Death Days
WRITTEN IN THE ORDER: SARAH, KATE, KAT, CATIE, LARS, COURTNEY, MAYA, JULIA
Catie wiped the tears from her eyes and lowered the black veil back over her face. In the space of three days her whole world had turned upside down. She stood beside 7 of her close friends and was watching 8 others being burried.It had all started when Catie had decided to invite her friends to her Caribbean Island for two weeks.Catie closed her eyes and travelled back to the time, three days ago, when they had arrived...
***
Catie stood at the end of the carpet that had been layed out for the arriving passengers of her private jet.The first to dismount was Edward Payne, CEO of Payne Enterprises, the biggest frisbee distributer in the world. He pulled a small luggage bag off the plane which Catie suspected was all he had brought with him.Payne was followed closely by Courtney Smyth, a internationally famous supermodel. Her luggage in comparison to Payne's was quite extraordinarily large, but that was typically Courtney.Next to climb down the stairs was...
another man, surreptitiously rubbing his legs.
"Greg! Are you alright?" Catie cried in worry.
It turned out that Greg's legs were aching because he had refused to sit down for the entire flight.Catie's jet took off again - it would not return until Sunday night, at the end of the long weekend. Courtney squinted in the sun, as she followed the plane's progress away from the island. She shielded her eyes from the sun, with little success, and did not seem to notice that she had a perfectly adequate pair of sunglasses that were acting as a headband.
"Where's everybody else?" Courtney queried turning back.
Catie, fresh and elegant in a sleek magenta dress, glided down the carpet, guiding her guests.
"Well, Lawrence and Kathryn are arriving on their luxury cruise ship tonight - you know, the one presented to all lords and ladies by the Queen. Maya and her brothers, Chris, Jared and Darren are being dropped on the other side of the island - they're going to hike over. Chris will telephone us with his mobile when they reach the island."
Catie paused to open a glass door, and they entered a well air-conditioned building. A maid bustled past.
"Hello, Mrs Ariel," Catie called, before continuing, "Julia and Rod are here already - they're off in the wine cellar looking for port. Why don't you go to your rooms and unpack?"
Hours later Catie was giving them a tour of her extensive gardens, while they awaited the completion of Courtney's unpacking.
"This is such a great property," Rod commented. "I wish that they'd do some renovations at the International Polo Association, but they always say that five time gold medalists don't really appreciate that kind of thing."
"I know exactly what you mean," replied Courtney, pouring herself a glass of "non-alcoholic" grape juice.
Everyone turned around in surprise.
"Oh, you're finished," said Julia, picking up a bottle of Morning Fresh and pouring a glass for herself and Rod.
"Actually, a nice old woman named Mrs Ariel came in and offered to finish for me. She also made these crab sticks," replied Courtney, placing a plate on a table. "Is Irene here yet?"
"No, she, Kate and Sarah should be here tonight. They're coming in the submarine car that we designed when we were all at Uni."
"You mean the prototype is fully functional now?" asked Greg.
"Oh, yes. This is it's longest test drive, but we're quite sure it will be fine," Catie replied. "Speaking of the water, Lawrence and Kat radioed ahead and said that they would collect Matt on the way."
"That was nice of them," Payne said. "Seeing as though he had no other way to get here."
"Minor point," replied Julia flippantly, choking on her morning fresh. "Rod, you were supposed to mix this with port."
"Sorry," Rod replied. "I couldn't find any cheap port. Would you like some of the nice port?"
Catie handed around glasses of port, and she, Julia, Rod, Payne, Greg and Courtney sat in the garden sipping port as the afternoon wore on.
Meanwhile, things were not quite so peaceful for Irene, Kate and Sarah. Their submarine car, while working well, had picked up a lot of loose seaweed in it's propellors.
"We'll have to stop and get it off or the propellors will be ruined," suggested Sarah.
Irene added, "Remember last time we didn't and we had to stop for two days to get a replacement."
"Ok, Ok. I don't have a problem," replied Kate testily.
They surfaced and Irene pulled on a wetsuit. She was about to get out of the sub when there was a cry from the main compartment.
"There's a cruise ship bearing down on us at high speed," yelled Sarah, slightly hysterical.
"Hold on," called Kate calmly, "We're going down."
However the prototype was not quite fast enough, and the seaweed slowed it further.
Kat was happily sunbaking as they sped on their way to the island.
"We're going to be late if we don't hurry," said Matt.
"Well, if we didn't have to stop on the way to buy you some decent clothes, we would have been fine," called Kat, sitting up.
It was this action that put her in a position to see the water ahead of them.
"Lawrence," she called up to the bridge, "there's something up ahead."
Lawrence, however, had left Matt in charge of the wheel so he could play his guitar.
"Ahhh...," screamed Kat as they ran over the small surfaced sub...
The small sub crashed violently and Irene, Kate and Sarah were all thrown to the floor of the control room, Sarah smashing her head along the control panels on the way down. Water began filling the floor, Kate and Irene quickly scrambled to their feet, looked at each other, and shouted, "Every man for himself!" before stumbling and running out opposite passageways. Sarah managed to get to her feet, blood spilling from a cut on her forhead. "Guys, wait!" sche cried, but even if they had heard her over the roar of entering water, they would not have had the inclination to stop.Irene rushed through corridors, up a flight of stairs towards the emergency exit, a new feature of the prototype that the others had not known about - A special ejection pod, which she had designed herself with a team in the UK. The sub shuddered as she went, rumbling even over the deafening water, and she used the walls to steady herself. At last she reached the pod, and pulling a leaver unsealed it's hatch, clambering in. Closing it behind her, she buckled in, released the safety cover off the pod ejection switch and flicked it. At the last instant, as 10 gees of acceleration upwards began, she remembered that the ship was still directly above a large portion of the sub. Then the pod crashed and collapsed into a combination of blood, bone and metal on the underneath of the ship.Kate, meanwhile, has run for the most obvious exit, the diving chamber. As the floor buckled beneath her, she struggled to put on an oxygen tank, before jumping into the water lock, which had burst open, water flowing upwards into the sub. Against the incoming flow she managed to use the ladder-holds to drag herself to the outer edge of the thrashing sub. There, the current became powerful, and she felt her fingers slipping from the handholds. As she was ripped from the sub's side and dragged backwards, she saw the propellor blades in a wicked blur and let out a scream of air bubbles. Miraculously, she narrowly missed the blades, only to be caught around the neck by a stray length of seaweed attached to the propellor. It wound around again and again at lightling speed and Kate was pulled closer and closer to the propellor blades until her head and air tank hit the blades and explosively decompressed into a red cloud of bubbles and blood in the water.Sarah meanwhile, had shrugged and headed for the hatchway, the way to which was surprisingly unimpeded. She climbed out the porthole, and steadying herself, shouted "Help!" Lawrence's head popped over the side of the ship, although he was hard to recognise because of an exotic hat he seemed to be wearing. "Sarah, here," he said as he threw a rope-ladder down, which she caught perfectly, and began climbing. When she reached the edge of the ship, Lawrence pulled her over. "What the hell is that?" she cried, pointing to the creature on his head. "It's my pet land octopus, Scruffy." As this registered, Lawrence noticed that she was bleeding, and tried to step back, but it was too late. Scruffy's tentacles had unfolded and clasped onto Sarah, and Scruffy had wrapped himself around her. "Scruffy, No! BAD SCRUFFY! HEEL, DAMN YOU!" Lawrence cried, yet it was too late, as Sarah was devoured, after which scruffy contentedly sat back on Lawrence's head. He sighed. "You realise you're not getting any dinner now..."
***
As Rod, Courntey, Catie, Julia, Payne and Greg sat in the garden drinking Port the anticipation of the others arrival was growing.
"Where are they all?" Courtney asked
"I'm not really sure but I was assured that there would be no problems with the sub prototype." Catie said calmly. "I'm sure they won't be long"
"What time were they suppose to get here?" Payne questioned.
"Oh I told them some time after about 4:30 and it is only about 4:30 now so they aren't really all that late at the moment."
Payne thought about the wait in which they all had to partake in and an amazing idea poped into his mind.
"Why don't we all play a game of 21?"
"Yeah" Courtney said jumping around "I love that game"
As Catie went and retrieved the cards a figure started to walk towards thouse seated around the table. The tiny delicate figure approached the table when she saw the table of familiar faces she ran towards them.
"Hey Lonte! What's wrong?" Courtney asked
"Oh I just thought that I was never going to get here, the helicopter that I was in just had no idea where to drop me and we have been circling for the past 20 minutes stupid man."
"Well at leat you arrived Loan. Here have my seat." "Greg said as he stood up and offered her the chair.
Just then Catie's mobile rang. It was Chris, telling them they'd arrived. Catie told the others that they should be there in around 1/2 an hour.
"Who else are we waiting for?" questioned Julia. "Lawrence, Kat, Matt on the sub," replied Catie.
"Let's go down to the docks, I'm bored," Julia said, so they all wandered down a garden path with exotic fruit trees and flowers alongside the path. "Oh this is so peaceful Catie, you're so lucky," Courtney breathed, "when did you buy it?"
"Well, actually, it was quite strange. I was looking in the market for an island, and one day I got this call from a man offering me this island for a dirt cheap price - but on one condition. There's this secret cave up the top of the island, and no one is allowed in it. So I thought, why not?" Catie explained, "I mean, the cave is pretty hard to find, it's totally hidden."
"Gee, I hope the hikers don't walk that way - what if they find it?" Rod said.
Catie's eyed widened. "Oh no, I never thought od that..."
Just then, they heard a piercing scream coming from the top of the island...
"What the - ," Greg said. "I think it was Darren!" Rod said in alarm.
The atmosphere in the ship had become extremely hostile, tempers were frayed and there was a lot of impatience. All the people in the sub were now presumed dear and Matt and Kat blamed Lawrence entirely for Sarah's death, everyone felt like they would never reach the island.
Kat reprimanded Lawrence. "Why... Why the hell did you bring Scruffy? I told you he's always trouble, you know he's not well behaved."
"What did you want me to do, leave him with Geordie the deranged Butler, Scruffy may be a bit excitable but he doesn't deserve that. Anyway, we can't do anything else for Sarah why don't we all just settle down and concentrate on trying to get to the island before next week."Matt meanwhile felt the familiar pulsating begin in the cavity behind his eyes. The arguing Lawrence and Kat acquired a red tinge which deepened with every expressed disagreement. Matt fought to control the excruciating headache but by this time Kat was yelling, "Sarah was my friend, you cannot possibly expect me to just move on with my life after your stupid pet just killed her." That was it. Matt's head exploded and he rushed (headless) towards Kat and Lawrence, flailing both arms as he stumbled. He tripped and fell, scratching both Kat and Lawrence on the way down, releasing trickles of their blood and splattering them both with hot, red, splurting blood of his own.Scruffy watched in delight, today had been a good day. All the two legs were oozing that delicious red stuff and he suddenly felt hungry, very hungry.
"Such choice," he thought to himself as he bagan feeding from the soft, jelly-like flesh of Matt's headless neck. The tips of his tentacles clenched and unclenched rythmically with every heavenly litre of blood he drank. "Yes," he thought "today is a very good day".
***
Meanwhile, Maya, Darren, Jared and Chris were hiking over the island. Darren was presently yelping at being bit by a sugar ant.
"Stop being such a wuss, Darren." Maya chided her younger brother and led them down the rocky path to Catie's estate home. Maya was looking forward to the holiday. She had taken 2 weeks off from her job as an exotic dancer at "Barry's House of Pleasure" and she sorely needed the break.
Chris was also happily anticipating the holiday. His life as a spy for Payne's company was becoming quite complicated as his employer was very competitive and always wanted to know the latest developments in frisbees.
Jared, however, thought the holiday tedius. He just wanted to get back to developing his latest idea - chocolate pasta.The group had almost reached the edge of the gardens when they saw Catie, Courntey, Payne, Rod, Julia, Greg and Lonte rushing towards them. Before they could speak Greg suddenly plunged downwards into the ground, into a bottomless pit.
The others stood in silence for some time.
"That's a bottomless pit," Rod observed.
"Actually, no, that's the laundry chute," Catie replied. "I don't like the gardeners' bringing their grubby clothes into the house, so they have a chute in the garden. It is a long fall though..."
Lawrence was truly shocked by Scruffy's behaviour. Matt's exploding head was appetising, but Scruffy's attitude was unforgivable. Lawrence quickly grabbed a two-litre 'coke' bottle of water and washed the blood off himself. Then he went and fetched Scruffy's muzzel. He strode over to the octopus, who was gnawing on Kathryn's thigh, oblivious to the fact that she was beating him with a broomstick.
"Now, Scruffy," Lawrence announced. "I know that we decided not to use this anymore, but you've broken out agreement. You've eaten more than your quota of humans for the month." He picked up the octopus by the head and strapped on the muzzel, before returning Scruffy to his head.
"Now, Kathryn, that leg's going to have to come off," Lawrence continued. Kathryn didn't seem impressed by this idea, and transferred her broomstick to Lawrence. In the excitment, neither Kat or Lawrence noticed that they were getting dangerously close to Catie's island.
Mrs Ariel was doing the ironing in the basement, when she heard a loud crash. Jumping up, she ran over to the gardeners' laundry basket, to find all of the clothes covered in yellow powder. Greg's head popped up from under a pair of overalls.
"Damn," he announced. "It was such a long fall that I started making myself a curried egg sandwich, but I seem to have dropped the curry. What a waste!"
He tried to scoop the precious powder back into the bottle. Mrs Ariel shrugged and went back to her ironing.
Deciding that they couldn't be bothered waiting for Greg to reach the bottom of the chute, the others had gone to the beach. Everyone went swimming, except for Sarah, we sat on the beach in a large paper hat, a plaid shirt, and a pair of pants, writing poetry. She was in the middle of a masterfully constructed abstract piece of prose, containing the word 'sushi', when she looked up at the beach for inspiration.
"Ah! Guys!" Sarah cried, as the cruise ship - "The Lopsided Elf" bore down on the group.
Catie threw the tennis ball to Payne, then turned towards Sarah's voice.
"Sarah!" she called. "You aren't supposed to be out here!"
"Look out!" Sarah screamed, pointing at the large cruise ship.
Catie and the others turned, and at the sight of the ship, screamed loudly and swam frantically towards the beach.Up on deck, Kathryn paused in her beating Lawrence unconscious, and listened intently.
"Lars, I think someone is screaming. Be a dear and GO AND STEAR THE GOD-DAMNED BOAT!"
Lawrence, eager to escape Kat and her broomstick, grabbed Scruffy and ran to the wheel. Just as he reached the bridge, the autopilot kicked in, and reversed the propellors. The cruise ship slowed, but continued to the island. Quickly, Lawrence blew the fog horn, twice. The people gathered on the beach ran away from the approaching cruise ship, taking shelter in a near by cave.
"Wow, this is such a cool cave!" said Julia excitedly. "We could sleep in here!"
Catie was more worried avout the cruise ship, and peaked out of the cave, just in time to see it plow into the sand.Lawrence instantly killed the engines, and the ship burried it's hull in the soft sand of the beach. After a few long minutes of silence, he grinned.
"It's OK!" he called down to Kat. "We're at the island, and we didn't kill anybody!"
"Else!" she replied in a scathing tone. "Lower the gang plank so we can get off."
Obediantly, Lawrence activated the gang plank and moved back down on deck.On the beach, the others saw the gang plank, and recognising the ship, moved aboard.
"Lars, hi!" called Catie, moving down the deck towards where he was standing, well out of range of Kat and her brookstick.
"Hej, everyone," he replied. "You might want to stay back a little, Kat has a fair reach with that thing."
To prove his point, she took another swipe at his knee-caps, missing by mere milimeters.
"What happened?" Payne asked, glancing at the mess of Kat's thigh and the remains of Matt and Sarah.
Sheepishly, Lawrence explained everything, from collecting Matt to plowing into the island.At the completion of his story, Sarah stepped forward. Lawrence stared at her in shock. She didn't waste time on explinations. Folding a near by towel, she stepped in range and removed Kat's broomstick, then placed the towel on her leg, and pressed down.
"Somebody get the first aid kit," Sarah instructed briskly. "Darren, come here and hold this. Catie, can we organise a way to get her up to the house? There's nothing I can do for Matt, but I think I can save Kat's leg. Scruffy, you are a very BAD octopus."
Scruffy looked chastened, especially seeing as though the reprimand had come from someone he had eaten only an hour before.Kat suddenly realised who was accepting the first-aid kit from Rod, and gasped.
"Ooh, I must have died," she said calmly. "I wonder if Scruffy ate me, or if it was just lack of blood?"
"Don't be silly," Sarah scolded, removing the towel, pushing Darren aside, and applying anti-ceptic liberally to Kat's thigh. "You're not dead yet. And Lars has muzzled Scruffy, so he isn't going to eat you."
"But Scruffy ate *you*, bear. So I must be dead. You just don't realise that you're dead too," Kat explained in a reasonable voice.
Sarah laughed as the applied a dressing to Kat's thigh. "Oh, that wasn't *me* that Scruffy ate. That was my clone."
"What?" cried Lawrence, staring. "You mean I'm punishing Scruffy for No Reason?!"
"Perhaps I should explain," Sarah continued to bandage Kat's thigh. "As you all know, in 2nd year uni I transferred into medicine and biology/genetics. Sinse then, as you also know, I have practiced as a doctor and made a lot of money. What you did not know is, over the past 5 years, Kate, Catie and I have been working on a "project"."
Sarah tied the bandage and gestured for the boys to shift Kat onto the banana lounge, which they did.
"The project was sucessful earlier this year, when we finally managed to clone a human."
"Oh, is *that* all?" scorned Chris. "They were cloning sheep when I was in high school."
"But this is different!" cried Catie. "We are cloning humans *fully grown* - with all the knowledge and memory of the donor!"
"Isn't that dangerous?" asked Maya. "What if the clone decided it was the real one?"
"Oh, we ensured that could never happen. Each clone has a large 'C' on their forehead. I'm surprised you didn't notice it," Sarah commented as the boys lifted the banana lounge and the drook headed towards the house.
"Well, she did have a rather large cut on her forehead when I first saw her," Lawrence said. "And then Scruffy sort of... attached himself to her."
"And when *I* saw her, there wasn't any forehead left!" added Kat.
"Hmm... we should probably work on that. A way to make remains identifiable as clones, in case of death," Catie mused, then pulled out a notebook from her dress and jotted down a note.
"So what you're saying is that the people in the submarine were clones?"
"No. I am saying that the Sarah in the sub was a clone. Irene was certainly the real Irene. Kate has a clone, but I don't know if she was in the sub or not. We can see then we get back to the lab at the top of the island."
"But wait!" cried Courtney, turning to Catie. "You told me-"
"I lied," Catie interrupted calmly.
"Lars, dear," said Kat suddenly. "Seeing as though you didn't *really* let Scruffy eat Sarah, I'm sorry I yelled at you."
"That's Ok," Lawrence replied, petting Kat's hand. "We were all emotional."
"And you know I don't *really* think Scruffy is badly behaved, or stupid. And I certainly don't think he should have been left with Geordie."
"Of course not, dear. And Scruffy knows that too, don't you Scruffy?"
Scruffy looked out from behind his muzzel with mournful eyes.
"No, the muzzel isn't coming off Scruff," Kat told him. "You shouldn't have tried to eat me. Matt I can understand, but you had no excuse for my leg."
"Yes, that was naughty, Scruffy. However, you didn't eat Sarah, so I suppose we'll let you ride with Kat."
So Lars placed Scruffy by Kat's head, and the drook entered Catie's house. Greg was waiting for them in the lobby, still dusting curry powder off his clothing.
TO Be CONTINUED...