Floxham Island ~ Sinclair V-Log AZ267/M (19 page)

“I really
appreciate this Kitt,” Flark was saying, “and everyone will be
delighted to have some proper food again.”

“No problem at
all,” Kitt replied. “Eddy and me are happy to pull our weight.”

They stepped
into view and began to walk towards the stores, their backs to us.
With practiced silence I crept forward and Kitt was unconscious
before he knew he’d been had. He fell to the floor and Eddy went
nuts. Boy held his hand and tried to soothe him as I took out my
mobile sampler and got some of Kitt’s DNA.

“It’s a match,”
I said as I stood up. “Kitt’s DNA matches that I found on the blood
stained overalls hidden in the air vent. Now the laser net is up
and working we can install him downstairs in one of the cells
before he wakes up and then I’ll test Eddy. Good job guys, thanks
for all your help.”

“My pleasure
Sam,” Luggs said as he spat at Kitt. “I just wish you’d go on
inside for a moment and leave me in charge of this psycho fuck
kiddy killer.”

“I know buddy,”
I replied “but then you’d be in one whole mess of trouble and he
ain’t worth that.” He was still glaring at the unconscious Kitt as
I put a hand on his arm to emphasise the point and he gave a deep
sigh.

“There’s
something you should know Sam,” Boy said. I turned and looked and
saw a grave expression on his face and behind him, Stitch, Hank and
Flark all looked at the floor and I knew right off there’d been
another murder while we’d been gone.

“Oh no,” I
replied and wiped a hand through my hair. “There’s been another
one, yes?”

“Two more,”
Hank said quietly. My blood left me and I went cold as I took in
his words.

“What? Two?
Shit.”

“One of em was
getting out of this place in a month.” Grelly said. “His time was
up and he had a family who had waited for him and a job to go back
to. He was gonna have a chance to have a good life again and now
he’s dead.”

“Where are the
bodies?”

“Wrapped in
table cloths just inside the door here, near Meesha, Jena and
Ronjo’s bodies.”

“Throats cut,
like the others?”

“Yep.”

“We need the
knife guys,” I said. “Is it on him Luggs?”

“Nope.”

“Dammit,” I
hissed. We really needed to find it but I knew we had a slim chance
of finding a knife in a huge place like this and my heart sank.
“We’ll just have to hope he decides to tell us when he wakes up cos
I don’t fancy our chances of finding it in this place do you?”

“Well we found
the overalls,” Grelly cut in. “There are a lot of guys in here and
I can tell you now every one of em will be more than willing to
tear this place apart to find it.”

“We’ll draw up
a plan of action like we did when we searched for the overalls,” I
said. “We divide the place up into small sections and get each team
to pick the place apart methodically from the bottom up.” The guys
nodded and that lifted my spirits a little. It was handy having so
many willing helpers on this job; I knew I wouldn’t have been able
to do this alone and I was grateful. “Okay let’s get this asshole
down in a cell and then I’ll get a sample from Eddy. Then we go
tell the troops huh?”

Dex and Luggs
grabbed Kitt by the arms and hauled him up. Boy was still
struggling with Eddy so I held the door open and they dragged him
through and headed for cell wing four. Grelly came with us and
showed us how to operate the laser fences on the cells so Kitt
could be secured without us having to worry about him escaping and
we left him in a cell to sleep it off. As we headed up the stairs
we heard the scream that rooted us to the spot. We looked at each
other open mouthed, then as one we raced up the stairs and back
into the main entrance hall. A man lay on his back and at first all
we could see was the soles of his boots that twitched every couple
of seconds. A second, much smaller body sat astride him, his back
to us and seemed to be struggling with something out of our sight.
As we slowly moved to our right, the man’s left hand came into view
and that too was twitching in time with his feet. We were
mesmerised at the sight and although we all knew that something was
terribly, horribly wrong, we were powerless to act and slowly made
our way around to get a better view.

The floor for
several yards around was wet with blood but instead of a gently
spreading slick like in the vidicom movies we all watch from time
to time, we saw angry sprays several feet long in all directions;
one of which had hit the wall and reminded me of some of the
offensively overpriced modern artwork I’d seen on my travels.
Eventually we’d moved around enough to recognise the body as Boy,
lying flat on his back as Eddy sat astride his chest, struggling to
force the large knife through the vertebra. He shoved his weight
down on the knife, lifting his backside up from Boy’s chest a foot
or so and grunting with the effort. Finally he sank back down,
exhausted from his failed attempt to behead Boy and turned to face
us. He climbed from Boy’s body and stood there, soaked in blood
from head to toe and just looked at us. His shoe squelched as he
took a step towards us before remembering he’d left the knife
buried in Boy’s neck. He turned back and bent down to retrieve it;
having to use both hands to free it from Boy’s third and fourth
cervical vertebra. He stood and faced us again, the knife held in
front and locked eyes with Baz. For a second I was frozen but his
sudden scream snapped me out of my torpor. He raced towards Baz and
I shot him with a tranquiliser dart. He dropped instantly, the
knife skittering across the slick floor and coming to rest at the
toe of my left boot.

Once I was able
to tear my eyes away I looked down at the knife, transfixed by the
sight of it lying there and still trying to get my head around the
fact that I’d just seen a kid trying to behead a grown man. Shit,
that kind of stuff takes some getting used to and I’ll admit I had
a few nightmares afterwards over that. Murmurs from nearby brought
me out of my trance and I looked up to find a crowd had gathered;
brought there by the screams and now they all stood transfixed as
we were. Using all of my inner control, I mentally shook the fuzz
from my brain and reached into my pocket for my Sterifilm spray.
Once my hands were coated I picked up the knife and called for a
clean bin liner.

“Get him
downstairs and into another cell would ya guys?” A noise caught my
attention and I looked up at the crowd to see Marta put a hand over
her mouth and make a dash for the bathroom. The blue eyed plank
appeared and met my gaze so I nodded towards the bathroom and he
ran in after her. “Can we have a couple more table cloths here and
some of that cleaning fluid?” While several volunteers cleaned up I
bagged the knife, then went up to the first floor and retrieved the
overalls from the desk in office thirty seven where I’d hidden them
before we left the day before. Now we had our killer, or killers, I
could see no need to hide them away. My brain throbbed; I was
mentally exhausted as I flopped into a chair beside Nembier.

“Thought you
were dog meat Sam,” he said quietly. “Your buddies said you and a
couple of the others got caught by the creatures out there.”

“A necessary
subterfuge. Sorry to disappoint you,” I grinned.

“Don’t
apologise to me, I’m glad you’re still here. That blue eyed boy is
a nice enough guy but I don’t really fancy my chances with him in
charge of my case.”

“I know what
you mean,” I snickered. “We have the mystery throat slasher now, so
you don’t have to worry about getting that tagged onto you okay?
Thanks by the way.”

“What for?”

“For telling me
about seeing the guy before. I know you were trying to help but you
could’ve just told me it was Kitt who let you out of the cuffs. It
might’ve ended this sooner and saved a few lives.”

“You think so?”
he asked me. “You’d have taken my word for it that I saw Kitt and
his crazy kid kill my colleagues back home on Agrillia? Really?
Look me in the eyes Sam and tell me you’d have believed me. I dare
you.”

“Point taken,”
I nodded. “Now how about you tell me all about what happened back
on Agrillia huh? This won’t be an official interview by the way;
that’s not my job. You’ll have to do that when the relevant
authorities take over your custody but I’d sure like to know.” He
nodded and I sat back and listened as he explained it all to
me.

“We’d been
working that dig for three months and were making some really
interesting discoveries. The site was out in the middle of nowhere
and it was great. We were out in the country, doing a job we love
with no one around to bug us or order us around. One day we decided
to take a day off and go hiking to see the countryside a little.
We’d worked flat out since the day we arrived and a day off was
just what we needed to refresh our batteries a little. Anyway, we’d
been walking for a couple of hours when we came upon a couple of
caves and decided to go in and explore. That was our mistake Sam
and one I bitterly regret as it was mainly my idea to go in there.
I guess I was hoping to find some rock carvings or something and I
just couldn’t help myself, so I persuaded the other guys to take a
few minutes just to look. The first one was empty but the second
one was where we bumped into Kitt and his kid. They were asleep and
although they could’ve just been an old guy and his grand kid out
camping, we knew this area was not one where campers could usually
be found. It’s very isolated and they didn’t have the sort of gear
with them that would identify them as campers anyway and we just
knew they were there because they didn’t want to be found and it
occurred to all of us that they just might be second or third
generation illegal clones. There’d always been rumours of clones
still living around in the wilds but no one I knew or spoke to had
ever actually seen any.”

“So what did
you do?” I asked.

“We crept away
without waking them up. If we had stumbled upon a couple of illegal
clones hiding out, knowing what they’re capable of, well we wanted
out of there fast. We got out okay but one of the guys dropped his
wallet and didn’t realise until an hour or so later. None of us
fancied the idea of going back to get it so we just carried on and
decided that when we got back to camp, we’d call in the security
force to deal with them. What we didn’t realise was that his wallet
contained his ID card and the licence for the dig. We effectively
gave Kitt and the kid our address and of course, within twenty four
hours the two of them paid us a night time visit. As luck would
have it, I was up taking a piss when I heard a noise from one of
the tents. Something caught my eye in the gloom when I was about to
go and investigate and I saw the kid crawl out the back of the tent
with a huge knife in his hands. I was scared Sam and you know what?
I was too scared to go and help those guys. Instead of going to
help my friends I just hid amongst the rocks while they murdered
them and waited for them to go away. Have you any idea how that
makes me feel? Have you? Those were my buddies Sam. I’ve worked
with them for ten years and they were the only friends I ever had
and I stood by and let them be hacked to death cos I was too scared
to go and help them.”

By the time
he’d finished telling me the story, he had tears on his cheeks and
I genuinely felt sorry for him. “Thank you for telling me the truth
buddy. I’ll make sure the authorities know okay?” He nodded and
sniffed and I went and got him a drink. Something occurred to me,
so I sat back down and turned to face him. “Did you actually see
the kid do all the killings or did the pair of them do it?”

“It was just
the kid but you know something? I reckon that Kitt only allowed it
because he knew we’d found their hideout. It seemed to me like the
kid was the actual crazy one.”

“How do you
know?”

“Kitt was
hiding in the shadows and just looked, well, furtive I guess. It’s
hard to describe but there was just something about him that told
me the kid was the crazy one. It seemed to me that they were just
doing it to stop themselves being found and the kid
euthanased.”

“Okay, thanks,”
I nodded and felt a lot happier now that I had the full story.

Once everyone
had found their way back into the canteen and got themselves drinks
and sat down, I thought they deserved an explanation so I
stood.

“Guys,” I
called and the room fell silent. “Okay now you all deserve to know
what’s been going on so here it is. Professor Nembier here gave me
information that it was an Agrillian clone who let him out of the
restraints the day we arrived and I felt that this was done in
order that he be blamed for Jena Marks’ murder. When the second
murder occurred I knew it couldn’t have been Nembier; he didn’t
have the time. That was when we all knew we had a killer amongst
us. When I got the DNA sample from the overalls, I knew I had to
get it processed in order that I could at least begin to figure out
who it might be. I know we told you we were going to look for some
long range comms equipment, but what we were in fact doing, was
going to the forensic lab to process my DNA sample. I’m sorry we
lied to you but I didn’t want the killer to get nervous and put you
all in danger while all the best guns were away. I know you lost
another two of your friends but if he’d known we were closing in on
his identity, we could’ve returned to find you all dead.”

“When they told
us you’d died out there we thought we were doomed Sam,” one of the
inmates called out and several heads nodded in agreement. “We’re
sure glad you’re okay buddy.”

“Thanks man.
Anyway, when the sample was done and it said it came from an
Agrillian clone named Edward Kitt, we all knew it was either the
kid or the old guy, or both. We wanted to get them under restraint
without any danger to yourselves, and that’s why Morry here asked
him and the kid to help him fetch stuff from the stores. Me and a
couple of the guys were hiding outside and got Kitt restrained so I
could get a sample of his DNA, which came back as a match to the
overalls. We thought we had our guy but then the kid ups and goes
crazy when we were putting Kitt in a cell and Boy was lost. You all
saw how he died, it was horrible but I want you all to know that
both of them are now downstairs in cells and they can’t escape. We
also got the laser net working again by the way, thanks to Hank’s
genius, so no more creatures can gain access to the island. We must
be aware however that there may still be more that we haven’t
flushed out and dealt with yet. All the buildings except for the
workshops and the accommodation sector have been searched and
cleared, so it’s probably wise that no one go wandering around
outside without an escort. If you do, you’re to blame for anything
happens to you okay? So now all we have to do is wait for the liner
to return so we can alert the relevant authorities and get off this
rock.”