Third Loch From the Sun: A Scottish Sci-Fi Adventure, page 1
THIRD LOCH FROM THE SUN
A Scottish Sci-Fi Adventure
REX BURKE
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Author’s note: story background
Also by Rex Burke
About the Author
Chapter 1
He’d give it another five minutes. Maybe ten. Five miles was a long way to walk.
Island time, was that a thing? Jake supposed he couldn’t expect everything to run strictly on schedule out here, middle of nowhere.
But the timetable pasted to the bus shelter window was clear enough. The bus should have been here twenty minutes ago to meet the ferry – the ferry that was currently chugging off into the distance, back to the mainland, un-met by any bus.
There was still someone on the otherwise deserted quayside, a couple of hundred feet away, heaving boxes into a Land Rover. He’d watched them being unloaded earlier, half a dozen sealed, cardboard packing cases, dropped onto the concrete as the ferry idled. The Land Rover had driven in ten minutes later, with the ferry already on its way again, and the driver had jumped out and raised an acknowledging hand to an invisible deckhand.
So, island time. All very casual. Great if you lived here and knew what to expect. But Jake was still left with the problem of getting to Port Levin.
The email had said there was a bus. The bus shelter said there was a bus. How long did you have to allow for island time? At what point did you say, “Sod it,” and start walking?
Half an hour, reckoned Jake, which was coming up fast. Maybe if he set off, the bus would pass him on the way, turn round at the quayside and head back again? He could flag it down and that would save him at least some of the walk.
There was no point in waiting any longer, for sure. The ferry landing did not have the air of a busy port where alternative transport might materialise at any minute. It was a quayside with a couple of bollards for mooring, a worn metal sign saying, ‘Welcome to Elsay,’ and a rickety wooden bench that looked out over the water. It was what it was – an arse-end harbour where, also according to the email, the next boat wasn’t due for another four days.
Sod it.
Jake leaned over his backpack and adjusted the straps, ready to trudge down the single road that led away from the harbour, towards Port Levin, the island’s only village.
On the quayside, the boxes had been loaded into the Land Rover. The engine started and the vehicle swung around the concrete apron and came up the road, past the bus stop. The driver slowed, and then stopped, window down.
“You know there’s no bus?”
Jake looked up from his backpack. Young woman, his age, early twenties, long, parted brown hair, a bit of Emma Stone about her. Easy A Emma Stone, not Poor Things Emma Stone.
“I was beginning to wonder,” he said. “Says here there’s a bus. To Port Levin, 2.35. It’s nearly three now.”
“That’s not ‘To.’”
“What?”
“It’s not ‘To.’ It’s ‘T.O.’ ‘Tuesdays Only.’”
“Right.” Jake looked more closely at the timetable, but it was tiny print and impossible to tell.
“It’s Wednesday today,” she said, with emphasis, as if explaining it to an idiot.
“No, I got that,” said Jake, thinking – island time is one thing, but waiting six days in a rusty shelter for the next bus was stretching the concept too far.
“And it doesn’t run on Tuesdays either anymore,” she said.
“What?”
She sighed. “There isn’t a bus. Get in, I’ll give you a lift.”
“You’re going to Port Levin?”
“Well, there’s nowhere else to go.”
Jake threw his bag on the back seat, among a pile of old blankets, a few empty crisp packets, a coil of rope and a well-worn waterproof jacket. Once in the passenger seat – a few plastic drinks’ bottles in the footwell – he looked in vain for a seatbelt.
“There isn’t one,” she said, as she pulled off. “Not mine, the Landy. It’s a tip, I know. I keep telling him. One careless owner, and all that. Don’t worry, I’ll get you there in one piece.”
Jake took in the view as she drove up the narrow coast road. Silver-barked trees, and some firs and bracken to his left; stony coves, rocky outcrops, and a sparkling sea on his right. Every now and again there was a passing place for cars, but there wasn’t another vehicle on the road. On one stretch they passed a red, triangular traffic sign showing a black deer with branched antlers, the pole leaning back at an angle so it looked like the deer was launching itself into the air.
Far away across the water, he could see the smudge of the distant mainland. The ferry was out of sight. No going back now – or, at least, no going back easily. But it was a warm June day, with a few high clouds, and he hadn’t had to walk. No flying deer either. So far, so good. He relaxed into his seat and enjoyed the ride.
“English?” she said, after a minute or two.
“Yes, sorry,” said Jake. Sorry? Why did he say that?
“Probably not your fault.”
He sneaked a look at her. Eyes on the road, straight face, matter of fact. Didn’t seem like she was joking.
“No, my parents’,” he said, “blame them,” but she didn’t acknowledge the reply. “Them being English,” he elaborated, thinking perhaps she’d missed the point.
Still nothing. Tough crowd.
After another mile or so, she spoke again.
“Did you mean to come here? Elsay? Got on the wrong ferry, maybe?”
“Why do you say that?”
“Nobody comes to Elsay anymore. Not tourists anyway.” She made the word ‘tourists’ sound thoroughly disreputable – the sort of people you wouldn’t want on your remote island. Coming over here, cluttering up the place, waiting for your buses, sitting in your crappy Land Rovers.
“I’m not a tourist.”
“Glad to hear it because there’s nothing to do here. Not anymore.”
Jake hoped this was wrong, not least because he had an email on his phone that said the opposite. That specifically said there was something to do here. After all, he’d had plenty of time to memorise its contents on the journey from London – which was now one tube ride, two train rides, one bus ride, one ferry crossing, and one unscheduled Land Rover journey away.
He was, however, beginning to think that the email wasn’t fully up to date. There was the erroneous island bus information, for a start. That wasn’t encouraging.
And then there was the mention of the ‘friendly welcome from the locals, who are always happy to tell you about their beautiful island home.’ There was nothing in the email concerning an inquisition by a blunt Emma Stone lookalike. Cruella Emma Stone, not La La Land Emma Stone.
“Visiting family, maybe?” she said. “The Crowthers have some English in them, I think.” She said that like ‘English’ was really not a thing you wanted in you. Like the Crowthers, with their unfortunate anglo-insertion, were to be more pitied than scorned.
Time to put a stop to this. He was tired – it had taken a long two days to get here. He hadn’t had anything to eat since a sausage roll at the mainland ferry port, hours ago. And while she was cute, and Jake was grateful for the lift, he wasn’t exactly feeling the friendly welcome to her beautiful island home.
“I’m not visiting the Crowthers,” he said. “Whoever they are. I’ve got a job here.”
“You haven’t.” She almost laughed. Scoffed, in fact.
“What?”
This was getting repetitious, but Jake couldn’t help himself. It was like she had a special set of nonplussing skills – the ability to come up with a sentence to which the only answer could be, “What?”
“You haven’t got a job here. I’d know if you had a job on the island. And there aren’t any jobs.”
“Well, maybe you don’t know everything. I’ve got a summer job at the Castle View Activity Centre. General assistant.”
There was a sharp intake of breath; a drawn out, sub-voiced “Je-sus”.
“How did you get the job?” she asked, turning to him briefly, for the first time.
“Website. Then an email with the details. Said I could turn up any day this week. Said there’d be a bus, too. That’s why I was at the ferry dock, waiting.”
She didn’t say anything for a moment, and then just said, “Website?”
&nbs
“Aye, I know it,” she said, shaking her head, and muttering what sounded like, “Bloody Duncan.”
She slowed as they rounded a corner and then, a couple of hundred yards further on, she turned into a driveway, past a weathered sign with missing letters that said, ‘Castl View Ac ivity Centr.’
The driveway was spotted with weeds, and the lawns on either side needed cutting. They drove past the main entrance of a white-painted, stone house, with a porticoed entrance. Big front door, two storeys, lots of chimneys – grand in its day, though the peeling paint and stain marks suggested that day was a while ago now. A couple of the front windows were boarded up, and there was a half-filled yellow skip on the gravel outside.
Around one side of the house stretched a low, flat-roofed extension, not quite a prefab building but certainly not the same age or style as the main house. Like it had been thrown up by a local builder with the instruction, ‘Keep it cheap.’ This, too, looked unkempt – there were weeds poking out of a roofline gutter.
“Staff quarters,” she said, pulling up outside. “Door’s always open, make yourself at home. There are probably tea bags in the kitchen. And the fridge should be on. I’d check the date on any milk, though.”
Jake retrieved his bag from the back seat, and stood there, uncertain.
“Go on in,” she said. “It’s fine. When you’re settled, it’s Duncan you want. He can sort it all out.”
“Is he around? Where will I find him?”
“Oh, he’s not here. He’ll be in the hotel, by the harbour. A mile up the road. You can’t miss it.”
“What time should I go?”
“Whenever you want, he’s always there. Be harder to find a time when he isn’t.”
With that, she put the Land Rover in gear and started to reverse.
“Wait,” said Jake. “What’s your name?”
But if she told him, he didn’t hear it, as she crunched the vehicle back over the gravel and disappeared down the drive.
Chapter 2
Jake tried the handle and pushed at the door. It gave an Addams-Family creak and opened onto a lounge room with a couple of shabby sofas, an old pine coffee table, and an oak dresser against one wall.
There was a big map of the island, Elsay, on another wall, and a cork noticeboard with what looked like a rota or timetable pinned to it. When Jake took a closer look, he saw it was dated from two years previously. There were a couple of yellowing cuttings from a local newspaper stuck to the board, too. ‘Lucky escape!’ said one of the headlines.
He brought the email up on his phone.
‘Your live-in accommodation,’ it said, ‘is casual but comfortable. Socialise in the lounge with your fellow staff members. Use the well-appointed kitchen to make communal meals – and make new friends!’
Jake looked around, sniffing the musty air in the room. He didn’t think any staff members had been casually and comfortably socialising in here for a while.
The kitchen was sited off the lounge. A stand-up, four-hob cooker with oven, a fridge-freezer making gurgling noises, and some tatty wooden wall-cupboards with a stack of mismatched crockery and mugs inside. A kitchen table with score marks and cup rings. A stainless-steel shelving unit with some old pots, pans and catering trays. He supposed it might be considered well-appointed for a prison-barge kitchen – or, to be fair, any of the student flats he’d lived in over the last couple of years.
The email was by no means finished with its upbeat assessment of the staff lodgings at the Castle View Activity Centre.
‘You will have your own* bedroom (*shared with a maximum of three other people). Wake up in the morning to an island view like no other!’
There were three bedrooms down the corridor, each with four bunk beds. They all had a front-facing window and thus, technically, a view – and, given they were bedrooms on an island, also technically an island view. Jake wasn’t qualified to say if it was like no other, although as it was of a driveway, an overgrown lawn and some trees, he suspected not.
What it definitely wasn’t was a view of a castle, but by now Jake was beginning to get the measure of the Castle View Activity Centre.
So far, no castle, no view, no sign of activity, and – a mile from the village, apparently – not in the centre either.
He dropped his backpack on a random bunk bed – no obvious bed clothes or pillows – and slumped on one of the lounge sofas, pushing away a couple of dog-eared brochures.
Yes, this probably was all his own fault.
He’d left it late to look for a summer job, annoyed with himself that he hadn’t got it together enough to apply in winter for the American summer-camp internships that some of his friends had landed. He’d already suffered taunting messages from Colorado and California, and had stopped checking the Insta clips of toned, tanned figures posing in front of jagged mountains and deep-blue lakes.
And then he’d had to stay three weeks later than everyone else to finish up an assessed module that he’d let drift. All Jake’s mates reckoned that Film Studies was a doddle, but they didn’t have to explain in five thousand words the significance of four-hour, new-wave, Bulgarian industrial documentaries from the 1970s.
All of which had left him in early June, with no plans and no job – and Jake desperately needed a summer job.
He could have gone back to his parents, and the small seaside town where he had grown up, to stay in his old, childhood bedroom and work in one of the cafés for minimum wage and no tips. But he knew the soul-destroying way that would go, and then he’d have to kill himself and his parents and the café owners and all their customers. That was only going to be asking for trouble.
Instead, he’d taken one final trawl through the websites and forums, and out had jumped ‘General Assistant, Castle View Activity Centre, Isle of Elsay, Scotland, flexible start in June, would suit student.’
As far as Jake could see, it only featured on one student-jobs website, which was probably why there were still vacancies – plus the fact that it was a long, long way from anywhere.
He’d looked it up on Google Maps and blanched when he saw it was going to take him six days to get there, then realised he’d clicked the ‘walking/cycling’ tag. Not that it was a whole lot better by public transport – two days, with a night in a Glasgow hostel on the way, so that he could get to the ferry port for what turned out to be a twice-weekly service from the mainland to Elsay.
But if all that had put other people off, Jake saw it as an opportunity. He’d never been to Scotland, let alone a Scottish island. The place looked amazing from the photos, it was a guaranteed three-month contract, and the pay wasn’t bad.
As for ‘General Assistant,’ it seemed to be a support role at a family activity centre – cleaning and gardening, helping maintain the equipment, a bit of kitchen work, and plenty of free time to explore.
He’d filled in an online application and a return email pinged straight back, with a welcome from a Duncan Fraser (Director), and detailed instructions on how to get there.
‘Don’t worry about calling to confirm,’ wrote Mr Fraser, who didn’t provide a number in any case, ‘because the phone service is patchy on the island, and anyway – we always have vacancies. If you’d like to be part of our happy Castle View family, just turn up!’
Jake looked around the lounge again. No sign yet of any happy Castle View family. Could it be grand talk by Fraser, who would turn out to be running the whole show himself? Not that any of this looked like a thriving business, or even a struggling business. It looked dead, shut down, closed.
Castle View Inactivity Centre, in fact.
But he had come all the way here, and still needed a job, so maybe Duncan Fraser, who the girl had said was always at the hotel in the village, would be able to shed some light on things?
There was no door key in the lock, which gave him slight pause for thought until he realised there was probably no need for one. It didn’t look as if anyone had been in here for months. He closed the door behind him and set off for the short walk into Port Levin, which he suspected, whatever the email said, was not going to be an ‘idyllic harbour settlement overlooking sparkling waters where porpoises play.’
In the event, twenty minutes later, as he rounded the corner to the harbour, Jake was forced to admit that Mr Fraser wasn’t entirely full of crap.
