Prayers from a Cold Island

The small tug boat lurches on the waves. The side of the cliff is shaking through the black rain. The first rock comes out of the water and splits the bow.

“Wyatt! We have to make for the beach!”

Wyatt can’t hear me through the rain. He’s somewhere inside. I’m out on deck. A wave pushes the remains of the boat into a rock shelf and we tip. I don’t have time to jump. The deck bucks underneath me and I shoot into the metal railings. They give way with a metallic crack almost lost in the thunder. I hit the water.

I can’t move my arm. It’s shattered inside. I don’t feel the pain yet, but it’s no good for swimming. I must have been thrown clean over the outcrop of rocks; the boat is lying still on its side when I surface.

“Wyatt!” He couldn’t hear me through the thunder – if he’s still alive. A sound like planks breaking mingles with the thunder as the hull breaks open and falls into the wash. I see a lick of yellow. It’s Wyatt in his slicker. He’s hanging out of the hull.

Rain pours down my hair and into my eyes. The black sky, the black sea, the black cliff, all invisible behind a sheet of rain. I know I can’t get Wyatt back alone with one arm. I doubt I could have done it with two. Wyatt’s a big guy, with a salty beard and a nose like a fishing hook.

I scrabble up the rock and get to him. He’s half lying inside the boat, half hanging off the rock. He’s face down. I manage to get him on his back. The pain in my arm is coming now – bright white pain.

“Wyatt, we gotta go.” He doesn’t answer. “The rest of her is gonna slip in. We gotta get you out.”

I grab hold of him and lean back. He shifts a little. I grip tighter, keeping my lame arm hanging by my side. The cold is coming on too. My fingers aren’t going where I want them. My hands are a sick yellow-white.

I get Wyatt mostly out of the boat and lying on the rock shelf. I check his pulse. I don’t feel anything. I’m not a doctor, I don’t know how to give CPR, but I know when a man’s dead. His eyes are open, watery as the rain hits them in fat drops. He looks like he’s crying, but he’s dead. I find his flashlight on the inside pocket of the slicker and push it under my belt.

I’ll freeze if I stay out any longer. The rain is beating down; the thunder’s rolling like a train over the clouds. I’m still blind. My whole body is starting to fold in on itself. There’s a cove with a beach further along, where the cliff sinks back. I can just make out the patch of light sand.

I slide down the rock and into the water. It bites for a second then mellows. It’s almost warm. My arm starts a high-whistling pain as I swim. I can hardly feel when I smack my shin into a submerged rock. I can’t feel the water pushing me; I can’t see the white foam in the dark and rain; I’m floating in a void, in a black cloud, kicking towards a patch of grey-gold for salvation. A crack of lightning illuminates the cove as I reach the shallows.

The waves break gently on the sand, the force taken out of them by the rock outcrop. My feet sink as I make my way onto the sand. I slump in a patch of dry under the cliff and push the wet hair out of my eyes.

I can see Wyatt’s body – no, I can see Wyatt’s yellow slicker. I can see the shape of his body, but the yellow sticks out like a flame in the darkness. My breath makes steam, and each breath comes harder than the last. I pull my jacket back over my shoulder and check my arm. A purple patch is already spreading out over the skin. I try to swear but my mouth starts shaking and the air sticks to my throat.

I pull out the torch and snap it on. First thing I see are the raindrops making their small craters on the sand. Second are a pair of tall rocks guarding a path. It seems to run up a slope to the top of the cliff. I let the light follow it, but the beam only goes so far. I push my hair back and look up. Pressed against the sky is a shape like a house.

The path is steep; the light takes me up. It’s well worn and narrow, like a goat track, or a pig run. I try to hoist my arm up inside the opening of my jacket, but it just hurts like it’s being pulled apart, so I let it hang by my side, swinging as I step. I see the remains of the boat slip into the water. It doesn’t make a noise I can hear over the storm. It’s surreal. I watch it rise under a wave, then slip out of sight. Silent; no bigger than bigger a thimble. The only remains now are a few red planks and Wyatt lying on the shelf.

The path opens to a grass platform about halfway up the cliff. I feel like I’m standing at the tip of a pool cue. Across the grass is the house. It’s framed with the whole open sea behind it. Out in front is a wooden chopping stump and a pole stuck into the ground.

My eyes follow the rest of the path. It does a sharp turn and crosses a thin land bridge heading upward. It’d be at least the same distance again before I’d make it to the top of the cliff, and God knows how long until I find the only village on the island. I don’t have a choice.

The shack is wooden. The front door is cut with a porthole. I can see into the main room, or I could see into the main room. It’s like looking into a well. Words are carved above the doorway in clean, precise letters: ‘Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer’.

I bring the end of the torch down on the door. No answer. I try again, trying to make it rattle.

“Hey! Anybody! Look I need help, I think my buddy’s dead. Anybody!”

I open my mouth for more, but my voice catches again. The pain my arm has spread to my torso. I don’t want to die out here.

I bring the torch down on the door again. Still nothing. I shuffle backward, take a breath, and kick at the door. The knockback jolts my arm and I cry out; the door shakes and cracks. I lift my boot again and again, holding my broken arm against my body. The door frame is coming apart. Two more and I can see a slither of dark. I suck in a breath and let out a shout as my boot snaps the last of the doorframe apart. I follow the door in, close it behind me, and slump in the dark.

Once I’ve got my breath back, I coax blood back into my toes. It’s not warm in the cabin, but it’s warmer than the wind. The torch lights up a cramped wood-clad room. A door on the opposite wall leads into a side room. There’s a desk at the far end under a dirty window. A fat wood burning stove sits quiet in the corner. The floor is covered with a film of dirt and dried leaves, and there’s a smell like beetroot, like freshly turned dirt and moss.

“Hello?” No answer.

I lift myself up and move to the stove. It’s still warm; the metal has the ghost of fire lingering on it. I press my fingers flat against it. Soon the metal cools, but the tips of my fingers are tingling. It’s a prickly, burning feeling, but it’s better than numbness.  

Around the floor lie a bunch of split logs. I pick up a few, open the stove door, and throw them in. There’s no hope of getting it going, not without help. I scrape a few leaves into a pile and look for something to make a spark. I push the other logs aside, check under the stove, nothing.

The window hanging over the desk gives a faint view of the horizon behind streaming rain. I listen to the patter of thick rain for a few seconds, watching the sea so alive in the storm. The desk itself is wooden with marks cut into the surface. I touch one long slash. It’s deep, fresh too. Someone had taken a knife to it recently. There’s no sign of a chair. A tin box sits in the corner of the desk, like an old sardine tin, only bigger and undecorated. Next to it is a bible clad in black leather. It’s compact but thick; the gold cross on the cover is faded. A thin chip of wood marks a page from Samuel. I open it. The corners of the thin page are folded, top and bottom, so one line is exposed: “...and the LORD sent you on a mission, and said, ‘Go and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are exterminated.’” The skin on the back of my hand crawls up my wrist away from the book. I snap it shut.

I turn to the draws in the desk. I check the top draw on the left. Locked. The next one down. Also locked. The only draw which opens is the middle draw. I lift the torch and look inside. A few small boxes, jewelry of all kinds, and mixed up among them are a dozen lighters. I drop the torch on the desk and grab a handful of lighters, trying one after the other. The first is a metal zippo covered in stickers saying ‘Camp Taho 1996’ and ‘Love n Learn’. It’s dead. The second is long and gold with an engraving reading ‘A light for my angel’ in swirling cursive. It’s dead. A cheap Bic colored with marker pen. Dead. A fat thing in a red leather case. Dead. A flat disc with a rotating rim. Dead. I throw handfuls of dead lighters aside. Each lighter fails to make a single spark like the flints had been sanded down.

I plant my good fist on the desk and brace as a fresh wave of pain ignites. I take a deep breath, but it pushes the shards of bone in my arm outward into the flesh. I whimper. Hope recedes, and fear takes its place; fear of the cold, of the pain to come, of this house.

After some length of time, I can breathe normally. I exhale and pick up the torch. I turn it to the small boxes in the draw. Most are empty cigarette cases with personal engravings. One is a felt pouch containing just wedding rings, at least fifty. The last is a flat circular box, like something for a necklace. It rattles. I can’t pop it open with one hand. I shake it. It sounds like tiny marbles or sweets. I sit on the desk, holding it between my legs, and claw at it. I slide my nails into the gap and pop it open. The box jumps and spins in the air. Dozens of flecks of white shoot out. I curse and fumble to grab them. I get one as it tries to roll under the desk. It’s like a small white rock, only lighter. There’s a crack of lighting. For a second, the room is like day. Just for that second, I can see the tooth pressed between my fingers. I let out an involuntary cry and throw it. Teeth of all sizes litter the floor. Baby teeth, long thing incisors, fat metal-capped molars. The room goes dark. I jerk and the pain in my arm bursts into my chest cavity. I stagger and vomit down the side of the stove.

The smell of bile fills the room like an intruder. I rest against the wall. My whole side is throbbing, my head spinning, thunder sounding as if the cliff is collapsing. I look out the porthole in the door. I can see the path fading into the storm, jittering with the motion of the rain.

I can’t make it. If I tried to leave I’d freeze to death or pass out from the pain. I fix my eyes on the path but nothing comes up it.

I try the side door. It’s locked from the inside. I pull at the locked draws, but they don’t budge, and there’s no sign of a key. I look around the room, behind the mirror, under the stove. There has to be a weapon, a gun or a knife or something. But then what? Am I going to kill what’s coming? A gun is one thing but taking a knife to a guy is different when you can barely walk. And what if it’s hours? With a gun I can sit and wait, but I can’t sleep. There’s nothing to eat, no heat.

So now there’s nothing, no avenue unexplored, except... I reach for the tin on the desk. It opens to reveal a crucifix, no more than a foot long. I pick it up. The edges are twisted like thorns, gilded gold. The body is a deep red, deeper in the dark. It’s heavy. It’s nicer to hold than the torch. Comforting.

I take one last look through the porthole, then move to the side door. I could wait until he comes back and take the key, but what if it isn’t back for hours? I could at least have some chance of barricading myself a side room, of jumping out and attacking. Part of me is still searching for a gun. Something about beating a man to death with a crucifix seems deeply wrong.

The side door never had to contend with rain or wind. It’s solid. And when I came to the front door I had adrenaline. Now my body feels like a sack of piss and bones. My head is still spinning. I try a few feeble kicks but it’s no use. I crouch down and finger the lock. It’s basic enough. I take the crucifix and jam it in the keyhole. It rattles as I jerk it around. I leave it in the hole and take a step back.

Everything I’ve got in me just wants to roll over and sleep and never get up, to go out into the dark and take it like Wyatt did. I’m hollow. But even as I think about it, some spirit set into my bones holds me up, like I’m hanging from a frame. I couldn’t lie down if I wanted to, not yet.

Another lightning strike brings me to the room. I take hold of my mangled arm, take a deep breath, hold it, and kick at the cross. A sound of scraping metal on metal screams out and the door bursts open. I overbalance fall in after it. The ground swings into my side and pain explodes. I start to wail, a warbling cry, warm tears spilling from my eyes. The pain overwhelms me. I don’t know how long I’m down. Maybe I blackout. When I come around, the first thing that hits me is the smell. A smell like a butcher’s shop, like roadkill, like that smell that comes out of a swelling burst boil with all the puss. It supersedes all other smells of damp and mold and bile.

I look up. A mesh of splinters and straw-like a bed cover the floor. On the wall, hanging over the bed, is a man. His arms are fastened up by rope around the wrists, his feet tied together. He is fixed to the wall, dried blood covering his chin and chest like an apron. His belly bulges out, a sack filled with all the blood and flesh fallen down from the inside. His eyes are open. His head tipped forward. He’s looking at me. The man’s hair is cut short around his head and I can see part of his skull sunken in. The smell of decay rolls off him like smoke off charring wood.

I crawl backward wailing in a voice I can’t control. I can’t take my eyes off him until my limbs pull my body out of the way of his dead eyes. I’m up, lumbering towards the door. My arm is numb, everything is numb. I tear the door open with my good arm and lurch out into the rain. Breaths become cries of pain, the rain fills my eyes like tears, the cliff swims. My foot connects with the wood of the chopping block, I fall forward, and all my weight collapses onto my shattered arm. Searing pain fills my mind as a shard of bone punctures the flesh from the inside. Black spots merge with the shadows. I can’t tell if I’m conscious. Breaths come in spasms making clouds in the cold air.

From the darkness, over the rolling thunder, I hear footsteps, heavy, slow. I fight the convulsions and pull in a breath. I dig my fingers into the wet earth and look up. Something is standing over me. I can see its bare skin dripping in the rain. It’s a hulking shadow, but in one hand, like a torch in the dark, is Wyatt’s yellow slicker.