The Pouakai

  “The Lieutenant and I have talked a lot about this over the last two days,” Colin said. “If these are Pouakai, we may be safe, if we follow the Nanumea protocol of travelling slowly and in small groups, and keeping quiet. If they’ve changed behavior though, like the ones that attacked Nanumea recently, they could be very dangerous. That’s why we have all of you with us. Those of us on the science team will split into groups of one or two, with at least one SEAL in each group. We will proceed as slowly and carefully as possible.”

  Hanson pointed at the map. “Squad A will accompany the scientists, split into three groups. We plan on converging on the target location from different directions. Squads B and C will be independent, with C concentrating on the village at the south end of the island, and B approaching the center of the island from the side opposite of squad A.”

  Captain Baker strode into the mess.

  “Captain on deck.” People stood up, making a path for him to the front of the room. Without acknowledging Colin or Lieutenant Hanson, he turned to address the crowd.

  “We are tracking a Russian sub, fifty-five miles to the northeast.” A quiet murmur ran through the room, which the Captain quashed with a glare. “There is also a French sub in the same vicinity. We don’t know if they’re both tracking us, or if they’re tracking each other and happen to be in the neighborhood. We also thought we heard a trace of a Chinese sub on the way down here, but the signal didn’t reappear. That being said, it is possible we’re being tracked. It would be a first if they could find us, but we can’t take anything for granted. It’s also possible that with the amount of communications traffic we’ve generated, someone has leaked our intentions. Those subs may not see us yet, but they’re expecting us to be here.”

  For the first time since entering the room, he turned to Colin and Lieutenant Hanson. “Our plan to drop you on Anuta is unchanged. However, after you are ashore, we will be going deep and listening for approaching targets. If anyone is nearby, you will have to wait until they are gone before you are extracted. You will maintain radio silence, except for assigned contact times.”

  The Captain pivoted and left the mess, and the mood in the room relaxed perceptibly.

  “That is all we have,” Colin said, looking at the clock on the wall. “We’ll surface in ninety minutes. Good luck.”

  Most people stayed where they were, talking quietly with their neighbors. Colin sat down at our table.

  Alan studied the original photos of Anuta, while Steve rested his head on top of his folded arms, snoring quietly. Mina sat still, hands in her lap, and Colin looked at me with a slight shrug as if to say, here we go again. I felt tired, scared, and had an odd, empty feeling in my heart. Nothing seemed to make me happy any more.

  Last night, lying on my cot with my head just inches from a torpedo warhead, I tried to sort through what had happened so far. Almost everything that had happened over the course of this year had been out of my control. What I needed was to make some sort of contribution to this mission, instead of letting events simply happen to me. That’s why I’d volunteered for this trip as soon as Colin and Anna had suggested it, even if I didn’t know it at the time. So far though, I felt more like an observer than a participant in this mission.

  If I wanted to make a difference, what should I do? I guess I’d already made that decision. I was heading into the unknown with an uncertain plan and no clear objectives. I had to go forward with the mission, whatever direction that took. Though lately, it felt like someone had hit the accelerator, and we didn’t have any brakes.

  “You still with us Boonie?” Colin asked. He’d been talking for a few moments, but I’d been lost in thought.

  “Sorry. Still here. You were saying?’

  “Did you want to carry my gun?”

  “You don’t want it?”

  “The Lieutenant showed me how it works, but I still think I’d be more of a danger to all you than to the Pouakai.”

  “Take it with you Colin. You never know if you’ll need it.”

  He hefted the dark .45 automatic and belt holster that he was supposed to wear on Anuta. The SEALs had provided each of our group with a sidearm and ammunition. I was the only one of our group who knew how to shoot a gun, however. I worried about Mina who would probably be knocked back a dozen feet by the recoil, if she even had the strength to hold it steady long enough to take aim .

  “What are we looking for when we get there?” I asked.

  “Whatever we can find. That photo showed Pouakai-like signatures on the island, and another group, likely in flight, south of the island, over the ocean. That’s how it works. We find clues, and go to look. We do this one step at a time, stay flexible, and adapt to changes. If we don’t look, nobody else will.”

  I stared at the large photo still on the wall, our approach marked with red arrows. “This is sounding more like a military mission every day. How is it that it’s being run by a scientist?”

  Colin smiled. “We do what we have to do. The Pouakai have changed since we left Honolulu. We have to change too, or we won’t be able to finish the job we came here for.”

  An hour and ten minutes to go. We woke up Steve, and then I went through the steps on safely using the .45 again.

  2

  At least the Captain didn’t have to worry about spy satellites tagging our location. We piled into the inflatables, and motored toward the island. I realized how small it was as we approached, in the deep violet and orange light of dawn. It only took us a few minutes to completely circle the island. After the other squads were in position, we approached the beach on the east side. No Pouakai flew overhead.

  Unlike Nanumea or Palmyra, there wasn’t a man-made cut through the reef. The surf ran low though, and we bounced over the waves breaking on the coral reef. The kid driving the inflatable had obviously had practice. He timed it so we caught the lip of a rising wave, and surfed over on the breakers. The eastside beach of Anuta lay ahead, palm trees hanging listlessly in the morning calm. The island looked different from Nanumea or Palmyra, with a substantial hill rising at the center.

  “Keep an eye out,” Lieutenant Hanson said above the roar of the surf. “If you see anything, don’t shout, but get our attention and point it out.”

  We all nodded solemnly, and instinctively looked upward. Still no sign of Pouakai.

  The boat grated to a stop on the coarse sand beach, and we all piled out. These guys definitely had their act together; we all landed within thirty seconds of each other, and in another fifteen seconds we’d bailed out of the inflatables. The boats left, on their way back to the sub, to keep them safe from a possible Pouakai attack.

  Colin and I stuck with the Lieutenant, while Alan went left with one SEAL, and Steve and Mina took off to the right with two others. We’d been fitted with earpiece radios, so we could keep in contact with the other groups. The SEALs didn’t want us talking except in an emergency though, so all we heard was an occasional word from the squad leaders.

  Cool morning air flowed gently from the hill above, and the raucous calls of birds echoed from the jungle.

  The plan had us converging on the center of the island from east and west, checking for signs of Pouakai. It was an easy strategy to remember, so what occupied my mind was fear. If we were approaching some sort of nest, or birthing ground, who knows what we’d find. As far as we knew, the only Pouakai signs visible in the Pacific when the photos were taken were on this island. On the other hand, there are always large areas of the ocean covered in cloud that can’t be imaged. The satellite could have missed a lot. It seemed like we were taking a big risk, but Colin, Lieutenant Hanson and I all thought it was our best chance of finding evidence to help solve the mystery of the Pouakai. Because, if so many had died in the last week, yet there were Pouakai still on Anuta, there had to be something special about this place.

  Lieutenant Hanson waved the muzzle of his rifle toward a path that led up the hill. The other two groups from our boat separated, walking a few h
undred feet in opposite directions, looking for other ways off the beach. We walked carefully up the path, the jungle close on both sides.

  “Team C here,” came a voice over the radio. “We’ve got boats down at the village.” The Lieutenant stopped, and dropped to one knee.

  “Identification?” he asked.

  “Unknown. I’ve never seen anything like them. They look primitive, but huge, and crudely made. There’s no way one person could lift them, or even half a dozen people.”

  “How big?”

  “Maybe fifty feet long, fifteen wide. Made from split portions of logs lashed together, and bent into shape. There’s a resin, or something like it, filling the gaps.”

  The Lieutenant looked at Colin. “Sound like anything the locals would have built?”

  “No.”

  Hanson spoke into the microphone again. “Anything inside the boats to identify whose they are?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Any other activity around there?”

  “Negative. It’s quiet here. No villagers. No bodies. Nothing moving.”

  Hanson paused a moment, and looked around the canopy of the jungle. Small birds flitted back and forth, squawking noisily. “Continue your survey of the village. Team B, status?”

  “Enroute, as planned.”

  “Continue.”

  The trail proved difficult to hike up, muddy and overgrown, and tough to get past in places. Either this trail wasn’t being used much, or there wasn’t anyone around to use it. We passed through a small clearing, with a few good-sized boulders, mostly covered in vines. As we were about to re-enter the jungle, I looked back at the clearing, and got a jolt.

  “Lieutenant,” I said, as loud as I dared.

  I pointed to the rear of one of the boulders. A human skeleton lay there, the flesh gone. The Lieutenant walked down to the boulder, and carefully poked at the skeleton with his survival knife. He looked skyward for a moment, before rejoining us. We continued up the trail until we were well into the jungle again.

  “It’s likely been there for at least a couple of years,” the Lieutenant said. “Probably killed by Pouakai.”

  “Polynesians will bury their dead, if possible,” Colin said. “That tells me there isn’t anyone left living on the island.”

  “Then whose boats are down by the village?” I asked.

  The three of us just looked at each other for a moment, and then continued up the trail. It ran only three hundred yards from the beach to the center of the island, but the overgrown trail made it difficult going. Once we’d climbed further up the slope, the land leveled, and the trees thinned out, leaving mostly tall grass and shrubs on either side of us. This was the grassy area where the signatures showed up on the photo. The grass grew so tall in places however, that we couldn’t see more than a few feet ahead of us.

  The Lieutenant stopped. “Squad B, location,” he whispered.

  “Grass field, west side,” came the reply.

  “Squad A two, A three, location.”

  “A two, jungle, below the peak.”

  Hanson pointed off to our left. That was Alan, and his SEAL escort.

  “A three, grass field, northeast slope.”

  He pointed to our right, where Steve, Mina, and their SEALs were. We were still converging on the same spot.

  The Lieutenant stood up again, and moved forward carefully. He pushed aside tall clumps of grass with the muzzle of his rifle, peered ahead, before waving us forward to the next clump. I kept my ears open for the high-pitched whistle of the Pouakai, but the only sounds were the surf behind us, the birds around us, and the wind overhead.

  Then a different sound rumbled through the background of island noise. A deep grunting sounded at irregular intervals from up ahead. We stopped, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Hanson looked at Colin, who shook his head.

  “Sound ahead. Animal-like,” came the voice from Squad B.

  “Copy,” Hanson replied. “Hold your position, we’ll take a look.” He motioned to Colin and me, and we moved forward, one slow step at a time.

  I reached for my .45, pulled it out, and slid the safety off. I tapped Colin on his arm, and showed him the weapon. He shook his head.

  The grunting grew louder as we reached the crest of the hill. The ground was mostly level ahead. To our left rose the gentle slope to the island’s peak, and to our right, the grass rolled down toward the rocks at the north end of Anuta. The tops of the grass in front of us waved in the breeze, well over our heads. We couldn’t see more than a couple of feet forward.

  The Lieutenant looked at Colin, and then at me. He cocked his head toward the sound, with a puzzled look on his face. I pictured a large boar, or maybe some other big animal that had been running loose on the island for three years. What kind of animals did the islanders keep?

  My arms tingled, and I felt jumpy. My heart pounded hard, my breathing ragged. I didn’t want to make a mistake with the .45, so I slid the safety back on, until I thought about what might lie ahead, and slid it off again.

  The Lieutenant pointed the muzzle of his rifle into the tall grass, and gently moved it to one side. A clearing appeared ahead, filled with horrors.

  A group of black monsters stood in a tight cluster in the clearing, huge and humanoid, with the shiny black skin of the Pouakai. They had long legs—longer than looked right—bent at the knees as they stood. Shiny, domed heads with no neck topped a humpbacked torso, with arms lower down the torso than a human’s. An appendage grew on their backs too, like an odd set of wings that looked too small to fly with.

  A loud grunt echoed through the grass, as the entire group whipped their heads around in an instant. Huge iridescent blue eyes glared at us from the front of their domed heads. For an agonizing moment, nothing in the world moved.

  The monsters screamed, the whistle of a Pouakai amplified a thousand times. I jumped back in shock. Time seemed to slow down as one of the creatures leapt toward us. Its long legs extending like a frog’s, it covered the twenty feet in a flash. The wings on its back spread out, helping control its flight through the air.

  The Lieutenant brought his rifle up, and fired two rounds before the creature crashed down on top of him. More inhuman shrieks echoed through the grass, and the creatures leapt in all directions. Then an explosion of rifle fire came from all directions.

  “What the fuck is that?” Someone shouted into their mic.

  “RUN!” I screamed at Colin, who stood still as a statue. I hit him in the shoulder and turned to run, but he stood rooted to the spot.

  I grabbed his arm and pulled him away from the clearing. “MOVE IT!” I yelled. He followed, still sluggish and disoriented. We got about twenty feet away when he looked at me.

  “What the hell—” he started to say. Another monster ran through the grass toward us, screaming. I turned as it crouched to leap, and raised my .45. My fingers were leaden, slow to move, and the creature jumped too fast. Then the gun kicked hard, and I pulled the trigger again and again. The thing had jumped, but at an angle. I’d hit it in the leg. It crashed into the grass next to us, twitching like mad.

  I looked toward the clearing. The first creature that had jumped toward us moved. Then I realized it was the Lieutenant, trying to push the bulk of the creature off of his legs.

  “Colin, go!” I pointed at the Lieutenant, and covered the two of them, aiming my pistol toward the clearing. Colin understood, and ran toward the downed SEAL. He pushed on the body and rolled it off of the Lieutenant’s legs.

  “Come on!” I shouted.

  “Legs broken,” Hanson growled. “Go.”

  “We can’t leave you.”

  “Go! I can’t walk. Get help.”

  I took a deep breath. He was right. We had no way to move him out of the area.

  I screamed “Colin, move!” as another creature looked at us from the clearing, not fifteen feet away. I pulled the trigger again, without even thinking about how I aimed. The bullets hit the ground in front of
the thing, spraying dirt in all directions. The creature leapt fast, going the other way.

  “I’ve got my rifle,” Hanson said. “Get the hell out of here. Regroup at the beach.”

  The creature at Hanson’s feet moved, and both Colin and I instinctively jumped back. Hanson pointed his rifle at the monster’s belly and fired twice. Pale yellow fluid sprayed everywhere, and then it lay still again. Colin ran up to the creature.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Hanson snapped, grimacing in pain.

  “I’ve got to see what it is.”

  “Later. If these things kill you, you won’t be any use to us. Go! Get the fuck away from these things, now.”

  I looked around. There weren’t any of the creatures in the clearing. One carcass lay at the Lieutenant’s feet, the other a few yards away. The second body twitched. Without a moment’s thought, I walked up to it and put two more slugs into its chest. It lay still.

  “Squad A under attack,” the Lieutenant said into his radio. “Large creatures, seven to nine feet tall. Humanoid. Black in color. They can jump a dozen yards in one leap. Shoot on sight.”

  “Colin, move,” I said, breathing heavily.

  Reluctantly, he stood up, and we ran down the hill toward the beach.

  “Squad B has taken casualties,” came a voice in my ear. “Retreating to the beach.”

  I pushed the microphone button on my belt. “The Lieutenant is hurt too. He’s at the clearing, east side. Broken legs.”

  “Copy. We’ll send the medic.”

  “Cancel that order,” I heard Hanson say. “I’m okay for now. Regroup and assess.”

  “Roger.”

  Slipping and stumbling, we ran down the path to the beach. We went a lot faster downhill, and a few minutes later spilled onto the beach where we’d begun the climb. Moments after we rolled onto the beach, the other two teams from our squad appeared, and ran toward us. Alan and his SEAL came in on one side, Steve and Mina with their escorts on the other. I breathed a sigh of relief, and silently said thanks that they were all still in one piece.