Mo Hayder - Pig Island

Time to drop this dread in my heart. I made a fist and knocked myself on the head with my knuckles. Get going, you fucking arse. I hiked up my kit, chucked the bolt-cutters on to my shoulder and set out.

The path wound and detoured, but I knew it was taking me in the direction of the gorge. The trees cloaked the air, warming it and deadening sound, making even my footsteps sound muffled. After half an hour I saw, glinting through the trees ahead, the fence. I picked up speed, sensing the gorge in the way the air had started to move. The wind would blow down the clefts in those rocks like through a tunnel. I could feel my sweatshirt and shorts starting to press against me, then flap and billow away, snapping and whipping around like sails. About twenty feet from the fence the trees cleared and I found I was standing on a stretch of grassland, the blades pressed down into random shapes with each gust. A dead pig lay next to the fence in a flat, deflated way, the shrunken skin lying tight and leathery against its ribs, the grass hugging it one moment, the next rolling back to reveal its mummified jaw and teeth. Something about its position made me think it had been thrown on to the ground, and then I noticed the black smudge on its snout — the stain of electrocution. I raised my eyes grimly to the fence, to where it glinted and creaked in the wind, and saw that a path had been trampled through the grass to a gate which stood open. My heart picked up speed.

I pulled up my kit, stepped over the pig's corpse and approached, looking out over the gorge. Someone or something had come through here recently.

The wind was blowing the dead trees, making them bow and scrape; the sun glinted off the old chemical drums. Almost a quarter of a mile away, above the PHM's scrawled message — Get thee behind me, Satan — the trees billowed and heaved, and for an odd moment that side of the island was almost as alien as this enclosure had once seemed. I looked behind me at the wind going through the trees, dipping in and blowing open holes in the leaf cover, revealing patches of different colours beyond, flashes of more trees and sky. There was no one on this side of the island and suddenly I was more sure of that than I had been of anything. I turned back to the gorge, gazing at the far escarpment, at the gate standing wide, and a weird feeling crawled across my skin, the words coming to me like a whisper: Dove's gone to the village. And he's taken his devil with him.

It took me three hours to cross the gorge. By the time I got to the edge of the community I had finished all my water and my tongue was a piece of raw meat in my mouth. There were blisters on my feet and an ache in my shoulder from carrying the cutters. I'd been on the island for four hours and the sun had dropped low in the sky. The wind, which in the gorge had twice set me off balance, had fallen quiet on this side of the island, almost like a memory, leaving my ears ringing and my face burning.

I came down the wooded path that led into the community and paused. The gate stood wide open. The shadows were getting long, evening wasn't far away, and there was an odd silence. An unearthly stillness. I rested for a bit, then headed through the gate, trying not to think about what it all meant. As I came down the wooded path, the rooftops appearing from out of the leaves, I knew something was wrong. Usually at this time of day there would be a prayer meeting, or someone busying across the green with a bowl of vegetables to be peeled, but now all I could see were empty windows and, beyond the cottages, the deserted green.

About a hundred yards to my right something moved. I became very still, concentrating. It was down near the ground, in a small, V-shaped depression, which continued in a straight line like a dried-up river, then disappeared between two cottages. It was something a bit paler than the surrounding grass. I took a few steps forward. It was a pig, snouting in the ground, its excited tail curling and uncurling like fishing bait. I approached silently, not wanting to disturb it. It was eating — its snout fixed in one spot while its hindquarters circled and shuffled and circled, trying to get a purchase on the food. I took a few more steps forward and-

'Shit.'

I shrank into the trees and sat down on the ground, staring blankly at it. The animal looked up in mild interest — not fear. It wasn't going to be scared away from this meal. Its snout was smeared with something that looked like vomit, but must be, I thought, my heart falling, the stomach contents of the human being it was eating. Fuck fuck fuck. I stared at the thin white foot in the pink plastic sandal. Sovereign?

'Oh, shit,' I said again, gripping hold of my ankles and dropping my head. Not much fazes me, it's true, but now I gave in to a violent fit of trembling.

It was the same with dogs, I remembered later. Dogs were omnivorous: they always went for the victim's stomach first, for whatever half-digested plants and seeds and nuts they found, before moving on to the meat and bone. Maybe man had done the same, back in his hunting days. After a long time I got up and began to gather up stones, feeling like I might keel over every time I bent down. I straightened, took aim and was about to start hailing stones at the pig when I wondered suddenly if I was being watched.

I lowered my hand, turned and studied the wood I had come through. My ears were buzzing, my head pounding. That gate was open. But there was no one here. Except a corpse. The pigs hadn't killed her — they're not predators — but had they been the ones who had ripped her to pieces like that? I rubbed my head hard with my knuckles, trying to dislodge the thought. I looked down at the cottages. Everything silent, motionless. The cafeteria block was only a hundred yards away — the sliding doors stood open, reflecting back the beginnings of a sunset. I couldn't see anyone in there.

More adult pigs appeared from the trees, the same blunt feeding expression in their eyes, and began to strip the flesh from Sovereign, pulling long lumpy strings from inside her, ripping at the silvery connective fascia. I watched, in a detached way, as one, a junior from its size, made do with a leg. It bit through the bones with a splintering noise, then trotted away almost jauntily with the foot, pink plastic sandal and all, into the trees where I could hear it gnawing for what seemed like for ever, choking and gagging on the plastic. I dropped the stones, pulled out my mobile and checked the display for the faintest chance that a signal had appeared on Cuagach overnight. But no, just the no-signal icon. Shit, I thought, pocketing the phone and rubbing my forehead, what now?

After a long pause, I sighed and got to my feet. I hefted up the bolt-cutters, hesitated. I wanted to run, but I didn't. I walked. I kept my eyes on the cafeteria, my ears open to the woods, the expanse of silent grass on either side of me, the bolt-cutters held at just the right angle if anything rushed me.

There is no such thing as the devil. No beast. No biforme…

Then what the fuck did that to Sovereign?

It was late and shadows were falling between the cottages. I got to the refectory windows and turned to check over my shoulder. The woods were totally silent: nothing moved. The sun was dropping below the treetops. I turned back and squinted into the gloom of the refectory. It was dark in there, shadows gathering in the corners and niches. All I could make out were the trestle tables, empty of any cutlery, the surfaces scrubbed clean and shiny with disinfectant, just like the community always left them after dinner. I opened the door and stepped inside, a brief glimpse of my reflection: an anxious face floating out at me, sunburnt, trails of sweat like pencil lines in the dirt. I closed the door behind me and stood for a bit, my eyes getting used to the gloom.