Solstice

by Lorence Alison

  18

  I FOUGHT HARD against Paul’s grip. His palms felt rough. The muscles in his beefy arms flexed as they pinned me to his chest. Elena struggled, too, her eyes full of fear.

  “Stop squirming,” Paul said through clenched teeth. “Just stay still!”

  “No!” I said against his palm. But he wouldn’t let up. This is it. Maybe he is going to kill us. Maybe Paul knew we suspected him. He needed us out of the way before we warned anyone else.

  I shut my eyes, desperately wanting to feel some sort of peace, some sort of spiritualism before I died. Even a lack of fear would have been nice—but I was too aware of Paul’s breath on my neck and my pounding heart.

  Paul yanked us behind the pickup. I glanced around desperately, praying some other Mylan might be witnessing this, but the road was empty. I didn’t even see any concertgoers milling about. I tensed, certain Paul was going to do something awful. A horrible sense of guilt pounded over me, too—if only I’d run away, if only I hadn’t tried to be the hero, but now I was going to get myself killed as well as Elena.

  I wanted to reach out to her, tell her I was sorry. But Paul had a hand over my mouth. I couldn’t speak—I could barely breathe.

  A few moments of silence passed. Paul had us pinned to the back of the truck, my tailbone pressing into the bumper. For a while, he just stood there like he was waiting for some sort of signal. He still held us very tightly. We squirmed and struggled, but that just made him even more determined to keep us steady. I managed to exchange a glance with Elena. I hated how petrified she looked. I couldn’t let something bad happen to her. I needed to warn someone of this. I needed to scream.

  But strangely, I heard a scream next … and it wasn’t my own. Elena and I stopped struggling, confused. Another scream sounded down the wooded path. Then another. Then came the strangest, most savage growling sounds I’d ever heard. It was a dinosaur-like roar that rocked the whole earth, sending branches shooting upward, and dirt spiraling, and my ears ringing. And after that, a hideously loud bird screech, the kind a pterodactyl might have made, the noise so shrill and dissonant it set my teeth on edge.

  A chill went through every cell of my body. The sound definitely wasn’t human.

  Paul struggled to keep his balance, but his clamp over our mouths loosened. He, too, stared in horror toward the sounds coming from the woods. And the roars grew louder, harmonizing with the screams. After that, there was a loud gobbling sound—like a fairy-tale giant was smacking its lips. I got a whiff of blood. I heard a gurgle of what sounded like an enormous digestive tract. And then, moments after it began, there was … nothing.

  Insects chirped peacefully. The wind blew. The world was so silent it almost hurt my damaged eardrums.

  Paul lifted his hand from my mouth, and I darted away from him. But when I turned back to look, I was surprised by his expression. He didn’t seem angry that I was trying to run from him. He was still staring down the path with a mix of horror and determination. “We’ve got to go,” he told us. “Now.”

  “Go?” I planted my feet. “With you? Yeah, right.”

  But then another roar rose up, its force shaking the trees. My heart stopped. My knees buckled. It was louder than any lion, any bear, any animal I’d ever visited at the zoo. The sound was so loud, it kicked up its own windstorm. And the roar rose and fell in pitch, almost like whatever creature was making it was trying to sing a song. Once again there were crunching noises and that awful intestinal gurgle. And then, once again, silence.

  Paul yanked me by my wrist, then turned to grab Elena, too. “It’s getting closer!” he screamed again, gesturing to his truck. “Get in!”

  I did what I was told—whatever was happening in the woods chilled me to the bone. Was it a huge robot-machine engineered for killing? A giant tiger only seen on Myla? A reanimated T. rex? I didn’t want to find out.

  I climbed into the car, Elena scrambling behind me. Paul gunned the engine and turned onto a residential road. Houses whizzed past, then fields of tethered goats, then an old, rickety child’s playground that looked like it hadn’t been used in decades. I didn’t see any people, which made the whole experience seem even more alienating and post-apocalyptic. I kept looking over my shoulder, wondering if I’d get a glimpse of whatever had made that sound running for us on six legs, blinking its twelve eyes, waggling a forked tongue. I heard another screech in the distance. The sound sent panicked birds flapping from their nests.

  Paul glanced at something on the dashboard and winced. “I’m on empty. We’re going to have to get out.”

  “What?” Elena shrieked.

  “Come on. It’ll be okay.” Paul stopped the truck at a dead-end road and threw open his door. Down a grassy slope, there were more dunes to cross, but that meant the water was close. “Let’s go,” Paul urged. We scrambled into the woods and then across the dunes, coming upon a beach. The moon glittered on calm water. We couldn’t see any waves, and there were a few smaller fishing boats tied to buoys about fifty yards out.

  Through stinging eyes, I stared back in the direction we had come. I didn’t hear any more roars. Nor did I hear screams. It almost made me wonder if I’d imagined the whole thing.

  I swallowed hard and glanced at Paul. He returned my gaze and softened just a little, seemingly sensing my fear. “Be glad I caught you back there,” he said gruffly. “You were being led straight for it. Just like everyone else at that silly concert.”

  Elena was panting from running. Pieces of blond hair fell into her eyes. “Running straight for what? That awful roar we heard? What was that? Some kind of monster?”

  Monster. I thought, suddenly, of the legend Zack and Marx had told us on the boat, the Myla creature that demanded human sacrifice. But no. No way. And yet, with every crash of a wave, every swish of wind, I braced myself, readying for another roar, another scream. My nerves twitched. I wasn’t sure I was afraid of Paul anymore. Perhaps he’d just saved us from something terrifying.

  Paul’s dark eyes narrowed. “Never mind. If I told you what you should be afraid of, you wouldn’t believe me,” he finally said. “Now come on. We can’t stay here. We have to go before it tracks us down.”

  19

  “THIS WAY.” Paul held a flashlight along yet another series of dunes. We were running parallel to the ocean now. “It isn’t far.”

  Elena and I tramped across the uneven ground. The dunes were dark and uneven. I had no idea where we were going. I was sweaty, starving, and without hope, and marching, probably, toward certain death. For some reason, I kept flashing to the AP History class I’d taken last year—how boring it had been, and how badly I wanted to be sitting at my desk in the back row right now, diligently taking notes, never imagining I’d be on a foreign island, running from some sort of mythological beast.

  I stared at Paul’s bobbing head as he navigated the path. He pushed aside branches for us, pointed out jutting roots with his flashlight. What did he mean about the danger in the woods, anyway? Why would we not believe what it was? It had to be a person he was talking about, right? And yet, those noises we’d heard in the woods—they didn’t exactly sound human. Did tigers live in the Caribbean? I wasn’t sure that made sense.

  I swallowed hard, wishing I could catch Elena’s eye. I felt guilty for putting her in this predicament. I felt annoyed at myself for picking a fight with her about Steve. I felt bad for her because Steve had screwed her over. But mostly, I just felt scared—we were literally running for our lives. It was still very likely we’d end up dead.

  We reached the familiar clearing I’d visited just hours before. The same yellowish light spilled across Paul’s front porch, but now that the moon was higher in the sky, I noticed a carefully tended garden off to the left, a paved back patio with a grill, and a few outdoor chairs. Such ordinary things gave me some comfort. I mean, we had a grill at home—the same brand, even. Perhaps Paul really was who he said he was.

  “Let’s get you two some water,” Paul said as he clim
bed the steps to the front door. He pushed it open and snapped on some lights, then glanced over his shoulder at us to usher us inside. But Elena and I couldn’t move. He put his hands on his hips. “What’s the deal? We need to hydrate. Then again, if you’d rather die of thirst out here, be my guest.”

  Elena and I huddled together. I could tell by the stiffness of her body that she felt as uncertain as I did. There were still a lot of questions that needed to be answered.

  I cleared my throat. “Um, Mr.… Paul? I know you have the shirt that belonged to the boy who was found dead. I saw it in your trailer.”

  Paul turned slowly. He looked shocked. “What were you doing in my home?”

  “I…” I waved my hands, my thoughts too scattered to explain. Elena was staring at me like she thought I wasn’t thinking straight, but I needed Paul to know where we all stood. “It’s a long story, but it doesn’t change that it’s in there—and I saw it. So why do you have it? Did you … hurt Eric?”

  Paul leaned against the side of the trailer, and all of a sudden he looked so young—barely older than we were. “You think I had something to do with Eric’s death?”

  “I just don’t understand why you have his shirt,” I said, feeling knocked a little off-kilter. It wasn’t the response I expected. “Nothing has been explained to us. Not just with the shirt, but with the details about Solstice, too. And why people are dying. And that noise in the woods. I can’t deal with not knowing things!”

  Paul plopped down on the stoop and folded his arms around his knees. He stared at us, his thick eyebrows knitting with concern. A few beats passed. Crickets sawed away in the trees. “I get it. It sucks to be in the dark.”

  “You got that right,” I grumbled, cautiously.

  “As for me.” Paul pointed to his chest. “I’m a marine biology student at the University of Myla. My family has lived on this island for centuries. We live on the other side of the island, though—the inhabited side. The safer side.”

  “Safer?” Elena’s voice trembled. “Why is it safer?” Though as soon as she said it, I realized it was obvious why this side wasn’t safe. Those noises over the dunes said it all.

  “I’ve been curious about this side of the island ever since I was a kid,” Paul went on, nervously picking at his nails. “There were unexplained deaths a few decades ago, and then more a few decades before that—people would come over here to hike or swim or whatever, but they’d never come back. And then their families would go looking for them, and they’d find them lying on the shore … mangled. And these were good swimmers. Strong, young people. It was baffling. They had body parts missing. Huge gashes on their limbs. Like something … ate them.

  I sucked in my breath, remembering the scrapbook I’d found in Paul’s trailer. A History of Unusual Deaths of Myla Island. Those newspaper clippings. Those strange drownings. The picture of the man I’d looked at: His caption had said champion swimmer.

  “So were they … shark attacks?” Elena asked.

  “That’s what a lot of people thought—but I don’t think so, no.”

  “Then … what?”

  Paul raised a finger. “Hang on. I’m getting to that. Anyway, I’d heard these rumors all my life, and I knew not to come over here unless I wanted the same thing to happen to me. It was just a part of life—an old warning you knew to obey, except it seemed that no one really asked why these deaths happened, or what was the cause.”

  “So, few people live on this side of the island?” I shifted nervously. “I saw houses, though. A playground.”

  “And they looked quite old, didn’t they?” We both nodded. “They’re all uninhabited now. A few brave souls still have houses here—they can certainly get property for dirt cheap. You may have met a few of them in the general store.” I nodded, thinking of the group with the Wi-Fi password. “They don’t buy that something really strange is going on out here. But most people believe. I mean, no one dared to build hotel complexes, or restaurants, or snorkeling schools, or things you find on other islands in the Caribbean. No one wanted to take the risk.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “So why would someone hold a music festival here?”

  Once again, Paul held up a finger as if to say, I told you, be patient. “Like I said, no one was looking at the cause of these strange deaths. But when I got to college last year, I started to poke around. I thought about the water around Myla—its ecosystem. It’s pretty unique here—especially on this side of the island. See, around most islands, the ecosystem is pretty balanced—there are consistent levels of certain fishes, mollusks, plants, et cetera. But the ecosystem in the ocean surrounding this side of Myla is different from anywhere else in the Caribbean—and no one knows why. For example, you know conch? Those big shells kids put their ears to and think they hear the ocean?”

  “Yeah,” I said incredulously, not knowing why we were suddenly getting a marine biology lecture.

  “Well, we have way too many on the ocean floor. More than we can handle—and everywhere else in this part of the Caribbean has a shortage! Conch eat up all the algae, which is usually a good thing—we avoid red tide, anyway—but it doesn’t leave any algae for the other species that also eat it, which throws everything out of balance.”

  “Why are there so many conch?” Elena asked.

  Paul pointed at her. “Good question.” The corners of his eyes crinkled as he smiled, and Elena smiled, too, and for just a second, the mood almost felt casual and friendly. “Because of what’s missing from these waters. Nurse sharks: the conch’s natural predator. But again, no one could figure out why that was—there are nurse sharks elsewhere in the Caribbean. And while that seems like a good thing that there aren’t sharks on Myla, it’s actually very unnatural. They might not tell you this on Shark Week, but ocean ecosystems need sharks. The conch population needs to be controlled—but given the rumors that these waters are dangerous, divers are too afraid to get all the conch out.” He twisted his mouth. “But anyway, I started to think. What could be keeping the sharks away? They have lots of food here; it’s a good habitat; the water is clean. And then it hit me: What if there was something in the water that was scaring the sharks away? An even bigger predator than the shark, using intimidation to mark its territory?”

  “Like … what?” I said slowly, not knowing what might be above a shark on the food chain.

  “I started to wonder. Maybe this predator was something we’d never seen before. Some kind of … thing—which is also responsible for these strange deaths we’ve seen over the years.”

  I frowned, something sparking in my brain. “So it is the legend? Zack mentioned it—some sort of monster on the island, and the Mylans offering human sacrifices to keep it away?” I clucked my tongue. “It sounded condescending. Insulting to the people on the island.” I figured that Paul, who seemed so proud of Myla, would find the legend offensive.

  “Yep, it underestimates our sophistication for sure. We’d never dream of offering people up as sacrifice,” Paul agreed. “But there is some truth to the story.”

  “Truth how? There is a monster?” I could feel my body tensing up. “What is it? Loch Ness?”

  “We heard it,” Elena reminded me. “It sounded way bigger than Loch Ness.”

  Paul nodded. “We did hear it. Mylans call it Diab. Creole for devil. Something that can shape-shift. That’s the epitome of evil.”

  We stared at him, slack jawed.

  “But I’ve never seen it,” Paul added. “Those who do see it don’t live to tell the tale.”

  I let out a nervous laugh. He had to be pulling our leg. “But this doesn’t explain why you have Eric’s T-shirt,” I said, trying to keep my voice from trembling.

  “I’m getting to that,” Paul said. “So anyway, for a long time, little has happened on this side of the island. Like I said, a few intrepid people have built houses here, but they know full well they’re living somewhere where danger might strike at any moment, given the historical accounts of strange deaths by Diab
. They’re either prepared to take that risk, or they’re in denial that it could be true, but deep down, they know the threat is there. But then, suddenly, this mysterious buyer bought this half of the island last year. Our government was happy to give it up—especially for the handsome price the buyer paid. But then we heard rumors that this buyer was going to hold an extravagant music festival over here. Which seemed”—he wagged his head back and forth like he was trying to choose his words carefully—“irresponsible.”

  “Wait, who’s the buyer?” I interrupted.

  Paul shrugged. “Some shell company. The government couldn’t trace it to one person—and believe me, they looked into it. But it was like the company was run by a hacker—every time the authorities thought they hit a lead on who the buyer was, it ended up being a false identity … or a dead end.”

  “Whoa,” Elena said.

  “So anyway, this music festival was suddenly scheduled. And that’s when the videos about it started popping up. Everyone was talking about it. We had no idea how the festival organizers were going to pull it off, considering nothing was developed on this side of the island. They didn’t reach out to our side, either. They didn’t ask for help, security, medical supplies, even tents. We figured they were sourcing that from the west side, but something about it was just … strange. And that’s not even considering the dangerous element over here. Diab. It seemed like a recipe for disaster.” Paul waved his hand in the direction of the path, where we’d come from. “And, obviously, that’s exactly what’s happening.”

  I shifted my weight. “Did you warn the people who were organizing the festival about the monster?” I cringed at calling it a monster. Monsters didn’t exist … did they?

  “Sure I did. I told Zack Frazier about Diab over and over. I had a whole presentation about the deaths and the ecosystem and the rumors and the evidence that the creature is real. But he just laughed. He brought up the obsessed people in the US who believe in Bigfoot, who go looking for him—there are whole shows about it, apparently! And Zack went ahead with the plans anyway. Not that there were many plans—as you saw, the festival is a disaster. My people and I did what we could, but we didn’t have much to work with. I still don’t know if they even bothered to organize any of it or if all their contracts just fell apart at the last minute. But the concert is going to go down as the biggest wreck in music-festival history.”