The transcript, p.7
The Transcript, page 7
Part X
There were a lot of things Dan couldn’t say. Any utter-ance of the unlucky and unfortunate events that now pla-gued his life would mean the end of him—not just in the Army but for the rest of his life! He would be labeled a maniac. A nutjob. Insane. Like a veil lifted from his eyes, something truly strange was happening. In addition to his stream of atrociously bad luck, there seemed to be something otherworldly at play.
On a particularly strange night on the jungle land navigation course, he began to notice things. Things hiding between the leaves, darting out of sight before he could get a good look. That night, Dan saw things, things in the bushes that were throwing rocks at him. He finally had enough and turned on his light. What he did find were little footprints in the mud.
Small, little bare feet.
Hoping it was a local kid who snuck onto the training area, when he saw a shadow behind a tree he chased a figure through the elephant grass. He cornered it between a rock and a ravine and flashed his headlamp’s red lens. Whatever it was, it went giggling as it crashed through thick grass. Dan decided it wasn't worth getting into an altercation with some punk kid. He turned around and continued trying to find his navigation points in the dark.
Dan thought he was on the right track, but when he finally found a point he was frustrated to find that it wasn't the navigation point he needed. He dotted over his map with a red lens; confused as to where he was.
As he crouched there in the dark, he heard a little voice, “Well, it's obviously not here. Have you tried walking a little more to the north?”
Dan froze. The voice sounded like it was right next to him. He turned his head, slowly, until the red light of his headlamp came to rest on the spot where he’d heard the voice. His eyes grew wide.
What he saw looked like little Hawaiian woman sitting on a small log with and smug smile on her face. The longer he stared the more the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. He noticed that while she looked human, under the red light her features looked…off. That and she was the size of a tod-dler. Dan stared, wide-eyed and in shock. He rubbed his eyes and prayed he was just imagining things.
In the hue of red, he could see that her eyes reflected the light. She raised an eyebrow.
Dan’s light began to spontaneously blink and then faded out completely. In the darkness once more, he could see that her eyes glowed blue now, and he suddenly heard: “What did you say about superstitions before?”
Before Dan could act, she dove into the darkness.
Fuck this, he thought, and he took off running. Heart pounding against his chest, he just wanted to get out of the jungle.
Of course, when he returned, he learned he was the last one done and hadn’t found any of the correct points. The other soldiers snickered, but he didn't care. He just wanted to go home. He just wanted to get away from this jungle.
But after that night, Dan started to notice other things. Strange things out of place, whispers—movements out of the corner of his eye. He would look up and see beady, glowing orbs, peering out of dark corners as he passed. Not animal eyes, but something more human, glances of what looked like little people moving behind cover.
Those things messed with him. They taunted him. They stole his belongings and broke his things from the shadows and behind his back. He hated being alone because they took full opportunity to torment him. Whatever or whoever they were.
Sometimes, as he laid in bed struggling to sleep, some-thing would tug at his toes. He would bolt up and hear something run away into the darkness of his apartment. But even if Dan couldn’t see them, he would hear the fleeing pitter patter on the floor, and what sounded like giggling after, behind the walls.
And when he thought his apartment was quiet and still, a whisper would come from nowhere. That same taunt he’d heard in the jungle: “What did you say about superstitions before?”
Part XI
Dan began to notice a white mongrel mutt. He saw this fucking dog everywhere. Sitting on a corner, outside his win-dow, watching from afar, up close, even running alongside his car has he raced down the highway. The dog followed him everywhere.
Sometimes it would run up and snarl, bluff charging him when he least expected it. Other times it would watch him from afar.
Even his apartment didn't offer him shelter from this strange dog. He could hear its tell-tale pacing outside his door. With the occasional low whine, an annoying scratch would claw against the wood. But every time when Dan would throw open the door, ready to kick the dog away: no dog. But there were white hairs on the floor.
But the oddest quirk was that only Dan could see it. When he attempted to point it out to others, he would receive all manners of puzzled looks.
Then the “warrior,” or that’s what Dan called him. He looked like a Hawaiian he had seen in all those paintings and pictures at the Bishop Museum when Nina would drag him there. Chiseled, ripped, dangerous looking.
As far as Dan could tell, he was the only one who could see him too. Just like the dog, when he would point the warrior out, he would receive the same looks and dismissals. People were beginning to question just how “all there” Dan was. Dan decided it was best to keep his mouth shut; permanently shut, shut about everything.
But not the warrior. He screamed and danced at Dan in the darkness. Challenging him, speaking some language Dan could only assume was ancient Hawaiian.
Dan would often times look up in horror to see the warrior swinging a traditional Hawaiian axe at his head. As Dan recoiled in fear, bracing for death, he would reopen his eyes to see the massive man standing over him. Glaring. Eyes filled with hate. This occurred several times a day. Usu-ally, the warrior would be waiting in a dark room or just out of sight.
But luckily for Dan, the warrior was nothing more than an apparition. As much as a threat he seemed, he never fol-lowed through.
However, a mangy mutt, a ghostly warrior, nightmares, these weren’t even close to being the worst.
The woman. A beautiful Hawaiian woman, unlike any woman he had ever seen. The one from his dreams. She appeared as if painted into life. She was tall and athletically built, like the many of the local surfers he had seen battling the waves on the North Shore of Oahu. Eyes deep blue like the ocean, hair a deep black like fresh hardened lava, and her skin was the color of a red and volcanic soil.
Like the many other sights that plagued Dan, he soon saw her everywhere. But unlike his other “visions,” she kept her distance. Always at a distance.
And she was angry. Very angry. Hate, malice, sadness, all of these adorned her face. Those deep blue eyes bore a hole straight through his soul. Dan found eye contact was unbearable, he felt like a child every time he tried. Fear stirred in his belly as soon as her gaze fell upon him. Dan would keep his face down and desperately tried to escape her.
The woman kept her distance. But every time Dan saw her, she seemed to get closer with each sighting. Slowly closing in no matter how much he tried to avoid her. Like she was an inevitable conclusion. She terrified Dan the most.
Part XII
“I have to be going insane,” Dan said to himself one early morning, sitting in the parking lot of the Base Exchange.
He started beating the steering wheel with his hands. A scream rose from his lungs as he lost his shit. That had to be the answer.
He had to have been going insane.
He had to have been unravelling. Imagining things that weren’t there, taking images he had seen in this tropical shithole people call paradise and projecting into reality in some bizarre waking nightmare. He stopped beating the wheel as his voice became hoarse.
His life and career in shambles in three months. That was the only answer to this. It was all in his head and this was just some Hawaiian-themed nervous breakdown, psy-chotic episode.
Dan looked at his bloodshot eyes in the mirror. He was fucking exhausted. He needed coffee before he headed in to continue his slow rot behind a computer screen, picking away at redundant PowerPoints. He opened his car door, slowly, half expecting to hit some kid he hadn’t noticed or have his door taken off by some freak parking lot accident. But luckily, for once, nothing happened.
Dan hurriedly walked into the exchange building to its corporate coffee shop. He got his acidic fast-food coffee and a chewy mass-produced bagel before heading back outside. He looked at his watch and noticed he had some time before he was expected to be at work. He decided to sit in the sun and find some semblance of relaxation. He found a bench where he could sit, be alone, because at least he could control that in his life. He sat down and stared at the ground as he chewed on his bagel.
“Mind if I take a seat, LT?” Before Dan could say anything a man sat down next to him.
Dan sighed. Dan didn't bother to look up until he smelled a menthol cigarette.
“Sergeant First Class Guerro, you’re still here? I thought you’d retired?”
“Not yet, I'm starting my terminal leave tomorrow.” He took a drag. “Just living the dream.”
“Wish I could say the same,” Dan said.
Guerro turned to him and offered him a stick. “You look like you need one.”
Dan never smoked before; he had always viewed it as beneath him.
“Fuck it,” he said and grabbed the cigarette. Dan soon took a drag and stifled a cough, feeling the nicotine surge through him.
“So, what’s up with you, LT? It’s been a while.” SFC Guerro looked at Dan quizzically. “Also, you look like shit.” A flash of concern briefly came across his face.
Dan looked at that weathered face and then looked at the cigarette in his own hand. He weighed whether or not he should say anything.
“It’s just a really weird time in my life, Guerro.” Dan sighed as his throat started to tighten up.
Guerro just raised his brow at his former platoon leader. “Yeah? So, tell me about it.”
And so Dan did, holding nothing back as he poured out his soul. Everything from the lava tube to Nina, the rock, his bad luck, the dreams, the visions, all the weird shit that tormented his life he laid before Guerro’s feet.
SFC Guerro took a long drag after and looked at the sky. He blew out his smoke and threw his cigarette on the ground.
“You know that I’m half Hawaiian? On my mom’s side. I lived on Oahu and Kauai almost my whole life before en-listing.” Guerro paused and looked at Dan. “And, yeah, I believe you, Brookins, and I tried to warn you.”
“What the fuck do you mean ‘tried to warn me’?” Dan said, getting frustrated.
“I grew up with all the legends and stories, and to make a long story short, there are things here that shouldn’t be fucked with. And you fucked with them.”
Dan snorted and snidely remarked, “I told you I don't believe in that shit—”
“Well maybe you fucking should, Brookins. Like I said, superstition exists for a reason. Especially in Hawaii.”
“So, what do you think? That I’m cursed or something?”
“Yes. You are cursed. You should have never gone down into that fucking lava tube, and you definitely shouldn’t have taken that rock.”
“Bullshit. No offense, it’s all bullshit.” Dan threw his own cigarette down.
Guerro looked into Dan’s eyes, intense and grave. “It doesn’t matter what you think, Brookins. This place? This island? It doesn’t belong to us. There are things that dwell on these islands that aren’t human. Some things that are border-line demonic. And should not be fucked with.”
Dan held his gaze, a sheen of sweat forming under his brow. He was unable to find any words. His mind was on Guerro’s.
Guerro stood up. “Look, I can't help you; only you can. Whether you believe me or not, you’re cursed and there’s only one way to fix your problem. You know what you have to do.”
Dan watched as he walked away. Dan sat there for what felt like a long while, lost in thought. Eventually his phone began to vibrate; a sign he was late to work. He dumped his coffee and threw his bagel to a group of waiting chickens. Dan pushed out of his mind any thought of curses or what-ever bullshit mumbo jumbo.
Part XIII
Later that night he sat in his empty, loveless, lonely apartment. Slumped in a lazy boy, he was tired and drunk. A cheap radio garbled a static-laced song. His second bottle of cheap liquor, three quarters gone, had spilled plenty over his shirt and onto the floor. Dan hoped that borderline poison-ing would send him into some semblance of rest. He’d take any amount of sleep in exchange for a killer hangover. He was a shell of the man he’d been a mere three months prior.
He turned over and vomited onto the floor. Cursed? What a load of shit.
And yet a dog scratched at his door, a Hawaiian warrior glared from the corner of his living room, and small heads with shining eyes peered around the corner of his hallway.
“This is all just in my head,” he slurred as he leaned back. “None of you are real!”
He stared blankly at the rock in the fish tank now. Nina had taken her collection of stones with her, but she’d uncere-moniously dropped the rock in the fish tank when she left. The large black stone just sat there, like a glimmering black portal. Like a black hole sucking the life out of Dan.
Dan stood up from his chair and stumbled his way over. Splashing water about and startling the fish, he pulled out the stone and held it in his hands.
The same size and dimensions of a baseball, smooth and deep black like the night sky. A polished piece of obsidian rock sparkling with gemstones forged from lava.
The longer he stared, the more he felt his blood pressure rise. He held the stone tighter in his hands as his knuckles turned white and he started to shake.
“Fuck you! I’m not cursed! I’m not fucking cursed!” He screamed as he shook with frustration. “This is just a fucking rock. You’re just a fuckin’ rock!” He threw the rock against the wall. It impacted dead center a picture of Dan and Nina, shattering the glass. The stone fell to the floor with an indifferent thud.
Dan took a step forward and took a drunken stumble. The warrior vanished from the apartment with a grunt, the little people ran in fear, and the dog at his door gave a nervous whimper.
The radio began to blare static, until the unmistakable sound of tribal drums and chanting blasted from it and the sound consumed the room. It was so loud that Dan covered his ears as he lay in a pile on the floor. Then suddenly the room went silent, like a vacuum sucked of all noise. Dan uncovered his ears and unsteadily he rose.
He wiped the sweat off his face. It was getting hotter, and hotter. Dan was starting to sweat like he was in a sauna. He stumbled to the thermostat to turn on the air conditioning…it read 103F, and was climbing.
Dan turned to the fish and heard a bubbling, hissing noise. The little fish tank looked like it was boiling as the toy volcano was spewing forth a stream of bubbles. Suddenly the fish tank burst in a spectacular shattering of its own glass, and what looked like lava began to pool and flood his apartment from its remains.
Dan recoiled: his floor was actually becoming lava. He stumbled back away from the growing lake of fire until he tripped and fell forward. He landed into the searing heat, and he could feel his body blister and burn. He tried to stand, but his melted muscle and burned away nerves prevented such feats. He tried to scream but his lungs and vocal cords were properly scorched. He lay in agony as he burned on the twenty-eighth floor of a Honolulu apartment while his neighbors probably slept peacefully.
Before his eyes melted and his brain was fried, he was able to look up to see a looming figure.
That beautiful Hawaiian woman dressed in white robes stood in the middle of the room, glaring; the fire, heat, lava, all radiating out from where she stood. She held the stone in her outstretched hand. He could feel her anger and although he was still burning alive, a cold chill ran down what was left of his spine.
Then her face changed: solemn, deepened sadness. Sud-denly, she vanished: stone falling to the floor.
The radio began to play, sound returning to the room. Dan could hear downtown Honolulu from an open window. He was no longer burning; he didn’t feel any more pain. In fact, he was fully intact, as a peculiar part of his mind knew he would be.
Dan looked around the room. He was finally alone. Besides the broken frame and glass on the floor, the room was untouched. For a moment he thought it was all just a intoxicated nightmare. That is until Dan looked up to see a shattered fish tank and several doomed goldfish frantically flopping around. Dan crawled forward to the rock, picking it up, cradling it in his hands.
The words echoed in his mind: Don’t take the lava rocks off this island. There’s one way to fix your problem.
Dan knew what he had to do.
Part XIV
As the imposing height of Mauna Loa loomed over him beneath a fiery, fading sky, Dan snapped out of his daze. He checked his watch: 1754 27 November 2022.
He looked to his left to see the white dog trotting along. He pulled off the bumpy tank trail and onto an assembly area. Dan parked behind some dumpsters, out of sight, just in case someone may have questions about an abandoned jeep.
This was as far as he could go. The rest of the way was on foot.
He stepped out of his vehicle and walked over to his backseat, opening it as a gentlemen would for his lady. Though he couldn’t see her at the moment, he knew she was there. He paused for a moment then shut his back door. He felt a sudden blast of heat as something brushed his cheek. Her hand, he suspected. That heat vanished when a mountain wind accosted him. He checked his bag and made sure the stone was still safely secured. Then he zipped it shut.
Dan turned around and looked at the white mongrel sitting patiently behind him. “I guess it's just you and me now,” he said.
Dan stepped off towards their final destination, and the dog began to trot at his side. The drums and chanting began to beat as he climbed up the slope.
As the fading sun set the sky on fire, the old Hawaiian’s voice echoed in his head, the first of many ignored warnings: “Don’t take the lava rocks off this island.”
