Guy Medley is the author of short fiction in a variety of genres, though dark horror seems to be his sweet spot. He writes mostly to entertain himself and his friends (and horrify his family and co-workers). He has published work through Crystal Lake, Siren’s Call and many more and can be found wherever you buy books. Guy lives in the solitude of California’s Mojave Desert, where the extreme heat has, without doubt, affected his mind.
You can read more and connect with Guy right HERE.
BLUE BOYS
by
Guy Medley
Pika hunches over, tries to catch his fleeing breath while the boys stop for a bit of lunch. From this vantage the tops of the highest peaks look to be on the same level as they are, their tops half-shrouded in early afternoon mist, just enough to raise the humidity uncomfortably, but not enough to deliver a cooling rain. He looks over to where Kai sits against a rotting log, already halfway through a butter roll. “Why’d you drag us all the way out here?” he asks. Kai pays no attention to the question, chewing slowly with his eyes closed. “There’s a lot of good camping closer to town. Places that aren’t straight up the side of a mountain.”
Kai looks up, not at Pika but out across the expanse of green jungle below them. “I like it here,” he says. “Nobody ever comes up here anymore.”
“Ask me, I think Kai’s just got us lost is all,” Akoni says.
“Nobody’s asking you, Akoni. Besides, I never get lost. I know these mountains better than you know your way around a chilidog, brah.”
The boys laugh, all except Akoni. He can’t help but feel this place is all wrong. Kapu—forbidden.
An hour later the four boys reach the end of the overgrown path, the foliage opening up onto a small green pond, the water pure and cool, its smell tantalizingly sweet.
“We camp here,” says Kai.
“Shit, what is this place?” says Peni. “Are we even allowed to be here?”
“I don’t see any fences or signs says we can’t,” says Kai. “Lets set up.”
The thick canopy of banyan and koa trees are good shelter against the winds that whip around at this elevation, but it casts the forest floor in a perpetual twilight that soon makes gathering firewood a difficult task.
Camp finally made, the boys gather around the small fire and listen to the night creatures come to life over dinner. Crickets and coqui frogs chirp away somewhere in the thick recesses of the jungle. Mist gathers into fog that lays low over the surface of the pool, staying well clear of the small fire.
“Who’s up for a swim?” Kai asks, standing and looking over the water. The light has fled the forest, yet the pool seems to emit its own light now, its waters below the canopy almost aglow with jade.
“I don’t know, man,” Pika says, starring past Kai into the water. “Could be dangerous. Things in there, you know.”
“What are you, Pika, a haole now? Some kind of fraidy townie or something, brah?” Kai says.
“We’re both townies, Kai,” Pika says. “We live on the same street.”
“Yeah, this place kinda gives me the creeps,” says Peni. “Feels haunted or something.”
“Not any ghosts out here,” Kai says, stripping off his shirt, kicking his shoes aside.
“Place gives me the chicken skin for sure,” Akani says. “But damn…that water! Sure looks good to me, ghosts or not.” He peels off his shirt and kicks his shoes over near the tent.
In the tree shadow above them a shrill cry sounds, captures their attention.
“You hear that?” Peni says, sitting up straighter, eyes wide.
“A pueo,” says Akoni. “Just an old owl out hooting around, boy.”
“Aumakua—the spirits,” Peni says. “It’s a warning. It always is….”
Kai and Akoni laugh, digging their toes into the soft gravel near the water’s edge, eager to feel its cool embrace upon their bodies, to be done with this nonsense.
“You sound like a superstitious old man now, Peni,” Kai says. “What next—you going to tell us some big kahuna put a curse on this place, some big magic, and we’re all doomed now? You’re lolo, brah!”
“Peni’s right,” Pika says. “I don’t think we should be here. Just look at that water. It’s not right.”
“ It’s just water, boy,” Akoni says. “You’re just as lolo as Peni, you know.”
“I’ve had enough of this bat shit stuff,” Kai says. “Come on, Akoni, lets leave these two malasadas to cower on the rocks. I’m ready to get wet, yeah.”
Kai and Akoni puff out their scrawny chests to prove their bravery, then splash into the water, wading out under the boughs of the banyans to the pool’s very center. Their round faces are painted in wavering jade ripples as they bob about, squirt cool jungle water from their mouths like fountains.
**
Pika rises with the sun. Peni is still sleeping, snoring softly. Kai and Akoni’s bedrolls are both empty, perhaps both boys already awake, cooking fried eggs over the fire, or perhaps out in the water for a bath. He opens the tent flap and steps outside, the cool mountain air a pleasant surprise to a boy accustomed to the warmer coastal lands.
The other two boys are not at the fire ring, its ashes cold and damp with dew. The pool is calm—empty. Their shoes still where they’d left them last night, so they haven’t ventured off into the brush.
Pika’s eyes are constantly drawn to the jade water, still faintly aglow in the morning light. Where they capture the reflection of something just below the glassy surface. Blue—November sky blue—gliding silently about out there.
“Polu fish,” Peni says, startling Pika half out of his skin.
“What?”
“Polu. Mo’o—water spirits,” Peni says. “Protectors of the Koa—the warrior children. I told them. I told them this place was wrong—forbidden.”
“What are you saying, Peni? Where are they?”
Peni looks at his friend with eyes that swim in the same green as the pool. That ripple and shine with sun scatter, the pupils shimmering Polu fish blue.
“You—" Pika says, taking a few stumbling steps back, away from Peni. “You went into the water too, didn’t you, Peni? When I slept…”
Peni smiles, extends his hand toward Pika. “Come, Pika. Mo’o awaits. We will be the island’s greatest warriors, you and I. Come….”