It was her. It was definitely Jo Madley’s face she’d seen. She took a few deep breaths, trying to steady her nerves, then went back to the bed and lay down again. Okay. Let’s think this through. She closed her eyes and concentrated, bringing the face back into her thoughts and focusing on it. So where are you? She thought.
‘ Trapped.’
The answer came immediately. She flicked open her eyes and looked about the room. She was alone.
She closed her eyes again and tried to focus, channeling her mind. I’m here, she thought. I’m open, I’m receptive. Show yourself to me.
‘Help me!’
The voice was all about her; everywhere and nowhere.
‘Where are you?’ She said it aloud this time.
‘Here. Look.’
She snapped open her eyes. The wall ahead of her was rippling, moving. She blinked, rubbing at her eyes. The floral wallpaper was starting to balloon outwards, as if air was being pumped in behind it. It was starting to take form; a human form. She could make out a head, shoulders, legs; small breasts pushing out from the chest. She could even see the small buds of nipples crowning them.
She got up from the bed and took a few tentative steps towards the wall.
‘Are you Jo? Joanne Madley?’
‘Yes.’ The word swirled around her head as if caught by a strong wind.
‘How can I help you?’
The figure was perfectly defined by the wallpaper now. She could make out the features of the face; could see the line of the mouth.
Kirby moved closer, until she was within a yard of the wall.
‘Come with me,’ the voice said.
The sound of ripping wallpaper was as loud as a thunder crash. Two wallpaper-clad arms burst from the wall and reached out for her; rose petal fingers fluttering, scrabbling at her clothes, trying to get a grip.
Kirby threw herself backwards, lost her balance and fell, her head crashing against the leg of the bed. For a second she blacked out, concussed by the impact of bone against wood. Then her eyes were open and she was drawing quick shallow breaths into her lungs as the spindly fingers closed around her ankles, and she was dragged across the floor to the wall.
She twisted from side to side, fingernails clawing at the carpet, digging in, trying to arrest her terrifying progress. She glanced up at the figure dragging her, but saw nothing but wallpaper, tiny red roses on a cream background, stretched bizarrely across the features of a grinning face. It was Jo Madley’s face and she was sheathed entirely in the wall covering; the paper moving as she was moving; rippling, tearing slightly at the joints, making a soft rustling sound. Behind her the wall had opened up into a black cavern, glowing amber in the distance.
Inch by inch Kirby was pulled towards it. She flung out her hand behind her and her fingers closed around the leg of the bed. Using all her strength she hung on grimly; sweating palms slipping; the muscles in her arms screaming with the effort. And then the bed began to slide across the floor as well, and the journey towards the cavern resumed.
She could see figures moving in the dark mouth; gray shrouded figures, emerging from the blackness, coming to receive her.
‘No!’ she yelled at the top of her lungs. And then the darkness reached out and swallowed her.
Something struck her across the face. Not a hard blow, but it stung and made her eyes water.
‘Kirby? Kirby! Wake up!’
Suddenly she was aware of someone else in the room. A familiar voice.
Robert Carter’s face swam into view above her. ‘Kirby, are you all right?’
She struggled to sit up. There was a crushing pain in her head. Tentatively she touched it, her fingers tracing the outline of a lump at the back of her skull the size of a gull’s egg. ‘I fell,’ she said. ‘Must have hit my head.’
There was concern on his face and kindness in his eyes. ‘How did you fall?’
Kirby’s gaze flicked towards the wall. Smooth, unblemished. ‘I’m not sure.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Tell me the truth, Kirby,’ he said.
‘Nothing to tell.’ She got to her feet and walked to the window, resting her forehead against the cooling glass.
‘I’m sorry. I don’t believe you.’
‘Believe what you like.’ She could see Carter’s reflection in the glass. He was unmoving, staring at her intently.
‘I think you should leave the island,’ he said.
‘You’re kidding! On the strength of one stupid accident?’
‘But it’s not just that, is it? I was talking to Jane earlier. She’s under the impression this place is getting to you, and you know Jane, she’s very good at reading people.’
‘Did she tell you why I was upset?’ There was a guarded look in Kirby’s eyes.
‘No. Do you want to tell me?’
Kirby shook her head.
‘That’s okay. But you’ll have to be careful. The island works on the emotions. Believe me, I know. I felt it the moment we stepped off the boat. What worries me is that some of us won’t be able to handle it.’
‘You mean I won’t be able to handle it.’ Christ, first Raj, now Carter.
‘I mean we’re all vulnerable…but some of us are better equipped to protect ourselves than others.’
‘I’m fine. I tripped. I fell and banged my head. And I’m sorry if I worried Jane earlier, but you’re both reading too much into it. I’m not leaving.’
‘I think that’s for Jane to decide.’ Carter walked across to her and rested his hands on her shoulders. ‘Kirby, we’re a team. We have to look out for each other. If you’ve seen something, experienced something, then you owe it to us all to say.’
‘Has Raj spoken to you?’
‘No, but I heard him talking to McKinley.’
‘Jesus! He’s probably laughing his bloody socks off by now.’
‘He wasn’t laughing. He seemed quite concerned. Listen, Kirby. This isn’t some high school science project we’re involved in here. People have disappeared and are probably dead. I understand if you don’t want to talk about what ever happened to you, and if you don’t want the others to know. I can identify with that. But when I found you lying on the floor, out cold, I feared the worst. So don’t bullshit me. I want to know what it is you think you saw. Because you sure as hell think you saw something, didn’t you?’
Kirby chewed her bottom lip, her eyes darting from right to left. ‘Okay,’ she said softly. Robert Carter led her back to the bed and sat down next to her. ‘From the beginning,’ he said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Carter found Jane in the library, arranging chairs around the circular table. Raj was also there, on the other side of the room, headphones on, checking the sound levels on an old Revox tape recorder.
Carter pulled Jane to one side and kept his voice low so Raj couldn’t hear. ‘I think Kirby should leave the island.’ Kirby had told him what she had seen; he believed her. His problem was he was convinced Kirby had been very close to being killed and he didn’t think she had the strength or the experience to battle what he was almost certain they were going to come up against.
‘Really? Why?’ Jane said. It was too early in her opinion for anyone to consider leaving, even if there was a means for them to do so.
‘Because I don’t think it’s safe for her to stay.’ ‘Wise move,’ Raj said, glancing round at them. ‘This place is going to destroy her.’