Mark Morris - Dead Island

All was quiet here too, though on the far side of the room were two sets of barred metal doors, beyond which could faintly be heard an uncoordinated chorus of echoing thumps and clangs accompanied by low groans.

‘Happy now?’ Purna said to Logan as the two of them moved cautiously across the room.

‘Delirious,’ muttered Logan.

‘Let’s call White,’ said Sam, ‘see what we’re—’

Before he could finish his sentence, one of the girls behind him screamed. He, Logan and Purna spun round, guns jerking up instinctively. Xian Mei too was turning to face the door through which they had entered, as was Yerema. What they saw was Jin, who had fallen back to the rear of the group, and a black-bearded man in prison overalls. With his left hand the man had twisted Jin’s arms behind her back, causing her to drop her gun, and was now holding her in front of him like a human shield. In his right hand he held a large and very sharp-looking carving knife, the blade pressed against Jin’s throat.

‘Hey!’ Sam shouted angrily and started forward, but halted when the man simply tightened his grip on Jin. At the same time he nicked the skin of her throat just enough to draw both blood and a high-pitched sob of terror from her. Purna raised a hand to indicate that everyone, including the man himself, should stay calm.

The prisoner licked his lips and grinned nastily, clearly relishing the fact that — despite being armed with nothing more than a knife — he was fully in charge of this situation.

‘Drop your fucking guns and back off,’ he sneered, ‘or I’ll cut your friend open like a fucking pig.’

‘LOOK, LET’S TALK about this.’

Purna’s voice was calm, her manner relaxed. She allowed the barrel of her gun to droop a little and glanced casually at Sam, Logan and Xian Mei to indicate they should do the same.

By contrast the man looked twitchy, nervous. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead, and the knife was clenched so tightly in his right hand that the points of his knuckles were white with tension. He gave another clenched-teeth grin and shook his head.

‘Don’t need to talk,’ he said. ‘You just need to drop your fucking guns or I swear I’ll kill her.’

Purna sighed. ‘You know we can’t do that.’

The prisoner stared at her bug-eyed. ‘You can and you fucking will.’

‘See, the thing is,’ said Purna reasonably, ‘if we let you have our guns, what’s to stop you killing us all anyway? What’s your name?’

The question seemed to throw the man. ‘What do you want to know that for?’ he snapped.

‘Just trying to be friendly. I think we can help each other out here.’

‘Don’t need your help,’ the man said, his voice high-pitched with tension. Suddenly he screamed at them, ‘ Now drop your fucking weapons or I’ll kill the bitch! ’

‘Whoa,’ said Sam. ‘Take it easy, man.’ Moving slowly he placed his gun on the floor. ‘There you go.’

Purna glanced at him, tight-lipped. ‘Sam, what are you doing?’

Sam looked across at her angrily and gestured towards the shaking and clearly terrified Jin. ‘Don’t you think she’s been through enough?’

‘We’ve all been through a lot,’ said Purna. ‘This isn’t the way to do it.’

Ignoring her, Sam said to the man, ‘OK, buddy, here’s the deal. We lay down our weapons and back off a little, and you let Jin go. Then we talk. What do you say?’

The man stared at him, eyes narrowed, suspicious.

‘I’m guessing you’re trapped in here because of those things out there?’ Sam pointed towards the thuds and groans coming from behind the barred metal doors on the far side of the room.

‘Keep talking,’ the man said.

‘We can help you with that. We can kill those fuckers for you. How you think we got in here in the first place?’

‘In fact,’ said Xian Mei, ‘you can leave right now if you want to. The doors are open and the yard is clear. The infected that were out there are all dead.’

The man shot her a contemptuous look. ‘Yeah, and go where? There’s an electric fence out there and then two miles of mined ocean, if you hadn’t fucking noticed.’

‘So what’s your plan?’ asked Logan.

The man hesitated, then to their surprise the question was answered by a voice on the far side of the room.

‘I’m thinking maybe we should hear your plan first.’

They turned to see a man rising from behind the row of steel serving units off to their left. Another prisoner, this man was tall and skinny, his inquisitive fox-like face and dark-framed spectacles giving him a studious air. In contrast to his colleague with the knife he seemed calm and composed, though Sam got the immediate impression that beneath his cool exterior his mind was working away, that even now he was assessing the situation and how best to turn it to his advantage.

The man with the knife gaped at the skinny guy. ‘What the fuck you doing? What you showing yourself for?’

The skinny guy shot the knife-man an almost dismissive look. ‘I thought an exchange of information might be mutually beneficial.’

‘But we coulda got their guns!’ protested the knife-man.

The skinny guy smirked and jerked his head at Purna. ‘That one would never have given up her gun. She’s too pragmatic for that. And too ruthless.’ He gave a thin smile. ‘I’m right, aren’t I?’

Instead of answering his question, Purna asked, ‘Are there just the two of you?’

The man smiled again, as if this was not a tense stand-off between two groups of desperate people, but simply a game of strategy. Glancing down to either side of him, he murmured, ‘Gentlemen?’

Bemusedly, bad-temperedly, more men in orange overalls began to rise up on both sides of the skinny guy — three on his right and four on his left, making nine prisoners in all.

‘Do you want us to put up our hands?’ the skinny guy asked mildly.

Again Purna ignored him. Glancing to her right she said pointedly, ‘Xian Mei, check there’s no one else hiding down there. They could be keeping a couple of men in reserve. We wouldn’t want to be lulled into a false sense of security, would we?’

The skinny guy chuckled as Xian Mei nodded and moved forward.

‘Do I need to say that if anyone tries to grab Xian Mei’s gun I’ll shoot them?’ Purna added.

The skinny guy looked amused. ‘No. I don’t think you do.’

‘All clear,’ Xian Mei called a few seconds later.

‘Good,’ said Purna. ‘In that case, gentlemen, I think we’ll have you out here. Why not make yourselves comfortable at one of these tables so we can chat?’

The men resentfully shuffled out from behind the counter and sat at the table she had indicated. When they were all seated, the skinny guy nodded at the knife-man and said, ‘You asked my friend his name earlier.’

Purna nodded. ‘He was reluctant to give it.’

‘He’s cripplingly shy,’ said the skinny guy, ‘whereas I am not. My name’s Kevin. I won’t embarrass either of us by offering you my hand. So what’s your name?’ He gave Purna a piercing look.

‘Purna,’ she told him.

‘Purna.’ He rolled the word around in his mouth as though tasting it. ‘That’s a new one on me.’

‘It’s Australian,’ she said. ‘I’m half Aborigine.’

‘How exotic,’ said Kevin. ‘So tell me, Purna, why are you and your friends here?’

Purna looked at him for a long moment, as though deciding what — if anything — she should tell him. Then she said, ‘We were contacted by a man called Ryder White. He told us that if we could make our way to this island, he could get access to a helicopter and get us all out of here.’