The Green Cathedral

by Kerry Mcdonald

  “You’ll find a few surprises in your boat,” he called as Abel passed by. “There will be much more in the next couple of days. Have fun fishing!”

  Abel waved, then headed out to his boat—or at least he might as well call it his boat. Monti was letting him use it, and the DEA wouldn’t confiscate it until Monti said that Abel was finished with it, so, therefore, he considered it his boat. He smiled as he boarded the small, trawler-like vessel.

  A Navy man is always happiest on his ship, even after he’s retired, he thought.

  He checked briefly in the cabin belowdecks to see what was there now. As he expected, the Mk 16 assault rifle was there with plenty of ammo and even a sniper-scope attachment, as were a couple of boxes of hand grenades and two boxes of MREs. There were also a couple of military-service spades for digging. His Navy SEAL M107 sniper rifle, of course, wasn’t there, but as Monti had said, it was on the way. The DEA might even send one down since Monti had told them this mission was related to his undercover work. Once that arrived, he could really get down to business.

  He pulled the boat out from the pier, and using the same circuitous route out to the island so as not to arouse the town’s residents, he came once again to Isla del Diablo.

  14

  —

  Abel sat on a large promontory that jutted from the steepest part of the volcano that graced the northern side of Isla del Diablo. It was a perfect spot for him to map out the island, which he carefully did now using his monocular to spot landmarks and estimate distances, then sketching them out with a pencil and the yellow notepad he’d bought at the general store. It was easy and fun, at least now that his nerves had stopped jangling and his heart had stopped racing from the craziness that had led him to the place.

  Abel had changed into his camo fatigues once he’d dropped anchor in the small bay that he’d found the day before, and then proceeded onto the beach in the trawler’s rubber boat as before with his full pack and gear. He’d first hacked out a trail through the tall grass to the magnificent Green Cathedral area he’d visited the day before. Once again, several animals had seemed to take a keen interest in him, but also kept their distance. These included a couple of giant iguanas that sunned themselves on a rock just on the edge of the rainforest, monkeys, and a couple of toucans that sat above him in the trees. Aside from taking a couple of pictures, he ignored them.

  “You guys mind your own business, I’ll mind mine, and we’ll all get along just fine,” Abel had told them.

  He’d proceeded a little farther into the jungle and was surprised to find a substantial freshwater stream. It flowed from the direction of the volcano through the forest toward the south side of the island. He’d decided that he’d follow the stream toward the volcano to see where it originated, and hopefully find a spot to map out the island.

  Retrieving his backpack and strapping on the machete, he’d hacked away at the shrubs and gradually made a trail for himself along the side of the stream. As he got higher, there was less need for the machete as the shrubbery became less dense, the steep rock not able to hold soil quite so well. The stream, of course, moved more swiftly, and at times made little cascades and waterfalls as it plunged over the volcanic landscape. There were even a few places where the water came directly off rock ledges and seemed suitable for drinking. Abel had taken note. He had enough water for today along with him, but there could come a time when that ran out, and this could be a lifesaver along with his water purification tabs.

  He had finally come to a flat, very lush area where more hacking was necessary, eventually revealing the source of the stream, a spring fed from an underground source that covered an area perhaps twenty or thirty feet across with standing water, which then fell over a ledge and formed the stream. A small grove of trees provided shade for the area and gave it a fresh feeling. Abel had figured that the spring was probably an old volcanic fissure that had filled with water when the volcano was not active.

  He suddenly stopped pacing the area, aware that he wasn’t the only one enjoying this watering hole. Out from the trees sauntered two big cats that looked like small versions of leopards. Ocelots, Abel recalled, frequented jungles in this part of the world. They approached closer and closer, one from one side of the spring, the other from the side Abel was on. Both emitted low growls as they’d approached and gazed at him with looks that seemed to say, “Who the hell are you, and what in the hell are you doing here?” Abel backed away slowly, being careful that his escape route wasn’t cut off, and slowly began to work his Glock loose from his rear waistband under his backpack.

  Suddenly, as the two cats loomed ever closer, his foot had stepped on something that felt like a smooth rock and then crunched on something else that felt like stepping on fallen tree branches. He’d looked down but couldn’t see anything through the thick grass that covered the ground. With eyes still on the ocelots, he’d used his hand to pull and push aside the grass that covered whatever he’d stepped in. When he’d felt something solid instead of grass, he’d ventured a glance down.

  “Holy shit!” he yelled instinctively and fell onto his butt. He’d stepped on the remains of a human body: a skull, various bones, and even some shreds of decayed clothing! Both cats had then let out loud, fierce growls, as if to say, “And you’re next, you dumb trespassing bastard!” Abel scrambled away, first on hands and knees, and then, regaining his feet, he ran out of the clearing and back onto the volcanic dirt that formed the floor of the forest on the steepest parts of the volcano. Checking briefly to see if he’d been followed by the ocelots, he scrambled up to a promontory.

  He threw off his pack and, for the next fifteen minutes just sat there next to a rock, allowing his heart to stop racing, his lungs to resume their regular, natural rhythm, and his brain to recover from flight mode and digest what had happened. Yes, he’d invaded a watering area that the ocelots, at least for the time being, considered their territory. So their suspicions of him were natural, and he was probably lucky they hadn’t attacked him.

  And some other poor dumb bastard had not been so lucky, for whatever reason, a long time ago, judging from how cleanly stripped the bones he’d found were. Abel wondered if this person was one of the people Monti had sent to the island years ago who had never returned. He’d have to go back to the remains sometime—definitely not immediately—and examine them more closely.

  But for now, he would finish his crude map, and then explore the rest of the rim of the volcano before descending and returning to his boat. As he peered through his monocular, Abel painstakingly noted everything of significance that he could see on his map, and as much to scale as possible. First of all, he noted that, aside from the cliffs behind him, Isla del Diablo was surrounded entirely with sandy beaches. However, in most areas, the rainforest grew very close to the shore, so the beaches were less than fifty feet wide before you entered the jungle. The exceptions were the sandbar area that formed the little bay he anchored his boat in, which was entirely beach and spread into a considerably larger beach at the point where the breakwater joined the rest of the island. And on the opposite side of the island, the eastern side that faced the mainland, there was also a sizable beach one could land on, though it had no protection from the surf.

  The river meandered through the rainforest from its source on the volcano—the island’s extreme north side—to its mouth on the south side. Here was another broader area of sand, and Abel noted some curious shapes under the water near the jungle’s edge. Zooming in on those shapes, Abel saw that they were giant American crocodiles, some clearly over ten feet long. As he watched, he saw one lift itself up and spring with blinding speed inland to the jungle’s edge. Before Abel could see what the fuss was, the damage was already done. An oblivious coati had apparently spotted a nest in the sand at the edge of the jungle and was helping itself to a delectable delicacy: crocodile eggs. More eager to eat than pay attention to its surroundings, it was now the deliciou
s delicacy of the fast-moving croc, who Abel surmised was the female who had laid those eggs. She dragged the squealing, raccoon-like mammal into the river and plunged him under the water. Abel didn’t see either again.

  “Son of a bitch,” Abel said to himself as he watched.

  There was an unusual land feature just near the river’s mouth in the heart of the rainforest, an area of flattened grass on the other side of the large meadow that he had hacked through in the morning. Then, on the other side of the river, there was a vast area of dozens and dozens of downed trees, as if something had plowed them over, with a small clearing at the end. On the other side of the clearing, there was more mature rainforest. It was almost as if, some years ago, some giant ball or something had first bounced on the meadow grass, smashing it, then came down in the middle of the rainforest, but this time skidded or rolled for a couple hundred yards until it stopped.

  This phenomenon made Abel very curious, but the clearing at the end of the “skid” was just too small to make out anything through the canopy of trees that covered it like an umbrella. Checking this all out would have to wait for tomorrow as well.

  Abel now began his inspection of the volcano itself. As he trudged around the summit area, which was covered mostly by volcanic rock and cinders, he noted that he had to be careful, especially near edges, because the cinders sometimes hid slick, black obsidian patches that could cause him to slip, and a slip in the wrong spot could send him over a cliff, especially on the north shore side, where they were hundreds of feet high with nothing but rocky coast and crashing waves at the bottom. Raptors like vultures and eagles had nests along the cliffs and scavenged through debris that washed up on the rocks below. On the western side of the volcano, the side that faced the afternoon sun, jungle growth returned to its sides, but not as high as Abel was at, where it was still fairly open. He noted several caves and entered a few. In the first one, he almost shat himself when he turned his tactical light on and saw that the cave was filled with bats! He turned it off immediately and dashed out. He hated creepy flying things like bats, locusts, hissing cockroaches, jumping spiders, and such. He caught his breath, then felt stupid for being such a wuss, but didn’t return to it.

  He ventured into a shallower cave and shined his light around, this time spying an even more gruesome sight, though he was getting used to it so there was no jumping or exclamation: several more skeletal remains of people. For most, their bones were scattered as if something had been feeding on the dead bodies, but a couple were relatively undisturbed. One was still coated in its nylon jacket and polyester quick-dry pants. The flesh had been devoured more discreetly—or disgustingly—by rodents, insects, and microorganisms.

  Without disturbing the bones, Abel checked out what else was in the cave. He found the usual gear one would have for hiking and surviving a few days in the jungle, some backpacks, old flashlights, fancy rainproof ponchos, cooking gear, shoes, and more. There were also weapons, several vintage handguns and assault rifles, various survival knives, and some old ammunition. And there were food and water containers, most of which had not been destroyed but were all empty.

  Sitting on his haunches for a moment, Abel once again checked out the human remains. It was as he suspected—no sign that anyone had died from a gunshot wound, and only a couple of broken bones, which could have come from some scavenging animal. These people hadn’t been killed in some kind of violent struggle. They had been starved to death.

  Stepping out quickly, he looked around once again at the island below. There were no signs of human encampments at all or any other sign of a human presence below. He got out his monocular and studied the terrain more carefully, looking for signs of old encampments, cut-down trees that might have been used as a fortification for someone trying to trap others on the volcano, but once again came up with nothing.

  He did see again something he’d seen the day before: curious nests high in the rainforest understory that looked like those that might be made by large raptor birds, but there was no sign that birds had lived in them. They were also a bit larger and better constructed than what you would expect from a bird.

  Suddenly, he thought he saw something—maybe even a person—zip through his field of vision so fast he couldn’t make out exactly what it was. Abel quickly zoomed out his monocular to see where this figment went, but lost track of it. What could fly that fast through the treetops? He thought about a bird, but that was crazy. No bird could fly that fast, and certainly not in a straight line. Birds rarely flew in straight lines. And monkeys? Even the fastest swingers could not go so fast as to be simply a blur through the lens of a monocular.

  He once again checked the nest structures. There! In one directly below him. Some creature suddenly disappeared as if it had been yanked away by a giant rubber band. Abel didn’t even know which way to follow it.

  He checked another nest, but just as something zapped into it, Abel’s monocular went utterly dark because of a whitish-gray substance that suddenly covered everything. He saw that the afternoon clouds that had clung to the volcano the day before were returning! He needed to get down before the entire mountain became enshrouded and he wouldn’t be able to see his way back to the stream and the trail he’d cut along it.

  Quickly finding his pack near the cave with the multiple bodies, he hoisted it up and hustled back toward where he thought the watering hole was. It wasn’t there, though, and for a few tense moments, Abel looked around, listened, and looked some more as more clouds poured in, and it became chilly and drizzly. Finally finding his own tracks in the volcanic dirt, he traced them back to the watering hole. Hoping he wouldn’t surprise any other predators near the source of the stream again, he began to descend. Soon, the clouds gave way to clearer air underneath them, and the path he’d hacked out dropped farther and farther below the cloud line. Ten minutes later, he found himself where he’d started, where his main trail in from the beach met the stream.

  He heard a zing, and then something rustled above him. He looked up, and there was something or someone in the nest he’d seen high in the Green Cathedral the day before. He fumbled with his backpack, found the pocket that held his monocular, and whipped it out, but before he could get a good look at the nest, there was another zing that faded into the rainforest, and whatever it was fled. Frustrated, Abel stuffed the monocular back into the side pocket of his backpack.

  He walked out along his meadow trail under bright, sunny skies and looked up at the now-cloud-shrouded volcano. Once back on the beach, he climbed into his rubber boat, turned over its little outboard motor, and puttered back to his trawler. Abel thought about the last two days and realized there were many more questions about this island than he had answers to. The animals that seemed to take an interest in him wherever he went yet didn’t attack him were puzzling. The idea that a group of well-armed people had starved to death in some cave high on the volcano was a total mystery, the biggest question being why they hadn’t just come down from their cave and found food in the rainforest, if nothing else. And what on earth could be swishing through the trees at such a speed that he could barely glimpse it before it was gone? These questions and more excited him, and as he climbed back onto his boat, lifted its anchor, and started its engine, he couldn’t wait to get back the next day and perhaps find some answers, or maybe even more questions.

  He was also a little concerned. He was being paid to clean up this island and get rid of whatever the evil presence was that made everybody so terrified of it. Yet he had neither seen, heard, nor felt any evil—so far—on this island.

  He had found evidence of such a thing, though, and also discovered why none of Monti’s people had returned from the island. They had all apparently died. While that fact didn’t exactly send a chill up his spine, it did incite his curiosity. At some point, he’d figure out how and why these people had become corpses, and he wondered if then, at that time, he’d also come face-to-face with the perpetrat
or.

  ***

  After getting back to the mainland, he tied up his boat and once again passed by Monti’s throne room. “How was fishing today?” Monti called.

  “A few bites, but no catches,” replied Abel cryptically without stopping.

  “Ah, too bad,” Monti called back. “Keep casting your line. I’m sure you’ll get the big one sometime soon!”

  Abel smiled and waved, then continued on, stopped by the general store, and bought some late-night snack stuff, then tromped into the All-American Diner and had himself the best steak-and-potatoes dinner since he’d lived with his folks back in Iowa. The place was slow on a midweek night—Abel was the only one there—so, Ron, the proprietor, sat down and shot the breeze with him for a while. Eventually, they got to what Abel really wanted to ask Ron about.

  “So how’s business here with a guy like Monti? It seems like he kind of runs the whole show.”

  Ron exchanged a furtive glance with Elaine, his wife, who was back in the kitchen, then said, “You could say that, I guess.”

  “You could say that for sure!” Elaine yelled.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Abel called back.

  Elaine came out and leaned against the kitchen door. She was petite, with blond hair, blue eyes, and a feisty expression that gave her a “Don’t mess with me or else” look. “It means that he rules this place like a king. A benevolent one mostly, but still, he’s the only vote that really counts when it comes to town business.”

  Ron nodded in agreement. “I’m afraid there’s no democracy here in Playa de Palma.”

  “So how’s that work?” asked Abel.

  “Well, you know, we pay taxes and such here, and all the local taxes go to him and the city council, but since the city council is his wife, his son, and him, it all really just goes to him. To be honest, he’s pretty good about letting us know how it’s spent, and usually it’s put to good use, but we all know that he’s skimming some for his own operation here,” explained Ron.