Forbidden Island

by Jeremy Robinson

  Talia looked up, expecting to see a bright blue sky. Instead, she saw a swirl of gray clouds. In the Amazon, the sky shifted from clear to thunderous storms almost every day. But in the Bay of Bengal, dark gray storm clouds could mean a monsoon, or worse: a typhoon. Either would put a damper on their plans to await rescue in the inflatable raft. “Hey,” she said to Rowan, her face still turned up.

  “That doesn’t look—”

  Talia glanced at Rowan. He was looking up, but not toward the sky. She followed his eye to the tipped-over tree and quickly saw the aberration. A hundred feet off the ground, Sashi was on the tilted tree trunk, legs spread wide, arms latched around the first set of branches.

  “What is she doing up there?” Rowan asked.

  Talia took a quick look around. They were still alone, or at least appeared to be. “Pretty sure the answer to that is self-explanatory. But I’ll go ask her.”

  Talia began climbing the roots before Rowan could express the doubt wrinkling his forehead. The climb felt good until the scrape on her shoulder opened and sweat leaked in. The sting helped focus her. Reminded her that she needed to think, to temper her instincts.

  “If she doesn’t come down right away,” Rowan said and let the thought hang. He didn’t want to say the rest, but Talia understood. The sentence for loitering, and every other crime, on North Sentinel Island was death.

  She watched him wipe his brow again, flicking the sweat away. “You should lose the clothing.”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a white guy from New Hampshire.”

  “Good point, your body will be easier to hide when you pass out from dehydration.” She started up the tree, making three quick lunges. She felt like she could scramble up the towering trunk, but she forced herself to take slow, deliberate movements. With confidence came a rhythm, and she made good time, reaching Sashi in two minutes.

  Positioned beneath Sashi’s buttocks, she pushed herself up, leaned as much as she dared and looked at the woman’s face. Was she asleep? Unconscious? Dead? The rise and fall of her body with each breath was subtle, but present. Not dead.

  Talia whispered, “Sashi.” When the woman didn’t stir, she tried again, louder, “Sashi.” She pulled herself closer, hovering over the woman’s lower body. She placed a gentle hand on Sashi’s lower back. Gave her a shake. “Sash—”

  “No!” Sashi shouted, pushing herself up and into Talia. The back of her head struck Talia’s cheek. The world tipped. Gravity took hold. At ninety degrees, Talia’s legs wrapped around the tree. Squeezed. Her stomach clenched, the muscles stretching, some of them pinging loose. Her arched back groaned and vertebrae compressed, but the fall came to an end. The handgun tucked into the back of her shorts slipped out, bumped off the tree, and fell to the jungle floor. With a surge of anger, Talia leaned back up and gripped the tree just in time for Sashi to fall.

  With one hand wedged in a crevice of bark, she used the other to hold onto Sashi while the woman slid down the trunk into Talia’s lap.

  “Let go! Get off me!”

  “Sashi!” Talia shouted. “It’s Talia!”

  A flailed elbow caught Talia in the side of the head. Stars danced. There was only so much abuse Talia could take, but in the end, rage beat unconsciousness to the finish line. She felt a moment of pre-regret and then drove her fist into Sashi’s temple. The strike was solid. It didn’t render Sashi unconscious, but it had the same effect as a few shots of whisky, knocking the panic out of her.

  Talia scraped her way back down the tree, one hand around Sashi’s waist. Luckily, the tree bark wasn’t that rough. If it had been, they’d have both been bloody when they reached the bottom. Instead, they were a bit raw, and would both have headaches, but they were otherwise unharmed.

  At the base of the tree, still eight feet above the forest floor, Talia found Rowan dressed in black boxers, his belt strapped around his waist holding spare magazines for her gun, which he had recovered and holstered. He put the assault rifle on the ground and raised his hands. Talia tipped Sashi over. The woman mumbled a complaint, but hadn’t fully regained her senses. Talia hung on to one of Sashi’s arms, lowering her into Rowan’s hands.

  When Talia reached the ground, she found Rowan leaning over Sashi, patting the woman’s face.

  “Sashi, it’s Rowan. Wake up.”

  She noted the wound in Sashi’s shoulder. A puffy scab had formed. That was fast, she thought, and she placed her hand on it, expecting hot infected flesh. It was cool to the touch, but it got a reaction.

  Sashi’s eyes went wide in time with her mouth, but the scream that came out was muffled by Rowan’s hand. He held it there while the shrill sound repeated. Sashi’s eyes darted back and forth. Her breathing came at a rapid fire rhythm.

  “You’re safe,” Rowan told her, and while it wasn’t entirely true, there weren’t any arrows flying at them. Yet. “Look at me. You’re safe.”

  Sashi’s breathing slowed. She focused on Rowan. There was a moment of confusion and then recognition. The panicked screaming melted into sobs of fear mixed with relief.

  “Are you okay?” Rowan asked. “Can I move my hand?”

  Sashi nodded and Rowan’s hand came away.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “I-I heard them coming.”

  “Heard who?” Talia asked.

  “The Sentinelese. A lot of them. They were talking.”

  “Which way did they go?” Rowan asked.

  Sashi looked around, found her bearings. When she pointed inland, Talia felt a surge of hope, but then Sashi spoke. “They came from over there.” The gradual rise of the land led to a thick growth of trees fifty feet away. The jungle beyond was concealed, just as Sashi would have been from the approaching Sentinelese. “I heard them coming from all over. I didn’t know where else to go.” She looked up at the tilted over tree. “At the time it made sense. I wasn’t afraid. But once I got up there…and they came out of the jungle.”

  A shiver ran through Sashi’s body. “They were headed to the beach. The men had spears. The women carried woven baskets. But the children…”

  Talia crouched down. They had yet to see any children on the island. “What about them?”

  “They weren’t walking,” she said. “Not like people. They ran like animals. Like insects.”

  A flood of questions about the Sentinelese and their children entered Talia’s mind, but she kept them to herself. Sashi was shaking again.

  “Sounds like they were going fishing,” Rowan said, and he shot Talia a quick look that said he didn’t believe it either. If the Sentinelese were going fishing, it was for outsiders. Sashi had taken a big risk climbing the tree, but she had simultaneously evaded capture or death, and revealed a Sentinelese weakness—they didn’t look up.

  Why would they? Their primary food source was in the ocean, and the birds populating the upper reaches weren’t big enough to feed anyone. Talia watched the treetops. Where were the birds? She couldn’t hear them, either.

  “My hatchet,” Rowan said to Sashi. “Where is it?”

  Sashi looked around, confused. “I—I don’t know. I must have dropped it.”

  “Fantastic.” Rowan looked at the empty shelter, and then the barren ground beneath the fallen tree. Shook his head and looked at Talia. “What do you want to do?”

  Talia turned away from the treetops. “The whole island is surrounded by beach. The Sentinelese could be anywhere.”

  “Or they could be sitting with the raft, just waiting for us.”

  “What about the raft?” Sashi asked.

  “We’re getting off the island,” Rowan said. “The three of us. We’ll wait for a rescue at—”

  The trees above swayed, the leaves rustling, as an invisible force moved through them. When the wind parted the branches, there was no sun or sky in sight, just dark clouds. Goosebumps dotted Talia’s skin. The air had a chill in it. “If that opens up, we’ll come back here. Until then, I think we need to be proactive. We’ve been
lucky so far, but I don’t think we can stay hidden forever.”

  When she believed the island was inhabited by normal human beings, she thought their chances of evading the Sentinelese were decent. Between her experiences in the world’s jungles, and Rowan’s as an Army Ranger, they weren’t novices when it came to life and death situations. But after seeing that thing with the eyes… Every minute on the island felt a little closer to doom, but at the same time, it felt a little more like something else that made no sense at all—home. As much as she wanted to hit the water and never look back, she felt drawn inland. The war between instinct and logic never ended on North Sentinel.

  “So we recon the beach,” Rowan said. “If it’s clear, we recover the raft and anything else that makes sense. If the storm passes or never builds, we take our chances on the sea.”

  Sashi climbed to her feet, brushing herself off. “And if the storm arrives?”

  “We come back here.” Rowan picked up his discarded clothing, bunched it up and tossed it into the crevice where the tipped-over tree’s roots met the fertile earth. “Hide in the shadows. Use the raft to conceal our bodies. Wait out the storm. No help would come until it passed anyway.”

  Talia waggled a finger at the handgun Rowan had recovered. Opened her hand. He drew it, turned it around, and placed it in her hand. Then she pointed it at Sashi’s head. “But first, you’re going to tell us everything, and if I don’t think you’re telling the truth…” She chambered a round, letting the sound finish her thought.

  28

  Though most of the fire pit was covered by the two slabs of metal, Mahdi could feel heat radiating from below. Bright orange embers glowed, the heat sustained by the limited oxygen available through the two-inch-wide, six-foot-long gap. Wisps of smoke coiled upward before being swept away by the breeze, which was stronger in the valley. Air seemed to flow through the depression, cyclone through the scooped out hollow, and flow upward into the jungle above.

  Something in the fire pit popped, issuing a geyser of black smoke. Mahdi watched it flow into the cave, and then seep back out from the ceiling, flowing up toward the treetops. His eyes lingered on the trees, swaying hard, revealing glimpses of gray sky. Living in London, Mahdi had grown accustomed to gloomy skies, but they rarely looked as dark and foreboding as what he saw overhead. The twisting clouds were energetic. Swirling. Compared to the storm he experienced at sea, this one looked angry.

  Between the warm fire and the large cave, this would be the perfect place to ride out a storm, but the Sentinelese would know that, too, and they would likely return if it began to rain. Or would they? The previous day’s downpour hadn’t stopped them from fishing. Either way, he had no intention of lingering.

  He paused after each step, trying to see deeper into the cave’s recesses, but he never saw more than darkness. Hurry up, he told himself, feeling foolish. The Sentinelese who left could return at any time, and if there was someone in the cave, they already knew he was there. No one had shot him yet, so his odds were favorable.

  “Emmei,” he whispered as loud as he could.

  He flinched and nearly ran when a groan replied. He couldn’t see Emmei, which highlighted the possibility that they were not alone.

  “Emmei, is that you?”

  Another groan, but this one mixed with a muffled, “Yef.”

  Mahdi crept past the fire pit, chased by its heat, and slowed as he approached the broad cave entrance. Emmei’s dark, naked form resolved as Mahdi stepped into the cave’s shadow and his vision adjusted. He saw Emmei’s large fear-filled eyes first, and then his naked body, bound at the ankles and wrists, a gag in his mouth.

  Mahdi pulled the gag down below Emmei’s chin. The man took several deep breaths, but said nothing. Then Mahdi tried tugging off the twine bindings around Emmei’s ankles, but his shaking hands couldn’t loosen them.

  How can I free him? he thought, and then he remembered the automatic switchblade he’d been given. He took the knife out, snapped open the blade and began hacking through the fibrous bindings, which appeared to be woven from shredded plant material, bark, and leaves.

  “Are you okay?” Mahdi asked, trying hard to not cut Emmei’s skin.

  Despite the gag’s removal, Emmei just grunted.

  “Why did you go inland?”

  “Can’t you feel it?” Emmei asked, his voice gravelly and slurred. “In your body. In your veins. Life. It’s everywhere.”

  He sounds drunk, Mahdi thought. Or high.

  Emmei reached out with his bound hands. Clutched onto Mahdi’s wrist hard enough to hurt. “I want to go back. I’ll take you with me.”

  “You won’t be going anywhere if you don’t let me free you,” Mahdi said, glancing back over his shoulder.

  Emmei released him, leaned back, and laughed.

  The cave amplified the laugh and sent it booming out into the jungle. Mahdi cringed, but found himself smiling, too. His memories drifted back to the thick overgrown jungle from which Emmei had been dragged. What was in there that Emmei would risk his life to go back?

  Perhaps I should go with him?

  The knife cut through the bindings. Lost in thought, Mahdi didn’t notice until he sliced through Emmei’s ankle and blood began to flow. Mahdi snapped out of his thoughts and was about to apologize when he realized Emmei hadn’t even felt the blade’s sting.

  Mahdi retracted the bloodstained blade back inside the handle. “We need to go.”

  “To the garden.”

  Mahdi almost disagreed with the man, but then realized deception might be the best course of action. Emmei either didn’t notice or didn’t care that his hands were still bound. The man wasn’t thinking straight. “I know the way. You can follow me.”

  Mahdi stood and reached down to pull Emmei up by his wrist bindings, but he glanced back into the cave and froze. He saw the rear wall through adjusted eyes and forgot all about Emmei. He stepped deeper inside the cave, marveling at the intricacy. Black stone had been carved into a tangle of small sculpted bodies, all of them huddled and reaching out to what looked like an Egyptian obelisk, upon which two vertical words had been scrawled. It was a hellish statue.

  The letters were faded and worn down, clearly ancient, but he thought he might be able to make them out if he got closer.

  He tip-toed through the barren cave, Emmei looking on in silence, perhaps noticing the stone bodies and the obelisk for the first time.

  The Sentinelese haven’t been as isolated as the world believes, Mahdi thought. At some point in history, they were visited by people who had a firm understanding of carving stone, perhaps as early as the Maurya Empire, or as late as the Chola Empire, who also had a strong naval tradition. All he knew for sure was that the Sentinelese hadn’t learned how to carve stone with such skill without outside help.

  He paused. Other than sand, he hadn’t seen any stone on the island. If such a large sample existed in this cave, there should be more. But North Sentinel wasn’t a volcanic island. So where did such a large stone come from?

  Before he could ponder the question further, he saw the text for what it was and gasped.

  Emmei began laughing in response, and this time, Mahdi joined in.

  He couldn’t help himself.

  Mahdi read and spoke the language carved into the obelisk. Next to Arabic, it was the language of his youth. But what was it doing here? Of all the people who could have visited this island, why…and how…

  The two words coalesced in his thoughts and he spoke them aloud, in English, for Emmei’s benefit. “Flaming sword.” He turned around. “Does that mean anything to you?”

  Emmei stared back at him with wide eyes, but something was off.

  He’s not looking at me, Mahdi thought, and then he realized the man wasn’t looking at the obelisk either. He was looking at the massive carving, his eyes darting from one end to the other. The mash of limbs and bodies was disturbing, but compared to a written message preserved through the ages, it was—

  Emmei�
��s lips trembled.

  Mahdi turned around.

  For a moment, he didn’t see it, but then he noticed the statue again.

  It had changed.

  Discerning how was impossible. The tangle of limbs just looked different. Mahdi looked back at Emmei. “You saw what happened. What…”

  The fear in Emmei’s eyes spun Mahdi back around. This time the change was obvious. All thirty-something of the small heads, which had been partly concealed by stretching arms and legs, had craned around. The small faces, eyes closed, had chubby cheeks, tall foreheads, and close-cut hair. They looked at peace. Content little cherubs.

  Mahdi backed away.

  This isn’t a carving.

  It’s children.

  Emmei’s laughter filled the chamber, rolling out into the jungle beyond where it was joined by a rumble of thunder.

  Frantic, Mahdi turn to flee, but he tripped over Emmei and spilled to the ground. He scrambled back up, tugging on Emmei. “Let’s go! Let’s—”

  The children’s eyes opened, all of them, watching Mahdi with feline interest.

  Emmei was a lost cause. The man’s mind was gone. Mahdi knew he would regret the decision to leave the man behind for the rest of his life, but the length of his life was currently up for debate. Better to live with regrets and seek forgiveness, than die with his current list of regrets, which had yet to be forgiven.

  The children began peeling apart from each other. Sticky skin stretched and separated, bodies once a solid thing coming apart, becoming individuals, their eyes fixed on Mahdi. The children were between three and four feet tall, with spindly arms and legs, skinny bodies, and not a shred of clothing. Despite clearly being alive, they still had the appearance of stone.

  “I’m sorry,” he said to Emmei, and scrambled out of the cave. He didn’t pause as he rounded the fire pit, and he didn’t look back until he reached the gentle slope where he could climb out of the valley.