The Face
I insist on accompanying the rescue team inside the cave. It is nightfall, and the idea of heading into the Godseye with only flashlights to guide us is unsettling to the others.
Oddly enough Hemslock, who advocated that I join the earlier cave expedition, is now against it. “I’ve been in the caves several times now and shit happens only when you’re with us. You seem to attract these paranormal activities wherever you go. Who’s to say that you won’t make things worse for Galant if you’re with us?”
“We may not know the mind of the god who dwells here, but Alon is good at calming it down,” Gries points out, taking a completely opposite stance from before. “And I thought you would jump at the chance to record more ghostly activity.”
Hemslock glowers at me but stays silent.
“I want everyone at the mess hall,” Gries instructs the rest of the crew. “Stay together; if you need to use the bathroom or get something, go in pairs.”
“We promise, sir,” Straw Hat says nervously.
The new team consists of me, Hemslock, Gries, and the rest of Hemslock’s bodyguards. The armed men calmly outfit themselves with thick vests and check their guns, as if traveling into caves to shoot at ghosts is a daily occurrence in their line of work.
“You two be careful,” Chase whispers worriedly to his father and me.
As it turns out, we didn’t need to travel very far into the cave to find Armani.
I almost do not recognize him. The executive producer has divested himself of his clothes. Naked, he lies atop the stone altar, gazing up into the hole in the ceiling as if in a trance. He does not stir as we approach. His physique has noticeably declined since he fell into the pit. Once a broad-shouldered man with a bit of a gut, he’s grown emaciated. There are craggy lines on his face like he’s aged thirty years within two days. He looks as desiccated as the balete around us.
“Reuben,” he rasps as we approach, never turning his face away from the moon above. “That you?”
“You’re gonna be alright, Steve,” Reuben says reassuringly. “We’re going to get you home. I’m sure that stone’s comfy, but I think a nice soft bed would be more to your liking.”
“I can’t hear,” the man whispers, oblivious to his friend’s words. “I can’t hear anymore. I can’t see. And yet I can hear. I can see. Visions that I don’t like, words that I don’t want to hear. Can you see them, Reuben? The damned? The island has seen it all. More than we thought, more than we could ever dream.”
He laughs suddenly. His cackle echoes through the cavern. “Am I dreaming? Are we all just dreaming? That’s what it’s telling me. That’s what it’s whispering in my ear. We’re all dreaming, and we will all cease to exist when the god awakes.
“The fifth to serve. The sixth to lure. I understand now. They will root into our bodies and sprout like newborns. We are nothing but a mote in his eye, Reuben. We are nothing but dust underneath his feet. He will drink from us and then, if we are worthy, he will dream us into the next world.
“I am not worthy. I am not worthy. I am—” He begins to laugh harder, hysterical giggles he seems incapable of holding back.
“I am not worthy,” he gasps out. “And Reuben, you—you are not worthy either—”
Hemslock springs. He grabs Armani’s wrists, pins them against the altar’s surface. His men jump into action, grabbing at the poor man’s limbs to keep him still. Even then Armani thrashes about, nearly dislodging himself from the soldier’s grip despite his weakened condition. At one point, he sits up and nearly makes a break toward the deeper recesses of the cave, only to be hauled back much more forcefully by the bodyguards.
“Bind him tight,” Hemslock instructs them. “I don’t want him breaking free.”
“Shit,” Gries says. He stares deeper into the cave, at something that the rest of us don’t see. “I—I see her.”
“Keep a hold of yourself, Gries,” Hemslock says roughly. “We’ve already got one mad person to deal with. Don’t add to the score.”
I see her as well. She doesn’t come closer, content to hide in the shadows. But Gries shines his flashlight her way. Caught in its glow, her features are easier to make out. A pretty woman with long black hair and dark eyes looks back at us. She resembles Chase so closely that I know who it is.
“Why are you doing this?” Gries asks, the pain in his voice clear. “She never did anything to you!”
“Leo,” the woman speaks in the softest voice. “Where is Chase? Did you remember to help him with his school project? I helped with the outline, but it’s due tomorrow and I need to leave for the airport.”
“No,” I say, when Leo takes two steps toward her. “Don’t.”
But he is no longer listening, caught in the trap that always wraps around the island’s guilty. “Elena, I’m sorry. I—”
“I don’t want your apologies, Leo,” the woman says sharply, turning from him. “You’ve made your decision. My lawyer will be sending the documents over in a few days, like you want. And I will be asking for full custody.”
Leo’s pace quickens. Before I can stop him, he grabs at her shoulder. “Elena, no. I shouldn’t have shouted at you that morning. I shouldn’t have threatened to—”
Chase’s mother turns back to him, and she is no longer Elena. A flytrap of a mouth emerges from what used to be her face, something like a tongue curling around his wrist.
Gries screams. My machete slashes between them, severing the hideous, lolling protrusion that clings to him.
At the same time, Hemslock raises his gun, pointing it straight at the figure that wears Chase’s mother’s shape.
The woman’s face explodes.
There is no blood. Instead, the same sap-like liquid that had covered the floor of the Grieses cabin bursts out of her, spraying the nearby walls. The creature drops to the ground, a chaos of writhing vines and roots.
But Hemslock doesn’t stop. He walks over to the remains, firing angrily into the carcass of branches until it stills. He pauses and stares off into the depths of the tunnel, as if trying to see within the gloom. And then he laughs—a high-pitched sound similar to Galant’s in its madness.
“I knew it,” he says. “I fucking knew it!”
He begins to fire again—at whatever it is he sees in the dark. He continues to unload into the shadows until the click of his gun tells us that he is out of bullets.
“I knew it,” he repeats. “You bitch. You really think you’re fooling me?”
“Sir,” one of the bodyguards speaks up. The soldiers look nervous, as the man paying their wages exhibits the same insanity that Armani has manifested. “Sir. There’s nothing there.”
Hemslock stares hard at the dark of the cave. “Not anymore,” he says, reloading his gun but—to my relief—moving back toward the entrance, stepping over the tree creature’s remains.
Its roots quiver—and then latch around his ankle.
Hemslock goes down with a yell. Six of his solders rush for him, drawing out heavy army knives. Expertly, they slice at the roots ensnaring their employer, who’s frantically trying to kick free. One of the bodyguards turns his own gun to where the base of still-moving roots lay at their thickest. Several more blasts and the heap shudders to a standstill.
Two of the soldiers haul Hemslock forward, out of the cave. Two more carry Armani, and the rest form the rear, on the alert for any more threats as we run back toward the beach.
The film crew waits outside the cave, surprise on their faces. “That was fast,” Straw Hat says in a bid to be jovial, but his features grow stricken when he sees Armani.
The medics rush forward. This time, Armani doesn’t put up a fight as he is once more restrained. He only blinks and stares. “We are not worthy,” is all he says, over and over again. “We are not worthy. Forgive me. I am sorry. Forgive me.”
“He’s as good as gone,” Hawaiian Shirt says.
Hemslock has shaken off his bodyguards and stands upright on his own. “Get the case,” he snaps, and two of his men leave.
“What the hell is the matter with you?” Gries asks him angrily.
“I saved your life,” the actor says tersely. Whatever he saw within the confines of the cave still haunts Hemslock. I can see the strain in his eyes despite his effort to sound calm. “You would have been dead, or worse off than Steve.”
“What the hell were you shooting at?” one of his soldiers asks him.
For a moment, a look of indescribable rage crosses Hemslock’s face, and it is frightening to see. But it passes quickly, and he resumes his arrogant air. “That’s not of any importance to you. What’s important is that we got Steve back without losing anyone else. Melissa, are we able to reach anyone on the mainland?”
“Communication’s still down, sir. Internet isn’t working.”
“How are we going to know when the storm is over?” Gries explodes. “All I see is calm, serene sky with no rain in sight.”
“We still have some business to take care of here,” Hemslock insists. “You saw it, right? Guns work on these bastards.”
The two soldiers return, carrying a wide, heavy briefcase between them. Hemslock gestures for them to set it on the ground. A deft flick of the straps opens it, allowing us a glimpse of what’s inside.
“How did you even get these?” Gries chokes out.
“I know people who know some people. Look at these beauties.” Proudly, like a doting father, Hemslock surveys the explosives within. “MI6s, AK-47s—nothing too fancy. Surprising how easy they were to bring in. They’ll take out anything in a heartbeat, even a god. And then we’ve got our secret weapon.”
“Hemslock, what the hell are you planning to—”
“What does it look like? Are you a fool not to figure it out by now, Gries? This island intends to kill all of us. These clear skies—they’re just an illusion.” Hemslock is busy, taking out more guns and tossing them to the other soldiers. “It’s not going to let us go until at least three of us bite the dust. So I’m thinking we need to turn the tables, see what we have to bargain. Settlement ain’t gonna be cheap.”
Hemslock lifts a large flamethrower, grinning nastily. “This one is my favorite,” he says. “What’s the little god gonna do when I burn everything it sends after us?”
“You didn’t bring these guns on a whim,” Leo says. “You didn’t hire a score of bodyguards because it’s a part of your contract. You came here intending to destroy this island. You knew guns could hurt it.”
“Destroy is such a misleading term. I’d like to offer Him an alliance, is all. If this god gave his power to these natives, then he can give it to us. Cortes said that the god prized strength most of all.” He turns back to the caves. “So that’s what I’m going to prove to him.”
“Reuben—”
“I’m going hunting with my boys. This camera’s still operational.” Hemslock taps the helmet he’s wearing. “Feel free to watch, but none of you are going to stop me. Let’s roll, men.”
“Are we really going to let him do this?” Chase mutters, watching Hemslock and his soldiers disappear into the mouth of the cave. I can hear Hawaiian Shirt and Straw Hat scrambling behind us, hurriedly setting up the laptop that connects to the camera Hemslock is wearing. Even when there is danger, some instinct motivates them to continue recording, watching, analyzing for a show that’s endangering their lives. “Dad?”
“I don’t think there’s anything that would stop him.”
With nothing better to do, we all crowd around Straw Hat’s workstation. The dark cave comes once more into focus, Hemslock leading the way.
“We’re heading back to the cavern with the writings,” we hear him say. “There’s something in the smaller tunnel beyond that it doesn’t want us to see, so that’s where we’re going. Stay alert.”
They pass the carved figure of the Godseye without incident. The ancient script underneath it seems to glow with its own unearthly light.
“Tight squeeze, careful,” one of the soldiers murmurs as he slides through the narrow opening of the tunnel where we first encountered the creature. The heavy-duty flashlights attached to their guns are stronger than the ones we carried, and they illuminate the passageway, showing no new signs of supernatural activity.
Hemslock points his gun toward the ground, at roughly the spot where his bodyguards had gunned down the monster. Nothing of it remains—not even a root. “It’s baiting us,” he says.
They walk farther into the tunnel and reach the end without incident. “Holy shit,” I hear another of the men say, and the camera spins abruptly.
On the beach, the crew gasps in unison at the feed.
It is the largest balete tree that I have ever seen, horrific in its majesty. It grows upside down from the ceiling and stands nearly a hundred feet high, its roots twined thickly together to form a massive tree trunk. The ground around the men is elevated and broken in many places—the branches strong enough to have fractured the island’s bedrock, digging deep. The branches are full of living, breathing makahiya, unfurling and shutting at will. The finger-like tips of the balete’s branches graze the ceiling, spiderwebs of brown ivy growing sideways despite the limits imposed on its height, gathering at the darker corners of the cave and expanding across the walls. They rustle, swaying in some unknown breeze that seems impossible so deep within the cave.
And at the center of the tree—
At the center of the tree is something that passes for a face, braided into reality by the thick quilt work of bark. Its eyes are closed. Its mouth is relaxed. More roots snake around it and pulse, breathing like a heartbeat.
“Almost like it’s asleep,” a soldier mutters.
This is not the only horror here. Scattered around the great balete lie human shapes, sculptures of smaller roots crisscrossed and braided to mimic two arms, a torso, a head. There are no faces on these grotesque creations, but their forms are frozen in mid-air, caught twisting in agony, trapped in some ongoing punishment that only they and the god within know.
“This is sick,” one of the people in the cave grunts. “You telling me these used to be people? The ones it killed?”
“Spread out, but stay within sight,” Hemslock instructs. They comply, each soldier picking an adjacent spot to the others as they continue their cursory investigation.
“Look at this.” The camera shifts again. A soldier gingerly toes the base of one of the people-shaped briars. There is a crunching, brittle sound, and part of it falls away, crumbling at his feet.
“You gotta see this, sir.” More scraping sounds as the man sweeps up some bits with his foot.
A few other soldiers edge closer for a look. “My god,” one of them breathes. “That ain’t dirt. That’s bone.”
“Bone?” Hawaiian Shirt asks frantically. “What does that mean?”
“Shut up,” Leo Gries hisses at him.
One of the men in the cave takes out his hunting knife, testing the edges of the briar. “These ain’t trees, Boss,” he says amazed. “Kyle’s right. There are bodies inside them. Just like that damn corpse tree outside.”
“The victims who didn’t make the cut,” Hemslock says. “The ones that don’t conform to the prophecy but died anyway because the god deemed them unworthy.”
“Oh shit!” another soldier says and jumps back as the bone hedge in front of him begins to move. There are sounds of guns cocking as the men aim their weapons at the shaking patch.
“Wait,” Hemslock says suddenly.
He smashes the butt of his gun against the bramble, sending up more fragments into the air. Like the balete, the strange formations are hollow. And within—
A hand, surprisingly human, flesh instead of bark, pushes its way out of the hole that Hemslock created. It grabs at his hand.
“He’s alive!” Hemslock shouts. “Get him out!”
It’s Goatee. He is naked and shivering and as pale as the smooth limestone around them, but he’s alive and blubbering. They all get to work, frantically trying to break through the brambles to free Goatee, but with little effect.
“No,” Goatee rattles. “No!”
“Save your breath,” one of the bodyguards tells him. “We’ll get you out of here.”
“Shit,” Straw Hat says.
“There!” one of the soldiers shouts. “Above us!”
We see it. We see a creature manifesting on the ceiling, branches and roots twisting and molding themselves into a grotesque human shape. Limbs emerge from that abstract of dead forestry, followed by a blank face, a mess of twig-hair and makahiya, its twisted mouth lined with thorn-teeth.
“It’s on top of you, you assholes!” Straw Hat yells into the radio, though it seems no one can hear him. “Look up! Look up!”
Hemslock himself has already frozen, but his attention is not on the danger above them. The camera slides away from Goatee toward another figure that stares back from the darkness.
The face, or at least what face we can see of it in the dark, looks familiar. It’s a woman with long yellow hair, carefully combed and parted down in the middle, though it hides much of her face. She’s wearing a white cocktail dress. What we can see of her eyes is on Hemslock. What we see of her mouth is cruel.
“What’s Hemslock doing?” Leo Gries asks frantically. He doesn’t seem to see her. Neither do the others. But I do.
“You fucking bitch,” we hear Hemslock snarl. “I knew it.”
“I didn’t want to,” the strange girl says in a calm, clear voice. None of the other soldiers seem to see her either, even as she walks toward Hemslock. “You know I didn’t want to.”
“Shut up,” Hemslock says. “You could have had everything with me. All you needed to do was shut the fuck up.”
“Sir?” One of the soldiers asks.
Hemslock doesn’t bother with a reply. He trains the gun on the woman, the tactical light mounted on the weapon briefly highlighting her pretty features, and pulls the trigger.
The shot is loud, echoing in the cavern. A red stain spreads across the woman’s chest. She collapses.
“Sir!” An arm appears on the camera, grabbing Hemslock’s wrist while another bodyguard attempts to calm him. “Sir, what are you doing—”
Those are the last words we hear. Suddenly, the man’s head lurches forward, slamming into the camera lens. We have only a glimpse of his startled face, his bulging eyes, before he is viciously yanked back.
Tendrils close around his neck.
And then behind him, the creature’s maw grins.
Both the soldier and Hemslock are thrown to the ground from the force. With a roar, Hemslock shoves hard at the man on top of him, and the creature obliges by dragging the bodyguard back. More tentacle-like roots spring from its face and wrap around the unfortunate man.
The soldiers whirl on the creature and then hesitate. Their bullets will hit their comrade. Their brief pause is all the thing needs to escape through another tunnel hidden to the left of the tree.
There is a horrifying thunk, the jarring sound of bone scraping through rock, as it drags the soldier into the hole with it.
Hemslock rushes to the opening, curses. “We can’t fit inside this. Too small. Anyone see another way in?”
There is a furtive silence as the remaining four men search with Hemslock. Two keep their hold on Goatee. The others train their guns and lights upward, scanning the ceiling for signs of another attack.
“Nothing,” Hemslock says in disgust. “Goddamn it. Goddamn it!”
He strides to where the woman in the cocktail dress fell, but she is no longer there. Hemslock stares at the spot for several seconds, and then kicks hard at the ground, sending up whiffs of dirt.
“Good riddance, you lying bitch,” he says, and spits.
“What are we going to do about Carthorn, sir?” one of the soldiers asks.
“Forget him,” Hemslock says. “We’re heading back. Leave Karl here, too.”
“But sir—“
“Do we look like we have a choice, Gunther? Have you seen the size of the hole that tree bitch pulled Carthorn through?” He points. “His bones are as good as crushed. If the unnatural angle he went in was an indication, he’s dead. Be glad that he didn’t suffer like Galant. We’re heading back. They attacked us because we tried to break Karl free. But I know what we need do now.”
“But sir—”
“You knew the risks of working with me. Said you wanted to hunt—and not just for sport, didn’t you?” The camera shifts as Hemslock looks back up at the foreboding tree before spinning back to Goatee, still unconscious inside his thorn prison. “We’re coming back,” he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice. “With an offering.”