Survival Island by Matt Drabble

Author:Matt Drabble [Drabble, Matt]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-07-17T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 18

Making sacrifices

Marjorie Goodman scoffed at the passing storm. She had lived through several bad weather spells before, and while this had been by far the worst, it still wasn’t nearly enough to finish her off. She wasn’t sure that there was anything on the planet that could put a dent in her.

She was 86 years old now and still going strong. She had no need for the modern world nor its inhabitants. In truth, she saw many of the islanders as invaders into her little world and only had sporadic dealings with them.

As a result, she rarely ventured into town, seeing the one street and handful of buildings as some kind of metropolis to be avoided at all costs.

Her little spread of land contained a cabin and a farming patch, enough to grow 99% of her food. She’d once had cows for milking but Marjorie had outlived the herd when a mainlander disease had run through her stock.

She’d never married and had never sought to either. Men were stubborn stupid beasts who got underfoot more than they ever helped.

She emerged out of her cabin now that the storm had passed. She had felt the animal coming and now felt when it had relinquished its grip.

A cursory examination of her cabin saw a few needed repairs but mainly cosmetic ones. The old girl had stood for a century or more and wouldn’t be felled by any amount of blustering wind.

Marjorie moved out to check her vegetation and wasn’t surprised to see her field decimated. She had harvested everything she could earlier in the week but her heart sank now, as much at the prospect of having to shop in town as for her ruined crops.

She felt tired as she walked about the night with a candle lantern to guide her way. She was a farmer by birth and by nature and her body clock worked on a ‘rise at dawn, bed at sunset’ basis.

The dark figure standing in the middle of her field made her jump when she turned towards it. At first her heart skipped a beat, one that it could ill afford at her age, but then she was chastising herself for her childish fears.

The scarecrow had stood for many a year in its place of order, keeping the birds from stealing her hard work.

She started to turn away before the thought suddenly struck her that the scarecrow had no right to be standing, given the strength of the earlier storm.

She took a step towards it and held the lantern up higher, but at this distance, its light didn’t cast far enough to illuminate the figure properly, leaving only a motionless silhouette in the night air.

Instead of listening to the scared voice inside her telling her that something was desperately wrong, she pressed forwards, determined that no voice - not even her own - would rob her of her dignity and pride, certainly not on her own land.

She strode out purposefully towards the figure. “Hey, who goes there?” she called out into the darkness, holding the lantern up in front of her.

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