CHAPTER TWO

Day four
09:50

     A bird caught Leons' eye and he followed its plight through the sky.  It was small, with bluish feathers that shone white when the light caught them.  He followed it without blinking for almost a minute before he gave into his eyes orders.  A second later, an eagle appeared silently from nowhere and caught the bird in its powerful claws.  Leon followed the eagle's path as he heard the beautiful bird screeching in terror from the grip of strong talons.  As they flew away the anguished screeches grew fainter.  Leon swallowed, a lump forming in his throat.  That was the trouble with life.  You never knew when it was going to end, and for Zana, it had.  Too soon.

     Leon desired little from life.  Love and health were the two most important things to him in the world.  He'd been raised by a close-knit family who had managed to overlook being famous as a priority, one of the very few minorities that had.  His chance at winning this show was fuelled by the determination to win the prize money.  His sister, who was barely five years old, was losing her eyesight rapidly.  They had taken her to four different doctors in the area to try and understand what was going on, and it broke Leon's heart every time they walked back home from a doctors office with the words 'I can't help you, I'm afraid' ringing in their ears, while his sister toddled along, unaware that she'd wake up one day, unable to see the world she was enjoying so much right now.

     One doctor however, unable to diagnose her was able to recommend a private surgeon who operated in children's blindness.  The problem was he worked in America and the complicated operation, though guaranteed to fix her problem, cost four hundred thousand dollars to undertake.  Saving wasn't an option for them; they had to do it, though they were barely able to afford to.  People like Frank paraded their new clothes every day like they were going out of fashion.  To a weaker person it would have bothered them, but Leon barely noticed, and when he did, didn't care at all.  His focus was on his sister, and his sister only, and if that meant that he wore almost the same clothes to school every day, then so be it.

     He'd signed up for this show to win, and he couldn't do any less than that.  Yet he didn't want to go on and felt that he couldn't continue to go on now that Zana had died.

     Correction.  Murdered.

     He'd saw the body.  They all had.  It was only the day before that she was so full of life, but now …

     At around midnight, she'd announced she was going to get some food before the stock room closed.  Despite Amber delightedly informing everyone that she was going to completely empty the stock that night so the others couldn't get hold of anything, she had fallen straight asleep along with the rest of the team.  Only he and Ricky were still up and they both stifled yawns at her announcement.

     'I'll go with you if you want' he said, but she shook her head.  'You're tired,' she replied.  'You both are,' she continued, as she saw Ricky offer to go with her instead.  'Go to sleep, it'll take me five minutes.'

     Neither of them put up a fight, Leon thought back angrily.  Nor had he been bothered enough to stay awake.  Ricky said he was going to wait up for her in his sleeping bag, but Leon had barely replied through tiredness.  Ricky must have fell to sleep too, unable to stay awake any longer and Zana had continued to lie there, the blood drying on her face, threatening to etch itself onto her skin forever.

     The next morning, Zana was the first thing on his mind.  His eyes quickly scanned around the sleeping team.  Zana's sleeping area was empty, along with Ricky's.  Leon quickly got out of his sleeping bag and put on his trainers to make his way over to the main area of the camp to catch up with them.  He crept silently over, planning on jumping out of the bushes and scaring them, yet they were nowhere to be found.  He cautiously peered through the thick bushes, half expecting to see two pairs of eyes staring back, waiting to scare him instead.  Yet he found none.

     He figured they might be at the stock room getting more food supplies for breakfast.  He started to jog slowly over, when he saw Ricky running back towards the camp.  Leon dived into the nearest bush, waiting for Ricky to fall into the trap.  He looked at his trainers getting closer and closer and just as he was about to pass, Leon jumped out and grabbed his shoulders, laughing.

     Ricky screamed hysterically and cried real tears of terror.  Leon, thinking that he'd gone too far with the joke immediately apologised frantically, but Ricky cried harder.

     'No…no, Za-Zana,' Ricky stuttered, barely getting the words out.  Leon felt his heart grow cold.

     'What about Zana, tell me, what?'

     But Ricky could only point over to the stock room.  Leon grabbed his wrist and tried to pull him towards it.  'Show me what's wrong.'

     Ricky shook his head vigorously, his eyes wide.  He put a hand to his mouth, and then puked all over the floor.  He cried harder, as his legs gave way and he dropped into the puddle of vomit.  Leon sprinted off at full speed to the stock room.  As much as he wanted to console Ricky, he knew that there was something seriously wrong with Zana for him to act like that.  He almost ran past her when he got there.  His eyes were focused on the ladder, yet something caught the corner of his eye, and after a double take, he ran over.

     It was Zana. 

     But, at the same time it wasn't.  This was just a body.  Zana had spirit.  It looked like someone had taken everything what had made her so unique, so special, and left this dull imitation here instead.  Leon stared in shock for a couple of moments before his eyes moistened.  His teardrops fell onto her face, causing the dry bloody patches under her eyes to soak and run down her face like tears of blood.

     Flashbacks of the fun times they had had together ran through Leon's mind like a video tape that was unable to be paused, stopped, or rewound.  It wasn't playing at normal speed; it was being fast-forwarded, causing the memories to be distorted and too quick.  Leon wanted to stop them and remember things at normal pace.  He'd heard before that when you died, your whole life flashes instantly.  He wondered whether Zana had wanted to stop and rewind the flashbacks.  He wondered whether she'd been able to see her memories more clearly, because her life was cut short, giving more time for the memories to whiz by.

     He wondered whether she'd saw the memories they had shared together.  After the incident with Jordan, Zana had gone off guys, causing rumours about her sexuality to come up.  Befriending Dean who had recently come out of the closet didn't help matters, yet Zana wasn't the type of person to think about herself before others.  They knew each other as friends at first.  They'd go to the park, just hang out, usual kids stuff.  It wasn't until November 12th, in the 8th grade when Zana took things a step further.  Leon was in her room, and they were both listening to CD's and discussing families.  He had told her about his sister, and the never-ending battle to fight for her cause.  He felt Zana touch his neck gently, as she pulled him in for a hug.

     'You'll do it Leon,' she had said, looking directly into his eyes.  'I believe in you.'  Like an invisible magnetism that drew them together, they became one that night.  Leon, so careful in his penetration to reach the real Zana, who had been pushed back behind a façade, was gentle, and Zana loved him for it.  He had taken something from her, something she could never get back, yet she was thankful it was with someone she loved, someone who understood her.

     He didn't know how long he'd been standing over her.  But long enough for Ricky to calm down, wake everyone up, and bring them all over.  A loud sob from Kimberley didn't startle him, but he turned around and saw them standing there, many of them too shocked to do anything other than stare.  Kimberley sank to her knees, rocking back and forth, hugging herself to calm down, crying uncontrollably.

     Leon felt his eyes moisten again, and he shook his head in disbelief as reality sunk in.

     'Those guys are meant to be our friends,' he whispered.  'Yet look what they've did.  They've killed her.'

     At this, his voice grew louder along with the sound of his crying.  'They fucking killed her,' he shouted.  'They're playing the fucking game and they killed her.'

     With a heart-wrenching scream of 'why', Leon buried his face on Zana's chest.  Nick slowly walked over to him, and rubbed his back, unsure of what else to do to comfort him.  He was joined by the other members of the team, united by the death of their friend.  As Leon's cries grew quieter over the next half hour, he lifted his head up more and more, until he was no longer covering his face.  A few of the team looked uneasy, not knowing what to do or say, and so they didn't do or say anything.  They sat there, thinking.

     'Contestant: zero double one has been eliminated.  I repeat, contestant: zero double one has been eliminated.'

     You live life not knowing what to expect, Leon thought, watching a beautiful blue bird get captured by an eagle.  One minute you could be flying high, the next, you could … He looked down at Zana.

     'That's all that she was meant to them, a number,' Kimberley whispered, her voice barely audible.  Leon looked at her, thinking for a moment, and then looked back at Zana.  'This is for you,' he whispered, and quickly got up and ran to the ladder leading up to the stock room.  He climbed halfway when he was vaguely aware of the ladder wobbling uncontrollably, and for a split second he stopped completely, concentrating on his life to flash by.  He intended to see everything clearly for the last time. 

     'I've got it Leon,' called Nick, shattering his thoughts.  Leon peered down, and saw Nick firmly gripping the ladder with both hands.  He smiled weakly, and carried on up to the room.  He climbed in, and walked over to the weaponry box that they had discovered, and vowed never to use, the day before, and hugging it to his chest, supporting it with one arm, he carefully made his way back down to the ground.

     Nick tried to reason with him as soon as he put the box down on the floor.  'Arm yourselves,' Leon said.  Amber, Rachel, Frank and Tristan immediately picked up handguns. 

     'Put them down now,' Nick said in an authoritative tone.  'I'm serious guys, this is not the way to solve this.  This is not a war these are our friends.  We're going to talk it out with them.  Put the weapons back.'

     The four stared at him for a moment, wondering whether to challenge his leadership, before throwing the weapons back into the box.  Nick focused his attention onto Leon who picked up a handgun and checked for bullets. 

     'Leon, put it back.'

     Leon fired a shot into the air, making the others jump at the sound.  He stared into Nick's eyes.  'No.'

     Nick stared back.  Leon always had determination in his eyes, only now, for the first time, Nick noticed, the fire that fuelled that determination was burning out fast.  Nick looked at him once more, and finally nodded slowly.  Leon didn't say anything, or acknowledge what Nick had said, until he put the gun back into the box and picked up a six-inch knife instead.  He slipped it into his back pocket.  'For protection.'

     Nick knew that while he was still intending on making whoever did this pay, he had still made a sacrifice, and he couldn't ask for anything more than that.  He sighed, and motioned for Leon to go.  Silently, the team filed out in single file.  Though it hadn't been discussed, they knew where they were going. 

     Tristan was the last in line.  He quickly bent down and stuffed a gun in his pocket, making sure nobody was looking.  For protection, he thought silently.

***

Day four
10:20

     'Any of you so much as move, and she gets it.'

     Everyone was still as the knife pressed closer to her throat.

     'I'm serious, anybody fucking moves an inch and I'll cut her open right now.'

     Pierce was ecstatic.  He couldn't believe how addictive his masterpiece was becoming.  He hadn't moved from the main monitor in the editing suite since team one had discovered Zana.  He'd made the announcement of her death, yet it was only team one and Jordan who knew who had died, though Jordan feigned just as much surprise as the rest of his team.  After a shaky start, the contestants hadn't let him down.  He couldn't have picked a better class of students.  They'd given him action, they'd given him heartbreak, they'd given him revenge and they'd given him lots of money.  A further five series contract was already in the works; with a fifty million pound pay check as a result.  Although aired worldwide, several television companies from around the globe brought the rights to make their own version of the show, earning more money for himself and for Greed TV.  His life was perfect.  Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said for some of the inhabitants on Nightmare Island …

     Emily tried her hardest not to cry, certain that her tears would cause Leon to get angry and slit her throat.  The knife felt cold against her neck, and whenever it caught the sun, it glinted, causing Emily to squint.  Her peers disappeared and reappeared quickly every time that her eyes rapidly blinked to avoid the unforgiving shining in her eyes.  She felt Leon's body trembling against her own.  Trembling with anger.  Over Zana.

     She hadn't known that Zana had died.  None of them had.  They stared at each other open mouthed around the campfire when the announcement was made that morning.  Moments before, they had been eating a breakfast of berries.  Nobody knew whether they were edible.  They could drop dead any moment from poisoning from eating one.  Cramming a number of them into your mouth so fast they were hardly swallowed before the next handful was shoved in wasn't sensible, yet they didn't care.  Some of them were actually sick from the lack of hunger.  As no food had been digested, thick gobs of body fluid had spewed out in replacement, causing severe stomach aches from the raw and hollow emptiness inside. 

     None of them knew whom contestant zero double one was.  It was a surreal situation.  They were expressing their sorrows at the elimination of the unknown, yet seemingly amongst the company was a murderer. 

     Emily didn't want to believe it, but she had no other choice.  Elimination, Pierce had explained on the flight, equalled disposal.  Suicide would be announced as a self-elimination, and a death caused by a member of the same team would be known as a cross-elimination.  He also mentioned that the name of the eliminator, or of the recently eliminated wouldn't be announced. 

     So that morning, upon hearing the word elimination, her heart froze and she instantly felt distanced from her team.  She couldn't bring herself to meet anybody's eyes.  She was living on an island with a murderer whose identity nobody knew except the millions who watched him or her do it, and the murderer themselves.

     Yet as much as she didn't want to be a part of it, she felt closer to the group.  Someone on the other team had been killed, which meant that they were one step closer to winning.  The other team wouldn't like this, and would retaliate immediately.  They needed to stick together, and with one of her teammates already eliminating an opponent, she strangely felt reassured that she was on the same team as a killer.  She didn't discuss any of these thoughts with anybody, not even Catherine Osbourne, her best friend.

'Best friend
until the end
I will always
be your friend'

     Okay so the rhyme made her cringe now, but they had recited it like a prayer every day in the playground at school since they were seven.  The pair had stuck together through thick and thin.  When Catherine came into school one morning, at the age of twelve and burst into tears, it was Emily who gently coaxed her into telling her what was wrong, while the other girls pretended they cared, yet just wanted to know the news so they could gossip later on.  Through a constant flow of crying, Catherine eventually poured out the agonizing news.  Her mother had cancer.

     'Oh,' was all that Amber had said, and walked away, not the least bit interested anymore.  If Catherine had told her something mundane like it was raining outside she probably would have reacted with much more response.  It was Emily who kindly asked if there was anything that she could to do to help, while the teachers said it with such force, it was almost a rhetorical question.  Yet it was not just a one-way friendship.  Emily had suffered at the hands of a paedophile at the age of eleven. 

     Uncle Sherman, as he liked to be called often volunteered to baby-sit little Emily while her parents went out and enjoyed a night on the town.  They took him up on the offer, kindly thanking him, kissing a silently screaming Emily goodbye.  The door shut, the key turned, the lock fastened and the nightmare began. 

     The nightmare still wasn't over for Emily four years later.  The first reason was that sex was still a sore point for her.  Even at the age of fifteen she had to be excused from sex education lessons because she couldn't bring herself to watch the videos.  The other girls snickered and made jokes about 'babyish virginal goody-two shoes Emily', while Catherine comforted her in the next lesson.  Unknown to Emily, Catherine, when entering the camp for the first time, had quickly swapped Emily's sleeping space with her own.  Situated next to Wayne Hill, a supposed rapist would cause Emily sleepless nights, and she wanted to protect her friend from everything she could.  The second reason was that after finally confessing to Catherine two years later, who immediately made her tell her parents, she felt a weight lift from her shoulders.  That weight was quickly added on, with two extra tonnes of it, as her parents eagerly put her into the limelight of the press.  It had the effect of putting a bloody corpse into shark-infested water.  Journalists were over her like a swarm, and her parents had loved every minute of it, setting up conferences and interviews for their victim of a daughter.

     They were thankful that this show had come along when it did.  The attention was just beginning to wear off.  Her mother made sure sensible clothes was packed in her hand luggage.  'Virgin clothes' she called them.  This was the role she was doomed to play.  Her father had instructed her to look 'pure' on camera.  Would it not have been hurting herself in the process, Emily would have gone on the show nude and had sex every day just to spite her parents.  She really hated them for what they did.  Upon receiving the contract a month ago, she had no desire to appear on the show at all.  Screw fame.  When seeing Catherine's shining eyes however, she grudgingly signed.  Catherine had a life long dream of becoming a dancer, and felt that she just needed a push to get her noticed.  This was just what she was looking for. 

     Catherine had screamed piercingly and broke Emily's thoughts at that point.  She got up and looked at her, panicked, and then looked behind her shoulder to see what she was screaming at.  She was greeted with the sight of Tristan pointing a gun at the now standing group.  Emily quickly huddled next to Catherine, certain they were going to all be killed in an instant.  She particularly felt vulnerable being on the right hand edge, which also gave her more chance to escape, should she need to run.

     Tristan walked directly over to Wayne and put a gun to his head, while the rest of team one lingered a couple of metres behind.  'You fucking shit, you killed her didn't you?'  Wayne didn't reply.  He didn't trust himself to.  He had been in a couple of tough situations before, but never had he had a gun put to his head.  If he spoke, he might just cry with fear right there and then, and fear was not something Wayne Hill was about.

     Wayne's silence infuriated Tristan even more.  'Silent and guilty,' he spat.  He looked him up and down, and then did a double take as he saw his red stained hands.  'Blood?' he sneered.

     'B … B … Berries,' Catherine stammered, holding up her hands showing Tristan the stains the berry juice had left.  Emily did the same.  It was an extremely noble action for Catherine to do, Emily could tell that much by the way her hands and voice shook.

     Tristan looked angrily confused as he swung his body to face Catherine, bringing the gun in her direction with him.  She quickly gave a scream of innocence that turned into cries of helplessness.  Nick had seen enough.  He was already furious with Tristan for defying his orders and pocketing a gun, and now he was acting like a threatening bully.  Leon was angrier, yet managed to contain himself, so he should do the same.

     'Tristan calm down, we don't know what's going on,' he said stepping forward. 

     'We don't know what's going on?' Tristan asked.  'No, I think you'll find we know what's going on.  This guy killed her,' he said turning to Wayne, pointing the gun directly in his face, 'This piece of shit killed Zana.'

     'Jordan was out at midnight yesterday it must have been him. I was asleep,' Wayne protested, expecting to hear or feel the gunshot at any moment, whichever came quicker.

     'Bullshit,' replied Tristan, quickly answering for Jordan.  'You're just making shit up now to cover your own back.  You killed her you fucking rapist.  I know it.  You know it.  And everybody here knows it.'  On the word everybody, Tristan turned and pointed the gun around the group of team two, inciting that they all knew.  Wayne saw his chance and shoulder dived into Tristan, who, noticing a split second too late, fired wildly in his direction. 

     The bullet flew past Wayne's shoulder and embedded into the chest of Yvonne, who didn't even have a chance to scream before falling to the floor simultaneously with Tristan and Wayne, dying instantly.  Echoing screams rang around the island, as those stood nearest to Yvonne fled. Tristan's wrist fractured when hitting the floor, and he was forced to let go of the gun, which bounced a few feet away behind him.  Amber quickly bent down and picked it up, and then ran north with Rachel following behind her, following the lead of many others who had ran when Yvonne was shot.

     'Contestant: zero two four has been eliminated.  I repeat, contestant: zero two four has been eliminated.'

     Wayne punched Tristan in the face a couple of times, the expression on his face being an exact duplicate of the time he and Tristan had fought before.  Jordan and Frank ran over, pulling Wayne off of him roughly.  They kicked him in the ribs and face, trying to inflict as much damage as possible and were soon rejoined by Tristan while Wayne tried to block the hits.  Jordan was especially trying to hit Wayne where it hurt.  He had felt the same worry wash over him as he had when he realized that Zana could get him kicked off the show, when Wayne accused him of murder.  He needed to shut him up and throw everybody off the scent, and so he fully intended on battering Wayne to death.

     'Stop it,' whispered Leon.  Emily turned to him.  Being so close, she was the only one that heard his barely audible plea.  She had been watching the events unfold with horror as she clutched onto Catherine.  She wanted to run, yet couldn't move to do so.  'Stop it,' he repeated.  The fight continued. 

     'Stop it,' Leon screamed, his voice getting louder.  'Stop it, stop it, stop it,' he shouted, waving a six inch knife around.  He grabbed Emily and yanked her from Catherine's grip before she could react.  In one smooth motion, he pulled her towards him, got her in a headlock, and put the knife to her throat.  The fighting had stopped, and all attention was on him.

     'Any of you so much as move, and she gets it.  I'm serious, anybody fucking moves an inch and I'll cut her open right now.  Tristan, Jordan, Frank, stand over there by Nick.'

     The trio made no attempt to move, and continued to stare at Leon in shock.  He made a motion as if he was going to slit Emily's throat.  'Do it,' he reinforced.  They quickly backed away from Wayne, who slowly got up, wiping blood from his nose.

     'Please …'

     Leon turned to Catherine, who had tears running down her face.  'Please,' she repeated.  'Don't take her away from me Leon.'

     Her words had a hard-hitting impact on him, and he released Emily at once like she was on fire.  What the fuck was he doing?  Instead of trying to get to the bottom of this, he'd acted like a lunatic.  He dropped the knife, and backed away from the group, shaking his head in a dazed expression.  The remaining members of the group stared silently at him, and then watched as Emily and Catherine sprinted away together in an opposite direction, breaking the silence with the sound of their feet hitting gravel. 

     Jordan suddenly ran over to the knife pursued by Wayne with lighting reaction.  As Jordan reached it, he bent down and started to close his fingers around it, when he felt Wayne push him hard.  He tripped, and rolled a couple of feet but quickly recovered and ran at him with full speed.  Wayne bent down and picked up the knife, and fell backwards onto his back when he saw Jordan running at him, about to take him down.  Jordan stopped suddenly when he reached him.  He stood there for a moment looking into Wayne's eyes.  With a desperate whimper for help, he looked down to his stomach and saw the six inches of the knife impaled deeply into it.  His mouth suddenly filled with blood, and he coughed it out over Wayne's face.  Wayne looked into his eyes one final time before pulling the knife out sharply, killing him in an instant.  More blood spurted out onto his face and clothes, and he twisted his head from side to side to avoid the constant red stream.  He lay there for a moment, not noticing the silence that everyone had left behind when they ran away.  He had no idea what was going on, where anybody was, who were his allies, and who were his enemies.

     The faint smell of blood hit him, making him nauseous.  He got up slowly, wincing at the pain of his bruised ribs.  He looked down at Jordan, his face contorted into something resembling a frightened animal.  He made his way over to Yvonne, whose face, just like in her school days, was an expressionless mystery.  He looked around the area, shaking his head slowly as he took in everything that had just happened.  A sudden noise made him look upwards, and he noticed the whir of a camera zooming in on him.  He stuck his middle finger up at it in angry defiance, and made his way west.

***

Day four
10:25

     Pierce shook his head dazed, a bewildered smile on his face.  His show was getting better by the second.