Dead Island Read Online Free PDF Page A

from the Special Forces squad and flying home by scraping together her own meagre savings was out of the question. She would be ostracized and labelled a trouble-maker, and it would bring great shame on her family. Despite the idyllic surroundings, therefore, in many ways she felt just as much a prisoner as the rapists, murderers and terrorists incarcerated in the high-security jail a couple of miles offshore.
    The bus was disgorging its passengers now. As always, they looked bleary-eyed, sweaty and flustered from all the travelling, but many of them were peering around with wonder and satisfaction. Xian Mei was not surprised. There was no denying Banoi was beautiful. It was a place of sunny skies, white sand, sparkling blue seas, palm trees and flowers in abundance. For a tourist resort, the pace of life was laid-back, relaxed, and the atmosphere – even at night – was relatively peaceful. The soundtrack was one of insects, birds and the sighing of the tide, rather than of loud music, drunken shouting and people throwing up.
    The first of the holidaymakers were trudging into the hotel now, carrying their suitcases or dragging them on wheels behind them. They were pretty much the same as any other group of holidaymakers, as far as she could see, the majority of their number composed of families and couples. Banoi was a location that appealed to all age groups, which meant that in any sample selection of customers you would find young honeymooning couples, middle-aged couples on a romantic break and elderly couples hoping for a week or two of rest and gentle recreation. Xian Mei had been led to believe that westerners were conniving and deceitful, and so shamelessly decadent that they posed a serious threat to the world’s very stability, but in the three months she had been here she had seen little evidence of that. On the contrary, once you looked beyond their loud, revealing clothes and their open, sometimes abrasive manner, they were not that dissimilar to her own people. Unless Xian Mei was missing something, all they really seemed to want were healthy, happy, fulfilled lives for themselves and their families.
    Occasionally people would arrive here alone, and it was this group that Xian Mei observed most keenly. For the most part, though, they too seemed harmless, and in fact she often ended up feeling sorry for them as they took their meals alone, or went for solitary walks along the beach, or spent their days sitting silently by the pool, their heads buried in a book. Sometimes she would strike up a conversation with one of them, find out they were a widow or a widower, or treating themselves to a quiet break after a painful divorce. Or sometimes they were single simply because they chose to be, content with their own company.
    As ever with a batch of new arrivals, the first hour was a flurry of activity. Xian Mei and her three colleagues, who were often interchangeable depending on their shift patterns, tried to get through the check-in procedure as quickly and efficiently as possible. They all knew there was nothing more annoying for customers who had spent the whole day travelling, and who were desperate to freshen up and relax, than having to wait in yet another queue. But however efficiently she worked, she knew it was inevitable that one or two people out of a group of fifty or sixty would give her a hard time. In this case, it was a young, muscular, tattooed man with a flushed face and a slight limp. He thumped his elbows on the desk and leaned in towards her with a leer. Xian Mei tried not to recoil at the smell of alcohol on his breath.
    ‘So where can a guy get a little action around here?’ he said by way of introduction.
    Xian Mei gave him a professional smile. ‘That depends what you mean, sir. There is an abundance of restaurants and bars on the island.’
    ‘That so?’ said the man thoughtfully. ‘And I guess you’d know all the best ones?’
    Xian Mei hesitated. ‘I don’t go out too often. I