by Summer Lane
***
After hours of walking and picking our way through the lava rock, Chris makes a fist. We stop, and we drop into a kneeling position. He makes two fingers and gestures to the left, and we all take cover in a cleft in the rock.
My heartbeat quickens—I hear voices. Maybe two or three people, echoing across the plain.
Ku scouts. Gotta be.
Uriah’s shoulder is pressed against mine, and he holds his rifle into his shoulder, ready to jump up and fire if needed. Chris, Lani, and Haku are twenty feet ahead of us, kneeling behind a row of bushes that have grown through the rock.
I slowly turn around and peek over the cleft, looking across the plain. Up ahead, the forested jungle terrain of Hilo rises out of the ground like a green curtain. Silhouetted against the greenery, the shadows of three men flit across the rocks. I look through my scope to get a better idea of what they’re wearing: dark fatigues and body armor. They are all young men, dark-haired and Hawaiian. They carry weapons with them, a different gun slung across the back of each scout.
“Do we take them out?” I whisper.
Uriah replies, “I would. But …” He trails off, looking toward Chris.
Chris is talking in hushed tones to Lani and Haku. I remember what Lani said when we first got here: “If you find a scout, kill him. He will have no mercy on you, and you should have none on him.”
Lani looks at me, clearly frustrated, and then turns away from Chris. Chris signals for us to stay still. I know what he is thinking: the scouts will circle past us, and they will continue their patrol without seeing us. The Ku will never know we’re here.
If we just drop them right now, they will be reported missing, and the Ku will send more scouts to search these hills for us. Staying quiet is the best thing we can do.
The scouts move closer.
I press my back against the rock cleft and hold my breath. I can clearly make out their words now—all in a different language, but still. I can hear their footsteps, the crackle of their boots against loose volcanic rocks.
Elle grabs Bravo’s collar and pulls him against the rock wall, keeping her arms around him. She presses her cheek against the cleft. Manny puts his arm around her, his pistol in his hand, brow furrowed. Uriah keeps his rifle ready, his arm just in front of mine, his way of protecting me from whatever may be coming next.
I don’t even dare to peek around Uriah and look at Chris. A single movement might give away our position, so I remain still, willing myself to breathe quietly. Vera is frozen beside me, sweat rolling down her forehead.
Uriah and I stare at each other as the footsteps come closer, closer, closer …
They stop. The scouts are literally standing on top of the rock, looking across the plain, just a few feet from where we are. They are talking quickly, obviously in some kind of small argument. One of the scouts raises his voice, and I hear a rough smack, followed by a pained grunt.
A fight? I mouth.
Uriah nods.
More talking—and then shouting. I wince, and then there is a scuffle. They grunt and yell and each other, and then one of the scouts flies over the side of the rock cleft, hitting the ground with a sickening crack.
I remain frozen. The body of the fallen scout is no more than five feet from the tip of my boot.
Above us, the scouts have gone silent.
There is another shuffling of boots against rock, and then the footsteps grow faint until they disappear altogether. I release a pent-up breath and dare a peek over the embankment. Sure enough, they’re gone. I lean back and look at the scout on the ground.
“He’s dead,” Uriah confirms, kneeling down and checking his pulse. “What have we here?”
He digs through his pockets, finding a couple of mags. Uriah takes the scout’s weapon and holds up a small carving in the shape of an O.
“Omega?” Elle gasps.
“Could be a coincidence,” Manny suggests.
I doubt it. Anymore, there are no coincidences. We hide the scout’s body in the embankment and move on, keeping low and out of sight. Dark clouds are beginning to roll over the horizon. When it rains, the drops are light and cool, a gentle relief from the humidity that is causing my feet to stick to the insides of my boots. We press onward, coming at last to the edge of a neighborhood nestled alongside a single-lane highway.
I see a flicker of movement up ahead, so I make a fist and immediately drop. The team does the same. We crouch in a patch of tall, overgrown grass. The neighborhood is little more than two lineups of brightly colored shacks paralleling the road.
Ku scouts. There are almost a dozen of them, roaming between the houses, throwing rocks through glass windows and jumping on the hoods of abandoned cars. They are shouting and laughing—drunk. Or amped up on some drug. One or the other.
Ahead of us, and behind the houses, there is a solid wall of green foliage reaching into the sky. The tropical terrain of this side of the island is like a jungle. The rain continues to pour steadily, and we all get soaked.
“What’s our next move?” I ask Chris.
“We should stay hidden for the night,” Lani advises. “Many of the Ku are active in this area when the sun sets. We are safer to move during the daylight hours. I know a place where we can rest. Follow me.”
We do. We move behind the houses, picking our way through the grass carefully, staying in the shadows so that the drunken scouts don’t see us. We push through walls of foliage, creeping Banyan trees, massive bushes of pink and yellow hibiscus, and more grass. Trees rise up on all sides of us, thick enough to act as an umbrella from the rain.
We keep walking.
We sludge through sticky mud and fight our way through more foliage. At last, we come to a clearing. An open road separates us from a large, squat building. It is surrounded by overgrown grass and trees, many of the windows broken.
“Hurry,” Lani warns.
I don’t argue. We move quickly—one at a time—across the street, covering the others’ advances as we leapfrog toward the building. At last, we reach it safely, and Lani forces her way through one of the windows.
I follow directly behind her, into the darkness of the abandoned building. It smells of mold and musk—and plants. Tree roots protrude through the floor in some places, and bushes burst through open windows, filling the room with branches and leaves.
“What is this place?” I ask.
“The sign says it was an intermediate school,” Lani replies. “But the rumor is that it used to be a mental hospital.”
I can’t tell if she’s joking or not.
We move cautiously from room to room—mostly empty spaces with tables and chairs. We end up in the back of the building, in a single room with no furniture inside. We sink to the floor and rest our feet, dripping puddles of rainwater on the rotting wooden floor.
When I finally sit down, I stop and listen to the steady patter of rain on the roof.
Vera sneezes and wipes her nose on her sleeve. “Stupid flora,” she mutters.
“Allergies?” I ask.
She ignores me. Lani and Haku sit close to each other, and Chris joins me near the back wall. Lani flicks on a small lantern, casting a soft, orange glow across the room. The wall in front of us is totally illuminated, and I gasp.
The wall is covered in blood.
Chapter Eleven
“It’s not blood,” Uriah says. “It’s just paint … I think.”
His words are sure, but I am still spooked. Words are scrawled across the wall in the blood-like paint. I rise to my feet, getting closer.
“They’re names,” I whisper. “Names.”
Thousands of names, scrawled in cursive, in print, in different languages.
“Lani,” I say. “What is this?”
Lani swallows.
“This place belonged to the Ku in the beginning,” she whispers.
I grab a flashlight and my rifle, and I say, “I’m checking the rest of the building out. I’ll take the top floor—somebody cover the ground lev
el.”
There’s no way I’m sleeping here until I know for certain that there is nothing here that’s going to slit my throat in the dark.
“Uriah, go with her,” Chris commands.
He stays behind with Elle and the others, checking out the bottom level of the building. Uriah follows closely behind me, and I remember that the last time we were alone, he kissed me.
Awesome. Not awkward at all.
I move down the hallway, beaming a bath of light through the dark, going from room to room. Every space is empty. Some rooms have words on the walls, some don’t. One room is filled with metal buckets. I peek over the rim of one of them. There is some sort of foul-smelling excrement in the bottom.
I step backward and gag.
“What is that?” I choke.
“You don’t want to know,” Uriah answers.
We leave the room as quickly as possible and climb the stairs, headed toward the second level. Up here, there are traces of footprints. Uriah and I clear the first room that we find. This one is filled with dirty mattresses and more buckets. The smell is so horrible that I can’t stomach it.
We go from room to room, finding the same thing, over and over again. The last room is smaller. Here, there are only two mattresses on the ground. When we open the door, a massive centipede twists and scuttles under the mattress. I shiver and beam my light to the corner of the space. A human shape is pressed against the wall.
My heart quickens. Uriah keeps his rifle up, covering me as I approach the thing. He nudges it with the barrel of his gun. It is still. I lean forward and flip it over.
It’s a dead child.
***
Downstairs, I grab Lani by the arm and slam her against the wall.
“This is a slaughterhouse,” I say. “Why did you bring us here?”
Lani glares at me, noting the angry expressions on the faces of everyone in the room.
“What is this place?” Chris growls.
The lantern flickers.
“Look, it’s just a place to take shelter,” Lani says. “It doesn’t bother me. It shouldn’t bother you—”
“It’s a prison house,” Lieutenant Haku interjects, rolling his eyes. “Lani, why not just tell them? Afraid you’ll scare them off?”
Lani says nothing.
“A prison house?” Em repeats.
“The Ku used it to keep track of people who wouldn’t submit to the Prophet,” Haku says. “They kept them here, and then they killed them later. It was a holding zone for prisoners who were on the list for execution.”
“Slaughterhouse,” I repeat.
I shudder. The living conditions here must have been horrific—dozens of people crammed into a single room without any water or food, and only a single bucket between them to use as a bathroom.
Standing here in the silence, I can almost imagine the ghosts of the dead looking down at us, begging us to avenge their deaths. I step to the window and look toward the heavy jungle behind the building.
I beam my flashlight across the yard. Just as I thought.
Huge mounds of dirt are piled here. Mass graves.
I turn away.
“You needed to see this,” Lani states, hanging her head. “The Ku aren’t just crazy—they’re systematically crazy. When Hanale says that they’re loyal to Omega, he’s not kidding. He’s also not telling you the whole truth: they are fanatical followers of Omega. They know it was Omega who brought about the Collapse, and the Prophet encourages the people to idolize them, painting them as far-off god-like powers that will eventually come and join their people with the Ku to solidify their empire.”
“The Ku are essentially worshiping Omega?” Elle asks quietly.
“Yes,” Haku answers. “In a manner of speaking. The Prophet is a man who saw an opportunity to rise to power and uses the fear of Omega to maintain his power. Anyone who resists is butchered.”
“I wanted you to know,” Lani says. “I wanted you to understand that Hanale is a good man, but he is watering down what the Ku is capable of. I know you’re here looking for a weapon, but when you return to your military, I beg you … bring back help. Kill the Ku, free us from them.”
Chris nods.
“We will, Lani,” he promises. “We will end them, one way or another.”
***
Despite everything, we remain in the building for the night. It is the safest place to be when the sun sets. I huddle in the corner in the far end of the room, trying not to think about the hundreds of people who were led to their slaughter here.
Omega—responsible for so many deaths, directly and indirectly.
Veronica Klaus would be so proud, I think sourly.
I try to get comfortable for the night, failing for the most part. When the sun rises and sends an orange glow through the window, I am already wide awake. In truth, not many of us slept through the night.
Who could sleep well in a place like this?
We silently rise and eat a quick breakfast from the supplies in our packs, then leave the building behind.
Good riddance.
We follow Lani, walking parallel to the road. She is arguing quietly with Haku, who throws a glance back at us and smiles. I wonder what they are talking about, and then we come to a clearing. An empty parking lot. A decrepit bus with peeling blue paint sits near what appears to be an abandoned public restroom. And, just beyond it, a waterfall.
For a moment I simply stand there, staring.
It’s really beautiful, and after the gruesome events of the past night, it’s a startling and refreshing way to start a new day. I snap out of my daze and hurry forward, remembering that we are out in the open—stay alert, Cassidy!
A faded wooden sign reads Rainbow Falls Lookout. Safety railings and barriers have been erected on the top of the slopes that lead down to a lagoon filled with blue, frothy water. The waterfall is spilling in two continuous streams over a rocky precipice eighty feet in the air. It is surrounded by thick green foliage—most of which has overgrown so much without the presence of human encroachment that it is growing across the top of the river.
“This is beautiful,” I say, awed.
Lani rolls her eyes, but Haku winks at me.
“I thought as long as we were passing by, you might as well see something positive about Hawaii,” he grins. “This used to be a favorite place of ours—my wife and me. We used to come here all the time. At least once a week.”
He looks sad then, and I don’t have to ask to know that his wife is dead.
I know that look of loss far too well.
“Let’s keep moving,” Chris orders, but I can see that he appreciates the beauty of the falls as much as I do.
We move swiftly up the side of a small hill, looking down at the waterfall from our perch above. I find myself giggling like a child from this angle—I see it! A rainbow arches over the spray of the falls as the sun rises.
The name suddenly fits, and then we are gone, delving into a monstrous forest of Banyan trees. The endless aerial roots twist through the air, forming a massive, thick umbrella of greenery above our heads.
Bravo leads Elle slightly, his ears and nose working overtime. The flora and fauna must be driving his senses up the wall—even I can clearly ascertain the aroma of the immense wildlife and plant life here on the island.
As if in response, Vera sneezes, then mutters a curse.
We walk all day, stopping now and then to allow Lani and Haku to scout ahead and make sure the Ku are not directly in our path. Since we spotted them last night, I have not seen any more signs of the group. It’s been strangely quiet, with only the sound of birds and the buzzing of insects in our ears.
As the day drags on, the humidity and the temperature rise. Sweat pours from my body like water—disgusting, but true. After Alaska, this temperature seems unbearable. I guzzle water from my canteen to avoid dehydration, but I’m losing it as quickly as I’m putting it in.
We continue to pick our way through foliage and shrubb
ery. Mosquitos descend on us, pricking our skin and sucking our blood. I slap them off, irritated and overheated.
Then we break through the clearing, and I see it.
A neighborhood—burning.
We smelled the smoke long before we came to it, but now the source is clear. A collection of about fifteen homes sits here, nestled against the jungle. They are burning like torches, snapping, popping, and throwing billows of black smoke into the air. The smoke stings my eyes.
Uriah tenses, and I see Lani and Haku flinch, drawing away from the scene.
I peer at the street below. Belongings from the houses have been scattered along the pavement in mounded piles. I blink a few times, clearing the smoke from my vision, and realize what everyone else has already seen: they are not piles; they are bodies.
I raise a hand to my mouth, tasting the bitterness of bile rising in the back of my throat. I move forward, breaking through the tall and grass and stepping onto the road. Lani hisses a warning but I ignore her. Chris is right behind me, and Uriah is next.
I walk. Slowly.
I pass each body—they are almost all Hawaiian. There are men, women, and children strewn across the pavement at unnatural angles. Some of them lay in a puddle of their own blood—fresh and ruby red. Others are rigidly still, the color of life drained from their cheeks.
As I walk, the pulse of rage beats in my heart.
I pass a small boy whose still body is pressed against his mother’s chest. His eyes are wide open, blood trailing down his face. I look away, mentally keeping tabs on the body count. At the very end of the street, I stop and clench my jaw.
A baby is lying on the pavement, and I drop down to one knee. I scoop the tiny body into my arms and cradle it against my chest. It’s a sweet little thing, with chubby cheeks and a crop of dark hair.
“Cassidy …” Chris says carefully.
I touch the baby’s neck, feel for a pulse. Of course, there is nothing.
The infant is dead—has been for at least an hour. The body has already gone cold.
I slowly lower the baby back to the ground, then stand. Something wet slicks my cheeks.
I hadn’t even realized I was crying.
When I look to the rest of the group—Uriah, Vera, Elle, Devin, Lani, Manny, and Haku—I realize that they are all staring at me, tense.
