ii
Pheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
It was the noise that made it all seem so unreal. The noise worked its way into your skull, numbing your mind, making it impossible to think. It made Sheff want to clamp his hands over his ears and block it out, but he somehow knew that even if he did, the noise would get through.
Pheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Pheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Now that their prey had escaped – for the time being – most of the things outside were simply running along the fence emitting their horrible whine. Now it was louder from one direction, now it was louder from the other. It blocked out all other sound, all other thought. It was horrible, yet almost hypnotic. Sheff had the impression that if he had to listen to it long enough, he would simply fall down, stunned. He gritted his teeth against it, and shook his head from side to side.
Pheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
"Bastards!" he snarled. The simple act of vocalising, of making his own sound to combat the noise coming from outside, somehow seemed to help him regain control of his own mind, so he said it again. "Bastards! Bastards!"
He became aware that he wasn't the only one to have discovered this coping strategy. Behind him, Fiona was yelling too: "Shut up! Shut up! Stop that foul fecking whine!"
And Suzy was repeating again and again, like a mantra: "What the hell are those things? Where did they come from?"
But there was another voice too, one more worth responding to. Tom was talking to him. "Sheff. How many of them do you see? Are they inside the fence yet?"
The store room of the lighthouse, up one flight of stairs from the ground, only had two narrow windows, one on either side. With Sheff standing at the window looking inland, no one else could get a good view of what was happening.
"There's... it looks like... at least twelve of them," he said.
"Shut up!" shouted Fiona, mindlessly. "Shut up! Shut up!"
"Fiona, can you stop that?" said Tom.
"They're not inside the fence," said Sheff.
"No? I'd have expected them to get in by now," said Tom.
"They don't seem to be trying any more."
"I guess they know they can't get to us anyways."
"If they really wanted to, it'd take them about five minutes to get through the fence, I reckon," said Sheff. "Fuck I wish they'd stop making that horrible fucking noise."
They weren't all making it. There were two of them tearing at Ted's body – or what was left of Ted's body. Those ones were concentrating so hard on ripping him to shreds, they weren't making any noise at all, or they looked like they weren't. Sheff's heart beat faster as he watched them; anger flowed through his veins, threatening to overwhelm him. They looked happy! They weren't even eating Ted, they were playing! It was a game to them, snapping bones off his body, scattering bits of flesh here and there. They didn't care that no more than a few minutes ago, this had been a man, a thinking, feeling person. Sheff shut his eyes tight, to block out the view. The rage he felt was making it difficult to think. That and the sound.
"Bastards!" he said.
Pheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Came the inevitable reply.
Of course, there was worse even than was happening to Ted, and some perverse part of Sheff made him open his eyes again to confirm it was still going on. Just that bit further away, three of the animals were half inside the mangled car. Two were on the bonnet, with their heads poking in through the shattered windscreen, one was hanging from the window, thankfully blocking Sheff's view of what they were doing to Oisin.
Christ, Oisin! Now there was guilt as well as anger. Hardly left room to feel any fear!
Because Oisin was dead; he had let Oisin die, and now Claire didn't have a father. She had watched the two of them get into the car and go off together; she would have expected Sheff to look out for him, stop him coming to any harm, but Sheff had failed, spectacularly so. He wrenched himself away from the window, and immediately, his place was taken by Tom, wanting to assess the situation for himself.
There was blood flowing down his arm still. Some of it was drying and clotting, but the razor wire had gone deep, and with every beat of his heart, fresh, bright red rivulets were streaming down the pink of his skin,all the way to his fingertips and dripping onto the floor. He moved his fingers experimentally, and a bolt of pain shot up his arm.
Oisin had had a first-aid kit with him. Fat lot of good that was now though.
"What are they?"said Suzy. "I'm serious. What are they? Where the hell did they come from?"
No one replied. Tom was still watching out of the window. The rest of them – Suzy, Caillin, Fiona – were just standing around uselessly. Caillin, that old fucker with the gun who had frozen up and let two people get killed, he was standing just at the top of the steps, looking gormless, as if lost in a reverie. Maybe he was hypnotised by the noise from outside. Sheff noticed he had taken the gun back, from where he, Sheff, had put it propped against the wall. As if he had a right to it, as if he was any bloody good with it at all. Sheff had a strong urge to hit him, send him flying backwards down the steps to the earth floor below. He didn't. Instead, he said: "So why didn't you shoot it? What's the point in having a gun if you don't use it?"
Caillin looked startled, and couldn't find an answer.
"Oisin's dead. They're eating him," Sheff said. "I wish you could have pulled that trigger."
Caillin muttered something and looked away.
"What?" said Sheff.
"Ah don't think ah could have saved him," said Caillin.
"What about Ted?" said Sheff. "Do you think you could have saved him?" It wasn't serving any purpose at all, Sheff knew, but he couldn't stop himself. The maddening sound from outside seemed to be driving him on. "He saved your life. That thing was charging at you and he shot it. It would have killed you. So why couldn't you do the same for him? All you had to do was point it and pull the trigger. Why couldn't you do that?"
"Okay, go easy on him, man," said Tom.
Sheff ignored him. "Then Ted'd still be alive, and there'd have been two of you, with guns. Do you think you could have saved Oisin then? Instead of dropping your gun, running away?"
Although he hadn't made any move towards Caillin, he felt Tom's hand, very gentle, on his shoulder, restraining him. "Come on man, go easy," said Tom. "None of us were prepared for those things. None of us were ready for that."
Sheff looked at Tom and turned away in disgust. Last night, less than twenty-four hours ago,this nasty, rat-faced thug had tried to start a fight with him, just because he was English. He had punched Claire's brother in the face, just for sticking up for him. Now here he was playing the peacemaker!
"Caillin, man, there was nothing anyone could have done," said Tom. "There was no way anyone could have been ready for that."
Pheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! The noise was still coming from both windows, but it had lessened now. Apparently some of the animals outside had tired of making it.
"But Caillin," Tom went on, "Hope you're ready to redeem yourself." He motioned Caillin to join him by the window. Caillin did so, though he looked nervous about being so close to Sheff.
Tom pointed out the window. "Sitting ducks, man! And we've a regular crow's nest here. What do you think?"
"You mean, could ah hit them?"
"Yeah. Could you hit them?"
"Oh sure. Ah've hit much smaller targets from much farther away," said Caillin. "You want me to shoot at them?"
"No Caillin, I don't want you to shoot at them. I want you to shoot them."
"Is that big fecker still by the fence?" said Fiona. " I want him to hit that one. Blow it to fecking pieces." And she cackled.
"If they've any sense, they'll scarper soon as they see their mates getting blown apart," said Tom. "Might give us an opportunity to get out to the truck, we'll get back to the village. But could be they haven't any sense. When Ted shot that one out there, its mate just kept coming. Didn't seem to notice. Maybe you'll be able to get all of them."
"Well, ah mean, ah'll only be able to get two of them, won't I?" said Caillin.
There was a silence. The atmosphere in the room subtly shifted. When Tom spoke, he spoke in Irish, fixing Caillin with a hostile glare as he did so. Caillin's response was in Irish as well, which meant that Sheff couldn't follow the conversation.
"Guys, can you speak in English please?" said Suzy.
Once again, she was ignored. Tom said something else in Irish, and his tone was incredulous now. Caillin, when he spoke, sounded utterly dejected.
"Guys?" said Suzy. "Can you speak in -"
She was interrupted by a furious burst from Tom. All his talk of going easy on Caillin was forgotten, and all of a sudden he was ranting at the old man, who cowered underneath his tirade. Finally, he covered his face in his hands, dramatically.
"Okay, guys? Tell me what's going on?" said Suzy, her voice bordering on the hysterical now. "What are you saying? What's going on?"
The men were not acknowledging her, so she looked to Fiona, but Fiona just grimaced at her. Eventually Tom spoke. "We've only two shells."
"Shells?" said Suzy. "Wha - what are shells?"
"Shells!" shouted Tom. "Shells that you put in a gun. We only have got two shells for the gun!"
"But... two?"
"Yeah, two. Caillin only thought to bring two shells."
Pheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! from outside. Pheeeeeeeeeeeeee! Pheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
"But..." said Suzy.
"Ted, he had a whole pouch full of shells, but he's out there," fumed Tom. "And Caillin only brought two."
"But there's more than two of those things out there," wailed Suzy.
"Oh yeah, you noticed!" said Tom. "Yeah you're right, there are."
"There are more than two of those things out there!" Suzy was shouting now. "He said there were twelve!" pointing at Sheff.
"Yeah I know. We know that."
"So we have to have more than two bullets!"
"No, we don't have to have anything. How many we have is how many we have. And we've two."
"All right, all right, don't shout at me!" If Sheff had bothered to look at Suzy now, he would probably have seen tears on her face. "But if we've only got two bullets, we can only shoot two of those things."
"Yeah, I know."
"But how are we going to... What are we going to... How are we going to..."
"The first thing yer going to do is to calm right down," said Tom, apparently oblivious to the fact that his voice was almost as shrill and hysterical as hers.
"Don't tell me to calm down!" she cried. "I'm just trying to establish the... I'm just trying to..."
"Do you need Fiona to go over and slap you?" said Tom. "Fiona? Slap her! Do it hard, and keep on doing it until she learns to shut the feck up!"
His voice echoed around the little room. No one said anything for several seconds. The drama had reached a crescendo, but now there were a few bars' rest.
Caillin found his voice, but he only managed a stutter. "Er, ah -"
"Caillin, whatever yer about to say, is it going to be something worth listening to?"said Tom. "Is it going to be something that moves the situation forward in any way? Because if it's not, then you should seriously consider shutting the feck up as well. Because you do not want to antagonise me. And right now, the sound of your voice is all it takes."
I've had just about as much as I can take of this, Sheff thought. "Need to do something about my arm," he said. "Is there anything in this place I can use?"
Suzy turned to look at him and gave a yelp of shock. It was a pretty grisly sight, in all fairness. His arm was striped with different reds, of varying degrees of darkness. What's worse, he couldn't move his fingers without a lot of effort and a considerable amount of pain.
"There are a couple of bottles of water upstairs," said Fiona. "Might be something we can use for bandages as well. I'll bring it down."
"No," said Sheff. "I'll go up with you." Anything to be away from these people panicking and shouting at each other. As he followed her up the metal spiral steps, he found himself thinking: What a joke. What an absolute fucking joke.
There was something else in the back of his mind, but it was a twinge, no more, not something fully formed. What if... just suppose, that the twelve or so animals outside the lighthouse were not the only ones on the island? What if... just suppose, that there were more of them...
But his mind, perhaps prevented from concentrating by the ghastly squealing coming from outside, did not continue this train of thought any further. A twinge, no more.
***
The kitchen was basic;but for the word 'KITCHEN' painted along the top of the wall, it would hardly have occurred to anyone to describe it as such. There were a couple of small cupboards, a small stove, a plug-in heater, at able, a single bench that Sheff sat on and a pipe that went up through the ceiling. There were also two four-litre bottles of water; Fiona unscrewed one and poured it liberally over Sheff's arm, wiping off some of the dried blood with her hand. Water cascaded onto the tiled floor and gathered in murky puddles. Sheff felt a zing of pain and jerked his arm back. Examining it, he found a shard of metal from the fence buried in the flesh. As carefully as he could, he worked it out, and then turned it over in his fingers. The arm was still bleeding.
There was more shouting from two rooms below. Christ! Didn't they get tired of it?
"There are sheets upstairs," said Fiona. "Maybe we can cut them into bandages." But she hesitated at the stairs. "They're not that clean. Maybe it's not so hygienic. Maybe we could use some material from your shirt. It's half torn to shreds anyway."
"Or maybe we could use your shirt," said Sheff. "If you hadn't shut the gate on me, my arm wouldn't be in this state."
"The sheets are clean enough," said Fiona, and went up to the bedroom to get them.
She came back with a sheet and set about cutting it into strips with a pair of scissors and wrapping it amateurishly around Sheff's arm. While she was doing so, she jabbered inanely, appearing not to notice the words coming out of her own mouth. "They can only have come from the sea. They must have swum here. But swum here from where? Did you see? They looked like sharks. Their bodies looked like sharks. But there were no gills. I looked. The dead one had no gills. But they can only have come from the sea."
Then she leaned in and whispered to him, as if imparting a secret: "They're going to get in!"
Sheff looked back at her, impassively.
"They're going to get inside the gate, they.... they might jump up, get in through the windows," she said.
Sheff pictured the windows in the downstairs room. They were tiny, not big enough for a person to fit through, and those animals outside were bigger than people. The door had been extremely solid as well. This woman was wrong. They were safe in here.
Fiona went on, speaking animatedly. "They'll get in. And what happened out there, it's going to happen in here. There's going to be blood on the walls! And we'll keep running up because there's nowhere to hide – do you see anywhere to hide? And we'll go up as far as the lantern, and there'll be nowhere left to go. And that's where it'll end. "Her eyes were bulging, as if picturing the scene. She actually seemed to be enjoying it.
"You done bandaging my arm?" said Sheff.
"Yeah," she said.
The bandage was no more proficient than if it had been done by a child. Just a series of rags wound clumsily around his forearm. But it was soaking up blood, and perhaps helping it to clot, and so long as he didn't move his arm too much it wasn't going to fall off. His arm wasn't the only part of his body that had wounds from the fence. There were cuts on his torso, and even one on the lower side of his face. But his arm was the most serious.
He moved to the window, to look at the scene below. From this angle,they really did look like big fish, swimming around in a pond, especially the way they swished their tails when they ran. If he had been viewing them from directly above, the illusion might have been complete. They had given up attacking the fence altogether. Some of them were lying just outside it, but others were still running around. One was bouncing up and down like a gazelle for no obvious purpose.
"Ugly fuckers!" Sheff muttered.
Ashe watched, one of them stood up on its hind legs, opened its jaws wide and let out a sound that was half way between a roar and a bird's squawk. It walked along the edge of the fence. Sheff was hit by a fresh wave of fear that cut through him; it was all he could do to stop himself from stepping back from the window. The thing's tail was hidden behind its legs and it didn't look like an animal anymore. Its posture seemed almost human. A giant. What if these things weren't just animals? What if they were smarter than that?
It's okay, he told himself. There's no way any of them can get through the door. Just remember that.
Some instinct pricked him, told him that danger was imminent, although not to him. Nothing happened at first, but he trusted his instincts, and kept watching the upright creature as it strutted confidently past. His instincts were right. Another creature reared up to challenge it, and as it snarled and squealed its dominance, a third ran from behind, horribly fast, and bit deeply into its legs. The upright creature went down so fast Sheff felt like he was watching a film that had been sped up. All of a sudden, animals were running in from all directions, the squealing had reached fever pitch, and the creature that just a few seconds before had looked so dominant, almost cocky, was being ripped to pieces where it lay. Its arms flailed, but only for a second, and then were buried beneath the scrum.
Sheff retreated from the window, aghast, thinking: What the hell was that? What did I just see?
He sat down, on the chair, so shaken he almost missed it and sat heavily on the floor. Fiona was looking at him enquiringly, but he didn't bother to acknowledge her or answer her unspoken questions. They were silent for a long while. The people downstairs had finally stopped shouting as well.
Finally Fiona spoke: "Should probably go down, join the others. See what the plan is."
"There is no plan," said Sheff. He stayed put, and Fiona, as if she had been denied permission to go downstairs, stayed put as well. "There is no plan," he said again.
***
They did go down eventually of course. There was nothing else to do.
The plan, such as it was, was simply to keep away from the windows, and hope that if they were not visible from outside, the creatures might forget about them and amble off to another part of the island. After an hour or so, the creatures outside finally quietened down enough for Sheff to hope that they really might have left, but they never did, not for the whole of the rest of the day. Periodically Tom would peer out, just in case. The first time, he said: "They're sitting along the outside of the fence. They're not asleep or anything, just sitting there." The second time, he just said: "No, they're still there," and the times after that he didn't bother saying anything at all.
So they sat around, and they waited. The day wore on. None of them spoke. Caillin never let go of his gun. Suzy looked catatonic. It was Fiona who first mentioned food. There was a bag of it upstairs, apparently. They ate, but none of them could eat much. Which was probably just as well, because there was almost nothing in the bag – just some bread and a little ham - and apart from some pasta in one of the cupboards, that was the only food they had.
For the rest of the day, Tom kept up his occasional watch out the rest of the window, not allowing anyone but him to look out. The shark-things, or fish-things, or whatever they were stayed put. Sheff's biggest worry was that someone would come from the village to see what had become of them, and then they'd get run down and killed as well. He hoped no one came just yet. The things were bound to get bored and move off eventually. He just hoped when they did, it wasn't in the direction of the village. That would be bad.
The blood on his arm had finally clotted, even the really deep cut, where the razor wire had torn down nearly to the tendon. Still painful though, especially when he moved his fingers. He hoped it didn't get infected.
The shark-things didn't move off, and by the middle of the afternoon, it occurred to him how odd it was that no one had come from the village.How long were they going to leave it? What were they doing back there? Were they just sitting around indoors, like Tom had told them to, all waiting for someone else to take the initiative? By late afternoon, it had started to worry him.
There was no toilet, and they weren't about to venture outside to the outhouse, so they relieved themselves in the area behind the stairs at the bottom of the lighthouse, where the ground was earth.
Towards evening, in desperation, Tom had Caillin shoot one of the creatures,in the hope that it might cause the others to run away in fright. In response, the creatures had started up their hideous whining again,full blast. Some creatures had run to the fence, some had run to the wounded creature, some had run in any direction, but none of them actually ran away. And now they only had one shell.
After a while, it started to get dark.