believe.
He thought of Butch and Ernie resting in the ground, where grubs made use of them and the cool earth kissed their skin. He imagined the comfort of lying down, shedding all fears and concerns.
He kept walking.
Each sound moved him closer to the edge. Every screech or growl or cry of feeding animals sapped him some more. His shoulders hung lower, his eyelids dipped shut. Pain merged, physical discomfort and mental anguish metamorphosing into something far more affecting; an agony of the soul, blazing white but invisible in the night. Burning in a vacuum, because Roddy was as drained of faith as any human being had ever been. The worst thing was not his spiritual emptiness; it was the fact that none of it was through his own choice. He felt mentally raped, but his rage at this was tempered by what he had seen over the past couple of years. The men and women he had watched die. The ships, burning fiercely as flesh melted and merged into their lower decks. The bobbing bodies of drowned men, eyes picked out by fortuitous fish. Blazing seas of oil. Lands scoured by war, until the virgin rock of the Earth showed through in supplication.
This island had changed him. Now, it intended to destroy him. Roddy was unable to avoid such intent.
Somehow, he survived the night.
There was nothing on top of the mountain. Roddy was not sure exactly what he had been expecting, but the mountain-top was bare, swept free of soil and plants by whatever winds blew at this altitude.
Day dawned surprisingly; light was something he had not expected to see ever again. Shocked into alertness, Roddy looked down at himself. Blood had dried and patterned his shirt with dark streaks, and his skin was still assaulted by the cruel sun. He looked worse than he ever had. His hands were slashed to scabby ribbons, his knees and stomach cut and ripped by the falls he had so obviously suffered on his climb during the night. Below him, further down the mountainside, the great slash of the ravine headed down towards the sea miles in the distance. The jungle was there, too, a sprawling green border between the mountain and the beach. It looked so alive and lush from up here. So friendly.
Roddy began to cry. If the ravine had been close by he would have gladly stepped into it, revelling in the cool rush of air as he let the island imbibe him. It seemed that the island was holding its breath, and had been doing so from the moment they had landed, yearning for the time when it would once more be free of their taint. Finishing himself now would do that. The view from here was wonderful, the island was raw and beautiful, but it was a vision never intended for the enjoyment of Man. He was stealing it merely by looking. Even from here, he could see shadows moving beneath the trees at the edge of the jungle, like tigers pacing their cage.
He wiped tears from his face with the backs of his hands. He wanted to feel a sense of rebellion against the terrible power of the island, but the emotions necessary to do so were hidden from him. Bitterness manifested itself as desperation; anger brought new tears; defiance ricocheted and struck him as dread. It was hopeless. Perhaps, he mused, it always had been. Maybe they should have listened to Ernie and stayed on the boat. Behind him, Ernie, Butch and Norris were already blending into the memory of the landscape.
Roddy stood and turned his back on the way he had come. He walked across the plateau of the mountain- top, and if there had been a hole he would have slipped into it. A steady breeze blew, cooling him where he still bled. He looked at the bruise on his elbow, the result of his leap from the stricken ship. Now it was surrounded by other wounds, all of them combining to wear him down, drop him down, ease him eventually earthward.
He remembered another mountain walk. Years ago in the valleys of Monmouthshire, following in the footsteps of a man called Machen. His parents had pointed out invisible landmarks and left Roddy to feel the majesty of the place privately. He had been eleven then, just beginning to find his own mind. Looking back now, he thought maybe that was the last time he ever truly, whole-heartedly believed in God. Since then, he had seen cruelties and sadism beyond nightmare. Bravery too, and compassion. But bad weighed heavier on his soul.
As the mountain began to slope down towards the opposite side of the island, Roddy saw the cove. It was at least a mile away, still enveloped in the shadow of the mountain. But the cove and surrounding area were different to the rest of the landscape, marked somehow. Tainted.
In the centre of the bay, obviously foundered, sat a sailing ship. Even from this distance Roddy could see that it was wrecked.
There was a moment of shock at the realisation that others had been here before them, but it was short- lived. It was obvious from what he could see that no one was alive down there. The area around the cove was dead, a blank spot on a painting where the colours of life were absent, and sea birds were using the wreck as a roost.
Like an animal seeking food, Roddy had suddenly been given a blind purpose. If one group of people would land, so could others. Rescue did not cross his mind, because he knew he was already lost. But if he did nothing else before the island finished him, he had to leave a message for any future visitors.
A warning.
5. HELL HATH NO LIMITS
Once, Roddy had been part of a cleaning out crew on a bombed ship. The effect of an explosion in an enclosed space was dreadful, and he thought he would never really get over the terrible things he saw in that tangled mess. In a way, the worst sights were those bodies still recognisable as such. The rest — the mess on the floors, the splashes across shattered bulkheads — could have been anything.
This was worse.
What Roddy saw scattered around the small cove sent him into deep shock. The more he saw, the worse he felt, and the more he was duty-bound to see. It was as if beholding the sights gave them weight, making them real and significant. He wandered from scene to scene, an observer in the most gruesome and perverted museum ever conceived.
The sea sighed onto the beach, most of its awesome power already tempered by the reef surrounding the island. The air was heavy with moisture, even though the sun had yet to touch this part of the world today. The sand was hot and sharp where it found its way into his shoes, and if there were any creatures viewing his discovery with him, they were silent. The island was still holding its breath.
They were mostly skeletons. In places hair and skin prevailed, but the flesh had long since shrivelled to nothing or been eaten by scavengers. Teeth hung black and worn from gaping jaws. Orchids grew through a ribcage like twisted, rooted insides. A skull was clamped halfway up a thin tree, face plate split open by the growth of the palm through a void where life had once held memory and faith. A skeleton lay wrapped around the boles of two trees, hips split asunder by one, spine snapped and bent outwards by the other. The jaws hung open, full of a nettle-like plant, as if the trees still gave it pain. Two bodies lay in each other’s arms, half buried in sand blown by decades of sea breeze. One skull was shattered, the other merely dented and cracked. One bony hand held a pistol. A plant grew from its barrel, pluming smoke frozen forever in time.
Roddy stumbled from one tableau to the next, keening uncontrollably, searching frantically for something on which to blame this atrocity, but finding only evidence of these people’s good intentions. A box, lid only slightly askew, contained the faded and pulped pages from dozens of books and manuscripts. Looking closer, Roddy could make out the embossed crosses on their covers.
Rusted knives lay loose between chewed ribs.
A frayed rope hung a corpse from a tree, and a small colourful bird alighted on its bony shoulder. Perhaps it thought the body still held some hidden sustenance, but more likely it was simply gloating.
Roddy stared out at the ship, unable to look at the bodies any more, unwilling to think upon what they must have gone through as they set foot on the island. It was little more than a rotten wreck, masts long since fallen, sails and ropes torn away by the ageless tides. It was stuck firm and most of the timber boarding had been stripped from its ribs. The ship, like those who had sailed in her, lay with innards naked and exposed to the elements. The whole scene was like some sadistic, ongoing sacrifice, laid out as an eternal display for the benefit of whatever had called for it.
Roddy had never imagined such pointless devastation or despair. The agony of the moment hung in the air
