“Of course, my love,” she replied, trying her best to hidethe disappointment in her voice. “We’ve all the time in the world. We can getto know each other all over again, like we did when we first met.”
“I would like that,” he said, more out of politeness thananything else. He really wasn’t feeling anything towards her at all.
“And now maybe you can show me around the island,” he added.
“It’s an absolute paradise,” she said. “You’re going to loveit here.”
“I hope so,” he replied.
He really felt that he ought to: after all, what more couldanyone ask for? From what he had seen already it was a complete paradise. Hehad everything he needed, including a wife who seemed to adore him, even if hecouldn’t remember anything about their life together. What wasn’t there tolike?
But in the back of his mind there was a nagging doubt and hecouldn’t stop thinking the same phrase over and over again.
Something’s wrong.
Chapter Nineteen
July 2058
Days passed and Josh slowly began to get used to life on theisland. He really had no cause for complaint about his surroundings. It trulywas the idyllic paradise it had first seemed.
On his second day he set out to explore the island, a taskthat didn’t take more than a morning. He had been right in his assessment thefirst time he had gone outside, that the whole island was extremely low-lying.
There were no cliffs or notable rock formations at all. Theperimeter was just one unbroken shore of pure, white sand which he discoveredhe could walk all the way around in barely an hour. No wonder people had spentso much money to stay here: there was certainly no danger of slipping on anyseaweed or encountering a stray crisp packet blowing around like there was backhome.
Other than the villa and a small rowing boat Josh found on theother side of the island, there were no other indications at all that there hadever been a human presence on the island. It was the ultimate unspoiltparadise.
Beyond the tree line at the edge of the shore the vegetationwas thicker, full of the sort of tropical plants you would find in the reptilehouse at a wildlife park. As he walked through a natural path towards thecentre of the island, he found that the ground sloped gently upwards and therewere one or two small streams running towards the shore and a few pools offresh water which various lizards and birds were drinking from.
It didn’t take long to reach the centre of the island, whichcouldn’t have been more than about ten yards above sea level. Josh felt thatthis was slightly concerning, as there wouldn’t be much protection in the eventof a tsunami. He wondered if this area had been affected by the 2004 event.There was no sign of it, but then would there be after more than fifty years?Nature was very resilient and would have soon bounced back.
He had asked Vanessa again about their location, but she hadcontinued to be cagey. One of the reasons he had gone to the highest point ofthe island was to see if he could derive any clues, but the trees were so thickhere he couldn’t see much. He had seen more during his walk around theshoreline, but all he could see was a string of similar small islandsstretching away into the distance with no sign of any large land mass.
Even if there had been, if what Vanessa had said about theend of days was true, then there would be no point attempting to go back to anysort of former larger populated area. But was it true? He only had her word forit and his doubts about her had not receded despite spending several days inher company which wasn’t in any way disagreeable.
They had dined together every evening, gone for long walkson the beach and talked for hours about the old days as she filled him in onthe details of the life he could no longer remember.
She had also been more than willing to answer all hisquestions he had about how the apocalypse had occurred, even going so far as toshowing him some archive news footage she had recorded while the plague wasspreading across the world.
It all seemed genuine enough, but Josh knew that footagelike that was easy to fake so it wasn’t concrete proof. He had suggestedsailing to the mainland to see the devastation first-hand, but she had advisedagainst it, citing the risk of disease in the towns and cities which were piledhigh with corpses.
He found spending time with her pleasant enough, but hecontinued to find that he had no romantic interest or sexual attraction towardsher whatsoever.
This seemed odd, considering they had apparently beenmarried, but perhaps that was the problem. Maybe they had been married too longand whatever spark they might once have had was gone. If that was the case, itseemed that even the honeymoon setting of the island wasn’t enough to rekindleit.
He could sense she was becoming frustrated at his lack ofinterest and had clearly been doing her utmost to get him in the mood, evenserving up oysters the previous evening, washed down with copious amounts ofwine.
How long could he continue to rebuff her advances before shelost patience with him? Should he just go through the motions and have sex withher just to get the monkey off his back? He couldn’t imagine he would enjoy itmuch. It would probably be the equivalent of a bored prostitute lying back andthinking of England with an unappetising client.
Then, after a week, something extremely unexpected occurred.Despite Vanessa’s attempts to convince him otherwise, Josh had resisted allsuggestions that, as they were man and wife, they should share a room. It wastherefore extremely surprising when he woke up on that seventh morning todiscover that he wasn’t alone.
Considering that he and Vanessa were supposedly the last twopeople left on Earth, it was even more of a surprise to see a man standing infront of the French windows, his lurid Hawaiian shirt
