The smell of iron and rotten food filled Jacob’s nostrils. His eyes fluttered open and as if looking through a milky opaque lens, the whole room was blurry to any finite shape. The air was thick with a dry musty putrid odor that caused Jacob to double over and vomit when he tried to make his way to his feet. He sat in a puddle of his own bile, struggling to get a grip on his situation.
Confusion was becoming all too common, but regaining his sight and ability to function was important if he hoped to survive. He operated himself like a robot, his subconscious taking the wheel and allowing him to regain some of his composure. His sight faded into view, the tears welling up from the smell washing away the blur.
He was sitting on a plain wooden floor covered in nearly two inches of dust and grime. His clothing, likewise; was covered in an equal amount. The room he was in was large, nearly 50 feet in length, with a high ceiling that arched in the center, brought to shape by large wooden beams that met in the center. Jacob managed, after some time, to stand and noting the brightly colored stain glass windows, and large pews lined with people, that he was in a church.
The church was not atypical in that in was one of Christian worship, but was less extravagant and almost awkward and nontraditional. The people sat motionless, staring towards the front of the room while a small girl knelt before a large stone tablet with strange symbols across it.
Jacob stepped towards the center aisle, hoping to approach this girl and find out where he was or how he had managed to find his way there. As he stepped a few feet towards her, the rear pew, filled from pew to pew with people, he now noticed, were rotted and decayed. Their sunken eye sockets were placated by partially bared yellowed teeth and loosely hanging skin. Their faces, though rotted and decayed, were turned towards the front, as if awaiting something. Their expressions were emotionless, and almost, sad.
Jacob noted as he walked ever forward that the remaining pews were the same, some with children and some with elderly people. All were dead and patiently waiting on something. Whatever that something was, made Jacob’s heart beat ever faster in his chest, as he knew it was not something good.
The little girl rocked back and forth, in a manner to subjugate the mood of death all around her with a livelihood of youth and worship. She muttered words, unknown to Jacob in any language he was accustomed, not that he knew much of any aside from English. When he made it to within 10 feet of the small girl, she stopped rocking. She stood, her white dress falling to her ankles.
She slowly began turning towards him. She was beautiful, with brown hair tied back behind her ears, and she wore a smile, not of malice or hatred, but of love and excitement. Jacob’s heart almost leaped to see something like this, after everything he had been through. He momentarily forgot that behind him sat about forty five decaying and rotting corpses, until her expression went blank.
She knelt back down to her knees and bowed to him. He stood, mesmerized and confused.
“Who are you?” he said, though he felt he should already know the answer.
Without standing, she whispered in a voice that was more fitting a woman than a child, “I am your child. We all are your children. You are the Father.”
The Father?
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you mean by that. I only have one child, and I think you may have confused me with someone else…”
She stood back up, this time her expression stern and less sincere.
“YOU are the Father. You are the one who will lead us home. You are the one who will end our suffering and bring us from the darkness and into the light. You are the Savior.” She said with her eyes full of hope and longing.
Jacob looked behind him and noticed that all of the corpses were now standing, their dry emotionless faces turned towards him as if expecting something. Jacob knew in his mind he should be afraid, afraid of the macabre scene in front of him, but he was not afraid. His heart beat at a steady, even pace inside of his chest and he felt a weight lift off of him.
Memories rushed into his mind instantly. He remembered everything now.
The world, the island, the power.
It settled on him in a calming, silent resolve. He was not going to escape this island, this island was his. This body was not.
Erin opened her eyes to the sound of moaning. She looked around and at once saw Thomas sliding along the grass, holding onto his temples. He managed to make it to a nearby tree and propped himself up.
“I feel like I have been slipped a roofie and washed it down with a fifth of whiskey.” He said, noticing she was watching him. “What the hell just happened?”
Erin was about to answer when she noticed Jacob lying still and motionless on the ground. She walked over to him, and saw he was no longer breathing.
“Thomas! I think Jacob is dead!” She called, and Thomas stood and approached, cautiously.
“Stand back. I had training as a field med, though I have no equipment.” Thomas felt the pulse of blood on the side of Jacob’s neck, and noticed that it was there, though very faint. “He is alive, though just barely. We need to get him to some shelter and keep him safe until he wakes up. Who in the hell was that woman?”
Erin began gathering branches to make a make-shift gurney. “That woman has been trying to kill us since we found each other. She has been after us. I don’t know who or what she is, but I know she is evil and seems very persistent. She has an effect on men, obviously, that somehow draws them in. I don’t know how, but it’s evident with how you reacted that we may be in more trouble than we thought.”
Thomas was helping her with the gurney, arranging sticks in a pattern that overlapped and entwined themselves so that they would hold Jacob’s weight.
“I don’t know what happened. I saw her and remember just wanting to go to her. I was so angry with Jacob for not letting me and could feel within me the urge to kill him just to be with her. I was about to turn on him when the sound broke out and brought me back into reality. What a fucked up reality it is!
We need to get him to some type of cave or building to get him out of the open air, and then split up and find some water and some food. His breathing is labored and could largely be from dehydration. Aside from that, without any medical equipment or a hospital close by, we can only hope to wait and see if his body will heal itself. The sound waves could have caused him to go into shock.”
Erin nodded, knowing and understanding everything Thomas was saying, but still afraid she was going to lose Jacob. He had brought her out of the darkness of the house, away from whatever had had her, and she owed him her life. She watched him as Thomas finished working on the gurney, running her hands through his hair as he lay motionless on the ground.
Thomas went off into the trees to gather some type of vine or twine to tie the branches together. He was gone for around 5 minutes when he came rushing back through the trees.
“Well, although I am glad we made the gurney; you’re not going to believe this!” His eyes were full of promise and excitement. “I will wait with Jacob while you walk through those trees right there. This island is a lot larger than you thought.” Thomas was smiling brightly, with his teeth shining in the sunlight like tiny pearls.
Erin pushed through the undergrowth and gasped. There was a whole town below them. She saw cars driving, and the undergrowth led to a small two-lane blacktop road. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. She sat down beside the road and cried.
It wasn’t long before a vehicle drove by and as soon as the whole incident had began; she and Thomas were sitting in a hospital, along with Jacob who was in ICU. Apparently they were on one of the smaller islands in the Philippines and after some discussion with an officer; they had explained everything that they knew.
The town itself was not large, with only about 7000 people they learned from reading some of the brochures on the table.
“It just doesn’t make any sense,” Erin said at last, finally alone with just Thomas.
Thomas was spacing out, lost in his own thoughts a couple chairs across from Erin. It was a silent agreement he was going to wait until Jacob had awakened before he was to plan his route home.
“What doesn’t make any sense? I mean, aside from everything that has happened in the past 36 hours.”
“Just that, the date on the wall is the exact same day, the last time I looked at a calendar. That was close to three weeks ago, by my own personal estimation. In addition to that mind-raping dilemma, I was sailing on a boat in open water, a thousand miles east of here. I don’t understand how we randomly crashed against a shore of rocks, and ended up landing on an island a thousand miles from where we thought we were.
I will admit to not being the best navigator, but Mark, the man I was with, was a professional sailor. He had been sailing since he was 5 years old. I believe him to know how to use a compass and GPS. We were nowhere near this island.”
“Maybe, but I remember you telling the officer there was a violent storm the night you wrecked the boat, maybe it was messing with the GPS system in the boat. What is more compelling is that last I knew, I was headed home on leave from the military. I was on dry land. I didn’t crash a boat or airplane; I woke up on a steel table in the Philippines, drugged like a lab experiment.”
“Excuse me, ma’am?” came a voice from down the hall. It was Sarah, the robust, dark skinned woman who had been their attending nurse. “It’s your friend. He’s gone.”
Interested as to where we will go from here.. hmm
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