-Excerpt from Paleontology Now, by Connor Waddle (2007)
The hunger pangs in my gut awaken me. It has been two days since the plane-crash—two days now that I’ve gone without food. If I don’t get something to eat or drink within the next few hours, it’s over.
I blink several times and rub my ears, adjusting to the sunlight and cicada song of the new day. I push the vines off of me and rise into a sitting position. I rub the last remaining bits of sleep from my eyes. When my vision clears, it falls upon a miracle!
An enormous bird’s nest rests among the vines lining the thumb of the giant hand serving as my shelter. Whether it was because of the darkening sky or my weakened condition, I failed to notice it the night before.
All this time, salvation mere feet away!
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry!
I rise to my feet and scurry up the vines to the nest, moving with renewed vigor. I look inside and I’m overjoyed to see three, spotted brown eggs the size of coconuts lying there.
I scoop one up in an arm and cradle it to my chest. I climb back down and sit in the middle of the semi-open hand. I poke and strike at the egg, trying to crack open its coarse shell. I don’t so much as make a dent.
I slouch in defeat, about to start crying, when I remember the samurai sword. I crawl over to my night’s resting place and snatch up the sword. I tug at the hilt and the blade comes free of the scabbard with a clack and a ring. I wind up and let loose, swinging the blade downward in a large, hissing arc. Unbelievably, I miss the egg and slice through several layers of criss-crossing vines.
I curse and try again. This time, egg and blade connect and the shell’s topmost quarter topples away without the slightest resistance.
Despite my ravenous hunger, I take time to wipe the blade clean before sheathing it. I lay the sword down and collapse around the egg. A soupy, yellow goo is visible inside. Without further hesitation, I take the egg in my hands and turn it up, drinking it down like the world’s biggest protein shake, yolk spilling down the sides of my face and over my shirt.
It tastes like you would expect, but I don’t care!
Hot pins and needles begin to prick my entire body. But it’s a good feeling—my strength returning.
The chorus to Queen’s We Are the Champions pushes its way out of my lungs to echo through the air for miles around.
Hey! Laugh all you want, but you have got to admit: Freddy Mercury had some pipes on him!
I drain the egg to the bottom and head back up the thumb for the next offering of my giant, hand-shaped Easter basket. I drink this egg more slowly, it at last dawning on me that I may need to save some for later.
I’m half way to the egg’s bottom when a lizard-bird lands atop the giant thumb.
It reminds me of Archaeopteryx, a flying, feathered dinosaur said to have lived around the end of the Jurassic Period (Science class strikes again!). But Archaeopteryx only grew to one to two feet in length, give or take.
The bird in front of me would dwarf a condor!
I freeze, watching the bird’s bobbing, alligator head as it notices its missing eggs and caw-hisses in alarm. Its head swivels. Its gaze locks onto mine. I hold my breath, imagining how I must look to it, covered in the gooey, yellowish remains of its children. It’s no surprise when the bird shrieks and pounces.
I dive for the sword. Not having time to unsheathe it, I bring it up, scabbard and all, just as the animal lands on top of me. I use the sword as best I can to shield myself from the thing’s needle-like teeth and long, hooked talons.
I cry out in pain, adding my own shrieks to that of the bird’s as its talons find purchase in my skin. The creature beats its wings about my head, half-hovering as it tries to take back the life I stole from its offspring.
The bird’s claws wrap around the sword and I feel it begin to pull away. I clamp my own hands around the scabbard, not wishing to have my one advantage in this accursed place taken from me.
Furious, I scream words at the bird that would have me grounded for weeks if my mother heard me say them. I’m shouting so angrily that I fail to notice the two of us lifting off into the air until it’s too late.
I look down, seeing the giant hand looking not so giant any more in the distance below, and my shouts of anger are quickly replaced by cries of terror!
We rise higher and higher, leaving the swamp to cross over vast stretches of hilly forestland. I see a huge stone face rising out of the trees like a mesa. It’s just like the one said to be among the dunes of Mars. Under different circumstances, the sight would’ve taken my breath away. As it is, all I feel is sheer terror at the idea of it rushing up to meet me at any second.
From the corner of my eye, I catch the shadow of an enormous cloud speeding over the terrain below. That’s when I realize the sky is clear today, and that besides, there’s no possible way a cloud could move so fast!
A strange, new roar tears through the air like a sonic boom and then I’m falling.
I look up and see the sword still clutched in my hands. The bird’s talons are still curled around it, too. But the bird itself is gone. Only the bloody, severed stumps above its talons remain.
That was definitely no passing cloud!
I let go of the sword and flail in mid-air, my arms and legs reaching for purchase that simply isn’t there. At the last second, I’ve enough presence of mind to straighten my body and hold my nose just before I plunge into the depths of a swiftly moving river.
Chapter 6
Oni are a class of kaiju (pronounced kie-joo), or monster, from Japanese folklore. The term oni (singular) roughly translates into troll or ogre. Like their counterparts in the West, the Oni (plural) are often depicted as large, brutish figures with claws and horns. The iron clubs they carried were called kanabo, and symbolized the inhuman strength they were rumored to possess...
—Excerpt from Kaiju! by Shigeru Kayama and Takeo Murata (1954)
I splash down into the rushing river and the events of the last two days flash before my mind’s eye: the plane crash, the giant monster, the black man’s demise, the sword of the dead samurai in the cave, the enormous hand, and the prehistoric bird.
Despite having straightened my body during my fall, my knees rush up and smack me in the mouth, knocking loose a couple teeth in a gush of blood that clouds the water, turning it red.
But I don’t have time to feel the pain.
My lungs fill with water and I begin thrashing about in a struggle for air. I pass fish, snakes, and countless other forms of aquatic life as I’m swept away by the current. Black roses begin to bloom at the corners of my vision just as I see a set of jaws, a pair so massive they could swallow a school bus, opening before me.
The next thing I know, a grid falls over the colossal mouth, dividing it into a series of wavy squares. Then I’m out of the river, flying through the air.
I slam down hard onto the deck of a wooden boat and begin coughing. I regurgitate and the water leaves my body along with this morning’s breakfast. Then air floods my lungs. It has never tasted so sweet!
The giant mouth and the equally large alligator it belongs to surges from the river in a spray of water to tower over the boat. The mammoth gator roars in pain as an iron harpoon connects with the roof of its mouth. Then it splashes down into the depths and the safety they offer.
I watch all this through the grid. After a moment, I realize the grid isn’t a grid at all, but a fishing net that I’m entangled in.
I’m jerked into the air. I look up and see I’m in the hands of two incomparably muscled men with blood-red skin. In referring to these creatures as men, I’m being overly kind. Their crimson hide and obscene musculature are the least abnormal of their features.
Manes of coarse, black hair cover their heads and jaws. Yellow devil-horns rise from their simian foreheads, complementing the large twin tusks jutting from their mouths. Their only clothes are animal hides that hang from their waists to cover their loins.
I w
ould pinch myself to see if this is really happening, but these red men—these ogres—are man-handling me with more than enough force to remove any doubt.
Oh, Bear! Where are you when I need you?
I look away, wanting to peer anywhere but at the two ogres carrying me. My gaze falls upon the far riverbank. Standing there, its strangely intelligent eyes meeting my own, is a large fox with dripping wet fur the color of virgin snow.
It carries the dead samurai’s sheathed sword in its mouth like a fetched stick.
It’s the last thing I see before my vision goes black and unconsciousness overtakes me.
In my dream, I’m back at LAX. It’s before the plane crash, the giant eye, the ogres, and everything else that’s to come.
The pale man stares down at me, his eerie grin covering his face. His incisors are larger than normal and make him look like a smiling vampire. He reaches up and takes hold of his sunglasses. He jerks them off, and it’s not a pair of human eyes I see bookending his nose, but twin copies of the giant, red eye.
When he speaks, it’s with my father’s voice.
“Coward!”
I wake up, a scream forcing its way up my throat. But a small, cool hand clamps down over my mouth, preventing its escape.
The hand belongs to a beautiful girl. No. That’s not right. She isn’t a beautiful girl. She’s the beautiful girl—the prettiest I’ve ever seen!
She is Asian, or at least of Asian descent like myself. Her features are hard, yet somehow also delicate. Her eyes are large and dark. She has high cheekbones above a small but well-defined jaw. The mouth resting in between has full lips locked in a perpetual pout. Her long, silky black hair is pushed back behind a single ear that’s so sharp at its tip it causes me to think I’ve misjudged her heritage. She’s not Asian at all. She’s a Vulcan from Star Trek!
Or a fairy.
The latter might explain her clothing.
She is dressed in a brightly-colored robe that terminates just below her hips to reveal a pair of strong, supple legs. Latticed silver bracelets encircle her wrists and a single white flower rests in her hair at her temple.
In short, she looks like a Polynesian elf.
Considering her appearance, I’m not surprised to see that she is barefoot. But I am surprised to see her holding the dead samurai’s sword.
The scream dies inside my mouth and the girl removes her hand. She steps away and gives the international sign for silence. It’s only then that I take in our surroundings.
We are approximately twenty yards deep inside a darkening cave. In the twilight drifting in through the entrance, I see that the red ogres are all around us, sleeping on the piles of bones that litter the cavern floor, their monstrous snores reverberating off the cave walls. To my great horror, I also see that I’m held here by an iron shackle chaining my ankle to the cave floor.
If it wasn’t for bad luck, I’d have none at all!
I rise up on my elbows and freeze, cringing as the bones I’m lying on come unsettled beneath me in a series of loud clacking noises.
The snores of the ogre closest to us falter. His eyes open and peer at us through a glaze of half-sleep. His eyes shut again and his snores resume. The breath I did not realize I was holding presses through my lips in a strong, thin stream.
I turn my gaze back to the girl. She slowly withdraws the sword from its scabbard so as to reduce the ringing noise that always accompanies its unsheathing.
Oh, spit! She is going to kill me before I can make any more noise and wake the ogres!
Like lightning flashing from a cloud, she brings down the sword and slices through my ankle-cuff. It opens silently like a book and falls away, freeing me.
I gaze up at her in amazement.
“Who are you?”
She shushes me again and I realize my voice is dangerously loud. I look around and sigh with relief to see the ogres still snoring away.
“Who are you?” I whisper.
She sheathes the sword and crouches down beside me.
“I’m called Kitsune,” she whispers.
“Kit-soo-neh,” I repeat, rolling the name around on my tongue and finding I like it. “I’m Raymond.”
She nods.
“I saw the Oni take you captive and—”
“Oni?”
She gestures at the sleeping ogres.
“Oni. Demon folk. Anyway, I saw them capture you and decided to help.”
“Gee, thanks!” I say, at a loss for any further words.
I reach my feet and Kitsune bows and holds out the sword in offering.
“Even the heir of Kintaro has need of his sword to battle the Oni.”
I take the weapon, though somewhat reluctantly. I just watched her handle the thing with more skill than I will ever have. She should be the one carrying it, not some Glee Club singer from the States.
Not me.
When I realize the girl expects me to lead the way, I shrug and begin tip-toeing through the bones for the cave entrance.
We are almost there when a growl echoes through the cavern.
Chapter 7
While much of recorded history tends to depict Kings, Queens, and other persons of renown as being masters of their own fate, a closer examination of the facts oft reveals chance played an equal if not dominant role in their achievements...
—An Excerpt from The Real History, by R. Lander (1918)
Kitsune and I whirl around and see the Oni are on their feet. They hold studded iron clubs that are as long as I am tall.
I can’t believe this is happening to me. As if plane crashes, giant monsters, and angry prehistoric birds were not enough. Now I’m trapped in a bone-littered cave with carnivorous ogres!
What luck.
“Strike them down, Raymond-sai.” Kitsune says.
“What?” I shout in disbelief.
“The sword. Take Kusanagi and lay waste to your enemies as did your forefather, Kintaro.”
She gestures emphatically to the sword in my hands and I realize its presence is the only thing holding the Oni at bay. They are held mesmerized by the weapon, and a definite look of caution, if not outright fear, is unmistakable in their beady, yellow eyes.
The gaze of the oni closest to us bounces between the sword and my face as if he is deciding something. At last, his countenance wrinkles into a snarl and he takes a step forward.
“What are you waiting for, Raymond-sai?” Kitsune asks, now frantic. “Strike them down!”
I know she wants me to draw the sword, but I cannot. I’m frozen with fear.
The oni moves in closer. One step. Then two. Beads of cold sweat pop out over my entire body. My heart pistons in my chest.
The ogre takes another step.
He is smiling now. I see bits of blood and meat caught between his fangs. He probably smells my terror as much as he sees it in my face.
Kitsune screams for me to act. Seeing that I’m going to be useless, she picks up a large femur from the cavern floor and goes on the attack. She rushes at the oni, a war cry in her throat.
She swings her weapon at the oni. He catches it effortlessly and backhands her. She lands among the bones, her mouth bloodied, stars in her eyes, a large bruise already forming on her left cheek to mar her otherwise perfect complexion.
The Oni in the rear bellow with deep, gravelly laughter.
The lead oni steps by her and closes the distance between us. I hear the sword clacking in its scabbard and realize that I’m trembling.
I raise the sword and point it at the ogre in warning. The sword’s tip wiggles uncontrollably with my shaking. Any fear that the oni’s eyes once held is now gone. Perhaps that’s because I’ve failed to unsheathe the sword. It’s the black, studded scabbard sticking out at him rather than the blade.
He looks at me and shakes his head. He says something in a deep, bass tone that I cannot understand and the Oni behind him laugh.
This reminds of the scene in The Lord of the Rings books where two bumbling orcs,
Shagrat and Gorbag, argue over Merry and Pippin, their hobbit captives. It was the only time when reading the books that my suspension of disbelief was interrupted. The scene comes off as comedic, and doesn’t fit in at all with the overall tone of the novels.
But there’s nothing funny about what’s happening to me right now.
Judging by the bones littered on the cave floor, these Oni are killers. Cannibals even. And I’m about to become dinner!
Bear, my friend, oh please, I need you!
Before I know what’s happening, the oni reaches out and seizes the scabbard in one of his massive, red fists. I jerk back reflexively and the blade comes free.
So does the oni’s arm.
The oni staggers backward in shocked disbelief, but the limb gripped around the scabbard remains behind. The appendage seems to hover in the air for the briefest of moments before both it and the scabbard drop onto the bone-littered cave floor.
I look down. I’m amazed to see the blade covered in the oni’s green blood. Somehow the sword sliced off the oni’s arm as it pulled free of its sheath.
At last realizing what has happened to him, the bleeding ogre howls in agony. He turns and runs deeper into the cave, paying no heed to his brothers as he rushes past them. They watch him go, then turn to stare at me. Or rather, at my blood-soaked sword.
I hesitate in a moment of fear and indecision. Then, taking a gamble, I raise the sword above my head.
That’s all it takes.
The Oni sprint down the throat of the cave after their felled brother.
When they are gone, I collapse to my knees and cry.
I don’t know how long I stay that way. I only know some time passes before, through a haze of tears, I register that Kitsune’s up and moving somewhere along my vision’s periphery. I feel her slip the sword and its harness onto my torso as she helps me to my feet. Then she ushers me outside the Oni’s cave into open air.
My daze clears somewhat and in the fading twilight, I see we are high up on one side of a lush, green valley. The valley is divided by a raging river—the same one that almost killed me, no doubt!
Dragon Island Page 3