CHAPTER THREE

Nemeses

JACK'S STORM RUMBLED through the night. In the caves and recesses of the island the hunters clung together, shivering in the frigid air. On Castle Rock Ralph was awake for hours, irritated by the fidgeting of the boys around him as well as his thoughts of the lost dream. He longed to be standing on the deck again, feeling the generous sun on his hair and shoulders.

At midnight lightning flashed over the island and thunder cracked. Now and then bolts lit up the inside of the steamy cave, and gave Ralph, the only voyeur, brief windows on the activities of his superiors. Tonight Jack and Roger slept farther inside the cavity, side by side, and during an extended, consecutive series of flashes Ralph could see the deputy's infatuation with his boss dilating. During his restless twists the boy would sit up and look over at the hunched shoulders of the Chief. His expression was dour as usual, but infected by a doubtful longing… Ralph turned on his other side, confused. At last he felt his eyelids flickering, and as the skyrolls abated he finally fell asleep.

IN THE MORNING Jack rose quietly before anyone else, and crept out onto the sheet that overlooked the island. The forest had been drenched in the night, and so had the sun; it shone meagre, weak beams over the treetops, and had almost no effect on the distant, pale horizon. Today the sea was hungover from the tempest, and the waves that lapped at each side of the island were reluctant and choppy.

Inside the cave Ralph was frowning in his sleep. He was on the cruiser again, and the weather was beautiful, but he could not enjoy it fully; he had to find his father. He turned left through a doorway and walked deeper into the ship. The crew was invisible. Ralph knew – intuited – that there were only two people in this hulk. He stepped into a room with flashing panels of lights and came to a circular hole. Down a ladder he went, guided by hungry curiosity. Now he was in a large room that resembled the sports hall in his school. In the centre stood vaulting apparatus. Ropes hung from the ceiling like creepers in the forest. Cautiously he walked in – then the double doors behind him slammed shut. Ralph spun around, expecting either a monster or his father, but there was no one there, and the doors had disappeared into brickwork. The hall was now a tomb, deep underwater and inaccessible. Did anyone know he was there?

The boy turned and looked around the room. The ceiling was farther away than before, and the tops of the ropes were barely discernible. They began to twitch, as if life was being breathed into them – then suddenly the ends had snake heads with flickering, evil tongues; they licked the air around him with a hissing sound, and he fled into the centre of the room where the vaulting box lay.

Then he heard tapping from inside the object. Bewildered and horrified, he put his hands on the leather exterior and prepared to push. All he wanted was his father. The box was heavy when he placed his weight against it, but it began to tilt and then with a violent thrust the boy tipped it over. He stared down at the dying body of his mother, dressed in black with a red flower in her gaping mouth. Her eyes opened slowly and she looked at her son with an expression of confused horror…

Ralph began screaming in the cave, waking up the hunters around him. Roger sat up, startled, then Jack came in and swiftly walked to Ralph's bed. He shook the boy to consciousness. Ralph turned and gazed at Jack, petrified from the nightmare, before his senses returned and he began to breathe slower.

'You woke up the whole tribe,' said Jack, with a hint of disquiet through the usual scorn. 'I've never heard a person moan like that…'

Ralph was emotional and reactive from the visions. 'What about Simon?' he shot back hotly, then remembered his own involvement.

Jack looked at him quizzically. His face softened a little. 'Well don't blame yourself. Everyone was at fault.' He hardened again. 'Just keep quiet, will you? It's probably only six in the morning.'

He went off irritably. Ralph got his breath back and wiped his forehead; the cave was hot from the close bodies on the ground, but his mental ordeal had made him perspire more profusely. He turned on his side again and felt ironic alleviation from the cooling sweat on the animal skin. Perversely, he wanted to remain asleep for as long as he was on the island, for when he was unconscious he could not feel the ringing aches in his stomach and feet, and in his nightmares there was always the hope of redemption. But he was too restless after that, and when the hunters were asleep again he got up and went out into the drizzly, cerulean morning. Jack was standing on the sheet again, gazing out at the whelming horizon, which encompassed the island from every visible degree. He heard Ralph patter on the patio and looked down at him.

'I'm exiling Percival and Johnny,' said the Chief, and Ralph remembered the names from his recent, distant past.

'Why tell me?' asked the fair-head.

'Because they tricked me yesterday,' said Jack, curious to see what the other boy's reaction would be to sending two small boys out into the wilderness. 'They diverted me and Roger while the other one stole the fruit.'

Ralph was appalled. 'Leave them alone, for heaven's sake. They were only hungry.'

'Everyone's always hungry,' snapped Jack. 'I never complain, and I don't eat more than anyone else.'

'Those two are young kids,' said Ralph, wincing in the sharp, lemony light. 'How long will you send them away for?'

'We'll see,' said Jack indulgently. 'Could be a day, could be a week. See how they like it having to hunt for food.'

Ralph felt that he could never change Jack's mind. He looked up at him in disgust. Above them the sun flickered into life and began to dry the staggered forest. The boys broke their gazes and turned away, Jack to the horizon, Ralph to the cave. He picked up a pile of wood and fern and clambered to the summit. Jack half watched and called to him tauntingly.

'There's no one coming to help, Ralph. A fire won't do any good. It's a waste of wood.'

Ralph kept on, furiously pushing the branches into a dense pile in the centre of the damp ashes. He remembered the specs and looked about for them.

'Looking for these?' asked Jack from the edge of the rock, and took the frail remains from around his belt. Ralph took them from him silently and angled the good disc between the sun and the wood. From the corner of his good eye he saw Jack surveying him critically, and felt like pushing him over the cliff. After a minute the sun glared strongly enough to produce a chain of feeble smoke, and within five the dry ferns were alight. A dark column rose from Castle Rock into the sullen sky.

'Fat lot of good that'll do,' gloated Jack. 'Who wants to be rescued anyway? You heard what they said on the radio.'

'Shut up,' said Ralph, flatly. 'Even if you don't want to be rescued, I do. I'd rather swim out to sea than spend another day with you.'

Jack snorted again, but seemed displeased. He returned to the cave.

PERCIVAL AND JOHNNY were crestfallen when their fate was prescribed to them that afternoon. Having witnessed their vicarious redemption from the fourth boy, they assumed their future would conform to the past, but now they stood before Roger, Bill and Maurice, who blocked the entrance to the cave, and were told by the deputy that Jack was not easily fooled.

'You're to go into the forest,' said Roger, sourly. 'And don't come back for three nights.' The smaller boys besieged the guards but Bill and Maurice maintained dispassionate visages. Roger prodded them. 'Go on! You deserve it for making fun of us.'

Alarmed and rueful, Percival and Johnny slowly climbed over the sheet and made their way down to the isthmus.

Ralph was nearby, urinating nostalgically in the thicket; he met the two youngsters at the entrance to the forest. Saddened by their appearance he rashly ran over the neck of rock and called up loudly to anyone who would hear.

'Roger! Bill! I'm going with Percival and Johnny. Don't try to stop me.'

Roger peeked over the ledge and stuck out his tongue.

Ralph sped back to the waiting boys, who were delighted to have such an ethical guardian. He put an arm around each of them and the three wandered off into the forest.

'I saw your little plot yesterday,' said Ralph, smiling down at the mouselike Percival. The child looked up in surprise, but Johnny, who with his amber hair and pleasant countenance resembled a smaller version of Ralph, laughed loudly.

'Thanks for not turning us in,' he said, with some adoration.

'Did you share it out equally?'

Johnny nodded. 'Between six of us.'

Ralph ruffled his hair approvingly.

The three boys sauntered through the dark woods, then Ralph stiffened, first espying an outer stretch of the pig run, then hearing a near-off call from a savage. The tribe was either hunting again or playing a war game. Ralph wanted to avoid them, and more specifically Jack, completely, so he steered his charges left towards the beach. Soon the hue of the vegetation grew lighter, and eventually palm trees waved at them. The sun shone hotter and by the time the trio reached the white expanse they were in high spirits. In comfortable silence they traversed the silky stretch until they came to the pool and the platform, where the early meetings had taken place. Ralph could almost see the conch gleaming on the abandoned log he once used as a seat.

They stopped and the younger boys rested beneath a palm tree while Ralph ran into the forest to collect fruit, then the three sat munching in contentment, gratified that their exile had turned out to be so enjoyable. They joked that they would rather stay there than go back to Castle Rock, but Ralph knew that only the hunters could provide meat and fire with any consistency. Suddenly lighter of heart, the older boy pulled down his shorts and plunged headlong into the pool. The water was freezing from the gelid clime, but it felt marvellous to be clean again; the boy submerged himself totally and flipped over and over under the surface. Percival and Johnny came to the edge and laughed.

When he was refreshed Ralph rinsed the remains of his shorts and wondered what on Earth had become of his other clothes, for like most of the children his shirt had seemingly evaporated. The pool was now murky with feathers of earth and blood, but the sea would replenish it at high tide. Ralph felt revitalised, and pushed the horrors of the island to the back of his mind. 'Let's build a shelter,' he said rhetorically, and walked into the fringe of the forest to gather substantial branches. Enlivened by the older one's purpose, Percival and Johnny stooped earnestly for armfuls of leaves and ferns.

After going back and forth several times Ralph strode deeper into the emerald gloom, with the vague idea of finding a fallen tree to use as a backbone for the shelter. A hundred feet into the forest the ground became finer: a potpourri of leaves and twigs with confettis of small pink flowers. Between the patchwork of grey trunks and clicking, invisible wildlife he stopped walking, and breathed in the deep forest scent. During the inhalation flowers seemed to rise up and fling their aroma into the air – with his eyes closed the boy became spellbound by the magic of the wood. The ocean fell back on every side, and the wood expanded on its periphery and closed in where he stood. He felt himself growing roots into the earth…

A faraway scream disrupted the reverie. Ralph opened his eyes, wild again, and punctuated the end of his trance by instinctively snorting out of his clogged nostril. A slug of dried blood and mucus ejected over his mouth and he wiped it away, revolted. Then he located the source of the scream. It was up ahead, somewhere to the right…

Disorientated, the boy took off at a jog in that direction, and after fifty yards the lean trees fell away from him, leaving a sun-stroked clearing of creepers and shrubs. Before seeing the screamer he knew its provocation: the ghastly pig's head sat grinning on a spear in the centre of the clearing. The stained weapon was camouflaged by the background ambiance, so the head appeared to be floating in the air, suspended by evil. Ralph twitched out of his surprise and looked to his right, where Percival cowered behind a bordering tree and stared, petrified, at the hanging head. Johnny was nowhere to be seen.

The older boy stepped between the two and broke the spell. 'It's alright,' he said soothingly. 'Just the hunters having a joke.' As he stroked the back of Percival's trembling head he looked back at the exhausted eyes. Black spots danced around the bloodied crown and alighted on the leathery ears. Recalling its skeletal predecessor, Ralph now found the sight less despicable – this Lord was a monument to a brutality he had grown used to. There was no monster here, merely superstition and primitive ritual. The only beasts on the island were the hunters.

He turned Percival around and marched him in the other direction. The forest grew thick again then relented starkly to the shore, and the youngster relaxed again when he saw the white beach and its frothing parent. Johnny appeared blithely at the site of the prospective shelter with an armful of leaves, and Ralph looked forward to an autumnal bed after two nights of rock and hide. He had not found a large tree with which to construct a robust and durable house, but he was disillusioned with the forest, so he set to work interweaving the smaller branches while Percival and Johnny raked the floor into place.

From a denser pack of trunks fifty yards away two blinkless eyes watched this isolated industry. They belonged to a boy with regular features – onyx hair, logical nose, lithe limbs – but the hazel irises held little humanity as they seared across the beach with insinuations of envy and intrusion. Roger picked at the hard wood of a palm tree as he watched Ralph erect a modest shelter for the littluns; after an hour the woven oval was complete, and Jack's deputy slunk away as the trio stood back critically. A palm provided a spine for the construct, a hollow tangle of branches laced with creepers. Percival and Johnny crept inside and lay down on the crackling leaves, Ralph threw more twigs onto the basket – and the house was complete.

The afternoon was well established when a brittle wind whipped up around Ralph's ears. He shivered as the air moved over fresh sweat, and crouched down to squeeze himself into the wooden cave. Percival and Johnny sat bundled together like Samneric. They besieged him to stay with them during the night and Ralph assented. He entertained the waifs with nostalgic tales of school and his home town, and before long the littluns were asleep. The memories of England gave Ralph a pang in his chest, and he felt tired. Sleep would provide a respite from his tortured thoughts, so he lay down on the leaves and sand-flecked earth, and quickly surrendered his troubles to slumber. The afternoon vanished and evening cloaked the island in navies and greys, then as the insect underworld continued to hum – a constant call – night came down and fully enveloped the beach.

A smart, friendly moon traversed the sky as the trio slept, but they were not alone on the smooth side of the island, for the watcher had returned with an abject plan. Roger moved stealthily behind the wall of palms that separated the forest from the beach, holding a gathering of sticks bound by creepers in one hand. At its top was a bunching of faded linen, a sacrifice from a littlun, which burned a dull orange in the otherwise densely black treescape. The deputy passed the pool and the platform, and stopped behind the palm that spined the new shelter. In the moonlight his face gleamed with cruel mischief; silently he held out the crude torch to the base of the shelter and watched raptly as the flame spread over the leaves. The smoking persimmon silently licked outwards, and Roger backed into the shadowing trees to watch the destruction.

Inside the shelter Ralph's mind was excited by glimpses of dreams, while the younger children slept deeply and mindlessly. Smoke began to filter through the crossed branches and lingered passively at the roof. In the dream world, Ralph found himself at the bottom of the garden, feeding sugar to the wild ponies. When they had finished crunching the snow cubes, he looked back at the house and saw his father standing by the backdoor. Ralph waved but the man did not move. Puzzled, the boy left the contented animals and began walking to the house, but with every step the building contracted and shrank from him. He stopped, bewildered, and the contractions halted, then with sudden desperation he started to run. The house disappeared in seconds – then with a gasp Ralph was back on the island, staring up at the roof of the shelter from an awkward foetal position. At once he saw the grey clouds slinking overhead and made an exclamation. Rapidly he shook the other two awake; startled, they let Ralph pull them out of the shelter and onto the furrowed beach. They stared in astonishment at the furnace. The fire had taken hold of the whole shelter; it was now a lava-coloured ball of flame.

From his vantage point Roger smirked joylessly. He was a difficult boy to satiate, especially after the levering of the boulder. Indifferent to the well-being of the boys on the beach, he retreated into the gloomy forest with thoughts of Jack and the cave, but Ralph had glanced around for the perpetrator and saw an adumbral figure. Immediately he leapt from the beach, over the platform and into the sable shadows. Spearless and roused from his detached amusement, Roger took off through a rough stretch of the forest that ran parallel to his familiar track, and Ralph followed doggedly, the two spectres dancing over fern and flower. Suddenly Roger tripped over a tangling creeper, and Ralph saw the vandal crumble onto the wiry ground. He leapt on top of his sadistic enemy, holding down his hands with his own. Roger growled and spat, then stopped struggling and laughed up at his furious captor.

'What are you going to do, then? A hunter has to kill his prey.'

Ralph straddled him between the mottled, moonlit trunks. 'I'm not a killer,' he said definitively. 'Death's too good for you anyway.'

Roger was flippant but resented being lectured, and he took advantage of Ralph's moral pause by jabbing a knee up to the small of his back. Ralph grunted and loosened his grip on Roger's wrists, then the deputy wriggled loose and hit him on the jaw. The boy fell sideways as the arsonist scrambled to his feet and sped off into the night back to Castle Rock. Ralph was left stunned on the floor of the teeming jungle.