'Oh, shit,' I said again, gripping hold of my ankles and dropping my head. Not much fazes me, it's true, but now I gave in to a violent fit of trembling.
It was the same with dogs, I remembered later. Dogs were omnivorous: they always went for the victim's stomach first, for whatever half-digested plants and seeds and nuts they found, before moving on to the meat and bone. Maybe man had done the same, back in his hunting days. After a long time I got up and began to gather up stones, feeling like I might keel over every time I bent down. I straightened, took aim and was about to start hailing stones at the pig when I wondered suddenly if I was being watched.
I lowered my hand, turned and studied the wood I had come through. My ears were buzzing, my head pounding. That gate was open. But there was no one here. Except a corpse. The pigs hadn't killed her – they're not predators – but had they been the ones who had ripped her to pieces like that? I rubbed my head hard with my knuckles, trying to dislodge the thought. I looked down at the cottages. Everything silent, motionless. The cafeteria block was only a hundred yards away – the sliding doors stood open, reflecting back the beginnings of a sunset. I couldn't see anyone in there.
More adult pigs appeared from the trees, the same blunt feeding expression in their eyes, and began to strip the flesh from Sovereign, pulling long lumpy strings from inside her, ripping at the silvery connective fascia. I watched, in a detached way, as one, a junior from its size, made do with a leg. It bit through the bones with a splintering noise, then trotted away almost jauntily with the foot, pink plastic sandal and all, into the trees where I could hear it gnawing for what seemed like for ever, choking and gagging on the plastic. I dropped the stones, pulled out my mobile and checked the display for the faintest chance that a signal had appeared on Cuagach overnight. But no, just the no-signal icon. Shit, I thought, pocketing the phone and rubbing my forehead, what now?
After a long pause, I sighed and got to my feet. I hefted up the bolt-cutters, hesitated. I wanted to run, but I didn't. I walked. I kept my eyes on the cafeteria, my ears open to the woods, the expanse of silent grass on either side of me, the bolt-cutters held at just the right angle if anything rushed me.
There is no such thing as the devil. No beast. No biforme...
Then what the fuck did that to Sovereign?
It was late and shadows were falling between the cottages. I got to the refectory windows and turned to check over my shoulder. The woods were totally silent: nothing moved. The sun was dropping below the treetops. I turned back and squinted into the gloom of the refectory. It was dark in there, shadows gathering in the corners and niches. All I could make out were the trestle tables, empty of any cutlery, the surfaces scrubbed clean and shiny with disinfectant, just like the community always left them after dinner. I opened the door and stepped inside, a brief glimpse of my reflection: an anxious face floating out at me, sunburnt, trails of sweat like pencil lines in the dirt. I closed the door behind me and stood for a bit, my eyes getting used to the gloom.
For almost thirty seconds I thought I was alone. The kitchen door at the far end was open a crack and I could see the plates all stacked, the tea-towels hanging in a line above the cooker to dry. I took a step forward, was heading towards it, when something made me stiffen. My hands tightened on the cutters. I turned, raising them, ready to defend myself. Blake was watching me from the shadows to my left.
He was sitting in his usual place at the head of one of the tables, his back to the big fireplace. Dressed in a neat polo shirt, with both hands placed flat on the table. His head was at a slight angle, a bit back and to the side. It took me a few thudding heartbeats to realize that he wasn't going to lurch at me, screaming and yelling. He was dead. His mouth was open, his neck sinews tightened up. The staring eyes were almost opaque and the bottom of his shirt was streaked with blood.
I didn't breathe. After a few moments, when I was sure that he wasn't going to snap his mouth closed and stand up, I lowered the bolt-cutters and approached, stopping about a foot away. I stared at him, hardly breathing. Then I bent to look at what he was sitting on, and I immediately saw how he had died. He was seated on a chair. The flesh of his stomach and half of his trousers were missing. I could see a splintered bone in the wound. Part of his pelvis? Something had ripped his stomach out. Your first thought: if this wasn't Cuagach, it would have been an accident with farm machinery.
I looked over my shoulder to the evening gathering on the grass outside the paned glass. Now I could see – Why didn't you notice that before? – a bloody trail that led here from the door, like Blake had been attacked outside and was already wounded when he staggered in here. Trying to escape from something ... Unexpectedly my legs seemed to loosen in a way that I couldn't picture anatomically – I had to grab the table to get my balance and stop myself falling to the floor.
I blinked a few times, staring at my blurry reflection in the polished tabletop. What the fuck is going on here, old mate? What the fuck have you walked into? I wiped my forehead, raised my eyes to Blake again and across at the trail going to the door.
I pushed myself away from the table and went to the small window that opened on to the green. From here I had a clear view of the community, the landing-stage, the cottages, some with their curtains drawn. Everything was eerily still: nothing moved. The sea, which earlier had been white-capped, bouncing and alive, was calm now in the coppery evening light and I could just make out the mainland: a few lights coming on in a necklace strung out along the horizon, the sudden sweeping cone of car headlights on the coast road. Lower down, where the sea met the land, there was a pale smudge on the coast: Croabh Haven, where Lexie might even be sitting, watching the sun go down.
When there seemed nothing else to do I went to the kitchen. I put my face under the cold tap, rubbing myself clean of the leaves, dirt and sweat, drinking until I couldn't drink any more. Then I dried myself off with a tea-towel and went back into the refectory where Blake was sitting. I watched him for a moment, half expecting him to speak.
'Is there any way I can get out of this?' I said to him. 'Any way I can just fuck right off and not deal with it?'
I went to the sliding doors and stood there, something swooping helplessly in my chest, thinking about all the windows in the village that someone could watch me from. Is there any way you can just stay in here until it gets light? No. I closed the door behind me, took a deep breath, tightened my fingers round the bolt-cutters and stepped outside.
I walked. Controlled and in silence with the bolt-cutters at the ready, the only sounds the breaking of the tide on the rocks below and the creaky in-and-out of my own breath for company. I didn't look over my shoulder or away from the path. If I was being watched I was fucked if they were going to know I was scared. The lantern on the jetty wasn't lit as it usually was. I had to get very close to see that the boat was gone.
I stood for a while, staring down at the sea sloshing around under the trotline, my heart thumping deafeningly. Fuck, fuck fuck fuck. I turned, my back flat against one of the jetty piles, and looked back at the cottages. There were no lights on in any of the windows, no movement in the trees to my left: absolutely no sign of life. What now?
My choices were narrowing. I either had to get back to my boat on the other side of the island – through the gorge in the dark, not knowing what the fuck was wandering through the woods – or, and the idea was even worse, find somewhere in the village to lock myself up and stay there until daylight.
'Ha,' I said aloud, slithering down to sit with my back to a piling. I stared morosely at the freezing water. 'Or swim, old mate. Or swim.'
It was the cold that made me think of the chapel. I sat huddled on the jetty for a long time not knowing what to do, watching the sun go down over the cliff and pinprick stars sneak into the sky. The village was silent. Absolutely silent. What had been a chilly, sunny day, was turning into a freezing night, and a memory of that freezing cold chapel, locks on the big oak door, came to me. And I'd laughed when So
vereign told me they locked themselves in there to hide from something.
I got up awkwardly from my frozen position against the jetty piling and headed back up the path, going between the cottages like a shadow, slipping past windows. I could be silent when I wanted – even with my legs numb from the cold I could move like a cat. At a glance you'd say the community was totally undisturbed: through windows I got brief, half-lit glimpses of normality – stacked chairs, an old-fashioned computer, a bowl of fruit on the Garricks' kitchen table. All stood empty, perfectly preserved like dolls' houses with the furniture positioned only for appearance, not to be used. Behind the cottages the wheelie-bins were lined up in their usual places on the path, and in the maintenance shed the big ride-on mower sat as usual, its engine housing hinged open. Everything as normal. Until I got to the chapel. And that was when I began to learn about real fear.
A few yards up the path I came to an abrupt halt, my heart thudding noisily in my skull. The moon was sending flittery shadows of leaves across the clearing, and I knew instantly that something was dead wrong there. Instead of coming to safety I'd done the opposite: I'd stumbled into the heart of whatever had happened on Pig Island in my absence.
I slipped silently off the path, crept invisibly through the woods, and stopped, behind a tree, standing stock still, thinking I'd blend into the patches of moonlight. Twenty yards away the top of the spire hung crookedly against the stars, like a broken limb, like it had been hung on by something heavy. The crucifix next to the front door had toppled face first into the grass, one arm snapped off. There was a sound too. The sound of cave water plinking into the darkness.
When, after a long time, nothing had moved, I pushed myself away from the path and came so close to the chapel I could see the huge oak door. It had been destroyed, slashed and shredded, like a giant claw had been taken to it, nothing remaining but one or two lolling pieces of wood creaking outwards on the hinges. On the floor, half in and half out of the chapel, was a shape that some crude instinct in me recognized instantly, even in this low light. I breathed in and out a few times, my mouth open, flushing the shock out of my cells, waiting for my heart to stop hammering. I dropped my rucksack and fumbled out a torch. I wedged the bolt-cutters between my legs, took a deep breath and switched on the torch.
I aimed it at the open door, counting loudly in my head to keep myself steady, ready to dart back into the trees if the beam made something move. Nothing happened. I moved the light down on to the shape. A body. I could tell almost instantly that it was the Nigerian missionary. In his pyjamas – unmistakable with his tyre-like middle and his wedge-shaped limbs – he lay on his face, one of his legs turned out from the hip socket so it lay at a weird angle, the little toe snapped so it stood straight up like a finger pointing to the stars. His right arm was missing – ripped off just like Blake's belly. He looked like he'd been trying to crawl out of the chapel when he died.
I steadied the beam as intently as a marksman and forced myself to stare, keeping up the monotone counting, sixty-one, sixty-two, sixty-three, trying to keep calm. I could smell him, I realized shakily, and it was much worse than the smell of the pigs because it was rawer. It was the smell of the sawdust in a butcher's shop, chill and coppery. And then it hit me what the sound was. Not water at all. Slowly, slowly, I raised the torch to the door.
The chapel was full of human flesh. Things caught in the shaky torch beam, things shivering, hanging from the walls and the light fittings. It was blood, not water, dripping on to the stone floor. I stood like a toy soldier, torch pushed out in front of me like it was a bayonet, frozen solid, my eyes taking it all in, heartbeat going bam bam bam bam in my temples. There was something on the back of one of the pews that looked like a face, torn off and dropped like one of those Salvador Dalí clocks. I'd never known skin behaved like that – that a whole face can be peeled off like rubber. That face still jumps out at me in my sleep. Even today.
You let things like this into your head and you either start building walls to contain them or you lose it big-time. It's that simple. As I was standing there, all of a sudden all these fucking tears just dribbled out of me. I wiped my eyes with my sleeve and waited for a few moments, studying the torch in my hands, eking out a few minutes pretending to myself that I was smoothing out the rubber casing on the handle. I hadn't cried in years, and it was weird, this feeling, because of how gentle it was: not violent or choking. More like there was a water-table in me that had got a bit full and was rising up behind my eyes. I clicked off the torch and stood in the dark, swallowing hard, still counting to myself, trying to keep it all together. I stopped when I got to two hundred and twenty and saw how pointless everything was. I turned and limped back to the refectory. Fuck knows why I went there – maybe because Blake was there. Maybe Blake dead was better than nobody at all.
'Don't know what to do for you, old mate,' I said, standing there in the dark, staring at his silent body. Suddenly I wasn't scared any more. I'd got past it. I knew I was going to die. 'I'm sorry.' Then, because I thought I was going to cry again, I went into the kitchen and wrenched out the cutlery drawer, with its knives and a heavy rolling-pin. I took the bolt-cutters into the corner and dragged a few things round me – a table, a steel pedal bin – a kind of barrier, and sat down to wait.
Didn't really know what I was waiting for. Morning to come? No. Not morning. I was beyond that. I was waiting to die.
13
It was a bit after midnight when I heard something. I'd been watching the stars moving through the window when it happened, listening to the waves on the shore for four hours and wondering about all the faiths and beliefs and lives I'd laughed at over the years.
There it was: a click or a shuffle from the refectory to my right. I sat bolt upright, my trance broken. The knife almost slithered from my fingers but I caught it, my hands sweating, hurriedly grabbed the bolt-cutters, moved aside the pedal bin and went silently to the door, my heart thudding. Careful not to make a sound I rested my ear against the door. I imagined Blake, sitting upright in the chair, his eyes wide, hands on the table. I imagined a beast next to him, rising up tall in the refectory, almost to the ceiling, pawing the ground. A sweat broke out all over my body. Another noise, slightly muffled, the kind of noise you'd expect if someone was sliding a chair back. OK, OK, I told myself. It's nothing. It's all going to be straightforward. Blake was dead. The noise was probably just a pig. Probably just a pig.
Except... you closed... the fucking door...
I shook my head, like something was clinging to my hair, took a breath and stepped out into the cafeteria, the bolt-cutters raised above my head. 'Come and fucking get it, Malachi,' I yelled, teeth bared. 'Come and fucking have it!'
I stopped. The sliding door stood slightly open, and beyond it the sweep of grass was grey in the starlight. Blake was exactly where he'd been, motionless in the dark, but now something tall and stooped was bending over him, its back to me. It was wearing an old and filthy man's coat and heavy boots, and dragging from under the coat, as it straightened from Blake's bloodied remains, was the tail. There was just time for a thought to flash at me, It's feeding, I've interrupted its meal, then it was gone, bounding away to the door, slipping away into the night.
I stood, paralysed, my mouth drooping. I was there for almost a minute, my hands above my head, not breathing or moving or blinking, only staring at the point in the darkness where it had disappeared. It wasn't Malachi. It wasn't Malachi in a strap-on tail. It was too tall and sinewy. My chest was about to burst. I let out all my breath at once, swung the cutters down and bolted after the beast.
At the top of the slope above the community I stopped and scanned the forest ahead. I had a good idea this chase was leading me back to the gorge. Even before I saw the dull shape moving away from me down the path, going rapidly through the trees and heading to the ledge, I knew I was going to end the night back at the mine. If I'd had any sense at all I'd've turned the other way and locked myself into the refectory.
Lexie or the boat-owner would've raised the alarm eventually. But something was in me. Lex would've called it dumbness. I went forward.
I dropped myself over a boulder, down where the path snaked a few feet below, scattering gravel. I paused just long enough to get my balance, then I was off along the path, the bolt-cutters bumping along beside me. The thing was fast – it knew its way: I was getting glimpses of it ahead, moving unhesitatingly along paths through the trees, flowing kind of, like a ghost. I bolted noisily after it, branches breaking underfoot, up the path. I was covering ground fast – past the gargoyle, and suddenly, so suddenly it was like a flash of the moon, I burst out into the gorge, coming to a juddering halt on the ledge.
I stood there, panting hard, scanning the ledge, thinking I'd lost it. Then I saw it – a movement: a dull patch below me, a moving part of the rock that was slightly paler than the rest heading away into the gorge.
'You fucker!' I bellowed, looping the bolt-cutters round my neck so the jaws were hard against my throat, the handles sticking out over my shoulders like bony wings. I wasn't wasting time going across to the streambed: I was going straight down here. I turned my back to the drop and fell to my knees, throwing my feet out backwards into the darkness, over the Up. I paused for a second, my eyes screwed up, thinking about the drop below, feeling the fuck-awful thrill of adrenaline weaken my fingers. Just do it...
And I was off, dropping into the darkness, at best half crawling like a spider, at worst bumping and sliding for what seemed like miles, my T-shirt rucking up to my chest, the rocks and gorse tearing into my thighs and stomach. I was ripped to pieces, pouring blood by the time I hit the bottom, but I didn't stop. I was up, running into the gorge with that indistinct shape ahead of me, dodging the drums, my feet springing off the chemical skin. My heart wanted to burst out of my chest, my throat was raw flesh and my tongue was huge in my mouth. But I'd drop dead right here and now before I left the chase. On and on I went, my moon-shadow running along beside me companionably.