The Island Read Free

born into. A world of poverty where unemployment was at an all-time high nationwide. He had lost his job as a delivery driver almost a year earlier, and the little savings he had put aside had soon dried up. With over two thousand applicants for the few scattered vacancies out there, it made the chances of finding work slim. He had taken to walking the streets and going business to business out of sheer desperation to get back on his feet. He was young and strong, and, as he told all of his prospective employers, willing to do any kind of work as long as there was a pay check at the end of it. He glanced around him at the immense skyscrapers which illustrated that not everyone was struggling to make ends meet. The towers stretched into the smog shrouded heavens, none higher than the three owned by the Lomar Corporation which graced the New York skyline. For them, the rich and the powerful, the quest to cram as much real estate into the city had become key, and as always it was the poor who suffered. Homes were being purchased and demolished to make way for bigger and better buildings and offices. The knock on effect for the poor was akin to a haphazardly constructed domino run. Without jobs, people couldn’t afford homes, without homes, desperation turned to crime. Chase had seen pictures of the old city back before the Lomar Corporation took its stranglehold. The charm it once had was gone. The garish neon television screens, which were once exclusive to Times Square, now covered every building across the entire city as the Lomar Corporation sold advertising space to willing investors. The once lush green of central park was also gone, more than half of it now populated by large, ugly skyscrapers, the remainder a wasteland of rubble and earth. Darkness was starting to creep closer, bringing with it a bitter drizzle which would soon turn into snow. The coming dark would also bring out the criminals, the lowlifes and destitute, those hooked on cheap drugs, addictions that they had to feed no matter the cost. Those were the people who had given up on trying to fight against the horrors thrown at them by daily life and instead join the tidal wave of scum looking out for themselves at the expense of everyone else. Chase didn’t hate them. He knew how easy it would be to fall into that particular way of life. The crowds were starting to thin now as he made his way home. The buildings in the neighbourhood where Chase lived were run down graffiti-covered shells riddled with damp and infested with rats and cockroaches, but it was the best people like him could afford. He walked down trash strewn sidewalks, keeping his eyes on the floor to avoid the hungry gazes of the gangs and desperate. They left him alone for the simple reason that they knew he had nothing of value worth stealing.
    Brownwater Place was a block of two room apartments. The outside was an ugly red brown, and one of the glass panels in the entranceway had been boarded over. The rooms were cold in winter and overpoweringly hot in summer, but it was cheap and somewhere to live. He wrinkled his nose as he entered the building; the smell of mould and piss he would never get used to. He coughed, a brittle sound complimented by the creaking of the tired wood as he ascended the staircase to the fourth floor, passing a neighbour whose name he didn’t know. He recognised the look though. The haunted expression of sheer hopelessness was more than familiar.
     
    TWO
     
    Chase went inside, closed and locked the door, then took off his jacket. Somehow, being home and a failure was worse than if he had been mugged or attacked. He tried to take a deep breath, almost lost it by starting to cough, and then swallowed it back down. He walked into the cosy sitting room, ignoring the damp and black mould which lingered in the corners. His wife, Ashley, smiled at him, the worry in her eyes cutting him deep.
    “How did it go?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
    “No luck today.