Elder Knight: Part 1

ONE

The sea around the boat were covered with a fine mist and was inexplicably calm. Above, the moon shone with a gloomy light that did nothing to lighten the mood of the people aboard the small vessel. The boat captain, an old man by the name of Al Garcia, often glanced at his passengers as he piloted his boat on.

There were three people in the boat. There was Edna, a middle-aged but attractive journalist who wanted to find out about the “mysterious” goings-on on the island of Marcelina. The other was a young woman by the name of Jane who came along with Edna as the journalist’s assistant and photographer. Last was a man named Gabriel who insisted he just be called “Gab” and wore an old brown jacket and a baseball cap with the Miskatonic Cephalopods logo on it.

The three strangers didn’t know each other but they were all insistent on going to Marcelina despite the fact that it was shunned by the people in the mainland. Al Garcia was almost seventy years old now and knew well that Marcelina was a dangerous place to go to, especially at night. But his family needed money what with his granddaughter currently in the hospital for dengue fever. All three were willing to pay him a considerable amount of money with one of them being more than enough to let all his younger grandchildren complete their studies.

“We’re almost there,” Al Garcia called out to his passengers. “Get ready.”

After more than an hour, with the clock in the wheelhouse displaying four-o’clock in the morning, Al Garcia’s boat reached a deserted pier. The old man himself sighed in relief, seeing that there was no one there to witness him and his boat. He gestured for the three to hurry off of his vessel.

“God be with all of you,” Al Garcia said to the three who now stood on the wooden pier, shrouded by mist. “I hope you all find what you’re looking for out here.”

“Thank you,” Edna said to the old man. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay? I am willing to pay you more if you do. I mean, we might not be able to find a boat here either so we could use someone like you. Are you sure you don’t want-“

Edna didn’t have a chance to finish as Al Garcia trotted off on his boat at top speed.

“Well, that was rude,” Jane said as the three looked on. “If I knew he’d go and do that I mightn’t have paid him so much.”

And so the three walked off the pier and headed towards the direction of Marcelina’s town somewhere at the heart of the island. The skies were still quite dark so Edna used a flashlight to make her way ahead while Jane made use of the light from her smartphone to light the path. The mist that also came in from the sea also didn’t help with their visibility. Only Gab didn’t use any kind of light and seemed accustomed to the moonlit early morning.

After a while, they were suddenly hit by the strong, almost overwhelming stench of death and decomposition.

“Ugh!” Jane said, almost falling over and dropping her phone if Gab had not caught her in time. “What is that?”

“It smells like something died,” Edna said, covering her nose while using her flashlight to search around. “Maybe a dead animal or something.”

Suddenly, Edna’s light picked out the body of a man standing in the distance.

“Look!” cried Jane, making her way towards the man who was partly hidden in the mist. “Someone’s there.”

“Wait!” Gab called out, trying to stop the young woman. “That might-“

Jane gasped and then let out a loud piercing scream once she realized just what was in front of her. She dropped her phone and it clattered to the ground but the light stayed on, illuminating the figure before her. She was about to scream again when Edna caught up to her and held her as Gab followed from behind.

Once the older woman saw clearly what was in front of them, she had to suppress a scream as well. It was apparently a dead man, held upright by wires tied to planks of wood planted into the ground. It was a truly gruesome sight as the man had apparently been repeatedly stabbed in his abdomen and head. That was not all however as the light from Edna’s flashlight revealed maggots crawling and festering in the man’s corpse, gelatinous bodies twitching and squirming.

Jane then moved aside to vomit the contents of her stomach but only screamed again when she saw what else was around them.

All around them, tied or mounted on wooden planks and steel bars were the decaying remains of people. Right in front of Jane was a severed woman’s head, her hair a dark mess with maggots coming out of her mouth, nose and empty eye-sockets. Just to their right was a dead bald man whose arms and legs had been cut off with a grimace of agony frozen on his face. Further on was a naked woman’s headless torso, covered in blood and bound in barbed wire. There were other, more terrible and disgusting things around them such as the corpses of children and quite a few animals including dogs and cats, impaled on metal spikes.

“This is awful!” Edna said and then retched. “Who would do something like this?”

Gab only looked around, marking each of the victims who had been placed around them.

“I think I know a way out of here,” Gab said to the two women. “Follow me.”

TWO

Jane and Edna followed Gab through the tall grass and soon found themselves in a forest of mango trees. Mist swirled around the trunks of trees as the three moved through it, making it hard to see and walk onward without almost tripping over rocks and roots. But just then, they heard the sounds of other people talking and, somewhere beyond the trees, they saw the flickering light of torches.

Jane was about to shout out but Gab stopped her.

“Wait!” he said to her. “Turn off your lights. They might be the same people who did the things that we saw. Let’s watch and be sure.”

Realizing the prudence of this, Edna shut off her flashlight.

Jane, while hesitant, did the same, turning off the light on her smartphone.

Slowly, they began to understand what the men were saying.

“And you thought you’d escape us huh?” one man said, laughing. “You thought there’d be a way out for you?”

It was hard to see in the mist but the torches the men ahead carried allowed them to be seen more clearly. There were three men who were standing while there were two that were kneeling. The three men who were standing wore conical hoods reminiscent of those worn by the Ku Klux Klan and the two kneeling men were broken, bloody and wore torn clothes. Each of the three men held a weapon: a gun, a knife and a machete. It was obvious what this scene was.

“Oh my God, it’s an execution!” Jane gasped and tried her best to keep her voice low. “We’ve got to do something!”

“Do something?” Edna said to the younger woman. “Like what? They have a gun! Besides, what do you even know about fighting?”

Jane was mulling this over when her phone rang, playing a loud tune of “Look what you made me do!” by Taylor Swift.

The men in conical hoods quickly looked in their direction and began pointing and shouting at them.

“Oh crud!” Gab said. “Run!”

And just as they did, two of the hooded men gave chase, waving their torches in the air.

Jane and Edna ran forward and took a moment to look back and saw that Gab had disappeared behind them. Not only that, they also gained a momentary glance at the two men who were after them. As they had seen earlier, both were wearing red conical hoods that made their heads appear like crimson spikes. One of them carried a machete and the other had a shotgun. They were naked from the waist up and their torsos were marked with strange scars that seemed to form a common pattern.

“Stop!” said the man with the gun, raising his weapon at the women. “I’ll shoot if you don’t stop!”

Before anything could happen though, a loud, piercing cry filled the air. It was like a bestial roar combined with a human cry of fury. It was both fearsome and unsettling, making all those present look around in surprise and growing dread. Edna and Jane kept running until they could find sanctuary behind two tall mango trees while the men chasing them stopped dead in their tracks in surprise, looking around themselves and at the trees.

“Who-Who’s there?” the man with the gun shouted. “Sh-Show y-yourself!”

Then their torches suddenly flared brightly in the darkness, blinding the two men with their own light. Then the torches exploded, engulfing their surroundings in a great ball of fire. The man with the machete was immediately consumed by the flames and fell thrashing and screaming to the ground. He dropped his weapon and flailed about the dirt, screaming in agony as fire consumed his body. The man with the gun was quicker and managed to throw away his torch before it could explode. He stood now, holding his weapon with both hands, ready to fire at the slightest provocation.

The fire from the burning man lit the surrounding forest as his screams of agony filled the air. No matter what he did, the fires on his body could not be put out. He rolled on the dirt and flailed his arms but still the fires burned hotly and brightly on him as if his body was soaked in gasoline.

“Help me!” the man called out to his companion. “It hurts!”

But the man with the shotgun paid him no mind. He only looked around himself in bewilderment, terror and indecision. He was torn between fleeing the scene as he did not really understand what was even happening, continue to hunt the women or confront the thing that was doing this.

Before he could decide on what to do, his dilemma was solved for him. From out of the mist came what could best be described as a giant scorpion’s tail. It impaled the man in the back then quickly dragged him into the mist screaming. The man dropped his shotgun, which clattered on the ground and then even louder screaming began. At first, they were cries of shock and horror but then they were quickly replaced by shrieks of agony and despair.

It was then that the man with the knife who was left with the two captives decided to flee the scene, leaving the two men on their own. It was right around then that Gab reappeared, as the two women in the dim torchlight saw, reaching down to free the restrained captives. After a moment of hesitation, the two men decided to follow Gab as he ran back to the woods where Jane and Edna were waiting.

“We have to go!” Gab said to all of them. “More of them are coming! I saw them by the light of their torches! Ten men or more!”

“Follow us,” said one of the former captives. “We know a place here that’s safe. It’s where all the others are hiding. If we hurry, we might even make it without being noticed.”

“Okay then,” Gab said. “Let’s grab their weapons before we go. We might need to use them if we run into more of those men. ‘Better safe than sorry’ and all that.”

Much to his surprise, it was the two women who took the weapons first. Edna took the shotgun and took a moment to break it open to look at the ammunition inside before closing it and pumping it once. Jane picked up the machete and took a tentative swing with it.

The three then gathered together and were about to go on their way when one of the hooded men, the one with the knife, appeared in front of them with his weapon raised.

“Thought you’d get away that easily, huh?” the man said in an almost mad voice. “Well, think again-“

He did not get a chance to finish as the shotgun thundered and the man fell to the ground, a gaping hole in his chest. Edna held the gun before her with a grimace of disgust and determination. Smoke issued forth from the barrel of the gun and, with the mist behind her, she almost looked like a part of some film noir poster.

“What?” she asked the others when she realized that they were staring at her.

THREE

As they walked on in the forest, they learned that the two men were named Reggie and Luis and that they were members of a rebel group on the island. Apparently, for many years now, the island had become a totalitarian state ruled by the Macanas family, a local political dynasty. The Macanases made a mockery of democracy and ruled the island with an iron fist as if they were royalty.

“So, those men who captured you,” Edna said. “Who were they?”

“They’re loyalists of the Macanas family,” Reggie replied, looking around nervously. “They are heartless killers to a man, thanks to the fanaticism inspired in them by Mayor Macanas. The three of you aren’t from around here, I can tell. Would you mind telling me who you are first before we continue?”

“Of course,” Edna smiled. “I am Edna Lucio, a journalist from Manila. I’m supposed to be doing a report on political dynasties and the Macanas family of Marcelina seem to be a prime example. That said, I didn’t expect any of this.”

Luis only laughed in the back.

“Political dynasties, eh?” he smiled. “If you stay long enough, you’re going to find out that the Macanases are worse than that.”

“I’m Jane Roque,” Jane introduced herself. “I’m Edna’s assistant.”

“Then it’s good that you decided to come with us,” Luis said. “More people need to know about the evils of the Macanas family! Come with us! You need to meet with the American agents! We’ve been preparing for years now.”

He trailed off and stopped.

“Look, there’s no point discussing it here,” Reggie said. “If you want clear answers to all your questions, you’re going to get them where we’re going.”

“And what about you,” Luis turned to Gab who only looked at them. “What’s your story?”

“I only came here for unfinished business,” Gab smiled. “That’s pretty much it.”

“Well, you do look kind of familiar,” Luis said. “I could swear that...”

But he didn’t finish and Gab didn’t reply or say anything after that.

“But what about the monster?” Edna asked. “The thing we saw and heard in the mist. The thing that killed those men and let us all escape. Do you guys know what it was?”

Reggie and Luis merely looked at each other before shaking their heads.

“We’ve no idea,” Reggie said finally. “But with what the Macanas family has been cooking up, I wouldn’t be surprised if they also had some kind of pet monster that escaped.”

FOUR

After a few hours, the sun began to rise and it was then that the group needed to become even more furtive in their movements. Now that the island was waking up, more people would be our patrolling and most of them were, as the two men implied, loyalist of the Macanas family. Indeed, they functioned less like a political party and more like a combination cult and drug cartel according to Luis.

The group stuck close to the tall grass and woods now that the mist had faded, to avoid being spotted. Gab even put his cap away as its bright color made it easy to see. They kept low as they moved, staying close to the less populated areas of the island to avoid people.

They had soon reached a grassy hill when they suddenly heard the loud report of a firearm. They looked around themselves in bewilderment, eyes searching for the source of the noise when a second loud shot echoed ahead. This time however, it was accompanied by a loud cry from a woman. Realizing that the sound must be coming from the other side of the hill, the five scrambled upwards and then hid behind trees, rocks and surrounding grass to peer towards what was happening.

Just as they looked on, the sound of gunfire roared again and this time, the body of a child, perhaps no more than twelve, fell lifeless on a wooden floor, blood pooling around his corpse.

At the foot of the hill was a small crowd of people gathered around a high wooden stage in the middle of a dirt clearing. Most of those down there appeared to be common people, dressed in simple farmers’ clothes complete with hats and the occasional farming implement. Some of the men were dressed in what appeared to be red ceremonial robes as well as the same crimson conical hoods the men before had also worn and these were armed with intimidating automatic rifles. Standing on the stage were about a dozen more men but these were instead wearing conical metal helmets, armed with brutal-looking spears instead of guns and decorated with what looked like metal wings on their backs. Last of course were the three people who lay sprawled on the stage, their blood flowing from their bodies on the stage in long streams. Of those three were a man, a woman and a child and could be easily deduced to be a family.

“Oh God, it’s another execution!” Edna exclaimed. “They’re killing families.”

No one said anything in reply to this but Jane got her phone to record the scene happening below.

They were at a good enough distance not to be seen easily but they were still close enough to hear some of what was happening.

“Brothers and sisters!” shouted one of the men in hoods whose voice was further amplified by a megaphone. “You have now witnessed what happens to those who dare blaspheme against our Lord Dionisio Macanas and his family! Our Lord, Dionisio Macanas demands absolute obedience and devotion from us! There is no room for upstarts, usurpers and dissidents in the paradise of the Macanas family, who are truly heralds of God in our world! Only those who are submissive, faithful and loyal to Dionisio Macanas are to be granted the privilege of living in our most holy land of Marcelina!”

“What are they talking about?” Jane said as she continued filming the scene in the clearing. “I thought Mayor Dionisio Macanas was dead.”

But none of her companions replied to her as they were transfixed by what they were watching.

“These people,” the man below pointed at the three dead bodies, the family they had just executed. “Jefferson Trajano and his family have spoken against our Lord Dionisio Macanas! They have questioned his methods and ways! They have even gone so far as to say that our lord and his family are possibly mad or even evil! We cannot abide this blasphemy, brothers and sisters! We will not tolerate this heresy! We were not given the beautiful paradise that is the island of Marcelina and simply allow such sacrilege to go unpunished!

“This man Trajano has had the audacity to speak out that we, the people of Marcelina, should cooperate with outside authorities in order to help with our problems of hunger and scarcity! An act that our lord has expressly forbidden us from doing! For to associate with people beyond our island, let alone communicate with them, invites corruption into our ranks! That’s right! Choosing to even speak with outsiders, without the permission of the Macanas family will bring only disaster and misery upon our own ideal community!

“Who’s to say that it wasn’t the work of these outsiders that caused blight to be visited upon our lands? Couldn’t it be that the blight was manufactured by these outsiders and that they just want us to come to them instead of trusting our lord? Jefferson Trajano and his family even suggested that nothing could be done for the crops of our island and that our lord and his family are hoarding our harvests!

“But now I must ask, how can our lord even fathom such a response? Our lord is benevolent and generous and only follows the words of the Bible! He takes our harvest not because he and his family want it all for themselves but because he wants to test it for any kind of blight that could make us all sick! Also, he takes it so that he can give the most to those he thinks are deserving and give less to those he thinks are unfaithful and disobedient to his rule and the laws of God Himself! He does it out of kindness, brothers and sisters! He takes away what we have so he can give us more!

“How can Trajano and his family even imply that our lord Dionisio Macanas is doing it for selfish interests? More likely than not Jefferson Trajano is the selfish one and here and now, we have punished him and his family for it! We have dealt with them as one should deal with traitors and heretics! The price of disobedience, of any kind, is death brothers and sisters! And so, my dear friends, let us shun from our mind any memories or association we have with Jefferson Trajano and his family so that his sins might not taint our lives!

“Let us instead embrace the blessings and kindnesses of the Macanas family! Yes, brothers and sisters, let us instead be obedient so that our lord will rewards us! That even when we die, we will be raised again in glory and be exalted as the Risen!”

The hooded preacher pointed to the men with the conical helmets and metallic wings.

There were loud shouts of “amen” among the crowd gathered before them.

“Let us pray!” shouted the preacher and again the crowd murmured their assent. “In the name of Dionisio, Clara and Benito Macanas...”

But the group of five on the hill did not listen to the rest. Reggie pointed to the sun which was now approaching the summit to the sky and motioned for them to follow him. Without hesitating, the five stalked among the bushes and trees away from the execution near the hill.