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  "Roberta? Oh, shit. Hey, Roberta!"

  He touched her cheek. It was cold.

  "Roberta?"

  She didn't answer, but he hadn't really expected her to. He'd hoped, certainly, but the position of her body had told him otherwise.

  Carefully, Stuart rolled her over and confirmed his worst fears. Roberta wasn't breathing and her mouth and nose were filled with mud. It dripped out as he laid her back down again. He considered cleaning out the muck and administering mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but there was no point. Her open eyes stared sightlessly, and when he felt her wrist for a pulse, he found none. Her limbs were limp, not stiff—and still compliant. That meant she hadn't been dead long. He tried to remember how long it took for rigor mortis to set in and then realized he didn't have a clue. The extent of his knowledge on such matters, like most Americans, came from watching crime dramas.

  He examined her corpse more closely. She'd been stabbed, obviously. The hilt of a pocketknife still jutted from beneath her breast. Her abdomen and throat were covered with blood. It looked wet and fresh. Stuart tried to determine if that was from the rain or because it was still running. Her body moved slightly as the mud beneath her shifted, and he then noticed that her throat had actually been cut. He hadn't noticed it at first because of the shadows and the amount of blood covering her. His eyes returned to the pocketknife. He tugged experimentally on the hilt, but the blade remained embedded in her. He pulled harder, but couldn't free it. He felt something beneath the tips of his fingers. Some sort of indentation. Crouching lower, Stuart leaned close and shined his phone's display screen on the knife. A pair of initials had been engraved on the hilt—M.H.

  He sat back up and sighed. M. H.—Mark Hicker-son. He'd seen the cameraman use a pocketknife before, and he was pretty sure it was this one. There weren't any other M. H.'s running around on the island, and he knew for a fact that Roberta hadn't brought a pocketknife as her luxury item. She'd brought lip balm (something that Stuart had thought was pretty clever—many contestants suffered from horribly chapped lips due to the constant exposure to the elements). But if this was indeed Mark's knife, then where the hell was Mark? And more importantly, how had his knife ended up sticking out from beneath Roberta's breast? Had there been a fight? A struggle? An accident? And if Roberta was dead, what about the others? Where were Jesse, Matthew, and the rest?

  He glanced back down at Roberta's still form. Raindrops beat against her open eyes, filling them with fake tears. Shivering, he reached out and closed the lids, holding them shut until they stayed that way.

  "I'm sorry," Stuart whispered. "I didn't know you very well. We never get to know any of you very well. We don't want to, you see? There's no time for that. This is reality television, but reality is what we say it is. We only want to know one aspect of you. One facet that we can exploit and sell to the viewers. You are who we portray you as, rather than your real self. We don't care about your families or loved ones or what you're really like back home—not unless we can put a spin on it. So, I'm sorry that I didn't take the time to get to know the real you. I bet you were a decent person. You certainly didn't deserve this."

  Raindrops rolled down his cheeks. Stuart flicked

  the mud and the blood from his fingers and wiped his hands on a clean portion of Roberta's wet shirt. Then he pressed some buttons on the phone's keypad and put it to his ear.

  "Come on," he sighed. "Pick up. Pick up. Pick up."

  While he waited for the ship to answer, another burst of lightning raced across the sky and that was what saved his life. In the after flash, he saw the shadow rushing up behind him. The satellite phone slipped from his hands and landed in the mud. Without turning around, Stuart had time to roll aside as the figure thrust a sharpened bamboo spear into the empty space he'd occupied only seconds before.

  Stuart leapt to his feet and was momentarily taken aback by the identity of his attacker.

  "Matthew?"

  The wild-eyed man didn't respond. He merely nodded and jabbed the spear at Stuart again, aiming for his stomach. Stuart side-stepped the attempt and balled his fists, adopting a boxer's stance.

  On the ground, a tinny, static-filled voice came from the phone. "Hello? Hello?"

  "Can I answer that?" Stuart asked. Without waiting for confirmation, he moved toward it. Matthew thrust the spear at him again, and Stuart paused, holding his hands up.

  "Hello," the voice called again, almost lost in the din of the storm. "Is there anyone there? Do you copy?"

  Matthew spat on the phone. His lips drew back in a snarl.

  "I don't know what's going on here," Stuart wheezed, "but I never liked your sorry ass, anyway.

  You've got to be the most fucked-up contestant we've ever had on this show. Now you can put that down and talk to me, or we can fight. Either one is fine with me. I'm sick of this storm and this island and all the fucking attention whores like you and your fellow contestants get."

  Matthew didn't lower the spear, but his eyes flinched, as if surprised.

  "If you feel that way," he murmured, barely audible over the storm, "then why do you participate? Why not do something else?"

  "Why the hell do you care?" Stuart's caution was replaced with anger. "Why does a steel worker do what he does? Or a pizza maker or a stockbroker? This is my job, and I'm good at it, and I get paid to do it. This is how I earn my living. I won a fucking Emmy, man. What have you done?"

  "Me? That's easy. I'm going to save the world."

  It was the conviction in Matthew's matter-of-fact tone that chilled Stuart the most. Despite all of the network's psychological profiling and screening, the young man was obviously unbalanced and had now suffered some kind of breakdown—maybe from the rigors of the competition or the culture shock or something else. But faced with that knowledge, Stuart had more questions than ever. He still didn't know what had transpired over the last few hours, and he needed to find out before the situation spiraled even further out of control.

  "Matthew." He spoke softly, trying to keep his voice calm. "Look, maybe we got off on the wrong foot. Let's both take a deep breath. Obviously, you're pretty upset about something, but we don't

  have to do this. Just calm down. I'm sorry I said those things to you. I didn't mean them."

  Matthew laughed. His grip tightened on the bamboo shaft. Water dripped from the sharpened tip.

  Stuart continued. "Bad things are happening here. Look—Roberta's dead, as you can see. Some of the others are missing. Do you know what's going on? Have you seen any of them? Shonette and Ryan. Richard and Sal. And Mark and Jesse. They went out with you, right? Do you know where they are?"

  Matthew didn't respond. He stared at Stuart without blinking. Stuart was reminded of a lizard.

  "Do you know who did this?" Stuart pointed at Roberta's corpse. "If so, then you need to tell me."

  "Monsters."

  "What?"

  "Monsters," Matthew repeated, motioning at Roberta with the tip of his spear. "She called me a monster. But she was wrong. I'm not the monster. You are. You and all of the people like you."

  Stuart took a step backward, preparing to run. He didn't like how this sounded. He noticed that Matthew was breathing fast.

  "Hey," he said. "Don't talk like that, man. We can work this out, right? Just calm down. Nobody on this island is a monster."

  "That's where you're wrong."

  Matthew tensed, and Stuart saw what was coming next. For a moment, he considered making a dive for the pocketknife, still embedded in Roberta's chest, but then he remembered how impossible it had been to remove it. If he tried now, Matthew would impale

  him before he could free it. He took a deep breath and balled his hands into fists again, ready for the assault.

  But the attack came from around them, rather than from Matthew.

  All at once, the sodden greenery rustled with activity and at least a dozen—maybe more—shadowy, stunted figures leaped out onto the trail, surrounding them. Without either man real
izing it, Stuart and Matthew drew close together, their backs to one another. With no lightning to illuminate the scene, neither could make out any details of the newcomers' appearances, except that they were short and bulky, and smelled terrible—like a damp basement full of dead mice and mildewed newspapers. The new arrivals closed ranks, drawing closer. They moved in silence.

  "Who's that?" Stuart challenged. "Mark? Is that you,man?"

  Matthew stood stiff, pressing closer against him. His breath whistled through his nose.

  "Jesus," Stuart whispered. "They smell like the inside of a gorilla's stomach."

  "No," Matthew muttered. "They smell like death."

  "Shut up."

  One of the intruders hissed, and Stuart caught a glimpse of white teeth in the darkness.

  "Who are you?" he asked again. "What do you want? Are you hurt?"

  Its response was guttural and totally inhuman— but it was speech nevertheless. Stuart was reminded of a monkey trying to talk.

  "Jesus Christ! What is this? What are they?"

  "Monsters," Matthew said. "Roberta was right, after all. But so was I. I'm not the monster. They are."

  Ignoring him, Stuart's gaze flashed toward the discarded satellite phone. The display was still lit, and he wondered if someone was still on the other end, listening to this situation. If so, would they understand what was happening? At least enough to send help?

  The shadowy figures crept closer, pausing to study Roberta's prone form. One of them crouched and sniffed her. The wind shifted, and Stuart winced, turning his head away from the foul stench.

  "Jesus," he muttered. "What is this?"

  "This is the end," Matthew said.

  The stench grew stronger.

  "What are they?" Stuart asked again.

  A bolt of lightning crashed through the sky, momentarily shedding light on the path, and Stuart got his answer. He saw all too well, and what he saw made him scream.

  Matthew began to laugh.

  Howling as one, the creatures attacked.

  Matthew's laughter turned into screams. Stuart's screams turned into pleas.

  Then both were silenced.

  On the ground, a faint voice continued to drift from the satellite phone.

  "Hello? Stuart? Is anyone there? If you can hear me, the meteorologist says the worst of the storm has passed. It should all be over in the next hour or so. Then you guys will be okay. Do you copy? Hello? Goddamn it, why doesn't anybody answer?"

  Chapter Fifteen

  Sighing, Brett Heffron set his paper coffee cup on the console, readjusted his headset, and tried again.

  "Hello? Stuart, if you can hear me, press one of the buttons on the phone. I should hear it beep, even if I can't hear you."

  He waited, but there was only more static. It had been like this for the last five minutes, ever since he'd received the call from the island. For a brief moment, at the beginning of the call, he'd thought he heard Stuart's voice, but then everything turned to static. According to the controls, the connection was solid, but something—probably the storm— was interfering with the audio. He turned the speakers up and adjusted the sound, trying to diminish the background noise, but it did nothing to improve the quality. All he heard was an occasional snippet of sound—one syllable of a word, half a crash of thunder, the sputtering hiss of rain.

  And then, incredibly, for an instant, something that sounded like a wild animal, which was, of

  course, impossible, since there were no mammals indigenous to the island. It squealed and roared. Then the static returned.

  "That," he muttered to himself, "is some weird-ass feedback."

  The ship rolled, and his stomach lurched. Brett wasn't given to seasickness, but the swells from the storm were bigger than anything he'd ever encountered.

  "Hello? Stuart, do you copy? I say again, press the buttons on your keypad if you can hear me."

  Another squeal, then more static.

  Brett wore a headset with a microphone, and his ears were starting to sweat beneath the foam-covered earpieces. Despite the other technician's insistence that the equipment should be kept in a cool environment, Brett had cranked the heat up when the storm hit. Now it was hot inside the radio shack. He made a mental note to turn the heat down next time he got up.

  He tried adjusting the equipment one more time, and then said, "Stuart or whoever this is, I don't know if you can hear me, but I'm not copying you. Suggest you try calling from another location. I say again, the meteorologists say that the storm is almost over. Ivan is on its way out. Just hang in there a little bit longer. Freighter out."

  He flicked a switch, breaking the connection, and removed his headset. He tossed it onto the console and then dug in each ear with his pinkie finger, removing the sweat and wax buildup. The computer monitor in front of him flashed from his unfinished game of solitaire to the screen saver. He clicked the

  mouse, bringing the game back up again, and then took another sip of coffee. "Ugh . . . shit."

  He grimaced. The coffee had been lukewarm to begin with, but now it had turned cold and the artificial creamer he'd dumped into the cup earlier was now a partially dissolved mound of sludge.

  He tried checking his e-mail, to see if there were any messages from his friends back in Los Angeles, but the wireless network was down, as well.

  "No coffee. No communications. Pulling a stupid night shift. Shit, I'd be better off on the island with those other saps."

  Brett was twenty-six years old, and would turn twenty-seven in another week and a half. This wasn't the first time he'd spent a birthday onboard a ship, anchored in some remote part of the world rather than at home with friends and family. Sometimes it seemed like much of his adult life had been spent at sea, rather than on land. After graduating high school, Brett had served four years in the navy as a radioman. When he got out, he'd gone to college courtesy of the G.I. Bill, but after two semesters, decided that more school wasn't for him. For a year, he'd worked for a satellite radio company, but when a corporate merger was held up by the federal government and the company started hemorrhaging money, Brett had been let go. He'd landed on his feet, responding to a note on craigslist.com, and got a job as a communications specialist on the network freighter. Until then, he'd never watched a single episode of Castaways, and now, after working on the show, he avoided episodes like the plague.

  The hatch to the compartment opened with a metallic clang and Gina Tremblay, the other communications specialist, stepped into the room. She smiled at him, then waggled the two cups of coffee that were perched precariously in one hand. Brett's gaze drifted to her long, slender legs, but then he noticed that she'd caught him looking. Her smile faltered just a bit. Quickly, he focused instead on her face.

  "Coffee for two? You read my mind, Gina."

  Her smile returned. "Well, if you want a cup, how about giving me a hand with the door?"

  Brett slid out of his chair and closed the hatch behind her, locking the lever in place. Then he gratefully accepted one of the two cups and turned the heat down before returning to his seat. Gina took the chair beside him.

  "What are you doing up?" he asked. "You're not supposed to be on until tomorrow morning."

  "I couldn't sleep. The storm is tossing the ship around so much, and I had to hang on to my rack just to keep from falling out of it. I gobbled half a dozen packs of crackers to keep from getting sick."

  "Yeah," Brett agreed, "it's been bad. It's passing, though. Things should settle down soon."

  "Anything from the island?"

  "Yeah, actually, I received a transmission just a few minutes ago. It came from Stuart's phone."

  "Duh. He's the only one on the island with a phone right now."

  "Smart-ass."

  "Is everything all right? How are they holding up?"

  "I don't know. There was too much interference, and I couldn't hear shit. Just a few fragments here and there." He paused. "There was one weird thing, though."

  "What?"
/>
  Brett shrugged. "I don't know. A sound. This strange growling, snuffling sort of noise. Like an animal of some kind."

  "There aren't any animals on the island."

  "I know. That's why it was weird. Wish I knew what it was."

  Gina kicked off her shoes and propped her feet up on the console, stretching her legs. Brett tried very hard not to notice, and made a point of turning his attention back to the game of solitaire on the computer monitor.

  "It was probably just a bird," Gina said. "A parrot or a cockatiel or something. My mother used to have a cockatiel. They can sound pretty strange when they get going. Maybe it was scared of the storm and was acting spastic."

  "It wasn't a bird. At least, not like any I've ever heard before."

  "Maybe some kind of weird feedback from the storm?"

  "No. This definitely sounded more like an animal. I keep wondering if maybe it was one of those wild pigs that used to live there. You know, the ones that originally came from the shipwrecks? They were all supposed to have died off, but maybe we were wrong."

  Gina grinned.

  "What?" Brett asked.

  "The only pig in the vicinity of this island is you— checking out my ass every time I turn around. I swear to God, Brett, you're worse than Mr. Thompson."

  His ears burned, but then he realized that she was just teasing him.

  "What can I say? It's a much better view than anything else on this hunk of junk."

  She winked. "Damn straight it is. And I'll tell you the same thing that I told Roland last time he copped a feel—you can look, but you'd better not touch."

  "Where is Mr. Thompson anyway? I haven't seen him all night."

  "He's getting cozy in his cabin with one of the new interns."

  "That figures. Is it a guy or girl this time?"

  "I don't know and I don't care. Long as he keeps his disgusting hands off me, he can sleep with whomever he wants. It's not like there's a shortage. The network execs keep providing him with new conquests."