A giggle burped from Talia, expressing just a hint of the delight building in her chest. The sound staggered her to a stop. A flicker of logic and memory flared.
A single word came to mind: inhibitions.
The word was like a klaxon, warning of danger, waking her from the spell cast over her by the island’s magic. What had started as a strange idea—that an island could affect a person’s inhibitions—coalesced into certainty. She spun around, looking at the luscious plants and flowers. Aside from the trees, none of the plants looked familiar.
She considered the trees themselves, but she had seen no hint of pollen in the air. They had drunk from the root, but had begun losing their inhibitions before setting foot on the island.
She breathed deeply again and got lost for a moment. Jungle decay mixed with unseen fruits, flowering perfumes, and storm-born ozone infused her with a sense of peace—of lie-down-and-sleep. She wanted to give in to it, to be absorbed by the island itself, and become part of this world forever.
Then she detected something else.
Something that had always been there, on the island, and on the boat.
It’s the smoke, she thought. They’re burning something. Altering our perceptions of reality, intoxicating us with mind altering agents. In a jungle like this, there were probably dozens of plants that could confuse reality. It explained the lack of inhibitions and the inhuman things they had seen. Shared hallucinations weren’t uncommon among drug users exposed to the same stimuli. And the Sentinelese would know that. Would have perfected the art. A man-like monster with six eyes could be a man wearing a mask. Back on the beach, they could have been simply mutilating a dead body they believed had returned from the dead.
Shit, she thought, and then again, shit, shit, shit.
Every decision they had made since stepping on the island was suspect. Everything they’d witnessed might not be real. Including this jungle. She and Rowan had been wrong. Maybe the Sentinelese were not sending out the smoke across the island for entertainment. Maybe it was psychochemical warfare. Talia searched the foliage and flowers for signs that she might not be seeing reality. For all she knew, she was tripping hard, but if it was an illusion caused by hallucinogens, she couldn’t tell.
Treat it like it’s real, she told herself, but don’t fall in love with the place. If she could see the beauty and allure for what it was—the deadly call of a siren—then she might not forget the island’s dangers. The Sentinelese might not be unkillable monsters, but treating them as such wouldn’t hurt.
Guilt swirled in her gut. She was thinking about an untouched tribe, the kind that she had fought to defend.
But the Sentinelese weren’t like other tribes. When an Amazonian people killed an invader, it was after much debate, and almost always after an attempted contact, or several warnings. Usually it was in self-defense. And if the trespassers fled, so be it. Conflict was avoided at all costs.
Here, invaders were hunted. Their minds altered. Death was a way of life.
Talia clenched her eyes shut. Even her fears were growing wild and out of control. She couldn’t trust her thoughts.
Find Rowan, and get off the island. Nothing else matters.
“Sashi,” she said, turning around to explain her revelations.
But Sashi was no longer there.
“Sashi?”
A swishing sound pulled her around again. Sashi slipped away through a curtain of ferns, thirty feet away, and disappeared.
Talia nearly shouted for her, but held back. Evading an enemy didn’t work if you were shouting.
She charged ahead, arms raised, cutting through the ferns. Sashi had left a clear trail. All she needed to do was move faster.
The ferns parted into a less dense patch of jungle.
Ahead, there was sunlight.
And Sashi.
And the man with six eyes.
34
Rowan opened his eyes, surprised to still be alive. Then he sat up, felt the hot lava pain in his chest, and reconsidered whether Mahdi sparing his life had been a gift or not. The sweet nothing of oblivion might have been better than the hellish island full of monstrous people, and the three inch slice over his sternum.
When Mahdi had obeyed Winston and snapped open the spring-loaded switchblade, Rowan was worried the man might actually kill him. When he said ‘Allah, forgive me,’ in Arabic, Rowan was positive. But it had been an elaborate and painful ruse that Rowan wasn’t aware of until Mahdi thrust the blade into his chest…or pretended to. He had retracted the blade just as he shoved. Rowan didn’t need to act hurt; Mahdi had cut open his chest, and shoved the knife handle against it. It wasn’t as bad as being stabbed, but it hurt. A lot.
But Rowan understood. The cut, and the amount of blood flowing from it, had to look convincing, as did his death. He’d fallen, held his breath and kept his eyes open and frozen in shock. He’d seen dead men before. Those who died with their eyes open, their dead gaze unflinching, were nearly impossible to look at.
Even Winston couldn’t manage it for more than a second, and the blood soaking Rowan’s chest had been convincing enough.
Rowan listened to the two men running away. He was about to stand, and then he heard the Sentinelese rushing toward him. He stayed where he’d fallen, let the air out of his lungs, and stared at the sky. The rain-pelted canopy shifted in the wind, redirecting a stream of water. It fell fifty feet, landing atop Rowan’s forehead. He wanted to move. Not blinking would be nearly impossible. But the Sentinelese arrived before he could turn his head.
Movement in his periphery tugged at his mind. It took a massive amount of concentration to not look, and show no emotion, and ignore the damn water drilling into his forehead and spritzing his eyes.
He heard the Sentinelese all around him. Most of them continued on, pursuing the two fleeing men. But several stopped to inspect his body. He saw them standing around him, but didn’t look at anyone. He counted three men, two women, and an unknown number of the strange children.
One of the children gripped his shin and gave it a squeeze. The small hand felt far too strong. Rowan was worried the bone would snap, but he remained motionless. The child released him and then crawled up over his body.
Rain water blurred his vision of the canopy overhead.
Blink, his eyes screamed, but he remained rigid, his lungs starting to burn.
The child, a girl, he thought, crawled up over his stomach and hovered over his chest. Fingers tickled his skin, tracing lines back and forth. He could feel goosebumps rising on his legs.
Dead men don’t get goosebumps, he thought. If the Sentinelese notice…
But the pain erased the goosebumps. The small fingers touched the wound on his chest. Pressed down. The pain was exquisite, pulsing fresh, warm blood over his body.
And still, he didn’t move. Didn’t blink. The tears in his eyes were concealed by the water beating against his forehead.
The child spoke and lifted her hand. Then she hopped away and continued in the direction Winston and Mahdi had fled. He heard several more children scurry after her.
Rowan didn’t think the children were in charge, but the girl’s assessment was trusted. After a few moments, the adults stepped over him and hurried into the woods.
Stay dead, he thought. The Sentinelese are primitive, not stupid.
After another minute, two warriors stepped out from behind the tree and followed after the others.
He waited another thirty seconds and then took a very slow breath. Fighting his body’s urge to gasp, he breathed in another shallow breath.
Then he blinked, squeezing the water from his eyes.
When no attack came, he shifted his eyes to the sides. As far as he could see, he was alone. He sat up, clenching his jaw against the pain.
A flash of color drew his gaze down to the wound in his chest. An orange flower was stuck to him. He gripped the bottom, pulled, and nearly screamed. The child hadn’t just probed his wound, she had inserted a flower s
tem into it.
Teeth grinding, he tugged the two inch stem out of his chest.
The large flower petals were elegant. The scent delicate and fruity. He was about to toss the flower aside when he noticed the flow of blood from the wound had stopped.
That’s not possible, he thought. The wound was deep, and long. It wasn’t fatal, but it should have required stitches. He had planned to cauterize the wound like a bona fide action hero. He stepped into the stream of water, letting it strike his chest. The wound stung, but no more blood flowed.
The wound wasn’t healed. Far from it. But the blood had coagulated, forming a goopy scab.
He looked at the flower again. The tribe had to know of its healing properties.
They knew I was alive.
He couldn’t think of a reason the Sentinelese would spare him. It seemed even more unlikely that they would also help heal him.
Why? he asked himself, and then he decided waiting around to find out was the wrong choice.
Cleaned of blood, but drenched in water and pain, Rowan drew his last remaining weapon—a knife—and headed inland. He wasn’t sure he would be able to find Talia and Sashi, but he had to try.
Each step brought fresh waves of pain, but the further inland he walked, the less he noticed. His body didn’t hurt any less, but his mind became preoccupied. A brew of flower scents, warm smoke, and electric storm filled the air. Each breath made him feel a little more alive.
Distant bird songs sifted through the trees whenever the rumbling thunder subsided. The storm’s intensity was increasing, but it had yet to become dangerous. The trees protected him from the wind, rain, and lightning, while at the same time moving the jungle in a way that made it look alive.
He found himself wandering, eyes lifted toward the trees, and the occasional break that let him see the layers of twisting, dark clouds. Oblivious to the path ahead, he tripped over a root and careened forward. His fall was stopped by a tree, the side of his face mashing into the unmoving trunk. The knife fell from his hand.
Revived by the momentary adrenaline rush, Rowan shook his head and realized he’d been an easy target, distracted by the strange surroundings. I’m tired, he thought. But resting would be a mistake. If he fell asleep, which he could do in nearly any environment, he might not wake up. The Sentinelese had spared him once. He didn’t want to test their mercy twice.
He bent down to recover the knife, and when he stood again, his vision tunneled. The tree held him upright until his vision returned.
Tired and hungry, he thought.
A scream snapped him back to full awareness.
That was Sashi.
He stepped away from the tree and turned toward the scream. A wall of thick jungle growth, not cleared by the Sentinelese, greeted him. When the scream repeated, he charged ahead. Branches lashed his arms. Leaves slapped his face. The ground, wet with water and coated with a layer of decay missing from the outside jungle, grew slick.
He ran, unable to see more than a few feet, until the ground fell out from under him. He toppled into a stream. The fall was cushioned by the three-foot-deep water, but he struck the bottom. Muck wrapped around him, tried to hold him down, but couldn’t maintain its grip as he thrashed. When he resurfaced, he sheathed the knife again. It wouldn’t do him any good if he lost it—or fell on it.
The grass lining the stream’s edge was slick with water so he looped it around his hand, gripped it tight and pulled himself up.
His breath became ragged, each lungful desperate. But he pushed on, inhaling as much air as he could. And then, with a final slap from an elephant-ear-sized leaf, he stumbled out of the overgrowth and into a less dense portion of the jungle.
He saw Talia, twenty-five feet away, blowgun in hand. Between them was the monstrous man. He was taller now, despite standing with a hunch. More sinewy. His wounds, aside from the peeled open face, were healed. The bumps in his spine had grown out, jutting six inches from the back, the skin so tight it looked ready to tear.
What the fuck is that thing?
The eyes in the back of its head turned toward him, squinting with predatory interest.
Then a fourth set of eyes opened on its shoulder blades, watching him.
The eyes felt familiar. Tickled his memory. But he was too terrified to contemplate what he was seeing.
Talia puffed her cheeks and a dart flew from the blowgun. It struck the creature, right next to the two darts already embedded in its side. Rowan had felt the effects of just one dart. It seemed impossible that a man could resist the deadly toxin, but the thing was no longer a man, and maybe never was.
Rowan was about to draw his knife when Talia spotted him, reached behind her back and drew his pistol. Rather than firing it, she tossed it toward him. He reached up to catch the gun, but it hit his hand hard and bounced onto the muddy forest floor. He recovered the soiled gun, flicked the mud off and raised the barrel toward the creature just as Sashi screamed a third time.
Where is she? he thought, and then he saw for himself, as the monster lifted Sashi up by the throat, extended a finger and stabbed it into her chest.
35
“Slow down. Slow down.” Winston was out of breath, mouth wide, gulping air. The man’s physical abilities were surprising, given his girth, but there was a limit. Mahdi was winded, too, but he could have carried on. Still wanted to. But he had little doubt that Winston could and would shoot him at the first sign of betrayal. Mahdi still carried the rifle, but Winston would be the quicker draw. Survival meant maintaining his deal with the Devil. For now.
“Your clothes are weighing you down,” Mahdi said. Winston was the only member of the expedition not to shed his clothing. The man was cold, calculating, and ruthless, but he was also ashamed of his weight.
Winston looked down at his saturated shirt, then directed a glower toward Mahdi.
He’d rather die than expose himself. Mahdi pitied the man for a moment, but all the fat and stretchmarks in the world couldn’t excuse Winston’s actions. The man was just as much a monster as the Sentinelese. They deserved each other.
Winston leaned against a tree, gun in hand, hanging by his hip. His eyes were closed. A stream of water trickled from above, pelting his head.
Mahdi slid Rowan’s rifle from his shoulder. He didn’t know if Rowan was alive, but he did know he hadn’t killed the man. It was a gamble, cutting Rowan’s chest, hoping he would play along. But he couldn’t kill him. Rowan was a good man. A protector, despite whatever past haunted him. And Mahdi would forfeit his own life before letting any more good men die.
Winston was not a good man.
Mahdi flicked the FN SCAR’s safety switch off with a subtle click.
Winston didn’t flinch.
Maybe I could shoot him.
He imagined the scene. The bullets punching into Winston’s thick flesh. The blood. The screaming. The returned fire. The noise. Even if Mahdi survived, the Sentinelese would quickly find him.
Then again, who was to say they weren’t about to leap from the trees and kill them both. They had done their best to evade the tribe, but there was no way to know if they’d been successful.
“If you kill me,” Winston said, eyes still closed. “You’ll die, too.”
Mahdi pointed the rifle barrel toward the ground. “I wasn’t—”
“You were thinking about it,” he said with unwavering confidence. Reached up, tapped his ear. “The sound of a safety switch is often the last thing men in my line of work hear. So I listen for it.”
Winston opened his eyes. Raised his pistol. “Now you…you’re expendable. Just not yet.” He stepped closer to Mahdi, reached a hand out and waggled his fingers.
Mahdi hesitated for just a moment. He didn’t want Winston to have the rifle, but he could take it by force, and dying over it would serve no purpose. He frowned and handed the weapon over.
“Buck up, Mahd-man. Not everyone can be brave.” Winston slung the rifle over his shoulder. “Of course, you’re kind
of a career chickenshit. Always running away. Hiding. Compromising your morals to survive. I can respect that, at least. It’s the one thing we have in common. I used to be a ‘good’ man, too. Trying to do right by people. A real bleeding heart.”
Winston pushed his chin out, motioning for Mahdi to start moving again. They struck out through the tangled jungle once more. The jungle grew thicker, greenery squeezing them in all around. The Sentinelese could be ten feet away and they’d never know.
Mahdi checked over his shoulder. Winston grinned at him. Beyond the big man was endless, wet green, spattered with colorful flowers. There were no signs of pursuit, but he had little doubt the tribe was back there, likely closing in. He turned forward and looked up without angling his head. The storm raged. Lightning flashed, strobing through the cracks in the canopy. Thunder shook the world. He watched the slices of sky until he saw it: a streak of yellow sunlight, beaming down toward the island.
Leading the way, Mahdi turned slightly inland when a tree blocked his path, and again while maneuvering through a field of tall ferns, and again, when climbing a hill. He adjusted their course until the streak of sun lay dead ahead, like magnetic north on a compass.
He didn’t know why the sunlight called to him, but he couldn’t resist it. Just seeing it gave him hope that his life wouldn’t end on this island. But he also knew such a hope was foolish. Nearly everyone on the island wanted him dead. Even if he survived the island, there were people who would follow him to the ends of the Earth to exact their revenge, and silence what he knew forever. Death had been chasing him for years, and it seemed closer than ever.
But not in that light.
So he pressed on, walking in silence, until voices not belonging to him or Winston filled the air.
He stopped and listened. The voices were high pitched and relaxed. Women and children, he thought, but not like the children crawling along the jungle floor. These sounded younger. A cry cut through the air, calmed a moment later by a soothing voice.
Forbidden Island Page 23