Frazer Lee - The Lamplighters

“I’d gotten friendly with Adam and he managed to smuggle a decommissioned laptop out to me. My first experiment was to get the uplink working and I needed to test it out, so I arranged a three-minute window for poor Vera to make a quick phone call. Took a few attempts to get it right but it worked. She made a couple more calls, but I never even got the chance to find out who she’d called because after the last one she was gone.”

“What do you mean, gone?”

“I mean gone! Just disappeared. I told Pietro but he was too pussy to do anything about it…so I went to see Fowler myself.”

“What did he say?”

“He told me Vera’s contract had been terminated. When I asked why, he said she’d breached the rules of the island and that if I asked any more questions, I’d be next.”

“Jesus, you were lucky. At least he didn’t find out you were hacking in, or whatever it was you said you were doing?”

“Oh yeah, I’m so goddamned lucky.” Jessie had to fight to keep her voice down. She trembled with frustration and a tear fell from her eye.

“Why do you want to get off the island so bad, Jessie? I mean, don’t you care about the money? Once your contract is done?”

Jessie took deep breaths, fighting back tears with sheer effort of will.

“Why are you so afraid?” Marla asked. She was beginning to feel very afraid herself, standing in a tiny pool of light partway down a tunnel to god only knew where.

“I’ll tell you why I’m so afraid,” Jessie spat wetly. “I’ve already worked my contract and there’s no cash payout, nothing. It’s all B.S.”

Marla’s ears did not want to believe.

“How long did they tell you that you had to work here, Marla?”

“Um, twelve months.”

“Here’s a newsflash. I’ve been here for a year and a half. No payment, nothing.”

Marla’s head swam. “You’re kidding me?”

“It gets worse, Marla, so buckle up.”

The look in Jessie’s eyes was the most disturbing thing Marla had ever seen.

“I think there’s someone else on the island with us. I think whoever they are, they killed Vera and I’m pretty damn sure that we’re next.”

“Hey, that’s enough, you’re scaring me now.”

“Good. You should be scared. Who knows you’re here Marla?”

Jessie’s words chilled like ice.

“On the island—who knows you’re even here?”

Marla felt so cold. The truth was no one knew she’d come here, no one at all.

“Thought so,” said Jessie darkly.

Marla shivered, remembering broken glass and the acid taste of fear in her mouth. Hollow eyes, watching from the trees.

The flashlight beam dipped slightly and Jessie rattled it in an attempt to revive the ailing batteries.

“Come on,” she said, moving off down the passageway. “We’d better get going before this runs out.”

Marla followed quietly behind, trying to absorb all Jessie had told her. For a moment back there, her paranoia and fear had begun to take a hold of her too, but now Marla wasn’t so sure. Jessie hadn’t been able to tell her who might have killed the German girl, only that it was “just a feeling” she’d had. What if Vera had simply been dismissed from the island for breaking Fowler’s precious rules? It was certainly in keeping with what she’d seen of him so far. And all that stuff about hacking into computers, which Marla had to admit was beyond her, just sounded like paranoid stoner ramblings. Marla was bitterly disappointed with herself. She’d hoped to turn over a new leaf by coming to the island, but all she’d done so far was get wasted on smoke and drink, not to mention her bleak one-afternoon stand with Pietro. Regret flooded through like a virus and she could almost feel it thicken and slow her blood, making her limbs feel dense as mercury. She stopped walking and sighed heavily.

The fading flashlight beam, now a sepia color, skated around the passageway wall as Jessie stopped to see what was wrong.

“Why did you lie to me about the party, at the Big House?” Marla asked. Her tone made it more of an accusation than a question.

“Marla, we have to keep going. I don’t wanna walk through here in the dark…”

“Me neither, so why not explain it to me as we walk?”

Jessie exhaled loudly in frustration. “I told you already I needed to find out if you were a plant. I wanted to make sure you weren’t sent here to spy on me. You arrived so soon after Vera left, I just couldn’t be sure. Her disappearing like that, gave me the jitters. I needed to nix the security cameras—that was no word of a lie I promise you toots. And getting access to the Big House was part of the deal too. But not for a party…”

“What for then?”

“As a place to hole up if things got rougher, after I’d set the SOS beacon. Figure if I can hack in, unlock the place and fuck with the spy cams then I can lock it down again too. It’s the perfect defensive position. I was going to tell you all of this, I totally was, but I had to make sure you weren’t one of Fowler’s cronies first. That’s why Adam made sure he was on duty when you ran down to the jetty, so he could see if you’d go through with it—or go tell Fowler.”

“So now you know I’m just another loser after all, is that it?”

“Oh, we’re all losers in this game Marla. Nobody knows I’m here on this island either. Way I see it is, we’re expendable. Maybe that’s why they brought us here.”

“If you really think someone wants to kill us, then why didn’t they just shoot me on the jetty? Why go to all the trouble of job interviews and business class flights and security details? Answer me that.”

Jessie wasn’t listening. She’d seen something up ahead. Her pace quickened and Marla fought to catch up to her as she rounded a slight curve in the tunnel. They had to stoop inside the passageway as it funneled inwards. There in the distance, like a pinprick in a curtain, was a tiny speck of daylight.

“Look Marla, a way out. But we’re gonna have to crawl to reach it. Are you game?”

“I’ll bloody well crawl out of here,” Marla said. She’d had enough of the cloying subterranean dark but felt a dread sense of claustrophobia at the prospect of dragging her sorry backside through the narrow tunnel.

“Follow my lead and keep your breathing steady. In through your nose, out through your mouth. We’ll be there in no time.”

Marla cringed. Jessie was beginning to sound like a motivational coach. A motivational coach who was clearly suffering from paranoid delusions. True to her own words, Jessie had indeed gone “totally cabin”. What a joker, dragging me in here, thought Marla as she felt gravel scraping painfully against her leg. As the walls closed in tighter and tighter, she had to crush her limbs inwards then force them out again in a wriggling motion to move herself forwards. Jessie was some way ahead now, giving it her all, and Marla’s sense of dread began to mutate into cold white panic. What if I get stuck? Jessie’s not going to be able to turn around and help me. Jesus, what if the roof falls in—I’ll be buried alive, trapped down here until I suffocate. In through your nose. Out through your mouth. Marla had stopped still in the tunnel, hyperventilating now. Fear entered her mouth like dust, drying her tongue and clutching at her throat. In the distance she saw Jessie’s wriggling form surrounded by a thin halo of light, like an iris in the eye of a dark and distant storm. Then she felt something brush against her foot. As it slid along her ankle and up her leg, she tried to scream.

The scream died in Marla’s windpipe and her body lurched forwards in panic at the cold clammy thing gripping her ankle. Dust motes flew up in front of her eyes looking like hazy baubles against the still distant shaft of daylight up ahead. Scrabbling like a mad thing to rid herself of the chilling grip, she clawed at the rough rocky surface of the wall. She felt a jolt of pain as one of her fingernails bent back and tore away from the tender flesh hidden beneath it. Tears flooded her eyes and pain-fuelled anger shot through her system conspiring with the adrenaline already there, causing her to lash out violently with her free foot. Contact. Whatever she’d hit felt heavy and fleshy and hard and clearly had feelings, judging by the muffled cry it made when she kicked it. She kicked again, only harder, then shuffled for all her life was worth up the tunnel. Her breath sounded like an alternator inside her head as she pushed and slid, and pushed and slid, her way toward the light. In through your nose. Out through your mouth. In through your nose. Out through your mouth.