Three Strikes Read online

  I crossed the stream, balancing on the rocks, then went up the steep, quicker side of the mountain. I started shouting for Mum before I got to the summit. She’d hate that, the unnecessary noise, scaring her cat away; she wouldn’t shout back.

  I just wanted to let her know I was coming.

  To wait.

  It’s the middle of the night again.

  Seems I often write in this thing by torchlight.

  Sam’s snoring. The light is on in the cabin across the clearing. Has Pete found out how to rewind the footage yet? Or maybe he’s just wanking in there.

  I can see the scrunched-up paper Sam chucked across the room, the paper he wouldn’t let me read. Did Sam forget about it?

  I’m going to read it now.

  OK, I have.

  Not sure

    what

       to think.

  It was about me. I guess I was right.

  Sam just didn’t want me to see it.

  So.

  So.

  It says…

  Kasha Fintry. Sixteen years. Killed her mother? She thinks so. No one will miss her.

  There are other things too, but…

  No one will miss her?

  Why would anyone write that? Even Lily?

  Even spidery bitch-faced Lily?

  I’m still staring at it. I want to wake Sam. I’m not even angry at him anymore for lying about it, or trying to hide it.

  Maybe it’s true anyway. No one would miss me. No one does. Not even Dieter. Definitely not Cynthia Sugartits. They’re probably glad I’m not staying in their house anymore.

  No one at school.

  No. One. Would.

  No. One. Does.

  Perhaps I did do the right thing by coming out here. Perhaps the best thing to do now would be to stay out here forever, disappear into the dark. Never go back.

  To go away now.

  But why did Lily write it? What’s it to her anyway, who misses me or not? What does she care?

  Is this just another part of her strange psychology experiment?

  It makes me feel weird.

  Hollow.

  Like nothing.

  I’ve got a horrible shivery feeling down my spine.

  I don’t want to be here. A part of me would even rather be with Dieter and Cynthia, back in his plastic city apartment he keeps threatening to move me into permanently (as if the past ten months living there haven’t been enough already).

  No!

  That part of me’s stupid if it thinks that! Who’d want that? No mountain. No woods. No cubby. No … Sam.

  Perhaps Mum was right – me and her against the world. Us girls.

  Perhaps that’s all there was.

  The trees are moving out there, I’m sure. I’ve seen leaves part like there’s something walking between them. Something that’s not so tall as a human, unless that human is crawling.

  Could it be a soldier like Pete says? Just one?

  I keep looking to check that no one’s crept up on us. It’s creepy. As I look down and write this, I imagine someone is coming towards me … and when I look up next, they’ll be frozen mid-step across the clearing, like a statue. Isn’t there a game like that? Who’s afraid, Mr Wolf? Is that what it’s called? Didn’t I play it with Dieter when I was a kid?

  I just did that: looked up quickly. But there was nothing in the clearing, nothing frozen or stalking close to us…

  But in the trees behind … still something…?

  Something shadow-black. A cat? I’m not dreaming this time. I’m definitely awake. I’m writing this down, aren’t I? Branches are definitely shifting. Waist height.

  Is Pete watching it on the cameras too?

  I have a thought which seems kind of crazy, but also kind of possible. What if it was a black cat that got Lily and George? Not soldiers, not warring tribes, not some stupid task that went wrong…

  They have black cats in jungles, don’t they?

  Didn’t I see one the other night?

  And now I’m thinking something else … what if Mum’s black cat was real? What if she wasn’t lying about seeing it?

  Or is this just the dark talking?

  I’ll go out and check.

  Will I?

  Even if I saw a cat out there in the trees, how could I convince the others? I can’t even take a photo. It’s Mum’s paradox all over again. A cat, or not a cat … real or unreal. To look or not to look. How did I go halfway around the world and find myself in her dilemma? Maybe that’s the whole point. Was always the whole point. It’s almost funny.

  And now I’ve just thought something else … perhaps there IS a camera here.

  George’s handheld. Of course. Where’s that gone?

  Sam’s still snoring. No movement from either of the other cabins. Even the movement in the trees seems to have stopped.

  I’ll look for the camera while there’s nothing much else going on.

  Crap!

  I need to write this properly – what I’ve found – there’s so much.

  Hang on … Sam’s up. I’ll show him.

  Hang on.

  If anyone does find this notebook and reads it, you need to know this.

  IT’S NOT OURS!

  None of it.

  That.

  Is.

  What’s.

  True.

  We did not do this!

  If anyone’s reading this … believe it!

  We did not even know our bags were there!

  So … I’ll explain.

  I didn’t find the camera, but I found the bags. Our bags. I found what they’d put inside them.

  So, if this journal’s found, and we’re not…

  Shit, there’s no time to write properly. Do this justice. Understand. Sam thinks we should wake the others. Show them. He’s right.

  Hang on, there’s a shout from Pete. Calling us to come.

  Did he see what I just found?

  He’s still shouting.

  ‘I’ve got in! I’m in!’

  I’m going.

  32 hours. That’s how long it’s been since I last wrote in here. A lot has happened.

  An understatement!

  Under

  Under

  Under

  And I’m stuck again,

  in the understory I’m telling

  and in the undergrowth I’m looking at.

  So many unders.

  At least it’s dark and quiet when you’re underneath.

  I wish it were just Sam and me, curled up under a blanket, somewhere far away, dark and quiet underneath … and that’s all.

  I was sort of joking before about writing down everything in case something happened to us. I’m not joking about that anymore.

  I am alone here now.

  It’s hard to make jokes for one.

  I should go out and look for them. Smash all the cameras on the way.

  Or perhaps I should just start writing from where I left off, and WAIT.

  It’s not a bad thing, after all, to stay in one place. Wait for Sam … the others … something…

  But until then?

  I should write All The Things That Happened.

  So, in order…

  I saw the advert. Talked about it with Sam.

  I went to the meeting.

  Dieter paid the money after considerable persuasion.

  So did Sam.

  I got on The Tribe easily. Met the others.

  Then there was all that information – the orientation, being told about the tasks, the TV documentary.

  We took the plane.

  It was night-time when we arrived on this island. Lily and George took our phones and bags (passports too).

  Initiation dinner. We drank that harsh plant liquor shit.

  The task of writing this journal. Therapy sessions. The talking to camera.

  We learnt about bush foods with George.

  More sessions with Lily. More plant liquor shit. Group bonding arou
nd the fire.

  And then … the group task to put the flag on top of the hill behind camp.

  Gunshots.

  Coming down the hill.

  Lily and George gone.

  The quiet.

  Finding the track.

  Going to the other camp.

  Finding the cameras.

  Finding the bags.

  Finding that footage.

  I’ve stopped – just staring at the page now. I know writing keeps my hands busy. Keeps me good. Writing it like this, in a list, happens too quickly though.

  In the 32 hours since I last wrote, my fingers have been busy in other ways. Making red tracks on my inner arms. Running through Sam’s hair.

  Cutting words into paper can be a good thing. Better than cutting into skin. The throbbing in my arms is testament to that.

  So.

  I’ll write what I found, once again – document it here. I’ll take as long as I want. If anyone is reading this, you’ll just have to be patient…

  I’ll tell you about finding the bags. What was in them. What happened next.

  I was opening up cupboards in the other camp, looking for George’s camera, something to film that cat thing I thought I’d seen (still think I might’ve seen).

  One cupboard under the sink seemed to go on forever – a gaping mouth of black.

  I could hide in there, I thought, disappear from the others and from everything else in that place. We could all hide in there if soldiers actually did come. I leant into it to see how far back it went.

  That’s when I found the bags.

  Our bags.

  This was where they’d stashed them.

  Lily and George had told us we’d only get them back once we’d completed all the tasks: only when we were ready to go home.

  So I pulled them out, one by one, all five. There were some spider webs on them and that creeped me out a bit, but no big leggy guys scuttled out. When I got my backpack, it was heavier than it should’ve been. Something inside.

  It’d seemed like ages since we’d unpacked. How many weeks though, was it? Two? Three? Not so long.

  (Time moves weird here.)

  They’d taken our bags and passports away so fast.

  The zip was stuck, so I took out the filleting knife from my shorts to try and lever it free. I gave my fingertips little nicks while I was at it. I liked how it felt so I did it some more. Nothing bad. This wasn’t proper cutting. Just a little taste, that’s all. Just to see when I could stop.

  I didn’t mean to rip the material. Just got carried away with all the nicking and didn’t want to tear strips off my own skin in the way that I’d really like (perhaps I’ve got better here after all. Maybe. A little.) Either way, the bag spewed open.

  There were little packets inside. Hundreds of them. Filled with something that looked like tree bark – ripped-up strips of it. All zipped up in plastic snap-lock bags. I opened one and smelt it. Woody. Kind of sweet. It didn’t look or smell like drugs, not ones I know anyway. But what do I know … it could’ve been anything. I checked the others’ cases too, ripped them all open. Packets in all of them. All filled with the torn-up bark stuff.

  That’s when I called for Sam.

  That’s when he said we should call for the others.

  I’m trying to be brief with this, not to get too emotional or jump to conclusions. But it doesn’t look good, does it? Not for everything Lily and George said about the programme. Not for The Tribe.

  Unless … could this discovery be part of it, another challenge; another task? Is that possible, even now? To go to such lengths? And if so, what exactly would the task be?

  To decide what to do with hundreds of packets of bark that could be drugs? Were L and G watching even now to see if we’d freak out, or smoke them, or escape with the lot?

  When I told Sam this, he thought about it too. ‘That’s kind of crazy,’ he said. ‘But … maybe?’

  But this…

  That…

  A bridge too far?

  We didn’t have long to think about it because that’s when Pete started calling for us to come.

  We went.

  We all went.

  Nyall and Annie came into the camera cabin a few seconds after us. Somehow, Pete had got the ancient-looking computer on; he’d cracked the code and was scrolling through files.

  ‘This is where they store the camera footage,’ he said. ‘You can see anything up to a week back. Not sure where the older footage goes though, if it goes anywhere … I mean, there’s another folder on here called ‘Tribe Members’ which has files in it too, but I can’t get into that one. That’s proper locked.’

  Annie rubbed her eyes, cat-like. ‘How’d you get into the first bit?’

  ‘Ah!’ Pete tapped his nose. ‘A man has to have his secrets.’

  I rolled my eyes. Sam saw and frowned at me. Perhaps he thought we had to be grateful to Pete for his wonder-work. Perhaps we did.

  ‘You are going to freak when you see,’ Pete said. ‘Get ready. It’s big.’

  He had it queued. The footage he wanted was from the camera pointed on the clearing in the middle of that camp. Pete fast-forwarded through a whole lot of Lily and George moving around, doing nothing much – until he got to where he wanted. After a moment of Lily and George talking to each other in the clearing, a beaten-about van turned up. We all sat forward then. This was different. We hadn’t seen a sign of anyone else since we got here.

  ‘That’s why there’s tyre tracks coming in!’ Nyall said.

  Pete nodded. ‘But wait till you see this bit.’

  ‘Soldiers?’ Annie asked. ‘Tribes?’

  ‘Don’t think so,’ said Pete.

  The three men who got out of that van didn’t look like soldiers, or even members of a tribe. They were in scruffy trousers and t-shirts; they were short and weedy. But they did carry guns. Two of them did anyway. AK-47s, like in the movies. They started talking with Lily and George. It was easy to see that the conversation got really heated really quick. None of us spoke as we watched.

  After a while more, one of the two men carrying the guns started properly shouting at George. He waved his free arm about and then pushed George backwards. The other one got more animated too as he talked to Lily. She looked away from him, to the other side of the clearing … in the direction of our camp? Or, maybe, to where those crops were? It was hard to tell, but I think she was frowning. Was she thinking about us? Those crops? Or maybe she was just deciding what to say to the crazy gun guy. We must’ve been on the hill behind our camp by then, with that task of planting their stupid flag.

  Can’t help wondering – could Lily have known these men were coming and that was why she’d set that task? Or maybe I’m just jumping to conclusions. It was probably just a coincidence – those men being there when we were further away.

  Either way, when the same guy started shouting at her some more, she just kept shaking her head. Really hard. Over and over.

  ‘Wish we had sound,’ Sam murmured.

  ‘She’s saying there’s no one else here,’ Annie said. ‘Telling him to go away!’

  Or…

  There was another option.

  Perhaps those men were just actors. It could all be an elaborate act to make us think …THINK WHAT?

  Was this all some trick, some game?

  Was there a chance that this stuff on the screen could be fake?

  Nothing made sense.

  Perhaps I’m going mad (like Mum) imagining these things. Thinking that strange men appearing in a van with guns could still be part of a psychological programme.

  It’s just another kind of Black Cat. Another kind of fantasy.

  Either way, when this man – who may or may not be an actor – didn’t get the answer he was after, he dragged Lily roughly towards the van. He grabbed her t-shirt tight with one hand and carried his gun in the other. Annie gasped when Lily fell.

  And then, it didn’t look so much like an act anymore.
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br />   George followed close behind, pushing and shouting. And unless he was super good at it, he didn’t look like he was acting, either. None of them did.

  We all sat up straighter, got closer to the screen. I felt the tension, holding us there.

  We watched.

  Lily was dragged to the other side of the van, and suddenly we couldn’t see her properly – the camera angle wasn’t right. We only saw the back of the man holding the gun, which he was still waving about.

  ‘Is there another camera that shows it any better?’ Sam asked.

  Pete shook his head. ‘Already tried. This is the only camera on that clearing.’

  But we saw enough to know what was going on. That man who’d pushed Lily out of shot held his gun up. He pointed it out to where she might have been lying. Would he shoot? He was aiming at her, wasn’t he?

  Beside me, I heard Sam breathe in.

  ‘The gunshots,’ Annie whispered.

  ‘We can’t just watch this,’ Nyall said.

  Too late.

  We saw shotgun man jerk backwards as he pulled the trigger.

  Annie gasped hard, then. Sam did too. Nyall turned away.

  But still, we couldn’t see what’d happened. We didn’t actually see her get shot.

  So … did she?

  And am I awful for thinking more about that rather than wondering if she was OK?

  On the screen George ran, pulling the man with the AK-47 backwards when he got to him. The other two van men came over as well and started pulling at George. The screen was a blur of moving bodies. But where was Lily? Was that one of her trainers, on the ground, towards the corner of the screen? It was too blurred to be sure, there was too much else going on…