Beach Bodies, Part 1 by Ross Armstrong

Author:Ross Armstrong
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780008361358
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2019-06-03T16:00:00+00:00

Justine: Before

Eyes closed, Justine rocks back and forth, listening to the vapour-wave playlist she designed especially for her motion sickness; glacial, dreamy music, ambient, other-worldly and restful. It slows her heartbeat.

When she opens her tissue paper eyelids, through a warm gauze of lashes she can see the early morning light streaming in underneath her cabin door. A widescreen view of the cell that is transporting her from Cape Town to Tristan Da Cunha. She slept for five hours but can sleep no longer. So for the last hour, she has simply sat on the firm bed, fully clothed just as she slept, feeling the movement of the ship, riddled with anticipation, excitement, apprehension.

A twelve-hour boat ride. Six hours gone. Six to go.

She checks the Storm watch she has been given for product placement purposes, and wonders if they picked only her or everyone on this boat has one; all nine of them that will begin the game currently in separate cabins, being kept apart like leashed animals, until the moment they enter the villa and pick the partners they will begin the game with.

When she was first led onto the vessel and they set sail she could hear every creak the large ship made. The dips and rises as they got up to speed, then ploughed over the waves. The rush of the water, gallons of it, that fill the depths below them, of an Atlantic Ocean running deeper and deeper the further from land they travelled. Then she heard the occasional heave and bang of a metal door and two sets of footsteps as one of the other inmates was escorted to the toilet by security – who will leave once the Beachers are safely in the villa.

Blindfolded, only the light from press photographer’s flashes seeping under the material, they were all led onto the ship last night in darkness. She hasn’t seen a living soul who she will be sharing air with over the next six weeks yet. But she can tell they’re close. She was sure that she could hear one of them in the next room, breathing.

The normal ships that make this voyage take days, but this is a fast one, chartered especially for the show. On arrival, they will be met by some of the residents of the island who greet the appearance of every boat as an event, but will be especially amused by this. The world so rarely comes to the island.

From behind their blindfolds, the contestants will see nothing, but only be seen; led like beautiful cattle, past smiling locals’ faces, in a scene that will be caught and used as part of the opening montage that begins every show. It’s all part of the spectacle: one of the most unusual ever to be seen on this remote island peopled by only seventy families and containing a population numbered at a very specific 262. Justine knows all these facts, as she has read every single electronic page of the online pack.

Two hundred and sixty-two inhabitants.

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