Then he saw the children, scurrying over the ground, each step silent and swift. He nearly tripped when the nearest of them opened its mouth and shrieked. It wasn’t the sound that frightened him, though. It was the size of the open maw that resembled a pitbull’s gaping jaws, but with large flat teeth. It wasn’t exactly a predatory bite, but they looked powerful enough to crush bones.
Are any of the Sentinelese human?
He looked forward and found himself charging toward a line of Sentinelese warriors, drawing bow strings back. He cut a sharp right, and threw himself behind a tree just as a dozen arrows punched into it.
A fresh shriek lifted his eyes. The children were upon him.
Sorry Talia, he thought before twisting the rifle up and firing from the hip. It was the least accurate way to fire a weapon like the FN SCAR, but the broad-mouthed children were easy targets.
And then they weren’t.
As the first bullet cut through the air, the lithe children bounded away in either direction. The bullets chewed into several women. Some ignored the wounds, but two, each of them struck in the head, dropped to the ground.
The nearest of the children, if that’s even what they were, landed on a tree trunk, coiled its limbs, and sprang off, jaws open, fingers hooked.
Rowan tried to angle the rifle up, but the strap was tight around his back. He reached for his knife, knowing it would be too late.
The impact struck him hard, knocking the air from his lungs, but there was no gnashing of teeth or breaking of bones. He opened his eyes. The thing lay atop him like a sleeping child…with a blowgun dart in its neck.
He glanced up. Talia was behind the group of women, still closing in. She pointed inland, not making a sound, and then headed in that direction.
Rowan pushed to his feet, emptied the assault rifle’s magazine, firing at the closest targets, and then ran in the direction Talia had fled, just as the Sentinelese men burst through the brush separating beach from jungle and took over the chase.
32
“We need to get out of the water.” Mahdi lifted his leg from the stream’s hummus-like bottom. Each step was a slog, slowing his desperate run to a flailing march.
“Banks are too steep here,” Winston replied, somehow powering through the stream much faster. “Up ahead.”
Thirty feet beyond Winston, the tall, overgrown banks dropped down to a small sandy clearing where a footpath entered the stream from one side and exited on the other. The open ground would make running from the children easier, but Mahdi was thirty feet behind Winston, and the gaping youth just ten behind him, and closing in. None of the children had entered the stream yet, but that was probably because they moved faster on land or, in some cases, in the trees. He could hear the little killers crashing through ferns and grasses lining the river, but he could see many more lunging from tree to tree, like oversized hairless squirrels.
Behind and around him, the children closed in.
“Winston!” he shouted.
The big man glanced back, looking more annoyed than worried, and raised his gun. Mahdi ducked as he ran, flinching at the sound of a gunshot. Then another and another. He heard two thumps on the bank and a splash behind him. Cool water struck his back, urging him onward.
Ten feet from the beach, a weight too heavy for the child’s three-and-a-half-foot height, slammed into Mahdi’s back. He shouted in surprise, but his voice was immediately drowned out by the clap of a gun. There was a loud hum, a wet thump, and then the weight was gone with a splash. Pain followed his freedom. He felt his ear, fingers tracing open flesh where his earlobe should have been. The salty sweat covering his fingers set the wound on fire. But there was no time to express the pain, or anger at Winston for nearly shooting him.
He could run with the pain. He had before.
It was louder back then.
Hotter. Drier. The kind of day that carried you into the next without leaving an impression. That was how it should have ended, but the moment he saw Aziz, backpack on his shoulder, sweat on his brow despite the moisture-wicking heat, he knew the day would haunt him. It had been chasing him ever since, just as the children did now, hungry and violent, seeking his destruction simply because he survived…and knew the truth.
Just as he did now. A part of it, at least. But knowing and understanding were not the same thing. He needed Talia for that, but their reunion with the rest of the expedition would likely end, or begin, in violence.
Winston followed the path left, putting distance between him and Mahdi once more. Mahdi understood the tactic. He had heard the joke about surviving a bear attack by outrunning your friend. If Mahdi fell to the children, Winston would be in the clear. At the same time, the man wasn’t sadist enough to force it to happen. A quick shot to the leg would make Mahdi easy prey.
Then again, maybe the shot that took my ear was meant for something else?
Mahdi charged out of the river and became snarled in the overgrowth. He shook his leg to get free, but he was caught, and not by vegetation. Two thin branch-like arms reached out from the brush, twiggy fingers hooked around his calves, compressing the muscle.
Mahdi flinched back and fell, dragging the boy out with him.
The massive mouth spread into a smile—or was it a sneer?—and then snapped open, reaching for his ankle. One bite and he would be done. Mahdi had no doubt the powerful jaws and triple-sized molars could make short work of his ankle. Best case scenario, his ankle would be broken. Worst case, his foot would be chewed off. Both scenarios led to his inevitable death.
But there was still one option, and it didn’t involve Winston. The man had run, just as Mahdi believed he would. While thrashing his leg, making it hard for the child to line up a solid bite, Mahdi dug the knife from his pocket and snapped out the blade.
“Allah forgive me,” he said, but in his heart he believed no one was listening, and that his actions were justified. They might not even be human, he thought, and then he swung the blade down hard. The impact was harder than he’d expected. For a moment, he feared he had missed, but then he spotted the knife handle jutting from the boy’s head.
He reached for the handle when the boy’s eyes opened and looked directly at him. The boy began speaking, the words foreign to Mahdi’s trained ears. But he didn’t stir. Wounded, but not dead…with a knife in his skull.
Definitely not human.
The blade came free with a grinding slurp, the sound followed by a shriek.
Mahdi rolled to the side as an airborne child sailed past, fingers and toes splayed wide to grasp. The boy clung to a tree trunk, ready to spring out again, but Mahdi was already sprinting away, his legs pumping hard over smooth terrain.
“Winston!” he shouted, but he received no reply. The man had abandoned him.
It was justice, perhaps. He had abandoned a friend once, left him to face his end alone. Conscience held him back, and then morality propelled him. He was running then, as now, racing away from danger, in seek of help. He’d screamed back then, ‘Bomb! Aziz has a bomb!’ No one in the square had recognized Aziz, but Mahdi’s pointed finger had made it easy to find the twenty-year old man with a too-heavy backpack.
Men rushed in. Palestinian men who longed for peace with Israel. A bomb in Israel meant retaliation. Warplanes. Missiles. Things that could not be defended against. Despite being childhood friends with Aziz, Mahdi had never understood his sister’s attraction to the man. He was unpredictable. Violent on occasion. And too trusting. It made him an easy Hamas recruit, which was nothing special on its own. Everyone knew someone with ties to the radical group, but few of them ever really took action.
But Aziz was impressionable. Believed that virgins awaited him. That death would appease Allah. And there he was, headed for the gate, prepared to take Israeli lives.
But Aziz never got the chance. His thumb slipped off the dead man’s trigger when two men tackled him. The C4 exploded, sending ball bearings meant for Jewish targets into the Palestinian men and women enjo
ying the very normal, too hot afternoon.
Mahdi was running away when the shrapnel had struck him down.
He was one of five survivors. Twenty-one others died. When questioned by the authorities, Mahdi had told the truth, and the resulting manhunt led to the deaths of several Hamas members. Those who escaped, or survived the raids were all told the same thing: Mahdi had betrayed them.
Mahdi had given up his wife and two children, moved to London, and as an illegal alien, he had worked menial jobs, his education of little help. He had been running ever since.
Was running still.
Winston’s footprints on the path were easy to follow. The heavyset man’s heels dug in deep. Mahdi slipped off the path, staying atop the tangle of roots. If the children were tracking them, let Winston be the bear’s snack.
Voices slowed him down. Behind him, the children were out of sight, but low to the ground, or in the trees, they could be ten feet away and he’d never know.
He recognized Winston’s voice. Angry. A warning.
Then Rowan’s, defiant.
Run away, he thought. Move around them, find the beach, and swim to a shallow reef. But Rowan was a good man, tricked to this island. Mahdi couldn’t run away from his demise like he had Aziz’s.
Mahdi angled his run toward the voices, stumbling to a stop when he saw Rowan on his knees, fingers laced behind his head. Winston stood behind him, gun to the back of his head, execution style. The FN SCAR rifle was on the ground. Winston must have surprised Rowan.
“Stop,” Mahdi said.
Winston gave his head a shake. “You and I both know we’re not leaving until this asshole is dead.”
Mahdi stepped around the scene, his eyes finding Rowan’s. “Just so you know, there’re about forty really pissed off Sentinelese about a minute behind me,” Rowan said.
“We got problems of our own,” Winston said, and he motioned Mahdi to step in front of Rowan.
“Pick up the rifle,” Winston said.
Mahdi obeyed, hoisting the weapon over his shoulder. He knew how to use the rifle, but he didn’t think he could angle it toward Winston without being seen, and then promptly shot. Winston was a lot of things, but slow and merciful were not two of them.
“Good. Now stab him.”
“What?” Mahdi stepped back. Winston was serious. “Why?”
“You could just shoot me,” Rowan said, pushing his head back, thumping the barrel of Winston’s gun, a move that made the big man flinch and step back. “But you need my death to look legit. Like the Sentinelese killed me. Going to be hard to prove if you can’t bring my body back.”
“I’ll carry you,” Winston said. “Let you get gassy. Make a good flotation device.”
Rowan grinned and Mahdi had no idea how he could manage such a thing, even if it was fake.
Winston glared at Mahdi. “Stab him with that pig sticker of yours, or I’ll shoot you both.”
Mahdi tried to think of a way out of stabbing Rowan, but he really only had one option. He reached into his pocket, drew the knife, the handle still slick with Sentinelese blood, and popped the spring-loaded blade. He stepped closer to Rowan, leaned his head down toward his ear, said, “Allah ,yaghfir li,” while cutting through Rowan’s flesh.
Rowan ground his teeth and hissed out each breath, but said nothing. Mahdi gave a goodbye nod and then thrust the knife into the center of Rowan’s chest. He held the blade in place while Rowan shook and gasped. Then he withdrew the bloody knife and stepped back as Rowan fell to his knees, and then his side, his chest slick and red.
Winston laughed and clapped. “Oh my God, man, I didn’t say kill him. Give him a limp. Slow him down. Let the natives finish him off. But God damn, maybe there is hope for you yet.”
The sound of approaching feet alerted them to the presence of Rowan’s pursuers, or perhaps their own. Probably both. Not needing to be told what to do, Mahdi charged down the path, Winston right behind him, no doubt ready to shoot him should the Sentinelese get too close.
He took one last look at Rowan, lying motionless on the ground, blood everywhere.
I am sorry, my friend.
And then he ran some more.
33
Dealing with frustration was never Talia’s strong suit. Living among tribal people, who were either competent, or dead, she rarely found herself annoyed by the people around her. If anything, they had to temper their frustration while she learned the language, customs, and culture of the people into whom she’d inserted herself. Since saving and leaving Rowan, she’d been running uphill and inland, but mostly she’d been waiting for Sashi.
The woman hadn’t taken a break, but her run had slowed to a jog after five minutes, then to a brisk walk. Now it seemed that each step was an effort, pushing her hands down on her knees as they climbed up a steep grade.
A strong wind tore through the trees above, revealing storm clouds and a gap in the gray swirl where the sun still shone through. The clouds had begun to unleash their stored water, most of which found its way to the ground via a series of leaf networks, forming vertical streams. A spritz of rain fell through the opening.
Sashi paused in the wind, not so much buffered by it as reveling in the coolness of the breeze. They were both slick with sweat and clinging humidity, despite being scantily clad.
Talia enjoyed the breeze, and the brief rain shower, too, but there was no time to linger. “You need to move, or we’re not going to make it.”
“Make it where?” Sashi asked. She took the conversation as an excuse to stop and catch her breath.
“I meant, survive.” Talia had no destination in mind other than being where the Sentinelese weren’t, and where she’d motioned for Rowan to head. She had no idea if they’d be able to find each other on the island, or if he would escape the large hunting party pursuing him, but their odds of survival increased while he was with them. Not because he was the better survivalist or fighter, but because his skills balanced out hers. Together, both their odds of survival went up.
The same could not be said for Sashi. “I can’t do it.”
Sashi looked exhausted, wearing the face of a runner about to drop out of a race.
Talia took her hand. “Here.” She pulled her to a large leaf that was the last stage in a stream of water trickling down the tree from far above. She angled the leaf toward Sashi. “Drink.”
Though she looked unsure at first, Sashi gulped water, and then let it run over her face and neck before drinking more. Talia did the same, and stepped back. “Are you ready?”
“I don’t know how far I can go,” Sashi said. “I’m just slowing you down.”
Talia could tell the woman wanted to suggest that Talia just leave her behind. It was the noble thing to say, maybe even the right thing to do. Had Sashi’s collusion with Ambani and Winston been any less sympathetic, Talia would have already left her behind. But Sashi was as much a victim as the rest of them.
“Can you make it there?” Talia pointed toward the distant sunlight streaking down. She didn’t have a good reason for heading to that part of the island. Maybe it was simply because the sun shone on it like a beacon. Really, it just felt right, like where they needed to be.
Sashi perked up a little. “I can.”
Then they were off again, pushing upward through the cleared forest. Their pace improved, and even better, there was no sign of the Sentinelese. No trails. No footprints. No sounds. The only indication that the island was inhabited was the subtle smoky fragrance.
“I think they’ve lit the fires again,” Sashi said.
Talia breathed deeply through her nose. Sashi was right. The smell wasn’t lingering from the night before, it was growing stronger. Somewhere on the island, something was burning, despite the rain. “If you notice the smell get stronger than it is right now, say something. Means we’re getting too close.”
They rounded a large tree with spiraling curtains of roots, and paused. The jungle ahead was overgrown, dense, and alive. Unlike the
cleared outer fringe of the island, the land ahead was like something out of a magical realm, where everything grew large and lush.
“It’s a primeval forest,” Talia said.
“What’s that?”
“Old growth forest, untouched by man.”
Sashi looked back at the jungle they’d come through. “Isn’t that primeval forest, too?”
“The trees,” Talia said, “but the Sentinelese have cleared and maintained the jungle floor. This…this is untouched. This is beautiful.” She looked at a spiraling fern that came up to her waist. “Some of these plant species could be millions of years old, predating the Sentinelese.”
Talia ran a hand over the fern, shaking a shower of water droplets to the ground below. Then she stepped forward, and in her mind, back in time. She forgot all about running as she strode through the underbrush, caressed by wet leaves. She turned all about, noting dozens of species she had never seen before. It was a botanist’s dream come true.
Then she heard the birds. She looked for them, but saw nothing in the trees above. Hiding from the rain, she thought.
When the brush ahead shook, she ducked down to look, and she caught sight of something scurrying away. It was the first ground-dwelling animal she’d seen, aside from the Sentinelese, since arriving on the island. She thought it strange at first, but then decided it made sense. Any animal moving through the cleared forest floor would make easy prey.
That’s why we should stay here, Talia thought. Hiding here was just a matter of ducking. She considered stopping, but decided to press on. There was more jungle to see. More wonders awaiting them.
And Rowan.
Talia’s heart beat hard for a moment.
She’d forgotten about Rowan. “C’mon,” she said, and she picked up the pace just a little.
The scent of smoke gave way to jasmine, and then she saw the orange flowers, curved like a voluptuous woman, hanging from a vine growing around several trees. Beads of water clung to the skirt-like petals, dripping down with sensuous slowness. Talia licked her lips. The place was intoxicating.
Forbidden Island Page 22
