After Sundown Read online

  I turn. A small mushroom of orange and grey rises up against the horizon.

  “Shit.” Bill spits out water. “You were right about the mines.”

  I stare at the smoke.

  “Yeah.”

  I don’t say that the explosion is too far out at sea. El Capitan missed the mines.

  Something else blew the boat up.

  * * *

  We dry our clothes on logs that line the edge of the beach. I shake water out of my gun and slip it back into the waistband of my shorts. Bearded Dude has taken a battered phone out of his pocket and is pressing buttons and frowning. I haven’t had a phone for years. Like I said, no one to call.

  We’ve come ashore on a wide stretch of white sand. To our right, further down the beach, I can see the bar, now boarded up. The huts are further into the jungle.

  “So,” Alison says. “I suggest our first job should be to check out the bar and see if there are any usable supplies, bottled water, dried food and so on.”

  “Actually,” Bearded Dude says, “our first job should be to introduce ourselves. I’m Ray.”

  “Alison,” she says. “And this is Millie.”

  “Bill, man,” Bill offers.

  “Olly,” Olly says, sharpening his knife on the log.

  Harold is sat on the other end of it, huddled into himself. He hasn’t taken his wet clothes off and is shivering, despite the heat of the mid-morning sun. Shock. Trauma. Or in other words, a fucking burden we do not need right now.

  I realise people’s attention has shifted to me. “The bar, did you say?” I start to walk across the beach.

  “Dick,” I hear Alison mutter.

  Bill jogs to catch up with me. “Man, this is some trip.”

  “Yeah. I’ve watched a boatload of people get blown to smithereens and now I’m marooned on a fucking island, possibly facing death by starvation or dehydration. Some trip.”

  “Man, you really are a dick sometimes.”

  “I know.”

  I glance behind us. Alison is walking side by side with Ray and Millie. I can’t see Olly.

  “Where’s Olly?”

  “Oh. I think he went to check out the huts.”

  And pretend he’s Rambo.

  We reach the bar. A few chairs are still rotting outside. A faded and weather-beaten sign on the front offers a selection of beers and cocktails, crisps, noodles and chocolate.

  “Guess this place didn’t stay unspoilt for long,” Alison says.

  “Yeah.” I smile thinly. “How d’you like it now?”

  She turns and kicks the door in. “I’m reserving judgement.”

  I stare after her. Ray glances at me and chuckles. “I like her.”

  It’s dim in the shack, sunlight filtering in through gaps in the roof and cracks in the walls. I blink, letting my eyes adjust. My nose is already on the case. Something smells off, rotten. Maybe food gone bad.

  Tables and chairs have been piled up on one side of the small room. Directly in front of us is the counter. Glass-fronted refrigerators are lined up behind it, turned off, but still half-full of beer, water and soft drinks. So, we won’t die of dehydration right away. And we can also get drunk.

  “We should check out back for food,” Ray says.

  He disappears into the storeroom with Alison. Millie walks over to the fridges and takes out a bottle of water. She checks the date, shrugs and uncaps it, taking a swig.

  “Help yourself, why don’t you?” I say.

  She smiles at me, lifts the bottle again and takes several bigger gulps, almost draining it. She wipes her lips. “Thanks. I will.”

  I’m almost starting to like the kid. I turn and look around the rest of the room. The smell is still bothering me. I eye the stacked tables and chairs and walk over to them. Something on the wall catches my eye. A motley montage of blues and greens. Some kind of mural, or bits of paper pinned to the wall? I move closer and realise that it’s neither. It’s butterflies. Huge blue and green coloured butterflies. Dozens of them. Dead. Nailed to the wall by their wings or through their large furry bodies.

  “What the fuck is that, man?” Bill is at my shoulder, staring at the wall of crucified butterflies.

  “Butterflies.”

  “I thought this was a sanctuary.”

  “Looks like someone found another way of saving them.”

  There’s a thud from behind us as Alison and Ray walk out from the storeroom and dump a couple of large boxes on the counter.

  “There’s packs of crisps, dried noodles, sauces, chocolate. Plus, matches and firelighters. Enough to keep us going for a while,” Alison announces.

  I sniff again. “Does anyone else smell that?”

  Millie walks over and stands next to me. “Smells like when our cat crawled under the porch to die and we didn’t find her for two weeks.”

  I stare at her again. This twelve-year-old is pretty hardcore. And she’s right. Something is dead here and not just the butterflies.

  I reach for the chairs and start unstacking them and moving them to one side.

  “What are you doing?” Alison asks.

  “I’m expecting a busy day with customers.”

  “Are you ever not a dick?”

  “Rarely.”

  I move more of the chairs and slide aside the tables. There’s another door behind them. What used to be a toilet, I would guess. The smell is stronger here. I yank it open.

  “Fuck!” Bill turns and retches.

  “Shit,” Millie whispers.

  Alison rushes over and pulls the girl back.

  A body, or what remains of it, has been nailed to the door. Just like the butterflies nailed to the wall. It’s been here a while. The skin has mostly rotted away, just a few stringy tendrils of muscle stubbornly clinging to bone. Straggly clumps of dark hair sprout from a yellowed skull. The figure is dressed in a shirt and shorts, also rotted and ragged. I’d hazard a guess and say it’s a man.

  “What d’you think happened to him?” Ray asks.

  “Well, he didn’t nail himself to a door.”

  “So, there’s someone else on the island?”

  “And he, or she, is a killer.”

  He frowns. “We should check on the others.”

  * * *

  Harold is not on his log. I glance towards the sea, half-hoping to see his lifeless body floating on the waves. But no. Damn.

  “We need to go check the huts.”

  The jungle is dense, the undergrowth beneath our bare feet littered with sharp bits of twig and thorns, and I’m only too aware of the potential for spiders or snakes. Above us, I spot the occasional flutter of bluey-green wings. Butterflies. I think again about the insects nailed to the wall. Weird shit.

  The huts are set in a small clearing. Half a dozen of them. Arranged around a central fire pit that must have once been used for barbeques.

  Whatever has been cooking on it more recently certainly isn’t sausages or burgers.

  “Well, this just gets better and better,” Alison says.

  “Are those skulls?” Millie asks.

  They are. Five or six, along with an assortment of jumbled blackened bones. We walk closer. I peer down into the pit. Then I pick up a stick and poke at the charred bones.

  “Looks like our killer has been busy,” Ray remarks.

  I shake my head. “A lone killer couldn’t possibly kill so many people at once.”

  “Depends on how big his gun is.”

  Alison crouches down and squints at the bones. “It looks like these bodies have been burned at different times.”

  “So, he kills everyone, then burns them one by one.”

  It still feels wrong to me. I’m pondering on it when Bill shouts, “Olly! Man. What happened?”

  We all turn. Olly staggers dow
n the steps from one of the huts. His right arm is bandaged with his torn-up vest but it’s still bleeding profusely.

  “Someone shot at me,” he says. “Missed. No biggie.”

  No biggie. Ray and I snatch our own weapons out of our waistbands and point them at the surrounding jungle suspiciously. None of us heard a gunshot. A silencer, maybe?

  “You think they’re still out there?” Ray asks.

  Olly shakes his head. “I don’t think so. Or they’d have finished me off, right?”

  Rambo makes a good point.

  “We should get out of here,” I say. “Random shooters and burnt bodies aren’t making me feel all homely.”

  “That’s not all,” Olly says.

  I look at him.

  He grins. “You should see what’s out back.”

  * * *

  The cross is staked firmly into the ground, in a small clearing behind the huts. The body lashed to it has been here some time, like the guy in the bar. All the flesh has gone. Stripped right back to the bone, which gleams in the dappled sunlight.

  “This dude really pissed someone off,” Bill says.

  “It’s not a dude,” Alison says. “It’s a woman. A young woman I’d say, from the skeleton.”

  “You think she was killed and strapped up here?” Ray says. There’s a note of hope in his voice and I get it, because the alternative is that she was strapped up here, maybe killed, maybe not. Maybe left to die or be tortured.

  “Why would someone do that?” Millie says. “Why would they hang her up like this? For what?”

  For what? And suddenly something clicks. I can see it all with absolute clarity.

  “A sacrifice,” I say.

  “A what?”

  “They weren’t all killed together. They were killed one by one. Chosen. Hung out here.”

  “Man!” Bill says. “Wild imagination.”

  “No,” Alison says slowly. “I think he’s right.”

  “But a sacrifice to who or what?”

  The fluttering in the trees has increased. I glance up. I can see more butterflies flying about now. My neck itches. A feeling of unease. The small patches of blue visible through the trees are starting to disappear. The jungle is darkening.

  “I really think we should go.”

  “Me too,” Alison says.

  Millie nods. “This place gives me the creeps.”

  We start to move away.

  Olly remains, standing next to the skeleton of the young woman.

  “C’mon, it’s only butterflies.”

  I glance back. A couple of butterflies have flown down and alighted on the skeleton. Two more perch on Olly.

  “They like me.”

  It happens quickly. There’s a rush like the wind and more blue and green bodies flutter gracefully down from the trees and land on Olly, predominantly on his right side. His injured arm. I see his face change, the smile morphing into a frown.

  “Fuck, that’s enough. Get off.”

  He shakes his arm. The fluttering increases.

  “Man, they really do like him,” Bill mutters.

  “Ow, shit. That hurts.”

  More butterflies flock to him. I can barely see Olly now behind the frenzied fluttering of wings.

  “Nooo. Aaagh. Get the fuck off. They’re biting. They’re fucking eating me. Help!”

  “What the hell are they doing?” Ray asks.

  I think about the staked body. The blood on Olly’s arm. The frenzied beating of wings. It’s quite simple.

  “They’re feeding,” I say. “Now let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  * * *

  We run, crashing our way through the jungle, paying little attention to direction. Olly’s screams seem to follow us, long after his torment is out of earshot. We should have shot him, I think. But then, we only have so many bullets.

  Eventually, sweat streaming down our backs, feet scraped raw, the greenery thins. We burst out into open air. Grass. Blue sky. Lots of blue sky. Ahead of us, the land runs out abruptly and drops off into a steep ravine.

  We all stop, bending over, gasping, catching our breath.

  “Guess we can’t go any further.”

  “Nope.”

  “What the hell happened back there?”

  “Flesh-eating butterflies. The usual.”

  “But how?”

  “Who the fuck knows? Chemicals. Pollution. Experiment gone wrong. When a crazed billionaire buys an island and seals it off, it’s not usually to make fluffy toys.”

  “You sound like you know a lot about it.”

  “Nah, just watched a lot of James Bond as a kid.”

  “You don’t happen to have a parachute stuffed up your butt to get us out of this?” Ray asks.

  We look back at the jungle and then towards the cliff.

  “Caught between a drop and a fucked place,” Bill says.

  Alison walks over to the edge and peers down.

  “Maybe not. It’s not so steep. I reckon we could—” She breaks off. “What the fuck.”

  “What?”

  “There’s something down there.”

  We all join her at the precipice. The drop makes me sway. And then I spot something, glinting at the bottom of the ravine. Something black and metallic with bent and twisted blades. The crumpled remains of a helicopter.

  “Man,” Bill hisses. “The dude was right.”

  “What dude?” Ray asks.

  “The dude who said this island would make us rich.”

  “How is a crashed helicopter going to make us rich?” Millie asks.

  “Story goes that a helicopter carrying a new vaccine, one that could immunise against the virus, crashed on some uninhabited island. The dude was sure it was Butterfly Island.”

  “A vaccine?” Alison says. “That could save millions of lives.”

  “Yeah.” Bill nods. “And imagine how much someone will pay for it. I know a man—”

  “What! You can’t sell something like that. It needs to be delivered to an impartial health organisation.”

  “Who asked you, Mother Teresa?”

  “We’re talking about the future of mankind.”

  “And I’m talking about my future.”

  “Could you all shut up!” Millie glares at them. “First, we don’t know if we can even reach the helicopter. Second, we don’t know if the vaccine survived the crash, and third, we’re stuck here on this island, remember?”

  From the mouths of babes.

  “And,” I say, “we’re stuck here with flesh-eating butterflies and at least one psychotic maniac running around sacrificing people. So perhaps we have more pressing concerns right now.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.”

  We turn. Ray has taken a step back so that he stands behind our group. He is smiling and pointing his gun at us.

  I shake my head. “Really?”

  “What can I say? Good guys don’t survive the apocalypse.”

  “Don’t tell me – you heard about the helicopter too. You want to sell the vaccine for a load of cash, and you don’t want to share?”

  “Right and wrong. I heard about it, yeah. But my people don’t want to sell the vaccine. They want to keep it for themselves.”

  “Why?”

  “Imagine being immune from a virus killing millions. We’d be the most powerful people in the world. Invincible. Like Gods.”

  Alison eyes Ray coldly. “So how come ‘your’ people sent you out here alone. Or are you one of the dispensable Gods?”

  He smiles at her. “Play nice. Maybe I’ll let you be one of the chosen ones.”

  “I’d rather die.”

  “Fine.”

  He levels the gun at her.

  “Wait.” I hold my hands up. “Like Millie said,
the vaccine is no good to anyone if we can’t get off this island. We need to work together or we’re all going to die here.”

  Ray’s dark eyes meet mine. He reaches into his pocket and takes out the battered phone.

  “I got people waiting. I send this text, they know it’s done. They come and get me.”

  “And get blown up by the mines.”

  “Already told them to drop anchor further out. Just got to swim to meet them. Home and dry.”

  “Got it all planned out.”

  “Damn right.”

  He grins a crooked yellow grin. I see his thumb press send. There’s a roar from behind us. Animalistic. Desperate. Olly charges out of the thicket of trees, arms flailing, still half-covered by butterflies. Most of his flesh has gone, eaten away to the muscle and tendon, one eye has popped out. His stomach cavity gapes. He shouldn’t be standing. Yet he keeps going.

  Ray shoots. Once, twice. Olly staggers but doesn’t stop. I grab Alison and Millie and pull them out of the way. Olly barrels into Ray who clings to him like a desperate lover, but there’s nothing he can do. Olly’s momentum carries them off the cliff edge and down into the ravine. Ray’s scream rises into the air along with the butterflies and then both drift away.

  “Christ,” Alison stares after them. “Fucking, fucking Christ!”

  Millie wraps an arm around her waist, and they hug tightly. Bill looks at me.

  “Man,” he says, and opens his arms.

  “Don’t even fucking think about it.”

  “So, what do we do now?” Alison asks, looking at me.

  “Well, we either chance the jungle or try our luck climbing down into the ravine. Either way, we’ll probably die.”

  “Great.”

  “Plus, if what Ray says is true, there’s another boat coming. And if Ray doesn’t meet them—”

  “You think they’ll come ashore?”

  “Maybe.”

  “And try to kill us.”

  “Probably.”

  “Oh, good.”

  “And we still have the problem of butterflies with the human-munchies and a crazed killer roaming the island.”

  “And Linda’s husband is missing.”

  I’d forgotten about Harold. And I have a feeling that I really shouldn’t have.

  “So?” Bill asks. “What do we do, man?”

  We fall into silence. I could really do with a cold Estrella.