ALEX was kneeling by Brandon as Kristin applied chest compressions. This time, the resuscitation was not working. Brandon’s skin was pale, and his chest wasn’t moving. His head, which still had the gash from his first fall, now had a new one, twice as long and much bloodier.
“Sorry . . .” Kristin said softly, pulling away for the last time.
Alex nodded, holding back sobs. “Yeah. I was kind of expecting this.” She let her head sink into Brandon’s chest, wrapping her hand gently around his head. “He wasn’t as lucky as we were.”
Max felt numb.
Death was numbness. Brandon would never not be numb.
It didn’t feel right. Brandon had slid the wrong way. He’d done exactly what Max had done, but he’d leaned too far to the right. And that was it. His airplanes would never feel Brandon’s hands on their controls. People would not hear his stories as he flew them to new places. Alex really, really liked him. And now he had been taken from her forever.
Max liked Brandon too. He’d never really thought about that. Brandon could be annoying, but that was only because he took Alex away from Max. You never really knew how you felt about someone until you thought about your life without them. And when Max did, it was as if he were surrounded by skunk. Sadness all over. Brandon was a part of everything he and Alex had done.
He began rocking on his knees. Alex came close to him. She was crying about Brandon, but despite that she put a hand on Max’s shoulder. To make him feel better. She was connected to Brandon and also to Max. Which meant Max was connected to Brandon. That’s how things worked. “I feel bad,” Max said. “For him. And for you.”
“Yeah,” Alex said softly.
“What do we do?” Kristin asked. “Do we just leave him? It doesn’t seem right. What about his friends and family?”
Max thought for a long moment. He knew two people who had died. One was Basile, the captain of the Nautilus, who had saved their lives. “We left Basile,” he said. “At the bottom of the sea. Where the fish ate him.”
“We had no choice,” Alex said.
Max nodded. “When my grandfather died, our family had a burial. I didn’t like it. There was a lot of crying and fuss about the coffin and the service. It seemed weird to bury people in the ground. But I don’t like thinking about Basile on the seafloor. And I don’t like thinking about leaving Brandon out in the open like this.”
“Yeah, me too,” Alex said.
“We should bury him,” Kristin suggested softly.
Alex nodded. “If we survive, we’ll tell people what happened. We’ll get professionals to come back for Brandon’s body.”
Alex stood. She looked out toward the vast underground sea, empty but for a tiny island at the horizon. Her eyes took in the high, green clouds gathered at the cave’s dome, the lava walls that stretched into the fog.
“All for one and one for all . . . that what was one of the last things he told us,” Kristin said. “He would want us to continue. To get back what was stolen and find out Jules Verne’s secret.”
Max held out a fist. “Family, remember? Till the end.”
Alex smiled weakly. With one arm, she wrapped Kristin in a hug. With the other, she extended a fist bump to Max.
A distant call that sounded something like breeeeeeaaaahhh made them all sit up straight.
“Maybe we should do this really quickly,” Alex said.
“I put trowels in our backpacks,” Kristin quickly added. “We’ll start digging here.”
“Is this body of water tidal?” Max asked.
“What?” Alex said.
“Because if it is,” Max replied, “and if it happens to be low tide right now, the water may rise over the grave and eventually undo the burial. Which is why, in the old Inuit culture, bodies were buried far up from the water’s edge. That’s a fact.”
Kristin gave Max a pained smile. “I am impressed you know that. And it’s a good point. Let’s move him up the shore.”
Alex groaned, staggering to her feet. She and Max took one shoulder and Kristin took the other, and together they began pulling Brandon up the sand. His dragging heels made a soft sssshhh sound as they moved across the surface, in a sad rhythm with Alex’s muffled sobs.
Breeeeeeaaaahhh . . .
The sound seemed closer now. But with the echo, it was impossible to tell where it was coming from.
They set Brandon down on the green sand, about fifteen feet beyond where the hill leveled off. One by one they opened their packs, took out their trowels, and began to dig. The sand was light, almost sugary. With each shovel full of sand they removed, more slid in from all sides.
Now Max could see something distant in the water, floating toward them. It was hard to make out exactly what it was. Despite the lifting of the clouds, the light was still dim and shifting. But from what Max could see, it seemed to have a wide, low body and a thin head like some crazy form of squid.
“What the heck is that?” Alex whispered.
“I don’t know, but it sounds hungry to me,” Max said.
Even in his peripheral vision, Max could tell the creature was moving toward them very quickly. They plunged the trowels in harder and faster. The sound hissed against the walls, along with the chuffing of their labored breaths. But the fine, shifting sand was making it hard to get any depth.
Max glanced up. Now the thing was close enough to see. What he thought was a wide body was actually a stout raft. What he saw as a thin head was the creature itself. It was a tall, thin animal that looked like a broom with no handle, a mass of long hair from head to toe—although below the hair, it was impossible to tell if it had any toes. Two arms, also long masses of hair, were maneuvering a pole, pushing the raft forward. Behind the creature, a long tail dragged in the water like a rudder.
“What the heck is that?” Kristin asked.
“I was hoping you’d know,” Alex said. “We’ve never been to Iceland before.”
As the hairy creature poled closer, Max stared at the area where he imagined its face would be. He spotted three speckles of brightness shining from within the cascade of hair, in the place where he expected two eyes. And just beneath the three, where its mouth should be, a red-rimmed black hole opened wide.
BREEEEEEAAAAHHH . . .
Max winced, doubling his grave-digging efforts with the trowel.
“Max . . .” Kristin said. “Stop that. Get back!”
She was pulling him away from Brandon, up the shore. Which was not right. It was against their agreement. They were supposed to take care of Brandon’s body.
Max lost his balance and tried to fight against her, but she was stronger than he expected. “But . . . family . . .” he protested.
The beast was stepping off the raft now. It resembled a walking haystack, and it was impossible to see its legs. Pulling the raft to shore, it lay the two poles on top and turned toward the group.
With a grunt like an agitated elephant, it was gesturing toward Brandon. Alex rose to her feet. But instead of running, she stood between the beast and the body. “You have to get past me, Cousin Itt,” she said.
“I don’t think insulting it is the best idea,” Max said.
The hairy creature moved closer to Brandon. Max and Kristin fanned out to both sides. With its three eyes, it glanced up from one to the other. Kristin said something to it in Icelandic.
“What did you say?” Alex asked.
“I told him Brandon was dead, and he should leave us alone,” Kristin said.
“Does it even have ears?” Max asked.
“Hard to tell,” Alex said. “But if it comes any closer, it’s going to be toast.”
As it let out another roar, Kristin jumped backward. Then, swallowing hard, she said, “Sorry, but you need to go back.”
She stepped in front of the beast as it reached out with its right arm.
Max leaped forward. He grabbed the arm, and the creature let out a squeak of surprise. Kristin quickly grabbed its other arm.
Taking advantage of the distraction, Alex lunged forward with her trowel.
The beast’s three eyes swiveled toward her. Its mass of hair quivered. Max and Kristin held tight to the arms, but that wouldn’t be enough.
From the front of the creature’s torso, hidden under the thick mass of hair, an orange tentacle whipped forward. It wrapped around Alex’s arm and tossed her to the side like driftwood. She screamed in surprise, her trowel flying away and into the water.
Max let go of the creature and ran for his cousin. “Get away from that thing!” he shouted, grabbing her by the ankles to try to pull her away. “You too, Kristin!”
Kristin was lying half in the water, maybe ten feet by the creature. Snorting through nostrils buried under its hair, the beast stood over Brandon. Its tentacle, which had disappeared back into its hair, now emerged from its torso again. This time it was holding a strange metal object, round and elaborately carved like a ninja nunchuck.
“What the heck is that?” Max murmured
“Leave Brandon alone!” Alex screamed.
BREEEEEEAAAAHHH . . .
The shriek was like a quick slap in the face. Max, Alex, and Kristin all recoiled. The mass of hair was kneeling beside Brandon Barker, rearing its tentacle back with the silver weapon.
“Get that thing!” Max shouted. He was the first to race back toward the beast. But as he approached, one of its arms rose out toward him. It was rubbery like a Gumby, and the tips of its four hairy fingers glowed and blinked.
Like eyes.
The sight made Max stop short, his body paralyzed. The beast’s tentacle was holding the silver object high, tilting it toward Brandon’s body. From one of its metallic points, a clear liquid dripped on Brandon’s forehead. Moving quickly, the creature ripped open the pilot’s shirt, letting the liquid course down his chest. Brandon’s skin let out a hiss, sending up wisps of green smoke.
“It’s burning him with acid!” Alex screamed. Despite her weakened state, she dived toward Brandon.
As she landed on him, the liquid splashed onto the back of her neck. Kristin blindsided the creature from the other side. With a roar like a creaky door, the hairy thing fell back. Kristin was yelling in Icelandic, pounding the beast wherever she could with her trowel. It let out a scream like a creaky door. Alex fell on it from her side, pulling it away from Brandon. “Hit it, Max!” Kristin shouted.
Max stood over the struggling creature. He held his trowel high. The thing was squeaking and snorting now, its three glowing eyes whirling and its red-rimmed mouth opening and closing. Its hair swirled as it struggled, revealing not one but four tentacles hidden under it, along with its arms. Two of the tentacles were waving wildly in front. The other two were digging into the sand along with its arms, trying to push away from Alex and Kristin.
“What are you waiting for?” Alex demanded.
But Max couldn’t bring himself to stab it. “It’s not attacking anymore,” he said. “It—it’s trying to get away from you.”
“What?” Kristin said.
Alex glanced up at him in shock.
With a sudden lurch, the beast leaped away, out of Kristin’s and Alex’s grip. Now its arms and tentacles were carrying it along the sand, scuttling like a crab overgrown with seaweed.
Kristin sprang to her feet and began to run after it, screaming angrily. Alex overtook her, running faster than Max had seen her move in a long time. “And never come back!” she shouted.
“Alex?” Max said. “You just ran like a world-record sprint.”
She stood there, staring down at her own body. “I know. Wow. I guess I wasn’t as sick as I thought.”
But Max’s eyes were fixed on Brandon. Where the hissing liquid had touched his body, his pale greenish skin was darkening. From a series of thin lines along his forehead and torso, it spread like the branching of nerves, setting off blotches of deeper color that grew and joined until he no longer had the same tinge as the lake. The bloody gashes on his head seemed to knit up with fibers of his own skin, the streaks of blood drying and flaking.
Max stepped closer.
Brandon’s head lolled toward him. His eyes fell open, and Max jumped back with a scream.
“I feel like I just died,” said the corpse. “What’s for lunch?”