The Pouakai

  “Oh my god, oh my god,” Mina panted, as she dashed up to us. She ran right into me, nearly knocking me down.

  “We heard the shooting,” Alan said, puffing hard. “What was it?”

  “I have no idea,” I replied. “You didn’t see the things?”

  He shook his head.

  “We saw it,” Steve said, out of breath. “We saw one go by, running. So fast. So awful…”

  “The Lieutenant,” one of the SEALs asked. “Where is he, and how’s he doing?”

  “He’s up the hill, where we found those things. One jumped on him, and broke his leg before he killed it. He told us to go, said he’d use his rifle if necessary.”

  Several people were talking at once on the radio, so I pulled out my earpiece to avoid the chatter and concentrate on the people in front of me.

  “Colin,” Alan asked, “could you see what it was?”

  “Not it. They. There were a lot of them.”

  “Pouakai?”

  “No, but I think they’re related. Same skin, same blood.”

  “What?”

  “I got a quick look at the one the Lieutenant shot. Same fluid in the body, and it looked like the same general type of internal organ design.”

  One of the SEALs spoke up. “I don’t care what they are. They tried to kill us, and they got some of Squad B.”

  The other SEALs had taken positions around our group, aiming their rifles across the wide beach, toward the tree line.

  “Are we safe here?” Mina asked, crying. “Are they going to get us?”

  “I don’t know,” the SEAL said. “We’re trying to figure out where everyone is, and then we’ll regroup.”

  The SEAL that had been talking on the radio walked up to us. “You,” he said, pointing at me. “How many of those things were there?”

  “At least a dozen, probably more. I didn’t get a good look before they jumped.”

  He paused, listening to the radio. I put my earpiece back in.

  “…three lost. On the west beach now.”

  “Copy,” said the SEAL next to me. “Team C, report.”

  “Secure. No activity in the village.”

  “Good. Standby.” He pulled out a copy of the photograph of the island. “The beach is continuous on both sides of the island down to the village. Team B, move south to join team C. We will do the same on this side. Keep an eye out for the creatures.”

  He looked at all of us. “Let’s move.”

  We walked along the beach toward the village at the south end of the island. Every little crack or pop from the jungle made us jump. The SEALs kept their rifles ready, pointed into the trees. We walked quietly, terrified of what stalked the island, nearby but out of view. They weren’t Pouakai, but there was a connection; there had to be. My stomach churned from the fear that those things were here, somewhere nearby. My hands shook too. I tried to get them to stop, but they wouldn’t obey. They had a mind of their own. Finally, I shoved them into my pockets, just to have a place to put them.

  We were stuck on this tiny island until tonight, with an unknown number of those creatures on it.

  It only took five minutes to get to the village, but it seemed like an eternity.

  3

  The south end of the island had a series of dilapidated huts strung along the beach. We could see right away that nobody had lived here for years. The two huge boats the SEALs had mentioned sat fifty feet apart on the beach, listing to one side, creating an overhang between the outer hull and the sand. Their bows pointed up the gently-sloping beach, the aft ends still touched the water. I’d never seen anything like them. The logs were roughly hewn in half, the cut face on the inside of the boat, lashed together with vines. They’d been bent with a lot of force, bringing them together at the bow and stern. Between the logs was a hard, whitish resin, which felt like epoxy. The vines holding the things together were soft and green. The boats had been recently built.

  The SEALs formed a perimeter around three of the largest huts, protecting us from whatever roamed the island. Colin and the rest of our group stood with me on the beach in front of the huts.

  “Ever see boats like that?” Colin asked Steve.

  “Nope,” Steve replied. Our resident expert on Polynesia, he’d been an anthropology major before coming over to Colin’s department. “Never seen anything like that in Polynesia, Micronesia, Melanesia, or anywhere else, for that matter.” He ran his fingers through his bushy red beard, as he studied the boats.

  “Do you think those creatures we saw built them?” I asked.

  “I’d say that is our best bet for now,” Colin said.

  I sat down in the sand, in the shade of an overhanging palm tree, and opened a water bottle. The rest of the team followed suit. I was still shaky, but it felt safer here, with the SEALs between us and the jungle. Mina pulled a big camera out of her backpack, and started pushing buttons on its control panel.

  “Where could these things come from?” I asked Colin. “What the hell are they?”

  “I don’t know Boonie, I just don’t know. I was expecting Pouakai, not these monsters.”

  “Are they related?”

  “Just a guess, but I’d say yes. They have the same skin, and the brief look I got at the internals seemed to match what we saw inside the Pouakai, but the relation between the two? I have no idea.”

  Mina leaned over, and offered her camera to Colin. The display screen showed a perfectly framed image of one of the creatures, bounding past the camera, not a dozen feet away.

  “Holy shit,” Colin said. “Mina, how did you get this?”

  “I took picture. I thought you would want one.”

  The four men in our group stared at tiny Mina. I remembered my scream of terror, trying to get Colin to move, tangible fear of the creatures present in my gut. Yet Mina had had enough cool composure that, even with these unknown monsters running past her, she grabbed her camera, framed them, and took a photo.

  “There are more,” she said.

  Colin scrolled through the photos. Mina had put the camera into rapid shutter mode, so she caught the monster bounding toward, and then past, her group.

  “Incredible,” Colin said, quietly. “Look at that leg motion, that extension. They must have one hell of a set of muscles there.”

  “Sir,” one of the SEALs said, walking up to Colin. “We have established a perimeter defense. Do you have instructions for us?”

  “You are…?”

  “Petty Officer Gunderson, sir”

  “Any word from the Lieutenant?”

  “He pinged us over the radio, meaning he is okay, but doesn’t want to talk.”

  “So you’re in charge here?”

  “For now, sir, until the Lieutenant gets back.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  The young SEAL paused. He had closely cropped blonde hair, and pale blue eyes. He looked about sixteen, but had to be at least twenty. Like all the SEALs, he was in far better shape than I ever had been, or would be.

  “We should probably wait here until nightfall,” Gunderson said. “Then we’ll call the Ohio, and arrange for our pickup.”

  “What about the Lieutenant?”

  “We’ll send out a rescue team soon, once we are sure you’ll be secure here. It should only take…”

  A brief whistle rose, then a loud thunk. Gunderson’s chest exploded in a spray of red. Mina screamed. A thick length of bamboo, its tip sharpened into a spear, protruded from Gunderson’s chest, and he collapsed to the ground in a heap.

  “Move! Move! Move! Get to cover!” the SEALs shouted from their position on the other side of the huts. More bamboo spears filled the air, several landing in the sand around us.

  “Under the boats!” I shouted. The overhang from the listing boats provided a little shelter, but not much. A blast of rifle fire sounded; the SEALs on the perimeter fired into the jungle.

  Thunk. Thunk. More spears filled the air, landing in the sand around us. Someone was throwing t
hem at us from the hillside above the village, their position well hidden in the jungle.

  Another whistle and thunk, and Steve yelled, “Son of a bitch!” A spear had bounced off his ankle. “Oh shit, oh shit,” he grunted, as he rolled in closer to us.

  “Under here.” Colin pulled Steve further under the overhanging boat.

  I helped pull Steve in closer. Right in front of me, blood poured from the wound in his leg. Mina, down by my feet, handed me a T-shirt from her backpack. I wrapped it around the wound, and held it to try and stop the bleeding. The spear had glanced off of Steve’s leg, and lay in the sand next to us.

  Thunk. Another spear landed in the sand, just feet away. Steve moaned, and tried to roll over.

  “Don’t move,” Colin said sharply.

  “Science team, are you still with us?” came a voice in my earpiece.

  I pushed the microphone button on my belt. “We’re here, under the big boats.”

  “Roger. Squad A, fall back, and cover the science team.”

  “We’ve got one injured,” I said, “and Gunderson is gone.”

  “Understood. Lee, stay with squad A, and take care of the injured.”

  “Copy,” said a new voice.

  The original voice continued. “Squads B and C, line abreast, stay low. We’ll move up the hill. It looked like the spears came from about thirty yards into the jungle. Squads ready?”

  A quick reply came from several SEALs, before a silence fell. Four of the SEALs moved rapidly toward the boats. They crouched in with us under the overhang. One of them peeked out, ducking back as another spear went thunk into the sand near us.

  “This isn’t protected enough,” he said.

  “What about there?” I pointed to a big rock, a short distance away. It sat ten feet from the edge of the water, tall and wide, with a vertical side facing the ocean. We could all fit behind it. The rock would provide better protection from incoming spears, but how would we get over there without being hit?

  The SEAL next to me looked where I pointed, and nodded. “Chang, you in the jungle yet?” he radioed.

  “Negative.”

  “We’re moving the science team to a safer position. I’ll lay down cover fire into the jungle as we make a run for it, so stay low for now. I’ll radio when we’re in position.”

  “Roger.”

  He whispered something to the other SEALs, Alan and Colin. Then he turned to Mina and me.

  “When I say ‘go’, make a run for the rock. We’ll fire into the jungle, and hopefully make those creatures duck long enough for us to get over there.”

  “What about Steve?” I asked.

  “I’ll carry him.”

  The SEAL moved up next to Steve. “Ready?” Steve just moaned.

  With a nod to the other soldiers, he stepped out just far enough to get his muscular arms under Steve. At the same time the three other SEALs moved out from under the boat, and fired their rifles into the jungle.

  “Go!”

  I dashed across the sand, a furious volley of rifle fire echoing across the beach. Mina ran ahead of me, dodging around Gunderson’s body. In seconds we made it to the shelter of the rock. The SEAL carrying Steve moved as fast as I did, even with the load in his arms. Steve screamed as his legs bounced up and down. Colin dove behind the rock next, until finally Alan fell down in the sand with us, puffing hard. The three SEALs firing the rifles were moving sideways, still shooting, until they were behind the rock, all safe. A thick cloud of smoke rolled past us, the sharp smell of gunpowder in the air.

  “We’re clear,” the leader radioed.

  “Roger. Keep an eye out for these things, especially from the sides if they circle around us.”

  “Will do.”

  An occasional weak wave washed up within a few feet of us, but we didn’t get wet. The bulk of the rock lay between us and the jungle.

  The SEAL carrying Steve set him down in the damp sand; Steve had passed out. He dropped a backpack to the sand. Inside was a mass of medical gear.

  “Petty Officer Brayden Lee,” he said, offering me his hand.

  “Mark Boone. Everyone calls me Boonie,” I said, returning the handshake. “You’re the medic?”

  Lee nodded, and got to work on Steve’s wound. Several rifle shots sounded through the nearby jungle, followed by two distant shots echoing over the island.

  “The Lieutenant?” I asked. Lee nodded, and continued cleaning Steve’s leg. I hoped Lieutenant Hanson was okay. The radio remained silent.

  There were still twelve hours until we could contact the Ohio again. Twelve hours on this tiny rock, surrounded by God-knows-what. The other three SEALs positioned themselves so they could see both up and down the beach. They peeked irregularly over the rock toward the jungle, just to make sure nothing snuck up on us. I crouched with one of the SEALs, pistol in hand, scanning the beach. Every little sound made me jump. After fifteen minutes, I was so exhausted that I sat down in the sand next to Colin, my back against the rock. I closed my eyes for a moment, and took a long, deep breath.

  This expedition had gone far beyond what I’d expected when I agreed to come along. It felt like a lifetime ago that we’d left Honolulu. There was no way out of it now. Whatever happened, I was along for the ride. I’d started the morning feeling scared, but oddly, the encounter with the creatures had left me maddened more than scared. Those monsters didn’t belong and that set off a wave of anger in me. The mood crept up on me, and kept me from dwelling on what I had lost.

  Sitting next to me in the sand, Colin stared off into the distance.

  He slowly shook his head, staring at the horizon. “Why would they be here? Those creatures don’t make sense.”

  “Yeah, I’ve never seen anything like them either.”

  “I don’t mean it that way. They’re obviously related to the Pouakai, but different. Too different.”

  He asked Mina for the camera again, and turned on the display. That amazing photo of the monster came up again, running past the camera.

  “What do you see?” Colin asked.

  “The monsters that attacked us.”

  “Look closely. Like a scientist. They’re humanoid. Legs, arms, torso, head.”

  I studied the photo. “The legs are too long, the arms too low. There’s this small fan or wing thing on their back too, and the head’s all wrong. Doesn’t look too human to me.”

  “I said humanoid, not human. Compare these things to the Pouakai. These creatures are closer to us in design than to the Pouakai.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “In any organism, evolution moves slowly, relatively speaking. It took millions of years for the shrew-like ancestor of mammals to differentiate into cats, elephants, and humans. I think the Pouakai share an evolutionary past with these creatures, but in biological terms there’s no way one evolved directly from the other.”

  “Okay, so these things didn’t evolve from the Pouakai, but they’re still related,” I said wearily. “Why is that a problem?”

  Colin turned to me, his voice intense. “Because if these creatures didn’t evolve from the Pouakai, or even the other way around, then we still haven’t found the source! We’re still left with the same question we started with: where did they come from? Only now we have the added complication of having to explain the origin of two different species.”

  I put my head back against the rock, and stared at the edge of the sharp blue horizon, dividing ocean from sky. The mid-morning sun beat down on us hard, and it was getting hot.

  “Then there’s other questions too,” Colin continued. “Like, why haven’t we seen these creatures before? Why here, and why only after the Pouakai seem to have died off? These are the questions we have to find answers to.”

  “Aw crap,” I said with a smile. “Only you could have come up with more questions than answers.”

  Petty Officer Lee had finished bandaging the wound on Steve’s leg and packed his first aid gear away. He sat down in the sand, his rifle held u
pright.

  “Movement,” one of the SEALs to my right said quietly. In one fluid motion, Lee stood, and came up behind the two SEALs.

  “Movement here too,” said the SEAL to the left. “At the tree line, about fifty yards away.”

  There were three SEALs with rifles on the right side, so I pulled out my .45, and knelt down next the one on the left.

  “Get down,” Lee said to us. “Stay as low as you can, and listen for orders.”

  The rest of our group hunkered against the rock, while I kept an eye open for anything moving in the distance. Colin, Alan, and Mina all had their pistols out and ready. That scared me almost as much as the possibility of seeing those creatures again.

  More than anything, I wanted answers about the Pouakai and these new monsters; about what they were and where they came from. And I wanted to go wherever I could find those answers. As I looked down the beach from our tiny shelter behind the rock however, I realized that of all the places I wanted to be right now, this beach not very high on my list.

  4

  “Squad A has movement on the beach,” Petty Officer Lee radioed.

  “Have they attacked yet?”

  “No, just a quick view, both directions down the beach. About fifty yards away, east and west, at the tree line.”

  “We’re approaching the center of the island, nothing in sight yet. I’ll send squad B as backup, but it will be at least five minutes. We’ll get the Lieutenant, and then come back along the east beach.”

  “Roger.”

  I looked down the beach to the east. For a few minutes, nothing moved. Then something shifted behind the first row of trees; a hopping motion, and a glint of sunlight on shiny black skin.

  Crack. A bamboo spear bounced off the top of the rock, and splashed into the shallow water in front of us.

  “Stay low,” Lee said. “Don’t stick your head up over the rock, and keep an eye out along the beach.”