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Walsh listened to the hum of the Jeep’s engine as the car moved sluggishly through the jungle. He kept watch over Elizabeth where she laid in the rear seat, and occasionally checked her vitals with the handful of tools he’d been able to retrieve from the wreckage of The Ram’s Head. Her core temperature steadily acclimated to the tropical environment, but he was worried the sudden escalation from the icebox might prove troublesome. His heart’s desire filled him with an anxious ecstasy. Only a little while now, and he would see her as the woman she used to be.
The remaining Sons sliced a path through thorny vines and thick bushes. It was slow work—too slow.
“Stop here,” said Cobb. The bandage over his eye wasn’t much to look at, and he was, understandably, in a rather darkened mood. “Give yourselves a five-minute rest. No, wait, cancel that order. Take as long as you need.”
The longer they delayed, the less he believed in Elizabeth’s chances of restoration.
“Hold on a second,” said Walsh. “I paid for this expedition. Don’t I get a say?”
“No. After the stunt you pulled, you’re fortunate to be alive. You aren’t one of mine. I won’t extend you the same leniency I do for my Sons.”
“But—”
“You’re a lowly coward and a proven liar. Your apologies mean nothing to me, and your fool’s errand has cost me dearly. As far as I’m concerned, the blood of my lieutenant is on your hands.”
“I’m sorry about Captain Davis, but I had no choice. I couldn’t have saved him even if I tried.”
Cobb grunted. “These men are my responsibility, Doctor. Under the circumstances, I will defend their interests above all others. You’re a scientist who lacks real survival experience of any kind. You’re a liability and a hindrance. We’ll find the Wellspring Tree and do our damnedest to save your wife, Mr. Walsh, but the Sons won’t pretend to listen to any more of your nonsense.”
He knew it was only a matter of time before he was found out. His big game hunting expertise amounted to a sham. It was an easy lie, what with the killing of endangered animals being such a commonly despised practice among the elitist super-rich. In truth, his hobby was taxidermy, and most of the animals in his office were replicas.
He should have hired less-intimidating people for this job. Then again, if he had, they would all be dead already and his Elizabeth would never return to him.
“Fair enough,” said Walsh. “But the clock is ticking, and we can’t wait around here in a hostile environment. The island is crawling with untamed prehistoric fauna, and who knows what else is lurking in those dark greens.”
“I’m aware of our plight, but we shall persevere. And if these legends are true, you have no evil to fear.”
Elizabeth. He thought again of her pending resurrection and what it would be like to hold her again, wholly unblemished. Oh, how he remembered her with those perfect pouty lips and her luscious locks, curly and dark and deep as the void she had left in his heart the day he had chosen to place her in stasis.
Walsh wouldn’t let her be buried in the ground. Not her. She was much too good, a goddess, a beauty who had never been made to return to dust. It pained him to witness her present condition, now outside of her protective shell, still unable to move or breathe well or touch the flora of this wondrous island. She would be fine for now, but he hated every second of this prolonged wait.
He couldn’t adequately describe what it felt like to be separated from her. Elizabeth had broadened his horizons as a young boy. She had taught him the value of taking what was owed, of not backing down to the challenges of this life. She had carried his children and kept him sane through their shared misery when she underwent three miscarriages.
She was mine. I was hers.
He had almost lost her once before, when that disease had left her bedridden for two months while she urinated and defecated all over herself. Everyone had feigned their sympathies and done nothing to help. Those sycophant doctors had told him she would be all right, that it wasn’t anything serious, all while they lined their pockets with his hard-earned cash and robbed him of the chance to secure her real love and tender care.
Then SysLife had reached out to him and said they had an experimental treatment that would rid her body of all traces of the cursed ailment. So, he had become their employee, rose up the ranks, and day by day, his Elizabeth had grown healthier and happy.
She smiled again, her wonderful unequaled smile, the one that makes the daisies gleam and the squirrels sing.
He had never loved her more.
When she had taken ill again, this time because of the cancerous growths appearing in her body, his first instinct had been to bring her back to the world’s leading researchers in virulent diseases and biological abnormalities. Walsh had known the higher-ups at the company were the best candidates for curing his wife when the most efficient legal treatments failed. After SysLife had accepted her into their latest program, he rejoiced. At last, she would be free of her wretched sicknesses and be the woman he had known and adored since middle school.
He had entrusted his colleagues to do the right thing, to heal his wife, only to discover their ulterior motives. SysLife had wanted to weaponize his Elizabeth, to utilize the antibodies in her blood in a new concoction of their making.
They were never going to cure her.
That’s when he’d remembered the article about the Wellspring Tree. He had come across the legend during his search for replacements to the company’s failed hybrid experiments. He had needed an army, if the rumors of the island’s dangers were true, so he had tracked down the infamous Sons of Darkness through a third party and contacted their elusive leader. Through Cobb’s efforts, he had learned of an impending raid on his workplace, and set everything in motion.
He hadn’t been surprised by the interference of the FBI and BOPAC. In fact, he had warned the Sons that there might be government interference, given what had happened following the destruction of the Fairvale testing grounds two years ago. With the Smiling Man ousted, the suits in the expensive seats had become increasingly paranoid and cagey about their projects, but they had also become unfocused and reckless where it mattered most, as the feds closed in. While they had preoccupied themselves with purging the evidence of their genetic exploitation, Walsh snuck under their radar, hacked into their system, and retrieved his wife from their clutches.
She belonged with him. The heartless devils had no right to take her away. Neither the doctors nor SysLife had her survival in mind. Her own family believed she was good as dead the second she was diagnosed, and had done nothing to stop the hospital from neglecting her care. No, none of those other claims mattered.
She is mine alone.
Cobb’s men started cutting again, and the Jeep’s engine roared to life once more.
Finally.
“Liz, I promise we’ll be together soon,” he whispered. Walsh pictured their reunion with the utmost clarity of sight, scent, and touch. “Nothing will separate us from our love. No person on Earth or power in heaven will come between us. We’ll be whole again.”
***
Sofia led Llewyn and Willow to an outpost along the edge of the island’s widest river. She explained that the main road to the village had long since become impassable. The only way to travel there was by boat.
“Not a fan?” asked Willow as she eyed the wooden canoe tethered to the dock.
Llewyn gave her a funny look. “You could say that.”
“Yeah, I get it,” she said. “At least you weren’t in the last one when it crashed.”
“Nah. I was just flailing around in the cold water trying not to drown. You know? Surrounded by meat-eating sea beasts?”
“Touché.” She smiled. “Still, we both look pretty good for nearly being eaten and broken in half.”
He smiled back. “Yeah, we’ve got that sweet sickly near-death glow. Who needs a shower and a nice comfy bed? Not me.”
Sofia cleared her throat and pointed at the tall watchtower erected next to the dock. The tower was built out of overlaid stones and camouflaged with foliage in order to blend in with the surroundings. At the top, Llewyn saw an open viewing platform. The railing was an intricately wound rope mesh partially obscured by leaves and other plant bits.
“You see that building?” asked Sofia. “It’s the highest point on the island other than the mountaintop. We used to send signals from there to let the village know about impending danger.”
“What sort of signals?” asked Willow.
“Mainly smoke. There were different colors for different problems. We used blue for flooding, yellow for small brush fires and the like, red... well, that’s self-explanatory.”
“And what about human enemies?” asked Llewyn. “Did you have a color for them? You can’t tell me all the visitors to this island have been friendly, not when some of them were Nazis and cultists and who knows what else.”
She avoided his gaze. “Black, but we never needed it while I was growing up.”
“Why’s that?”
Sofia took a long time to answer as the two of them climbed into the canoe. He tried not to think about how deep the water was or what could be lurking beneath the surface. He didn’t think the plesiosaurs would bother swimming this far inland, but he knew very little about this place, and it felt like he understood less every second.
“You can see an outsider coming a mile away,” she finally said, settling in and pushing the boat away from the shore with the end of her oar. “He’s loud and boastful. He shows up with a big smile and marks his territory. But the enemy within? There’s no early warning for that, and no second chances.”
Again, Llewyn pondered what must have happened to her people. The bread crumbs were there, leading him onward to the culprit’s house, but he couldn’t help thinking he was already in her presence.
Sofia was withdrawn, sullen, prone to distrust. No one carried that kind of damage with them wherever they went unless they were feeling guilty about something they had done or should have done. If anyone understood what it felt like to be that person, to uneasily bear the heavy burden of responsibility, it was him.
It wasn’t something that could remain buried beneath a veneer of solemn acceptance. That kind of pain bubbled over in every action, in every silent tilt of the conscience toward self-defeat and pity, and it couldn’t be ignored without festering into an aberrant cyst pulsating in the soul of man.
He knew the hell of shutting oneself off from the world. He had tried to atone, thinking that if he created enough good will in the cosmos, all of his anxieties and fears would dissipate. That was the bound man’s response to his suffering, as well as a foolish and misguided answer to the question of his personal responsibility.
Llewyn didn’t have to lie anymore, didn’t have to pretend that everything depended on his efforts. He wasn’t anyone’s savior and he didn’t have to be. He couldn’t have shouldered that load if he tried.
And I tried.
It was a lesson Sofia had yet to learn, apparently, as the river carried them closer and closer to her village. His suspicions only grew as the current hurried them along, and the quiet, sunken mood of the voyage reminded him eerily of attending a wake.
He dipped his oar into the water in time with Sofia. “Look, I know you don’t want to talk about what happened yet. I get it. I really do. But we can’t be going into this blind and uninformed. You wanted us armed and ready for a fight. Why? Who or what are we about to encounter?”
She kept rowing, and ignored his question until she could no longer stand the eyes staring into the back of her head.
“It’s difficult to explain,” she said, switching her paddle over to the other side of the canoe. “You won’t believe me until we get there.”
Willow spoke up. “We’ve been through some pretty unbelievable things, Sofia—parasite-infected townsfolk out for blood, hybrid monsters in an underground testing facility.”
“At least one chainsaw-wielding maniac,” Llewyn added to the ever-growing list. “Government spies... a gang of bootleggers... and now we’ve got mercenaries, dinosaurs, a wrecked ship, and this huge mountain of a man who thinks he’s some kind of prophet.”
Sofia stopped paddling and rested the oar on her legs. She held up a hand, telling them to follow suit, as they slowed to a crawl and the current softened.
Llewyn listened to the sounds of the jungle. He hadn’t heard anything worrying. “What’s the matter?” he asked.
She held a finger to her lips and shook her head.
Not hard to figure out what that means.
They waited, the three of them holding their breath, biding their time for something disastrous and deadly to happen.
Moments later, she signaled for them to start rowing again.
“We were being watched,” she answered before Llewyn had the chance to ask. “It doesn’t like us getting so close to its nesting ground.”
“Who? The Carnotaurus? I thought we were out of their territory.”
“Half of this island is their territory.” Sofia steered their boat closer to the embankment. “But no, it wasn’t the Red Devil or his mate.”
“Then who was it?” asked Willow, who held tightly onto one of the semi-automatic Mauser HSc pistols they had brought along per Sofia’s instruction. The compact weapon held only eight rounds in a magazine and one in the chamber. The two of them would have to make every shot count.
Sofia directed their attention to a yellow-green carcass washed up on the shore nearby. “See for yourselves.”
Llewyn blinked.
Not a carcass.
The flattened exterior looked thin and brittle. The shed skin extended fifty feet in length, with a honeycomb pattern stretching from end to end, and he thought it must have been recent.
“That’s a big snake.”
“Yes,” Sofia replied. “Yes it is.”
Well, that puts things into perspective for me. He thought he had followed Willow’s trail before. The internal debate over whether he had been shadowing a snake and not his wife was now academic. Thank God that I ran into Sofia first.
“I take it this isn’t why we’re going into the village armed?”
She shook her head. “No. Come on, we’re here.” Sofia tied the canoe to a stake hammered into the earth above the lip of the riverbank. “Grab the guns and keep low. We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves.”
“This isn’t our first rodeo.” Although, thinking about it, his last infiltration hadn’t gone as well as he’d wanted. Llewyn believed Rossiter was working on something to get them back—and he hoped that Kasey wasn’t dead—but he realized he couldn’t do anything to get things moving on his end.
Sofia sighed. “I’m sure you’re both more than capable in a fight, but you don’t know this island like I do.”
It was hard to tell in the darkness of the jungle, but it must be getting close to the late hours of the afternoon. The rain had stopped for the moment, but the ever-shifting tide of the weather on this island held no guarantee of sunshine peeking through the canopy.
When the three of them reached the outskirts of the village, they ducked low, following Sofia’s lead as she crept beneath the shadows of the high and overgrown housing platforms. He was in awe of the thick, redwood-styled trees, which were so unlike the other jungle fare on the island. They towered so far above the rest of the canopy that he couldn’t process the sheer scope of their size. Most of the rope bridges and ladders hung in disrepair, but the actual intricate woodwork of the platforms and homes remained sturdy and resolute despite the passage of time.
These circular platforms interlocked with smaller subsidiary platforms, linking downward into a concave spiral in the center of the village. The many houses stood tall and narrow, winding around the thick bark of the trees. On the outermost ring, atop the highest level, were a series of five ivory instruments that looked to be about the size of his chest. At a distance, the devices reminded him of oversized Viking battle trumpets, but as he and Willow neared the massive structure, he saw that the sleek and simple mechanisms looked more akin to flutes. The instruments were exactly as Mitchell Wentz had described in his journal.
The natives were clearly capable of impressive feats. The old-fashioned idea that all primitive cultures were innately at a disadvantage to the modern was disproven by places and societies like this. Sofia’s people were a notch above the rest.
She saw where his eyes lingered and told him, “Don’t get your hopes up. Those haven’t worked in months.”
“Why not?”
“Sabotage,” she answered, her voice low and restrained, shifting her attention away from him as she took several tentative steps toward the intact rope ladder at the bottom of the central platform.
He wanted to ask her a dozen questions, but knew that she was deathly afraid of whatever it was they might come across in this village. He stayed quiet.
Llewyn scaled the spiral, climbing up rung after rung with bated breath, uncertain what waited for him and Willow on the upper platforms. Sofia’s pace was steady but unhurried as she showed them where to ascend. He had a feeling that when they found what they were searching for, all the pieces of this island’s puzzle would begin to fall into place.
On the topmost platform, she led them to one of the smaller homes near the outer rim of the ring. She pushed aside the cloak of thin, knotted ropes that served as the entranceway, and let them step inside.
“This is where I lived,” Sofia said. Her voice cracked as she relived what he assumed must be painful memories. “I’m the one responsible for all of this. I’m the reason everyone I know is gone.”
Willow sat down on a stump carved in the shape of a seat. “I don’t understand. Why is the village so empty? What exactly was meant to be such a dire threat that we had to be ready for combat? Who or what was supposed to stop us from getting here?”
Llewyn felt as confused as his wife. For all Sofia’s bluster, there wasn’t anything coming out of the shadows or swinging through the trees to get at them, and there weren’t any bodies or graves here either. It was time for her smokescreen to drop, and she seemed to know it.
“I know, I know,” she stammered. The facsimile of the strong and cynical young woman collapsed. The blues of her eyes softened, and he saw her for what she really was: a scared child in an unfeeling and ruthless environment. “I’ve been sort of teasing you along. I’m sorry, but I didn’t mean for this to happen, okay?”
“Slow down,” he said. “Just tell us the truth. No hiding behind false faces. That stuff hurts more lives than it helps. Got it?”
Sofia gazed at him. Her eyes watered.
Llewyn thought he saw the faintest hint of a smile.
“Got it.”
“Good.” He glanced at Willow and reassured her that he would be taking a different tack with the young girl this go around. “If there’s one thing you should know about us, it’s that we’re very familiar with the repercussions of lying to yourself and the people who care about you. You’re safe with us, whatever you did or didn’t do, or should have done. No one here is judging you. When you’re ready, we’ll be listening.”
Sofia composed herself, but he understood her change in mood was a fragile and tenuous thing. She wiped her eyes, walked past the two of them, and shuffled to the back wall of the hovel. She tapped her knuckles against the surface until she hit a hollow portion of the shaved wood.
“There’s the seam,” she muttered, and pushed that section inward until a dull thud sounded. She reached inside and extracted a small metal container. For a moment, she stood there in quiet contemplation.
He counted the beats. One. Two.
Then she shook her head and turned to face him. Her whole body trembled as she returned to Llewyn and handed him the box. She sat on the floor beside Willow, pulled her knees to her chest, and breathed a lengthy sigh of relief.
The sides of the box were blackened and burned. He saw the cult’s insignia and the Nazi emblem inscribed on the lid, and decided not to make any assumptions regarding what he was about to see.
“Is this... what I think it is?”
“Yes,” said Sofia. “Inside that box is the fabled fruit of the Wellspring Tree.”
Llewyn lifted the lid, and a scent not unlike that of sweet honey filled his nostrils. The dried leaves at the bottom were a common oval shape, only a few centimeters in length, and the stem of the plant looked rather thin and shriveled. There were no nuts or berries. The plant sprouted outward into an egg-shaped frame, with a yellowing shell and a veiny red center. A bite-sized chunk was missing.
“This is it?” He couldn’t believe it. His mind almost refused to accept the truth. He possessed more than his share of skepticism, but even he thought it must be something spectacular to have fueled such a great myth. “This is what Cobb’s men are dying for? This is why Alan Walsh brought his wife all this way? All this effort for a little old fruit?”
Sofia sighed again. “If only, Llewyn. If only.”
