Predator Island

by Douglas Cameron

  “So that sound from the area was simply water,” Waldo said. The door to the theater opened and Issaack, Gloria, Monica and Harvey Gladstone entered.

  Horus started the video rerunning again – the first of about thirty reruns in the next twenty minutes to give everyone a chance to see it as big as possible.

  “The area around the hole is quite warm,” Horus said. “The temperature shown on the drone was about 120º F but dropping fast. I do not have a thermometer to drop into the water, but I would say it is quite hot. I conjecture that somewhere between the Vulcan’s Forge and Prometheus’s Aerie, there is a big cavern above the lava bed and the water comes into that, being heated as it sits there, then as it starts to boil, the pressure builds and erupts. The water is ejected through tunnels which are possibly old lava tubes and pushed with great force up against the top of the Aerie. Today however, there is no cap and the water just shot up.”

  “Well, if you are correct,” Waldo was thinking out loud, “and it sounds reasonable, there are two exits to the pot, one where the water comes in and then the one leading to the Aerie. The expulsion should also go out the entrance tunnel. Where does that go?”

  “I don’t know,” Horus answered, for certain, “but perhaps someday we will find out.”

  Chapter 20

  Gerallt surmised that the flashlight had been washed out of the cave and, despite the fact that he felt the search of the rainforest had been called off for some reason, he didn’t want to risk going outside. Besides, it was important that he know as much about the cave as he could if he was to make it his home for the time being. Getting up, he turned the ladder so that the rung side – the side easiest to walk on – was facing up, with the ladder lying on the surface of the tunnel floor. Then he walked from one end to the other, using the rungs as stepping stones and back again, putting his full weight on each rung as he went. He was surprised that every rung held. Then he turned the ladder so that the rung side was against the right wall of the corridor. Then, keeping his weight pressed down on the ladder for balance, he slid the ladder across the hole until it was spanning the hole as evenly as he could get it, and he turned the ladder so that it lay flat, rung side up.

  Mentally crossing his fingers, he walked across the hole on his providentially provided ladder bridge. Satisfied that he now had a bridge for the hole, he continued his exploration beyond the hole. For the first twenty feet or so, the floor of the corridor was as smooth as the other side of the hole, but then it became rougher and he realized that the water must have been erupting and running down the corridor for ages smoothing it out. It was smooth for the twenty feet or so because the water spread that far but went no further. He moved quickly but carefully because he wasn’t certain how long the torches would last, and he had a limited supply until he figured out a way to make some or found the flashlight and it still worked. The flashlight’s battery was solar, so he could recharge it by leaving it in the strangler fig tree – provided the flashlight still worked when he found it. This side of the tunnel was steeper and curvier, and it was twenty minutes until he got a glimmer of the “light at the end of the tunnel.” Then he hurried toward the end. Just as he got within ten feet of the point where the roof lowered, and he would have to crawl, a buzzing noise alerted him to company. He came to a stop just as the first drone he had encountered in the water on top of the rock hill came into the cave.

  “You must be very careful,” the voice from the drone said. “You cannot go outside here in the daytime and it will be dangerous at night because of the guards.”

  “Whose guards?” Gerallt asked and then added questioningly, “Are you Tyrant the parakeet?”

  “They are under command of a man named Matias Gutierrez,” Horus answered without answering. “He has given himself the rank of general.”

  “Who is he?” Gerallt asked “and how are you connected with him?”

  “He is a mercenary hired by Ramiro Esteves to take over this island”

  “I knew that mab i ast (son of a bitch) was in this,” Gerallt snarled. “Where is he so that I can end his miserable life?” and he started for the entrance, but the drone moved blocking him and Gerallt stopped.

  “As I said before,” Horus said, “It would not be wise for you to exit this cave in the daylight. The entrance is covered by some light shrubbery and no one else knows it is here. But if they see you, they will find this cave and then it will be over for you. There are too many of them to take on at one time.”

  Gerallt nodded agreement. “Beside, my rifle got waterlogged and I haven’t cleaned it yet.”

  “Waterlogged!” Horus said. “How did that happen?”

  Gerallt explained about the hole and the water pulsing.

  “Ah,” Horus said. “I’ve been wondering about the earthquaking at Prometheus’s Aerie and that explains it.”

  “What’s Prometheus’s Aerie?”

  “That rock hill where you crashed through the rock and ended up in that water – we call it Prometheus’s Aerie but the people who lived here until they were evacuated before Hurricane Davido called it Colina da Rocha or Boulder Hill in Portuguese. We have noticed the earth shaking in that area every couple of days and I have been unable to pinpoint it until today. Another drone monitoring the lion was down there and then the shaking started, so we got a video of water shooting up out of the hole you made. That explains how the water gets up there to come out and make the river. I certainly hope that the hole in the top of Prometheus’s Aerie doesn’t affect the water’s flow. We need it for ourselves”

  “That’s interesting,” Gerallt said. “I forgot to mention that the water was hot and that probably has some effect.”

  “Undoubtedly,” Horus agreed.

  “I understand that I shouldn’t go outside, but can I at least look?”

  “Yes, but please be careful.”

  Gerallt walked and then crawled to the end of the tunnel because the inlet end was not as high as the inside of the tunnel. That puzzled him and he held the torch around and discovered that here were two other old entrances one to the right and one to the left which probably over the years had gotten filled with debris from the crater’s walls or maybe had gotten plugged during some eruption. This only took a few minutes and when he got to the end, which, as Horus had said, was hidden by local shrubs which providentially had taken a root hold on the volcano’s rocky surface and grown sufficiently so that they covered the tunnel’s entrance. He was about thirty feet above the floor of the volcano and was looking down at Vulcan’s Roost.

  “What’s that?” he asked and Horus quickly explained from the very beginning but in very concise terms.

  “So that evening attack was just a feint … just testing defenses?”

  “Yes,” said Horus.

  “So I didn’t need to kill that man?”

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry,” Gerallt said.

  “Don’t be,” Horus said. “You had no way of knowing. If you hadn’t done it, then either Hansel or Gretel would have.”

  “They didn’t know?”

  “No. Only Issaack, Siegfried and I knew – or to be truthful, we felt that they were just probes.”

  “Okay, I understand about Issaack and Siegfried. But what do you do?”

  “I run everything.”

  “Everything? And there is a drone for each of the predators?”

  “Yes, and several watching the encampment.”

  “Impossible,” Gerallt said. “You’d have to be a supercomputer to do that.”

  “Now, I have to go,” Horus said. “Remember that you can’t be seen. If you see one of the predators, get away quickly because some of the Bundle are always watching the predators and they are always being filmed. I can try to keep you out of the video but can’t promise. Once they learn you are alive they will know I have been lying to them and … well, I don’t know what they’ll do. They have bets on who will win. Esteves was especially irritated that the grizzly died. He had a lot of mone
y on him to win. Oh, and on the hyena also. That was the first to die.”

  Horus decided that to tell Gerallt that Ramiro had bet on him would be counterproductive.

  “Wrong bets,” Gerallt said. “He was right from the beginning. Man is the biggest predator and right now Esteves is the biggest prey because I am going to kill him.”

  “I trust you will. You had a hand in killing two of the predators also. That’s four. The hyena was first. More of them will die because they are getting hungry again. The hyena went fast because the lion and tiger got to it after the coyotes and wolf. The grizzly was a feast, but they’ll be hungry again. The black panther is going after the mercenaries. He was a man-eater anyway. The black bear is happy in the rainforest with the vegetation, at least for now. The caracal, the coyotes …?

  “Caracal? What’s that?”

  “A small cat from Asia. You had an encounter with it early the first night when you fell, and it is in the rainforest. Anyway it, the coyotes and possibly the wolf can survive on birds and small animals, but that supply will be drawn down quickly.” Horus said. “But for now, you have to worry about those mercenaries. I can’t control them and don’t know what they’re going to do. Take care and be careful.”

  And just like that the drone flew out of the cave. Gerallt had no choice but to return to the strangler fig hole, repair and clean his gear and get ready to take on a numerically superior force.

  Chapter 21

  Of all the animals, Deva the snow leopard had not made its way to the island’s water sources either in the rainforest or at the river and he was thirsty. More thirsty than hungry and he was also hot. When he had come out of his cage, he had headed up the volcano because he had smelled the grizzly and the black bear and didn’t know the smell but knew they were big. At that point, he was not at all interested in a fight. Water, a cooler environment, and food were his priorities and he sensed water higher on the slope that had come from some rain two days before where water had gathered in a small pool sheltered by rocks. Although the water was evaporating in the heat of the day, it wasn’t directly in the sun and there was still some there. And because of the position of the sun, there were similar pools on the crater side of the volcano and the snow leopard could get there. And it was cooler on that side of the crater, so his wanderings had taken him up the side of the Vulcan’s Forge where he found water. He was almost to the top when the heat of the sun drove him to seek shelter behind some rocks and sleep through the heat of that first afternoon. Later, in the relative cool of the second night, he had continued his upward search and reached the rim of the volcano. He could sense the that the interior of the volcano’s cone was cooler. Therefore he wandered the rim looking for a passage down away from the sun as it was beginning to come up as that full first night of freedom was turning into day. And fortunately for the snow leopard there were small mammals living in the small nooks and crannies of the volcano and he was able to somewhat sate his hunger with them and his thirst with the water it found. As the sun came up, he made his way down the crater’s wall until he found a place to sleep in the shade for most of the day.

  In the late afternoon, he was up and about and continued his wanderings. He smelled food down near the bottom of the hill and being hungry headed that way. As he neared the crater floor he saw that the “food” was man and, although he had eaten man only once – a dead climber he had chanced upon – Deva was certainly hungry enough and began to approach more stealthily. His path took him behind some vegetation where he felt a cool breeze, more a slight motion in the air, and discovered a hole in the crater wall. The opening was easily big enough for him, and he walked in. Smells were strong here, both water and food but again the food was man. As he wandered down the lava tube, the smells grew stronger and finally he arrived at a blockage in his path – a hole in the floor. In the hole, he smelled water, but the water was far away, and he ignored it. Jumping the hole was easy and he proceeded with the smell of food growing stronger.

  Deva noticed the darkness in the tunnel starting to recede, but the reason for the change never crossed his mind – it was simply an occurrence and was just part of his life. What he did notice was that the smell of food was strong and there was noise. Deva moved carefully but felt no need to hide and, because of the nature of the lava tube, there was no need to do so. Suddenly, though not unexpectedly, the man came into view. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the tube, working with something with his hands. On the wall of the tube above his head was fire, a hot burning man thing that Deva didn’t like. But it was above and not held by the man, so it was safe. The man did something and then held a long object in one hand and looked at it. He put an end of the long thing against his shoulder and was looking at it closely, his head against it and he was moving it side to side.

  Gerallt had searched through the back and found some MRE (Meals Ready to Eat) and had eaten one to help his hunger but knew there he should not overdo food at this point. So he had turned to cleaning his rifle. He had just finished cleaning the rifle for the second time and was satisfied with its condition. He put the stock against his shoulder and was sighting though it as though he was hunting, moving the barrel side to side from the bottom of the tube toward the top and then he stopped. Almost directly in the crosshairs of the sight was something unexpected. Something that instantly made him wish that he had at least one bullet in the chamber. He wasn’t certain of the exact type, but it was cat and it was big. Definitely not a housecat.

  In one swift movement, he was on his feet, rifle in one hand and magazine in the other, and he was yelling at the top of his lungs.

  Deva jumped back when the man suddenly arose and started yelling. He was frightened. The man was standing there shaking the stick in one hand and something in the other. Then he put the two together and was pointing the stick at him. He didn’t know what it was, but he knew – just, knew – that it wasn’t good, so he turned and ran back up the lava tube. Ran as though his life depended on it.

  And if it had not been that place and that time, it might have been but Gerallt suddenly realized that shouting and shooting were two things that he didn’t want to do. Especially the shooting. He had slammed the magazine into the chamber and pointed the rifle at the cat having no intention of shooting. It was more a show of bravado than anything else. And the cat turned and ran.

  Where had it come from and where was it going? Those were two important questions. He knew that it must be one of the predators that had somehow wandered and gotten into his lava tube but how? Was there another entrance? He hadn’t seen one, but then he hadn’t always been looking. He turned and got the torch from the wall and went after the cat. He had to know where it had come from, where it was going and, much more importantly, had his yelling found anyone’s ears.

  Chapter 22

  But, as usual in instances like this, things do not go according to plan. Deva, running for his life and able to see in the dark, jumped the hole in the floor with no problem and continued on up the lava tube toward the

  crater entrance.

  Gerallt running as though his life might depend on it – and if things went awry it would – couldn’t see in the dark and the torch wasn’t as bright as it could have been because he was running, came upon the hole much quicker than he expected. It was too late to stop, and he couldn’t risk losing the rifle, so he dropped it behind him and as he reached the hole and leapt, he tossed the torch ahead of him. Fortunately, it reached the far edge, bounced, hit the right wall and rolled to a stop in the middle of the floor, still burning but barely, Gerallt’s leap wasn’t his best because, as previously stated, he was upon the hole before he knew it. He literally threw himself across the opening and he hit the lip of the hole with his arms outstretched and over the edge, clawing for a hold, but the smooth floor offered none. His legs were churning trying to find some kind of hold in the shaft which had been smoothed by erupting water over the years. If it hadn’t been for the ladder he would have fallen to an un
known place whether it was hell, heaven, water or rock, he would never know. Instinct saved him because he reached out his right arm and found a rung on the ladder and grabbed it just as his body was slipping into the abyss.

  He hung from the ladder only long enough to catch his breath and then he grabbed it with his left hand and worked his way forward until he could get his lower left arm on the lip of the hole and pushing down raising himself enough to get a better hold on the ladder and pulled it flat. Then he was able to get a leg over it and, at that point, pull himself onto it. Still there was no time to rest because the cat was still in front of him and his torch was dying. Damn that flood for taking his electric torch from him. First thing after this … first thing if he survived this … was to go and find the electric torch. Picking the burning torch up, it grew brighter as it found air and fuel. The rifle would have to wait, and he started forward, this time a little warier and only at a jog. Even if he had run, his encounter with the hole put him far enough behind the snow leopard that he didn’t get to see what happened when Deva exited the lava tube at full speed.

  Pablo Gutierrez (Soldado 13) had two strikes against him with his compadres. Three if you count the fact that he was from Santiago, Chile, and the rest of them were from Venezuela and Brazil for the most part although Uruguay, Panama, Columbia, and Argentina were represented. The first of the main two reasons was his last name but that was the only relationship to his commanding officer and the name gained him no preference whatsoever. More so, he felt that it was a hindrance although there were worse duties than being one of the seven guards at Vulcan’s Roost, ten if you counted the three at the outside gate. The second was his first name and the fact that someone learned that he had taken cello lessons in his youth. Actually only four until his teacher discovered that he had a tin ear and short stubby fingers and that was it. So “Casals” was what he was called. He didn’t care. Musical ability or not, he liked music, especially the classics and naturally had become a lover of his namesake.