Return To Primordial Island

by Rick Poldark

  “Well, there’s our key,” said Peter.

  “It’s a carving of a key,” said Jason. “Can’t use that to open up the secret door.”

  Peter scrunched his nose and scratched his head. “I know. This must be a clue to finding the key that unlocks the door.”

  “I don’t get it,” said Jason, crouching to get a closer look at the relief. “It references the fire again.”

  They all turned to look at the mysterious fire bowl. Ghenga extended his orb, prompting Peter to lay his hands on it. When Peter obliged, Ghenga spoke wordlessly. ‘Reach into fire.’

  Peter shook his head. “It’s hot. It set Jason’s sleeve on fire.”

  ‘I will reach in.’

  Peter was unsure of Ghenga’s abilities or his vulnerabilities, so this time he stepped aside, deferring to the Zehhaki.

  Ghenga slipped his crystal orb into his pouch and walked over to the fire bowl. He cocked his head sideways, examining the flame. He flared his dewlap a couple of times, swallowing hard, and he reached his hand into the fire. He held it there for a second, which led Peter to believe that maybe the Zehhaki was fire resistant, but then Ghenga yanked it out, crying out. He cradled his hand against his body.

  Peter ran over to comfort him. “Are you all right? Let me see.” He momentarily forgot that there was no neural link, so his words weren’t comprehended. Ghenga shrank away from Peter, turning his body so that he faced away from him.

  “Great,” said Jason. “Any other ideas?”

  Peter decided to give Ghenga his space for the moment. While he felt sympathy toward the lizard man, he was reminded that this was an alien figure from another dimension he just didn’t fully understand.

  “Fire…key…” muttered Peter. “The fire somehow produces the key, but I think we have to use something else in this chamber. The problem is, I think we’ve used everything.”

  Jason looked around. “Maybe we missed something.” He walked around the room, checking the tablets in their slots on the altar, the now empty pedestal that once held the fertility statue, and the ape man corpse.

  Peter turned around and around, taking everything in. He had missed something, probably some subtle detail. What would interact with the fire to produce a key?

  Jason placed a hand on his hip. His fingers drifted to his empty pistol holster. “If only I had my gun. I could shoot the lock.” Suddenly, his eyes lit up. He snapped his fingers. “I think I’ve got it!”

  His outburst startled Ghenga. Peter jerked out of his thoughts. “What? What is it?”

  Jason walked around the altar and stopped in front of the large hour glass lying broken on the stone floor. He squatted, scooped up some of the black sand into his hands, cupping them. He walked the black sand over to the magical fire and tossed it into the flames.

  The flames rose, as if suddenly doused with accelerant, and they turned black. A key appeared, floating in the fire. Jason turned, beaming, looking triumphant.

  “Son of a gun,” whispered Peter, astonished.

  Jason took a deep breath and reached into the fire. He grabbed the key and pulled it out, his hand and arm undamaged. He held the key up. “It isn’t even hot.” Behind him, the flames shrank and resumed their normal color.

  “Let’s try it in the lock,” said Peter.

  Jason nodded and stepped over to the secret door. He found the keyhole, slipped the key into it, and gave it a turn. They all heard the movement of tumblers, and the door began to slide open to the sound of stone grinding on stone. They each stood back, bracing themselves for whatever lay beyond the door.

  As the door opened, Peter saw a long, dark corridor lying beyond. When the door had opened completely, the grinding stopped.

  “It’s dark in there,” said Jason. “It looks like a tunnel.”

  Peter peeked inside. “It’s long. We need a light.”

  Jason pulled out his flashlight. “I’ll go first. Stay behind me.”

  Peter turned to Ghenga, who still cradled his arm. The crystal orb remained in its pouch. “Are you okay?”

  Ghenga didn’t answer. It was difficult to gauge his disposition. Reptiles weren’t the most expressive animals.

  “Okay, let’s go.” Jason entered the tunnel. It was narrow. Jason swept his flashlight beam back and forth. The tunnel was lined with desiccated Simian mummies in various standing, sitting, and lying positions. The air was dry and stale, and they kicked up dust as they walked.

  “It’s a catacomb,” said Peter. “They buried their dead here.”

  “I know what a catacomb is,” snapped Jason, pushing forward. Their footsteps echoed off the stone walls.

  “Hey, that was good work in there,” said Peter, keeping pace behind his friend. “Very clever.”

  “I thought about gunpowder,” said Jason. “I remembered the black sand. I figured it was black for a reason.”

  “The ol’ rifle above the bar,” quipped Peter. If present, everything had its function.

  “What?” Jason apparently didn’t get the reference.

  “You know…Chekhov’s Gun…the story-telling device.”

  Jason rolled his eyes. “You are such a dork.”

  “Nothing. Never mind.”

  They heard grinding behind them. Each whipped around to find they were being sealed off from the Simian escape room they had just left.

  “Onward,” said Jason. He took a few steps and then stopped abruptly.

  Peter came to a halt, Ghenga crashing into him from behind. “What? What is it?”

  “Something doesn’t feel right.”

  “We’re in an ancient Simian temple surrounded by mummies. What could feel right about this?”

  Jason turned to face Peter. “No. It’s the orb.”

  “The death orb?”

  Jason nodded. He looked down at his chest, and it began to glow under his shirt. The illumination cast the mummies in an eerie light, their eye socks and gaunt faces looking haunted.

  “That’s much better than a flashlight,” said Peter.

  “Something’s happening,” said Jason.

  All around them, the mummies began to twitch and move. Necks and limbs jerked, hands and feet shot out in spasms. Eye sockets glowed.

  “Can’t you stop it?” asked Peter. “Use your orb.”

  Jason closed his eyes and focused. Peter and Ghenga watched as the mummified corpses around them began to reanimate.

  Jason opened his eyes. “I can’t stop it. It’s Nazimaa. She’s too powerful.”

  Peter and Jason exchanged terrified looks.

  “Run,” said Jason.

  Peter nodded.

  Jason broke into a sprint, Peter and Ghenga lagging behind him. Peter huffed and puffed, his lungs burning as the corpses jerked into motion, reaching out shriveled arms and hands for them. Peter shrugged them off as he zigzagged through the undead gauntlet.

  In front of him, Jason was tackled to the ground by a mummified ape, and others immediately piled on top of him. Peter turned to look back over his shoulder, and he saw Ghenga seized by mummies. His path of escape narrowed in front of him as zombie ape men closed in on him. Large hands and long fingers pulled him down to the ground.

  The apes mauled him, tearing his shirt and clawing at the orb in his chest. Nazimaa wanted the orbs, even if she had to rip it out of them with cold, dead hands. Peter pushed and kicked against his attackers as hands and bodies blocked out his vision. He had the sensation of suffocating under the pile on. He gasped, struggling to breathe. He heard Jason shouting and cursing.

  Peter closed his eyes and felt the dim, cold presences of these mummies, much like the zombie cannibals Mike Deluca had created and controlled.

  “Use your orb!” Peter cried out to Jason. “You can control them!”

  “I’m trying….” he heard. “I can’t do it!”

  Fingers clawed at Peter’s chest, sinking into his flesh, but not harming it. It reminded him of one of those weird late-night specials he saw on psychic surgery. The
undead ape men were grasping the edges of the life orb, trying to pull it out of his chest.

  Peter resisted, summoning the full strength of his inner power. He reached out, grasping at the icy life force that reanimated these apes. He concentrated, pushing the dark energy back. He felt Nazimaa pushing back against his power, and she was strong.

  The life orb was now half out of his chest. He felt as if his life force was entangled with the orb, clinging to it. The resultant sensation was extreme pain, as if they were yanking his very heart and soul out of his body. Peter opened his eyes to find glowing eyes staring down at him as undead fingers pried the orb from his chest. He closed his eyes again, awaiting death, helpless to defend himself or prevent it.

  Suddenly, Peter felt a wave of cold, black energy and everything stopped. He opened his eyes and saw the ape mummies frozen, staring down at him. It didn’t make any sense. What had happened?

  “Hurry!” shouted Jason. “She’s too strong! I can’t hold them forever!”

  Peter pushed himself to standing and scrambled forward, shoving his way past inert ape men, bobbing and weaving through outstretched hands frozen in time. Up ahead, he saw Jason getting to his feet. Peter caught up to him and ushered him toward the far end of the tunnel, where another stone door blocked their exit.

  “Hurry,” grunted Jason, exerting himself over the mummies. “She’s pushing back.”

  Peter frantically searched the end of the tunnel for a button, switch, or lever that would open the door. “I don’t know how to open the door.”

  “Hurry,” said Jason through gritted teeth, straining.

  Peter turned to find the Simian mummies jerking back to motion in staccato movements. Nazimaa was disrupting Jason’s signal to them. It was only a matter of seconds.

  He turned back to focus on the stone door. He ran his fingers along its surface, but there wasn’t a keyhole. “Dammit!” He looked at the walls around the door and saw nothing. He stepped back, slipping past Jason, who had his eyes squeezed shut, his body tense and rigid. He looked constipated. “Hurry, Peter!”

  The mummies took uneven steps toward them, advancing slowly but steadily. Peter looked at the walls on either side of them and saw a large lever mounted up high on each side, ten feet back from the wall with the door. He jumped at one, latching onto it, pulling it down. It slid down and stopped. Nothing happened.

  Peter ran across to the other wall and jumped, grabbing the other lever. He used his body weight to pull it down. However, he looked over his shoulder to find the other lever sliding up, back into place. When his current lever stopped dropping, nothing happened. “Crap. The levers have to be pulled down simultaneously.” It made sense. An ape man would have the proper arm span to do it. However, Peter was no ape man.

  He turned to find Jason swooning on his feet, hands out in front of him, holding the horde of mummies back. The more they advanced, the more he faltered.

  Peter’s mind raced, trying to figure out how to pull both levers simultaneously. He looked around him for anything he could use. The mummies were closing the distance, now only fifty feet away.

  “Jason, I need your help!”

  Jason snapped out of his focus and staggered over to Peter. He was soaked with sweat and panting. The mummies behind him started to regain fluidity to their movement.

  “We need to pull these down simultaneously,” said Peter.

  Jason nodded.

  They each stood under a lever and jumped up, pulling down on them. As they slid down, the stone door began to roll away. Peter saw the mummies closing in, reaching out for them, now only twenty-five feet away.

  “Now!” cried Peter.

  He and Jason let go of the levers and the door stopped rolling away. Almost immediately, it began to roll back into place. Peter slipped through the narrowing gap and into the next room. Jason darted over, the Simian mummies now clawing at his back. He wedged himself in the shrinking gap; Peter grabbed his arm and pulled him from the other side.

  Jason slipped through in time as the stone wheel sealed off the gap, crushing reaching arms and severing grasping fingers. They heard the faint pounding of undead fists from the other side.

  All around the room fire bowls erupted with fire at their presence, illuminating the room.

  Exhausted, Jason’s legs gave way, but Peter caught him, supporting him. He looked around the room. It was a larger room, a few hundred feet long and almost as many wide, with a massive statue of what could only be the Simian King on the far side of the room. The imposing figure loomed over a large stone sarcophagus, its chest puffed out, a spear in its right hand. It donned the bamboo armor seen on the corpse in the ancestral chamber, and on its head sat a crown. The statue stood on a raised platform. Statues of ape men warriors lined the sides of the burial chamber on very narrow cliffs.

  Between the statue and where Peter and Jason stood was a large chasm. Several platforms jutted out of the void below about thirty to forty feet apart. Massive trees grew in between, with long branches and vines extending across, connecting the platforms above ground level.

  “We have to hide,” said Peter. “They’ll pull the levers and be through in moments.”

  Jason nodded. Regaining some of his strength, he stood on his own. “Where’s the lizard man?”

  “He didn’t make it. We have to hide, now.”

  They crossed the room to the edge of the platform on which they stood, looking down. “I can’t see the bottom,” said Jason.

  Peter kicked a pebble off the edge, watching it fall. It vanished into darkness, and he didn’t hear it hit bottom. The stone wheel grinded open behind them.

  “We have to swing across,” said Jason, eyeing the branches and vines, calculating a path to the massive statue of the Simian King.

  “There’s no way I’m making that,” said Peter.

  “You have to, mate.”

  Peter looked at the sides of the cavern. “I can climb across to the other side. I’ll hold onto the statues for support.”

  Jason inspected the narrow shelf the statues stood on. “That’s risky. If you fall, that’ll be all she wrote.”

  “At least I stand a chance,” insisted Peter. “If I try to monkey bar my way across, I’ll definitely fall.”

  Jason nodded. “I’ll draw their attention away from you and meet you there.”

  Peter nodded, and they parted ways—Jason approaching the first gap to the next platform, and Peter dashing to the narrow ledge on the right.

  As the stone wheel opened up, the mummies from the catacombs poured through, spilling out into the regal burial chamber. As Peter cautiously looked over his shoulder, he wondered where Tracey and Mary were in all of this. There didn’t appear to be any other doors to any other parts of the temple.

  He took his first step onto the ledge, grabbing the ten-foot-tall statue of a Simian warrior around its waist. He carefully edged his left foot further left, and he slid his right foot onto the ledge. He swung himself around the statue, careful to cling to the sheer rock wall, pressing his cheek up against it as he shimmied out further.

  *

  Jason crouched, tensing his muscles in anticipation of a jump to the nearest tree branch, when he heard a commotion behind him. One part of his rational mind told him to jump and swing to the next platform. Another part told him that Simian mummies would likely be able to swing through the trees with ease, overtaking him within mere moments. Then, something tugged at the recesses of his mind, and that familiar wordless voice commanded him to turn around.

  As the ape warrior mummies fanned out, Joey walked into the room. Two mummies followed, dragging Mary and Tracey. The women squirmed in their grips, but the mummies were too strong.

  *

  Peter saw Ghenga saunter into the room, followed by two mummies dragging Mary and Tracey. He understood now. It all made sense. When he had entered that sacred place in the Zehhaki city, where Ghenga had showed him the stored memories, he recalled being dragged out by the Zehhaki as if he
didn’t belong there. More importantly, he recalled their reaction to Ghenga—it was hostile, fearful even. He also understood why Ghenga had wanted him to go to this Temple of the Simian King. It had nothing to do with any balance of nature. He wanted Peter here with the life orb at the place of Nazimaa’s captivity. He remembered Ghenga growing inpatient in the ancestral chamber and smashing the large hourglass with the black sand. Peter closed his eyes and reached out with his powers, and the familiar icy, dark presence confirmed it.

  Ghenga was Nazimaa.

  Chapter 15

  Jason watched his little brother, Joey, enter the room with Mary and Tracey being dragged in behind him by Simian mummies. It didn’t make any sense. He knew his brother was dead, he knew Joey’s manifestation was a mind trick perpetrated by Nazimaa, yet he froze where he stood, feeling helpless.

  ‘Jason,’ said Joey in a wordless voice that was hollow, dry, and all too familiar. ‘I told you we’d be together again.’

  Jason shook his head, as if to clear it. His mind set off all kinds of alarms, warning him that what he saw before him was an illusion, a cruel manipulation. Yet, something tugged at his emotions, triggering grief and nostalgia in a wave that washed over him, drowning out the voices of reason. “You’re…you’re not real.”

  Joey stepped forward, away from the two mummies holding Tracey and Mary. ‘I am real, and we can be together. You can help me.’

  “No.” Jason shook his head, defiant. “I don’t believe you.” However, memories began to replay in his head, memories of his childhood with Joey. The vignettes and the emotional responses they triggered tasted putrescent, like the stench of rotting flesh in the hot sun. “No! Stop it!”

  Joey reached out a hand. Jason found his own hand reaching out to meet his brother’s, though not of his volition. It was as if he was a passenger on a ride, watching but unable to steer the direction it was taking.