Reek, page 17
Oscar and everyone developed a slower walk, a timid pace as if at any moment the ground would rage and the sky would fall. Many, if not all of the historical buildings were gone, much like the old station. People–friends–had been crushed into a bloody paste. During a disaster, you think this moment is as bad as it gets; the worst moment in your life, something which can never be equaled.
For Henare and the town, they were wrong.
The port, the same one he had sat at earlier in the day had seen its last days, there was no point in denying it. The massive cruise ships from his youth with passengers with massive wallets had transferred over to Akaroa, far away from Lyttelton. A scythe had come down slicing through the town, cleaving its heart in two. No dock meant no cargo ships. No cargo ships meant a harbor town without purpose. Oscar wasn't the only one living on nothing. Throw a fucking rock, chances were you would hit three to four people in the same situation. Whatever the town had going for it was long gone. As were most of its inhabitants. People like Oscar and Henare, people who knew about Pokere were becoming like the Moa, the ancient giant bird of New Zealand. Long extinct.
“Look, Oscar, I know you and Mags aren't doing so good. Things are shit right now, I'm not blind, mate. But what you've done, you've set these people up for the slaughterhouse.”
Oscar got this look, as though there was hope. “Nah, I reckon they'll be fine. There hasn't been a stink in years. Maybe a decade. Could be things are alright over there now.”
He had wished much the same too. The Reek, as locals called it, hadn't poked its awful head around Lyttelton in a long time. But with the quake and everything else, Henare had a nagging suspicion–policeman's prerogative–things would never be finished with Pokere. Old-timers mused the quake was only the first step in Pokere's revenge. Nonsense, of course...but popular nonsense. Stripping away the curse didn't do any good, the stain was too deep. Some shit never washed out.
“You need to get me over there. Right now.”
Oscar started shaking his head before he finished his sentence. “Can't do that, Hen.”
“I'm not asking.”
“Mate, you know those waters this time of day. My crappy boat? We'd be swept up bef-”
“It's a bitch move, but I'll sit down with Mags and fill her in. Don't think I won't.” Henare was glad he'd taken that step back earlier. Oscar twitched the way most people do before they lashed out. Even though he was pushing 6'2 and had a good thirty pounds on the guy, Oscar had nothing. Guys who had nothing fought nastier and longer than most crackheads. Henare shook his belt, just a little rattle, enough to show the cuffs and the piece. It usually did the trick and it did so now.
Oscar settled; the bleating resumed. “Hen, don't. Mags, s-she's not so hot this week. Let's leave her out, eh?”
Henare looked past him, far beyond to the port itself. Most of the lights were off. Those beaming orange lights; radiating with a glow that Henare found romantic in an industrialized sort of way. Even the cranes were stagnating; titans frozen against the sky. The water beyond didn't seem too choppy. “Looks clear enough. Let's go.”
“Hen, you're not a sailor. Trust me on this, we go out there, we're not coming back.”
“Just like those Japanese, huh? It's on your hands, mate. Don't shirk it off, go to bed like you did an honest day's work. Only way this works out well for you is if we go now, right?”
“Listen, I-I know what you are sayin', eh, but you gotta understand that no one is getting across there. Those waters will take you down. No bodies. No boat. I know I fucked up but I'm not going out there. No other captain will either. If you're bent on getting there, you'll have to wait, 'less you have a helicopter.”
Stage Four: Advanced Decay
11:04:12:02
“You'll do it, won't you, Yui?”
Kojima startled her, like he was right on top of her; his mouth hovering near her ear. They were all looking at her now. Mr. Sato, one of the camera guys–she didn't know their names. She had flown halfway around the world with them, got involved in something she didn't understand with things going from bad right on past worse to downright terrifying and she didn't know their names–and Mr. Kojima. The three of them looked at her, and she couldn't hold back a shiver.
“S-sorry,” she said. Her voice sounded a shadow of itself, an impostor. “What are you talking about?”
She had watched them, the group. It was her job. Watch and report. To help the viewers understand. They experienced things through her, it was essential she kept an eye on everything. Sato and Kojima both wanted her body for different reasons. Sato, into his twilight years–kicking and screaming–wanted to to prove he still had 'it'; that thing that men seemed to crave beyond all else. That power which aided them so well in their youth. Yui could see it in him; see it as vividly as a collection of road work lighting at night. High beam. For Kojima, he needed a puppet. Small budget or big, she imagined all directors needed their puppets. A person devoted to anything and everything they demanded. Recently, even before the fight with Jin, there had been something about him, a madness. More and more she watched, if only to avoid him.
Then, came the ghosts. She hadn't believed, not for one second. The thought of spirits didn't offend her; just another thing in a long line of topics that she couldn't have cared less about. Like tax rises or economics, that boring stuff. After the events of the foyer, seeing what had happened to Mai, Yui was having trouble focusing on anything else.
They could be anywhere. Ready to attack me. That was the thing, the worm that burrowed into her thoughts. Nobody knew anything! Like walking into a lion's den and expecting the cats to make coffee. On this island they had no guns or weapons. What happened to Mai could happen to her. She could be next. When the three men turned to her, asking about something, it was becoming common practice for her mind to be elsewhere.
“Okada and yourself are going to do some more filming upstairs,” Kojima said, in a manner as though he was asking her to pop down to the convenience store. “We haven't got enough footage of us interacting with the place itse...” His voice droned out. Upstairs. More filming. Up where they were. Hiding, waiting to get her. Her fingers started to tingle. The room felt cold to her, the sun was starting to go down.
“Upstairs? By ourselves?”
Kojima's face changed, as though he was presented with the challenge of talking to a child, asking a question beyond her little mind. “Now, Yui,” he started. Kojima seemed to always start speaking, as though once he would be finished, there would be no need for any more talking. “Okada will be with you. It's just upstairs. You'll be on camera the whole time. You'll be fine, won't she, Mr. Sato?”
This is what it had come to. She knew was fragile, though she preferred the word delicate. What had started out so good; a new show, something backed by a famous director, had now turned into a situation in which she was being passed around like a dirty diaper, going from one person who didn't want to deal with it to another. An annoyance.
“Yui,” Sato said, all kind smiles and raised eyebrows, “don't worry. If anything happens, I'll come.” She saw Kojima bristle at this, just a little. Not the pep talk he wanted.
“Why can't Sato come?” She had dropped the honorific, not the most pressing of concerns when ghosts came into the situation.
“We already have plenty of footage of Mr. Sato. It's you I want the camera to focus on now. You, I want the audience to spend time with. Don't forget, this project is going to put you up there, Yui. From my experience, this is the kind of thing that makes a girl into a Fuji TV announcer.”
Fuji TV. Those girls had it made. Steady contract, the best makeup and fashion. Most married up-and-coming baseball players. Still, she felt a knot form in her bladder. The worst timing, as the makeshift toilet the team had constructed creeped her out. Just another thing to add to the pile.
“Yui,” Kojima said, “please. Okada's waiting.”
She looked over at Okada. The man was big, fourteen beef bowl's overweight with the kind of shifting, unsteady eyes that made Yui want to slap his face raw. He fiddled with a camera, faking some kind of tech issue to avoid being part of the conversation. “Can't we film tomo-”
“NOW!” His yell froze her to the spot. Kojima suddenly seemed so very big. A giant facing down a little girl. “I'm down three crew and you think you're in a position to give me crap?” he said, his mouth pulling tight in a smile, “You'll film, or I'll throw your ass in one of those huts outside and block the door. I'll film that, see how you do in a place with no light and no way out. Watch what happens when one of those ghosts comes knocking!”
“Kojima,” Sato cut in, “you should stop y-”
“Yes or no? YES OR NO?” The scream was so loud it made his voice go hoarse at the end. He moved towards her, moved to do God knew what.
“Yes!” Yui screamed.
Tears started to fall as she walked past him. Okada stopped playing with the camera, eyes on the floor. She grabbed him by the shoulder and walked up the stairs, feeling Kojima's eyes on her back all the way up.
11:11:58:20
Jin had walked the edge of the island. He was rewarded with torn trousers and little else, as he suspected. The cliffs were too high, and no boats passed by close enough for shouts or a small fire to work. The place was cut off, avoided.
As it rightfully should be, he thought.
He had to get back to Mai, had to change her bandages. The hut was safe; lacking the oppression of the hospital but it wouldn't last. The malignant presence was getting stronger. Something was waking up. Nowhere on the island would be safe in a matter of hours. He was just about to turn back when he saw Anno.
The man looked as though he had aged twenty years since they had last met. His eyes were sunken, skin seemingly stretched tight across his face; cheekbones jutting out. Gone was the round, optimistic face he had sported on the trip over. He stood on the brink of a cliff, tips of his Converse sneakers edging over the side. The man looked in a daze, as though he had no idea his toes were kissing air. Jin was running before he could think about the man's intentions. The wind was cold against his face, and something else; chilling in its intensity. Jin pushed off a tree to get to Anno, and the Gift exploded around him.
A man, tall and emaciated, clothes all white and speckled with blood.
He held a long staff with a strange C shape curving off at the end. The sight made Jin's balls shrivel up; his whole body wanted to stop moving as though it had just walked into the gaze of a hunter. The man thrust the staff right at his face, the hook closing around his throat, the temperature beyond chilling.
Jin hit Anno at an angle, sending them away from the edge, slamming to the ground. The image pulled away from Jin's mind the instant his ear connected with dirt. A buzzing noise, sharp and blaring, rang out.
“Anno!” he said, grabbing the man's shoulder. The Gift unraveled, his being pouring into him, like water filling up a glass. He reached every part of him, knew and felt what he had. Something nasty had gotten to him. Anno had withdrawn into such a deep well of despair, he was easy prey for the island; leaving the car running with an open door, keys in the ignition. They slapped people in the movies, so Jin did the same. His hand stung instantly, with Anno's face turning pink. If it hurt him, it didn't show. His eyes were open, pupils milky white. “Wake up!” Jin remembered seeing him at the edge of the island.
He crawled across the dirt, keeping his belly low to the ground, best to be careful. That presence, that man in white, was still around. He could taste it on the air. Sour. His hands gripped the edge of the cliff; fingers sinking into soft earth and tufts of dry grass. Below he saw a small cove; gray sand and dark shadows taking all the romance out of it. Several shipwrecks still stood, little more than rib cages opened up to the sky. He had seen it, of course. Seen the fates of those poor souls. He didn't need to touch the wrecks to know. Anno had shown him.
The sailors had misjudged the island, running their ships ashore. Once stuck, they saw the other wrecks, obscured by the rocks. The men and women had explored the island, eager to turn disaster into something positive. Instead, they were slaughtered. By what, Jin could not see. Only the carnage left behind. Something huge had torn through the party, feasting on them, their meat. He was a witness courtesy of Anno and through him, the being that had pulled back the curtain and given the history lesson, the man with the C-shaped staff. But there was something beyond him, the man the figurehead, sure. The mouthpiece, but what controlled him was so massive, so dreadful, the slightest sense of it made Jin's heart feel like it would threaten to give out.
“Oh God, he sees us!” Jin startled, turning to find Anno screaming, his hands flying up to his own face before Jin knew what was happening. Fingers dug into flesh, ripping as he pulled down from his cheeks. Blood gushed out fast, dribbling onto the ground. Jin landed on him hard, his body flattening to the ground. Pushing Anno's hands to the ground, he saw his eyes were untouched, but the wounds went deep into the skin.
He's going to be scarred for life, Jin thought, adding, if we make it out of this, we all will.
“He sees. He knows,” Anno said, straining at Jin's weight. “A feast, there's going to be a feast. The grandest feast of them all!”
“Who sees? The man in white?” Anno stopped struggling, his power gone. Dead weight. He craned his neck; their faces almost touching. Anno's eyes swirled, looking in every direction.
“Yes,” he said. His face took on an almost childlike innocence; happy to know that Jin understood. “Yes, the Shepard sees you, Jin Tanaka.”
“You said there would be a feast?”
Anno lowered his head at once, his skull bouncing off the ground. “Yes. Us.” A chill bit into Jin, traveling down his body. This time when he slapped, Anno responded. “Ow, what the hell?”
“Good. Nice to have you back.” He tugged, pulling him up.
“Back?” Anno said. “W-where am I, what happened? My head hurts, did I fall?” With a start, he touched his face. “I'm bleeding! Is it bad?”
Jin started walking. “Fill you in on the way. Only thing that matters is that we get back now, with what little light we have, trust me.”
Shadows grew long on the ground, reaching out for their feet. The men started walking. Behind them, Anno's blood soaked into the dirt. The ground was thirsty.
11:16:15:11
“A mystery and a tragedy surrounds Pokere Island. The poor souls originally quarantined were never found, with search parties also saccumbing to the same fate.”
Okada stopped filming, sliding the camera off his shoulder. “Uh, Yui? It's succumbing. Su.” She blinked, staring at him in a way usually reserved for dogs shitting on their owner's beds.
“I what?”
“Um, you said saccu-”
She waved him off. “Never mind. I get it, I messed the line. I'll...I'll...” Her chin hitched up as she started to cry.
Oh no, Okada thought. Do I hug her? Maybe just a pat on the shoulder?
“I can't think straight anymore. I just can't,” she said, covering her face with her hands.
“I-I'm sorry. We can take a break if you'd like? I can turn the camera off?” It was easy to say, but he really didn't want to turn it off; the camera's light was the brightest thing in the room. The lanterns were woefully inadequate, little more than mood setters. Yui nodded; fingers dabbing at the corners of her eyes, keeping her makeup intact. Okada followed through, shutting off the camera.
They were in what must have been a resting room for the patients. The room was smaller than the rest, the ceiling lower. A couple of wooden chairs, remains of tables here and there with a long scorch mark cutting across two of the walls. In the center, an ugly hole took up most of the floor. Rotted boards bent inwards, the room underneath pitch black. Jin had said something about the room below, the one with the locked door. He had told everyone to stay away, talking down to them like they were children. The asshole was unbelievable. Okada wanted to turn the camera back on, shoot light into the hole. If a ghost was in there and anything like the one that attacked Mai it wouldn't be able to climb up to grab him. He might be able to sell the footage himself. Use his still camera, get some images. Make a buck or two...or a million.
“How can you stand it?”
“What do you mean?”
She sat on one of the chairs, careful to avoid the hole. “This place, Kojima, everything. You seem OK. You're not scared?”
He pulled up a chair for himself, setting the camera down on a table. It shook in meek protest but seemed to hold the weight. He kept his still camera around his neck, just in case. “Not really. Guess I'm used to it. I don't get scared until bullets start flying.” It was true. Well, mostly true. Okada figured telling her he was way out of his depth when it came to ghosts didn't seem terribly sensible. Part of him still didn't believe. It was easier that way. The thing in the hallway had been a person with rabies or something. Not a ghost. Couldn't be. Always an explanation.
“Even after what we've seen? After Mai?” She was searching for something from him. A need he didn't understand. Everyone had noticed how unstable Yui seemed over the last day. When Kojima had yelled at her, he had expected her to fall to the floor in tears. Something positive was needed if they were going to shoot more footage but damned if he knew the right words to say.
