Umboi Island, page 1
part #3 of A Creature X Mystery Series
UMBOI
ISLAND
CREATURE X MYSTERIES
Roanoke Ridge
Lake Crescent
Umboi Island
J.J. DUPUIS
UMBOI
ISLAND
A CREATURE X MYSTERY
Copyright © J.J. Dupuis, 2022
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purpose of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.
All characters in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Publisher and acquiring editor: Scott Fraser | Editor: Allison Hirst
Cover designer: Laura Boyle | Cover image: istock.com/dan_prat
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: Umboi Island / J.J. Dupuis.
Names: Dupuis, J. J., 1983- author.
Description: Series statement: A creature X mystery
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20210357290 | Canadiana (ebook) 20210357304 | ISBN 9781459746510 (softcover) | ISBN 9781459746527 (PDF) | ISBN 9781459746534 (EPUB)
Classification: LCC PS8607.U675 U43 2022 | DDC C813/.6—dc23
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Ontario, through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and Ontario Creates, and the Government of Canada.
Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.
The publisher is not responsible for websites or their content unless they are owned by the publisher.
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Through a land of trouble and anguish, from when came the young and old lion, the viper and the fiery flying serpent, they will carry their riches upon the shoulders of young donkeys, and their treasures on the humps of camels, to a people who shall not profit.
— Isaiah 30:6, New King James Version
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PROLOGUE
WE CAME TO UMBOI ISLAND IN SEARCH OF a lost world. Some might call it a romantic idea, others post-colonial, but the notion that the jungles of Africa or Asia hide prehistoric wonders has persisted in Western culture for as long as European sailors, explorers, and colonizers have travelled to distant lands and come back with incredible and wondrous tales. We didn’t expect to find one, of course, but the idea of a wilderness untouched for millions of years is one so persistent in the world of cryptozoology that we knew it needed to be “explored.”
We’d yet to spot any “living fossils” as I led the team up the trail back toward our camp, but something bizarre and glowing had risen through the trees and disappeared into the night sky, into the unfamiliar constellations revealed by the absence of ambient light. There was a break in the forest canopy where at daybreak I could watch the sun climb up over the edge of the world. Great frigatebirds, barely visible in the distance, broke formation as they skimmed the water looking for prey. The volcano toward the centre of the island could be clearly seen in the distance, a collar of greenery rising around its neck. With the ocean at our backs we continued toward camp, the volcano standing ominously to the right. It was more of a mountain, actually, since it hadn’t erupted for eleven thousand years, but that was cold comfort.
“Does it bother you, Laura?” Saad asked as he sidled up next to me.
I’d told him once about my fear of volcanoes, but he’d never brought it up. Growing up near Mount St. Helens, volcanic eruptions for me were not a remote threat but a real possibility. I had always pictured our town as the next Pompeii, our bodies preserved for the ages in walls of ash.
“I’m fine,” I said, hooking my thumbs under the straps of my backpack. “What are the chances it would become active now?”
“Slim to none,” he said, giving me one of his rare smiles.
The trail widened as we approached the clearing where we’d set up camp. Our team had spent the night hunting an extant pterosaur that glowed in the dark, known as the “Ropen.” Its name meant “demon flyer” and it supposedly flew above the canopy at night on leathery wings, emitting a haunting bioluminescent glow.
Rumoured to be a nocturnal creature, we stalked the jungle at night looking for evidence of the Ropen’s existence. While the team of British researchers from NatureWorld’s U.K. affiliate were training their night-vision cameras on the trees and the forest floor, we tilted ours upward. Chris, our cameraman, was enjoying the toys he got to play with, the drones and the camera traps, and the rest of us were happy to take part in a legitimate expedition. Well, maybe Danny, the producer, and the new guy, Joshua, weren’t enjoying themselves, but I couldn’t care less.
“I’ve never looked more forward to a cot in my life,” Danny announced, veering toward the large tent where the men slept. “I’ll say this for you, Laura, at least you picked a tropical location this time. I was getting pale as a ghost.”
The men were eager to dump their packs in the tent and either sleep or head to the commissary for something to eat. The straps of my pack had made permanent tracks around my shoulders and I wanted nothing more than to take it off, lay down on my cot, throw something over my face, and drop off to sleep.
Across the camp, I saw Lindsay emerge from the commissary tent and walk toward me. I smiled, relieved she’d made it back safely.
“There you are,” I said. “How were the caves?”
“They go deeper than I would have thought,” she said. “I’d love to go back with proper gear.”
That was the first time she seemed legitimately excited to be on the island.
“There might be time for that,” I said. “But I need a little rest before we start shooting again tonight.”
“Me, too.”
The scientists from the U.K. team were up at dawn, and for the most part stayed up until nightfall, so we expected we’d have the tent to ourselves. We had a few hours before we had to wake up for the night shoot.
I pushed the tent flap aside and walked in, several thoughts competing with the sensations of fatigue for my attention. The first thing I noticed was an odd smell, different from the thick rainforest air. Then the flies. A sense of danger set off alarms in my brain. Then I saw him. I stopped dead in my tracks, gasped, and turned to push Lindsay back out the door. But I was too late. She stood there in the doorway, open-mouthed, looking as if she’d stepped on the third rail of a subway track.
He was lying on Lindsay’s cot. On the ground beside him was my monogrammed Remington knife, the compact steel blade stained red with blood. I knew he was dead.
ONE
Standard models of evolution assert that all species of dinosaurs and pterosaurs became extinct long ago and that their fossils are evidence for unlimited common ancestry, the extinction of the vast majority of species opening the way for those more fit to survive. Although all species of pterosaurs could have been destroyed by the Flood and post-Flood changes, the young-earth view holds out the possibility of extant pterosaurs. Investigations of reports of creatures whose descriptions suggest Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaurs in remote areas of Papua New Guinea were carried out between 1994 and 2007.
— Jonathan D. Whitcomb, “Reports
of Living Pterosaurs in the
Southwest Pacific”
THE WINDOWS IN THE GYM OF THE GRAND Papua Hotel looked out on Ela Beach and Walter Bay. The Pacific Ocean was nothing more than undulating tar; the outline of a palm tree in the foreground gave a sense of dimension. Otherwise, there was nothing in the distant night but water. Queensland was somewhere in that direction, too far to see even if it were daytime.
Saad, Duncan, and I had spent the last twenty minutes on the treadmills, each of us at various intensities, trying to loosen up for what was to come. We all knew we’d have to contend with the jet lag that came with flying from the U.S. to Papua New Guinea. Some of the crew would rely on sleeping pills, others valerian root or chamomile tea. The three of us chose exercise to tire ourselves out.
We had the gym to ourselves. The flat-screen TV mounted on the wall was dark. An Archie Shepp album played on my phone and the belts of the treadmills whirred, masking the laboured breathing of my two colleagues.
I was the first to get off the treadmill, but not because I was tired. “So, are we going to do this, or what?”
Saad knew I was speaking to him. He lowered the intensity on his treadmill so the black conveyer belt whooshed slower and slower until he shut it off completely. “I thought, between the long flight and the jogging, you might let me off the hook.”
I walked over to my gym bag and to
“Is this —” Duncan started.
“Don’t make a Fight Club joke,” I said, cutting him off.
“Never mind,” he said, turning back to his reflection in the window. “You couldn’t talk about it even if it were.”
I approached Saad, who was getting into his stance. It was like watching a machine start up, all the parts setting themselves, starting with foot placement and continuing up through his torso, his hands finding their place to cover his jawline, ending with the chin tuck. His movements were slow and deliberate enough that I could almost read the checklist in his head as he recalled what I had taught him.
“Start with the jab, cross, elbow, elbow, rear knee?” I asked.
He nodded, looking down at his own body one more time to make sure every part was set in the correct position. I held up my right hand, gloved in the black leather focus mitt with a white circle painted in the palm acting as a bullseye.
“Jab,” I said.
He stepped forward with his lead foot, sliding the rear foot after to maintain the same distance between them. He popped a quick jab at the glove, rotating his body and turning his fist over so that the thumb and forefinger faced the floor as the punch connected.
“Good,” I said as his left hand retreated to the guard position by his left cheekbone.
His right hand travelled the course the left had set, as he turned on his back foot, rotating at the hips, then the shoulders, delivering a cross that was noticeably better, stronger and faster, than when we’d first started his training upon returning home from Newfoundland. The impact made a pop against my leather mitt before his hand quickly pulled back into a defensive position along his jawline. Saad didn’t stop his momentum, turning again with the left side of his body, bringing his elbow up and across on a level trajectory toward the mitt in my left hand.
“Nice,” I said.
He pivoted again, like the agitator in a washing machine, bringing his right elbow to strike the mitt. This time, instead of returning to a guard position, he dropped his right hand onto my shoulder, pulling me downward while driving his right knee up into the mitt I had waiting. After landing the last strike he backed off and reset his position.
“Is that Thai boxing?” Duncan asked.
The paleontologist from the University of Southampton powered down his treadmill, released his grip on the handles, and stepped off.
“Sort of,” I said, “but repurposed for combatives.”
“Like self-defence?” he asked.
“Essentially. Combatives is more a mindset, using moves from martial arts and dirty boxing to stop an attacker. It’s more than self-defence because there’s a realization that you’re not safe so long as your attacker is still standing.”
“That sounds violent,” Duncan said, putting his hands on his hips. “I’m a black belt in judo.”
“Really?” Saad said.
“I did not know that,” I added.
“My stepdad was one of those blokes who was mad about Steven Seagal movies back in the eighties. He talked my mom into the whole ‘a young boy needs discipline and the martial arts teach discipline’ thing. The rest is history. I haven’t been to the dojo in ages, though.”
My father was never into martial arts movies, as he mainly watched Westerns, but he did like Steven Seagal. But when it came to teaching me to defend myself, there was nothing of an “art” about it, and that mindset still influenced how I trained, even with Muay Thai and self-defence classes.
“Judo is the throwing art,” Saad asked, “the one about leverage and submissions, right?”
“Yes,” Duncan said, “although some styles incorporate rudimentary striking.”
“I’m still in the rudimentary phase,” Saad said.
“Your technique looks pretty crisp to me,” Duncan said.
“He’s a fast learner,” I said.
“I’ve never been athletic, but Laura explains it in a way I understand, step by step while providing the reason behind each movement.”
“Can I give it a go?” Duncan asked. “I’ll go lighter since I haven’t any gloves.”
Duncan attempted the same combination from memory, making the mistakes that all beginners make. He didn’t twist his hips to generate power, he didn’t make sure to bring his hands quickly back to guard his face. It was the slow, concerted effort that came before each technique was burned into the muscle memory.
“Not bad,” I said.
“Did I mention judo is more my forte?”
Saad smiled.
“Practice makes perfect,” I said. “I’m not really one for throws and foot sweeps.”
Duncan looked down at his knuckles, then at the pinkish marks on his elbows.
“I think I’ll stick to throws,” he said, “not like I ever need to use them.”
“Maybe you could show me some basics,” Saad said.
“I’d be delighted,” Duncan replied. “You don’t mind me taking over your lesson, do you, Laura?”
“Be my guest,” I said, then turned to Saad. “Remember what I told you, though, anytime someone can grab you, you can and should hit them.”
Duncan looked at me with trepidation before moving toward Saad, I think wondering what he was getting himself into. He began demonstrating to him a basic hip throw. I understood the mechanics, but was never comfortable with voluntarily attaching myself to an attacker when I could strike them and keep moving. There are takedowns from the Filipino martial arts that my instructor included in his curriculum that naturally blended with strikes, but the throws that involved me dropping my hands from my jaw were not for me.
“What the hell’s going on here?”
Danny was standing in the doorway.
Saad and Duncan, who looked like one was teaching the other how to waltz, stood bolt upright like schoolboys caught stealing answers to an exam.
“Which one of you is trying out for the UFC?” he asked, taking a few steps into the room.
Danny, our producer, was the morning-jog-and-steam-room type. I could picture him on a treadmill as the sun rose over the water, talking to the network on his headset while walking at a brisk pace. He didn’t look too delicate for martial arts, but as though the close proximity to another sweaty human it required would be utterly repulsive to him.
“Just exploring our career options,” I said. “I mean, how long can we go on searching for cryptids and coming up empty?”
“Is that a rhetorical question? Finding Bigfoot was on the air for nine seasons, and still no Bigfoot.”
Bigfoot is Bigfoot, I thought, one of the most enduring myths of our time. There will always be shows about it, powered by the limitless desire to believe that something like us, but not us, is just a tree-covered mountain away.
“What’s with the music, if I can call it that?” Danny asked, the look on his face reminiscent of someone who was smelling rotten eggs.
“It’s free jazz,” I said.
“It had better be free. No one would pay money to listen to that,” he said, laughing. “You work out to jazz?”
“Only when I’m on a treadmill,” I said. “Something my dad taught me. Listen only to one instrument throughout a whole song. Follow it. Once you can do that, it’s easy to pick out the sound of one bird or one animal in a forest full of life.”
“Most people seem less strange the more you get to know them,” Danny said. “In your case, it’s the opposite.”
I rolled my eyes. “What brings you down here? I thought you’d be cozying up to the minibar then calling it a night.”
“My internal clock doesn’t know what time it is. I just came to let you know that my pterosaur guy has arrived.”
Duncan looked wide-eyed, first at Danny, then at me. I shrugged. It was the first I was hearing of it.
“I thought I was the pterosaur guy?” Duncan said, sounding hurt.
“You’re definitely a pterosaur guy, but I brought in another.”
“Why don’t I like the sound of that?” I asked.
