The Visitors (35 page)

‘Where are all the bodies, Izzy?’

He gestured at the Sound.

‘You had the right idea about the sea, lass, except that bodies float. Amateur mistake. My first few floated. You can’t just put them in the water. Bones. Now, bones sink. You need to get rid of the excess first.’

He gestured at the fire.

‘Burning does the trick,’ he said.

I leaned back in horror, suddenly understanding why he’d stoked it so hot. Oh no. Oh no, no. The raging campfire, spattered with grease. It was a charnel pit. The shape of Izzy’s lunacy swelled to fill the world.

It doesn’t heal, John said, his voice a wound. It will never get better. It is always broken. When I spoke again, it was in such a small voice. I could barely say her name.

‘How do you know about Ailsa?’

‘I saw it,’ he said, ‘when she brought you here. It shines on her. Her love sings.’

‘Love,’ I repeated, dully.

‘Aye, Flora. She loves you. You didn’t know?’ I could only stare at him. He shrugged.

‘That’s too bad. When you’re dead, that will be gone. She’ll live with the heartache for what’s left of the rest of her life. She’ll understand the pain.’

My tongue had become thick inside my mouth.

‘When I’m dead,’ I repeated, dully.

Reluctantly, he took out Lachie’s pocket knife.

‘I like you, Flora. You’re a good kid. I’m sorry it has to be this way. You’re too young to die for love.’

I thought about Ailsa. In a heartbeat, I replayed the last weeks. I looked into her deep, dark eyes, open now, and saw them for what they were, and perhaps as they had always been: open, guileless, and flooded with love. It was suddenly very simple.

‘You will never know,’ I said, ‘what it means to love.’

For a moment, we stared at each other across the campfire, sparks drifting up between us. Looking sad enough to cry, Izzy unfolded the blade and pointed it at me. It flickered in the firelight.

The fire.

I leaned over, grabbed one end of a blazing log, and swung it up into his face.

Izzy howled and fell backwards, hands clutching to his head, exploded embers falling all around him. I dropped the log and jumped up, ready to flee, and nausea crashed through me. I dropped to my knees and began to crawl away, away, anywhere but Izzy. My stomach churned. I threw up. I was still damp and shivering, sea water sluicing in my brain. I crawled and shuffled on my hands and knees. I was heading for the ocean. Heading for the beach.

Behind me, Izzy clattered round the campfire, kicking crates over as he reached for me.

‘Flora!’ he screamed. ‘I’m going to tear your head off, you wee bitch!’

I had seen his madness close up, lunacy in his inky eyes. The dune grass scratched and cut as I pushed myself towards the beach. Towards Ailsa.

Then, after all the crashing at the shack, there came a sudden, alarming silence. I stopped crawling, frightened of giving myself away.

‘Listen to me,’ he yelled. ‘I was going to make it quick, Flora, because I liked you. But now I’m going to make it hurt. I’ll cut your heart out. I’ll make her watch!’

Where was she? I turned back to face the sea. Even on all fours, movement was dizzying. I dragged myself towards the ocean. Izzy’s curses quietened as I put more space between
us. The scrub ended, the gorse fell away behind me, and I dropped down onto the beach. I took fistfuls of cool, silky sand.

Ailsa wasn’t there. The beach was bare and silver, stretching in an open curve into the moonlit gloom. Waves shivered where they met the land. Nearby, darkness gathered into angles. It was the rack of wind chimes. I crawled past it, growing in strength. There was no sign of Izzy. I’d almost left the chimes behind when something made me stop. Beside me, a shadow slumped at the foot of the rack. I stared into the darkness, and my heart began to pound. Cold sea, cold stars. The shadow whimpered. Low, hurt noises, almost masked by the hollow click of wood on wood.

‘No,’ I said. ‘No, no, no.’

I crawled closer. He’d covered her with some sort of fur or blanket. I peeled it back, and in places it stuck to her. Her wrists were tied above her head, bound to the rack with twine. She was punctured with cuts, each leaking blood and bubbles, and her stomach was slick with red. Even as she breathed, it welled from the holes and spilled down her sides. Her eyes were dull and fixed on me.

‘Oh, Ailsa,’ I whispered.

She tried to smile.

Somewhere in the night, over near his campfire, Izzy cursed and kicked. I could hear his voice, feral noises in the dark. He was searching for me. It wouldn’t take long before he looked this way.

‘Flo,’ said Ailsa.

‘Hush. Don’t talk.’

I went to undo the string, but the knots were jammed tight. I picked with my fingernails, desperate for a loose end. Nothing gave. Ailsa lolled against the frame. Panicking, I bent low and began to chew the twine. Fibres frayed between
my teeth. Her skin was ice cold, and her hands flopped numb against my face. I finally gnawed through the knot. The string slipped from the frame, and Ailsa’s arms dropped down. She let out a tiny yip of pain, loud against the ocean hush, and my head flicked round. Izzy still hadn’t reached the beach.

But he would.

The world reeled when I tried to stand, hauling myself upright on the rack, and I sank again to my knees. I brought Ailsa to sitting, and used the twine to bind the blanket around her. In the moonlight, she smiled sickly at me.

‘Sorry, Flo. Shouldn’t have—’

‘Wheesht. Come on. We need to get you out of here.’

She tried to shake her head, but I pulled her forward, and slowly, we began to crawl. She continued to whimper, and we dragged each other along the beach on hands and knees. Ailsa winced with every movement, but forced herself on. I glanced back, dismayed at how little ground we’d covered. Our trail was marked with blood and prints. On the far side of the chimes, Izzy burst onto the beach, and a moan escaped me. He was perhaps fifty metres away, and he held himself awkwardly, head tilted back, as though he was scenting the air, sniffing us out. He turned in a slow circle, peering along the beach. The moonlight showed thick dark lines scored across his face. He’d been half-blinded by the burning log. He held his head back to squint through damaged eyes. He looked directly at us, held my gaze until I thought I would cry out, then continued to turn. He hadn’t seen us, but still he stood, head cocked, peering in our direction.

‘Come on,’ I whispered, ‘we have to leave the beach.’

I moved back towards the cover of the scrub, but Ailsa held my arm.

‘No,’ she said, ‘the sea. Always the sea.’

She leaned towards the ocean. I followed down the beach, hand over hand, looking forward and glancing back. Izzy was feeling his way along the beach in careful steps. Even half-blinded, he was a predator, and he was stalking. With his arms outstretched, swiping in the air, he reached the rack of wind chimes. He groped at the space Ailsa had been tied to.

He began to laugh.

‘So you found her, did you? That’s fine. That means she’s still alive. That means she gets to watch.’

Squinting around him, Izzy spotted the blood trail. He prodded at it with his fingers, tracing our marks in the sand. Slowly, he followed the track. We stumbled on. Water sluiced icy at my wrists. We had reached the sea. Ailsa continued to crawl, along the shoreline now, and I realised she was trying to hide our trail in the surf. We were gaining ground when Ailsa slipped in the backwash and fell headlong. The splash carried, and she moaned. Izzy’s head snapped towards us.

‘Coming, girls, ready or not,’ he sang, mocking, and took large steps towards us.

‘You go,’ whispered Ailsa. She was pale and exhausted. ‘It’s all right.’

‘It’s not all right. He wants us both.’

Izzy had halved the distance, sploshing towards us through the surf.

‘Listen,’ I hissed, ‘stay here. I’ll come back.’

‘Flora,’ she said, but I guided her to ground as gently as I could. She grimaced, but let me lay her in the tide line. I squeezed her hand and turned away, heading up the beach, no longer caring about noise.

When I looked back, Izzy had reached the place where the sea met the sand. The trail had been washed clear, and he puzzled, peering about him in the gloom, looking out into the sea. Hardly a dozen paces away, Ailsa was a shadow on
the shoreline, invisible against the flotsam and the weed. That was close enough.

I yelled, as though by accident, as though in pain, and watched Izzy spin to find me. Head back, eyes glittering, he stared directly at me.

‘Flora,’ he whispered. ‘I’ve got you now, petal.’

He took another half-blind step towards me, then another, ploughing through the sand. I crawled along the beach, everything weak and uncoordinated, but Izzy’s lurching steps swallowed the distance between us.

‘You shouldn’t run,’ he called out, breathing hard. ‘I’m doing you a favour. Given time, you’d thank me for it. You’d beg me for it. Love will strip you to the bone, Flora.’

My hands, my knees, my feet, all sank into the soft, yielding sand. He was almost in touching distance. Even in the dark, his face was seared a vivid pink.

‘Compared to a lifetime without love,’ he said, ‘death is the easy option. Trust me.’

His voice was almost kind. He grabbed my ankle and chuckled, animal noises, and started clawing his way up my leg. I kicked backwards, hard. My free foot smashed directly into Izzy’s broken face. He shrieked and fell away from me, landing on his backside in the sand. He groaned, covering his head in both hands. I started crawling again, heading anywhere.

Movement caught my eye. Further down the beach, something crawled from the surf. A seal. It was dark and I was dizzy. It was not a seal. Dripping with water, a man stepped out of the ocean. He was topless, his trousers sodden against his legs. He walked towards me, kneeled down and gently cradled my head in both his hands. He peered at me so sadly.

‘Hello, Flora,’ said John Dobie.

There was a hiss behind me. Izzy had found his feet. Standing on the beach above us, he seemed a giant. His burned eyes opened a fraction and glittered, glaring at us.

‘Selkie,’ growled the beachcomber, and drew out Lachlan’s knife.

John stepped away from me and waited in the shallows to one side, wavelets lapping at his ankles.

‘Step away, old man,’ he said. ‘Leave the girl alone.’

Izzy held the knife to one side, silhouetted by the fire. He crept down the beach towards John.

‘An eye for an eye, selkie. That’s how it works. The selkies took from me. So I take from you.’

John hesitated. ‘You’re insane.’

Izzy lunged blindly with the knife, stabbing forward, and John jumped backwards, tucking in his stomach, the blade whirring without contact. He landed in the surf, spray smashing in an arc.

‘You’d deny it, even now?’ growled Izzy, and took another step, water washing over his feet. He stabbed again, and again John Dobie threw himself out of reach, further into the ocean. The water now lapped around his knees. Izzy hesitated.

‘Oh no,’ he said, squinting. ‘I’m not stupid. I’ll not be coming in there with you. Why don’t you come out and fight me fair?’

John said nothing.

‘Come out, selkie. Or I’ll cut the girl in half.’

Izzy lumbered half towards me, and John crashed through the waves, leaping round to stand before me.

‘I thought so,’ said the beachcomber. ‘Well, I tell you what. I’ll be doing that wee traitor anyway.’

‘Not while I’m alive,’ said John.

‘That,’ grinned Izzy, ‘is absolutely fine with me.’

He lashed again with the knife, swiping in vicious arcs, and time after time John dodged the blade, jumping out of reach. He was too quick for the older man, and Izzy was soon filmed in sweat. John’s muscles bunched and looped as he fought back with needle-quick punches. He peppered the beachcomber with jabs, but Izzy soaked up the blows, throwing out half-blind figure eights with the knife. Frustrated, I saw him tense. He feinted and swung out a meaty hand. John tried to dodge, but Izzy’s huge fist clipped him on the temple and he staggered backwards, falling heavily on the sand. Izzy roared with triumph and pounced after him, but John recovered, stumbling out of reach, desperate now as the beachcomber slashed with the knife, batting away his hands, doing everything he could to avoid the flickering blade. Sand kicked in clumps around them, spraying across the beach.

They gradually turned half a circle on the beach. Now John was inland, and Izzy downhill, closer to the sea. With the slope of the dune behind him, John began to gain the advantage, and he pummelled the beachcomber again and again, going for the eyes, for the ribs, forcing Izzy down towards the sea. I scrambled out of their way. The knife swiped hard and sideways, and Izzy overreached. John ducked inside the arc, gathered himself and punched upwards, smashing Izzy on the chin. Now it was the beachcomber’s turn to fall, and he tumbled down the slope, down the beach and into the shallows. Chest heaving, John stood back and watched Izzy scrabble in the sand. For a moment, Izzy stayed down. But when he stood again, he held something in his hands.

It was Ailsa.

John yelped and jumped forward, arms outstretched, even as Izzy held the knife above the girl. She dangled loosely in his grip, hanging like a puppet.

‘Don’t!’ cried John. ‘She’s mine. Don’t hurt her.’

Izzy simply shook his head. He ran the knife across Ailsa’s arm. She bucked and shrieked, legs kicking. John Dobie moaned.

‘Let her go, please, let her go.’

‘Tell me what you are,’ said Izzy.

John took a lurching step towards the beachcomber, but Izzy pressed the knife against Ailsa’s ribs. Again she writhed, and fell still.

‘No, no!’

She coughed, and blood skittered on the sand.

‘Tell me,’ said Izzy, ‘what you are.’

Horror flooded through me. We were going to lose. With Ailsa held hostage, Izzy could do anything he liked. And with John gone, who would ever stop him? I came to my knees and crawled up the beach towards them.

‘What do I say?’ cried John. ‘I’ll say anything you like.’