CHAPTER 4
Big Kahuna Bottling Plant
10:43 PM
Mulder's head drooped down to his chest, only to shoot back up in
an effort to stay awake. Rubbing his eyes, he turned to look at Scully, dozing
softly in the passenger seat next to him. The remains of a Chinese take-out
dinner were strewn across the floor of the car. Sighing deeply, Mulder glanced
out the rearview mirror toward the bottling plant. *This has got to be the
longest stakeout I've ever been on,* he thought wearily. After nine hours, two
fast-food meals, and seven different radio stations, they agents had seen
nothing; Ted Ahua hadn't left the building. Mulder started drumming his fingers
on the armrest of his seat, never taking his eyes off the door to the plant.
Suddenly, it opened, and a man stepped outside, his face silhouetted by the
streetlights. He began slowly walking in the direction of the only other car on
the street.
As the mysterious person drew nearer, Mulder realized that it was Ahua.
He reached over to gently shake his partner. Scully's eyes opened groggily.
"What time is it?" she yawned.
"Almost eleven. Look who it is." Mulder indicated to
Ahua.
Now wide-awake, Scully leaned forward in her seat. "Working
late," she commented.
"Yeah," replied Mulder, fastening his seat belt.
"Let's see where he's going."
They waited as Ahua pulled out of the parking lot, then Mulder
started the car. He let a few cars go between them and Ahua, so as not to look
suspicious. They followed him for about ten minutes on the H-1 highway, until
he turned onto an exit, with the sign above it stating: Pali Highway.
"I wonder where he's going," Mulder said dryly.
The two agents drove on in silence, knowing very well where Ted
Ahua would lead them.
~X~
Nu'uanu Pali Lookout
11:21 PM
"There they are- through the trees." Mulder passed the
binoculars to Scully. The agents were lying on a small hillock, about fifty
yards from the lookout, closely observing a small fire, which was barely
visible through the thick vegetation. Putting them up to her eyes, Scully could
make out a group of about twenty men gathered around the fire, Ahua among them,
all dressed in the garb of Hawaiian warriors. A haunting, monotonous chant
arose from them, their voices lifting up into the night sky.
"Looks like a ritual of some sort," Scully said,
lowering the binoculars, only to look into them again. "Is it a
cult?"
"It has to be, but I've never heard of anything like this
before," Mulder replied, shaking his head. "They're all wearing that
same black pendant Ahua had around his neck, but I don't recognize the
symbol."
"Speaking of Ahua, I don't see him." Scully put down the
binoculars and gave her partner an anxious look. "And he was there just a
minute ago. Where'd he go?"
"I'm right here," a malignant voice behind them replied.
The agents whirled, reaching for their guns, but found three
very-sharp spear shafts pointed right at their faces.
Ahua manifested out of the darkness, wearing a feathered cape and headdress,
smiling viciously. Two other cult members, also wielding spears, accompanied
him. "They have arrived," he told his brethren. "Prepare the
victims for the sacrificial ritual." With that, Ahua turned and headed
back into the trees.
Mulder and Scully were yanked roughly to their feet by the men.
The guards threw the agents' weapons into the bushes. They were forced to walk
with their arms upon their heads, constantly prodded by lances, into the fire
clearing. As the two captives entered, the cultists gathered there immediately
stopped chanting, and stared at them with blank, expressionless faces. The
warriors led them to the center, stripped them of their jackets, and undid the
first few buttons of their shirts.
Scully, doing all she could to hold back the panic that was
welling up inside of her, lifted her head and shut her eyes, saying a silent
prayer. She felt someone press against her arm, and opened her eyes to see whom
it was. It was Mulder, sweat streaming down his face; even he was nervous.
Silently, he reached down and took her hand in his, giving it a tight squeeze.
Scully swallowed hard and smiled briefly.
Ahua appeared, carrying a small wooden bowl filled with a red
liquid. He stopped before them, saying, "My ancestors told me you would
come. They instructed me on how I would lure you here, so that you could become
an offering to them. They have chosen you."
That's when it hit Scully. The LSD, all the contaminated bottles
at the plant- it was all staged. Even the traces they found in Roy Tanaka? She
thought. How? Turning her head, she looked at her partner's shocked expression,
and saw that he had come to the same conclusion as well. Ahua continued.
"We have monitored you very carefully, ever since you arrived
on the island, making sure you followed our leads. Indeed, you two will be the
perfect sacrifice to our forefathers."
"Why us?" Mulder asked, mustering his courage.
Ahua smiled. "Why ask a question to which you already know
the answer?" he replied. With that, he dipped his hand in the dish, and
began to paint Mulder and Scully's faces, then their necks, with the red dye.
" 'In the names of our fathers, we mark you as our own,' " he
recited, finishing his task.
To the agents' horror, the red dye had the familiar, metallic odor
of blood; Scully felt an uncontrollable urge to vomit.
At Ahua's command, four cult members stepped forward from the
crowd, each gripping a lit torch, and took hold of the two agents, walking them
out of the clearing. Ahua preceded them as they began to march, chanting softly
in Hawaiian. One by one, the rest of the brethren followed, taking up the
chant. The slow and solemn procession advanced up the mountainside.
~X~
Mulder didn't know how far he had walked, or how long it had been-
all he knew was the weariness of his strained muscles. Sweat plastered his
clothes to his body, mixing with the blood on his face, running into his eyes
and mouth. He glanced behind him to see how Scully was faring, and judging by
the exhausted look on her face, he figured she was having a worse time of it
than he was. She stumbled, and he made a move to go back and help her, but the
two warriors who acted as guards prevented him from doing so. He sighed in
resignation and turned his head forward, toward their gruesome fate.
~X~
The procession halted about halfway up the mountain, in a small
clearing. Mulder and Scully collapsed on the ground, gasping for air. Ahua
approached them, and at a signal from him, two cultists pulled the agents up off
the soil, and marched them to the edge of the clearing, to where a long, wide
slab of granite lay on its side. Mulder limped on his right leg; he had
sprained it on the long trek, while Scully clutched her left arm, her face a
mask of pain. When they reached the rock, the warriors made them lie down upon
it. Then they were bound hand and foot with rough twine. Thunder rumbled in the
distance, and a soft rain began to fall, washing away the blood from the
agents' faces.
Mulder closed his eyes, and for a brief moment, the only sound he
heard was that of his own breath. He felt strangely at peace, as if in a dream.
But the quiet was disrupted by the sound of approaching footsteps. Opening his
eyes, Mulder saw Ahua standing over him, holding a long, curved knife in his
hands.
"Our fathers have chosen you to be an offering to them,"
he spoke aloud. The group of followers turned their heads toward their leader.
"May they be appeased." With that, Ahua began, a slow, ominous chant.
Mulder's attention was diverted from Ahua's mantra to the trees
behind him; flickering lights- hundreds of them- were visible through the dark
branches. To his amazement - and horror - pale, ethereal figures appeared
through the gloom, slowly approaching the rock where he and Scully were bound.
The ghostly apparitions were garbed in loincloths and headdresses similar to
that of the cultists'. Their faces, pictures of nobleness, mixed with sorrow,
were those of warriors. These were the ancestors, Mulder realized, that Ahua
and his followers worshipped with the utmost respect and passion. They
encircled the rock, silent spectators to the agents' imminent death. Lightning
tore through the heavens, soon followed by a boom of thunder; the storm was
nearing them.
"Great ancestors!" Ahua called. "We offer you a
living sacrifice, so you may reign forever!" He raised the dagger high
above his head, ready to drive it into the agents' unprotected chests.
"Your will be done!"
Mulder turned his head and shut his eyes, ready to succumb to his
death, but the knife never came down; at that moment, a brilliant streak of
lightning flashed, striking Ahua. He staggered backwards, and then fell to the
ground, with the knife at his side. The cult leader twitched then was still.
Mulder opened his eyes. The ghosts were gone.
A loud cry arose from the congregation as they looked in horror at
their fallen chieftain. "The gods are angry!" one of them shouted.
"Ahua has defied our fathers!" cried another.
"Look! His punishment is death!" With that, the cultists scattered in
every direction, leaving Mulder and Scully alone, still bound to the altar.
The agents breathed a sigh of relief, and stared at one another in
shock, neither one speaking. Finally, Mulder shifted, trying to free himself
from his bonds. He found a sharp edge on the rock, and began to saw away at the
rope on his right wrist. When he had finished with himself, he turned to help
his partner. It wasn't until they were both free and standing on solid ground
that they spoke.
"Are you all right, Scully?" Mulder reached out to
gingerly touch her injured arm. She nodded wearily, and then indicated to
Mulder's right leg.
"Can you walk?" she asked. Mulder tried, and winced in
pain. Scully put her good arm around his shoulder for support. "Here. Lean
on me."
Together, they slowly began their long descent down the mountain,
not once looking back.
~X~
J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building
Washington, DC
9:36 PM
Three days later
It was an exhausted Agent Mulder that sat in the basement of the J.
Edgar Hoover FBI Building that evening, typing up his report, his partner
already long-gone for the night, her left arm in a sling. As for him, a pair of
crutches was propped up against the desk. They had arrived in DC early
that morning, bruised and tired. He stopped typing and stared out
into space, silently recounting the events of the past few days after their
near fatal encounter with Ahua and his followers.
Once the agents reached the parking lot of the Pali Lookout, which
wasn't until early the next morning, they immediately called for the
paramedics. They were rushed to Queen's Medical Center, where they were
attended to and treated: Scully with a slight fracture to her left arm, and
Mulder with a sprained ankle. The weary pair spent the rest of the day filling
out police reports and answering questions asked by skeptic detectives. Mulder
had kept silent about the ghosts he had seen up on the mountain.
It was only just before their flight that they had finally found
time to relax.
Mulder closed his eyes, contemplating what he and Scully had said
that day.
~X~
"We never did get a chance to go to the beach," Scully
told her partner as they sat together on a couch in the main lobby of the Queen
Kapiolani Hotel, waiting for their luggage.
"Look at it this way," replied Mulder. "We saw a
part of Hawaiian culture that not many tourists get to experience."
"Not that they would want to, anyway." Mulder shrugged.
"I guess we were one of the lucky ones," he said. Scully
smiled grimly, rubbing her injured arm.
"Lucky in the sense that we got out of there alive."
Mulder looked intently at his partner and said, "Scully, I
saw something up there that night." She gave him concerned look.
"What?"
"I saw them - the Night Marchers. They were gathered around
the stone."
"Mulder, you were exhausted - we both were. You were
hallucinating." Mulder shook his head.
"No, Scully, I know what I saw. They were the ones whom Ahua
and his followers worshipped."
Scully sighed, not bothering to argue further with her partner.
Both agents turned at the approach of a bellhop carrying their belongings.
"What did Ahua mean when he told you that you knew why we
were chosen?" asked Scully, standing up. Mulder shook his head.
"I don't know." He grabbed his crutches, using them to
pull himself up from the couch. "But one thing's for sure," he said
as he tipped the kid, "this definitely isn't the Hawaii you read about in
the tour books."
"I'll agree with you on that one," Scully replied.
~X~
Coming back to the present, Mulder rubbed his eyes, then continued
typing:
'...From the way they were dressed and the ceremony they
performed, I can safely say that the cult Agent Scully and I encountered was
hostile and prone to human sacrifices, of which we almost became victims. The
followers worship their ancestors- ancient Hawaiian warriors, who were defeated
by Kamehameha, in 1795.
Following the death of their leader, Ted Ahua- whose body, I may
add, has yet to be found- the cult members fled the scene, and no meetings or
gatherings have since been reported. This leads me to believe that the sect has
either dispersed or died out. Also, the 1500 bottles of contaminated Big Kahuna
Water have yet to be accounted for, and no cases of LSD contaminations have
been reported.
How many other organizations like this are out there? Hundreds?
Thousands? In truth, there have always been cults that have worshipped their
forefathers, such as the ancient Aztecs, the Incas, and the Egyptians. They
have been around since time began, though now they are smaller and not as
widespread as they once were.
What separates them from us? They live in the past, in a time
where golden gods and living sacrifices reigned supreme. We live in the
present, and worship the great, silicon-gilded gods of the future, offering
them billions and billions of dollars of taxpayers' money- what's so different
about that? We are all the same, we just happen to see and do things
differently than they. The question is: who has their priorities straight? Them
or us?'
Mulder moved the cursor to the PRINT icon and clicked on it,
leaning back in his chair as the printer went to work. Once finished, he shut
down the computer and laid his report on the desk. He stood up and reached for
his crutches, and then hobbled over to the office door, where he put on his
coat. Turning off the lights, Mulder turned and opened the door, closing it
behind him as he left the room.
A small sliver of moonlight shone through the basement window,
falling upon a small, black object hanging on the office wall. It glittered in
the darkness, and in the center of the pendant, was the uncanny image of a
heart, pierced by
a spear.
~X~
END
