Heal the Sick, Raise the Dead

  Jacob Prytherch

  Heal The Sick, Raise The Dead

  Text copyright © 2012 Jacob Prytherch. All Rights Reserved. No copying or redistribution of this text may occur without the consent of the author. This is a work of fiction, all resemblance to actual people, names, places and events is coincidental. Front cover image is © Hoax Studios. thisishoax.com

  www.jakeprytherch.blogspot.com

  Firstly a general note of thanks to everyone who has given me feedback over the course of writing this book.

  A huge thank you to Joe from thisishoax.com for putting together the cover, website and promo video, and to Danny aka Minced Beats for providing the music. You should all go their sites and buy their stuff.

  I also want to say a big thank you to my proof readers S. Quint and Lora Colt, who made this a lot easier than it could have been.

  Special thanks to P. H. Dee for bringing the science, S. Hall for some much needed plot feedback, and last but definitely not least to Mr. B. Drummle for giving me feedback on characters, pacing and helping me tie up all the loose strands of the plot. I couldn't have done it without you.

  Table of contents

  1 - There Were Three

  2 - A Home Away From Home

  3 - Blood

  4 - Fight Or Flight

  5 - Building

  6 - Drive

  7 - Bargaining Tool

  8 - Purgatory

  9 - The Night

  10 - The Day

  11 - Consume

  12 - Remembrance

  13 - Recovery Or Death

  Epilogue

  For Richard Harris

  I miss your jokes.

  1

  There Were Three

  The weather and choppy water that surrounded the dark granite rocks of the island had done its work on the limb, causing the flesh to hang in ragged greying strips from the bone. Despite the damage it was still clearly identifiable as human; there was even a hint of nail varnish left on the largely blackened fingernails of the broken hand.

  Marcus chewed his lip, the wind rustling through the folds of the grimy coat that hung off his broad shoulders as he peered at the remains and prodded the skin with his boot. I glanced at him and saw little more than curiosity in his twinkling blue eyes. The sea spray clung to his forehead, globules on his curling straw-coloured hair. His young features barely seemed to register the harsh conditions of the island and he didn't seem to have aged at all since I had first met him, whenever that was.

  Cato, standing on the other side of me, was almost the opposite. The spray of the fishing trips seemed to tear his skin raw, so much so that new creases and cracks appeared in his features almost daily. I would have felt sorry for him if he wasn't such a bore. He exhaled nervously. He was exhibiting his usual and deeply irritating trait of formulating his words before he spoke them, which made his tremulous voice sound almost alien, as if he were simply reading words off a page. His thinning, scruffy hair whipped around his face as he finally spoke.

  “… that’s the third part today, isn't it? It... stinks.”

  “Watch this,” said Marcus, his lip curling to bare his teeth in a crooked smile. He forced his foot down carefully, pushing through the muscle and skin like crepe paper. Black blood oozed over his boots.

  “Oh please, I think you'll make me... I'm going to... don't!” said Cato, his voice fluttering and indistinct in the wind as he turned away, his face pale.

  “Man up Cato, it's just skin, and other things. I could cook it if you want,” said Marcus, his voice in direct contrast to Cato's, a confident baritone. He stooped and picked up the body part. I blanched, imagining the feeling of the rotting meat in his hand. I turned away and followed Cato. The smell made me retch.

  “Bloody hell, put it down,” I said, trying to keep the fish from breakfast from coming back up. It had been a bit rancid at the time but I didn't want to be sick, not again. It seemed that something or other on the island made me ill almost every day.

  Marcus casually dropped the arm and wiped his hand on his coat, leaving a greasy sheen.

  “You two are so dull, can't have a bit of fun can I? It's just meat. If we could get any beef here it would be the same. It's just a dead animal.”

  “Woman,” I said, looking at the nails, “probably.”

  Cato was right of course. It was the third part today, and over the last week how many had there been? Eleven, twelve… maybe more, all carrying different shapes, sizes, colours and states of putrefaction.

  “I told you we should go back… we should have gone back earlier in the year when we still had a bit of sunshine,” said Marcus. He kicked a chunk of charcoal from the remains of last night’s fire and it skittered across the rocks before dropping into the foaming water, leaving a pockmarked trail on the stone. It slowly floated away, beginning a new journey, a little burned out skiff.

  “Go back where?” said Cato, his voice rising. “I don't know where we are, do you?”

  “Let's not talk about this again, you're both boring me. I'm bored,” I said as I kicked the arm back into the sea where it tumbled and rolled in the waves. I could almost imagine it grasping for a handhold on the rocks, trying to pull a body that it no longer possessed to safety.

  “I know why you're bored. I do. Marcus does. You're bored...” Marcus thrust his hands out theatrically, “because there's nothing here! We've looked at every inch of this place and the only house is ours. Well, I’m calling it a house but if we get another storm it'll just be a pile of wood, plastic and rust.” Marcus turned on his heel and started to walk back up towards the small house that clung to the side of the hillock behind us, crouched against the slowly blackening sky. He crushed damp heather under his feet.

  “Yes but... granted... but... I still don't want to go,” said Cato, his small hand clutching at my sleeve as a light drizzle started to fall from the east. “My dad always said to stick with what you know, and we know the island.”

  “Stick with what you know? That's not really a saying designed to further mankind now is it?” said Marcus hefting up a piece of driftwood and slashing wildly at the foliage nearby. It cracked and fragmented in the wind. “If we all 'stuck with what we knew' we'd never leave infancy.”

  My teeth ground together as the bickering continued.

  “Always arguing... I'm so tired of you all...” the words came out automatically, almost like the release of a deep breath after being submerged. No sooner had I said the words than I began to feel guilt welling up inside me.

  Cato had stopped in his tracks. I turned back to see his face fall in horror. He must have known I felt this way; it can't have been a surprise. Maybe the surprise was the fact that I had said it, I had actually spoken the words. Cato hung his head and his shoulders started to shake as weak sobs racked his fragile frame.

  Marcus came bounding down the slope from the house, fire in his eyes as his coat flared out behind him.

  “What did you say? Tired of us all? All of us? You... you,” his finger jabbed me in the chest so hard I had to take a step back, “are tired of us?”

  His nostrils flared as he spoke, a dab of spittle running down his lip. It flicked in the sea breeze, twisting away into the air.

  “What will Perdita say?” he continued, stomping back off towards the house. “She dotes on you, you ungrateful wretch!”

  The rough wooden door swung back slowly and out of the gloom stepped Perdita, small and pale. Her chestnut hair framed her face in a halo of curls and her grey eyes glittered with the beginning of tears. Her little blue dress fluttered in the breeze. Marcus rushed to put his arm around her tiny shoulders, and glared at me. I felt tears start to well up in my own eyes.

&nbs
p; “It's true, I do, but... you feel tired of Cato, and he must feel tired of you... everyone gets tired...” I sighed, running out of steam, almost as if I was being dampened by the rain. “Sorry. I shouldn't have said anything, I won't leave you behind. I'm sure you wouldn't let me anyway.”

  It was true for the most part, I was sorry, however Marcus merely scowled by way of a reply. The rain was starting to fall in bigger droplets now, splashing off the leaves of the trees as the clouds started to move across our small and solitary land, covering every inch from the top of the hillock peak to the low peat bog on the far side.

  “Come on, inside,” said Marcus, leading Perdita by the hand back into the safety of the house. Cato slowly trudged past me, following them into the house. Its bowed timbers always seemed on the brink of collapse from their outside appearance but it had been skilfully constructed over the course of those first few painful and strange days.

  I followed them with resignation weighing down every leaden step. There were so many things that jarred with this absurd situation, living with this dysfunctional “family”, for want of a better word, yet it was preferable to loneliness, surely.

  It had been raining then too, almost relentlessly, all those weeks ago when Marcus had first pulled me to my feet, his strong arms righting me easily. I had been lying on the shingle, mutely counting the stones with my little finger, lost in a daze. He had hugged me close, warmed my soul, and set me straight.

  Those first two days had been almost exhilarating, just him and I. He was brash and bold, full of a heady sense of adventure that swept me along with him as we built our shelter and explored our new home. We had cheered when we had found the washed up wreck of the fishing boat that would yield most of the timber for our house, along with many other useful items of survival. The large net and lifeboat in particular were invaluable assets and the smiles had never left our faces as we struck out for the sea, soon pulling in our first modest harvest of mackerel.

  It was soon after, as we had boiled the fish in seawater on the rocky beach, that Marcus' strange nature had started to show itself. He had eaten voraciously, sometimes not even stopping to chew, virtually inhaling his food to such an extent that he had sometimes vomited, although this hadn't and still didn't seem to bother him, in the same way that a baby simply gets rid of what is making it feel ill before carrying on. If he went without food too long he would sometimes even begin weeping, huge sobs shaking his body as I hurriedly gathered a meal together.

  Our carefree days ended when we had found Cato, huddled beneath a rock that we had overturned to search for treasure in a fit of childish glee. He had been cocooned in sand and water and his milky eyes had flicked open and looked into mine with a curiously weary expression. Already I had somehow disturbed and disappointed him, as we had clumsily helped him to his feet, naked and wrinkled as a dried fruit. He had soon begun his habit of constantly trying to set up rules and guidelines for Marcus, always being the first to pick fault with any of our machinations, even before we had started. We had clothed him in the rags we found strewn along the corpse of the fishing boat; old waders and work shirts. He now followed us like a lost mongrel, his observations and advice dragging clouds across the sun.

  By this time the uncanny nature of the situation had started to tease questions from the back of my subconscious, though I had to disregard them from necessity due to the total absence of knowledge of what had come before.

  The only time that Cato had released his grip on eternal pessimism was when we had found Perdita, hanging by her hair in the tall tree on the other side of the island, surrounded by mud and heather. Her face had been peaceful as she had slept, with her feet gently crossed and her arms resting by her side. Her dress had been too thin for the chill weather, though it hadn't so much as fluttered despite the wind that had been cutting across us from the north. Marcus had been his usual irrepressible self, running towards her as soon as he spotted the child, before jumping up again and again in the vain attempt to drag her down. Cato – abandoning his reticence this one and only time – had also bounded towards her, though his leaps had been noticeably less effective than Marcus', whose huge fingers had occasionally brushed her toes as he soared upwards. It was as if she had infected them and I must admit I had also drawn to her, and still was, as if she were a forgotten glorious dream or a long lost treasure suddenly unearthed. It was I who had suggested that Marcus lift Cato so that they could succeed in releasing her.

  As Cato had reached up gingerly, boosted upwards by Marcus' broad shoulders, his hands had moved through Perdita's hair. The dark strands had released their grip on the branch, twisting and falling about her shoulders. The sight had reminded me not so much of a living creature but more of seaweed dancing in the ripples of unseen currents.

  Cato had carefully held her as Marcus had lowered both of them to the ground, before her eyes had lazily fluttered open. She had said a quiet little “thank you”, the only two words we had ever heard her speak on the island. And when she had smiled all of my troubles and isolation had been forgotten and we had adopted her into our family.

  Until now, despite the somewhat grim nature of my life, I wasn't too depressed. This was largely because I had nothing to compare my present circumstances to. I knew there was more out there than this decaying microcosm of an island, humans crawling from babies to children, leaping from children to adults, before collapsing towards death. I had once been with them all, before I had come here. I must have been, or else why would I have these memories? No, not exactly memories, more like a knowledge of society, without the accompanying knowledge of my own part within it.

  Cato stumbled on a gnarled root and bundled into my legs, breaking my reverie. I helped him to his feet but he only frowned by way of thanks. The rain was starting to chill me, running in icy rivulets down my neck, so I hurried up towards the house. The door was swinging backwards and forwards, its handle held tightly in the impatient hand of Marcus.

  I stomped the dirt from my boots and slipped inside, sidling past his accusatory stare. The door slowly closed as I knelt down by the blackened hearth and started to build the fire. Marcus didn't lend a hand, as he usually did at this time of the day, instead choosing to lean against the corrugated steel of the wall. The wind started to whip the raindrops onto the thin structure that surrounded us, a cacophony of water on metal. It made any conversation impossible, for which I was glad. I needed to retain some control over the situation.

  We had started using an old boat hook (with the shaft broken off) and a piece of flint to start the evening fires. This method was nowhere near as easy as using a lighter, but the one we had found in the boat's cabin had run out not long after we had found it. The mouldy cigarettes alongside hadn't been salvageable – rotting in the mulch of a soft pack – but it wasn't a big loss. I had no idea if I smoked, or had smoked.

  After a while the fire started to hold and a comforting warmth spread through the house's single dingy room. Salvaged blankets made up our bedding, while a couple of haphazard shelves held the few items of interest from our scavenging trips. The rain was starting to die down a little too, making the crackle of the burning heather audible. Marcus was idly scratching patterns in the earth with his fingernails, pretending to ignore me, until I finally spoke.

  “All right... yes. Let's go tomorrow, head out to the... mainland. Or bigger island. Whichever.”

  Marcus ground his teeth, his strong fingers cutting deep into the impacted earth with worrying strength.

  “Is that all right?” I asked, pulling a blanket around my shoulders and swigging from a rusty canteen. The water on the island was probably the location's best feature, cool and clear from a spring near the summit.

  “Are you sure you want us along?” Marcus said, his eyes cast resolutely down towards his pictographs. Cato shuffled his feet in his den of blankets and Perdita peered at me from across the fire. Guilt again twisted in my belly. They were my family and in their eyes, my own eyes, I had betrayed them.
They relied on me to look after them, tempering Cato and seeing to Marcus' many wants and needs.

  “Of course, of course I do.” The words were mostly true. For better or worse, they were all I had.

  “If I don't want to go, I mean, what if... what if it's too dangerous? What if we're not wanted there? We need to keep ourselves safe, I always say that... everything at its time, everything in moderation...” said Cato. He looked away as soon as he had finished the sentence, obviously fearing rebuttal from Marcus or myself. No matter how many times he tried to correct us, it was always with a slight air of melancholy.

  “We'll vote,” said Marcus, standing up and roughly clapping his hands together to clear the dirt. The sound was a thunderclap in the small hovel.

  “All in favour of civilisation, interesting people and a life away from this forsaken latrine of an island say aye!” His voice carried deep oratory confidence, as if he were rallying the troops into a final push. He glared at Cato with eyes wide and bright, daring the small man to go against him.

  Cato to his credit held out for almost ten seconds, his mouth noiselessly wording weak arguments, before he finally croaked a pitiful “aye.” Perdita simply nodded, her vote not necessary for a consensus but still welcomed by Marcus. He strode over to her and patted her gently on the shoulder.

  “Good girl. Let's see what's out there,” he said, grinning broadly as his teeth flashed white in the firelight.

  The morning was thankfully crisp and clear, the storm clouds having moved off during the night. After breathing the air for a few moments with my breath crystallizing in front of my face, I ducked back inside the house to gather the sack filled with our worldly possessions. It had taken a depressingly short time to fill. With it slung over my shoulder I started off down the small slope towards the beach, with the others falling into step behind me. Marcus was humming Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries under his breath, and I felt momentarily impressed with myself that I somehow knew the piece. I couldn't have told you who Wagner was, however. His name was just a word, floating like bread in the curdled milk of my mind. Milk and bread, was that good for hedgehogs, or not? What exactly was a hedgehog?