Sugar & Squall (10 page)

“Probably,” I answered, “he’s massively over-protective.”

“He’s just got your best interests at heart. Do you miss him?”

“Sometimes,” I replied. “But I know I’m going to see him again. Someone will find us eventually. The ferry will be here come the weekend.”

“You think?”

I attempted to break up the serious mood. “I doubt little green men are coming to pop down and probe us, though I’d probably take that over being thrown back into the water again.”

It didn’t work. The way I’d worded it implied that Logan was somehow to blame. I could see a sliver of guilt slide its way over his face.

“Not that it’s your fault or anything. I should watch where I’m walking. I get distracted.”

He lit up ever so slightly. “By me?”

Go for it.
“Yeah, by you.”

It could have come across comical, a touch sarcastic, but it didn’t. He flashed me a smile. It wasn’t fake or pretentious. There was a definite sincerity about it. I smiled back. I couldn’t help it, and when it all became too much, I laughed.

Logan let out a little snigger as well, tilting his head down and rubbing the area above his right eye, still fixated on me. I let my head fall down to my chest as well, my soggy hair fanning out in front of me and obscuring my gaze. I peeked out through the wet dregs and saw he was doing the same.

This cat-and-mouse courting ritual turned from seconds to minutes. When Logan’s voice finally broke it, I was so nervous, so twittery, I felt as if I’d shatter into tiny teenage pieces right there on the bed.

“Thanks for trusting me.”

“Thanks for saving me.
I owe you one.” I stared right into his eyes, which wasn’t hard to do. I wanted to somehow transmit the incredible comfort I felt when I was around him, that feeling of calm. I could stay in that state, safe in his arms, forever.

“I guess we better get some sleep,” he said, breaking the trance.

“I guess.”

I stood up, the blanket swooshing out around me, and started to walk out before he called me back.

“Kat.”

I turned around.
He almost looked upset.

“There’s something else. I wasn’t going to tell you about it, but I think it’s best you know.”

“What is it?” I asked, growing concerned.

“It was near the railing, where you fell, but not yours.”

“What?” I repeated.

Logan breathed in and out before answering.

“Blood, I think. A lot of it.”

7. DENIAL

“It was close to where you fell, hard to see in the light, but I’m pretty sure. It looked dried, there a few days maybe.”

“How much?”

“Put it this way, no one could lose that much blood and survive.”

I shivered. “How do you know it’s human?”

Logan shrugged. “I don’t.”

“Why didn’t we see it before?”

“The hill’s in the way. You can only really see the full length of the pier from up here, and it’s too hard to make out details. Down there it’s flat, and we’ve never walked up it that far.”

I tightened the blanket in some instinctive act against the foreboding that had crept into the room along with this news.

When Logan looked up at me there was something I still couldn’t fathom, something I was missing.

“I didn’t want to freak
you out,” he continued.

“I’m not freaked out.
” I sounded confident, but there was no truth in it.

Logan straightened up.
“I thought about it, and really, there’s probably some explanation. It might just be paint or something.”

We both knew that was unlikely. I was thankful for his attempt to console me, nonetheless.

“You’re right,” I agreed. “There’s no use doing our sanity in worrying about it. If it’s blood, it’s blood. There’s nothing we can do about it.”

Logan nodded his head. I could see he too was resigning himself to the fact.

“We’ll go down to the pier tomorrow and have a good look around,” I continued “That’s the best we can do.”

It seemed a sensible enough suggestion.

“We’ve only got another two or three days until the ferry comes,” Logan said. “I can’t see why it wouldn’t unless the weather goes sour, and it was fine today. We should enjoy this small slice of freedom while we can, make the most of it.”

There was that cryptic edge again. Neither one of us looked prepared to step over it. I still couldn’t be sure of his feelings. I assumed like most guys he was keeping them well guarded. If only he knew whatever he said could only draw me closer.

But by the same token why couldn’t I express how I felt? Was I too walled up, fearing rejection? It was meant to be easier being alone with him, but it magnified everything. Every insufferable syllable out of my mouth boomed in the silence of it.

“Do you think we’re dead?” he said. “I know it sounds creepy, but it’s all I can come up with.”

For once I knew exactly what to say. “I don’t know about you,” I started, “but I’ve never felt more alive. Yes, I’m still sort of scared shitless, but I don’t know, at least I’m feeling
something,
really
feeling it.”

Logan smiled before standing. “We’ll get some sleep. It’s been a long night.”

I nodded. It was enough.

Logan stood but turned back. “Oh
wait, I found something else, between the boards. I stopped to pick it up when the railing broke.”

“What is it?”

He held up a cell-phone, some anime character swinging off the receiver.

“Is there anything on it?”

“I had a quick look. Everything’s from before the disappearance except for one photo and video.”

He hit a button and held the screen out.

I couldn’t make out anything at first. The picture was dark and blurry, clearly taken at night, but there was text in white, a sign maybe.

“I think it says something. Lotus, maybe?” Logan added.

“Where’s it from?”

“I’m not sure. I’ve never seen a sign like this on the island, not anywhere.”

“Are you sure it’s a sign?”

“I’m not sure of anything.”

“When was the photo taken?”

“Just after midnight
, the night of the disappearance. There’s a video, too, taken about ten minutes earlier.”

Logan
moved through the cell’s menus, finding the video in question.

It was
even blurrier, and grainy, also shot in the dark. The picture was shaking, or the hand that was holding the phone rather. Somebody was breathing heavily in the background.

“I can’t see anything,” I said, frustrated. The picture suddenly grew brighter, a rectangular shape and then a figure. There was screaming and then the video ended, turning to black.

“What – the – fuck? Play it back again, pause it.”

Logan ran back through the footage, pausing in the section where the video became lighter. “It looks like a doorway,” he said, “with something standing in it. I think it’s one of the dorm rooms.”

“But what’s that?” I was pointing to the ‘something’. It filled almost the whole doorway, so it was tall, with what appeared to be two shiny green discs for eyes, and it was holding something.

“Any ideas?” I asked, but Logan looked as puzzled as I did.

“Whatever it is, they’re terrified of it.”

He put the cell
down. “And there was this, in your jeans’ pocket.”

He reached into his own and pulled out wet pieces of paper, none bigger than a stamp. “It fell apart. Sorry,” he breathed. “Was it anything special?”

I walked over and took the pieces from him. The ink had been washed away completely. Only a few stray lines and letters were visible.

“It was a page from a diary I found in one of the girls’ rooms,” I confessed. “This page was dated the day of the disappearance.”

“What did it say?”

I breathed in before starting. “It said something about Mom and Dad at the top, but that’s as far as I got, and all I can make out now are two words.”

I paused, staring at the paper, trying to pull out the lines and angles of letters.

Logan came closer, inquisitive.
“What does it say?”

The letters become clear.

‘They’re coming’.

#

Everything together sounded majorly fucking foreboding. We both agreed on that. And the blood didn’t make it any better. That had to have come from someone, or something. But then we put it back into context. ‘They’re coming’ could have meant anyone, the teachers, security, senior guys. And the blood? Well, who was to say that’s what it was? Even if it was, we couldn’t exactly dial up Horatio and send it off to the lab. There was nothing we could do but stick together and wait for the ferry.

However, as we walked back to my room I couldn’t rid myself of the contradictory feelings that had set up i
nside me. Damn blood. Damn cell. Damn diary page. Sinister or not, they had penetrated our bubble, and nothing good could come of it.

“I’m right here,” Logan whispered, as he slid into Jemma’s bed, and with those three simple words I worried no more.

#

Come mid-morning and melancholy clouds were dangling over the ocean. The sun bore through strong and vibrant. We both squinted as we examined the pier.

Logan squatted, running his hands over the wooden boards as if by touch alone he might be able to glean some insight into last night. He moved to the railing.

“It’s broken clean off at the joint here, see? Rusted
through. It’s a god-damn deathtrap. Obviously maintenance was never high on Carver’s list of priorities. And here, see the blood?”

There was a dark oval of maroon that had soaked into the boards, sticky in the sun like dank molasses.

“It stinks,” I commented. “Bad.”

“Did
you cut yourself last night?” Logan questioned.

“No, I don’t think so
.”

“It wouldn’t leave this much blood anyhow.” He had stooped down to the boards and was trying to pull something out from between them. “I think I found what you slipped on.”

He held up a lipstick.

“Killed by a bit of Berry Red. That would’ve looked great on a tombstone.”

Neither of us laughed.

“It hasn’t been here long.”

“Maybe someone dropped it coming off the boat?”

“Probably,” Logan resigned.
“I’m just going to check under the pier and then we’ll go back, okay?”

“No problem.”

Logan walked off down the beach, examining the area under the pier. I perched myself on the railing – the solid section of railing – and watched him work. It was peaceful.

“Kat!”

I pushed myself off the railing and ran down to Logan. He was crouched under the pier, standing in the water. He turned and put his hand out before I came closer. “Wait. Don’t come any closer.”

He was being stupid. I stepped into the water and approached. The light shifted and I saw it there, tangled up around the pier’s pylon – the body.

#

It was the security guard. That was clear from what clothing there was left and the plastic nametag still pinned to his shirt. But the body wasn’t whole. It’d been battered by the sea into a fleshy pulp.

We stood a few feet away, examining, the ocean washing around our ankles.

I pinched my nose. “Do you think the
blood is his?”

Logan looked to me. “Could be, but it’s hard to tell.
His head’s missing, most of his torso, but I’d say that’s because it’s been eaten away. See there,” he pointed to the remnants of the guard’s chest. “The surrounding tissue is torn, like it’s been sawn through. A shark, probably.”

I took a step back, suddenly cold in the morning sun. “Maybe he fell, drowned in the rush to escape?”

“Maybe.”

“He might have been diseased, contagious or something.”

“We don’t know.”

He
was right. We knew nothing. We could do nothing.

“You’re saying we should just leave it here?
” Logan said.

“I am
. Even if there’s the slightest possibility there is some disease, some crazy monkey virus, we leave it. We’ll just steer clear of the pier from now on.” I turned and started walking away. “In fact, I’d be pretty happy if I never saw it ever again.”

#

We walked side by side up the hill, Logan splitting his vision between me and the school all the while. It started to piss me off.

“What?” I snapped.

He chuckled.

“It’s not funny, you know”

He just smiled. “I know. It’s just that most girls I know would see a little bit of blood, a body and need to be carried off to the ER, but not you.”

I agreed, even laughed a little inside. “I don’t know. I’m a girl deep down, Scout’s honor. The rest is just a coping mechanism.”

“I see. I like the girl. You should keep her around more often.”

“You really want me to be another one of those cardboard cut-outs? The ones that, like, like to say like a lot?”

He laughed. “Maybe not that far, but it is nice to have a damsel in distress sometimes.”

“First a lady and now you’re calling me a damsel? This isn’t the 1600s.”

“Hey, it could be. We might have been sucked back in time.”

I pushed the blood and the body right out of my head. They didn’t exist.
“Well, hopefully it’s a time when they knew how to make a decent toasted cheese sandwich. I’m starving.”

#

Given the only cheese left in the kitchen looked like it was from the 1600s, I settled for salad instead. Logan took care of it all. I was definitely starting to feel better with a full stomach – anxious still, but better.

“I think we should concentrate on the classrooms this afternoon
,” Logan said, once we’d finished packing our plates away.

We’d agreed days ago not to search the school any more. It
just didn’t make sense. But I didn’t feel up for arguing.

“A
s long as there’s not another pool up there somewhere. I don’t know if I’m in the mood for another impromptu skinny dip.”

I loved his laugh. It was measured, just
right. “No, unfortunately not.”

I raised my right eyebrow so high it almost touched my hairline. “
Right then. Lead the way, oh joyful one.”

We walked up the stairs at the front of the middle building to the third level. It was mostly classrooms up here bar a teacher’s lounge and kitchen at the end. We hadn’t really checked this area thoroughly because it was rather hard to imagine hundreds of students all squashed together in the space of a living room.

Nothing like what I was dreaming up, Logan’s grand plan was simply to search this floor a little more closely, though I had no idea why.

We kept going right until the end, where Logan paused at the furthest d
oor, the music room. “Last stop,” he announced, grasping the doorknob. He paused.

“What are you waiting for?
” I said.

“We’re going to cross something else off that list of yours, whether you like it or not.”

Number three – Learn to play a musical instrument.

Damn you, DNB.