Vish had no clue what had happened. The surfers had been standing there, staring at Sparky, and Sparky hadn’t moved, but now they were enveloped in blue-white fire, supernova-bright. Vish was only a couple feet away; he instinctively recoiled back, but the flames radiated no heat. The cavern seemed colder now, in fact, much colder.
Chaos broke out, shrieks and shouts as the surfers flung themselves to the sandy floor and rolled around in an attempt to extinguish the flames. Skin reddened and blistered and charred. After one glance, Vish couldn’t look at them.
Philip’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he crumpled to the sand. The ground shifted and lurched. Rocks and chunks of earth rained down from the top of the cave.
“What’s happening?” Vish asked Sparky. He tried to yell, but he couldn’t get enough air, and his words, thin and breathless, got lost somewhere in the rumble of the earth and the shrieks of the dying surfers.
“This’ll be good,” Sparky yelled back, his voice carrying over the commotion. “He’s reverting to his true form. I’m going to follow suit.” He shot Vish a jaunty thumbs-up. “Keep your eyes shut. If you see what I look like, you won’t leave here alive.”
A roar and a screech, and then the back wall of the cave exploded, turning the mosaics into a glittery shower of multicolored tiles. An avalanche of dirt and sand poured down over Vish.
Vish shut his eyes so tightly his temples ached from the strain. The cave was collapsing, and bad things were happening, and he needed to get out of there. Sightless, he crawled in the direction of the exit. He bumped into a body slumped on the ground. Must be Philip. He was warm and breathing, though unconscious.
Blue-white light penetrated through Vish’s shut eyelids. A high-pitched hum soared above the terrible rumble and reverberated through his chest. The surfers had long since stopped making any noise at all; a stench of charred meat hung heavy in the air, overpowering the older, fouler smell of decomposition.
Vish stood up, eyes still screwed shut. Pain erupted all over his body in little volcanic bursts, but he was alive and determined to stay that way. He groped around for Philip, then grabbed him under the armpits and dragged him out of the cave. He didn’t dare open his eyes until he heard the traffic noises of the PCH, felt the clammy ocean air against his face.
He dragged Philip down the remainder of the bluff to the side of the highway. He glanced back at the opening of the cave. White smoke streamed out of the opening in great clouds.
Vish couldn’t guess what was going on in the battle between Sparky and the Troy/Philip creature, and he didn’t want to know. It was something bigger than him, and it involved him only in a tangential way, and his part was over.
Philip opened his eyes. He looked at the highway, at the smoke billowing out of the cave, at Vish. He got to his feet and stared at Vish in confusion and dawning horror.
“I took you… I don’t know why… I didn’t…” He seemed a heartbeat away from dissolving into hysterics. Vish didn’t have the energy for that.
“It wasn’t you,” he said. “Something took over your body for a bit. It’s gone now.” He pointed at the cave. “It’s in there. I think that’s where it lives.”
Philip looked at him in incomprehension, eyes wide. From somewhere in the distance, further north on the PCH, Vish heard a siren.
He thought fast. “We met in Koreatown, and you offered to give me a ride back to Venice. We decided to drive up to this beach to go hiking. And those surfers attacked us and dragged us into the cave with all those bodies, and somehow a fire broke out. That’s all we know.”
Philip stared at him. He shook his head. “I didn’t…”
“For the police,” Vish said. “If the police ask us about it, that’s what we have to tell them, because the truth doesn’t make sense.”
After a moment, Philip nodded, slowly. “They attacked us and took us to the cave,” he said.
“Right,” Vish replied. “Are you okay with that?”
Philip nodded. He looked like he was about to cry. Vish could understand that. He probably looked the same.
Standing took too much energy. Vish sat down on the cement barrier dividing the bluff from the highway. Philip remained on his feet, looking baffled and sick. Vish looked out past the road at the ocean, at the gray water barely visible through the thick white layer of fog, and waited for the authorities to find them.