Dead Island Read online

  ‘Fuck you!’ he screamed at the stage. Then he turned and barged his way back into the crowd. ‘Out of my fucking way!’ he snarled.

  People took one look at his wild eyes and stepped aside. Logan wondered how many of them recognized him, or half-recognized him, or maybe thought he looked vaguely like someone they might once have known. Fame was the best thing in the world when you were standing on its summit, looking out at the view. But he couldn’t believe there was a worse feeling than sliding back down the mountain and realizing there was nothing to stop you from hitting the bottom. To have been famous once and then to have lost it was surely worse than never having been famous at all. It was worse too, in its way, than the end of a relationship, or even the death of a loved one. In Logan’s opinion it was easy to find love again – people did it all the time. But how many famous people, once they had hit the slippery slope, managed to reverse the fall and make it back to the top of the mountain?

  He was halfway through the crowd when he spotted Purna. She was standing alone, arms folded, eyes fixed intently on the stage. Making a snap decision, he staggered towards her.

  ‘Hi,’ he shouted above the music.

  She looked momentarily startled, which gave Logan a vicious ripple of satisfaction. She’d seemed so in control before that it felt good to scratch her veneer a little bit.

  ‘Hi,’ she said guardedly.

  He nodded towards the stage. ‘So whaddya think?’

  ‘He’s good.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s not my kind of music, but … yeah, I appreciate the artistry.’

  Logan sneered. ‘Artistry?’

  She looked at him a moment before replying, as if weighing him up. ‘You don’t think it’s an art?’

  ‘Fuck, no!’ He spat the words with such venom that he stumbled forward and Purna had to reach out with both hands to steady him.

  ‘Hey, you OK?’ she said. ‘You don’t look too good.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘Just … hot. I’ve been up at the front. Thought I’d get a drink. You want one?’

  ‘No, I’m good, thanks.’

  She turned away, as if dismissing him. Logan felt that red mist prickling at the edges of his vision again.

  ‘Why do you do that?’ he snapped.

  She glanced at him, puzzled. ‘Do what?’

  ‘Turn away like … like I’m a piece of shit on your shoe?’ He knew that analogy didn’t quite make sense, but he felt as though he’d made his point.

  She looked exasperated rather than defensive. ‘I don’t. It’s your imagination.’

  ‘Fuck that,’ he said. ‘You think you’re so fucking superior to everyone.’

  ‘I really don’t.’

  ‘Yeah you do. You’re doing it now. Treating me like I’m some … some bum pestering you for a dollar.’

  ‘You’re drunk,’ she said. ‘I think you should go and lie down.’

  ‘Yeah? Well, why don’t you come and lie down with me?’ He reached out to grab her wrist.

  Before his hand could make contact, Purna somehow managed to step both to one side and closer to him. Her right knee came up swiftly, crushing his balls. Despite the dulling effects of alcohol, the pain was so unbelievable that for a moment Logan felt sure he’d been ripped in two. As he doubled over, she grabbed his arm and twisted it up behind his back. He howled in agony.

  She leaned in close to him and murmured in his ear. ‘I really think you should take my advice, Logan. Go back to your room, drink lots of water, then sleep it off. You’ll thank me in the morning.’

  He tried to twist out of her grip, but that only caused fresh pain to shoot up his arm. Pain so acute that he felt on the verge of passing out. ‘Let go of me,’ he wailed.

  ‘Only if you promise to do as I say.’

  Black sparks were dancing in front of his eyes now and the sweat on his body was turning clammy.

  ‘Promise me,’ she repeated.

  Thoroughly humiliated, his balls and arm hurting almost beyond endurance, Logan gasped, ‘I promise.’

  Immediately he felt his arm released. He staggered forward and fell on his knees.

  All the shit he had been through over the past few years suddenly seemed to rush in on him, to coalesce in that moment. He felt utterly wretched, more wretched even than he had felt alone in his hospital bed with his busted-up knee, the painkillers wearing off, and the knowledge that an innocent girl was dead because of him.

  Without looking back, he began to crawl away. He felt like a maggot, something to be reviled and crushed. It was only when a wave of nausea rushed through him that he felt compelled to rise to his feet. He spotted a sign for the restrooms and staggered towards it, the hand that Purna had twisted behind his back hanging limply, the other cupping his throbbing balls.

  He passed beneath an arch into a short corridor, where a pair of doors faced each other on opposite walls. Choosing the left one at random, he all but fell against it. It opened and he stumbled into the rest room, vomit already boiling up through his oesophagus. The pain and the alcohol and the need to puke had diminished his senses, the music now no more than a mushy throb in his ears, his eyesight narrowing to tunnel vision. Ahead of him he spotted a sink, the silvery gleam of a mirror above it. Somehow he forced his feet into a rickety, lopsided run. He had barely gripped the edge of the sink when his head lurched forward and what felt like gallons of stinking liquid ejected itself from his system.

  The liquid burned as it rose up through his stomach and throat. The fumes from the regurgitated alcohol were like a toxic irritant, making his eyes water, his nose run. He puked so violently that it spattered back off the porcelain walls of the sink, peppering his face and hands and shirt. The shirt was pale blue with little white palm trees on it. He had only bought it that week and was wearing it for the first time.

  Slowly he raised his head and looked at himself in the mirror. He looked ghastly, his skin like old dough, his eyes peering from deep hollows. He looked just like his grandpa Buck had done in the last stages of his battle with liver cancer. Leaning forward to prop himself against the sink, he tentatively released his grip so he could turn on the cold tap.

  After scooping several handfuls of water over his face and into his mouth, Logan felt a little better. A little, but not much. He had now reached the point where all he craved was a soft bed and sweet oblivion. Hoping enough strength had returned to his legs to support his body, he pushed himself upright and stepped back. As he did so, the reflection in the mirror showed him more of the room, and he was surprised to discover he was not alone.

  There were two women on the floor by the toilet cubicles. One was lying on her back, and the other was on her knees, leaning over her. Logan guessed they must have been here the whole time, but he had been so preoccupied he hadn’t even noticed them. He turned now and looked at the women properly; he couldn’t see either of their faces. The one who was kneeling had her back to him, and was leaning forward at such an angle that she was obscuring the face of the other.

  It took him a moment to realize the kneeling woman looked familiar. She was petite and slender, with glossy, black, shoulder-length hair. She was wearing the white blouse and knee-length red skirt of a Palm Hotel receptionist. Unless he was mistaken, this was the cute Chinese girl who had checked him in.

  ‘You OK?’ he asked.

  The girl turned her head, her raven-black hair swishing like a curtain. It was the cute Chinese girl, and she looked worried.

  Not questioning the fact that Logan was in the ladies’, she said, ‘I think this woman’s having some kind of seizure.’

  Logan stepped forward and saw the other woman’s face. ‘Whoa,’ he said.

  The other woman looked … weird. Her eyes were glazed and white, the pupils having shrunk to little more than pinpricks. Her teeth were clenched and she was frothing at the mouth like a rabies victim. Moreover she had begun to snort and growl like an animal, her head thrashing from side to side. Even as Logan watched, her body was seized by a series o
f shuddering convulsions, her hands becoming rigid, fingers curling into claws.

  He was about to say something when, without warning, the woman snarled and sat up. The cute Chinese girl was still looking over her shoulder at Logan and so was slow to respond. Before Logan could shout a warning, the woman lunged at the Chinese girl, grabbed her arm and bit her hand. The Chinese girl screamed and pulled away, but not before the woman had done some damage. Logan was shocked to see blood mixed with froth dribbling from the woman’s mouth, and a crescent of teeth-marks on the fleshy pad of the Chinese girl’s hand. He thought again of rabies, of infection. As the woman sprang to her feet, suddenly lithe as a monkey, he made for the door.

  The Chinese girl was right behind him. Logan wrenched open the door and they scrambled out together. He had barely got the door shut when the crazy woman hurled herself against the other side of it. Logan clung to the handle as she screeched and battered at the door, trying to yank it open. He wondered whether he ought to let go and make a run for it. There were so many people in the room that she would probably attack someone else.

  ‘We ought to try and help her,’ the Chinese girl shouted above the thud of the music.

  ‘Are you kidding?’ Logan yelled back. ‘Unless you’ve got a tranquillizer gun she’d rip our fucking faces off.’ He noticed blood dripping from the Chinese girl’s hand and shrank back from it. ‘You should get that looked at. It might be infectious.’

  The girl looked around. ‘I’ll do it in a minute. Wait here.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ Logan shouted as she moved away.

  ‘To get help,’ she said and slipped into the crowd. On the other side of the door, the barrage of blows from the screeching woman continued. Logan clung desperately to the door handle and wondered if this was finally it, his divine punishment not only for killing Drew Peters but also for getting away with it. If you could call the loss of both his career and his reputation ‘getting away with it’, and, personally, Logan didn’t think you could; he felt he had already suffered more than enough. He’d heard all that Old Testament stuff about God being vengeful and full of wrath, but sending some crazed, psychotic bitch after him to make his life even more crap than it already was was just fucking overkill.

  He decided that if the Chinese girl wasn’t back within a minute he’d let go of the handle and take his chances. If the psychotic bitch jumped him and ripped his head off, at least she’d be putting him out of his misery. He started to count, but had barely reached twenty when the Chinese girl came running back with two hefty security guys in tow. The security guys looked dubious and a little amused – they wore expressions which clearly conveyed that whatever the girl had told them, they believed she was exaggerating.

  ‘She’s in here,’ Logan said. ‘Be careful, she’s crazy.’

  The security guys lumbered forward. Both Chinese, like the rest of the staff here, they were built like Sumo wrestlers and sported identical buzz cuts.

  ‘Move away from the door please, sir,’ one of them said confidently.

  ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’

  ‘Just do it, sir,’ said the other security guy. ‘We’ll take it from here.’

  ‘Well, if that’s what you want …’ Logan said, and let go of the handle.

  He didn’t hang around to see what happened next. The instant he let go, he turned and ran for the exit. It might have been his imagination, but over the pounding beat of Sam’s signature tune, ‘Who Do You Voodoo, Bitch’, Logan thought he heard screams. But he didn’t look back until he was safely in his room with the door closed and locked behind him.

  Chapter 4

  UNKNOWN NUMBER

  ‘HELP MEEEE!’

  It was almost 4 a.m. when Purna awoke to screams.

  Alert in an instant, she jumped out of bed and ran lightly across to the double doors leading on to the balcony. The screams had come from outside, she was sure of it. In her job it paid to be attuned to her surroundings even when asleep. She turned the key in the lock and stepped on to the balcony in her bare feet.

  From here she could see the swimming pool below, its inset lighting creating strange ripples and reflections. Beyond the environs of the resort, away to her right, was the lower end of the main street. Purna was just in time to see a woman, running, being chased by … what? In the quick glimpse she caught of it before both the woman and her pursuer disappeared around the edge of a building, Purna thought the figure looked and moved like an ape – an ape wearing dishevelled and possibly blood-stained clothes.

  The woman screamed again, her voice echoing back along the otherwise deserted main street. Purna knew she couldn’t just stand by and do nothing. Stepping back inside the room, she ran across to the phone beside her bed and lifted the receiver. She had already pressed ‘1’ for Reception when she realized the line was dead. What the hell? Exasperated, she replaced the receiver in its cradle.

  Training and experience had taught her to remain clear-headed, unflustered. She dressed quickly, pulling jeans and a light zip-up jacket on over the shorts and vest top she wore as pyjamas. She put trainers on over white sports socks, her fingers deft as they tied the laces. Grabbing her room key from the dressing table, she crossed the room, opened the door and stepped into the corridor.

  Despite the time, the corridor was not deserted. At its far end was the bellhop who had brought her luggage up earlier. He was a young, polite Chinese guy in a grey uniform, but there was clearly something wrong with him. In fact, he looked as though he had been in a fight or had an accident. There was a lot of blood down the front of his uniform and on his face.

  He was moving strangely too, tottering like a drunk, his body hunched over and his hands twisted into arthritic claws. Purna noticed that it was not only his face and clothes, but also his fingers that were smeared with blood and clots of matter, as if he had been tearing up raw meat.

  Purna licked her lips, torn between offering help and treating him with caution. Though her instincts were generally good, she was finding it hard to decide whether the bellhop was acting like a victim or an aggressor. If the latter, then he was clearly confused – perhaps he was drunk or high on drugs? As a cop, Purna had dealt with domestic incidents involving horrific violence, only for the attacker to be utterly bewildered by his or her actions afterwards.

  In the end, thinking of the distressed woman in the street, and knowing she would have to approach the bellhop to get to both the lift and the stairs, she stepped forward and said, ‘Are you OK?’

  The bellhop’s head snapped up, and for the first time Purna got a look at his eyes. They were almost white, the pupils the size of pinpricks. The bellhop opened his mouth and snarled, something red and lumpy sliding from between his lips and spattering to the floor, then he started towards her in a shambling run.

  He was parallel with the lift and Purna was adopting a defensive stance to meet him when the door beside her opened. A rumpled-looking Logan stepped out, having clearly crashed out on his bed fully dressed, and looked at her sleepily.

  ‘What’s all the fucking—’

  ‘Look out!’ yelled Purna.

  Before Logan could respond, the bellhop was on him like a wild animal. The Chinese boy leaped on his back and frenziedly began to bite at his shoulder and neck, tearing at his flesh with his teeth. Taken by surprise, Logan staggered and almost fell, then began to scream and thrash about, his arms flailing in an effort to dislodge his attacker. Within seconds the shoulder of his pale blue shirt was soaked in blood.

  Moving forward, Purna grabbed Logan’s flailing arms and, displaying both strength and composure, clamped them to his sides. Then she slammed Logan backwards as hard as she could, so that the bellhop’s body was crushed between the ex-football star and the wall. She heard a satisfying clonk as the bellhop’s head impacted with the wall and a crunch that she hoped was a couple of his ribs giving way. Before the bellhop could recover, she yanked Logan forward again and shoved him aside, out of harm’s way. The bellhop
slid down the wall and landed in a heap on the blood-spattered carpet, like an insect whacked with a newspaper.

  He should have been dazed enough to have had the fight knocked out of him, but almost immediately he scrambled to his feet. Springing across the corridor, Purna grabbed a fire extinguisher from the wall, brandishing it in such a way that showed she clearly meant business.

  ‘Stay down or I’ll bash your fucking brains out,’ she warned.

  The bellhop ignored her. Whatever he had taken, it had clearly made him think he was invincible. He seemed not even to notice the extinguisher as he sprang upright and leaped at her, clawed hands extended.

  With an almost balletic fluidity, Purna stepped back and then thrust forward with the fire extinguisher. The base of it smacked into the centre of the bellhop’s face, smashing his nose and knocking him backwards. The blow would have been enough to incapacitate a normal man, but after tottering back a few steps he lurched upright once more. Seemingly impervious to pain, he snarled at Purna through a thick, red mask of blood and hurled himself towards her in a fresh attack.

  Purna stepped to her right and swung the fire extinguisher into the side of his head. As he staggered into the wall, she followed this up with two more blows – another directly into the centre of his face, pulverizing his nose still further, and the other a sideswipe across his forehead, the sound of impact like a coconut hitting a brick wall.

  No matter how many uppers the guy had been taking, this latest trio of blows should have been more than enough to render him unconscious, if not put him into a coma. However, like a puppet jerking back into life, he rose to his feet again almost immediately, blood drooling from his shattered face like molasses from a cracked pot.

  ‘Fuck,’ Purna breathed and whacked him again. She didn’t want to kill the guy if she could help it, but the way things were going he was giving her no alternative.