Leo, the thing says.

It lunges at the camera—screeching. Something within its face extends—

The screen goes dark.

“W-we lost contact,” IT Guy stammers after several seconds. “SZ-132 isn’t responding.”

***

There is no film. There’s no footage of Flight 245’s remains, no shot of the dark figure that destroyed the robot. There’s no record of the creature’s face, none of its terrifying form that we all so clearly saw in the flashlight’s glare.

“No,” Hemslock says desperately. “We saw it. We all saw it. The camera should have captured it. Run it again.”

Straw Hat tries, and then tries again, and then several more times.

The screen is black for all of the tank’s run.

Hemslock does not take this failure well. He stalks off, pausing only to punch at the mess hall’s outer wall. Gries sits on a chair, head in his hands, trembling.

“Did Mom survive the plane crash?” Chase asks his father quietly. “Did she wash up here? With no one to rescue her?”

“I don’t know, Chase.”

Chase gulps. “Dad. Do you think that…maybe that was Mom—”

“No!” Gries shouts. “She died when the plane crashed. No one could have survived a landing on…” Leo closes his mouth, realizing he’s only making the situation worse. “Have you seen anything like that…thing on this island?” he asks me instead.

A shriek interrupts my reply. It’s one of the crew. “That was the ghost that Lydia and Trish saw on the shore! It was her! Oh my God.…”

“We have to go inside,” Leo Gries says, desperately. “I want to know why my wife’s belongings are buried here.”

“Are you kidding?” IT Guy sputters. “That thing’s still down there! It could kill you!”

Hemslock returns, a determined look on his face. “We’re going into the cave.”

“What?” IT Guy is about to have a conniption. “Why?”

“We might have lost one robot, but we still need more footage.” Hemslock strides to the other station, still monitoring the helicopter drone, and moves the monitor so we can see what it had recorded. Its flight over the island reveals a dark figure standing just inside the cave, disappearing from view when the drone’s camera shifts down for a closer look. “I want some answers, and it looks like this is the best place to start.”

Ten

Entries

“Here you go,” Hawaiian Shirt says, dumping a small stack of papers before me. “Figured you might like copies. These are from Alex Key’s complete journal. These are for the Cortes journal, pages numbered one through thirty-six. The museum wouldn’t let us take the original. They’re what Hemslock’s using to base most of his theories, so you can expect us to ask questions about these on camera.”

I scan through them quickly. The Cortes journal had been translated for the crew’s benefit; the writing is faded but legible. Ironically Key’s journal is harder to read. There is no organization to the wild thoughts the man had scribbled on paper, veering chaotically from one unrelated topic to the next, writing over his previous words in the same way his own thoughts seem to have lain on top of each other.