Island 731

Joliet stopped and raised an open palm in his direction. He fell silent and stood next to her. She pointed up the steep, jungle-covered hillside.

“I don’t see anything,” he whispered.

“Between the trees near the top,” she said. “There’s something gray.”

It took him a moment, but when he saw it, the flat gray surface stood out. “The hell?”

His hand went to his waist, feeling the handle of his hunting knife. Its presence put him at ease. “Let’s check it out.”

Following the path, they wound their way up the hillside. As they neared the top, the incline grew steeper and the path became a series of switchbacks. Hawkins didn’t like that they had to pass in front of the aberration several times. Something about it made him wary, and every pass left him feeling more exposed. Vulnerable.

But nothing happened. They followed the last path to the top where it wrapped around a stand of trees. Hawkins’s hand went to his knife again as they rounded the palms, but when he got his first look at what waited for them, he knew the weapon wasn’t needed.

Vines covered much of the gray concrete, but given its location at the top of the hill, Hawkins could see the structure for what it was. “It’s a pillbox.”

“A what?”

“Pillbox. From World War Two. The Japanese must have occupied this island.” Hawkins stepped through the open backside of the concrete octagon. A long, thin opening stretched across the side facing the hill. He looked out and could see patches of the path below. “Anyone advancing up the hillside would have had a hell of a time reaching the top without being cut to pieces by machine gun fire. They probably had a lot of the brush and trees cleared away back then.”

“If this island was occupied during the war,” Joliet said, “why isn’t it on any maps?”

“If the island was never discovered by the U.S., the Japanese stationed here probably just deserted and went home when the war ended.” Hawkins searched the small space for WWII relics, but found nothing. “Looks like they cleaned up shop when they left, too. They didn’t leave a thing behind.”

“Aside from a giant concrete octagon, you mean?”

“Right.” Hawkins turned to a pile of dirt and leaf litter on the side of the room. A splotch of red color next to the debris caught his attention. He knelt down and picked it up. The thick cloth was easily identifiable as a piece of baseball cap. The remnant of a B confirmed Hawkins’s suspicion that it was Kam’s Red Sox cap. That it was ruined was cause for concern—the kid rarely parted from it—but it being here was also the first real evidence that Kam had made it to the island and not drowned in the storm.

“That’s Kam’s hat!” Joliet said, taking the fabric from him.

“Yeah, but why is it—”

A loud squeak made him jump back and Joliet shouted in surprise as a black shape shot across the floor and out the door.

“What… was that?” she asked, catching her breath.

“A rat,” he said. “I think.”

Joliet inched toward the open door, looking for the rodent. “Looks like the Japanese left something else behind, too. Where people go, rats follow.”

“Mmm,” Hawkins said, but he’d only heard half of what she said. He walked back to the window and looked down the hill, scratching his chin.

“What is it?” Joliet asked.

“The rat,” he said.

“You don’t like rats?”

“Rat,” he said. “Singular. Rats tend to live in colonies. Sometimes several hundred in a single colony. And each female in the colony can have sixty young, per year, half of which might be females. Eleven weeks after birth, those females start cranking out young of their own. On an island like this, left to breed for the past seventy years, their population should have expanded until the place was overrun.”

“But it’s not,” Joliet said. “This is the first we’ve seen.”

Hawkins placed his hands on the windowsill, watching the jungle floor below for movement. “And there are plenty of food sources out there. Rats aren’t picky. It’s possible that their population exploded and suffered a massive die-off because of starvation, but that still doesn’t explain the lack of a colony. Rats live just two years. For there to be one rat, there needs to be others, and we run into the colony explosion scenario again, unless…”

“Unless what?”

“Unless something is keeping them in check.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s a reason Yellowstone is never overrun with rats. They’re there—they’re everywhere—but their population is controlled—” He looked her in the eyes. “By predators. Mountain lions, wolves, foxes, lynxes, bobcats, eagles, hawks, owls, and a variety of other predators keep the rodent and rabbit populations in check.”

“So what? The seagulls here have a taste for rat?” Joliet said with a grin.

“No,” he said, “to keep a rat population down to where they’re not scurrying everywhere requires a healthy population of a number of different predators.”

“How do you know there are different predators?”

“If there were only one species of predator, they would face the same overpopulation issue as the rat. They’d be everywhere. Predators are kept in check by competition. Other hunters.”

Joliet’s smile faded. “How come we’re not seeing them then?”

“Because they’re predators,” Hawkins said, eyes still on the hillside below. “They don’t want to be seen.”

12.

Hawkins let the moment drag out for a moment and then smiled. “Don’t worry, any predators on the island would have come with the Japanese, too. Feral cats. Maybe wild dogs. And some bird species, like the seagulls, which seem aggressive enough to handle a rat.”

Joliet’s let out a breath. “Bastard.”

Hawkins chuckled, but it was only partly sincere. The combination of a dead woman, a WWII fortification, and the presence of an active ecosystem that included predatory animals had him on edge. The island appeared to be as close as you could get to a tropical paradise, but the history of the place trumped the environment. And he had no doubt the lush jungle hid more secrets.

But he wasn’t a historian. Nor was he here to speculate on wildlife. He came to the island to find Kam and take him back to the ship. He stepped out of the pillbox and scanned the clearing outside. He’d lost Kam’s trail before they’d reached the switchbacks, but he couldn’t think of a reason the kid would have gone trailblazing. If anything, Kam had cut straight up the hillside, ignoring the switchbacks altogether. He’d hoped to pick up a trail atop the hill, but saw nothing.

Nothing at all. No rocks. No trees. No overgrowth. The clearing around the pillbox entrance looked almost manicured. Grass covered the ground, but it was neatly trimmed.

Not good, he thought, but didn’t voice his fears. Once they had Kam, they could theorize about the island all they wanted. Until then, Hawkins would stay on task.

He spun around, looking at the pillbox again, and noticed that the trees surrounding the building were just barely taller than its domed roof. If he stood atop it, he’d have a good view and might be able to gauge the size of the island.

Joliet stepped outside as he walked to the side of the pillbox and tested the strength of the vines with his hands. They’d make decent handholds, but he wasn’t confident they’d hold his weight. “Give me a boost,” he said.

Joliet looked at him like he was crazy. “You know I’m half your size, right?”

Hawkins found a thick vine high up on the wall and gave it a tug. It would do the trick. “I need to take a look at the island.”