Atlantis Storm

by Steven Moore

  “No, Megan!” R.B. yelled. “Don’t do it!”

  Wheaton stared up into the whore’s eyes. Who the hell does she think she is? But he was finished. Blood poured from several puncture wounds in his chest, and both arms were rendered more or less useless. And yet he still managed to smile somehow, and it was the smile of a man who knew that despite dying there in his ancestral home, it only meant he was closer to immortality. It was totally okay. He only wished he could have finished the job his boss and mentor had bestowed upon him; killing the know-nots Bodean and his whore.

  Megan breathed through her clenched teeth, the sound more of a hiss than human breaths. She was done with these scumbags, and it took all her self-control not to finish him right there, right then. But after a few more seconds she backed away and lowered the gun. She glanced down at R.B. and nodded. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Helping R.B. up from the sludge, they turned and began making their way towards the place R.B. had entered from. But they’d only managed to make it twenty yards when from behind them they heard the most maniacal laughter imaginable. They spun around. Erik Wheaton was standing now, staring after them through the gloom, his laughter reverberating around the enclosure. Clutched against his chest, Megan thought she saw something that looked like a cell phone, though it was concealed by Wheaton’s hands. He laughed, even louder now, and then he somehow held up the small device, despite his destroyed arms.

  “What the hell is that?” asked R.B.

  “I ... I don’t know, but—”

  “Time to die!” bellowed Erik Wheaton. He appeared to press something on the phone, and after a final grin in the general direction of R.B. and Megan, his expression went blank and his eyes closed. He crumpled into the sludgy water, dead, the small device disappearing beneath the water with him.

  “Oh, shit,” said R.B. “Could that have been—”

  “A detonator?” finished Megan. “Oh shit!” She sprinted through the water to the fallen giant. Dropping to her knees in the swampy filth, she scrambled about Wheaton, searching desperately for whatever it was he held. After a few seconds of frantic searching, she found it. And their worst fears were confirmed. It was a cellphone rigged as a detonator, in a sealed waterproof case. And its timer was counting down from …

  00:30

  00:29

  00:28

  “We’ve gotta go, R.B.” Megan yelled. “Right now!”

  She sprinted back to his side, water sloshing around her knees, and grabbed his good arm. “Get up!” she screamed, and hauled him along with her towards the exit.

  00:23

  00:22

  From somewhere behind them, a thundering explosion rocked the entire complex and they froze, expecting to be destroyed in a wild conflagration. Then another explosion, and a third. Parts of the structure’s roof started falling as the whole building shook, shockwaves causing huge ripples on the now-churning surface of the murky water.

  “Run, now!” demanded R.B. as many of the partly submerged stone structures began subsiding, causing huge whirlpools that threatened to suck them down into unimaginable depths. “Go!”

  00:19

  00:18

  They surged on, R.B’s shattered arm causing him extreme agony, but he ignored it. Then a violent roar enveloped the entire structure, and they couldn’t help but turn to look, as the central temple with its Goddess statue, now over to their left, began shaking in uncontrollable tremors. The Goddess teetered on the brink for an agonizing moment, then, as if in slow motion, she toppled forwards at the same time as the temple itself collapsed in an explosion of water, dust and crumbled stone, causing a massive splash and a powerful wave to surge towards them, which if they didn’t outrun, would consume them and banish them into the depths for all eternity.

  00:15

  Suddenly the water seemed to rise all around them, but it wasn’t rising water at all. It was something altogether more surreal. It was the very ground, sinking away from them as if the whole planet was collapsing.

  Another huge explosion seemed to shake all the world and suddenly they were bathed in an ethereal, almost unnatural glow. Suddenly they were outside, and that bizarre glow was a mix of dazzling sunlight piercing through the unrelenting storm, with wild rain and thunder and rainbows and hail and—

  Another unbelievably massive explosion shook the ground and they stumbled and fell into the sludge. “No! Megan, get up!” bellowed R.B., his voice almost unheard against the phenomenal noise of the ancient city being consumed by the earth. He grabbed her with his good arm, and hauled her up, dragging her along behind him and away from the devastation.

  00:12

  To his utter surprise, he spotted Gidget, though there was no sign of the gut-toting thugs and Santi’s hydroplane. Gidget was being thrown around by the undulating surface of the water, in view one moment, gone the next. But now he had an escape target to aim for. “Let’s go!”

  They had no doubt that they were experiencing a full-on earthquake, and if they didn’t get aboard Gidget in the next three seconds they would die there in that marshy wasteland.

  00:09

  Scrambling aboard R.B. spotted the keys in the ignition. “Come on darlin’,” he yelled, hoping beyond hope his faithful old girl Gidget would help them out.

  00:06

  And for perhaps the first time in a year, her engines roared to life on the first turn of the key.

  00:04

  R.B. willed her forwards, pulling back on the throttle as hard as he could with his one functioning arm, and as he sped her over the peaks and troughs of the turbulent surface, instead of rising away from the only world they’d ever known, it disappeared beneath them and they dipped unstoppably towards it and towards their suffocating deaths.

  52

  Emergence

  And yet the impact never came. R.B. had actually closed his eyes in resignation. Megan too.

  Three seconds passed, a moment in time that seemed to last years, and a moment in which both R.B’s and Megan’s lives flashed before their eyes. Finally, R.B. cracked his eyelids apart.

  “What the hell?” He focused again on the throttle, hauling it towards him with the last energy he thought he’d ever know in this life, and somehow Gidget stayed above the rapidly disappearing surface. He risked a glance to his right, and saw they’d descended about thirty feet below where the surface of the swamp used to be. Where the surface of the Earth used to be. Technically, R.B. was flying inside the planet, not above it.

  Gradually, imperceptibly, they gained in altitude.

  Minus twenty-seven feet.

  Gidget roared on, drowning out both his and Megan’s screams as the storm pummeled them from every direction, as if they’d entered some surreal parallel universe, which for all the world it seemed as if they had.

  Minus sixteen feet.

  Minus nine.

  Thunder rattled Gidget’s delicate frame, and lightning exploded all around them.

  Minus three feet.

  Ground zero.

  And then they shot free of the stomach-churning, murderous jaws of the widest earthquake ever seen in European territory. The watery ground continued falling away in a cloud of ocean and mud and dust and destroyed ancient buildings far below, as the supposedly mythical lost city of Atlantis was actually lost to the physical world forever.

  Not a word was said between them for the next thirty minutes as they shot through the storm towards the murdered Lucero Lopez’s chapel. For some reason, R.B. had felt they’d be safe there, as if the old priest could somehow protect them from beyond his grave. Gliding in towards the beach just across the road from the mysterious chapel, R.B. was relieved to find the ocean relatively flat, and some welcome sun had even pierced the slate-gray skies, as if at last offering a little hope that the drama might be over.

  He landed Gidget safely, and steered her up into the shallows at a slow glide. They hopped out and trotted across the deserted street into the sanctuary of the chapel. Using the modest firs
t aid kit from his plane, Megan tended to their wounds as best she could with the limited supplies. R.B.’s broken arm was agony, but she’d set the bone. For a few months back in her late teens, Megan had trained as a nurse, something R.B. was both surprised and delighted to learn—and splashed some iodine on the slight puncture wounds on his chest from the trident, before dressing those too. He laid back on the chapel’s altar and closed his eyes, exhaustion overwhelming him.

  Megan breathed deeply. He was going to be okay. And so was she. The drugs they’d given to pacify her had totally worn off, and other than a few cuts and bruises she was, both physically and mentally, more or less unharmed.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, thinking R.B. was asleep. “For coming to find me.”

  There was no answer for long moments, and Megan was about to find a place to lay down and rest, when R.B. stirred.

  “I only wanted to find Atlantis,” he muttered, cracking one eye open to watch for Megan’s reaction. “Finding you was just a bonus.”

  Unfortunately for him, she noticed, and gave him a resounding punch to the arm which, even more unfortunately, neither of them knew contained a nasty cut beneath his shirt. R.B. winced in agony, tears in his eyes from the sudden pain.

  “I’m sorry, R.B., I really am ... I’m so sorry.”

  And then she hugged him, and neither let go of the other for a full twenty minutes.

  53

  Salvation

  “It’s all gone, isn’t it. I mean, unless I was dreaming the whole thing, Atlantis was real, but now it’s all gone. Destroyed. Forever.” Megan Simon’s face was a picture of sadness.

  Ryan Bodean looked pointedly at her for long seconds. He shared her mixed emotions. Happy to be alive. Sad to be involved in the destruction of Atlantis.

  They were still ensconced in Lucero Perez’s chapel, awaiting for the storm and everything else to settle down. Though with the apparent power of the organization—the cult they’d done battle with—they weren’t sure things ever would settle.

  “It certainly seems that way,” replied R.B., almost in a whisper. He rested his head back on his good arm and closed his eyes. He was still in a lot of pain, and still exhausted, but he was feeling better after the couple of hours of rest he’d had. His thoughts were on Atlantis, and Erik Wheaton, and whether or not there was anything he could have done differently. He realized there wasn’t. Wheaton was a madman, unhinged, brainwashed, and it was Wheaton who’d instigated the explosions, not R.B., nor Megan. He had simply done what he could to save their lives. Atlantis wasn’t their fault.

  Atlantis!

  R.B. sat up suddenly, a curious look on his face. It was not missed by Megan. He struggled to his feet and walked slowly over to his jacket hanging on the back of a chair. He glanced at Megan, his eyes wide ... Hopeful?

  Reaching into his jacket’s inside pocket, he found what he was looking for. R.B. went and sat beside Megan, concealing what he had from her. “Yeah, darlin’, it’s all gone. Atlantis has gone, and there’s nothing left, no evidence at all it was real.”

  Megan nodded, a sad acceptance in her eyes..

  “Except this.”

  Megan looked up sharply at R.B. “Except what?”

  “Hold out your hands,” said R.B., “and close your eyes.”

  “Come on Bodean, quit fooling around.”

  “Just do it.”

  Impatiently, but with a hint of curiosity, Megan did close her eyes and held out her hands.

  Slowly, carefully, R.B. placed the object onto the open palms of Megan’s hands. “Except this. Go on, take a look.”

  Megan slowly opened her eyes, and when she saw the object placed there by R.B., she gasped. “What ... what is it?”

  It was the mysterious artifact R.B. had found behind the tile at Lucero’s chapel. It was the ancient map to Atlantis.

  It was Priest Lucero’s key. The Guardian’s key.

  He explained how he’d found it at the chapel, and that it was the carved stone finger, missing from the statue at the chapel and given to him by the equally mysterious Barnaby Quinn, that led him to the misplaced tile above the front doors.

  “I was lucky to find it, Megan, but ultimately it’s what led me to you. Led me to Atlantis. I guess we have old man Quinn to thank.”

  “But I ... I have never seen anything like it. It’s beautiful.”

  R.B. looked down at the strange, coin-like object, as if now seeing it for the first time. He’d been in a panic before, and amid the chaos and the storm and his defeated attitude on the beach, he simply hadn’t noticed how utterly spectacular it was.

  “You know, we should get this analysed,” suggested R.B. “If it’s proven to be as ancient as we think, and experts can verify it leads to the location of the events in Doñana National Park, then we’re in possession of a priceless artifact. To the right buyer, and by that I mean one of the world’s great and ethical archaeological museums, we could sell it. It would be worth enough to get B and S Salvage Incorporated back on track. Right?”

  Megan stared at R.B., unsure if he was serious. After all that had happened to them, starting out back in Key West all those months ago, and all the innocent people that had died, nearly including themselves, Megan would have thought R.B. wanted nothing more to do with either her or the business. “Are you saying you want to carry on? I mean, restarting the salvage business, despite everything that’s happened?” She was incredulous.

  R.B. stared back, nothing but sincerity etched into his tired eyes. “It is precisely because of what’s happened that I want to continue. You’re right, it’s been a helluva ride. Innocent people were hurt and killed. We almost died. But yes, despite it all, you can’t deny it’s been kinda fun, right?”

  “Fun? Are you crazy?” Megan retorted, but she had to agree he was right.

  “So, Bodean and Simons Salvage Incorporated is officially back in business?”

  R.B. nodded, flashing his perfect Bodean smile for the first time in what seemed like way too long. “Yeah, darlin’. Officially back in business.”

  “Then I think you’d better buy me a beer to celebrate.”

  And with that, Ryan Bodean and Megan Simons stepped out of Lucero’s chapel, surprised to see the storm had at last abated, and a new and brighter future beckoning them from just over the distant horizon.

  Epilogue

  Sitting at a bar not far from Navantia Shipyard, R.B. had just ordered another round of beers when a nearby cellphone started ringing, startling both he and Megan. They looked at each other, confused. They were the only people in the small, dingy bar, other than the bartender, and they didn’t recognize the ring tone. Then Megan remembered the phone she’d snagged from below the water back at Atlantis, the one dropped by Erik Wheaton. It had been rigged as a detonator for the explosions, but now it was simply a cellphone.

  She took it from her pocket, and stared at it for a full minute until it stopped ringing, an unsaid message passing between them that they shouldn’t answer it. Megan tossed it onto the bar top. She’d throw it into the deep waters of the dock when they left the bar later.

  Silently they picked up their beers and gently clinked them together, and both took long swigs of the icy cerveza, when the phone began ringing again, seeming extra loud in the quiet, dimly-lit bar. Its ring sounded urgent, as if not to answer it would have dire consequences.

  R.B. snagged up the phone and hit the green answer button. “Hello?”

  “You ... you have no idea what you’ve done, do you?” said the stark, unknown voice. “No idea. You have destroyed it. It’s gone forever.”

  “Who is this?” demanded R.B.

  “You have destroyed everything, and you’re going to wish you disappeared along with it when The Congregation For The Light is finished with you. You and your whore are going to wish you’d never been born.”

  The voice fell silent then, and R.B. listened, waiting. Then the man spoke again.

  “We are going to find you, and we are going t
o—”

  R.B. threw the phone onto the ground and stomped down hard, crushing it into a dozen useless, shattered pieces.

  “Who was that?” asked Megan.

  “No one important,” replied R.B., a blank expression on his face. “Let’s go home.”

  Across the Atlantic Ocean in his lavish penthouse office in Manhattan, current leader of The Congregation For The Light, Arthur Bannister, was raging. The only thing darker than his office in that moment was his mood, and it was as bad and dangerous as it had ever been.

  Bannister was staring at a website, the glow of the screen contorting his reddened, puffy, over-fed face. The name of the displayed website was ‘B and S Salvage Incorporated’. Bannister looked down at his screen for many minutes, barely blinking, his eyes wide and focused on the face of the man on the screen; Ryan ‘R.B.’ Bodean.

  Suddenly, in a fit of uncontrolled rage, Bannister stood up from the desk, his office chair clattering to the ground behind him. Grabbing the heavy, golden, owl-shaped paperweight, a symbol of The Light, from beside his monitor, he pulled back his sturdy right arm and hurled the paperweight towards the screen, smashing it, and smashing it, again and again, until it was nothing more than a pile of glass and plastic and exposed wires.

  Breathing heavily, Arthur Bannister turned and picked up his chair, then sat down once more at his desk, the room almost pitch black without the screen’s residual glow.

  Snatching up the desk’s phone, he dialed a number from memory. It was a special number, one he thought he’d never have to call. His call was answered before the third ring.

  “Yes?” the voice answered, and it was a voice so cold and sinister that even the usually unflappable Arthur Bannister shivered.

  “It’s me. Listen carefully,” the leader of The Congregation For The Light said. “I do not care how you do it, but I want them both dead by midnight. Not only dead, but carved into dozens of small pieces. And you will bring me both their heads.”