The Mystery of Yamashita's Map (40 page)

It was the name Winthrope had given to the monster that terrorised his village, swooping in at night and attacking pregnant women. Joe had seen the after effects for himself, and the story of Manananggal hadn’t sat well on his shoulders. Now he knew why – but it wasn’t for the reason he imagined. He would never have imagined that Winthrope was actually some hideous lizard-like alien, sucking the unborn babies from their mother’s womb himself. Joe shuddered.

‘We’ll be in contact soon.’ The sound of suited man number 2 brought Joe back to the present, and again he looked down at his watch as the two men exited the room. They walked past him and Kono without a word, carrying the remains of Winthrope’s lizard skin in their arm. The pungent smell followed them down the corridor.

Joe sighed in relief before turning back to the door and looking in at the room. Winthrope was getting into the bell and turning to face a panel, one that Joe hadn’t noticed before. It must be how the bell was activated.

Without really thinking, Joe grabbed Kono’s arm and dragged him into the room. He barely registered the look of shock on Winthrope’s face as he hurtled towards the bell, throwing himself into the structure with Kono hot on his heels.

‘You!’ Winthrope gaped at them as the bell started moving, the low hum getting louder and louder as Joe’s headache came back with a vengeance.

He closed his eyes, trying to steady himself while the bell rotated around them. The feeling of nausea was strong, and the last thing he wanted to do was puke on an alien. Unless that would somehow help.

A sharp pain suddenly pierced his skull, and opening his eyes, Joe saw that Winthrope was right in front of him, having just hit him over the head.

Joe got into his fight stance – legs slightly apart, arms held to his chest – but before he could retaliate, Kono swung a punch at Winthrope, missing his head but getting him pretty good in his right ear.

Joe thought of the two lab attendants they’d overpowered – how easy it had been. Winthrope was not a young man, and Kono was tough. Really tough. His nausea started to subside.

It came back just a second later, however, when Winthrope turned to face Kono and hit him square on the head, knocking him to the floor.

Kono moaned in pain, and Joe took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. Winthrope wasn’t a young man, no – he wasn’t a man at all. He was an alien, and he apparently had superhuman strength.

This wasn’t good.

Joe tried to focus as the bell rushed around them. He could no longer see the structure, just whirling shades of red and black, offering the idea of movement but giving no secrets away as to how it was moving or where.

Trying to think back to all the fights he had ever been in, Joe looked back at Winthrope, who was smiling at him smugly.

Without another thought, he lifted his hand as if he was going to punch the old lizard man, and when Winthrope lifted his own arms in self-defence, Joe kicked his leg out with as much force as he could muster, knocking Winthrope’s legs out from under him. He watched in triumph as the alien fell on the ground, ass first.

Joe laughed – slightly hysterically, it has to be said – and jumped on top of Winthrope while Kono slowly got to his feet.

Winthrope struggled under Joe’s weight as Joe pummelled him with every punch in the book trying to render the grey haired man unconscious. For good measure Kono finished him off with a size ten boot to the face causing Winthrope’s head to jolt sideways and his body to flop limply at their feet.

Amazed that he’d won, Joe turned to look at Kono, he did not see Winthrope’s twitching body, the mouth start to open wide, the claws beginning to protrude from the fingers. Joe spotted the look of pure fear on the gangster’s face just a few seconds too late.

He suddenly felt a sharp pain all along his arm, and looking down, he was horrified to see that not only was his white coat in tatters, but there was already blood seeping through the fabric from what felt like huge scratches in his skin.

Although focused on his arm, he suddenly realised that the body beneath him had changed, shifted, and looking down at Winthrope, he saw the alien lizard, his sharp claws dripping with his own blood.

He thought back to the disgusting shedding of the skin he’d seen earlier. Perhaps that was just for show – something to do to intimidate the humans. Then again, wasn’t this normal practice for reptiles?

His thoughts were interrupted by the alien, who let out an unearthly wail and lunged forward to scratch at Joe’s face.

Joe managed to lean back just in time, but this meant he lost his balance and toppled onto the floor, freeing the lizard creature.

The alien that was Winthrope sprang up, snarling, glancing from Joe to Kono. Joe wasn’t sure, but it seemed like it was smiling.

With the world – if it even was their world anymore – rushing around outside the bell, the three started to fight.

Even with it being two against one – and even with Kono’s considerable bulk – the alien had the upper hand, or the upper claws, Joe thought. Those things could scratch your eyes right out, and they were no match for two humans with no weapons and no knowledge of this thing that was currently standing in front of them.

After a couple of minutes of dodging and throwing punches, the fight escalated into a full-on brawl, with the three of them scrambling in a group, trying to get whatever punch or kick in that they could. At one point, Joe grabbed hold of the lizard’s tail and bit into it, stopping just seconds later when that awful animal smell came seeping out of it.

Amidst the chaotic fight scenes and the swirling flashing lights of the bell spiralling through time and space, for a split second, Joe saw himself in the tunnel in the Philippines, trying to get his flashlight working. He remembered that moment. He remembered seeing the dark shadows that seemed to dance on the tunnel walls. Was he about to meet himself? He felt he was in the tunnel but how could he be two places at the one time? Was this another vision? Moments later, the walls of the tunnel started to spin and he realised that he was, in fact, still in the bell with Kono and the thing that used to be Winthrope.

The whole thing knocked him off balance, but after finding himself in the tunnel, Joe was now more aware of the strange movements of the bell, and of the things and places that were rushing around them. Were they moving through time or space? Different dimensions? None of those things would surprise him anymore.

The sound of Kono wailing dragged Joe out of his thoughts, and he looked over to see that he had huge, deep scratches all over his face. The front of his white coat had been almost completely scratched away, and a small pool of blood was appearing on the floor of the bell. He was on his knees, trying to balance.

Rage surged through Joe then, and he turned on the alien, putting all of his anger and confusion and fear into his attack. Jumping on the lizard creature, he knocked him to the ground. The lizard landed with a thump with his left claw crashing against a panel causing flashes of electricity or whatever it was that powered this machine. It immediately gave out a blood curdling wail as it felt the pain shoot through its arm. Seeing an opportunity, Joe quickly clambered on top of it, his fear was gone, and he was purely running on adrenalin. With Joe on top, he had the momentum he needed, and he quickly grabbed the injured hand of the creature and dug its own claws into its chest, where he assumed its heart was.

The alien started to struggle then, but Joe had the control, and the razor sharp edges of the claws – so life-threatening to him and Kono – were now being used on their owner, piercing its heart and making it scream out in agony. Joe thought he could see some humanity in the alien’s eyes, maybe there was still a way to discuss this situation, nobody needed to die. After all, they were all civilized. As Joe held the razor sharp claws deep into the alien’s chest he wished time would move a bit quicker.

Die, damn you! Die, how ironic, here he was in a situation where he doesn’t know how long he can hang on, wishing he had control of time. A sharp pain penetrated Joe’s side and he realized that the alien had plunged the claws of his other hand into him. ‘How stupid could he be?’ he thought, ‘of course the alien has two hands.’

The alien and Joe both lay beside each other, wondering which one of them would die first. For Joe, the pain was unbearable, he looked into the alien’s eyes again and thought he saw sadness, maybe even respect.

Joe felt the pain from his side receding, he believed this was the first sign of him about to pass out. He felt sorry that he had failed. Failed Lisa, failed the world.

Suddenly he heard a guttural voice telling him to hang on. It was Kono, speaking through the blood flowing from his throat. He had pulled the alien’s claws out of Joe’s side and was hanging on to the alien’s arm with all of his remaining strength, not allowing the alien to plunge the razors back into Joe’s blood soaked side.  

A feeling of nausea crept over Kono as he tried with all his might to hold, that which was Winthrope’s, claws from stabbing Joe. The bloody sharp bones were just inches from Joe’s side, one slip and it would be all over. He could see Joe lying beside the alien pressing the aliens other claws into its chest, pushing as hard as he could, as if his life depended on it, and it did. Who could hold on the longest?

Kono felt his arm muscles ache, just like they did when he played arm wrestling with his friends in Japan. He remembered the farm he was brought up on, where he always got the hardest jobs to do because he was the biggest and strongest. His mind drifted and he thought of the beautiful sunsets that lit up the farm and bathed the fields in a reddish glow, always stopping what he was doing and taking a moment to absorb nature’s chakras. He wasn’t an educated man, but he had the sensitivity to appreciate the wonders of the natural world. His eyes flickered as he watched the sun going down for one final time, a feeling of peace and tranquillity overwhelmed him; his grip in the real world remained steadfast, but the call for his soul to return to the farm was too strong.                                                                                                                                 

The green blood from the lizard’s chest had mingled with Joe’s blood, creating mosaic patterns on the floor of the bell, still swirling through time and space. His lab coat was now totally shredded as if someone had deliberately cut it with scissors as a naughty prank. He continued to push the lizard’s claws into its own chest, afraid to let up in case the reptile recovered enough to - Joe didn’t want to contemplate this – he could feel his strength ebbing from his body. He hadn’t noticed before, but the alien was cold. Was the creature dead or was it because reptiles are cold blooded? He didn’t want to take the chance and held on, pushing the claws as deep as he could, for as long as his stamina would allow. Joe stayed like that for a minute longer, and when he saw the life drain out of Winthrope’s eyes, he stumbled off the creature, suddenly repulsed both by what it was and what he had done.

He didn’t have to look upon the dead lizard body for long, however, as a few seconds later, there was a flash of green light, an impression of the body moving upwards, and then nothing. It was gone. It was as if some sort of vortex had appeared to swallow the hideous body right up. All that was left on the floor was blood and slime, bits of skin, both human and reptile. Joe grimaced as he felt the ache on his side, his arm, he couldn’t tell which was which, and it was as if one side of his body had seized up in pain. He sat for a moment, looking at the blood on his hands, and at the unearthly spinning of the bell. ‘Is this how it’s all going to end?’ he whispered to himself as he wiped his bloody hands on what was left of his lab coat. He quickly brushed aside those negative thoughts, he preferred to think of Lisa, ‘Will I ever see her again?’ The pain seemed to subside and was replaced with a dull throbbing, not enough to stop him from standing up. ‘Wow. I gotta say, there was a moment there when I thought…’ Joe trailed off as he remembered how Kono had fallen to the ground, bleeding out, and he turned round slowly, afraid of what he would see.

He knew in an instant that his friend – because, in the end, that’s what he had been – was dead. Joe hadn’t realised before, but as well as his face being butchered, the lizard claws had also ripped open his throat. He hadn’t had a chance.

Covered in blood himself, Joe leaned over the man, closing the lids over Kono’s eyes, which were already starting to look glassy and lifeless.

By the time he stood up again, the swirling colours that were moving around the bell had ceased, the bell now motionless.

Taking a deep breath, he stumbled out of the bell, finding himself in an underground chamber.

It wasn’t, however, the chamber under the monastery, and Joe groaned, thinking of Lisa and how he’d give anything to have her in his arms at that moment. Where was she? Was she OK? He looked back at Kono, thought of Winthrope. What if Lisa was dead too? Anything could have happened to her.