But now I am alone. And while I didn't mind being alone at home, being along here is a whole different scenario.
Ben had been a real technical whiz and could do things that no one else even dreamed was possible. Phyllis had been the survival expert, the ever-cheerful optimist. So far, I was managing on my own, but what would I do when winter came? Was I prepared for it as well as I hoped? There should be enough food, but would I survive the solitude? Could I handle the long bouts of silence... interspersed with howling winds and the sound of heavy seas lashing at the shore? Time would tell...
Something else concerned me too. I had read that winter in these parts could be pretty dismal... with no sign of the sun for days on end. How would that affect the power supply? Solar panels needed the sun to do their job. There was a generator for emergencies but I wasn't sure I knew how to even start it.
As I said, the changes had started three months before Phyllis had failed to return from her walk down to the dock, slightly more than two months after our arrival. Things started to go missing. Some things turned up later in weird places... other things were never found. Several times Phyllis had thought our food had been tampered with. But there was no real suspect for any of these things.
There were other incidents too... such as the time half the solar panels were covered with a sticky substance that turned out to be tree sap. It had taken considerable effort to clean that off and they never did find out how it had happened. No tree branches hung over the panels for sap to fall from. And the time one of the large vats of cooking oil had disappeared. After days of searching, the empty vat had been found at the bottom of a steep hill on the other side of the island. How it got there was still a mystery.
Shortly after that, I had begun to notice changes in some of the team members. They seemed, at times, to be nervous... as if they felt like they were being watched. But no one voiced their feelings or thoughts. It was almost as if the island... or something living here... did not want us here. We began looking over our shoulders whenever we were outside. Our daily activities were now carried out with a listening ear and frequently looking over our shoulders. I no longer went down to sit on the rocks and watch the water. Sometimes when I looked over the water, it looked cold, ... and I shivered.
The feeling of the idyllic, peaceful working holiday situation that we had experienced at the beginning seemed to be slowly dissolving. The atmosphere had become more of an uneasy, watchful one. We still carried out our daily tasks... but without the eager anticipation we had felt earlier. Was it the isolation... or was it something more? Was there a reason this almost perfect environment was uninhabited?
As my unease intensified, things began to get worse.
