The island was two miles long and a mile wide. It was mostly rock that had been tortured into knobs and fissures aeons ago by some cataclysm, with a few stands of scraggly trees here and there and a beach of coarse sand where most of the action was filmed. The weather was mild, except at night, and the skin-covered huts were tolerable.
The speck of rock was so insignificant that the locals referred to it as the “Wee Island.” This had prompted a hilarious exchange between the producer, Sy Paris, and his assistant, Randy Andleman.
Paris was in one of his typical raves. “We can't film an adventure show on a place called ”Wee Island,“ for god sakes We've got to call it something else.” His face lit up. “We'll call it ”Skull Island.“ ”
“It doesn't look like a skull,” Andleman said. “It looks like an overdone fried egg.”
“Close enough,” Paris had said, before dashing off.
Jodie, who had witnessed the exchange, elicited a smile from Andleman when she said, “I think it rather resembles the skull of a dumb TV series producer.”
The tests were basically the kind of gross-out stunts, such as ripping live crabs apart and eating them or diving into a tank full of eels, that were guaranteed to make the viewer gag and watch the next installment, to see how bad things would get. Some of the contestants seemed to have been chosen for their aggressiveness and general meanness.
The climax would come when the last two contestants spent the night hunting each other using night scopes and paint-ball guns, a stunt that was based on the short story “The Most Dangerous Game.” The survivor was awarded another million dollars.
Jodie was a physical fitness teacher from Orange County, California. She had a killer body in a bikini, although her curves were wasted under her down-filled clothes. She had long, blond hair and a quick intelligence that she had hid to get on the program. Every contestant was typecast, but Jodie refused to play the bimbo role the producers had assigned to her.
In the last quiz for points and demerits, she and the others had been asked whether a conch was a fish, a mollusk or a car. As the show's stereotype blonde, she was supposed to say “Car.”
Jeezus, she'd never live something like that down when she got back to civilization.
Since the quiz debacle, the producers had been making strong hints that she should go. She'd given them their chance to oust her when a cinder got in her eye and she'd failed the fire walk. The remaining members of the tribe had gathered around the fire with grave looks on their faces, and Sy Paris had dramatically intoned the order to leave the clan and make her entry into Valhalla. Jeezus.
As she headed away from the campfire now, she fumed at herself for failing the test. But there was still a bounce to her step. After only
a few weeks with these lunatics, she was glad to be off the island. It was a rugged, beautiful setting, but she had grown weary of the backbiting, the manipulation and general sneakiness in which a contestant had to indulge for the dubious honor of being hunted down like a rabid dog.
Beyond the “Gate to Valhalla,” an arbor made of plastic whalebones, was a large house trailer that was the quarters for the production crew. While the clan members slept in skin tents and ate bugs, the crew enjoyed heat, comfortable cots and gourmet meals. Once a contestant was thrown out of the game, he or she spent the night in the trailer until a helicopter picked him or her up the next morning.
“Tough luck,” said Andleman, who met her at the door. Andleman was a sweetheart, the complete opposite of his hard-driving boss.
“Yeah, real tough. Hot showers. Hot meals. Cell phones.”
“Hell, we've got all that right here.”
She glanced around at the comfortable accommodations. “So I noticed.”
“That's your bunk over there,” he said. “Make yourself a drink from the bar, and there's some terrific pate in the fridge that'll help you decompress. I've got to go give Sy a hand. Knock yourself out.”
“Thanks, I will.”
She went over to the bar and made herself a tall Beefeater martini, straight up. The pate was as delicious as advertised. She was looking forward to going home. The ex-contestants always made the rounds of the TV talk shows to rake over the people they'd left behind. Easy money. She stretched out in a comfortable chair. After a few minutes, the alcohol put her to sleep.
She awoke with a start. In her sleep, she had heard high-pitched screams like the sound of seabirds flocking or children in a playground, against a background of yells and shouts.
Peculiar.
She got up, went to the door and listened. She wondered if Sy had come up with yet another means of humiliation. Maybe he had the others doing a wild savage dance around the fire.
She walked briskly along the path that led to the beach. The noise grew louder, more frantic. Something was dreadfully wrong. These were screams of fright and pain rather than excitement. She picked up her pace and burst through the Gate to Valhalla. What she saw looked like a scene from a Hieronymus Bosch depiction of Hell.
The cast and crew were under attack by hideous creatures that seemed half man, half animal. The savage attackers were snarling, pulling their victims down and tearing at them with claws and teeth.
She saw Sy fall, then Randy. She recognized several bodies that were lying bloody and mauled on the beach.
In the flickering light from the fire, Jodie saw that the attackers had long, filthy white hair down to their shoulders. The faces were like nothing she had ever seen. Ghastly, twisted masks.
One creature clutched a severed arm which he was raising to his mouth. Jodie couldn't help herself, she screamed ... and the other creatures broke off their ungodly feast and looked at her with burning eyes that glowed a luminous red.
She wanted to vomit, but they were coming toward her in a crouching lope.
She ran for her life.
Her first thought was the trailer, but she had enough presence of mind to know she'd be trapped there.
She ran for the high rocky ground, the creatures snuffing behind her like bloodhounds. In the dark, she lost her footing and fell into a fissure, but unknown to her the accident saved her life. Her pursuers lost her scent.
Jodie had cracked her head in the fall. She regained consciousness
once, and thought she heard harsh voices and gunshots. Then she passed out again.
She was still lying unconscious in the fissure the next morning when the helicopter arrived. By the time the crew had scoured the island and finally found Jodie, they had come to a startling discovery.
Everyone else had vanished.
NUMA 5 - Lost City
MONEMVASSIA, THE GREEK PeLOPONNESE
IN HIS RECURRING nightmare, Angus MacLean was a staked goat being stalked by a hungry tiger whose yellow eyes stared at him from the jungle shadows. The low growls gradually grew louder until they filled his ears. Then the tiger lunged. He could smell its fetid breath, feel its sharp fangs sinking into his neck. He strained at his collar in a futile attempt to escape. His pathetic, terrified bleating changed to a desperate moan ... and he awakened in a cold sweat, his chest heaving, and his rumpled blankets damp from perspiration.
MacLean stumbled out of his narrow bed and threw open the shutters. The Greek sunlight flooded the whitewashed walls of what had been a monk's cell. He pulled on shorts and a T-shirt, slipped into his walking sandals and stepped outside, blinking his eyes against the shimmer of the sapphire sea. The hammering of his heart subsided.
He took a deep breath, inhaling the perfume like fragrance of the wildflowers that surrounded the two-story stucco monastery. He waited until his hands stopped shaking, then he set off on the morning hike that had proven to be the best antidote for his shattered nerves.
The monastery was built in the shadow of a massive rock, hundreds of feet high, that tour books often referred to as “the Gibraltar of Greece.” To reach the summit, he climbed along a path that ran along the top of an ancient wall. Centuries before, the inhabitants of the lower town w
ould retreat to the ramparts to defend themselves from invaders. Only ruins remained of the village that had once housed the entire population in times of siege.
From atop the lofty perch offered by the crumbling foundation of an old Byzantine church, MacLean could see for miles. A few colorful fishing boats were at work. All was seemingly tranquil. MacLean knew that his morning ritual gave him a false sense of security. The people hunting him would not reveal themselves until they killed him.
He prowled among the ruins like a homeless spirit, then descended the wall and made his way back to the monastery's second-floor dining room. The fifteenth-century monastery was one of the traditional buildings the Greek government operated as guest houses around the country. MacLean made a point of arriving for breakfast after all the other guests had left to go sightseeing.
The young man cleaning up in the kitchen smiled and said, "Kali mem, Dr. MacLean
“Kali mera, Angelo,” MacLean replied. He tapped his head with his forefinger. “Did you forget?”
Light dawned in Angelo's eyes. "Yes. I'm very sorry. Mr. MacLean
“That's quite all right. Sorry to burden you with my strange requests,” MacLean said in his soft Scottish brogue. “But as I said before, I don't want people thinking I can cure their upset stomachs and stomachaches.”
“Neh. Yes, of course, Mr. MacLean I understand.”
Angelo brought over a bowl of fresh strawberries, honeydew melon and creamy Greek yogurt, topped with local honey and walnuts, and a cup of thick black coffee. Angelo was the young monk who served as resident hostler. He was in his early thirties, with dark curly hair and a handsome face that was usually wreathed in a beatific smile. He was a combination concierge, caretaker, chef and host. He wore ordinary work clothes and the only hint of his vows was the rope tied loosely around his waist.
The two men had struck up a strong friendship in the weeks MacLean had been a guest. Each day, after Angelo finished his breakfast work, they would talk about their shared interest, Byzantine civilization.
MacLean had drifted into historical studies as a diversion from his intense work as a research chemist. Years ago his studies had taken him to Mystra, once the center of the Byzantine world. He had drifted down the Peloponnese and stumbled upon Monemvassia. A narrow causeway flanked by the sea was the only access to the village, a maze of narrow streets and alleys on the other side of the wall whose “one gate” gave Monemvassia its name. MacLean had fallen under the spell of the beautiful place. He vowed to return one day, never thinking that when he came back he'd be running for his life.
The Project had been so innocent at first. MacLean had been teaching advanced chemistry at Edinburgh University when he was offered a dream job doing the pure research that he loved. He'd accepted the position and taken a leave of absence. He threw himself into the work, willing to endure the long hours and intense secrecy. He led one of several teams that were working on enzymes, the complex proteins that produce biochemical reactions.
The Project scientists were cloistered in comfortable dormitories in the French countryside, and had little contact with the outside world. One colleague had jokingly referred to their research as the “Manhattan Project.” The isolation posed no problem for MacLean who was a bachelor with no close relatives. Few of his colleagues complained. The astronomical pay and excellent working conditions were ample compensation. Then the Project took a disturbing turn. When MacLean and the others raised questions, they were told not to worry. Instead, they were sent home and told just to wait until the results of their work were analyzed. MacLean had gone to Turkey instead, to explore ruins. When he'd returned to Scotland several weeks later, his answering machine had recorded several hang-ups and a strange telephone message from a former colleague. The scientist asked if MacLean had been reading the papers and urged him to call back. MacLean tried to reach the man, only to learn that he had been killed several days before in a hit-and-run accident. Later, when MacLean was going through his mail pile, he found a packet the scientist had sent before his death. The thick envelope was stuffed with newspaper clips that described a series of accidental deaths. As MacLean read the clips, a shiver ran down his spine. The victims were all scientists who had worked with him on the Project. Scrawled on an enclosed note was the terse warning: “Flee or die!” MacLean wanted to believe the accidents were coincidental, even though it went against his scientific instincts. Then, a few days after he read the clips, a truck tried to run his Mini Cooper off the road. Miraculously, he escaped with only a few scratches. But he'd recognized the truck driver as one of the silent guards who had watched over the scientists at the laboratory. What a fool he had been. MacLean knew he had to flee. But where? Monemvassia had come to mind. It was a popular vacation spot for mainland Greeks. Most of the foreigners who visited the rock came for day trips only. And now here he was.
While MacLean was pondering the events that had brought him there, Angelo came over with a copy of the International Herald Tribune. The monk had to run errands but he would be back in an hour. MacLean nodded and sipped his coffee, savoring the strong dark taste. He skimmed the usual news of economic and political crises. And then his eye caught a headline in the international news briefs:
SURVIVOR SAYS MONSTERS KILLED TV CAST, CREW The dateline was a Scottish island in the Orkneys. Intrigued, he read the story. It was only a few paragraphs long, but when he was done, his hands were shaking. He read the article again until the words blurred. Dear God, he thought. Something awful has happened. He folded the newspaper and went outside, stood in the soothing sunlight and made a decision. He would return home and see if he could get someone to believe his story.
MacLean walked to the city gate and caught a taxi to the ferry office on the causeway, where he bought a ticket for the hydrofoil to Athens the next day. Then he returned to his room and packed his few belongings. What now? He decided to stick to his usual routine for his last day, walked to an outdoor cafe and ordered a tall glass of cold lemonade. He was engrossed in his paper when he became aware that someone was talking to him. He looked up and saw a gray-haired woman in flowered polyester slacks and blouse standing next to his table, holding a camera.
'Sorry to interrupt,“ she said with a sweet smile. ”Would you mind? My husband and I�" Tourists often asked MacLean to document their trips. He was tall and lanky, and with his blue eyes and shock of salt-and-pepper hair, he stood out from the shorter and darker Greeks.
A man sat at a nearby table, giving MacLean a bucktoothed grin. His freckled face was beet-red from too much sun. MacLean nodded and took the camera from the woman's hand. He clicked off some shots of the couple and handed the camera back.
“Thank you so much!” the woman said effusively. “You don't know what it means to have this for our travel album.”
“Americans?” MacLean said. His urge to talk English overcame his reluctance to engage anyone in conversation. Angelo's English skills were limited.
The woman beamed. “Is it that obvious? We try so hard to fit in.”
Yellow-and-pink polyester was decidedly not a Greek fashion statement, MacLean thought. The woman's husband was wearing a collarless white cotton shirt and black captain's hat like those sold mainly for the tourist trade.
“Came down in the hydrofoil,” the man said with a drawl, rising out of his chair. He pressed his moist palm into MacLean “Hell, that was some ride. You English?”
MacLean responded with a look of horror. “Oh no, I'm Scottish.”
“I'm one half Scotch and the other half soda,” the man said with his horse grin. “Sorry about the mix-up. I'm from Texas. Guess that would be like you thinking we were from Oklahoma.”
MacLean wondered why all the Texans he met talked as if everyone had a hearing problem. “I never would have thought that you were from Oklahoma,” MacLean said. “Hope you have a nice visit.” He started to walk away, only to stop when the woman asked if her husband could take their picture together because he had been so kind to them. M
acLean posed with the woman, then her husband.
“Thank you,” the woman said. She spoke with a more refined air than her husband. In short order, MacLean learned that Gus and
Emma Harris were from Houston, that Gus had been in the oil business, and she'd been a history teacher, fulfilling her lifelong dream to visit the Cradle of Civilization.
He shook hands, accepted their profuse thanks and set off along the narrow street. He walked fast, hoping they wouldn't be tempted to follow, and took a circuitous route back to the monastery.
MacLean closed the shutters so his room was dark and cool. He slept through the worst of the afternoon heat, then got up and splashed cold water on his face. He stepped outside for a breath of fresh air and was surprised to see the Harrises standing near the old whitewashed chapel in the monastery courtyard.
Gus and his wife were taking pictures of the monastery. They waved and smiled when they saw him, and MacLean went out and offered to show them his room. They were impressed by the workmanship in the dark wood paneling. Back outside again, they gazed up at the sheer cliffs behind the building.
“There must be a wonderful view from up there,” Emma said.
“It's a bit of a hike to the top.”
“I do a lot of bird-watching back home, so I'm pretty fit. Gus is in better shape than he looks.” She smiled. “He used to be a football player, although it's hard to believe now.”
“I'm an Aggie,” Mr. Harris said. “Texas A and M. There's more of me now than there was back then. Tell you what, though, I'll give it a try.”
“Do you think you could show us the way?” Emma asked MacLean
“I'm sorry, I'm leaving on the hydrofoil first thing tomorrow.” MacLean told them they might make the climb on their own if they got started early before the sun got too hot.