Stranded

by Sarah Goodwin

‘Maxine’s a retired teacher and Zoe’s from India.’ ‘County Kerry actually,’ Zoe said, raising an eyebrow.

‘Buidseach means witch. Island’s named for one – an’ there’s been stories of that island since I was a little one. Dad used to scare me with them. He said if you ever end up near it, you’ve gone too far out for anyone to find you should you go down on its rocks. The witch’d reel you in and make soup from your bones.’

‘Eric and Ryan here will be staying on the island with you in a little command centre – but don’t worry, you won’t be seeing them and they’ll stay right out of your way.

‘You are half of a team of eight brave survivors, searching for an unsullied refuge. Together you will remake society, starting again from the ruins to create utopia. You have one year to get it right, establish infrastructure, govern yourselves and build a future from flotsam, jetsam and the natural resources available to you. If you fail, humanity fails with you.’

‘This is Duncan, Andrew and Frank,’ Shaun said, waving them towards us. ‘Guys, Zoe, Maddy, Gill and Maxine.’

Andrew had thick brown dreadlocks coiled into a bun. They were startlingly long and would probably have reached his waist otherwise. Tattoos encircled one bicep and he had on a pair of ratty dungarees. His accent gave nothing away but, much like Zoe, he could have been from any suitably cool university town in England.

Frank on the other hand belonged in a pub, propping up the bar with a whippet at his feet and a red-top paper in front of his nose. His canvas fishing vest sported an alarming number of St. George flag patches and the frown he sent Zoe’s way felt very much like disapproval. In short, he appeared to be the kind of middle-class bigot my home village was populated with. I wondered if the producers had picked him for just that reason, putting a racist on an island with a black guy and an Indian girl to create drama.

Tomorrow we’d finish our hut and move in. Our first milestone, a testament to our skills and combined effort. Looking back, it almost makes me sick. To think how naïve I was to consider the building of the hut, together, as a sign of things to come.

‘So, let me be clear: my story has no miracles, and no rescue. I survived. I escaped. And despite the best efforts of everyone else involved, I’m here to tell you about what we did on that island.’

So far I’d tried to come at problems head-on, have discussions out in the open. But clearly that wasn’t what we were doing anymore. Now was not the time of community, it was the time of politics and outmanoeuvring one’s opponent. Guerrilla warfare. And I’d just won my first skirmish. The trap and the rabbits were mine now. No more secret feasts.

‘The thing is,’ Zoe said, ‘we get you’re sorry about it and, that’s fine – thank you for saying so. But … we’ve been talking about basically everything that’s gone down since we got here and we think that it might be best if, for the rest of the experiment … if you maybe moved out of the camp.’

‘Don’t even think of coming back for more. We don’t give handouts to lazy cunts.’ ‘Better tell Gill then,’ I said, thankful he couldn’t see the trembling of my hands in the dark.

‘Forgive, but don’t forget,’ I said, one of Auntie Ruth’s other aphorisms. ‘I always try to remember that. Because if someone can hurt you once, they can do it again.’

Zoe met my eyes for the first time. ‘I’m pregnant.’ ‘Oh … wow … congratu—’ ‘I don’t want to be. I can’t be, not right now,’

Hating me was the only thing they had holding them together. Without me I think they would have turned on each other much sooner. Not that it made any difference … No matter what we did, we were doomed as soon as that boat dropped us there.

The bedding was soaked and frozen with the same brownish effluent that covered the floor, but it did not obscure the face of the man in the bottom bunk. One of the two whose names I’d learnt and forgotten months ago. I could no longer tell which as his face was so warped; empty eye sockets gaped at the ceiling, his mouth hanging open too wide, holes where insects had burrowed into his cheeks.

What wore at me more, though, was what we didn’t know. Where was our boat? What were the people who’d sent us here doing? How had two healthy young men died so suddenly?

‘Six people died on Buidseach, that I knew of at the time I left the island,’ I say. ‘That number has since risen though, hasn’t it?’ Rosie presses. ‘I believe so, yes. The trial, of course, was … well, I think the ordeal was too much for some people. Having to face what happened. I don’t blame them for not being able to cope.’

Then light flashed in my eyes and I heard Gill’s voice cry out. ‘She’s over there!’ The torch was like a searchlight, momentarily blinding me. I was frozen in fear, but the sound of people running towards me snapped me out of it. I turned and sprinted into the trees, fleeing from the shouts and cries behind me.

Of all the people who knew about us, or who might come across us, we had not seen or heard from a producer, a family member or stranger since we arrived. No one had answered the radio. No one had sent fuel or a rescue team. No one had so much as sailed past looking for fish. There was no one out there. Something had happened to the world. Something terrible.

‘There was a moment where I had to choose between everything I’d ever been taught about how to stay safe, and reality. I had to either play the game of appeasement, negotiating just how much I was going to be hurt, or believe my instincts and try to save myself, whatever the cost. And if I hadn’t trusted that part of myself … I wouldn’t be here.’

I looked at Shaun’s unmoving form and let a partition snap down in my mind. Shaun was dead. I was still alive. If I wanted to stay alive I needed what he no longer had use for.

‘What do we do with her then?’ This was Maxine. The words might have made me hope for a rational voice, but she sounded speculative, excited. ‘If she killed Shaun we can’t just let her walk around free.’ Frightened tears welled in my eyes and I put my hand over my mouth to muffle any sounds that might escape me. What were they going to do to me?

They’d buried me alive. I was trapped in the cave, the acrid smoke still lingering around me, burning my throat as it slowly oozed out through the crack into the inner caves I couldn’t reach. Even if I could dig my way out, Andrew was there, waiting. There was no escape.

I’d heard someone say once that ‘suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem’.

The knowledge that the others were gone hit me again. The injustice of it filled me with a surge of anger so murderous it scared me. While I’d been losing my mind, they’d been saved.

With a collection of blunt shovels and limited strength I was working on clearing it when I noticed the heaped earth at the back. Two heaps to be exact, each one about a foot wide and six feet long. They were covered in ferns and grass. Beside one I found a cross of crudely nailed boards with ‘Frank’ written in faded marker pen on it. There was no cross on the other. Perhaps it had been lost in the greenery, perhaps it had never had a marker. Either way, I knew it was Shaun’s body under that mound.

I stood there and looked down at the little spot. It was too small to be for anyone but Zoe’s baby. I knelt and moved the weeds from around a larger stone. If something had been written there it was long gone. I could just make out a ‘B’ in black marker, mostly washed away and sun-faded.

I looked down at the skull with its skittering crab. This was Zoe’s skull, sun-bleached and tumbled by the sea.

I thought of the tiny headstone, which I’d started to think of as ‘Bea’s grave’. I remembered how abandoned it had seemed, how odd it was that Shaun’s grave was overgrown. Was that because Zoe wasn’t there to care for them? Had she jumped? Or, worse, was this where the others had dumped her after she died giving birth?

Duncan snorted. ‘It was a fucking stunt. They’d always planned to leave us until February. For views, for excitement. They told our families filming was extended. An extra month, what’s the big deal? Like they could possibly understand what it was like here.’

‘What about Zoe?’ ‘Oh, her,’ he sighed. ‘Well, she fucking lost her mind. After Shaun she was hard to deal with but then she went into labour and that was a nightmare – hours that took. Screaming and all that. Then it came out all … wrong. There was no talking to her. She’d just sit there and not say anything or even look at you. Not what you want when everyone else is doing their bit. Then she went and topped herself.’

‘There,’ I said, and realised I was holding the bottle. ‘I said this would be useful.’ I’d accidently poisoned the others once, after all. I could do it again. Purposefully.

I got my water bottle and drank deeply, suddenly aware of the dryness in my mouth. Slowly it began to sink in that I’d killed two people. Although I told myself that I hadn’t made them drink the brandy, it made little difference. I’d poisoned Andrew and Duncan, then watched them die.

‘I should bury them.’ ‘Not with the others.’ ‘No … Somewhere else … somewhere hidden,’ I said, already knowing exactly where.

The cave!

By the time the sun was fully up I was patting the last shovelful of rotten vegetation and maggoty skins into place. To anyone happening upon the clearing, their graves would be invisible. Any smell or flies seeming to rise from the heap of waste they’d left behind. Anyone looking for them would have to hunt for a long, long time. Much like the second fisherman in my story, they had dined with the witch and vanished without a trace.

I saw the moment Gill realised what she’d said. That she had, at least in her mind, confessed to murdering her mother; those three words the complete story of a supposed stroke and accidental drowning.

When charges were pressed and she was called to testify, Maxine took her own life. I don’t think it was guilt so much as shame that drove her.

Fortunately I have learned that there is no justice, aside from what we make for ourselves. There is only survival, and the victor tells the story.