Beach Bodies: Part Two. Ross Armstrong

what – what like?’ Simon bumbles.

      The fisherman lifts his weapon, Roberto bundles Simon out of the way and grabs the cold steel pipe. The fisherman lets it go and stands back.

      ‘Decent torch, for a start.’

      Roberto nods, puffs out a short breath, mostly composed of embarrassment, as he examines the weight of the metal in his hand. ‘Hmm, thanks.’

      ‘You fellas… all right?’

      ‘Of course,’ says Simon, a little too like he’s got something to hide.

      ‘Bit scared… by the weather,’ Lance says, finding himself completely outmanned by the wilting look he gets back.

      ‘Making TV, right?’ the fisherman says, examining the three of them in turn.

      ‘That’s right,’ says Simon.

      ‘Going to ask me to come in?’

      Roberto backs away a touch, thinking about that body upstairs. There’s no reason for the man to want to go up there, he supposes. No reason he can think of.

      ‘Yes. Do come in,’ mumbles Simon.

      And as the fisherman places a sodden foot on the tiles of the villa, making his way past the three men, he mutters, ‘Thank you, Simon.’

      Floundering, Simon gasps, ‘How did you know my—’

      The front door closes and they follow the fisherman’s long strides inside as the rain pounds on the makeshift street beyond.

      Liv is the first to flinch when the unannounced fisherman appears in their living room. He raises his hand in greeting, then reaches back and slings his waterproof pack from off his back onto the ground between them. It lands with a wet thump.

      Liv catches Lance’s eye, as he follows behind. And you’re supposed to be a bouncer? she thinks. She feels stupid for what she clutched before he came in now – for what she still has in her hand, obscured from everyone including the fisherman, behind the kitchen island. She grips it, looking for a neat way to get rid of it before anyone sees her with it.

      Summer’s fingers twitch by her sides, the tension hardly dispelled by their new guest. A hand slides along her back. Dawn’s. Summer has never been big on inter-female touching, but appreciates the contact is intended to calm her.

      ‘Cold?’ the fisherman says.

      ‘Sorry, what?’ Summer says.

      ‘Cold,’ he repeats, flat and expressionless. ‘You will be.’

      Summer stills her hand by placing it on the small of Dawn’s back, trying to look comfortable.

      ‘Storm. Heat’s always first to go. Light’s next.’

      ‘We’ll be fine,’ says Simon. ‘Thank you, but we’ve got back-up generators, we’ve thought of all eventualities. The electricity will stay on.’

      Simon throws this out to them all with an unfounded confidence, but one he needs to keep if he’s to convince them these cameras are still watching over them…

      To be watched is to be safe, keep being observed, keep playing the game, it’s the best way to stay alive.

      ‘If you say so,’ says the fisherman, with a single shot of doubting laughter.

      Zack crouches down to place his hand on the tiles. ‘He’s right. Underfloor heating’s gone already.’

      A few noises of concern from surrounding boys and girls, who are now shivering with folded arms. Psychosomatic, Simon thinks. Tell them they’re cold and that’s what they believe. You could put whatever you want into heads like these.

      ‘Lights next,’ Justine says, with her eyes all over Simon.

      ‘No,’ says Simon, turning back to the fisherman. ‘We have a system.’

      ‘System, eh?’ says the fisherman, immediately triggering Simon.

      ‘I know the technology,’ he says.

      ‘I know the island.’

      There’s a stand-off. All eyes on the two men in front of them, but the fisherman merely blinks and turns his gaze to Liv, who straightens and starts when she sees his sallow skin, yellowing eyes and the dark bags beneath.

      ‘Jumpy ones, aren’t you?’ he says, his eyes running along Liv, who gives a non-committal wince and shrug, a serrated kitchen knife in her hand, out of view.

      ‘Maybe a little,’ Dawn says. Offering a smile that the fisherman chooses not to reciprocate.

      ‘And I know why,’ the fisherman mutters.

      Their eyes dart around the room. Simon swallows a sour taste. Behind the intruder, Roberto takes a step in, but to do what, he doesn’t know. Zack’s eyes go to Liv’s, catching her priming herself for something.

      ‘Because of the storm,’ the fisherman says. And the other bodies in the house relax, their muscles loosening. ‘You won’t get storms much like this back where you’re from.’

      He reaches down for the package he carried here on his back; thick, rippling with weight and bound in a makeshift sack made from tarpaulin.

      Then a sound stops him in his tracks; thunder that sounds more like a distant drill, trying to pierce its way into their world through the heavy clouds. The kind of noise that lodges in your bones and leaves a cold white shiver there.

      The fisherman nods. ‘Not your average storm, I’d say. Not that I’ve anything to compare it to. Never left the island myself.’

      ‘No?’ Dawn says, placing the hand not wrapped around Summer onto a nearby sofa, like an actor in a soft-furnishings commercial, desperate to appear natural.

      ‘Nope. But I see things. We do have television. I watch it closely.’

      He locks eyes with Dawn and smiles for the first time. She smiles too, and her face falls as she wonders whether he is referencing those two days when she sunbathed topless before being advised by Simon that, despite her efforts, she wasn’t out of view of the camera, and that this therefore might have undue consequences. She was only trying to make sure her tan was consistent while on the nation’s most-watched television show, but the result was Simon informing her to expect screenshots through the post when she returns home, with requests for her to sign them, which he warned her not to. Dawn hardly needed to be told that. But she didn’t expect to come face to face with a grinning fan happy to infer to her how familiar he is with her more secret parts.

      ‘Sorry, sir,’ Zack says, drawing the fisherman’s eyes his way. ‘What’s in the package?’

      As Summer ponders why the fisherman is giving Dawn so much attention when she’s in the room, Liv considers what could possibly be inside…

      Pump action shotgun, explosive, crossbow; she flips through the first few options that spring to mind.

      ‘It’s this…’ says the fisherman, before being stopped in his tracks, one hand on the damp tarpaulin package lazily slung on the cream tiles.

      ‘Can I ask?’ says Simon. ‘How did you know my name?’

      The fisherman stalls, an odd stasis coming over him, his hands clenching in front of him. Simon raises his eyebrows as if to cue the man, but nothing comes out of him other than a low grunt, a long channel of air through which more confusion arrives into the room. All his imposing weight seems to disappear like someone has put a pin in him, all his previous character suddenly excusing itself from him.

      ‘Zack, Lance, Summer, Tabitha,’ he finally gasps. Tabitha, who had stayed skulking nearest the door in the half-light, planning to bolt if necessary, steps forward on hearing her name. ‘Er,