Ex-Isle by Peter Clines (electronic reader TXT) 📕

“Frak me,” said Barry. He glanced at the kids, then leaned back and lowered his voice. “You think he’s going to kill them?”

St. George shrugged. “I don’t know. I want to believe he’s just been confused somehow, there was so much chaos for a while. But he knows about the Mount. He’s been lying to these people for who knows how long.” He organized his thoughts. His head had been buzzing since the merman had appeared. “Hussein said he was in charge of his fishing boat, right?”

“Yeah?”

“Why isn’t the captain in charge?”

“Maybe he died? Turned?”

“I don’t think anyone here used to be a captain. Or any kind of officer. Remember the whole bit about not wanting authority figures?”

Barry turned his head. “Yeah. And we haven’t met any, have we?”

“Nope. Don’t you think somebody would’ve been introduced as a former captain or something?”

“There’s a lot of people we haven’t been introduced to yet.”

“But I think we’ve met a good chunk of Nautilus’s command structure. And there doesn’t seem to be a single former officer in the bunch, does there?”

“No,” said Barry. He jerked his head out at the gardens. “Hell, I think Malachi-of-the-corn out there is the first staff member we’ve even heard of.”

“So, consider that, add in his whole ‘sorry it came to this, can’t risk anything’ speech he gave us…”

“Yeah. A little ominous. But still…He’s taking some of his people, too. They’ll know.”

“Going off how fast he belted Mitchel, I don’t think that’s going to slow him down,” St. George said. “Hell, if some of his people die, too, it just makes the story more believable, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t know. It seems a little wonky to me. And risky. If the boat doesn’t come back, won’t it make any doubters left out here doubt him even more?”

“I don’t know. How many do you think there are?”

“Beats me. But I mean, it sounds like more than a dozen, the way Hussein was talking.”

“People are going to die?” whispered Ash.

Barry shook his head. “Not if we can help it, buddy.”

St. George looked up at the red-and-gray-streaked sky, then at the garden beds. Most of the workers had left about an hour ago, but a last six or seven were inspecting the plants. “I’d say we’ve got maybe ten or fifteen minutes until sunset, then another half hour until full dark. We do it then.”

“You sure?”

“Not really, no. But we can’t just sit here while he takes everyone over the horizon and drowns them. We’ll move fast, try to save all the kids. The darkness should give us better odds. And then we can deal with Nautilus.”

Barry jerked his head a few times. “This’d be a perfect time for our ace in the hole, Corpse Girl, to show up and take out a guard or two. It’d really shift things in our favor.”

“I don’t think we can gamble on that,” said St. George. “We still don’t know for sure if she’s woken up, or what kind of shape she’d be in if she did.”

“Well,” said Barry, “I’m looking right at her and she looks fine. I think everything’s coming up Milhouse.”

“What?” St. George twisted around.

Madelyn loped along one of the cargo containers, as far from the garden plots as she could get. Her jacket was tucked under her arm, and a bright blue baseball cap was perched on her head. The orange sunlight masked her white skin. One or two of the garden workers glanced at her, but it seemed keeping their heads down and quiet won out over reporting someone they didn’t recognize.

Or maybe Hussein was right about how many people wanted off the island.

Madelyn stepped into the gap between one of the big containers and the next one. Her pale skin almost glowed in the shadows. She leaned her head out to watch one of the far guards, the Asian man, and then slipped back out. A few quick steps took her to the next opening. It was barely a crack, ten feet from the cage, but she crouched against it.

St. George could see where her wet suit had been ripped apart. Where she’d been ripped apart. A swath of translucent skin stood out across her midriff, brilliant against the black wet suit. “Hey,” she stage-whispered, “what the hell is all this?”

St. George cast his eyes down at her exposed stomach. “Are you okay?”

She smiled. “How many times do I have to tell you? Being dead is my superpower.”

“See?” murmured Barry.

Madelyn started to move forward, but St. George gestured her back. She wiggled her fingers at the cage struts. “So what gives? This thing can’t actually be holding you, can it?”

“They’ve got hostages all over the island,” said St. George. “Kids. If we try to get out, the guards give a signal and the hostages die.”

The Corpse Girl shook her head. “Man, I hate this place.”

St. George turned his head to gaze at Mitchel, a few dozen yards away. The man was half turned from them. He had a long knife out and was sharpening it against a metal rod. “There’s him and two others. One over there between the gardens, and another one facing Barry.”

She nodded. “I snuck past him coming over here.”

“Think you can get all three? Fast and quiet?”

“Dead quiet,” she whispered with a smile.

“No joking around,” he said. “If one of them yells out, the kids are going to drown.”

Madelyn’s smile faded. “Got it,” she said. She straightened up, walked along the storage container, and vanished into the next gap.

St. George twisted his head back to Barry. “Lean forward a little more.”

The kids shifted away, and Barry stretched toward his knees.

St. George stretched his fingers to the shackle on Barry’s far wrist. He fumbled, gripped the chain between his fingertips, and squeezed. There was a faint squeal, a sharp ping, and a broken link clattered on the deck.

“Lord almighty, free at last,” Barry drawled.

“Almost,” said St. George. He put his free hand close to the other and snapped the