The Pouakai

  The Navy crew had already pulled the trap from between the twin hulls of the ship and were moving it slowly toward the narrow channel cut through the west end of the reef. The sun rose quickly, the temperature climbing. I was glad I’d slathered on sunscreen before the day began. With Alan running the boat, we followed the trap as the Navy men herded the unwieldy box into the channel. Their small inflatable boats weren’t designed as tugs, but they did the job.

  The lagoon was a silky smooth blue, and the wakes from our passage were the biggest disturbance in the water.

  “What the hell is that?” I asked, pointing toward the northern island.

  “What do you mean?” Colin said.

  “That structure.”

  “Oh, that’s the dock where we’re going to set up the trap.”

  “A dock? You didn’t say anyone lives here.”

  “They don’t, at least not any more. Palmyra Atoll is a territory of the U.S., but nobody lives here permanently. A lot of the set-up was completed by the Nature Conservancy, and they bought most of the island a couple of decades ago. Since then, they’ve run a research station here. There’s a good-sized airstrip just on the other side of those buildings too. Before the Pouakai showed up, this was a world-class research facility. Once they started attacking though, all the researchers pulled out. Nobody’s been here for at least two years.”

  Alan slowed the boat, and we watched the Navy crew push the trap up to the dock, where they lashed it into place. They waved when they finished before speeding off toward the sub. Within seconds, silence descended on the lagoon.

  “Let’s get to work,” Colin said.

  We pulled up to the dock, just behind the trap, and stepped ashore. My legs told me the dock still rolled like a ship.

  “Submarine, this is survey leader,” Colin said into his radio.

  “Go ahead,” came a scratchy reply.

  “The trap is secure, and the inflatables are heading your way. Any sign of Pouakai?”

  “Nothing on the screen. All clear to fifty miles.”

  “Sounds good. We’ll set up the trap, then make a survey of the island. Let us know if anything shows up.”

  “Roger.”

  I looked at Colin. “Why didn’t you call it the Ohio?”

  “Captain’s rules. We can’t use names on an unsecured radio.”

  “And I thought the Air Force was paranoid.”

  Arming the trap involved climbing a ladder and using a hand crank to open the doors against their powerful springs. Colin and I sweated through that task as the tropical sun beat down on us. Alan, Steve and Mina went inside the trap to turn on the electronics. The solar panels on the top of the trap had kept the batteries charged as we steamed south from Hawaii, so it took only ten minutes to get the equipment working. After Colin and I climbed down, we pulled our daypacks from the duffle bags, and made sure our water bottles were filled.

  “You guys go west,” Colin said to Alan and the assistants. “We’ll get the cameras installed, then go check out the airstrip. If there’s any word from the Ohio about Pouakai, head straight back here. If they say the Pouakai are within ten miles, find shelter wherever you are. You know the drill. Stay still, and stay quiet.”

  “Got it,” Alan said. They took off toward the west end of the atoll.

  “Come on,” Colin said. “Let’s get the cameras up and running.”

  He pulled two waterproof cases from the equipment duffel and opened them to remove the camera gear. We carried it to a weather-beaten building inland from the dock. It was a heavy-equipment shop, with wheels, grease, cables, and barrels all over the interior, as well as an ancient pickup truck and a rusty bulldozer. The front of the building, facing towards the dock, had several large posts holding up the roof, but no wall. It was open-air toward the lagoon. Colin brought out a set of clamps, to attach the camera gear, transmitters, and antennas to the posts.

  “What’s all this for?” I asked.

  “It’s so we can see what’s going on around the trap, not just from the cameras on the trap itself. These will transmit to the Ohio, along with the data from the trap.”

  “Sounds reasonable,” I grunted, as I torqued the bolts on a camera bracket to a rusty steel post.

  The modular equipment snapped together quickly, so we had the four cameras mounted in a few minutes.

  “Time for a walk,” Colin said.

  We took off down a rough sandy road, surrounded by thick vegetation. With no breeze, the humid air hung over us like a steaming wet towel.

  “What are we looking for?” I asked.

  “Any signs of Pouakai, or anything else unusual.”

  Pouakai signs? He might as well have asked me to translate his thesis into Arabic.

  The path led past a small cluster of buildings, with vegetation growing right up to the walls. Two years of neglect in a tropical environment had taken its toll. Beyond the buildings sat a small signpost, pointing toward the airstrip. Another sign, a few hundred yards down the path, read ‘Welcome to Palmyra. Population: 4’.

  “The people who worked here had to have a sense of humor,” Colin said.

  A few minutes later we came to a rough scar cut through the jungle; the airstrip. It didn’t look like any of the smoothly paved runways I’d flown from in the past, as it was made of packed sand and crushed coral. To my right, the runway ended at the lagoon’s edge, and to the left, the uneven surface rolled off into the distance. At the edge of the runway, a dozen feet away, a dark splotch glistened in the sunlight. It was in the shape of a Pouakai, wings spread.

  “Colin, look,” I said, pointing.

  He walked over to it, and nodded.

  “This is what remains after a Pouakai dies,” he said. “They die, dissolve, then as the moisture evaporates, all that’s left is this outline of dried gunk.”

  We both stared at it for a moment before I turned to look east, down the length of the runway. Twenty feet away were two more dark blotches.

  “There’s more.”

  Colin jogged over and knelt down, gently touching the remains. It turned to powder as it sifted through his fingers.

  “How long have these been here?” I asked.

  “Don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “We’ve never run tests on the decay rate. But considering how powdery it is, it couldn’t have been more than a few days.”

  “Why?”

  “If a storm came through, the wind would have blown all this away, or the rain would have washed it into the lagoon.” He picked up some of the remains and let them fall to the ground. The dust drifted several feet in the light breeze.

  I looked up again, and peered along the runway. “Jesus, there’s hundreds out here.”

  Colin stood up next to me, one hand shading his eyes. Then he picked up the radio.

  “Team B, this is survey leader.”

  A crackle of static, then, “Go ahead.”

  “We’ve found the remains of well over a hundred dead Pouakai on the runway.”

  “I was just about to call you. We found the same thing here in a couple of clearings, and at the top of the beaches too. They’re all over the place.”

  Colin held the radio next to his mouth, but didn’t say anything, a glazed look in his eyes.

  “Did you copy?” Alan asked over the radio.

  “Sorry, yes, I did. Head back to the dock. We need to talk.”

  I followed Colin up the road again, wondering just what the hell was going on.

  “Submarine to survey leader,” crackled the radio.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Single target on radar, moving toward the island. Radar signature positively identified as Pouakai.”

  “Shit,” Colin said, and then keyed the radio. “How long to arrival?”

  “Estimate ten minutes.”

  “Fifty miles in ten minutes?”

  “Target is only five miles from the island. It’s a single target, not a large group of Pouakai. That’s as close as we can identify a sin
gle target.”

  “Maintain radio silence,” Colin said. “We’ll find shelter and call you once the Pouakai is away from us.”

  “The Captain has ordered a dive. We’ll call when we surface again.”

  “I understand,” replied Colin.

  “We heard that,” came Alan’s voice over the radio. “There’s an old concrete bunker next to us. We’ll hide out there until it’s clear.”

  “Sounds good,” Colin said. “Keep your radio as low as possible. Don’t make any noise.”

  “Will do.”

  My heart thumped as Colin turned toward me.

  “Run,” he said.

  We dashed up the road, past the overgrown buildings, and within a couple of minutes made it back to the trap. Colin ran to the dock where our duffle bags lay, and grabbed another waterproof case. He carried it to the equipment shop where we’d set up the cameras. We slid under the pickup truck, and dropped into a grease pit. Standing up, we peered over the edge, still under the chassis of the truck. There wasn’t a wall on the side of the building facing the dock, so we had a clear view of the lagoon. The bottom of the pit was ankle deep in muck and water, but I didn’t care. I felt protected there, as I tried to catch my breath.

  Colin opened the case and pulled out an electronic control box that looked like a glorified RC airplane transmitter.

  “Is that for the trap?” I asked between heavy breaths.

  He nodded. “The main controller is onboard the Ohio, but this is a backup. We can use it to catch this straggler if it shows up here.”

  “So now what?” I asked.

  “We wait.”

  “Great. Love being a sitting target.”

  “We’re okay. We’ve been around these things before. Stay quiet, and remember what we did on Nanumea. We’ll be fine.” He had that look of excitement in his eyes again, so I took a deep breath, and watched the sky for movement. I jerked as I saw some motion out of the corner of my eye, but it turned out to be a sea bird circling the lagoon. We waited for several minutes in silence.

  “Maybe it won’t come,” I whispered.

  “Don’t know,” Colin whispered back. “They never seem to fly in a predictable pattern.”

  The lagoon shimmered as the late morning trade winds picked up. Palm trees swayed gently, and our Pouakai trap squeaked as its raft slowly rubbed against the dock. Colin and I both scanned the lagoon, looking for movement.

  Then, in the distance over the lagoon, a black triangle swooped and dipped above the water.

  “That’s odd,” Colin whispered.

  “What?”

  “I’ve never seen one fly like that.”

  Colin handed me his binoculars. The Pouakai dipped toward the water, thrashed upward, and fell downward again.

  “What should we do?”

  “This,” he said, and flipped a switch on the controller. A deep thrumming sound echoed from the trap, like an amplified bass guitar. I kept an eye on the Pouakai.

  “It’s turning,” I said. The creature veered from its westerly course and toward us on the north shore of the lagoon. I had to remind myself that I’d been through this before on Nanumea. As long as I remained quiet, it shouldn’t hurt me. Then again, I’d never been around a machine trying to attract one either.

  I handed the binoculars back to Colin, and watched the black speck grow larger, flopping awkwardly toward us.

  “Come on, come on,” Colin whispered. He put one hand on the controller, ready to slam the doors shut.

  The Pouakai dipped closer, disappearing from view behind the trap for a moment. Then it reappeared, much nearer. It flew toward the trap, but instead of going into the open door, it bounced off the roof of the container, and rolled in a heap onto the sandy ground next to the dock.

  “Son of a bitch,” Colin said.

  The creature flopped wildly on the ground, but couldn’t get itself airborne again. The thrashing black animal moved closer to our hiding spot under the pickup truck.

  “Oh no.”

  “Shit!”

  The Pouakai kept bouncing towards us. In a few seconds it had rolled under the front awning of the shop, a dozen feet away from us. We backed up to the far side of the pit, but it was still too close.

  Slam. The Pouakai smashed its six-foot long spike into the side of the pickup truck. Colin and I scrambled out of the pit, trying not to make any noise, but our grunts were as loud as cannon shots. The pickup shook several times as the creature banged against it. A splash sounded, as the trap controller fell into the pit, and sank into the muck at the bottom. A huge boom came from the trap as the doors slammed shut.

  “Look out!” Colin whispered frantically. The Pouakai’s wings were wrapping over the bed of the truck, and it looked like the creature was trying to pull itself upward. We ran to the back of the shop, and out an open doorway. We weren’t supposed to be running near a Pouakai, but this felt different from what we’d encountered on Nanumea. Something was wrong with this one.

  Colin motioned for me to follow him, and we tiptoed around the side of the shop. We heard the creature thrashing on the ground, so I risked a peek around the corner of the wall. The Pouakai had flopped back out onto the sand in front of the shop, convulsing like mad. Little sprays of sand flew up every time it tried to move, but it just couldn’t get itself upright. Without feet to stand on, they have to use their wings to push themselves up enough to begin flying. This one couldn’t do it though.

  Colin brushed past me as he raced toward the Pouakai, a thick metal rod in his hand.

  “No!” I whispered as loud as I could, but he was already in motion. With one swift move he brought the pointed end of the rod over his head and down through the center of the Pouakai’s belly. It let out a piercing whistle, and flapped like mad. The thing’s spike swung savagely back and forth, but Colin had run up from behind, so it didn’t get him. The Pouakai was impaled into the ground with the rod. Colin fell backwards and scrambled, crab-like, away from the monster.

  The steel rod wavered as the thing thrashed.

  “Pin it down,” Colin shouted out loud.

  I ran into the shop, and found several five-gallon buckets of paint, still sealed shut. I heaved two of them out to where the Pouakai lay flopping in the sand. Colin grabbed one.

  “Try and get them on top of the wings,” he panted.

  He approached from one side, and I came in from the other. Colin tried to set his down first, but the Pouakai batted it away, out of his hands. He got the bucket back, and looked at me.

  “Two on one wing first,” I said. He nodded and circled around to where I stood. Together, we cautiously approached the Pouakai.

  “One, two, three!” I whispered, and then we hefted the buckets upward, letting them fall on one of the wings. One landed upright, and the other tipped over, but they both stayed where they landed, pinning the wing down.

  “Two more buckets,” Colin said.

  I grabbed them, and we repeated the process on the other wing. Just to make sure it wouldn’t move, we put two additional buckets on each wing. Once we had a couple hundred pounds on each side of the creature, as well as the steel spike through its middle, we backed up a dozen feet, and sat down on the sand.

  “Son of a bitch,” Colin said, still out of breath.

  “Yeah, you son of a bitch,” I snapped at him. “What the hell were you thinking, attacking a Pouakai?”

  He heaved a big sigh, and lay back on the sand, propped up on his elbows.

  “Something is wrong with that one. It isn’t acting normally, and I couldn’t trust it to behave like the ones on Nanumea. It didn’t go into the trap, which I didn’t expect. We didn’t have good shelter, and it wasn’t contained. Our only options were to kill it, or restrain it.”

  “So your idea of restraint was to go Rambo on me and stab it?”

  A big grin spread across his face. “It was the logical thing to do.”

  I let out another breath, and looked at the creature. Its thrashing had subsi
ded, and it only twitched a little.

  After we caught our breath, Colin pulled out the radio.

  “Survey leader to submarine.”

  No answer.

  “They’re probably still submerged,” I said.

  “Team B, you on?”

  “We’re here,” the radio crackled. “How are you two?”

  “Alive, with a prize. I need you here right away, but with the sub underwater, we won’t know if other Pouakai are around. Be very careful.”

  “Will do,” Alan answered.

  Colin stood up, and jogged to the pile of duffle bags still lying next to the dock. He pulled out yet another waterproof case, and brought it back to where I sat. It held a mass of stainless surgical instruments, from tiny scalpels to a vicious-looking bone saw.

  He knelt down next to the Pouakai, making sure to stay clear of the still-twitching spike. With the scalpel, he sliced open the back of the creature. It didn’t make any noises, but seemed to tense up for a moment. A tremor ran through its body and out to the wings, then it lay still. Colin pulled the scalpel back a moment and looked at the incision.

  “Damn,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I didn’t want it to die that fast. Others have taken a lot more damage before they kicked the bucket.”

  “It’s dead already?”

  “Yes. There’s a series of narrow tubes right here in the back,” he said as he pointed them out. “See these? They act like a primitive heart, pulsating to circulate fluid around their body. If they’re not pumping, it’s dead.”

  “Why did you want it still alive?”

  “So Alan could watch as I took it apart. If they don’t get here soon, it will start dissolving before he can see it.” He looked around for a moment. “Grab one of those cameras off the post and start filming what I’m doing.”

  I ran to the video cameras we’d set up less than an hour earlier, and detached one from its post.

  “Got it,” I said, running back to Colin.

  “Okay. Push that red button, and aim it at what I’m doing.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He leaned forward and started cutting, delicately, moving bits of its innards aside, probing deeper into its body. I hovered over him, aiming the camera at what he was doing. Thin yellowish fluid dripped out of the opening, and seeped into the sandy ground.