White and Other Tales of Ruin

Like an animal seeking food, Roddy had suddenly been given a blind purpose. If one group of people would land, so could others. Rescue did not cross his mind, because he knew he was already lost. But if he did nothing else before the island finished him, he had to leave a message for any future visitors.

A warning.

5. HELL HATH NO LIMITS

Once, Roddy had been part of a cleaning out crew on a bombed ship. The effect of an explosion in an enclosed space was dreadful, and he thought he would never really get over the terrible things he saw in that tangled mess. In a way, the worst sights were those bodies still recognisable as such. The rest — the mess on the floors, the splashes across shattered bulkheads — could have been anything.

This was worse.

What Roddy saw scattered around the small cove sent him into deep shock. The more he saw, the worse he felt, and the more he was duty-bound to see. It was as if beholding the sights gave them weight, making them real and significant. He wandered from scene to scene, an observer in the most gruesome and perverted museum ever conceived.

The sea sighed onto the beach, most of its awesome power already tempered by the reef surrounding the island. The air was heavy with moisture, even though the sun had yet to touch this part of the world today. The sand was hot and sharp where it found its way into his shoes, and if there were any creatures viewing his discovery with him, they were silent. The island was still holding its breath.

They were mostly skeletons. In places hair and skin prevailed, but the flesh had long since shrivelled to nothing or been eaten by scavengers. Teeth hung black and worn from gaping jaws. Orchids grew through a ribcage like twisted, rooted insides. A skull was clamped halfway up a thin tree, face plate split open by the growth of the palm through a void where life had once held memory and faith. A skeleton lay wrapped around the boles of two trees, hips split asunder by one, spine snapped and bent outwards by the other. The jaws hung open, full of a nettle-like plant, as if the trees still gave it pain. Two bodies lay in each other’s arms, half buried in sand blown by decades of sea breeze. One skull was shattered, the other merely dented and cracked. One bony hand held a pistol. A plant grew from its barrel, pluming smoke frozen forever in time.

Roddy stumbled from one tableau to the next, keening uncontrollably, searching frantically for something on which to blame this atrocity, but finding only evidence of these people’s good intentions. A box, lid only slightly askew, contained the faded and pulped pages from dozens of books and manuscripts. Looking closer, Roddy could make out the embossed crosses on their covers.

Rusted knives lay loose between chewed ribs.

A frayed rope hung a corpse from a tree, and a small colourful bird alighted on its bony shoulder. Perhaps it thought the body still held some hidden sustenance, but more likely it was simply gloating.

Roddy stared out at the ship, unable to look at the bodies any more, unwilling to think upon what they must have gone through as they set foot on the island. It was little more than a rotten wreck, masts long since fallen, sails and ropes torn away by the ageless tides. It was stuck firm and most of the timber boarding had been stripped from its ribs. The ship, like those who had sailed in her, lay with innards naked and exposed to the elements. The whole scene was like some sadistic, ongoing sacrifice, laid out as an eternal display for the benefit of whatever had called for it.

Roddy had never imagined such pointless devastation or despair. The agony of the moment hung in the air as if the travellers had killed themselves only yesterday, rather than decades ago. His presence here felt intrusive. But he was no longer alone.

On the air, he smelled fresh blood and bad flesh.

He saw the body along the beach, but it was not until he stumbled nearer that he recognised Max. The big man was still grasping the rusted, blunted blade he must have plucked from the bony grip of one long since dead. He had hacked at his stomach, sawn the blade back and forth, ripping flesh and skin asunder. His head was thrown back, his mouth open in an endless groan of agony, his bald head caked in sand still damp from sweat. The beach around him was black with his own leaked blood.

“Oh Max,” Roddy cried. He felt abandoned and deserted; up until this moment he had still harboured a hope that Max would reappear, however unlikely it had seemed. Now, his wish had been granted. Max was back with him. Roddy wondered which of the strange noises in the night had been Max’s agonised scream.