The transcript, p.6
The Transcript, page 6
He heard movement to his left. Turning he saw a lone soldier sitting on a rock, staring at him. Though only several feet away, in this dark Dan couldn't tell who it was. The smell of smoke drifted into his nostrils, as the bright red cherry of a menthol cigarette lit up.
“You don't want that smoke, sir.” Sergeant First Class Guerro, Dan’s platoon sergeant, spoke plainly.
SFC Guerro sat staring off at the stars. He was on his last pump before he could drop his retirement packet. He was a twenty-year veteran with more deployments than any man Brookins knew. He’d been there, done that, and been around the block more than a few times.
“Trust me LT, you don't want that smoke.” Guerro said again, this time with a little more salt in his voice.
“What are you talking about, sergeant?” Dan fired back as he stood. Despite his admiration for the man’s experience, Dan and Guerro shared a mutual disdain for one another, each tolerating the other for the sake of getting the job done.
“You know it’s bad luck to go in these lava tubes, just like it’s bad luck to take rocks off the Island.”
Dan scoffed, “That's just some bullshit superstition. I don't buy it.”
SFC Guerro finished his cigarette and stomped it out. He sighed before saying flatly, “You ever stop to think that superstition exists for a reason?”
Even in the dark, the second lieutenant could feel Guerro’s eyes on him.
Dan stared back, unsure what to say next. He didn't like to be challenged, but then again, Guerro’s words had a way of sticking with him.
The two men sized each other up. SFC Guerro started to step away. “Whatever you do, don't let the joes fucking see you doing it, LT.” He walked back towards the sleeping tents just as a cold wind began to blow.
Dan watched him leave before he turned back towards the mouth of the tube. He turned on his light and started his climb down the dark tunnel.
Part IV
Dan slid carefully slid down the steep face. Loose volcanic rock fell in a cascade towards the bottom. Other than these rocks and dirt, the tube was silent, making each movement sound like a thunder as he moved further into the abyss.
Dan finally reached the bottom and there he stood up. He was sure that he was the only living thing down here. He couldn't hear anything save for his own breathing.
He shined the flashlight around. The lava tube had at one point transported enormous quantities of spewed molten rock. It looked like it had been formed almost by modern drills, the walls were perfectly smooth. The tunnel looked like it went on for a long while, maybe to the heart of Mauna Loa itself.
Dan started walking, the floor being relatively smooth; dotted with small boulders that he had to weave between. His boot steps echoed loudly in the chamber in a steady beat.
But as he walked, something caught his attention. Either he was imagining things, or there was a delay with those echoes. As he walked he counted each step. There seemed to be a third step after his second.
He stopped and heard a small shuffle some place behind him. He resumed walking and listened intently; there it was!
It sounded like someone was trying to keep in step with him. He picked up his pace and then abruptly stopped. He heard it. A stutter step!
Dan whipped around and shined his light into the darkness behind him. He scanned back and forth, illumi-nating the abyss. Nothing besides rocks and darkness.
Something caught his eye. He illuminated a section of the tube to his right and walked forward. There were strange drawings and pictures carved into the walls.
Pale lines stood out brightly in the obsidian. Scenes of ways of life, of a long forgotten time, adorned the rock. He took out his phone and snapped a few pictures—this would make a cool story back home. He kept walking, shining his light left and right, gazing at the scenes depicted by the ancient Hawaiians.
All of a sudden, the tunnel came to an apparent end. Dan shined his light; it wasn't a cave in but instead layers of cooled lava piled together, like a wave frozen right before it’s hellish break, one of those breaks that pulls a human down, down into treacherous depths. This must be the remains of the last lava flow to come through this tunnel, frozen obelisk of jagged lava rock spewed forth from the frozen wave; some were as big as Dan. But what caught his eye most was how the lava formed at the center of the tunnel.
The cooled lava had parted in the middle of the cave, forming a platform. Dan thought it almost looked like a seat; a throne fit for some denizen of the underworld. In the middle, and object was there. A stone. Dan walked forward.
He bent down and placed his hands on the stone. Maybe it was his imagination, but the stone seemed to hum and vibrate at his touch. As he picked it up, he felt the slightest of tugs, like there was a tether keeping it on its pumice throne. That feeling relented as Dan pulled the stone closer.
He held it in one hand and shined his light. It was a rock, but a strange one.
The stone was a perfect sphere. It was the same size and dimensions of a baseball, a deep black like the night sky, and smooth like a polished piece of obsidian rock. It was light and felt like a cloud in his hand, but it was unquestionably solid. It sparkled with embedded gemstones, some as big as the nail on his thumb.
Nina would love this; she could use this for some artsy bullshit around the apartment.
Solution found. He smiled.
Part V
Dan unraveled the dump pouch on his belt; finally having a use for it. He placed the stone in the dangling piece of fabric before turning around and heading back where he’d come from.
As he walked away, he heard something behind him once again. Half a scoff, half a sob; like an angry woman in shock.
He shined his light towards the obelisks and the pumice throne behind him. The boulders and stones cast shadowy figures standing now in front of him. Dan felt he was in a crowded room all of a sudden with all eyes on him, but he was still sure he was all alone in this underground bowel of Mauna Loa.
It's just my imagination, he affirmed, and more than once.
He did a final sweep to satisfy his growing nervousness. Dan froze as his light passed over one of the man-sized stones. He could have sworn he’d seen a face peeking out from behind it. The face of a woman.
Imagination or not, he decided it was time to leave. He started airborne shuffling, moving briskly but watching his step as he moved towards the mouth of the tube.
As he walked out, he could have sworn he heard the soft beats of a drum and once again he couldn't doubt any longer that he heard footsteps almost matching his.
Dan picked up his pace, and suddenly stopped. Once again he heard that stutter step. He couldn't ignore the shred of doubt which now blared like and alarm in his head. He wasn't alone.
He took off sprinting, scrambling on all fours up the rock into the moonlight. At the top of the tunnel, he turned and shined his light…nothing.
Dan let out a sigh of relief: it was all in his head. But then he noticed something, something he must have missed. There were three strange piles of rocks now at the entrance to the lava tube: three towers of rocks stacked deliberately, and carefully on top of each other. Were these always here? How did I not notice them before?
Dan shook his head. He had to be imagining things and laughed out loud as he patted the dangling rock in his dump pouch.
But then he frowned. He heard a voice in his head: “Don’t take the lava rocks off this island. They don’t belong to you.” Then the voice of his platoon sergeant, “You ever stop to think that superstition exists for a reason?”
Holding the strange, beautiful stone in his hands, Dan shook away these thoughts. He smirked, and he said aloud to no one in particular, “It’s just a fucking rock.”
Part VI
His troubles started subtly. Once he got home, Dan seemed to be on the wrong side of luck. Once his unit got back to Schofield Barracks, he embarrassingly couldn’t seem to get his weapon clean at the armory. After several attempts, he couldn’t get rid of the volcanic dust that seemed to pick up and move every time he cleaned his M4. After giving him a seemingly endless helping of shit, the armorers granted him mercy and finally accepted his weapon.
After enduring this embarrassment and tying up loose ends at the company area, he finally crawled to his car with his gear. However, he found that his car wouldn’t start once he left his unit to go home. Once he got a jump and hit the road, he realized in the middle of the H1 traffic that his wallet was missing. Once he got back to his unit and tore apart his office, he found his wallet inexplicably on the pass-enger seat of his tan Toyota Tacoma. Then as his car passed the main gate, it died again in the middle of the intersection of Kunia road.
He finally got home past midnight and Nina was already asleep. When he finally laid his head down, he couldn’t get the strange tune of tribal drums and chanting out of his head.
Must have been something I heard on the radio on the way home, he thought.
Eventually, he did go to sleep. That night he dreamt of a woman. Not Nina, or any woman he had ever met. She was a beautiful Hawaiian in flowing white robes. She stood before him on a field of molten lava, holding his gaze with a look that combined absolute rage, sadness, and undeniable beauty. The heat was excruciating and Dan cowered in pain. He awoke sweating with tears running down his face.
Discounting it as nothing more than a strange, lucid nightmare, he tried to go back to sleep. But the sound of drums and chanting was like a steady stream of driping water without end or an annoying song you couldn't shake from your head no matter how hard you tried.
The next morning, he woke up feeling like crap, but at least Nina was excited to see him again and that cheered him up.
They sat together drinking coffee as he told her his Big Island “war stories.” He decided to leave out his adventure in the lava tube.
“Oh, I almost forgot!” he remembered suddenly. “I got you something, you said you wanted a souvenir.” He fished out the lava rock and handed it to Nina. “I know it's just a rock, but you got to give me credit, I didn’t have many op-tions in that wasteland!”
She took it in her hands, examining it. “It’s not just a rock,” she laughed excitedly. “Do you see these green crystals?” She pointed to the sparkling stones within the rock. “These are peridot and olivine. And these blue crystals. Larimar.”
Ever the expert, Dan smiled back at her as she contin-ued, “They are native to Hawaii. They are made in lava, and very powerful in energy.” Nina inspected the rock with even more scrutiny, “It’s definitely an interesting stone. That’s for sure.”
She walked over to a small table where her crystal coll-ection shared space with their fish tank. She placed the stone next to several others: Nina’s “powerful” spiritual collection. As if on que, the small volcano in the fish tank spewed out a stream of bubbles.
“There,” she said, giving him a sly smile. “Now the rock has a home.” She gestured a come hither as she walked back into their bedroom.
Dan thought, Maybe my luck’s changing after all.
Part VII
Three months later, Dan was sitting on the Hawaiian Airlines flight back to the Big Island, reflecting on how awful things had gotten.
First, it started with those fucking drums. It was some-thing he’d heard at a luau he had once taken Nina to. But unlike a song stuck in his head, he couldn’t shake it—ever. Every time he laid his head down, those drums beat and thundered back to horrid life.
A good night’s sleep had become entirely foreign. Dan tried everything: pills, yoga, alcohol, meditating. Nothing worked. If he was lucky, exhaustion took him for a few hours. But the lack of sleep was taking its toll; he could feel his body and mind fracturing day by day.
In those times when he did manage, even then he wasn't spared. He would dream: the same dream, over and over again.
He would find himself alone among the lava fields of PTA, unsure of how he got there. It would always be night and preternaturally dark. Only the stars and the moonlight were there to guide him. He would wander for some time, lost.
Then he would hear them, the drums. Just like what plagued him in waking life. But at first they would sound so far away. Soon they would grow louder, sounding nearer, and Dan could see small lights then in the distance. Like a snake of fire meandering through the lava rocks, there were torches.
As the drums got closer, so did the torches. Dozens of Hawaiian warriors, in full regalia, marching single file towards him. Some played the drums, others didn’t. And they were getting closer, closer to Dan.
As they crossed in front of him, they all glared. Their anger was palatable, as if his gaze upon them was a heinous crime. Dan’s eyes locked on the leader: an imposing man who wore the ornate cloak royalty, made of gold and crimson feathers of a thousand song birds. Behind him were several bodies carried on litters, each carried by several warriors. This was a funeral procession. As Dan’s eyes met with this leader of the group, he felt the overwhelming compulsion to join them.
And so he did. A warrior angrily shoved a torch into his hand, and Dan took his place in the rear of the procession. One of them now, cross the lava fields and over rocks he walked for what seemed like eternity. Until finally they arrived to a massive hole in the ground. A lava tube.
As Dan watched, the warriors bearing the bodies descended into the dark cave. The procession continued, a steady pace downward to destinations unknown. Try as Dan could, he wasn't in control. His feet moved forward against his will and he struggled to avoid marching into the obli-vion. But onward the procession marched, as the beating of the drums got louder and their torches dimmer. Into the darkness of the abyss, they marched. Into the belly of a dormant beast, they willfully marched. Until darkness was replaced by a dull orange glow. The procession was soon walking into a burning, flowing river. Dan was right there with them, even as they all swallowed by the fury of molten rock.
Dan always woke paralyzed. His eyes opened but he could not see, like he was blinded by some unknown force. A gasp stifled, too. He felt as if someone was sitting on his chest with hands wrapped around his throat; his lungs screaming out for air. As panic wracked his body, he would feel those hands curling tight on his throat, and how they’d begin to burn. Unable to resist his assailant’s grip, Dan experienced a great heat; skin and meat charring to black; a heat so consuming he felt chills as nerves were burned away.
Just when he felt he would roast into a cloud of dust, he felt the hands leave him. With them, the awful heat so retreated. Sweat pooled all over his body as the pressure on his chest departed. Like some twisted perfume, as air flew desperately into his lungs he would smell the scent of sulfur, and how it floated away.
Part VIII
Nothing went his way. Things broke. His stuff went missing. Dan became a beacon of negative energy, his friend-ships evaporating for reasons he didn't expec tor under-stand. Weather rolled in to ruin new plans. The bank account was getting drained from unforeseen bills. Car stolen. A wayward stone rolling down a cliff had smashed his motorcycle and almost threw him into the sea.
Then there was Nina. He didn’t even know how; he was still at a loss. They had their minor disagreements, but after four years of dating and moving out together to Hawaii; he had hoped they were finally getting serious.
But the couple started arguing, over the most random things. She seemed on edge around him and he seemed always on edge around her. Like there was this invisible force driving them apart but he didn’t know what.
He tried to work things out, but to no avail. Things fell apart quick, and arguing turned to yelling, turned to fight-ing, turned to Nina moving out and then ghosting him. He had no idea where she went, but he didn’t think she was coming back.
He cried every night, and when he did he couldn’t even say for sure if it was over her or over his beyond-tortured insomnia.
Part IX
Before he went to PTA, Dan had been the Battalion rock star. The promising lieutenant being groomed to succeed in the Army, now was at the bottom of the barrel. A pariah in his own right.
Not only was he falling behind in training and his administrative actions, but he was suddenly falling out of favor with seemingly everyone. His platoon began to have issues, too: missing equipment, soldiers in trouble, stats falling, discipline ripping apart. Dan found that the interpersonal relationships he’d built had evaporated. His commander looked at him with disdain as his platoon had taken its place as the battalion’s “problem children.” His position as platoon leader was in danger and he could feel it. He tried and tried but he couldn't seem to make it back on track. The only track he was on was the track to become the battalion fuck up.
Things finally fell apart when during a squad live fire. Dan’s M4 went off in his hands.
It—he—it, it sprayed an entire magazine, right in the middle of his platoon as the battalion commander watched.
No one died, other than Dan’s career.
After an ass chewing that left him physically chafing, Dan was removed from his platoon that night and thrown down as an assistant to the assistant S4. Battalion fuck up had officially arrived.
He was staring at letter of reprimand from the commanding general. Everyone talked about how the “fucking LT” negligently discharged his weapon and almost wiped out a squad.
What they didn't know, and what Dan wouldn’t dare say, was that he hadn’t pulled the trigger. He couldn’t say that he felt the bolt lock back and forward, sending rounds home to fire. He dared not share that he felt the selector switch move on its own from SAFE to AUTO.
As much as he wanted to scream to anyone who might listen, as much as he wanted to plead that it wasn't his fault…he couldn’t say that something took control of his body, guiding him against his will, making him point his rifle towards the backs of his maneuvering platoon. On a beautiful Hawaiian day, he couldn’t say that to his horror, the trigger had pulled back on its own.
