part0044

The men ran in circles, searching for Ana, her cell empty except for the guard lying in a pool of blood, his neck broken. Some followed footprints leading out to sea, Paul’s hideously desiccated corpse the fool’s gold at the end of the macabre rainbow. They split up, searching the six buildings, leaving no nook or cranny unexplored. A party of the men headed up the hill to the resort. She couldn’t have gone far. She had to still be on the island!

The Pale Man in the sunglasses paced back and forth. It would be daylight soon. Daylight was no use. It was too bright for them, they would have to stick to the shadows. They would be at a disadvantage.

The Great Uabhas would be angry. He grabbed two of the men and instructed them, in that hideous, primordial language, to investigate the cave. The men, knowing no such thing as free will, obeyed, grabbing their tools and setting off through the petrified jungle, past the mass grave and neglected diggers, until they reached the entrance, the one they themselves had dug all those years ago, acting under that strange impulse that constantly whispered to them, that demanded loyalty, demanded sacrifice.

They stood at the entrance, listening to the rumbling tremor from within, feeling the ground tremble beneath their feet. The men stared at each other.

The whispering had stopped.

For the first time in as long as they could remember, their heads were clear, unencumbered by the malevolent, wicked voices that cackled and taunted them even in their dreams. One of the men let the pick-axe fall from his hand, where it hit the earth with a soft thud.

‘Kasem,’ he said. The other man turned to him. He smiled. ‘I remember now. My name is Kasem.’ He dropped to his knees and cried. ‘What have we done?’ he said. He clutched at his face, tearing deep scars across his cheeks, his long-dormant memories flooding back. His wife’s smiling visage, the laughter of his children, the hubbub of the marketplace, his childhood on the shrimp farm, his first car. Then he remembered what came after it.

The way the men had begged for their lives as he lopped their arms off, the women screaming in unutterable horror as they were stripped and branded and taken to that lair of cosmic terror, the pit he had stared into and given up his life for, that glimpse of other worlds, dreadful places where faceless beasts roamed and ancient civilisations waited to rise again.

It was too late for prayers and incantations.

The spell was broken.

The time of reckoning had arrived.

He would answer for his crimes and accept punishment, knowing it would never truly be enough to atone for the dreadful sins they had perpetrated. Kasem closed his eyes and sat. His old friend, Narong, did the same, crossing his legs and awaiting oblivion, the sudden wave of memories nearly driving him mad. He dimly recalled that hazy September morning, when he had watched from the scaffolding as the two boats sailed away, almost crashing into each other, one of them taking half of the dock with it. They had run down the hill after them, setting off flares, screaming and shouting, but the people on the boats had chosen not to notice them.

That was when the voices had begun, a language none of the men had ever heard before, yet one they all understood. They had begun work on the tunnel that same morning, digging tirelessly over two long days, barely sleeping or eating, until they had broken through to the chamber of the Great Uabhas.

The next day, the first of the rescue boats had arrived. By then, everything had changed.

Narong took Kasem’s hand and squeezed it. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. Kasem withdrew his hand, clawing at his own eyeballs, forcing his fingers beneath the eyelids and gripping the soft orbs, crushing them until juices flowed down his hands and cheeks and into his mouth, horrified and ashamed at what he had become, a vessel for a cruel and bygone god. He deserved to die. They all did.

The spiders erupted forth from the cave entrance, crushing the men beneath their heavy bodies, heading towards the village, toppling trees as they travelled, the trunks splintering under the weight of the giant insects.