gulped back the whisky in one mouthful. Setting the glass gently on the table’s surface, he placed both hands on the armrests and began to rise. Paul almost offered to help, but figured the old man had hauled his aged arse from that chair often enough over the years that he’d refuse any proposition of assistance. Instead, he waited patiently until the guy stood upright and stepped away from the table. Without a word, he turned, and picked his way towards the far end of the inn.
As silent as the old man, Paul followed.
A small round table stood in the corner, a solitary chair against the wall. Even in the gloom a layer of grime was visible on the timber surface. A glass tumbler sat in the table’s centre, the last drop of bourbon dried upon its base. Beside it, an empty bottle of whisky had gathered dust, and Paul wondered why either hadn’t been cleared away. Placed on the table, directly in front of the chair, a weathered pipe was almost concealed by the shadows. A candle had burned almost all the way down, its remaining wax disfigured, the wick black and extinguished.
The old man nodded towards the near wall, and the cold outside.
“He’s out there, battling the current.”
Leaning forward to gaze through the low-set window, Paul looked out into the night. A thick layer of cloud coated the heavens but thankfully the storm had now passed on. The island seemed to dominate the water, a dark silhouette on the horizon as if it were Leviathan rising from the ocean depths. Crumbling and abandoned, the old asylum held a desolate façade, and even from this distance it exuded a macabre foreboding that leaked anxiety into Paul’s veins. The strait undulated as a dark mass, the final gusts of the night’s storm licking white flashes of waves across its surface. No lights flickered, the world bleak and lonely.
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