Dark Island

by Matt James

  The horn’s carvings were intricately done. Someone with a surgeon’s hand had done wonders on it. Holding the tooth up to his mouth, Ian, instead, paused and held it out to Babo. The bigger man simply shook his head.

  “You find. You blow.”

  Shrugging, Ian blew.

  The resulting sound was like nothing he’d heard in his life. It was one-part low, bellowing foghorn, and one-part raptor shriek. He held the note for as long as he could, causing Babo to take an uncomfortable step back. The combination of tones had even shaken the unshakeable “Mountain of Madagascar.”

  Removing the horn from his lips, Ian couldn’t keep himself from smiling. A discovery like this was exactly why Abigail had fallen in love with history. It was also one of the reasons Ian had loved traveling with her. His core motive had been to be with her as much as he could, but Ian couldn't hide his own interest in everything surrounding the subject. He had missed a lot of time with her when in the service. Retiring had its benefits in the end.

  More Abigail Hunt.

  Inspecting the horn again, Ian noticed a set of deep grooves cut into the bone. He unwound some of the rope he had used to make his clawed grappling hook and cut away a length of it with the swipe of his combat knife. Next, he attached the rope to the narrow end of the horn and tied a knot. Looping it around, he tied a second knot, creating a sling to carry it by.

  He was claiming the warhorn for himself.

  Now, it hung from his belt. If he needed it, it would be easy to find. It was a silly thought really. What could he possibly need it for? Who was he going to warn?

  Reclaiming his spear from inside the watchtower, he stepped up to the nearest ledge, and looked over the expanse below him, still stunned at what he saw. The fire that lit most of the cavern was a good two-hundred feet below him. From what he could tell, the structures were built into the side of the horseshoe-shaped cliff. The fire itself was in the center of the “U.” How the buildings were attached to the stone was unknown. Ian couldn’t see the foundations from where he currently stood.

  By his estimate, Ian guessed that “Ancestor-topia” housed over a thousand people—not including any children. There was no way to know how many kids were considered an average amount to the Razambe. Did they all have two per household, or was it closer to five or six, or maybe even ten?

  Their name really did fit…

  Ian had a feeling that this tribe wasn’t just Babo’s ancestors, or even that of Madagascar. The beings that built this place may have been all of mankind’s ancestors, especially if there were other civilizations beneath the surfaces of all the world’s continents.

  The most common fictionalization was Atlantis or aliens, or both. Great teachers from the stars that directed primitive man into the glory days of times past.

  Great teachers from the stars…

  Ian gazed back out to the impressive construction. Maybe, just maybe, those great teachers from above, were, in reality, great teachers from below.

  If that’s the case, Ian thought, then where are the Ancestors originally from? Regardless of the answer, human history as it was known would be completely turned on its head, if and when, their find became public.

  If it became public.

  26

  The “bonfire” was easily thirty-feet-tall and shaped like a step pyramid. When Mack thought of a bonfire, she usually pictured one in a ditch on a beach, or in a metal, aboveground firepit at a backyard barbeque. This one, however, was a tower built of enormous logs perfectly woven together—like Lincoln Logs—and in between the grid-like outer shell was a pile of randomly cut scraps of wood—kindling. It was plain to see that the outer trunks belonged to the trees outside the cave.

  “How on earth did they move them?” she asked.

  Nash shrugged. “No clue, love,” he gave a her a playful elbow, “and I think you meant to say, how ‘in’ Earth…”

  Mack could only roll her eyes. Nash was definitely easier to get along with now.

  Heading left around the fire—and the dead surrounding it—the latter is what concerned her the most. Between Mack and Nash, and the raging inferno, were row upon row of burial mounds. Some were large. Some not. Whether the smaller ones held the bodies of women or children, she didn’t know.

  Probably both.

  Something terrible had happened. The only explanation she could come up with was that the civilization was ancient, and these graves were the culmination of centuries of death—natural, or otherwise. The creatures just outside the city leant to the unnatural way someone down here could perish, though it would be considered natural to those living here. But there was also advanced age, sickness, and infighting to deal with too.

  The first two were guesses. Mack had no clue how old these people lived to be. She also had no idea whether or not they experienced illnesses of any kind. The most common “defects” in the human genome when dealing with lost tribes were caused by inbreeding. There just weren’t enough people to go around without inevitably mating with a close relative.

  Maybe they were immune to such things, though.

  All cards were on the table at this point—they’d been there since they first entered the massif. Everything they knew about the world above had very little to do with what they’d found here so far. As far as anyone knew, the people here could’ve been superhuman, ultra-resilient to sickness and possessing a longer-than-usual lifespan.

  It would explain the small number of graves considering her original assessment of how old they might have been. If these people lived for hundreds of years a piece, it made sense that they didn’t have more dead buried here.

  A big issue with her hypothesis, though, was that there were, presumably, many Madagascan caves and this was only one section of them. If the system kept going on for miles and miles, there were bound to be other cities—communities—like this one beneath the surface of the island nation.

  Thousands more of the graves too. She shook her head. How many of these civilizations had existed around the world? The hair on the back of her neck stood up. Do any ‘still’ exist now?

  The thought of there being millions of bodies buried beneath the surface of the world gave her the chills. Yes, there are remains everywhere on Earth. But no, most don’t belong to an advanced race of undocumented peoples.

  “This is incredible,” she muttered. Mack was having a hard time processing everything.

  Nash snorted. “You and I have a serious difference in the meaning of that word.”

  Mack didn’t acknowledge Nash. It would only provoke him further. Instead, she retreated into her own mind and returned her attention to the burial grounds. The sight was both surreal and horrible. Death, however, was always a wonderful discovery in the world of historical finds. Death meant that there was life at some point in the past.

  A few minutes later, Mack saw a mound that was much smaller than the ones around it. Sadly, it had been completely obliterated by a boulder. Mack knelt beside it and looked up into the darkness. If she had to guess, the large rock came loose from the cave’s ceiling and crushed the owner’s grave.

  That of a child.

  “What is it?”

  Mack looked up at Nash with wet eyes. “It’s a kid.”

  His face soured. “You sure?”

  She nodded and wiped away a tear. “Yep.”

  Nash huffed out a long breath and stepped away, giving Mack some alone time with the deceased child. She wasn’t sure why she needed the time to herself, but she did. Silently apologizing, Mack started sifting around the stone, looking for clues.

  Mack felt something loose beneath her fingertips, towards the top of the grave, the part closest to the fire. She quickly pulled her hand away, once more apologizing to the little girl for further desecrating her resting place.

  Little girl? Mack’s mind tended to wander a bit here and there. Right now, she imagined a little girl named Aria. She would’ve been four, maybe five, when she passed, and she had beautiful, straight, rave
n-black hair.

  Settling her nerves, Mack returned to her delicate work and dug deeper into the girl’s mound. She found the loose piece of, what, stone? Wood? Not needing any artificial light, Mack used the flickering fire to see. Carefully, she pulled free the round, quarter-sized…

  “Oh, my god.”

  Nash came rushing over, gun drawn, but once he saw that Mack was okay, he holstered his pistol and knelt down next to her. Like her, Nash’s attention was also locked onto the gorgeously carved token—a pendant. It even had a small hole drilled into it so a thin thread could be tied there.

  It was carved into bone and contained two lines of unreadable text. It wasn’t that the engraving was illegible either. No, it was perfectly preserved—new even. They couldn’t read it because they didn’t know the language.

  No one does.

  Wanting to preserve the relic, and the little girl’s memory, one she’d made up, Mack unclasped her mother’s necklace and slid the pendant on.

  “Mackenzie Moore,” Nash said, winking, “tomb raider.”

  She softly laughed and stood. “You mean, grave robber…” She didn’t like what she’d just done, but she needed to prove that this world was real any way she could. She knew Ian would’ve done the same for Abigail. Mack wanted the world above to know about, and be in awe over, the world below.

  “Please…” He rolled his injured shoulder, testing it. “Every single wanker who calls themselves an archaeologist is a bloody grave robber.”

  Mack reached up and clutched the pendant, stroking it softly with her thumb. Nash headed off and she followed behind, giving herself some distance to think. The path they were using was well-worn and fifty-feet-wide, ending at the cavern wall on their left.

  The city was still a good distance ahead of them but was coming into focus with every step they took. Strangely, the bottommost level of the cave was completely void of any buildings at all. The lowest floor was thirty feet off the ground, around the same height as the fire. The only way to access it was… She didn’t see one.

  Just wonderful, she thought.

  They were stuck if they couldn’t figure out a way up. She knew there had to be one. The care someone had taken down here was too much for it to be just a forgotten wasteland of the dead. Plus, how could they maintain the bonfire if they couldn’t routinely descend to this level?

  They continued around the mass grave for a few more minutes, eventually coming to a large alcove within the rock face at the center of the “U.” It seemed to be a naturally formed tunnel that had been blocked with a—

  “A gate?” Mack recalled how feeble the one back in Lovely, Brazil was. The creature she meant to find there had obliterated it with ease.

  “I don’t even want to guess what they were keeping out.”

  Mack shook her head, agreeing with Nash. “Me either.”

  The ground beneath them shook and the gate creaked. Gate, hmmm… Gates usually had hinges, so they could open. This was just a wall of wood.

  “It’s a wall, not a gate.” Mack looked at Nash. “Whatever was on the other side… The people here feared it enough to permanently separate themselves from it.”

  Nash rubbed his forehead. “This just keeps gettin’ better and better, doesn’t it?”

  The ground shook again, and a strange noise bellowed from somewhere overhead. It sounded like an old-timey horn, like the ones Vikings would’ve used before battle.

  “Ian?” she asked aloud.

  Nash shrugged. “Hell if I know, but who else could it be?”

  The ground rumbled again, but it wasn’t another quake. Tremors beneath the surface of the Earth had a certain feel to them. The one Mack was feeling now was coming from one direction—an origin.

  It was coming from the other side of the sealed tunnel.

  “Shit…”

  Mack backed away while looking for a way up. She found it thirty seconds later, carved into the walls to the right and left of the blocked tunnel.

  “Go!” She shoved Nash to the right and she went left.

  “What’s wrong? It’s just another quake!”

  Mack was five feet above the ground, toes dug into one of the hand-carved rungs of the stone ladder. The grooves were precisely cut into the rock, making it possible for the people here to get from “Point A” to “Point B.”

  She stopped and looked at Nash who had yet to begin his climb. “It’s not a quake.” She nodded her chin at the barrier. “Whatever was behind this thing is still alive.”

  Without argument, Nash leaped onto the right-hand ladder and started his climb. Twenty feet off the ground something enormous struck the backside of the wall almost shaking Mack free. Her feet slipped, and she hit her chin, biting her tongue hard. She tasted blood while she dangled, kicking her feet like mad, praying she didn’t lose her grip.

  She found a foothold just as the partition buckled and splintered

  But it held.

  For now…

  27

  Ian and Babo thoroughly explored the city of the Razambe, the Ancestors. The Tetris-style architecture was incredible! One on top of each other, an additional dwelling was meticulously constructed. The only similarity between them all was the materials that were used. In this case, it was carved wood. There was no stone or mortar to keep them glued together either. It was just wood carved from the humongous trees outside the metropolis. Each piece was connected to the next via precisely carved notches.

  Stairs of all shapes and sizes connected each level and boardwalks and bridges connected each of the homes to the next. All were without handrails too. It made the journey even more treacherous. Add the obvious “code violations” in with the occasional tremor and Ian figured he or Babo would eventually fall to their doom.

  As much as he wanted to search every single home, Ian knew they didn’t have the time. Maybe if he and his friend were alone beneath Madagascar and not running from previously-undiscovered, toothy predators, they could’ve done it. Maybe… Even then, they would have the natural world to deal with. The cavern itself was a ticking time bomb, waiting to collapse in on itself.

  Maybe even explode.

  He slowed and looked up, rolling his eyes at the thought. If this place had been here as long as he was beginning to think it had, then an event like that would’ve already happened by now.

  Probably.

  He hated being so unsure about everything.

  So, he re-focused—he wanted to stay positive with all that was occurring. As much as Abigail would’ve loved to have seen this place, it was this exact place that had taken her life. It was only until Mack had come calling that he had pushed through his fears and returned to the massif. She had reminded Ian that he was more than a pirate for hire.

  Plus, deep down, Ian knew it wasn’t the realm of the Razambe that had killed Abigail, it was a spooked animal.

  It was an odd sensation to think about both Abigail and Mack in the same breath. One he missed dearly and loved undeniably. The other was something new and stirred those same emotions that had only been reserved for Abigail.

  I’m sorry, Abby, Ian thought. But there’s something there and I need to see what happens.

  He stupidly waited for a response…and got one.

  “Ian!”

  Looking down to the first level of platforms, Ian saw two tiny figures standing there, waving their arms frantically. With the firelight to their backs, and the distance between them, Ian couldn’t actually see who they were, because they only appeared as tiny silhouettes. Even the shouted, echoing voice was hard to make out, masking its owner further. But, come on, who else could the two figures be besides Mack and Nash?

  The sound of splintering wood was like a cannon blast, startling everyone into motion.

  “Run!”

  Mack’s shouted order was met with another ear-shattering explosion of wood. Even from a hundred feet above the ground, Ian could see huge pieces of debris go sailing into the air, crashing into, and through, the bonfire. Som
ething had just rammed a barrier of some kind. The concussive force sent Mack and Nash tumbling to the boardwalk-like section and out of sight.

  Ian was about to charge forward and lean over the edge of the landing but was stopped by an eerie sound. It was familiar, yet completely foreign to him. It sounded like the shriek of a raptor mixed with the low, bellowing growl on the drongo. It reminded him of the noise his war horn had made.

  The call repeated, echoing around the chamber.

  It all but confirmed Ian’s earlier hypothesis, returning his memory to the remains of the monster he’d seen in the massive burial pit. He quickly glanced back in the direction of the warrior’s living area, and the remains there. While both of the creatures were larger than the others accompanying them, Ian had a horrible feeling that the thing they were about to encounter was older than them all—the species was, anyway.

  “Mack!” Ian yelled.

  “Ian!”

  Her voice came from somewhere below, but he couldn’t see her. Without thought, he took off down the nearest staircase. Not surprisingly, Babo was hot on his heels. They both zigged and zagged, even leaping from platform to platform, skipping entire sets of steps altogether. The chaotic design of the place allowed him to move faster than he originally thought possible when he saw the city for the first time.

  What seemed like a lifetime later, he practically ran through Mack and Nash, quickly nodding to Nash before embracing Mack in a long and hard hug. He finished the show of affection with a swift, but passionate kiss on the lips. Even in the red firelight, Mack was noticeably blushing.

  But she didn’t react negatively to the straightforward act of warmth. Instead, she smiled, then screamed as the wood beneath their feet broke and fell away. Ian and Mack fell to the level below Babo and Nash, separating the team again.

  They landed hard, Ian taking most of the fall with Mack atop him. They groaned, but immediately swallowed their discomfort as an enormous, clawed hand reached up and over the edge of the first level.

  The talons themselves were a perfect match to the ones Ian had used to create his grappling hook, but three times as big—bigger even! How a monster could grow to this size was impossible. The animal in the pit was a little bigger than the fifty-foot-long drongo. This one could’ve been twice the drongo’s size.