by Ron Vitale
Nathan watched the birds circling high overhead, and he then glanced down the side of the hill into the thickness of the jungle. He whispered so the others couldn’t hear. “Morgan, I’m sorry.” He then came beside Zeke. “If we want to live, then we need to find shelter. If we’re lucky, there might be a cave on the other side. Come on, before it’s too late!”
Zeke resigned himself to going and sighed. “I don’t like any of our choices today.”
He left the cliff and ran after the others. At the south side of the hill, Nathan stopped. Slowly at first, he climbed down the hill’s steeper side, searching for a cave opening in the hopes they could survive the approaching tsunami.
Being a more experienced climber, Josep overtook Nathan and made for some bushes that jutted out over the hill’s side. He scrambled around the small landing and disappeared for a few seconds behind the bushes. When he reappeared, he waved on the others. “I’ve found something. There’s a cave opening that looks deep enough for us to all hide in. Hurry!”
Nathan took one last look at the ocean and wished he hadn’t. An enormous wave rushed toward the island, and from its size, the wave would hit, fast and hard, wiping out much on the island. The force from the wave would wash away everything in its path. He turned away and hurried up his descent. “The wave’s almost there. Go, go, go!”
Pahukumaa reached the bushes next, and Josep helped him and pushed him inside the cave. Nathan arrived a few seconds later, and together he and Josep helped Zeke climb the last few feet.
Down below on the other side of the island, the roar of the approaching tsunami drowned out everything else. When the wave hit, the resounding crash of water knocked over trees, rocks, and anything else in its path. Zeke pushed Pahukumaa and Nathan into the cave and then followed them inside into the dark.
Together they stumbled toward the back of the cave, and Josep said, “I found another opening that heads downward. Should we keep going?”
Water started pouring in from the cave’s opening. The roar of the water echoed within the cave and Zeke took command and shouted, “Everyone go onward. Now!”
Nathan watched Pahukumaa and Josep go on, but Zeke hung back. The fading light from outside framed him in the cave’s darkness. “Come on, we have to go.”
Together they watched the water streaming in from outside, and Zeke finally turned away. They slipped through the dark opening in front of them. The ground gave way, and they slid down into the darkness below.
Nathan tried to stop himself but could not make any purchase to slow his descent. The more he fought, the faster he seemed to fall into the black oblivion. Unable to contain his fear, he screamed, but his cries were drowned out by the massive rumbling from the tsunami crashing across the island. All became shades of black, and the roar of destruction become louder and louder until he could think and see no more.
Chapter 13
I don’t know why I tried to run, but I did. Clarence screamed to my left, and I recoiled in terror, wanting nothing more but to leave the caverns. The darkness engulfed me, and I slowed down. If I ran too fast, I would eventually hit the side of a cavern or I might trip and fall. A deep chill filled the air, drifting in like a winter fog. A pungent odor wafted through the cavern that reminded me of spoiled eggs, and I feared it was from the twisted and unholy life around me.
With my hands stretched out before me like a blind person, I reached, hoping to feel the cavern wall, so that I could follow it to the opening on the far side.
Clarence’s screams turned to a gurgle, and he coughed, spitting out something from his mouth. “No, no, get it off of me! Get it off!”
I glanced back over my shoulder, and a dim light grew where Ishmael had stood. Veins of mineral stretched out across the ground with a bioluminescent glow, gradually increasing in intensity. Ishmael, his tattoos glowing once again, stood with his hand on Clarence’s forehead.
Shackled to the spot on which he stood, an amalgam of coral, shells, and seaweed covered Clarence’s feet, legs, and most of his torso. In the growing light, living tentacles stretched up out of the ground, swaying as if to some unseen music. The suckers on each tentacle dripped liquid down onto Clarence. The substance quickly hardened on his skin and turned to coral.
With his arms pinned still, he struggled, craning his neck as far forward as he could, but it was all for naught. He searched for some sort of humanity left in Ishmael and begged, “Please, let me go. My daughter, I need to help save her.”
Ishmael’s eyes glowed eerily, and he still seemed possessed. He silenced Clarence with a finger and spoke in a voice different than his own. “Shh, you are saving her. Even now as we speak, you are.”
Clarence’s lip buckled and he sobbed. His first words were unintelligible, but he took a deep breath and tilted his head up toward Ishmael. “Please, I can feel them on my toes and ankles. They’re biting me like little pinpricks, their legs crawling up against my own. I can feel them eating away at me. Please, let me go!”
“It is too late for all of that. You are part of us now. You’re feeding the young ones, and through the earth, the little tendrils will reach out, under the sea, beneath the molten ground, traveling all the way back to your daughter. We can see her now because we can see in your head. Your hopes, fears, all the things you have done in your life, we are part of that now, and you are part of us. The cure you so desperately seek will be given to your daughter, and she will eventually become one of us.” Ishmael patted back Clarence’s greasy hair and wiped sweat away from his forehead.
“Anna!” Clarence turned away from Ishmael and stared off up and to the right, deep in the far darkness of the cavern. “I can see her. She’s sleeping.”
I took several more steps away from them both, careful not to step on a shell or on one of the glowing mineral veins on the ground.
“Morgan, do you think that you can escape?” Ishmael’s voice changed in pitch, and the deepness reverberated throughout the cavern. “How do you think you have come to be here? By chance?”
“Ishmael, you have been my friend. If there is any bit left of you—”
He put both his hands on the side of Clarence’s head. He pulled his head back, and as if in a trance, Clarence mumbled about his daughter, but I could not fully make out what he said. The largest tentacle rose up out of the ground, bent itself over Clarence, and sprayed more seawater onto his face and neck. When the water splashed him, he woke sharply.
“God, no, please, no. Get it away from me!” Clarence rocked his body to the left and to the right, struggling with full force, but Ishmael held his head in place, his arms bulging from the struggle.
The tentacle rose up higher, like a snake, hypnotic in nature, its suckers opening and closing as if they breathed the air. Two other tentacles wrapped themselves around the shells, coral, and seaweed that imprisoned Clarence, packing the mixture tight and hardening his prison until it looked like stone.
Careful not to fall, I reached the wall in front of me but touched nothing. I spun quickly back around in time to see the massive tentacle, at its full height, stretch itself straight like an arrow and then, in the space of a heartbeat, bend over and fly at Clarence. He clenched his mouth shut, but Ishmael pried his mouth open with his fingers.
Clarence bit at him, but the tentacles around his body tensed, and like lightning, an electrical shock rippled through his body. The pain rose up, and he fought it off at first until he screamed in intolerable pain. His screams echoed in the large dark cavern, and then, as if it had waited for this moment, the large tentacle invaded his mouth, surging forward.
He gagged and I could see the tears in his eyes. He turned toward me, and only his head remained looking human, the rest of his body covered and masked by the creature that had subsumed him. The tentacle twitched and Ishmael drew back, letting his hands stay clenched as he ignored the cuts from Clarence’s biting. The cries from Clarence, garbled and weak, turned to a simpering until the remaining suckers secreted a sea paste on his fa
ce, burying his humanity beneath a nightmarish mask.
“Is it my turn now?” I confronted Ishmael and watched him for fear that he would chase after me.
“That is not what we want. Like Clarence’s daughter, a sacrifice has already been made for you.” He walked around the remains of Clarence and blocked the rest of his transformation from my sight. Already I could no longer hear his whimpering. “Come with me and I’ll show you.”
He walked toward the far end of the cavern, and I couldn’t see any sign of Clarence in the stalagmite that now rose from the cavern floor. The tentacles had withdrawn back into the ground, and a fine mist steamed up from the rock formation’s top. I called after Ishmael and asked, “What if I don’t want to come with you, will you kill me?”
He stopped and, as if snapped awake, he seemed more himself and replied, “You begged me to come with you on this journey. I didn’t want to go and hoped that I could stay away from this place for the rest of my life. Now you know why. But we are here, and I want you to see the full truth of what has happened, what this all means, and then you’ll need to make a decision of what to do next.” He reached his hand out to me. “Come, it is not far.”
The phosphorescent glow in the room pulsed like one living creature, and I took a few tentative steps toward him. The earthquakes had stopped, but I didn’t know what I would find outside this cavern. If I left on my own, I might stumble in the dark and never find my way back out and into the light. If I stayed with Ishmael, though the chance was small, I might survive. “Okay, I’ll come with you.”
“Good, then follow me, and let me show you something.”
He led me to the end of the cavern and stopped in front of a passageway that led deeper into the depths of the island. The temperature had risen here, and the smell of sulfur wafted up from the dark. Ishmael moved from the opening and pointed down into the blackness. “Go ahead. What you have always sought is down there.”
I hesitated a moment and grabbed his arm. “I’ll go but not if you’re simply trying to bring me to my death. I’m brave but not that much.” I shook from fear, and my voice trembled. “I don’t want to die. I will fight you until my last breath. I need you to know that. I need you to know that I’ll not simply give in to the creatures that are here. I’ll fight you until I have no strength left, and then I will close my mind off to you, and you will never have me. Never!” An anger rose up within me, and with fist closed, I pulled my hand back ready to strike.
Ishmael smiled at me. I did not know if he was still possessed or not. “I wouldn’t expect anything less from you. You have nothing to fear. I’ll be right beside you.”
He brushed past me and went down into the darkness, and as if in response, a hiss of steam shot out of the passageway smelling of decaying fish and vegetation. An intense heat had bonded with a life force down below that craved the dark, and now I went toward it.
I took a few steps forward and nearly ran into Ishmael as he had stopped to find his way. The phosphorescence here faded until none of the lichen remained. The light disappeared quickly and the temperature still rose from the deep, and an orange glow ahead beckoned us. We walked through the cavern passageway, but to me, it resembled more the inside of a living beast. The sounds of hissing steam closely mirrored that of a creature who took a breath and exhaled into the darkness.
My hand shook in fear, and with each step I took, I needed to pinch my thigh to distract myself from wanting to stop or to simply turn around and flee. Ishmael walked slowly, hesitant, and I did not sense from him a great comfort or joy. Instead he took small steps, and the passageway split off into two directions before us.
“Are we almost there?” I asked but could see from the left opening in front of us the orange glow pulsed and knew that would be the direction we needed to go.
“You understand that there is no way back. The only way I escaped last time was to go onward. We need to keep going, and then we will find our way out.” Ishmael spoke as if to himself, conflicted on whether to turn back or go onward.
We waited for a bit more, and with each breath I took, I feared that the very air I breathed would be filled with the living essence of the creatures that made up this island. I imagined that tiny airborne pustules came into my lungs and invaded me, bit by bit, until the creatures latched onto my very essence to change and control me from the inside. I shook the image from my mind and pushed forward past Ishmael. He followed me and I fought back my fear by repeating a ditty my father used to say to me when I was a young girl. The nonsense words were more sounds than meaning, but they brought comfort to me now. The singsong phrases rose and ended in a cadence that harkened back to a memory of him pushing me on a tree swing.
I’d rise up toward the sky, seeing the bright sun, the clouds there, and the trees that surrounded our home, and then swing back down toward the ground. My hair would fly all around my face, and my laughter would burst out of me to mock the world. I could not be touched then in that moment with my father. I had precious few good memories with him, but this was one. Joy rose up in my heart, and I smiled walking forward into a wider cavern that opened up before us.
My eyes adjusted to the low light in a matter of seconds, and a living thing stood in front of us. Large tentacles wrapped around the base of a stone structure, like honey, and there were fissures in the ground below filled with lava. The heat had risen greatly here, and I tried to take in the sight but did not quite understand what I saw.
Ishmael came to stand beside me and said, “Now you will know the truth, all of it, and we will either fail together or pass through this darkness to ascend back into the light.”
As if on cue, I heard screams from far-off to the right down the passageway we had not taken, and the ground rumbled beneath our feet. Silence quickly followed, and then from far-off, a solitary voice could be heard screaming my name. Nathan. I could hear him clear and unsullied, and for the shortest span of a second, I forgot his abandoning me and rushed to find him. Ishmael tried to hold me back, but I brushed him off and ran off down into the dark. The screams continued, and I ran faster, careful not to fall to my death into a crevice. Other screams increased in intensity from other men, and I wanted nothing more than to leave this hell on earth, but the bond I had with my twin was greater than my fear. I needed to see if I could save him.
***
Nathan slid down the rest of the slope and fell into darkness. He hit the ground hard and braced himself with his hands, skinning his palms.
Pahukumaa caught him and said, “Come out of the way so that Zeke has room to land.”
Even deep inside the hill, Nathan could hear the tremendous roar of the tsunami hitting the island. Seeing the rising water speed across the island and wash away anyone in its path, no matter how fast they swam, it was not a sight he wished to partake in. Most likely his sister and the islanders had all drowned and his guilt hung heavy on him.
“Watch out now. Get ready for him, he’s coming down.” Josep put his arm around Nathan’s shoulder and moved him off to the right.
From up above, they could still see a sliver of daylight, and a blur rushed by, and Zeke fell, seemingly from the sky, and landed on his feet. He bent forward to expel the rest of his momentum into the ground and placed both hands, palm first, onto the cold cavern floor.
Pahukumaa pointed to the back part of the cavern and said, “There’s a passageway over there. I think that’s the only way out.”
Josep stayed by Nathan staring up at the daylight. “Why don’t we remain here and wait it out? We can always climb back up and—”
Before he could finish speaking, a crash from up at the cave’s entrance echoed throughout the cavern, and the tunnel collapsed in on itself, blocking off the way they had come in.
Nathan backed away from the slope as loose rocks fell down onto them. “Looks like we’re trapped in here.” The absolute darkness did not frighten him, but being buried alive did. “Maybe Pahukumaa’s suggestion might be a good idea now?”
Pahukumaa called to them from the far side of the cavern. “The ground’s pretty smooth in here. Just follow the sound of my voice and head on over to me. We’ll head out the back of this cave.” He paused a moment and then said, “I see light ahead. It might be easier to get out of here than we thought.”
Josep gave a sarcastic chuckle and said, “I doubt that.” He stumbled in the dark and headed over to his friend.
Nathan saw a dim orange glow behind Pahukumaa, and the temperature slowly rose the closer they went. Josep leaned half his body into the passageway and sniffed. “Smells rotten down there. You sure this is the best way to go?”
“Unless you know of a better way, this is where we’re headed.” Zeke rolled up his sleeves and took the lead into the unknown.
Pahukumaa followed second and then Nathan with Josep taking up the last position. Several dozen feet into the passageway, the tunnel diverged to the right and then forked in two.
“Well, the one off the right smells just as bad as the one on the left.” Josep held his nose and shook his head to clear away the nasty smell.
Zeke peered into the entrances of both and held up his hand. “Shhh, quiet everyone. I want to listen.”
Nathan stared up at the cavern’s ceiling and reached up but could not touch it as the ceiling was just out of reach. From the orange glow around them, he took in as much of his surroundings as he could. He looked for some clue on how they should move forward, but nothing gave him any real insight into the best path forward.
Pahukumaa and Josep stayed deathly still, while Zeke craned his neck forward into the left passageway, listening. For a moment, they heard nothing, and then, as if the cavern itself breathed, they heard a hissing sound of steam or a mist expelling itself into the air. The orange light flickered in front of them as if someone, or something, had blocked out the light for a split second, and then all returned to normal.
