Playthrough
“What do you mean we canceled the flight?” Leo Gries yells into the phone. “We didn’t cancel shit! You promised us that helicopter two hours ago.”
He pauses, fuming quietly, as the person on the other end of the line attempts to explain themselves. “I don’t care who screwed up at this point,” he shouts. “There is a person missing from my crew and another still unconscious. We need someone to fly us to the nearest—” He stops. “The line went dead. Dammit.”
“I can’t believe it,” the historian stammers. Most of the crew has clustered themselves inside of the mess hall, unwilling to venture out unless in larger groups.
“This island is honest-to-god cursed,” Melissa says nervously, and there are a few murmurs of agreement. “We can’t work under these conditions, Mr. Gries. We need to get the law involved. Maybe the FBI or something.”
“What we need is to get off this island,” someone else wails. “I don’t want whatever got Karl to get me!”
A babble of voices respond, the noise growing louder with every second. Hemslock raises two fingers to his mouth and whistles shrilly, breaking through the mayhem.
“Anyone who wants to leave the island is free to do so, as soon as the helicopter arrives,” he says. “I won’t stop any of you. I’d ask Alon here to ferry you all back to the mainland if you don’t want to wait, but that boat isn’t going to hold more than three, maybe four people at a time—”
“No,” I say, interrupting him.
“What?”
I point wordlessly at the sky, where dark clouds have been looming on the horizon since our return. Askal whimpers quietly beside me, staring upward as well. “It’s coming up fast. We’d be caught in the storm before we’re more than halfway across.”
Hemslock scowls. “Which means the helicopter isn’t likely to make it here in time, either.”
“We’re delaying filming indefinitely until we find Karl,” Gries decides.
“I’m not going back in there!” the researcher says violently. “I don’t care if you don’t pay me. I’m never going back in that cave after…after that!”
“I got it running,” comes the breathless response from the workstation where Straw Hat is hunched over, running through the footage that the group had recorded inside the caves before everything turned to chaos. “Here we go, Mr. Gries, Mr. Hemslock.”
Hemslock is by his side soon enough, with Gries close behind. At least half the group follows, gathering expectantly around the screen as Straw Hat plays the video.
The night vision built into the camera casts the cave in black shadows tinged with an alien green. Hemslock’s voice echoes across the wide cavern, loud and clear and sounding pleased with himself. The lens is from his point of view; I see his hand press against the cave wall, right above where the ancient script had been carved into the surface. “We now have independent evidence of the eight deaths’ curse beyond Key’s and Cortes’s journals. We’re one step closer to unlocking the Godseye’s mystery.”
As he continues to talk, his flashlight plays against the strange letters, highlighting the word the historian had confirmed meant feed.
The scream Leo heard does not register on the playback. I catch sight of myself on the screen, my head jerking toward the producer over a sound that isn’t picked up by the recording. The camera shifts wildly away from me, focusing on Gries’s face, which is as pale as paper. “I can hear someone calling my name. I—it sounds a lot like Elena’s voice,” he says.
And then it is Hemslock’s turn to behave erratically. Something on the rightmost corner of the camera catches my attention—a shadow where there shouldn’t have been, idling by the smaller tunnel the historian said had not been there before. It flits out of view.
“I don’t understand it,” one of the scientists says shakily, staring at the screen before him. “We were thorough. There wasn’t an entrance there. It couldn’t have magically appeared—”
Leo’s voice on the recording cuts through his words, crying out Elena’s name, and I hear Chase start beside me. I lay a hand on his shoulder, and he leans toward me.
The strange dark figure that emerges is only a speck in the lens, not enough to make out what it truly was. We watch as I grab Gries, dragging us to safety as Hemslock’s bodyguards open fire at something behind us. But there is nothing on screen to show beyond shadows, even as we all retreat.
And then, Goatee—again from Hemslock’s perspective—runs up ahead, sliding and skidding, until that last fatal trip sends him sprawling to the ground. The screen goes blank as he begins to scream.
“What’s wrong with the recording?” Hemslock demands, nearly beside himself and livid.
“I don’t know, sir!” Straw Hat frantically types on his keyboard, trying to sort out the technical difficulties, to no effect. “It’s not that there’s anything wrong with our equipment, it’s just that the camera didn’t film shit!”
Images return abruptly, but by then it’s far too late. We can see Hemslock’s hands digging frantically into the ground, desperately searching for his friend. But Goatee is gone.
Hemslock yanks off his mic and throws it on the floor before stalking off, his bodyguards silently following.
Straw Hat leans back in his seat, looking like he ran a marathon. “I don’t understand,” he says. “There’s nothing wrong with the—”
“Play it again,” Gries orders.
“Sir—”
“Play it again.”
Straw Hat flinches but obeys.
Nothing changes in this second playthrough—Leo and I escape with our lives and the soldiers fire at something that is never caught on video. Goatee runs, falls, and then—nothing but the sounds of his screams.
“It was a woman,” Leo says, as if trying to convince himself of his own words. “No—a creature with a woman’s shape. Only there was—it had no face. None at all. But it had a mouth. A wide, carnivorous—you saw that too, right? Tell me I wasn’t hallucinating.”
“I don’t know what that was,” the historian says, her hands trembling. “Nothing like that should exist—”
“I want to look through the rest of the footage,” Gries says abruptly. “Surely one of the cameras we wore will show more.”
Wordlessly and unwilling to prove him wrong, the crew looks through the rest of the recordings—all at different angles and multiple viewpoints, none showing us the creature that had chased us or what had taken Goatee.
“Impossible,” is all Gries can say each time. “This is impossible.”
“Did you see it, too?” Chase whispers to me. “Have you ever seen any creatures like that on the island before?”
“Yeah, kid,” Hawaiian Shirt says, overhearing him. He looks exhausted. “You’ve been inside the cave. You told me you’ve seen figures moving around this place. Tell us why it isn’t showing up on our cameras like some fucking vampire.”
“I’ve never seen it up close,” I say.
All eyes turn my way. “Explain,” Gries says tersely.
“I’ve seen them, but they’ve never come near. They often stand among the trees and watch me until I leave, but they’ve never come this near before. Fishermen have sighted them in the past, but it’s considered bad luck to talk about them.”
“Guns seem to be effective at scaring them off,” Hemslock says as he returns to the group, his temper under better control. He looks hard at me. “Bastards won’t catch us off-guard a second time.”
Gries turns to Melissa, still irritable. “Where the hell is the damn ‘copter?”
“I’ve been trying to contact them,” the girl says, nervously. “There’s a storm on the mainland right now, which must be affecting our communications—we can’t establish contact with the rest of the team there, either.”
“Find a way!”
Melissa rushes off. Hemslock reaches into his jacket and pulls out a gun. “We’re going to search the caves again for Karl,” he says grimly. “Robert’s already planning our approach. If any of you want to volunteer, you’re going to have to go in packing heat.”
Gries hesitates. Then, “I’ll go.”
“You have got to be shitting me, Dad!” Chase cries out.
“I’m sorry. But they need all the help they can get, and I’m experienced enough with caves to be of some use. I—” His jaw flexes. “I heard her, Chase. Your mom. She’s somewhere inside. Alon—”
“Askal and I will stay with him, sir,” I say, before he can finish the sentence.
“Brick, Leo’s in,” Hemslock says brusquely, nodding at one of his soldiers. “We’ll keep up the search till nightfall.”
“Mr. Hemslock, Mr. Gries.” The medics approach them, troubled. “Mr. Galant is awake,” one of them says.
“Finally some good news!” Hemslock exclaims, his face clearing. “How is he?”
The medics glance worriedly at each other. “Sir,” one says carefully. “I think it would be best if you see for yourself.”
A large tent had been set up near the shore to handle any medical emergencies during filming, and the medics have been treating Armani there since he’d fallen unconscious. I accompany Hemslock, Askal tagging a few feet behind us.
Armani lies on a large cot, staring up at the ceiling. He blinks, slowly. “Reuben?” he asks, as Hemslock sits on the chair beside him. “Is that you?”
“You gave us all a scare, Steve,” Hemslock says reassuringly. He reaches down and grips the man’s shoulder. “A lot has happened while you were unconscious. Karl’s missing, and it’s been a mess with the other—”
Armani grabs at Hemslock’s arm without warning. His fingers score deeply into his skin, with a strength that makes Hemslock recoil.
“The fuck, Steve?” He struggles to throw him off, even as the man clings to him stubbornly.
Askal begins to growl and bark at Galant, leaping for him with teeth bared. I haul him back by the scruff of his neck just in time. “Baba!” I say sharply and he acquiesces, though he continues to snarl and snap in the man’s direction.
The medics are quick to pull the injured man from Hemslock. Armani fights them, but he then shudders, hands dropping without warning. He lets the medics settle him on the cot. His eyes continue to stare blindly ahead, never once looking at Hemslock, the doctors, or the rest of us in the room.
“I can’t see, Reuben,” he chokes. And then, he begins to scream. “I can’t see! I can’t see who it is, but I know it’s here. It’s telling me things I don’t want to hear. God help me, help me, stop telling me what I can’t see, stop telling me what I can’t—”