We both dared ourselves then we dared each other. That's what brothers do after all, especially when neither one wants to employ any common sense and chicken out.
You can't live to fight another day when you've been labeled a chicken. It's worse than being injured in a skateboard accident. So we went; not in broad daylight but in the dead of night. We had to see for ourselves, the hearsay going around in the community wasn't enough. We went armed with shotguns filled with rock salt because it works in the movies. We brought paintballs guns; each paintball was injected with a needle and a syringe full of holy water. You can never be too careful. We got hunting knives because you just never know, plus we had very high powered flashlights that the feds normally use. We dressed in full B.D.U.'s with gloves. scarfs, and headgear in order to protect us from mosquitoes. The night was pitched black and the stars were all so clear, I was almost tempted to give up the dare and just sit in the back of the truck to take in the night.....then I'd be called a chicken. We parked a few feet away from the trail and walked in using night vision goggles. We knew the trail well enough that we could maneuver it just by feel. It was a two-mile hike but when we reached our location it was eerily quiet. The trickling of the waterfall was not as bombastic as it was during the day but we could hear it none the less. We positioned ourselves on either side of the falls where we watched and waited. The rumor on Kauai was that a little haole boy was on a tour with his family and accidentally fell into the pool at Kipu falls. His ghost is said to appear at night floating in the pool and calling out for his parents.
Right then there was the sound of someone coming down the trail between us.
"It can't be the ghost of the boy," I radioed into my brother over the head mic walkie-talkies. "He's supposed to appear in the pool, not the trail."
"Right, let's keep it quiet until we see who it is," Latch whispered. His real name was Matthew but Latch became his nickname because of how he'd latch on to our mom whenever she'd leave the room.
Through night vision goggles we both saw a tall haole woman emerge just off the trail. She wasn't a Kama'aina haole because her body language told us that she wasn't accustomed to the area. Hesitant on her feet, she slowly approached the edge of the waterfall until it looked as if she were going to jump in but she didn't. She stood there and gazed down into the pool below as if she were looking for something. That's when Latch and I heard it. I was covered in chicken skin and I heard Latch swear to himself over the walkie-talkie, "Shit." It was a little boy, whimpering and crying. "Shit Franky, you hear that?"
"It's the ghost of the little boy! Holy shit!" I whispered back.
"Mama.....mama.......mama...." the voice echoed up from the pool and the woman began to cry next.
"Clark? Clark baby don't cry, mama's coming baby.....mama's coming," Just like that she took a small running step and jumped into the pool. Me and Latch instinctively ran forward and clicked our flashlights on which were duct taped to the barrel end of our shotguns. When we reached the edge of the falls and pointed our guns down into the pool we were horrified at what we saw. I was sure that I was the one who screamed first. Floating in the pool by herself while glaring up at us like we were her midnight snack was a dark-skinned Hawaiian woman. She was as still as the wind had just become, there was no way she should have been afloat yet there she was. Her eyes closed and when they opened, they were aglow with a green fire. Her skin took a yellow scaley tone and fangs grew out from between her teeth. It only hit me then that the haole woman who just jumped into the pond was nowhere to be found.
"We've been tricked," I said evenly in Latch's direction.
"Tricked how?" Latch replied in very much the same way.
"When that woman jumped I never heard a splash," I confirmed.
"Fuuuuuuuuuuck," Latch hissed slowly as the realization hit him like a ton of bricks. "You're right, there was no sound of a splash."
I removed every single weapon I had and held the shotgun and knife in one hand, and the paintball gun in the other. I nodded to Latch to follow what I was doing. He understood and did the same thing. Holding the weapons over our heads as a show of our admittance that we were stupid, we placed everything at our feet and slowly backed away with our hands up the entire time. Inch by inch we backed away until we could no longer see her in the pool. That's when we broke into a dead run but to no avail, I heard a tremendous surge of water behind us which sounded like a tidal wave, It hit me from behind like a ton of bricks and knocked me unconscious.
.............
I woke and found myself soaking wet laying on an uneven rock at the bottom of the falls. I was paralyzed, I couldn't move. Day was coming and I could see the light of it at the top as it lit the small trickle of water coming down toward me. Just then something grabbed my web boot by the ankle and slowly dragged me into the pool. I screamed in pain as my broken spine and shattered hips slid over the uneven surface of the rock I was on. I'm in the arms of the dark Hawaiian woman but she's not really a Hawaiian woman, she's a creature. No.....not a creature but what must have been a goddess that the ancient Kauai people worshiped. I can't feel it but I can smell it, I defecated and urinated. I'm crying at my impending doom because I know she's about to disembowel me while I'm still fully awake. I'm just glad that Latch made it out of here alive......never mind...I can hear him screaming in pain and screaming my name from somewhere on the other side of the falls. Please god, let him die quickly. Don't let him suffer.
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