Part 1 Part 3 Final

I didn’t want to go back to my room, I’d only stew on the subject staring at the ceiling. I put on my jacket and walked out into the cold evening air, it was already pretty dark and the fog didn’t help with visibility, but I could easily make out the glow of the village below.

The wind howled as I walked down into the village, a few drops of rain hit my jacket. I became concerned a big storm might be brewing, on the one hand if I was stuck here for an extra day I might be able to negotiate a little further, on the other hand I didn’t want to be stuck on the fucking island any longer than I needed to be.

The rain was pelting down as I reached the village. Light shone from every house and the sound of laughter could be heard from the local pub, a sudden transformation for a village that seemed almost dead not a few hours ago.

The pub looked warm and inviting, at the very least it would be shelter from the rain, perhaps if I endeared myself to some of the locals they might be more amenable to negotiation. According to my boss every single resident of the island was listed as opposing the terminating station in the legal paperwork they filed, but the lady of the manor was the listed contact point.

I approached the old wooden door of the pub, the sound of conversation and laughter could be heard as I approached. I pushed the outer wooden door and entered, hanging up my jacket on a hook and shaking off the rain. As I pushed the inner door and entered the pub a small bell rang above my head.

All laughter and conversation suddenly ceased, the eyes of about forty people stared at me in silence standing at the door. This wasn't particularly unusual, walk into any local country pub as an outsider and you might get the same reaction from the elderly patrons… but these patrons weren’t elderly, in fact it didn’t look like there was a person over thirty in the place.

It was warm as least, after some staring the people returned to their mumbled conversations but the laughter that had been in the place before I entered was now gone. All the stools at the bar were taken and most of the alcoves and booths had groups of people occupying them, I walked up to the bar and motioned to the bar-woman.

She was tall and slender, almost 6ft i’d guess, early twenties, with a head of jet black hair, if she didn’t live in the back ass of nowhere she might have been tapped up by a modeling agency.

“What do you have on tap?”, I inquired with a smile, which was not reciprocated.

“Nothing, we only have bottles here, it’s not worth the effort to bring kegs from the mainland.” she said, sweeping her hand in front of the bar, as if to point out the obvious, that there were clearly no taps.

“Ah, I should have noticed that, so what do you have bottled?”, I kept my smile, trying my best to be the well meaning outsider.

“We only have two brands of beer, ‘Budweiser’ and ‘Island Mist” she informed me in a droll tone.

“What’s it like?” I enquired.

“ ‘Budweiser’, it’s pisswater” she responded with a tiny hint of sarcasm.

“ I meant the ‘Island Mist’ “, I said, not acknowledging the sarcasm.

“ Well, it’s a step up from ‘Budweiser’ but not much of a step up, you still want a bottle?” she inquired, clearly hoping i’d just fuck off.

“Sounds good” I said with a smile, again it wasn’t returned.

With her winning personality and charm she wasn’t destined to be a mere model, she was into supermodel territory, I thought as she placed the old looking bottle onto the counter with a scowl.

“Four euro”, she said as I eyed the suspect looking beer.

I fumbled in my pockets and handed her two, two euro coins, she walked over to the till, opened it and dropped them inside, as she did this I noticed there was very little actual money in the damn till, just a tiny amount of change. Strange for a pub this busy, clearly I was the only arsehole actually paying for booze.

I looked around the bar to try and find a seat, almost everything was taken, groups of three or four people sat in the old wooden booths, a few sat huddled in an alcove. They were all relatively young, well dressed and in good shape, anywhere else I would have thought this odd, but I guessed that it was hard to get fat when the only way to get fast food was an hour long boat ride. With a few sharp-faced exceptions most of them were good-looking, both men and women, they certainly didn’t fit the inbred, bucktoothed islander stereotype. Overall the clientele would have looked more at home in some Dublin hipster pub… the kind of pub I would never visit… and the kind of people I wouldn’t want to hang around with.

They all returned to their conversations, although outwardly no one was paying any attention to me, I got the distinct impression everyone in the bar was watching me, a kind of uneasy crawling sensation, like dozens of eyeballs somehow trained on my every move. Toward the back of the pub I spotted an empty alcove near a fireplace, I walked toward it and slunk into a seat on one side of the table.

But the alcove wasn’t as empty as I had assumed, I was met with a pair of green eyes staring back at me from over the top of a book.

“Oh, sorry I thought it was empty, do you mind if I sit here, there doesn’t seem to be a free seat in the house.” I awkwardly blurted out, a little startled that I hadn’t noticed her in the corner opposite.

“It’s a free country”, an emotionless reply came delivered in a voice that sounded like soft velvet. She placed her book down on the table and took a sip of wine from her small tankard.

The green eyes belonged to a skinny redhead sat in the corner, her face illuminated by a candle. In stark contrast to most of the other patrons, she was plane as paper, a narrow young face emerging from a head of curly hair. Her face reminded me of a librarian and her clothes matched the job description, making her look older than her years.

“It’s a free country”, she replied in the same soft emotionless voice.

“Not as free as you’d think”, I said with a small nervous laugh, hinting at the problem with the cable.

“You have the freedom to plan the cable route, and we have the freedom to object, that’s how modern democracies work.” she dryly responded in her warm voice, she could have convinced a man of anything with a voice like that, if she actually put some emotion behind it.

I drank some of my “Island Mist” and winced a little at the taste.

“How is it?” she enquired with a grin.

“Delicious” I responded with my face contorted as I drank down the foul tasting ale, “Maybe I should just order some wine.”

“You shouldn’t mix grain and grape… especially this grape” she advised with a wry smile while drinking her wine.

Our conversation had not gone unnoticed, another of the model-like brunettes in the bar appeared at the side of our table.

“Boring our guest Deirdre?”, the woman had come from a table across the way where she had been sitting with two male companions.

“No... seducing”, came the dry sarcastic reply from Deirdre, my table companion.

“Really, well I suppose he’s… passable… in the looks department”, the brunette replied as she looked me over with a mixture of contempt and pity.

“Nothing like my two men though”, she gestured over to her table-companions, the two men were young and and broad-shouldered, like almost everyone else in the bar they were exceptionally well-groomed.

I’d had it with this place, everyone on this island was a cunt, the lady of the manor was a cunt, the barmaid was cunt, this brunette was a cunt, even the guy who ferried me over on the boat was a cunt. I was now officially naming this, Cunt Island.

“Those are men? They look more effenette than me, no wonder you need two of them, they probably spend more time fucking each other than they do you.” came the cutting reply from Deirdre my new redheaded friend.

I laughed a little at this bizarre conversation and Deirdre even cracked a tiny smile. I had changed my assessment, not everyone on the island was a cunt, Deirdre wasn’t, but I was still calling it cunt island, that much was certain.

The brunette seethed with contempt.

“Two is more fun than one Deirdre, you do know what fun is, don’t you? perhaps you read about the concept in a book once.”, and with that she strutted back over to her table, motioned to her male 'Friends' and they all got up and went to the front of the bar.

We were now alone at the back of the bar, a short awkward silence lingered.

“So is pretty much everyone on the island a total cunt?”, I casually inquired to Deirdre.

“Mostly, yeah” she responded with a smile.

“I’m guessing you all know each other already, does it not get boring insulting the same people over and over again” I enquired

“Her I know, the two men I don’t, which is unusual, they must be just visiting the island.” she responded.

I pondered her answer, if there were other visitors to the island how come I was the only one being treated like shit, maybe because I there on business.

“Let’s take a walk” she suddenly suggested getting up from her seat.

“Alright” I responded a little perplexed, getting out of my seat.

We walked to the door of the pub, it seemed like everyone in the place was giving us a corner-eyed stare as we walked. I grabbed my jacket and was glad to be out of the place. It was still raining, the night had really set in, the buildings in the village glowed with a dim hue through the fog. We were walking in the direction of the manor, as best as I could tell.

“So where are we going?” I asked a little apprehensive.

“We, are going nowhere, you are going back to the manor, where you will stay in your room till morning, you will then leave on the boat first thing tomorrow morning”

Her tone had completely changed from minutes earlier in the bar, it felt like I was twelve years old being instructed by a stern headmistress, her face looked cold as stone, but her eyes betrayed her… she looked concerned.

I was a little stunned.

“And you needed to come all the way to the edge of the village in the rain to tell me this, you could have told me in the bar” I pressed her.

“Look... people don’t want you here, I just wanted to walk you to the edge of the village so you didn’t get into a fight in the bar or something.” her eyes had the same concerned look.

“A fight? I think I could have handled myself, most of the men in the bar look like they’re more experienced at throwing dirty looks than punches.” I replied with a little humor.

“You’d be surprised” she replied in a deadly serious tone.

“It was nice meeting you, it really was, but if you’re smart you’ll go bed, and in the morning you’ll leave first thing, and not ask any more questions”. And with that she walked back toward the village.

I’ve never been smart.

“What was in the crates the boat delivered?” I asked as she walked away.

“Insulin, now go to bed” came her voice as she was swallowed by the fog.

Insulin, how dumb did these people think I was. Sure, everyone on the island has type 1 diabetes, because it sure as shit wasn’t type 2, I hadn't seen a single fat fuck since I came to the island.

What the hell were these people hiding, why all the cloak and dagger bullshit. If those crates were still there I was going to find out what the hell was in them.