It was just past 4 in the morning, when I pulled my truck off the H-3, smoke billowing out from under the hood. I popped the latch to give the engine some air and then walked up and down the road, waving my phone above my head, hoping to find a signal.
It was no use. At least it had stopped raining, I told myself, the streetlights shimmering across the black asphalt like a fire across an oil slick. I had turned and started back toward my truck, and that’s when I first heard the drums.
I peered up the street, half expecting to see some kid rocketing down the highway, but it stretched empty in both directions. Maybe my iPod, I thought, but when I got back to the truck nothing was on. I held my hand to my face and blew, knowing full well I hadn’t touched a single drop of liquor that night. Still I heard the drums, the pulsing drawing nearer, the rhythm making it difficult for me to breath.
Growing up in Haiku Valley, I had heard stories of the huakai po, the spirit ranks that marched forever on their way to the various wahi pana — the sacred sites — that populated the area. My brother swore he had heard them once, their chanting so loud it shook loose all the fruit from the guava tree in our front yard, or so my brother had claimed the next morning after seeing the ground littered with broken orbs.
My father didn’t want to take any chances, and that same day went to work surrounding our home with ti leaf.
I thought about everything my grandfather had told me. I still had a chance to run, but how far could I really get? Where could I really go? Gone were my chances of getting home. Gone was the hope of catching at least a few hours before class. I swear I saw the torches, a train of yellow orbs coming down the mountain toward me.
I closed my eyes tight, fell to the street, and started to crawl as fast as I could. When my head hit my truck’s bumper, I slid beneath and kissed the ground. I held my breath and tried to count to 10. Twenty. Thirty-five. The drums were like cannons now, their voices booming. I prayed for it to end quickly, for them to pass through me like the wind through the Koolaus. Now, I thought, just take me now.
A slow drip. The smell of oil mixed with rain. My heart heaving against my chest. It was over.
I pulled myself from underneath and stood up, the hair on the back of my neck standing stiff as needles. I took a breath and smiled. "Thank you," I shouted proudly into the night, only to turn and feel a heated breeze sweep across my face, my voice catching in my lungs, a tall shadow passing me before I fell against my truck and doubled over.
And then there was silence.
When the police found me the next morning, they said my face was so white that they weren’t sure if I was alive. They asked me what had happened, and I answered them, but honestly I didn’t know. They humored me until they were outside my hospital room, laughing and joking about the story I had told.
But they didn’t mention the thick streak of skin across my cheek, the burn that had healed into a scar before they had arrived, and honestly I didn’t notice it until I had gotten home, until I pressed my hand to the new flesh and felt the heat hiding there. The blood pulsing like drums.
