The Island (17 page)

THE CLIMB

DAY FOUR

9:02 PM

Convincing the others to believe Ryder wasn’t as difficult as Chase thought. Moses was incoherent and babbling, and didn’t seem to care either way. Alex, although surprised initially, believed the story. They had all dumped their cameras and GPS trackers in the overhanging cave, and put out the fire, removing the one thing which had brought them comfort to such a bleak day. Even though the rain had passed, the night was chilly and their breath fogged in the night air.

“So what do we do now?” Alex asked as he put his backpack on. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea to travel at night.”

“No choice,” Ryder said. He was agitated, keeping his weight on the balls of his feet, eyes darting everywhere. “He’s close. Maybe a half mile away. He’s in shooting range.”

“What about him?” Alex jabbed a thumb over his shoulder to where Moses was sitting, head slumped.

“If he can walk, he can come. If he can’t, we have to move on anyway.”

“I’m comin’,” he slurred, lifting his head, eyes rolling in his skull. “I’m not dead yet.”

“Alright then let’s move,” Ryder said, slipping into the leader role with ease.

“Which way?”

“Up. We have no choice. We can’t go back, we’ll run into Lomar. It might be a bit of a tough climb. We have no other option though.”

“Climb?” Alex repeated, glancing up the hill.

“Yeah. Is there a problem?”

“Well no, it’s just… I don’t do heights, that’s all.”

“Well you better get used to it. It’s either climb or eat a bullet to the face from Lomar. Your choice.”

“What choice do I have when you put it like that?” Alex grunted, that flicker of anger visible for a second.

“Then let’s stop talking about it and move,” Ryder replied, turning and making his way further up the hill.

For a while, the going was manageable. Sure enough, it was exhausting, their tired calves burning at the extended punishment and not getting the rest they deserved. Ryder led the way, Chase just behind. Alex was a little further back, and was starting to look a little dishevelled. At the back and falling further behind was Moses. Climbing with feet that just ached was hard. For Moses, trying to navigate the tough, steep terrain with feet that were shredded, was becoming nigh on impossible. He could feel them sliding around inside his socks, and knew it was because they were swimming in a combination of pus and blood. Every breath was now a wheeze, and he had taken to almost scrambling on all fours in an effort to keep up. Ahead of them, the cliff face loomed, the moon high and pale behind it, as if presenting them their next challenge in a milky spotlight.

Chase picked up his pace and joined Ryder at the front. Although he was exhausted and just breathing was hard, there were questions he wanted answers to.

“Whatever you want to know, now isn’t the time,” Ryder said between deep breaths.

“Now is the only time I might get to ask,” Chase replied, marvelling at how well his cancer free lungs were performing, and reminding himself that without the vaccine he was given, there was no way he would have survived so long.

“Well go ahead and ask, unless it’s about the girl. I don’t want to talk about that.”

“No, it’s not about her.”

“Then what is it?”

Chase paused, taking a second to try and catch a breath. “The truck. Why did you cut the tyres? We could have used that to help us.”

Ryder glanced at him. “Truck?”

“Back there in the valley. The one with the bodies. All the tyres were slashed.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t see a truck. I skirted around the valley. Stayed in the cover of the trees. Did you walk straight through?”

“Yeah we did…so you’re saying you didn’t see it or sabotage it?”

“Fuck no. If I’d known there was a truck there, I’d have tried to use it.”

Chase didn’t answer at first. He was trying to put everything together.

“Maybe it was Lomar?” Ryder said as he scrambled up the steep gradient.

“No, it doesn’t seem like his style,” Chase replied, not daring to entertain the idea that was playing out in his mind. “Let me ask you something, Ryder.”

“Since it seems like now is the time you want to get everything off your chest, why not?”

“Seriously. What do you make of Alex?”

Ryder glanced back over his shoulder. Alex was around three hundred yards further downhill, brow furrowed as he tried to drag his skinny frame up the hill. “Not sure. He’s quiet. Weird. Has a funny look in his eye. I can’t quite figure him out.”

“Do you ever feel like there’s more to him than meets the eye?”

Ryder took another look over his shoulder, almost lost his footing, and then focused on the terrain ahead. “No, but I haven’t spent as much time with him as you. Why? You think the skinny little shit is hiding something?”

“Maybe. Sometimes he says things that are just… I don’t know. I can’t figure him out.”

“Maybe go talk to him about it. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather save my breath for the huge fucking hill we’re trying to climb.”

Point taken, Chase fell back, letting Ryder go off in the lead. As his brain processed, rejected and reassessed information, he subconsciously let himself fall back so he was walking alongside Alex.

“Getting tired, Riley?” Alex asked, glancing at him.

“I’m okay,” he said, hoping the lie was accepted. “I wanted to talk to you, actually.”

Alex gave a brief smile, and then focused on the way ahead. “You want to know why I cut the tyres on the truck, don’t you?”

The directness of the question was a surprise, and Chase couldn’t formulate an answer.

“I wondered how long it would take for you to figure it out once Ryder came back to the fold,” Alex said, his tone conversational. “He was a convenient scapegoat.”

“That could have helped us,” Chase said, wishing he wasn’t in such close proximity.

“No, it would have ruined the game.”

“This isn’t a game anymore. This is about survival. It does all make sense now though.”

“What do you mean?” Alex said, flicking another glance in his direction.

“How keen you were to be the one to face whoever was inside that truck. When we thought it was Ryder. It’s the first time you’ve ever volunteered for something like that. You did it because you knew he wasn’t in there. You’d already looked.”

Alex glanced at him again and grinned. “Busted. Maybe I should have been a bit more subtle with that.”

“This isn’t some kind of joke, Alex.”

“You don’t have to tell me that,” he snapped. “It would have been though. You don’t know how sick it made me to come out into that clearing and see that thing parked there. It would have ruined everything.”

“It would have helped us.”

“No,” Alex shook his head. “It wouldn’t. I saw it there, back doors open, that mess inside. I acted fast. On instinct. I ran over to it and closed the doors, then stabbed the tyres. I was sure one would do it, but I did three just to be sure in case there was a spare. I didn’t figure about the flat grass thing though. That was an oversight. Ryder was easy to blame.”

“It makes no sense. I just… I can’t get my head around it.”

“This was supposed to be about killing. About who could be strongest. I like death, Riley. I always have. Do you have any idea what it’s like to live with these urges and fantasies of hurting people and not be able to play it out?”

Everything clicked into place. Chase felt that tight, gnawing in his gut and knew that although every instinct told him to get as far away from Alex as he could, there was nowhere to run. The way ahead was where they were all heading together, the way back was already a dizzying distance below them down the steep, rocky terrain. He was stuck next to a man who he was starting to realise was potentially dangerous. He decided that his best course of action was to act as normally as he could. “No, I have no idea how that feels,” he said, trying not to show his tension.

“Well it’s not easy let me tell you. Strangling cats and dogs only thrills for so long. Eventually, you need to move on to the next step, you know?”

“Have you… Killed people?”

Alex laughed. Up the hill, Ryder glanced down at them. To him it would look like they were sharing a joke. Chase wished he knew just how unfunny the situation was.

“Weren’t you listening to me?” Alex said, feet scrabbling for purchase on the loose terrain. “I have urges. Serious ones. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve wanted to. A few times I was sure it was going to happen, but I always managed to restrain myself. When I saw this advertised, I wasn’t interested in the game, or even winning. I did my research. It was the clause about anything being legal that got my interest.”

“You told me that story. The one about your father…”

Alex shrugged. “Just words. Maybe I’m a pathological liar as well as a wannabe murderer.”

“So why tell me all this now?”

“Because the game has changed. And because I know it’s not being recorded now that we’ve ditched our equipment.”

“Back at that watering hole… You were trying to kill Moses and me, weren’t you?”

He didn’t answer. He just flicked a look, the glint in the eyes and half-smile saying what the words didn’t.

“You shouldn’t be so surprised anyway, Riley. Isn’t that the nature of the game? You come out here, kill a bunch of people for the entertainment of those watching at home, then are rewarded with whatever you want. Think about that before you shoehorn me in the murderer category. I mean, am I any more different from him?” he nodded up the hill to Ryder. “He pulverised a helpless girl’s face in just because he thought he might win something. You don’t know how envious I was of him. When I looked at what was left of her… I wished that had been me.”

“Are you going to kill us?” Just asking the question felt insane, but it was nothing compared to the answer and the way it was delivered.

“If the chance arises, of course. I’m sure any of us will do the same to me.”

“That’s why you were trying to get me to kill Moses just before Ryder showed up. You wanted to do what you came here to do when it would be impossible for him to fight back.”

Alex grinned again. The expression was horrifying. “You’re good, Riley. Sharp as a tack. Don’t worry though, for now, we’re good. I’ll off the old man first chance I get. Until he’s out of the picture, you can consider yourself safe.”

Further up the hill, the ground had levelled out at the base of the cliff they would have to climb. Ryder was waiting for them, exhausted and drinking water. Chase and Alex arrived next, Chase still in a daze as Ryder and Alex made small talk. Some way back, Moses struggled to get up the hill. Chase watched him, zoning out the conversation between Ryder and Alex. He stared at the old man as he made his way towards them. A man who had saved his life more than once. A man who was dying and he had almost been talked into murdering. He glanced at Alex. Talking and grinning, acting like nothing was out of the ordinary. Chase considered why they were there. What they still might have to do. The cold words of Alex, telling him he was safe until the old man was dead, ringing in his brain. Moses was almost to the top of the mountain. He was coming up close to Alex. Chase moved closer, feeling sick with nerves, and tense with anger.

Alex started to reach down the hill to Moses, offering a hand. Chase acted without thinking. He also offered his hand, reaching that extra little bit further to ensure Moses grabbed it. The old man gripped Chase’s wrist, and scrambled to the top. Alex was staring at him, that ghostly smile on his pale face. Chase held his gaze, then with everything he could muster, pushed Alex as hard as he could and sent him back down the hill they had just climbed.

TWO

Alex tumbled and rolled, crashing off rocks and taking shale with him. It was painful to watch. His bloody, twisted body came to rest some six hundred feet below them, almost back where they started.

“What the fuck did you do that for?” Ryder said, shoving Chase into the cliff face.

“I had no choice. He was going to kill us. He’s fucked up.”

“So you kill him instead? Does that make you any better?”

“He told me he was going to kill Moses then us. What was I supposed to do?”

Ryder paced, running is hands through his hair. “You just shoved him. Look at him, you fucking killed him.”

Alex lay on his back at the bottom of the hill, face and clothing a bloody mess, one leg twisted out away from him, arms splayed out. He wasn’t moving.

“Then I guess that makes us even,” Chase said, hating himself for saying it.

Ryder flinched and leaned on the cliff face, resting his head on his forearms.

“Believe me, there was no choice. He would have butchered us all. You said so yourself, he was weird.”

“Weird is no reason to kill someone.”

“He’s right,” Moses wheezed.

Both of them looked at the older man, who was sitting on the floor, absolutely spent. “Back in the cave, I heard him. He was talking about killing me. Trying to talk Chase into it. That boy was wrong. Sick in the head.”