Dead Island

He took the lead, crossing the yard quickly. At the screen door he paused and knocked.

‘Hey,’ he called softly. ‘Anyone in here?’

There was no reply.

‘I’m going in,’ he said. ‘And before you say it, yeah, I’ll be careful.’

‘I’m coming too,’ said Purna.

Sam frowned. ‘Someone should stay out here in case of visitors.’

Xian Mei pulled an ‘oh well’ face and shrugged, as if she had drawn the short straw.

‘Yell if you need us,’ Purna said, placing a hand briefly on Xian Mei’s arm, then she slipped into the building behind Sam.

If this was a store of some kind, then it didn’t seem like it from the back. Clearly the rear of the building was given over to living quarters, indicating that this was a home as much as a place of work. The first room they entered was a kitchen, modest and shabby, but also clean and neat. There was nothing out of place here, nothing to indicate that anything untoward had been happening.

The blaring TV was located somewhere deeper in the house. Sam and Purna crossed the room swiftly to the inner door, Sam placing his ear against it to see if he could make out any other sounds. Unable to do so, he glanced at Purna and she nodded. He opened the door, gritting his teeth against the creak it made, and stepped through quickly, looking every which way to assess the terrain. The TV was now so loud that Sam was able to tell which show was playing — it was a rerun of Friends. He even recognized the episode; it was the one where Ross and Rachel get married in Vegas after drinking themselves insensible.

The noise of the TV was coming from a room beyond an open door to their right. In the centre of the opposite wall was another door, closed and with a key in the lock. Sam guessed that this one must lead into the retail/public area at the front of the building. The left-hand wall was dominated by a narrow wooden staircase stretching upwards into shadows. Sam moved forward, but stopped after a couple of seconds when Purna put a hand on his arm.

‘What is it?’ he hissed.

‘I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that if there were any infected in there you’d hear them moving about.’

Sam said nothing. That had been what he’d been thinking, but he waited for her to go on.

‘But just remember,’ she said, ‘that although the infected are probably not cunning enough to set traps, people are. And in situations like this people get desperate.’

Sam couldn’t imagine why anyone would deliberately want to draw attention to themselves, but he nodded nevertheless. ‘Don’t worry,’ he whispered. ‘I won’t get sloppy.’

He slid along the wall to the open door and peered into the room beyond. He couldn’t see much. The curtains were closed and it was still a little too early for daylight to seep in and make much of an impact. The constantly flickering gleam from the TV made what he could see shimmer and shift queasily. Somewhere among the shadows and the jumpy, ice-white light, he made out a sideboard, a small side table and the back of what appeared to be some kind of recliner — a tank of a chair at any rate, upholstered in some kind of rough, hessian-like material. From the slithering fall of light on the planes and angles of the walls and furniture it seemed reasonable to assume that the recliner was facing the TV. Constantly alert for movement, Sam crept further into the room, raising the flare pistol as he approached the back of the chair.

He was maybe a metre from it when something crunched beneath his foot. Looking down he saw broken glass, and a further glance revealed a table lamp on the floor, its bulb shattered and its wire-and-fabric shade, which was lying several feet away, mangled and crushed as though it had been trampled by uncaring feet.

‘If there’s anyone here, let me tell you that I’m armed and I ain’t taking no shit,’ Sam said loudly. As an afterthought he added, ‘I come in peace.’

From behind him, Purna said, ‘Brace yourself. I’m turning the light on.’

There was a click and the room was suddenly filled with harsh electric light. The first thing the two of them saw, which had previously been concealed by the gloom, was the blood.

It formed a thick, red sticky pool — almost an island — on the green carpet around the chair. Looking down, Sam realized that the toe of one of his Reeboks was mere centimetres away from the edge of the pool. He stepped back quickly, as if afraid it might reach out and grab him.

Also revealed by the light was a hand, a withered old lady’s claw, sporting a diamond-encrusted wedding ring. It was hanging limply over the arm of the chair, the blood that was dripping from its fingers making a very faint plip sound as it added to the pool below.

Sam and Purna looked at each other, already resigned to the sight of another atrocity, and slowly rounded the chair on opposite sides, forming a wide arc to avoid having to step in the blood. Sitting in the chair, the TV remote control still resting on the side cushion within reach of her right hand, was a scrawny woman in her eighties or maybe older. She had wispy, nicotine-yellow hair and inordinately showy diamond studs in the fleshy lobes of her ears. The skin of her face, which had remained untouched by her killer, was like crumpled brown paper, and there was startlingly pink lipstick edging the yawning O of her open mouth.

Although her face was untouched, the same could not be said of her torso. From her throat to her groin she had been torn apart, the damage so extensive it was as though a grenade had detonated in her belly. There was barely anything left of her bodily contents but a few shreds of bloody pulp clinging to the inside of a torn sack of human skin. She was so insubstantial she looked as if she could be folded up and packed in a suitcase.

‘Well, I guess there’s nothing—’ Sam began, and then the old woman opened pale, cataracted eyes and made a horrible hissing gurgle, as if she was sifting wet gravel through her throat.

Sam jumped, his eyebrows shooting so far up his forehead that they became lost beneath the rim of his red bandanna. ‘You have got to be kidding me!’ he shouted, watching in disgust as the woman’s quivering hand rose from the chair and clawed feebly at the air in an effort to reach him.

Stony-faced, Purna raised the heavy crowbar she was holding and brought it down mercilessly on the woman’s skull. There was a crack and the skull split open, releasing a gush of thin, brownish blood which ran down the woman’s face and into her milky eyes. Two more swift blows were all it took to shatter the skull completely, and a further two caused sufficient damage to the brain for the woman to slump and become still.

Sam stared down at the wreck of the old woman’s body, appalled.

‘It was a mercy killing,’ said Purna, as if she felt a need to justify her actions. ‘I couldn’t stand the thought of her just sitting here, day after day, full of that … that hunger.’

‘I know,’ said Sam, his voice clogged with revulsion. He cleared his throat. ‘You did the right thing.’

‘Come on,’ Purna said, ‘let’s get out of here.’

Sam nodded. ‘Gladly.’

Although they had only been in the house for a few minutes, they both breathed in deeply as they stepped outside, as if released from a long ordeal.

Clearly relieved, Xian Mei, who had been watching the alleyway, hurried up to them. ‘What did you find in there?’

‘You don’t wanna know,’ muttered Sam. ‘All quiet out here?’

Xian Mei nodded. ‘I saw a couple of those things — a man and a woman — walk past the end of the alleyway, but they didn’t see me.’

Purna looked up at the sky. All that remained of the night were a few shreds of inky cloud.

‘Let’s get this done quickly,’ she said. ‘It’ll be full daylight soon.’

They hurried up the alleyway as fleet-footed as they could, dropping to a huddled crouch when the buildings to either side of them no longer provided cover. They scanned the main street in the hope of spotting a suitable vehicle. They had already discussed what they should be looking for before setting off. Ideally they needed something like a delivery truck — something nippy and mobile, but large enough to carry plenty of provisions and stout enough to withstand attack. They had decided the best thing to do would be to target a vehicle that clearly belonged to a specific retail outlet rather than one that might just have been parked randomly on the street. That way it was more likely that they would find the keys inside the building that it served.

‘There,’ said Sam, pointing to his left. On the opposite side of the street, maybe a hundred and fifty metres away, was a surf shop called Wave Your Worries Goodbye. The shop sign above a display window full of surf gear and wetsuits was red, the name painted in calligraphy-type letters on a silver surfboard. Parked out front was a red