Beach Bodies, Part 2

by Ross Armstrong

  Screams. Mostly from Summer at the sight of the dead thing in front of her.

  There’s not much blood out there, but Sly isn’t breathing. His mohawk covers his eyes, his nose ring and nostril seemingly torn off on the way down and his body lies on the collapsed day bed below him, twisted like no human’s should be.

  ‘Oh god,’ Lance says. That melting feeling inside his head even stronger now.

  Zack: Now

  Thunder cracks through the dark bruise of sky overhead.

  Alone and away from the group, Zack can finally be himself.

  The person he was pretending to be, the fun-loving, outrageous party boy with simple dreams, would’ve wilted in a storm. He would’ve taken his puppy-dog eyes and his empty head and walked straight into passing traffic, taking all hopes of rescuing the group with him.

  Real Zack sees a flash of sheet lightning in the distance.

  He has never been in such a strong storm, but he did do the Three Peaks challenge in sixth form, in particularly strong winds for the time of year. He also got his Duke of Edinburgh award. And unlike Sly, who mentioned that he never imagines security announcements are for him, Zack listens to instructions, due to his ardent relationship with pessimism.

  During high winds, take cover near walls, avoid open spaces and hold handrails wherever possible, he was told when he looked up at Mount Snowdon.

  Things are currently whipping up worse than he could’ve imagined, but he is still able to scramble from the villa to the next house and fling his back to it, then scramble along it and crudely duck under a bush to shelter from the rain.

  What you want above all is to avoid being thrown from a peak, into a river or oncoming traffic, said their burly instructor with the hero jawline. Water is never far away on a small island, but given the wind direction is southerly, being thrown into it should be avoidable with the shelter of buildings ahead. And traffic is a word that Zack doubts has ever reached the island; a car could be a bonus in this predicament, two on the street in one night would make the local paper. If there is a local paper.

  But there are no signs of life on the road to flag down, and no light inside the house he’s tucked up against; what he took to be the fisherman’s house. So he takes Roberto’s phone out from the pocket of the on-trend yellow waterproof he thought he’d never use here, and curves his body over it to shelter the screen from rain.

  No bars. He needs higher ground. Or passing help of the friendly kind.

  Simon said the volcano was on the other side of the road, but it’s too dark to see even that far, and only the lights from a scattering of houses along the road show him the shape of the neighbourhood. He uses his phone to try and judge how steep the ascent is but only catches the slanting rain in a bloom of insufficient light.

  Zack puts his hand out to judge the force of the gale and it hits him hard like he’s in a wind tunnel. Still, the other side of the road is only a matter of paces away and once he traverses that, from Simon’s description, he thinks he should be able to ascend to the requisite height for signal.

  He charges across the road, staying as side-on as possible and relatively close to the ground. He estimates this is 40 mph winds, as he’s felt thirty and was told at forty it’s difficult to stay on your feet. Every part of him stiffens as various sticks and debris pelt him, then he turns as something large veers at him from the darkness.

  He drops to the ground as a deckchair flies just over his head. His possible obituary passes through his mind: Zack Davidson, 25, bludgeoned by deckchair. He finds less levity when he is pummelled by a stray cushion, which is far less comfortable when fired at you at 40 mph, it turns out. He rises as a glass bottle shoots past like a bullet and smashes just where he was lying. He’s pretty sure no one’s actually taking pot shots at him, but doesn’t want to stick around to find out for sure.

  On the other side of the road, he shelters behind a thick tree with a wig of firm horizontal branches high above. And though his ears ring and exposed hands sting from hard rain, he is eminently safer here, as a clutch of trees that form a small wood provide decent enough cover.

  So he changes pace, no longer conserving energy, fighting his way through the trees and long, high grass – which rises to reach shoulder height – towards the incline that must be the volcano. It’s at this point he realises how strange it is to sleep in any land without seeing its dirt and rocks. That usual journey from plane to hotel gives you a tour of the various terrains you might encounter, the people, even what the stores look like. But they were deprived of all that by blindfold for the sake of ‘good television’. If that phrase is not a contradiction in terms, he thinks.

  Can a lump of wires be good? Can an industry? Can an art form?

  Real Zack has such philosophical thoughts. Real Zack hates the tyranny of television and prefers a good book. It was tiresome constantly trying to improvise what Unreal Zack likes to do of an evening. Shagging and Martial Arts probably. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but the ruse took a lot out of him. Frankly, Zack is glad to be able to kill this other Zack off.

  The incline stops. He tries the phone flashlight again and all he sees are trees of different shades and textures. He breaks into a run, the ground crunching under his feet, but the wood goes on and on. Zack stops, and turns, to look back where he’s come from. It barely looks like he’s gone anywhere – he can still see the light of the villa, the only one shining anywhere, like a lighthouse. But then that goes out too.

  He doesn’t have time to wonder what’s going on in there. He spins back around, starts to run and feels the ground give under his feet. He hears the rocks he displaced fall metres down into black water. He sees the tide below, what must be the sea, brush up to the land, strangely calm given the weather, as the moon glints against the water.

  He holds on to a branch, examining this cliff that arrived so suddenly. The island is even narrower than he thought. The bark feels soft in his hand. Like thick expensive material. He recalls a coat he modelled for Acne.

  Then he holds the phone high in the air. No bars. He sees himself from above in the dark reflection of the phone, aided by the partial moonlight, and the sight of his face scares him. Is he Real Zack, or Unreal Zack? Perhaps it’s the stress, but the face seems to be a stranger’s face.

  He wonders why the storm doesn’t seem so strong on this side of the wood; perhaps it’s easing up, or perhaps he’s found the one place its cold hand can’t touch.

  He takes a last slow turn, his feet padding him around in a circle so he can see the shadow lines of everything that surrounds him, from the line of one coast, to the wood and the outline of houses beyond, to the coast’s eerily similar path behind him, then to the water in front of him folding in on itself with every push of tide. And by the time he turns back to where he started, not much is any clearer.

  Except one thing.

  Wherever they are, there is no volcano here.

  8.32 p.m.

  Summer charges to the patio door but is held back by two sets of hands. So instead she bangs on the glass, calling Sly’s name, who is in no fit state to hear her and never will be again.

  Next to them, Lance has his head pressed up against the glass to get a better look at the mess.

  ‘Get off me, what are you doing to me?’ Summer cries. But Tabs and Liv hold on to her and won’t let her open that door, though the smoke that has filled the room from the fire could do with a release and Summer is begging them to let her see the body.

  ‘You can’t go out there, darling. What if they’re out there,’ says Tabs, flanked now by a sea of bodies, who force Summer to the ground. She fights hard and Roberto catches a stray elbow in the face. That’s when they’re forced to smother her. This mound of muscles, haircuts and decent genes. This pile of sweating bodies.

  ‘I can’t breathe,’ Summer says, underneath.

  The voices above tell her to stay calm. Lance comes over and has to stop his instinct to take her arm and jam it around be
tween her shoulder blades. It’s amazing the disorder one person out of control can bring.

  ‘We have to stay calm!’ says Justine, a sentiment that always sounds less convincing when shouted. ‘They want us to lose control.’

  Summer’s scream turns feral as Lance places a knee onto her back, which triggers Tabs into freeing herself from the mob, taking a step back and placing a hand against the cool patio door glass as she watches.

  Tabs is reminded of heavy-handed police tactics, online videos of people restrained until they suffocate. And she wants to withdraw, but she’s part of it, inexplicably stuck within a clutch of bodies intent on smothering the crying voice beneath.

  ‘You’re hurting me, you murderers, murderers!’ she cries, a hellish sound from her depths.

  And like they’re waking from some bloody dream, they release Summer when they hear that magic word. Murderers.

  She crawls until her back is against a wall and she has them all where she can see them. They lie panting: half of them looking out at Sly’s perfect body and its imperfect ending, the other half trying not to.

  Tabs turns away from the group, staring out at the body beyond the glass. An act which ends with her suddenly heaving, then striding towards the living-room door, hand cupped over her mouth.

  ‘Let’s stick together, Tabs. Don’t go up there,’ says Lance.

  ‘Leave me alone!’ she screams. ‘You want to pin me to the ground too? If you need me, I’ll be on the other side of this door trying not to throw up in the bathroom. You lot stay here and think about what you’ve just done. All of you.’

  She leaves the door half open for safety’s sake and they hear the tap go on. It’s the soundtrack to their eyes rolling over to Summer, who has bruises forming on her face and neck.

  Summer runs a shaking hand through her hair, a different animal altogether now. She can’t look at Roberto and Lance, whose determined eyes will live in her memory forever, however long forever may be. So instead she focuses on the women.

  It’s strange, she thinks, how some beautiful people need to follow the group. ‘We could be pioneers,’ she says, Liv and Justine moving delicately towards her. But though they’re now close enough to cut the others out of earshot, it’s clear they don’t understand her hushed words. ‘But we won’t be. We won’t be pioneers. Because some people are afraid of themselves.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ Liv whispers back.

  ‘We try and hear each other’s stories and understand,’ Summer mumbles. ‘But the fact is it’s hard for humans to comprehend anything if it isn’t happening to them. So it takes work. People hear each other’s problems and think of reasons why it’s the person with the problem’s fault really, or why it wouldn’t happen to them. But please, just try and hear me. And if it seems difficult, just believe me when I say I’m hurting. Or when I’m say I’m fine. There’s nothing in brackets, nothing mitigating. Just believe me. Do you see?’

  ‘I think so. I think I see,’ Justine says, moving closer and holding her hand.

  ‘If we don’t believe each other. If we don’t lean back to back and watch out for whatever the men are doing to trap us this day or the next, then we won’t survive. We have to be in union. Be as one. Be a coven. Or they’ll kill us all with a thousand tiny abuses, a thousand tiny lies.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ says Liv, holding her other hand.

  Summer’s eyes give nothing away.

  ‘Don’t be sorry. Help me.’ Her tone deadened. ‘How does he look?’ she says, breaking the spell and throwing her words back to the men above her, but with one small glance to both women to remind them of her words. And of the girl code.

  Lance walks to the glass, just as, past the ajar door, the group hear Tabs heave in the bathroom.

  ‘Looks like he’s been thrown from a height,’ says Lance.

  The hush of that tap goes on.

  ‘And the only ones who could’ve pushed him are Zack, Dawn and Simon, right?’ says Roberto. ‘Everyone else is here. We know this patio door hasn’t been opened because of the smoke.’

  A few coughs ring out. You put an idea in the air and suddenly everyone’s coughing. They catch, like yawns. Psychosomatic.

  Summer, who prides herself on knowing what’s going on and has had enough of listening to people that don’t, cuts her off. ‘I heard glass breaking upstairs.’

  ‘I think I heard that too. But we didn’t hear a scream or a thump when he hit the ground,’ says Roberto.

  ‘The thump could’ve been drowned out by the sound of the storm. And, as for the scream, maybe he was dead before he hit the ground,’ Summer says.

  ‘Yep,’ says Lance. ‘Could be right. Looks like his throat’s cut.’

  Summer swallows.

  ‘D’you think it’s the same weapon as before, Lance?’ says Liv, glancing at Summer to remind her how dubious they are that Lance saw Tommy’s body at all.

  ‘Difficult to tell at this distance,’ he says. ‘I think Tommy’s neck was cut by something with a serrated edge. Which would match the one you were holding, Liv.’ A challenging look her way.

  Roberto gets up suddenly and goes to the kitchen island, rifles around in the drawers and brings it out. ‘Still here. So can’t be this one…’

  His voice dies away, as their eyes fix on the same thing all at once. The fresh carmine-red blood on the knife, the smear broken abruptly in the middle where someone has wiped it poorly, giving the blade the striped look of a candy cane.

  The weapon shakes in his hand, Roberto can’t put it down on the marble counter-top fast enough.

  ‘How did someone use it, then get it back in there?’ says Justine, coming over to check the blood is fresh.

  Summer speaks quietly to herself. ‘… more impossible things.’

  She catches Liv’s eye again, and they know they can’t let this derail them from where they are headed next.

  ‘Lance,’ says Liv. ‘Did you notice anything else interesting about Tommy’s body?’

  Lance looks blank.

  ‘You see, we went up to check on the body too,’ says Liv.

  Lance stays poker-faced. ‘Now why would you do a thing like that? And, to think, I had you pegged as the smart one. Why would you put yourselves in a vulnerable position like that?’

  ‘Don’t worry about us, we can look after ourselves. So, notice anything else about the body, did you?’

  ‘You two saw it too. You tell me,’ he says, innocent enough.

  ‘That’s the thing, Lance. There wasn’t a body! So why don’t you tell me how it’s possible you saw a body that wasn’t there?’ Liv says.

  The group turns their focus on Lance, who slowly stands, shaking his head. ‘This is jokes. We don’t have time for this.’

  ‘You got something else on, have you, mate?’ says Roberto.

  ‘There was no body there,’ says Liv.

  ‘He was there. So somebody must’ve moved him,’ says Lance, stepping towards her. ‘But we don’t have time for this.’

  ‘Stop saying that! What could possibly be more important than this?’ says Justine.

  And the voices and bodies rise. Only Summer chooses to stay seated.

  ‘Who can logistically have moved him?’ says Liv.

  ‘Isn’t it obvious by now?’ Lance says. ‘Simon is the bloke whose moves have been hard to track, Simon has Dawn locked in that room, and I don’t know how he killed Sly too, but I think he did. So when I say we don’t have time, it’s cos someone else could be dying down there right now. I say let’s smash that window, or that reinforced door, or burn it down—’

  ‘No one’s burning anything down,’ says Tabs, appearing in the doorway. ‘Check that window to the office. If that’s locked too, we’ll consider our options.’

  She still looks green and clammy, and seems to have poured most of that running water they heard over her head to calm her nerves, giving her a drowned rat look. But no one mentions this. The women have been forced to be camera-ready, even when aslee
p, for nearly 900 consecutive hours. It would be a tad unfair to ask them to keep standards up under current circumstances.

  ‘All right,’ says Lance, ‘I need two of you, strength in numbers.’ He grabs the fisherman’s flashlight. ‘I’m going around to that window.’

  ‘I’m with you, boy,’ says Roberto, though in truth he makes this decision after Lance’s look tells him he really has to come.

  ‘I’ll go. I need the air,’ says Summer.

  Roberto goes to the kitchen island again, picks up the knife and places it on the coffee table between Justine, Liv and Tabs.

  ‘Stay safe,’ he says. ‘Stay together.’

  ‘Bonne chance,’ says Justine.

  Then the three head out the same way Zack left.

  Down below them in the lounge, that red light will be flashing to tell Simon or anyone looking at it that the front door has been opened again. But what it can’t describe, is that they’re coming for him.

  BEACH BODIES: PART TWO

  IS COMING ON 26 JULY 2019

  STAY TUNED

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks, as ever, to Catherine, who generic superlatives cannot hope to describe and who lights up my life with everything she does.

  To my parents, Chris and John Armstrong, who will go through a draft of this with a fine-tooth comb long after it has been signed off, print it out and send it to me, annotated with all the errors they’ve found, only for me to tell them I had an excellent copy editor called Dushi Horti whose job it was to catch all those for me. But seriously, Mum and Dad, thank you for all your care and all that you do and please never stop. I literally couldn’t do this without you.

  To my brothers, Al and Jim, who have in no way contributed to this book, but generally deserve a mention for forcing The Smiths, The Clash, The Wonder Stuff and so much other inspiring culture on me that probably in many ways forced me into this ridiculous and precarious life, which I love so much.

  Thanks to my wonderful editor, Dominic Wakeford, who has superb taste, a formidable knowledge of literature and film, and is generally just a fantastic person to work with.