Pain rushed through his skull. It was the intense pressure of The Third's consciousness, but more powerful than ever. She had interrupted the process of her transformation in order to make the men release each other. Simon would have screamed, but with Firdy's hands around his throat he was still unable to draw a breath. Instead he waited for it to be over.
It was a wail and a screech and a roar, a wave of nails dragging itself through his head.
For the final time that night, his viewpoint was from outside his body. He became one, not with the Third, but with the blackness. To his relief, he felt no more physical sensation, but he still had to do battle with emotion.
Most of all, he regretted having obstructed Sarah's attempts to run. Even though she would have been caught, he could have allowed her the chance to make her own choice, to fight; to die with self-respect, unlike him. He had allowed the uncertain future he had feared to become no future at all.
He hoped that the Third's transformation would be impossible without him, but he didn't believe that was the case. The Third was desperate and so she would try, with or without him. Sarah's future, her lack of it, remained fixed.
He wanted to go back for her, but there was no back or forward or anything. There was only blackness, accepting him whole.
He waited to disappear.
He waited a long time.
A white dot crossed his path. Again. Above. Below.
It appeared to be circling him.
A full stop, he thought.
The object was approaching, slightly bigger each time.
He willed himself to keep it in focus and after achieving some success he realised that the object wasn't moving; he was. Through will and persistence, he managed to stop spinning and then, having confirmed that he could move somehow, he willed himself towards the light. There was nothing else.
The light had many arms, beckoning him. For a moment, he considered that this might be the Third as seen from the outside, but he felt peace, not panic, and allowed himself to continue. Having resisted death for so long, he was relieved to succumb. All that was left was to hope that Sarah and the others would not suffer for much longer.
He slid interminably, focusing on the mouth of the tunnel ahead. Every now and then it winked out of view and he felt a flush of fear, but it returned each time, saving him from thoughts of being trapped in the dark with nothing but his thoughts - of Sarah and of all the lives he had destroyed. A pang of loneliness weighed on him from all sides, crushing him.
When he next saw the entrance to the tunnel it was shining more brightly than before. Octopus-like rays stretched out from it, setting the darkness alight ...
… His head broke the surface of water. He choked and coughed and vomited as a wave washed over him. His lungs burned and his chest ached, his head spun, but he kicked and kept his head up. Soon, he was able to breathe again, though it hurt to do so. The moon shone down on him long enough for him to realise that it had served as his beacon, then it hid behind a cloud.
He was alive.
He saw the cliff that Firdy had walked them to. The Third had reached up a watery tentacle and had taken them inside it, down into the water. And he'd survived it.
He willed himself towards the rocky coast as he had willed himself towards the moon. Underwater his legs were moving, but he was so cold that he could hardly feel them.
Minute by minute, the beach came nearer. The rocks glistened as waves crashed over them and shrank back. Bubbles exploded between stones.
He didn't think he would make it, but he had thought that several times tonight and he was still here. He focussed on the rocks until nothing else existed to him. An undertow kept pulling him away from the shore, but the distance he covered between its attacks meant that he was making small progress each time. As he weakened, it almost seemed that he was swimming the same length over and over, but eventually, he was able to stop kicking and wade the rest of the way onto the beach. Out of the water to his thighs, a final wave crashed against his back and he fell onto the jagged rocks. He bled, but he was beyond caring. He was alive. He shouldn't be. He had been given a second chance and he was going to make the most of it.
*
Not half a mile out to sea, Firdy reached the surface, his head thrown up out of the water, buoy-like, and his body floating, so that he looked like a bin bag full of junk, buffeted by the waves and carried further out to sea.
He tried to move in the direction of the beach, but it was hard enough staying afloat. The waves swamped him each of the few times he managed to take a lungful of air, winding him and sending salt water down his throat. The sea was like a living thing, wearing him down. He kicked as hard as he could, but all he achieved was a slow pirouette.
There was a large rock to his left. He tried to kick himself towards it and then half-stretched, half-threw himself onto it. His gloved hand slipped, found purchase, slid again. He threw his other hand out, but it struck the rock like a dead thing. The current pulled him away from the temporary sanctuary and tugged him out.
It pulled him under.
When he screamed, in frustration rather than fear, it sounded like he was gargling. He sucked in a painful, watery breath, reached for the surface and yelped with an explosion of bubbles.
The only consolation, he thought, was that he had killed Simon before he died.
“I should have killed them all,” he admitted as he spiralled away.
*
Simon crawled on his hands and knees, inch by inch, foot by foot, knowing that Sarah was still down there, under the surface, probably still inside the Third.
He wanted to get to his feet, but he lacked the strength to push himself up. He had to rest, for a few minutes at least, qne he had to get warm or the cold would finish the job that Firdy had started.
As he rolled onto his back, panting, he considered effecting further upset in the room below using his connection to the Third, but with the thought he realised, with certainty, that the connection was not there. His mind was unobserved, as clear as it was on those merciful days when the Third had been busy, dredging, slicing, splicing, and had left him alone until she needed more meat and more minds. Her presence was gone and he might have been pleased if it hadn't left him without a means of getting Sarah back.
He watched the waves, thinking that if something was wrong with the Third, Sarah might float up the way that he had.
The oily sea was oozed and sucked, like a living thing, weeping. He knew that Sarah could be anywhere out there and he wouldn't necessarily see her. The same applied to the Third.
A rock tumbled towards him.
“Sarah?”
No. This sound had been made deliberately. He saw a woman in a long, leather coat, black, over black jeans and dark boots. The wind caught her scarf and it flapped like a flag beneath her pallid face. Under her knitted hat was the only thing of colour: an escapee; a strand of red hair.
Clare unwound the scarf and shoved it, handful by handful, into her left coat pocket. Then she removed a plastic bag from her right coat pocket, opened it and carefully descended the rocks towards Simon.
“You missed it,” Simon said, on his feet now.
He recognised the look in her eyes. He had seen it in the mirror: making deliveries; following orders.
“You don't have to do this,” he said. His words were familiar. They had both heard that line before. Between them, they could probably rank pleas. Sometimes the things their victims said must have been true, but it didn't matter, because there was no way to tell and no choice either way.
Until now.
“Think about this,” Simon said. “If I'm alive, something must have gone wrong. Can you feel the Third? I can't.”
A few steps above him, she paused.
“Like I said: you don't have to do this.”
“Firdy told me you'd say that,” Clare said. “He was very specific. He said that if anyone else made it, I could let them go. It's only you he wants dead.”
Simon laughed, but it came out as a cough.
“So you take your orders from Firdy?” he said.
“If he finds out that I didn't do my job here,” Clare said, “there are people I care about who are going to get hurt … you know the score.”
“Yeah. I do.”
“You can't talk me down. The only reason you're still alive is that you're one of us. I thought I'd give you a minute.”
“A minute for what?”
She looked as though she was going to say more, but her mouth snapped shut. That was it. If anything was going through her mind, it remained unsaid.
They listened to the black waves destroying themselves on the shore, breathing in and out, wheezing and sighing.
He counted the crashes out of habit.
Six.
Seven.
Eight.
He sensed that she had finished thinking.
“It'll be quick,” she said and hopped down from her rock. Before her feet touched the ground, Simon rushed her, hoping he would get there before she could correct her stance, but the beach slipped away from him and was replaced with the dark blue sky. He felt rocks stab his back and smash into the back of his head, and there was another pain in his arm, which Clare must have used to overbalance him. He didn't have long to think about what happened. His last breath out expelled a cry of pain and then the plastic bag was over his head. He heard the wheeze of the drawstring and when he attempted to breathe in the clear plastic entered his mouth, shrink-wrapping him. He reached for Clare, knowing that even if his hands could have found her he was too weak to do anything, but knowing also that he would fight this time, from beginning to end, pointless as it may be.
“Don't fight,” Clare said. She tightened the drawstring until it cut into his neck.
“No,” Simon thought.He grabbed Clare's hands and tore at her fingers. He sent loose rocks shooting down into the water with his feet. He could sense her rising panic as she lost control of the situation.
Managing to pry one of her hands loose, he flipped over onto his side, but before he could get his bearings a blow struck the side of his head. He heard the rock discarded, but to him it sounded like an avalanche and he was part of it, gathering momentum, taking out villages and families along the way.
*
The Third rose through the water, a vortex of her own creation. She grabbed Firdy's body and remade the hollow so he could breathe within her, but she was too late. He was gone.
She had been prepared to reject him. She knew that. But then Simon had put his hands around his throat and now he was dead. It wasn't the same thing. She felt strange about it. It was unpleasant.
She had been in too many places at once and too slow to react. She had been inside Sarah and Zak and Ian and Naomi and Jonathan and Will and Simon, unravelling them and attempting to tie them together; lost in the details.
Now she was only lost.
The Others like her had left what felt like centuries ago. They had taken a swimmer and they had gone, first one and then the other, but after years of thefts, increasingly selective, she never discovered the trick. If it was a test, she had failed. If it was punishment for something long-forgotten, it ought to be over now. In a single act, she had killed, had been killed and had lost her son.
She was bewildered.
And alone again.
I'LL DIE, she thought.
ANOTHER YEAR ALONE.
ANOTHER NIGHT.
I'LL DIE.
*
Simon attempted to grab Clare's face, but she looked up and that was enough to take her out of his range. He would have grabbed her hair, but she had tied it up underneath her hat. She had him belly down. He had nothing to grab onto and so no way to free himself.
He thought of Sarah. After years of thinking that he had protected her, he had actually been preserving her, to be used, used up and discarded. If he had known it would end like this, he would have killed her himself.
But how could he have known? He had had hope.
The sky was brightening. This would be the last thing he saw.
From the corner of his eye, he discerned a flash.
And then another.
In the periphery of his vision, fireworks exploded silently in reds and blues and greens.
As the colours intensified, Clare released her grip and to Simon's surprise he was able to get his fingers underneath the drawstring and snatch a shallow breath. He set both hands to work opening the plastic bag. Whatever the reason for Clare's lack of care, he didn't have the breath to play dead. He tore at the opening and managed to pull the bag up over his mouth.
For the second time in minutes, he fell on the rocks, gasping.
Clare stared out to sea, which Simon gradually realised was being illuminated from below. Red and pink and orange light rose to the surface, the colours alternating. The sea seemed to swell each time a colour reached a peak of brightness. A large, pink wave rolled towards them and broke over the stones with a sigh. It was followed closely by a red wave, which broke too soon, before it had even reached the shore and sent a loud hiss up into the night. The foam from the wave crawled between the rocks and whispered. The rivulets sought him out and he back-pedalled, avoiding most of them although they travelled much further than seemed natural. A single rivulet splashed one of his trainers and he was paralysed by a pang of distress. Every part of him ached for a second. For that moment, he wanted to die so intently that he could have thrown himself face down into the water, but then it was over.
A third wave approached, gathering itself up with more violence than the others, ragged and rolling.
“Come away,” Simon said, getting to his feet.
“Listen,” Clare said. There were voices in the water. Neither male nor female.
“Dead,” the wave was saying. “Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead ...”
“Come away,” Simon repeated and staggered back, but Clare remained transfixed. She gasped as the wave struck her at chest height and knocked her off her feet.
It washed over her completely, tossing her hat aside and drenching her. As the wave drew back, she was sitting on her bottom, legs splayed. The water latched onto stones and pulled a few out with it, but it left Clare where she was.
On a rock above, Simon watched Clare sink her head between her knees and hug herself.
She wept.
“You okay?” Simon asked.
She didn't answer for a long time, but then she said:
“I've never felt it … her … before.”
“How was it for you?” Simon said.
“Lonely,” she said.
*
It took Simon twenty minutes to find Clare's car, but when he did it was what he had expected. A small, non-descript hatchback, parked up beneath an ominous conifer. Three doors. The boot was locked, but he tried the driver's side door and it clicked open. Inside, he pushed the button for the boot and then went round the back.
He found car maintenance tools, some of which could have doubled as weapons, a reflective, yellow vest, a warning triangle, bottled water, a box of dry goods, a Highlander rucksack, bars of chocolate, some rope, a tartan blanket, some black tarpaulin and a first aid kit. If this wasn't her stuff, she had stolen the car from a serial killer.
He opened up the rucksack and found a change of clothes inside: a pair of blue jeans, a plain, grey t-shirt and a dark blue sweater. He stripped off to his bare chest and used the sweater to dry himself off before stretching the t-shirt over his torso. Then he pulled on the sweater, accidentally ripping it in the process. He sized up the jeans. No chance. He'd have to make do with his wet trousers.
There was a waxy, black raincoat in the back, but this was also too small. He dumped his wet clothes in the boot, availed himself of a bar of chocolate and jogged back to the rocks.
He expected Clare to be gone, but she hadn't moved except to stand. Her arms were folded tight. The waves had diminished. They were back to normal, but she was not.
“Coming?” Simon said, descending the rock face.
“She's dead,” Clare said.
He thought she meant Sarah and slid on the loose ground.
“Firdy died inside her,” she continued, her voice almost a monotone. “It flicked a switch in her and she caved in. She let herself die.”
“Hallelujah,” he said. He wanted to ask her if she'd felt Sarah's presence when the Third's wave washed over her, but he didn't trust her, so instead he said: “Be reassured that this is great news.”
She bit her lip. “She couldn't face being alone,” she said.
“I could,” said Simon, “so are you coming with me or not?” He extended his hand. She took it, but ultimately it was she who helped him back up the slope, picking him up when he fell.
*
Clare turned her key in the ignition and set the heaters to full. She poured Simon black coffee from a flask, but he couldn't hold the cup. She offered to put it to his lips, but he refused.
“Do you know why we were down there?” he asked.
“I know enough so that I'm glad I was up here,” Clare said.
“Firdy said that he couldn't use you. Why not?”
“I'm sick,” she said. “It's terminal.” They held each other's gaze. “What was it like being inside her?” Clare said.
“Like drowning,” he replied, without hesitation.
She nodded. That made sense to her.
She glanced over her left shoulder and then, as she drew her seatbelt, she took in the remaining area. Satisfied that they were alone, she put the car into gear.
“When the wave hit me,” she said, “I didn't feel Sarah or any of the others.”
“I realise that she's probably dead,” Simon said, “but I have to look. I need to find her. That's all I have to do.”
“I'll help you,” she said.
“You don't have to help me.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I do.”
*
“She could be anywhere,” Simon admitted, looking out to sea.
“We'll find her,” Clare told him. “One way or another.”
She seemed to understand what was required and he needed no more reason than that to accept her help. She had driven them to a vantage point with a clear view of the beach where Simon had made his approach and a good distance of beach either side.
She stood at the edge of the promontory, the toe of her right boot resting on a clump of dirt that looked like it might give way at any moment, and she scanned the beach with a compact pair of binoculars.
Simon sat in the car with the door open and his legs out, taking an enforced break, resting his body, because his mind gave him no relief. He had the tartan blanket around his shoulders and Clare had insisted that he take her scarf too. He sipped his coffee and felt marginally restored while Clare moved seamlessly with the binoculars, pivoting at the waist.
“How are you sick?” Simon asked.
Her tracing of the beach stuttered. She couldn't help it, even though she'd suspected the question would come again.
“Cancer,” she said, as though that would end all further questions. It didn't. Simon opened his mouth to speak, but she waved him over.He stood beside her at the edge of the promontory and she passed him the binoculars.
Below, trees jutted out of the cliff. The face was crawling with weeds. He'd probably be able to get a handhold on something if he fell, but it was a long way to the bottom.
“I don't expect you to trust me,” Clare said. “I'm not going to ask you to. You'll do what you think is best. And so will I.”
He took the binoculars. She used her hand on his arm to correct his direction and she told him to relax his eyes.
All he saw was rocks, their bodies smoothed by the black sea, naked and glistening and still, as wave after wave rolled over them. Clouds passed over the moon, slowly, slowly, until light shone down through a tear.
“There,” said Clare.
Simon noticed a shape moving among the rocks.
“I don't believe it,” he said.
*
Clare got there first.
“It's not her,” she said as Simon caught up.
“It's Will,” Simon said and dropped to his knees beside him.
Will's body shook with a coughing fit and then he rolled onto his back and wailed. He was still fully-dressed, except for having lost a shoe, and was drenched. He pushed his fingers through his muddy hair and cried.
“What happened to Zak?” Simon said.
Will's eyes darted around, but they didn't take in Simon or Clare, the beach or the sky. He shook his head and the stones beneath it skittering from side to side.
“Could Zak have made it?” Simon asked.
“Dead,” said Will. “Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead ...”
The Third's sorrow had left its imprint on him. Simon and Clare had both recovered from the energy that touched them on the beach, so Simon hoped that Will would too. Maybe it would improve in an hour, maybe (never) a day, maybe (never) a week.
“Get him back to the car,” Simon said.
“... No-fuckin'-way,” Clare said.
“We can't leave him here.”
“Why not?”
Simon gazed down at Will's sodden body. The answer to Clare's question seemed obvious to him and yet he couldn't put it into words. Then it was her turn to gaze down at Will, his chest rising and falling. He was still mouthing the word 'dead' over and over, but she was thankful that he had fallen silent.
“I need to keep looking for Sarah,” Simon said. “But I can't leave him here.”
“We'll be seen,” Clare told him.
“I can't leave him.”
Clare sighed deeply. “Can you get him up?”
By cajoling him, she was able to make Will put one foot in front of the other and stagger where she directed him. Though he stumbled and they fell frequently, she got him up the beach and back towards the car while Simon continued to search for Sarah alone.
Simon was unaware of time passing, except to note that the sky was getting lighter and so he was able to see further. He knew Clare would not see it that way. She'd been unhappy when he had called out for Sarah, his voice echoing into the night, but he did it again now, and again. He didn't care about the 'authorities'. He only had to know, one way or another, whether or not Sarah had survived.
The uneven ground made his progress especially slow and painful, and he walked in the knowledge that he may be moving in the wrong direction. He'd had to make a choice. Walking where they had found Will had made the most sense to him at the time, but now he reminded himself that she could be anywhere.
He walked until he had to sit. He removed his trainers, but he couldn't feel his feet. That was probably for the best, he thought dimly. He closed his eyes and half-slept for a few minutes.
When he was ready to go on, he pulled on his wet trainers and prepared to head back the way he had come. First, however, he scoured the horizon for signs of (a body) Sarah and that was when he saw (Sarah) someone in the water.
In his hurry to put the binoculars to his eyes, he dropped them, then snatched them back up. He searched left and right, unsure of himself. It seemed that he had been mistaken, but after a few seconds the thing surfaced again.
It was a woman's body, buffeted by waves. They spun her. They sucked her down. She came back up.
It was Naomi. He could see her plaits. She wasn't far away and normally Simon could have swum out to pull her in, but he knew that he might not make it back this time and so he stood his ground. After a time, he became sure that she was dead.
The waves didn't bring her any closer to the shore. They dragged and threw her around, ultimately pulling her under for increasingly long periods until he lost sight of her.
The episode left him with mixed feelings. On the one hand, he was horrified that someone he had been with not two hours ago had bobbed up as a corpse. The Third had never told him to kill anyone and so, with the exception of funerals, he had only ever seen one dead body before; his mother, the day she killed herself. Seeing Naomi's body left him physically shaking. He had touched her, when he had helped Firdy drag her into the van. Later, she had hammered on the partition and asked him for help, for her sake and for that of her family. He had ignored her. Now she was nothing.
He was appalled by what he had allowed to happen, what he had facilitated.
But Naomi's lifeless body brought with it the promise of closure for him. He and Will and Naomi had all come to the surface near the beach and so it was possible that Sarah would turn up too. At least then he'd be certain of her fate; as Clare had put it: one way or another.
It would take him about an hour to get back to where he had started. He wondered if Clare would be waiting for him with Will, or if she had disposed of him instead.
Maybe it would be best to hole up somewhere and get some rest. If Sarah hadn't washed up yet, she might (never) do later.
With grim plans jostling for position, he headed back the way he had come. He had been walking a few minutes when he saw Sarah walking away from him, ghostly, in the shallows. He thought he should approach her cautiously in case he startled her, but he couldn't help himself and began running so quickly that he slipped and lost his balance. His face cracked against the rocks, but he got up and she was still there. She didn't turn to see what had caused the clatter. Her arms hung at her sides and the wind was toying with her although Simon couldn't feel it at all. The sleeve of her fatigue jacket had been torn off, but otherwise she was dressed as she had been on entering The Third.
When he reached her, she looked through him. Her face was waiting for an expression to take hold of it.
“Sarah?” he said and brushed droplets from her nose and forehead. Her hair clung to her shoulders and neck, thick with mud, blonde streaked with black. “Can you see me?” he said. He held her by the shoulders and put his face close to hers. “Can you hear me?”
Her eyes refocussed.
“Sarah,” he said. “It's Simon.” And he wished that one of her friends had been here instead of him, Geraldine, perhaps, someone who cared about her and had been able to show it. “I'm going to get you home,” he told her. “You're going to be okay.”
“De-ad,” she whispered.