by M H Ryan
“Who did this?” Kara said. “Because sure as hell wasn’t a boar.”
“We’re not alone here,” I said, again resisting the urge to reach for what was below.
“What do you mean?” Benji asked.
I took out Danforth’s journal and held it up. “The watchers he mentioned in the book.”
“Yeah, the ones he kept killing?” Kara said.
“Shit drove him crazy,” Aubrey said.
“Well, I feel them, right now, in those waters out there.”
“Shit,” Benji said. “We shouldn’t have come here.”
“This is just part of it,” Sherri said, looking at the ceiling. “We came here for a reason.”
Another boom, and this time I thought I heard a crack. What was down there?
“Screw this,” Aubrey said. “Grab and go, remember?”
Aubrey pulled the shoes off Danforth and then yanked the blanket.
I mentally slipped and reached out to below the cave. The creature was right there, as if our minds were close enough to touch, as if it had been waiting for me and my connection the entire time. It felt ancient and beyond rage, more of a lunacy that didn’t have reason or cause. As if something had broken inside it, and it just wanted to destroy.
Our connection scared it, though, and it broke it off, and I felt nothing.
Another boom and another. They kept coming now at a constant pace like a person beating on a drum. The sound of it all sent the cave into complete darkness and the deafening bass drummed through the cave so loudly that I could barely hear the girls screaming.
I dropped my spear and grabbed Benji with one hand and Eliza with my other.
“Everyone grab hands,” I said.
That’s when I heard another cracking in the rock.
“It’s breaking,” Benji said, pulling against me. “I can stop it, I think.”
“No,” I said, yanking her with me. “We need to get out of here.”
The sound of running water could be heard between the thumps and cracks. Then I felt the warm water run past my feet, rising up to my ankles and then my calves in a matter of seconds. Whatever had broken, it was filling the room up with water, and quickly.
“Shit,” I said. “Run.”
I held onto the girls and took big steps through the water as it poured from the doorway. We ran up the bank, getting out of the water and looking down on the doorway as I made sure we all got out. Moshe hissed back at the doorway and shook the water from herself.
The room lit for a brief second, but it was enough to see that the water had reached the top of the doorway and was on its way up the bank. Once it reached the top, it would be a waterfall back down the other side.
We ran down the backside, sliding down the sandy part and rushing up the other side and out of the cave. The roar of water came out of the cave along with a steady breeze of air as the water pushed it out of the cave.
“What the hell was that?” Eliza asked.
I felt it again. It was angry, trying to get through.
“It’s getting loose,” I said.
“What?” Kara asked.
“Nothing good,” I said.
“We got the blanket and shoes,” Aubrey said, holding up her trophies. “Now let’s get the hell out of here.”
We ran back to the raft with a sense of urgency. I could feel the creature or creatures now—one was squeezing and changing itself. It didn’t make much sense, but that’s what I felt from it.
In record time, we got the raft back on the water. Benji and Kara went to the sail while Sherri and Aubrey went to paddling.
In less than a minute, we were past the waves and back into the open ocean. I looked back, watching the cave. When I felt a release from a creature, I knew something had gotten through. It wasn’t strong, though. It was weakened, almost dead. Just as we started to move too far away from the cave for me to be able to see it, I spotted the water spilling from the mouth of the cave and something came out with it.
In the mix of the water, I saw tentacles, and within moments it was in the ocean. It was hungry and searching for food. One thing I noticed was the absence of the watchers. They were gone.
I just wanted to get home, but then I felt the creature. It was following us.
Chapter 18
“What the hell happened back there?” Aubrey asked.
The girls’ attention was on me, and they looked scared. Hell, I was scared too and felt responsible for that thing getting loose. What was it? Maybe an octopus or a squid. I knew from some research that an octopus was one of the smartest creatures in the world and found extraordinary ways to escape enclosures. They could camouflage themselves or spray out ink in the water to disorient a predator.
“I think something got loose from the place,” I said. “It had tentacles and came out with the water.”
“Yeah, I saw it too,” Benji said. “I say we just get home as fast as we can. We have enough to worry about with Cass.”
The wind blew against the sail, and the girls paddled in unison, making a steady whoosh sound. I steered the raft, watching the island behind us get smaller.
“It’s following us,” I said, trying to decipher how far away it was but it was…blurry.
“Mr. Tentacles?” Benji asked, looking back at the waters behind us with the bow in hand.
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s fading, though. I can barely feel it now.”
“Well, fantastic,” Aubrey said. “Just what we need, another predator in the waters coming after us.”
One thing I didn’t feel was the loud static of the ocean. It wasn’t silent anymore, but it was just a low hum. The storm must have done a number on the sea.
“Whirlpool,” Sherri said as she got up from paddling and pointed ahead. “Move to the right a ways, and we’ll miss it.”
I couldn’t see the maelstrom, but I didn’t need to. I trusted Sherri with my life. I turned the raft in the direction Sherri said. In a few minutes, we passed by the swirling water.
After a while, the wind became strong enough to give Aubrey and Sherri a reprieve from rowing. Aubrey went to Cass and knelt next to her face. She touched her cheek with the back of her fingers.
“Cass, can you hear me?” Aubrey lifted Cass’s hand. “She’s still holding the rock.”
“Mrs. Granite,” Eliza said, sitting next to her chickens in the pen, probably to make sure Moshe didn’t yank one from that cage. The cat had gone back to staring at the chickens.
“Yeah, Mrs. Granite,” Aubrey said, and then took Cass’s other, free hand and held it in hers. “Cass, if you can hear me, squeeze my hand.”
We all watched, and Aubrey’s eyes lit up with excitement.
“I can feel it,” Aubrey said. “She’s squeezing my hand.”
“That’s good, right?” Benji asked.
“Yeah, it means she still in there, and she can hear us,” Sherri said.
“Cass, squeeze my hand once for yes, twice for no,” Aubrey asked.
I reached out to the creature that had escaped and felt it no more. I hoped it had found easier prey and got distracted in the ocean. Or better yet, a great white had gobbled it up like a snack.
“I think it’s gone,” I said.
The raft dipped down into the water on one side and the girls gasped, grappling for a handhold as the raft tilted hard to one side.
I jumped up and stepped toward the front. A tentacle wrapped around the front right balsa wood log. I crouched down as I grabbed for the nearby spear.
“Shit. It’s here,” I said, pointing at it.
The girls all jumped into action, grabbing their weapons and staying in their positions. I wish I had more time to admire them, but another tentacle went up and slapped the deck. It grabbed one of our bags, ripping it loose from the deck. Aubrey stabbed the tentacle that was the size of my leg and grazed it. Moshe launched for the thing’s limb but it snapped back into the ocean like a rubber band, pulling a dry bag in with it.
“That
was our first aid bag,” Aubrey groaned.
The raft shifted again. This time the rear of raft sunk near Sherri.
“Shit,” I said and moved closer to the remaining bags near the center. “Sherri, spear it.”
Sherri moved and spotted the tentacles wrapping around the log. She thrust a few times, stabbing creature each time. It uncoiled its grip from the raft and dropped back into the sea. The raft righted itself and slammed back into the water.
The breeze pushed against the sail, giving off a soft rippling sound as it moved over the blanket. None of us moved as we stared at the ocean around us. I reached out, trying to feel it, but as, only found a hint. The thing wasn’t pissed off with hot waves of rage. It felt calm, and patient. As if anything we did for the next hundred years wouldn’t be inconsequential.
“Is it gone?” Benji asked, an arrow still primed for release in her bow.
“No,” I said, moving in a circle around Cass and the remaining bags. “It’s going to hit us again. Get ready.”
The raft moved along in the water, sending a small wake behind us and to the side. The sunlight sparkled on the surface, dancing with yellows over the dark blue water. The waves splashed softly against the raft, and I listened to the girls breathing as we waited.
The water on my side bubbled, and I spotted the thing in the water, maybe five feet below the surface. It looked like an octopus, but bigger, with long tentacles stretching out from its body. It stared at me with black eyes. It hated me—I felt that, and it wasn’t the same thing I felt in the cave. This was something different, but similar, as if it came from the same family.
“It’s over here. I have eyes on it.” I raised my spear, waiting for the thing to get in range so I could skewer it and hopefully get our bag back.
It moved under the raft and out of my sight. I leaned over, trying to track it, when Eliza screamed. Two tentacles had wrapped around the chicken cage. Moshe jumped and dug its claws into the creature, biting down and drawing blood. The cat was too small to do any real damage, though.
Eliza had her knife out and slashed at it. That’s when I heard a splash from the other side of the raft, and a dark purplish creature grabbed ahold of the raft with the rest of its body, pulling itself out of the water and grabbing Sherri with one of the long tentacles. It slung around her calf and pulled her toward the sea. She screamed and dropped her spear in the fall.
I jumped across the raft as an arrow flew by Sherri, hitting the octopus in the body. It looked gelatinous, the arrow seemed to absorb into its body. I wasn’t aiming for the body. I was aiming for a limb. I stabbed the spear down as I landed next to Sherri. The spear went through the tentacle and stuck into the bamboo. The creature pulled, but it was stuck to the raft.
It let Sherri go, and she jumped to her feet as another arrow blasted into its body. Then Aubrey hit it with a spear. I felt a fear spike in the creature as its injuries mounted. Sensing its situation, it went into a reckless attack against us. It grabbed a stack of wood, breaking it from its bindings and yanking it into the waters.
It grabbed for another bag, and Sherri, Aubrey, and I all jumped on the thing’s limb, pinning it with our weight to the deck. I had my knife out and sliced at it, cutting through it. It let go of the bag, and another tentacle slapped at Cass’s immobile body before grabbing her by the leg and lifting her leg up. I sliced at the thing, cutting through it with a few sawing motions before it yanked it back.
It reached out again, this time grabbing me around my neck. I felt its muscles and cups pressing against my throat as I stabbed at it over and over again.
Another arrow hit it in what I’d call the face. Benji had been busy, because no fewer than a dozen arrows now stuck in the things body, making it look like some nightmarish pin cushion.
“Die!” Benji yelled as she fired another.
She only had two more on her, though.
Sherri pulled at the tentacle squeezing the life from me and then wrestled with it as it flung her into another pile of wood. I stabbed it again and then pulled my knife against it, ripping through it. The thing let go of my neck, and I collapsed to the deck, gasping for breaths. Kara and Aubrey both threw their spears while Benji fired another arrow into the monster.
It let go of the chicken box that Eliza had been fighting it over. A few more of its tentacles flailed in the air, grabbing at stuff unseen. Then it turned from a purple color to a gray color as it stopped moving entirely. Its appendages slid over the deck and toward the ocean. I ran to the edge, looking at it in the water and not feeling a thing from it. It was dead, but I also spotted our bag, curled up in one of its arms.
“Damnit,” I said, half considering jumping into the water.
Sherri had a hand on me, holding me back. “Sweetie, no. It’s not worth it,” she pleaded, but I pushed forward, and Aubrey then had hands on me as well.
“Jack, don’t,” Aubrey said.
“We beat you!” I screamed, the bloody chef’s knife in my hand.
The girls let me go, and Sherri plopped down on a pile of wood, laughing.
“That was some crazy shit, right there,” Sherri said, raising both hands and howling at the sky. “I’m so alive!”
“That was some Twenty-Thousand-Leagues-Under-The-Sea kind of shit,” Benji said, holding her hand over her chest and leaning forward.
“Everyone okay?” Kara asked.
“I’m going to have bruises,” Sherri said, rubbing her leg. “But I’m okay.”
“I’m okay,” Eliza said, putting some pieces of the chicken cage back together.
Moshe meowed and paced in front of me, staring down into the dark sea. The carcass had fallen into the darkness of the sea. Already, I felt the static of the ocean growing, as if the creatures knew it was dead as well. Good, they can gorge on the monster and erase it from the waters.
It had taken our first aid kit, and our broken flashlight, and the bag that held it all.
“I can see our island,” Benji said, a spark of hope in her voice.
I saw our island as well, and it felt like coming home.
Behind us, only a speck of the cave island could be seen. I knew that we hadn’t seen the worst of what that island could deal out. All the more reason to build a strong house, so these things could no longer get to us. And all the more urgent to find the rest of the women lost to these islands.
“Guys,” Kara said. “Cass is moving.”
Chapter 19
Our sleeping beauty didn’t fully awaken, but the poison had subsided enough that some motor functions were now happening, though without much meaning behind them. Her arms moved, as if reaching for something unseen. Her lips parted in a mumbling of whispers that even when we put our ears close to her mouth, we couldn’t decipher.
Eliza steered the boat toward our island as we kneeled next to Cass.
“Get her some water,” I said, and Benji handed me one of the water pouches. I tilted it and wet her lips with the liquid. Her arms moved in what looked like a desire to grab the drink. The fist holding Mrs. Granite grazed the pouch.
“Cass,” I said, putting the edge the water pouch against her lips. “Here is some water, but drink it slowly.”
I eased some of it into her mouth, and she gulped down a few sips before I took it away. I wasn’t sure how long she had been without any liquids. If I gave her too much, too fast, it would come right back up, and she’d be worse off than before.
“Island’s coming up,” Eliza said.
I lay Cass back down and put her head on the blanket pillow we’d made for her from Danforth’s blanket.
“Let’s drop the sail and row it in,” I said.
We rowed the raft onto the beach and then jumped off, pulling the raft high up onto the sand. Benji, Sherri, Aubrey, and I carried Cass to the platform, while Kara set the blanket down for her to lie on. As we set her down, her eyes opened.
“Cass,” Benji said, getting close to her face, but Cass seemed to look through her.
The
island rumbled more than it ever had before. I had trouble staying on my feet as the island rocked. The trees shook and shallow waters rippled and writhed like bathtub water with a rambunctious child in it.
The girls held onto Cass, making sure she didn’t bump her head as the earthquake vibrated the platform.
It stopped after a few seconds and the island seemed to ring, like a bell for a few seconds more and then nothing.
Kara stepped out from the sand she had sunken into and knelt down, touching the island.
“Something is wrong with our island. I feel something building in it and…it’s getting worse.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I felt something so subtle last time that I wasn’t sure if I was mistaken, but this time I feel it clearly, like pressure building,” Kara said, getting up and rubbing the sand from her hands.
“Anyone else feeling anything?” I asked, looking around at the girls.
“I do,” Eliza said in a shy whisper.
“Well, what is it?” Aubrey asked.
“I’m not going to, but I have an urge to leave this island,” Eliza said, hugging her bag of protectors. “I felt it the second I stepped onto the sand. Even before that quake.”
“Do you think what happened to Eliza’s island is happening here?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Kara said.
“Cass,” Benji said, touching Cass’s face. “She’s gone unresponsive again.”
“At least we got some water down her,” Sherri said and then stepped toward the forest. “Speaking of water, do you guys notice how dry the forest is looking?”
I walked to the forest edge. We were on the narrow section of island the geyser usually didn’t reach. But from there, we could easily see where the moisture gradually increased as the plants were larger, greener and always had a wet, slick look to them. Now, the plants that were usually dripping wet were completely dry.
Before we left, the geyser had gone the longest time not erupting since we had arrived on the island. We had joked it was Old Faithful at one point.
