Sea May Rise, Sky May Fall
Go on, go on
Go bravely on
Into the blackest night...
Marianne groaned, shielding her eyes with her arm. The light was too bright. But she was too tired to get up and actually turn it off. She lay there for a few minutes, wincing. The light eventually became too much to bear, forcing her sit up, the effort nearly finishing her off. Rubbing her eyes with her knuckles, she then fumbled for the switch, her hand hitting an empty goldfish bowl instead. She let out a sharp cry, rubbing her now sore knuckles. She stared at the offending goldfish bowl in confusion, her memory starting to catch up with her surroundings.
Cain. His hand sliding up her shirt. Her stepmother calling her a liar. The panic when she'd thought the bus wasn't going to show, and then finding out that she'd have to catch a second one to get where she needed to be. The moment just before she'd boarded the ferry thinking she'd lost her fare. Hitching lifts. The weirdo woman who preached about being saved by Elvis during the ride over. The howling wind in her hair. The waves crashing onto the shore. She'd always feared the water and now she knew why. It was where she'd find her end. The water had been the last thing she could remember. So where was she now?
She glanced down at herself, only to see for some inexplicable reason she had been practically mummified with quilts and blankets. Panicking, she kicked them off, crashing against the sagging sofa as she did. Her clothes were gone, replaced by a dark blue cableknit jumper that reached down to her knees, stinking of salt and smoke, matched by long woollen socks that were now wrinkling around her ankles. Marianne staggered to her feet, adjusting the shorts she also inexplicably had on so they wouldn't fall down around her ankles as well. Pushing the damp hair out of her face, she looked around for a weapon, not missing the nutty nautical theme going on in terms of the place's interior design, as well as the mountain of litter lying around. It was like a cockroach's paradise. Her clothes seemed to have vanished altogether, her rucksack too. All her worst fears looked like they'd come to life, Marianne terrified that in trying to escape Cain, she'd somehow ended up in the hands of a serial killer instead.
Fighting the tears threatening to fall, she snatched up an old poker from the fireplace. She needed to get out of here and fast. A glance out of the window revealed a wild landscape, with trees ripped out at the roots and miles of marshland. She was in the middle of nowhere with nobody to help her. Now deep in the grip of hysteria, she fled screaming out into the hall, only to suddenly run straight into what she was trying to escape. "LET GO OF ME!" she shrieked, trying to hit him across the head with the poker.
"John B, save me!" the serial killer screamed, making Marianne scream too in the realisation there were not one, but two, maniacs holding her hostage.
"JJ!?" John B called from outside, sounding confused.
"JJ!?" Marianne screeched, now knowing what name to write on his gravestone, if he even deserved that dignity. "Well, you're gonna die today, JJ!" She redoubled her attack, JJ struggling with her, barely able to dodge her wild blows.
"It's not what you think!" he yelled, lunging to the side, feeling the poker just ghost by his head.
"It's exactly what I think it is, prick!"
Panting, John B suddenly grabbed the poker from behind, manhandling it from Marianne. He'd run hell for leather after looking through the front window and seeing the girl from the beach nearly brain JJ with the old poker. "Everyone, just calm the fuck down!" he snapped, unaware he was now brandishing the poker at them both.
JJ was now holding his hands up. "Man, is that thing possessed?" he demanded, jerking his chin at the poker. "Like, as soon as you touch it, you're suddenly filled with the urge to smash somebody's brains in!?"
John B glanced between JJ and the poker, and then back again, the girl just standing there gormlessly, mouth hanging open. Shaking his head, he flung it onto an armchair, before turning back to face JJ and the girl. "Shall we start over?" he then said sarcastically. "Minus the murder attempt?"
The girl backed away from them both, arms folded across her chest, face ashen. "Or minus the abduction and sexual assault?" she spat, now shaking from head to foot. "Minus the false imprisonment!?" –
-"Whoa, whoa, whoa," John B said quickly, looking horrified. "That is definitely not the case here."
"Is it not?" the girl said incredulously. "Are you seriously shitting me?"
"No, I'm not!"
"I told you we should have called Kie, man," JJ said, pulling his skip hat down over his face.
"Who's Kie!?" the girl snapped. "Another jock asshole? Where's he, then? Out slipping something in another poor girl's drink?"
John B ignored her, pulling out his phone instead. "There's no signal," he said to JJ, looking stricken.
"Of course there isn't, bro!" JJ snapped. "There was a hurricane!"
"I can't even call 911," the girl breathed, looking at both boys in terror. "And nobody knows I'm here."
"Look," John B said, holding his hands up this time, "this is not what it looks like. We're not jocks and Kie is a girl, as in Kiara Carrera." He glanced wildly around the room before suddenly lunging to the left, snatching up a dusty photoframe from the wooden stand. He blew on it, before scrubbing the glass clear with his sleeve. "Here," he said, shoving it at the girl, who took it in bewilderment. "That's us all last summer. Me, JJ, Pope and Kie - who's right at the end in the red dress."
The girl stared at the photo, and then at John B, her green gaze darting between them both. Without a word, she handed it back to him, before retreating to the sofa again. "What the hell happened, then?" she then said from between gritted teeth, still sounding like she didn't believe him. "Why am I here without my clothes and in this dump with some strange guys?"
JJ stepped forwards, holding up the wedding photograph he'd hidden in his back pocket, having put everything else back in the rucksack. He'd then hung the girl's clothes outside in order for them to dry quicker in the dim sunlight, leaving her rucksack on the nail by the front door. But he hadn't shared the discovery he'd made with John B, wanting to catch the girl off her guard. "Why are you carrying a picture of Theodore Routledge on you?" he snapped, making the girl sit up straight, color flooding her face.
"Wait, what?" John B said in disbelief, rounding on the girl.
"You went through my things!?" the girl protested, getting to her feet. "God, I knew you were a prick! You'd have to be with a name like JJ!"
John B snatched the photo from JJ, staring at it in horror. "Why the fuck do you have a photo of my uncle?" he demanded, advancing on the girl.
"Your uncle!?" the girl scoffed. "Where!?"
John B rammed the photo in her face, pointing at his uncle in his morning suit and neat moustache. "Here," he spat. "That's him. Teddy Routledge, my dad's brother. So who the fuck are you and why do you have this photo?"
The girl stared at him, the color leeching from her skin. "Theodore Routledge is my godfather," she then said, glancing between John B and JJ, "the photo was taken at my parents wedding where he was the best man."
John B noticed she didn't give him her name, only adding up his suspicion she was in some kind of deep shit. "Are you looking for him or something?" he then said, tilting his head to the side.
The girl glanced around, obviously trying to find something, only not to. "I – I have this postcard with his new address on it," she stuttered, suddenly looking very small, "he sent it like nearly a year ago now. I mean, I hardly seen him as it was, but he tried to keep in some kind of contact which made me think it was worth the chance I was taking coming out here."
"Why?"
The girl bowed her head, before burying her face in her hands, making John B and JJ look at each other.
"I… I think we need to talk," John B then said more gently, exhaling sharply. "Now."