Page 54 of The Island

“It’s good,” Heather said.

“Are you quite sure your husband was killed?” Hans asked. “Perhaps there was an altercation and you did not see what happened to him? Perhaps he has been taken to a hospital?”

Heather crawled back over to Owen. “Get yourself together. We’re leaving,” she whispered.

“Is that what we’re doing, Olivia?” Owen asked his sister.

“Yes, it is,” she said.

“We’re going to take the water bottle, if that’s OK,” Heather said to Petra. “We’re going to need it more than you.”

“It is not your water. It is for all of us!” Hans protested.

“They will need it more,” Petra said.

Heather crawled back to the hole and began digging into the earth with first the penknife and then her hands. The dirt was thicker and heavier than it looked and it did not give easily. It had been baked hard by the sun for any number of summers. She dug deeper and made a little furrow. “What do you think?” she said to Olivia.

“I can get through,” Olivia said.

Heather nodded.

“Do you want me to go?”

“No, not yet. Let’s get it deep enough for all of us.”

“Are you saying that because I’m fat?” Owen asked. Heather couldn’t tell if this was a mordant attempt at one of his snarky jokes or not.

“I’m the problem. You’re not the problem,” Heather said. “I just wish we had a better tool to dig through this ground.”

“What about one of those hooks in the ceiling? Couple of them look loose,” Owen suggested.

“Perfect. You dig with the knife and I’ll see if I can reach one. Don’t hurt yourself.”

“I’ve used a knife before!”

Heather stood up cautiously and touched one of the hooks in the ceiling. Many years ago this place must have been used for hanging game birds or something of the kind. The hooks were rusted but firmly nailed into the crossbeams. The first one she touched was solid, as was the second. The third, however…she wiggled it and it started to move. Hans was very tall and she was on tiptoes. He could do this easily. She looked at him.

“No,” he said.

“Why not?”

“We are not getting involved in your trouble,” he explained.

“No, you just want to wait here all night, tied up by the neck, until the morning comes, when they are almost certainly going to kill you,” Heather said.

“Why would they do that?”

“Because they are going to make up some bullshit story about what happened to me and Tom and the kids, and you would be able to contradict that story. Therefore, the smart thing to do—the only thing to do—is kill you.”

“This is Australia, not America,” Hans said.

Heather nodded. Well, at least she’d tried.

“They are not evil,” Hans added.

“Perhaps they are worse than evil—they are bored,” Petra said.

Hans said something dismissive-sounding in Dutch.