“Not really alive,” Gino said. “Not exactly dead.”
Herm nodded, his face drawn and eerie in the remaining torchlight. “Caught somewhere between this world and wherever the hell it came from.”
“This can’t be real,” Dallas muttered.
“I know,” Herm said. “But I think it is.”
“Then Harper was right.” Gino wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her against him. “It is a monster.”
“We need to figure this out,” Quinn said evenly, “but the torches are dying, we have to leave. Last thing we want is to be stuck here in the dark.”
For a few seconds, no one moved or spoke. It was as if they all needed a moment for their bodies to catch up, to react while their minds crawled slowly back toward what they’d always believed was reality.
“Make sure you grab those rifles on the way out,” Gino finally said. “Even if we can’t get them into working order or find ammo, we can use the materials. Now let’s move while we’ve still got fire.”
In a daze of sorts, they moved back into the corridor, collecting the rifles as they made their way back through the series of rooms and toward the exit. As they got closer, light from the partially open main door spilled into the darkness.
But there was something else.
Thunder, rolling and booming across the heavens.
“There’s a storm moving in,” Gino said. “Hurry.”
They stepped out into the light, their eyes adjusting as a strong wind blew in off the ocean. Lightning blinked, crackled somewhere nearby in the jungle.
“All right, we make a break for the commanding officer’s quarters before the rain starts falling and we ride it out there. Won’t be time to save the fire on the beach, so make sure you keep those torches alive until we get inside. We’ll burn something or get a small fire going once we’re in. Let’s go.”
They moved toward the building directly across from them.
And then the screaming began.
Dallas’s mouth fell open in horror. He knew what he was seeing—what they were all seeing—but it didn’t seem possible. It couldn’t be.
Harper continued screeching and crying at the top of her lungs.
“No,” Quinn gasped. “No.”
Three nude bodies had been strung up and secured to the flag pole and now dangled from it, filthy and savaged. One was in two pieces. One was missing an arm. All had been mutilated, their skin raw, their eyes removed. Two bodies were male. Both had their severed members stuffed into their mouths.
“It dug them up,” Herm shouted above the storm, his mind descending into chaos. “Jesus Christ, it dug them up!”
Thunder cracked, and rain began to fall, as above them, in a nightmare of blood, gore and body parts, the bodies of Natalie, Andre and Murdoch hanged suspended like the demonic trophies they’d become.
Harper screamed for her mother. Then her father. And finally, God.
None answered. There was only madness.
Madness and a violent, driving rain.
CHAPTER TWELVE
If they’d had the chance, if they’d been afforded the luxury of looking back on what had happened, how things had unfolded and gone from bad to worse, they’d have looked to that moment, that point where everything inside them broke, and all the things they thought they’d believed in, not only about the world and everyone in it, but themselves, had shattered. But they never got that chance. All they had was horror, the realization that live or die, they were being stalked by something relentless and beyond their comprehension. From that point forward, nothing was ever right again, because not only had their reality changed, they had changed as well. The people they’d been back in the world no longer existed. They were already dead.
“Go!” Dallas screamed, his voice booming above Harper’s squeals. “Go! Run!”
They ran for the officers’ quarters, Gino bolting into the lead, still holding Harper by the hand and dragging her along with him. Dallas and Quinn followed close behind, and Herm stumbled along at the back of the pack, fumbling with his dying torch and still unable to look away from the carnage hanging on display above them.
Wind and rain shook the jungle. Or was that the sound of something hulking through the brush instead, something barreling straight for them?
It was only when Gino let out a loud grunt, vaulted forward, and his grip was torn free from Harper, that the others snapped back into the moment. He’d collapsed violently and straight down into the earth, but in the confusion, panic and terror, it took several seconds for them to realize exactly what had happened.
The ground had swallowed Gino to the waist.
As he struggled to free himself, his hands clutching at anything he could find on either side of the hole he’d fallen into in a frenzied attempt to prevent himself from falling completely through, he shrieked in pain, releasing the kind of instinctually agonizing cry that signaled something was very wrong.
Quinn knew the sound well. As an EMT, she’d heard it before, and recognized it immediately for what it was, the involuntarily wail of someone seriously injured. No one screamed like that because they chose to, it was a reflexive response when confronted with a level of suffering they had no other answer for.
She stumbled to a stop, nearly pitching forward herself, then regained her balance, letting her torch drop to the ground as she reached for him.
Joining her, Herm grabbed hold of Gino’s other hand, and together, they began pulling him free. He didn’t come easily, but they were able to get him back up and out of the hole, his screams again cutting the sound of a now relentless rain.
“Harper!” Dallas called from somewhere behind them. “Goddamn it, Harper!”
Gino clamped onto Quinn with such power and strength it was painful, but the moment he was pulled free of the hole she understood why. His left leg, just below the knee, was bent forward and at an unnatural angle, and a small section of bloody shin bone protruded horrifically from his torn flesh.
“The fire!” he growled through gritted teeth and unbearable agony. “Save the fire, don’t let it go out!”
“It’s too late,” Quinn told him, turning to Herm. “Help me get him up! We have to get him out of here!”
As they lifted him, Gino cried out again. “My leg, my—Jesus Christ—my leg!”
“Look at me,” Quinn said. “Look at me! Hang on, we’ve got you!”
Gino tried, but his screams had already turned to sobs, and then his eyes rolled to white and he slipped from consciousness.
***
The rain was so strong it not only hurt on impact, it made visibility extremely difficult. The wind had increased as well, and by the time Dallas reached the jungle he was having trouble both seeing and hearing above the roar of the storm. He could hear the faintest screams in the distant, behind him and in the general area from which he’d come, but he kept moving. Harper was just up ahead of him, stumbling and staggering through the thick jungle, but he was closing the gap, swinging the machete to clear his way when he needed to without slowing his pace. He called to her to stop but she didn’t acknowledge him.
It wasn’t until she tripped and fell at the base of a large tree wrapped in thick vines that he was able to catch her, sliding down onto his knees before her. Harper had already curled into a fetal position, so he grabbed her arm and yanked her upright with his free hand.
“Get up!” he screamed above the storm. “We have to go back!”
She looked at him, but there was nothing in her eyes. Harper was gone.
“Please,” he said, looking around quickly. “We have to get out of here! Please, get up! I didn’t come all this way to leave you here! Come on!”
Her dead eyes shifted, moved beyond him. Then they widened in what Dallas first thought was confusion but quickly realized was terror.
There was something behind him.
With cold fear slithering along his spine, Dallas turned and looked back over his shoulder.
***
“Fuck!” Herm gasped, wiping his mouth as he stared at the bone protruding from Gino’s leg. “Is he…did he…”
“He’s just unconscious.”
“I—I’ve never seen a broken bone that bad.”
Quinn forced herself up, stumbling back to the doorway. The rain fell in curtains, pummeling the island without mercy. She wiped hair from her eyes. “Where are they?”
“Harper took off into the jungle. Dallas went after her.”
“Shit!” Quinn started out but Herm grabbed her arm.
“Quinn, you—”
She jerked free of him. “Get off me!”
Herm held his hands up and took a step back.
“We can’t just leave them out there,” she said.
“We can’t go running after them without knowing what we’re doing either. We don’t know where they are, Quinn, we can’t take the chance.”
“I’ll go.”
“He never should’ve gone after her stupid ass.”
“But he did.”
“Yeah, he did. And we need to be smarter than that.”
“We need to—”
“What we need to do is get those things we left behind. We have nothing to defend ourselves with. If whatever’s out there comes for us, we’re far too vulnerable. We need those weapons.”
The rifles and ax lay scattered about where they’d dropped them in the confusion. And the hole Gino had fallen into, another apparent tunnel entrance, open wide now like the mouth of some giant predator, offered nothing but more horror.
“That’s my husband out there. What I need to do is find him.”
Gino groaned and writhed about a moment but never regained consciousness.
“Can you help him?” Herm asked.
“I can try, but…”
She didn’t have to say anything more.
“Fuck it,” Herm said. “You stay with Gino. I’ll go.”
“No, I’ll—”
“Quinn.” Herm took her by the shoulders, turned her toward him. “I’ll go.”
“We’ll go together.”
Before he could object further, she darted into the storm.
***
Despite everything he thought he knew, everything Herm had told them and the things in his mind he’d conjured as a result, nothing could have prepared him for the physical reality of what was bursting through the jungle and coming right for him.
A hideous smell preceded it, and instinctually, Dallas scrambled up off his knees and to his feet, shielding Harper with his body while raising the machete up above his head in as threatening a manner as he knew how.
But even then, this thing was too overwhelming to make sense of. It was there, right in front of him, and yet, his mind refused to believe what his eyes were seeing. Too much to process, it came in strange flashes—glimpses—bits and pieces coming at him through the rain like the nightmare it was.
It moved quickly, with deadly efficiency, the armor old and faded and looking like a second skin of battered metal squares. Horns extended monstrously from a helmet atop the enormous frame, beneath which a worn faceplate hid most of its decayed, scarred and leathery skin, its eyes burning red as blood, hands clutching a huge sword leveled in front of the being, as if pointing at him, an appendage reaching for its prey.
Like when he’d been in the water, his mind told him once again that this was only a game. He was coming up out of the surf, running along the sand and following the sweet sound of Quinn’s voice. And then there she was. His love. His everything. So beautiful and strong and smart, running toward him with such joy. That’s what he remembered most. The joy. Hers, and all that she brought him over the years. No one—nothing—could ever take that from him. He remembered them coming together on the beach, their bodies so desperately clinging to each other, so grateful they were both alive and all right and together again. He told her in his mind that he’d wait for her. One day, she’d find herself in an ocean as well, afraid and lost and tumbling through the waves. But she’d find land, and across the hot sand, she’d search for him until they found each other. And they’d be together again. This time for good.
This time forever.
It all happened rapidly, within a matter of seconds, but to Dallas it unfolded in slow-motion, and in that awful moment of terror and confusion, disbelief and finally, realization, he let Quinn go, felt her slip free of him.
Then there it was, standing right before him, glaring down at him through the rain with those horrible blood-red eyes.
***
Sliding around the gaping tunnel hole, fearful something might pop up out of it at any second, Herm gathered the rifles, slinging one over his shoulder and carrying the other. If nothing else, he could use it as a club, he thought.
Quinn slowed just long enough to scoop up the ax Gino had dropped then continued sprinting toward the jungle.
Herm did his best to catch up, but she was a considerable distance from him within seconds, already well into the jungle before he’d even gotten that far. Despite the pain in his pounding chest and the rain blurring his glasses, he stumbled on through the muddy earth and into the jungle after her.
***
Harper watched as Dallas raised the machete high, but the sword was already in motion. Fluid, and with inhuman speed, the blade rose, turned and swept down and across him, then back, up and down again in one continuous arcing motion, slashing Dallas on the initial swing and again on the follow-through.
Hot blood spattered her face, sprayed into her mouth and burned her eyes.
The machete fell to the mud as Dallas dropped to his knees then fell forward onto his hands in another spray of blood.
Harper blinked away blood and rain.
Dallas attempted to rise, but couldn’t. He said something, but she couldn’t make it out over the storm.
The being widened its stance, raised the sword then brought it down again, this time with a single violent swing that separated Dallas’s head from the rest of his body.
The head rolled away, trailing gore, his eyes still open and staring into eternity with disbelief and horror, as the body collapsed into the bloody mud.
Harper closed her eyes and waited for the blade to take her as well.
***
By the time Herm reached the small clearing and saw Harper sitting beneath the tree, Quinn was already on the ground, kneeling next to Dallas’s body, head bowed and her entire body bucking with each wailing sob.
Christ, he thought, there’s no head, his—his head’s missing.
“Baby,” Quinn sobbed. “My baby, my…my baby…”
“No.” Herm moved closer, emotion getting the better of him as well. Tears of horror and rage and pain filled his eyes, and he whirled around, looking for whatever had done this. Harper knew. That mindless, useless, stupid little bitch knew. Just like before, she knew. “No! Motherfucker, no!”
Harper just sat there, staring straight ahead like a mannequin covered in blood.
Quinn rose, the ax in her bloody hands and her wet hair plastered against her face. Something had changed in those once beautiful eyes. Something raging and cold, evil and heartless resided there now. Something ready to do battle. To kill without mercy or remorse. She glanced back at Herm, who stood there stupidly, unsure of what to say or do, then took a few steps further into the jungle.
Perhaps forty yards or so in the distance, on a small ridge of ground, the being stood watching them through the heavy rain. It held a sword in one hand, and a human head in the other.
A primal, horrible scream tore through the jungle.
It wasn’t until the thing slipped away into the cover of thick brush that Herm realized the scream had come from Quinn, who had bent forwa
rd at the waist and screeched at the being with a rage he’d never known human beings possessed, her eyes wide and wild, spittle dripping and hanging from her lips in long drools, her husband’s blood all over her.
The rain kept coming.
Herm reached down, none-too-gently grabbed Harper by the wrist and yanked her to her feet. She offered no resistance. There wasn’t enough left of her to do anything but stand there like the near-empty shell she’d become. “Quinn,” he said. When she didn’t respond or face him, he said it again, but louder. “Quinn!”
This time she turned, the same look in her bloodshot eyes.
“We have to go.”
“I’m going after it.”
“Not like this. You’ll die.”
The look on her face made it abundantly clear she didn’t care.
“We need you,” Herm told her. “Gino needs you.”
Quinn turned back to the jungle, said nothing.
“We have to—”
“Go back, Herm,” she said evenly. “Take that moron that cost my husband his life and go back to Gino.”
“I’m not leaving you alone out here.”
She sank down to her knees, suddenly, as if she could no longer prevent her body from doing so, and with head bowed, wept over Dallas’s body.
In that oddly surreal moment, a break that had begun much earlier in him became complete as well. Nothing mattered now. It was all about the most primordial instincts now, nothing more. In some ways they were no different than that thing out there. And maybe that was best, because it was necessary to survive, and survival, for however long they could cling to it, was the only thing they had left.
They were savages now, nothing more.
Pawing rainwater from his eyes, he looked Harper up and down. Her skimpy, filthy, soaked and worn white bikini left virtually nothing to the imagination now. With his free hand he roughly grabbed one of her breasts, squeezing and shaking it violently, pinching then pulling the nipple. She stared into the distance, offering neither objection nor resistance. She was either no longer capable of realizing what was happening to her, or simply didn’t care. Regardless, it stirred something deep inside him, something that made him want to dominate and hurt her, to fuck her like the animals they were.
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