“Let’s see if we can make this thing project onto something closer than the ceiling,” Mark said. “I think that’s what’s making it so fuzzy.”
Paul put the pencil on the side of the device’s lid and nothing happened. “That part’s not hot. As long as we keep away from the beam and the glass top, I think we’ll be okay.” They slowly raised the lid; now the top was at a ninety-degree angle to the box. The beam somehow made the right-angle turn – it still projected through the lid – and now it appeared on the side of a bookshelf four feet away. The picture was vivid and sharp.
What they saw resembled a landscape painting from the 1800s. There were tall trees around a crystal blue river, nearby fields overflowing with flowers. It was an idyllic scene.
“Is this thing a visual photo album?”
“I doubt it,” Paul replied, looking closely at the knobs. “I’d bet it does more, given the complexity of everything in here.” He turned the click dial again and the picture disappeared. Seconds later they were astounded to see a new series of images – a video display – appear on the bookshelf.
Mark quietly said, “I’ll be damned. So much for Thomas Edison inventing the motion picture camera.”
The location was the same as in the single picture they’d seen before. It was a pasture filled with bright green grass; purple, blue and red flowers everywhere; and cattle in a shady spot under a tree. They watched silently for nearly two minutes as the cameraman – if that’s who filmed this video – panned the area all around him. When it ended, the screen went dark.
“Looks like the Hudson Valley in upstate New York,” Mark commented. “That could have been taken today, it looks so modern.”
“You’re right but with no frame of reference – no buildings, people, clothing, vehicles or anything else – there’s no way to tell how old it is. I didn’t see anything man-made, like fences or even a feeding trough for the cows. Did you?”
“No. Want to know what I think this is?”
Paul was coming up with his own ideas but wanted to hear Mark. “Shoot.”
“I’ll bet there are dozens, maybe hundreds of video clips on here. I’ll bet there are people who are imparting information about their civilization, for the people of the future to see and understand.”
“So you’re convinced this came from Atlantis?”
Mark nodded. “Even more than before. This is sophisticated technology, and it still works after thousands of years. Once we get out of here, we need to watch everything –”
Paul interrupted, “Absolutely, but for now we have to keep looking. I don’t see how Netflix Atlantean-style will help us get out.” They moved to the tenth instrument – they had only four to go and Paul was getting discouraged, although he kept his thoughts to himself.
Mark felt the same way. “I guess it’s my turn,” he said as he stepped to the next pedestal. It held a shiny blue metal gun with a very large barrel. “Looks like it could shoot a flare.” He picked it up with the barrel toward him and peered inside. “The barrel’s got something in it – I guess this thing’s loaded!”
“Could it be one of these?” Paul stood at the next pedestal, where item number eleven should be, and held up one of six four-inch-long cylinders. When he compared it to the barrel of the gun, it was exactly the correct size.
“We’ve got a weapon of some type –”
Paul jumped in, “Or a tool…”
“– and extra ammo. What do you think? Want to try it out?”
They talked for a few minutes then took a break for more food. According to Paul’s watch, it was eight in the evening; they’d need to sleep soon to keep their bodies on a schedule.
“Shooting that gun could be fatal for us,” Mark commented. “We have no idea what it does. What if it fills this cavern with poisonous gas? Or releases a nerve agent that paralyzes us?”
Paul had the same concern, but he looked at the reality of their predicament. He brought up the subject they’d both avoided all day.
“The workmen should be returning to Piedras Negras just about now, presuming they left town at two p.m. like they were supposed to. Within an hour or so they should notice we’re missing, start looking for us and come to the cave. We have no idea if Paco sealed off the entrance some way, or if he fired our crew, or if he plans to kill them all when they come back.” He held up the granola bar he was munching. “Tomorrow’s the third day. If we ration food and water a lot more than we are now, we may have enough for three or four more days. Then it starts to be a big problem.
“Here’s my suggestion. On the off chance that gun will kill us somehow, let’s wait until tomorrow to see what kind of firepower it really has. If we’re going to be rescued, it should happen by then. Tomorrow at noon – how does that sound? Either we’re already out of here or we try out our new toy.”
Mark added, “And tomorrow at noon we lay out all our food and water and decide how to ration everything.”
“Agreed. I hope it doesn’t come to that, but we need to be prepared. Tonight we sleep. Tomorrow we look at items twelve and thirteen. At noon we come back to the gun and the ammo if we’re still locked in here.”
Both of them slept lightly, listening throughout the night for any sound of rescue from beyond the stone door. But there was nothing. The next morning they ate breakfast and went straight to work, neither of them mentioning a word about the fate that was becoming more certain with each passing hour. No one was here. They couldn’t depend on anyone but themselves now.
Device number twelve was a perfect orb possibly made of glass or maybe highly polished metal. It was a smooth sphere with no indentations or protrusions. After a close examination they set it back, unable to figure out how to make it do something.
Paul picked up the final instrument and said, “Speaking as a twenty-first-century American, I’d say this is a remote control.” It was black, around six inches long, two wide and two deep. It had fourteen buttons and a tiny joystick. The back was smooth – there were no batteries for this ancient device – and it was very lightweight. “Shall I press a button?”
Mark muttered, “Why not? At this point what do we have to lose?”
Paul felt exactly the same way although he kept his thoughts to himself. “Here goes nothing.” He pressed the center button and held it down firmly.
“We have liftoff!” Mark shouted. “Look at that!”
The sphere that had been on pedestal number twelve hovered an inch above the surface, pulsating in alternating hues of yellow, green and pink. Paul grasped the little joystick between two fingers and moved it. The ball rose about six feet, then slowly flew right and left as he rotated the control.
Paul took his hand off the joystick and the airborne orb paused, waiting for a command. “Wonder what else it can do?” he said. He pressed another button.
The ball shot to the right and hit the rock wall with a resounding crack. It appeared unharmed; it merely floated in the air against the wall, still changing colors every few seconds.
Mark said, “That was interesting, but I don’t see that helping us out. Try another button.”
Paul used the stick to position the ball in the middle of the cavern about ten feet off the ground. He pressed a button, then another. “Write down what these do!” he yelled as the ball spun wildly one time and flashed a steady bright orange the next. Paul called out the button locations on the remote as he tried each one.
When he pressed the next one, a set of long tubes popped out of the ball’s left side. “Hold it!” Mark shouted. “What the hell are those?”
Paul moved the ball across the room until it was in front of the stone door. He carefully positioned it so the tubes were aimed at its seam and then pressed the next button.
A green laser beam shot from each of the tubes. Where they hit the rock, it began to crumble.
“Now we’re getting somewhere!” Mark said excitedly.
Before long, they knew this device wouldn’t be their salvation. It was too sma
ll to significantly affect the huge rock. Besides whatever else it did, it was obviously a laser cutter, but it wasn’t strong enough. Paul pressed every button on the remote in hopes one would intensify the beams, but nothing worked. The little device chugged along, but after an hour they’d cut only a foot of seam half an inch deep. It would take months to cut through the door – if the device had enough power to operate that long – but they had only days left.
It was noon. They cut their portions in half, laid out the rest, and agreed on rations for the future. They had enough food and water for three more days. They already were growing weaker as the lack of calories began to take its toll. Neither mentioned that rescue was now unlikely, but both knew their time was running out.
Mark said, “Before we try the gun, I have a suggestion. Let’s go back to square one. Let’s take the first thing – that little wand that’s a teleportation device – and see if we can move one of the bookshelves.”
Paul liked the idea. Mark held the wand as before, and he expanded the green beam until it covered the bookshelf completely. Within seconds the shelf disappeared!
“Voila!” Mark said as he moved the wand, reversed his hands, and played the red beam out against a blank wall. The bookshelf appeared there, on the opposite side of the room.
They ran to examine the wall that had been behind the shelf. There was nothing special; it was exactly like the rest of the cavern. Over another hour they removed metal plates, used the wand to transport four more shelves, and got nowhere.
Frustrated, Paul said, “We can keep going and move every single shelf, or we can stop for now and try the gun. We’re not making any progress, but one of these shelves might have a hidden passage behind it. We won’t know until we move them all. On the other hand, the gun may blast us out of here. Or kill us.”
“I’d just as soon die fast as slowly,” Mark replied quietly.
“I think so too. Okay, Wyatt Earp. Hook on your six-gun and let’s have a shootout.”
“How about you shoot it?” he said to Paul. “I don’t want to be the one that kills us both.”
“Thanks a lot for giving me that privilege,” Paul quipped, his voice happier than he felt. “Go for it. It doesn’t matter who does what at this point.”
Mark held the weapon in both hands, aimed it at the stone door and pulled the trigger. There was a deafening roar as the projectile shot out and struck the rock. Large chunks of the door fell into the room, but it wasn’t enough – it remained in place.
“Watch out!” Paul yelled. Clumps of dirt and rock fell from the ceiling twenty feet above, knocking a couple of the ancient instruments to the floor.
They took a break. Mark said, “The ceiling’s unstable because there’s not much between us and the surface – maybe three or four feet of dirt and rock. What about aiming the gun at the ceiling? We might blast a hole through the top.”
Paul wanted to be optimistic but couldn’t find anything positive to offer. “We might, or it might cause a cave-in. We might attract bandits who’d kill us if we weren’t already dead from the blast. If everything goes fine and we end up with a hole in the top, we still have to figure out how to get out. The ceiling’s twenty feet above us. We don’t have ladders or ropes. How’s that going to happen?”
Mark snapped, “What do you suggest? Lie here in the dark until we starve?”
A minute passed and he said, “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. I just want to try anything we can to save ourselves.”
“We have six pieces of ammo,” Paul said at last. “Given what we just saw them do to the door, I feel pretty confident one or two of the shells would open up the ceiling. How about we save a couple and use maybe three to try to break through the door? I think that’s our best hope.”
Eager to try anything, Mark acquiesced, and within minutes he fired the gun at the top of the door. More rocks and dirt flew into the room, but distressingly, more debris crashed down from the ceiling too. They took cover against the side walls as rocks and soil fell for several minutes in the middle.
When the dust cleared, the room was a disaster. Many of the devices were on the ground. Mark walked through the dirt, picking them up and putting them in a corner while Paul examined the door.
“We’ve broken through!” he yelled. “Look at this!”
There was a hole a few inches in diameter near the top of the door. Paul looked through. The cave on the other side was dark, but he knew they’d pierced all the way. He began to dig with his hands to widen the opening.
“Look in the packs and bring a pick!” he shouted.
He used the pickaxe for ten minutes, but made little progress. The door was rock solid even though part had been blown away. In Paul’s weakened physical state, the exertion was draining. Mark took a turn; after half an hour they knew they had to fire the gun one more time. It would take one of the bullets to open this rock door enough to crawl through.
For the third time Mark stood in front of the door, aimed the gun and pulled the trigger.
——
Mark was the first to awaken. He didn’t know where he was, only that he was covered head to toe in something very heavy. He breathed in gasps and started to move his hand up to his face. One palm was mere inches from his head, but his hands wouldn’t budge. As he lay there, he remembered what had happened. A second after he fired the weapon, there was a deafening roar, then blackness.
He was trapped. The ceiling must have fallen in.
He realized one of his legs was free. He could move it right and left, up and down. He tried to shake it loose, but from his hip to his head he was weighted down by dirt.
He passed out for an hour … or maybe a day. He had no concept of anything at this point except the reality of being buried alive. He fought panic; he felt he should conserve energy, although he didn’t know why. He was going to die. If it were soon, it would be better.
At some point, Mark heard a muffled sound. Maybe it was a voice. Maybe Paul’s voice, maybe not. It was hard to hear, but it was unmistakably there. He listened for a few minutes then lost consciousness again.
Paul was trapped ten feet away. When the collapse happened, he was knocked to the ground and a pedestal landed partly on him. That saved him from being crushed by a stone that fell twenty feet from the ceiling and was now atop him as well. He was in a small pocket, dirt all around and his torso pinned in by the pedestal. He called out to Mark but heard nothing. He used his hands to see how much dirt was on top of him. A lot of it fell into the area where he lay and he was afraid he’d suffocate since he had no idea how far below the debris he was. He tried again. He scratched at the dirt and some fell, and then he saw daylight. There was almost no dirt covering him; it was the pedestal that trapped him.
Paul could see his watch, so he knew when a day passed, then a second one. Nobody came to check on them. Paco hadn’t posted sentries at Piedras Negras yet, so nobody heard the roar when the collapse happened.
Paul lay immobile on the rough floor, his stomach rumbling. Time was running out. Now and then he still worked to free himself, and he moved an inch here, an inch there. But only an inch or so. He was so hungry, so thirsty, that he wouldn’t be able to muster strength to try much longer.
Maybe it was easy to starve to death. Maybe it was as simple as falling asleep and never waking up. Was Mark still alive? If so, he must be trapped too. For Mark’s sake and for his own, he hoped the end would be quick.
He lay in the dark. He was hungry, thirsty and very tired. He knew what was happening – his body was beginning to shut down. He closed his eyes.
It won’t be long. I can already feel it coming. It feels like someone pulling a blanket over me. Warm.
He slept.
POSTSCRIPT
Facts about Edgar Cayce and Piedras Negras, Guatemala
The Mayan city of Piedras Negras was first explored in the 1930s by archaeologists from the University of Pennsylvania. That team determined it had been built in the Mayan Pre-classic Era
, around 400–600 BC. But the highly controversial psychic Edgar Cayce said the site was much, much older. In his readings he revealed that the Atlanteans built a Hall of Records here twelve thousand years ago. The scientific community scoffed at the sensational ramblings of a mystic in a hypnotic trance. They worked with facts. They dug; explored; observed writing and art, pottery and architecture; and developed their theories rationally.
What’s interesting is that both Cayce and the scientists could be right. The Hall of Records Cayce saw in his trance has never been found. He stated that the knowledge of the ages was deposited in a location near the Mexican state of Yucatan. That could be almost anywhere in hundreds of square miles. But Edgar Cayce had more to say about the Hall of Records and this information was quite specific. In one of his trances he said that the Pennsylvania archaeologists had actually found evidence of it at Piedras Negras in the 1930s.
That would have been news to the archaeologists themselves. They were scientists, not mystics. They would have laughed at the suggestion they had discovered something linking the site to Atlantis. It’s true that the diggers did unearth several ancient buildings, many dangerously unstable after so many years in the always-encroaching jungle. No one knew how old those buildings might be – some could have predated the Mayan civilization by thousands of years. If that were true, could Atlanteans have built them?
The team excavated the cores of only a few structures, but they made significant discoveries in the site as a whole, including a stone weighing almost two tons that had originally adorned the top of a temple. It was covered with hieroglyphs and ranked as one of the most significant finds in the history of that area. To date no one has translated those mysterious glyphs. Are they in a previously unknown tongue? No one knows.
In addition to the ancient buildings, there are caves around Piedras. Looters have entered some of them, and BYU archaeologists explored others. There is evidence humans were in the caves long ago, although so far no one has spent the time to determine who they were or when they were there. Some say the Olmecs visited long before the Mayans built temples at Piedras Negras. The Olmec people, whose huge carvings of African heads are puzzling to anthropologists, may have used the cave system for some purpose. Until serious archaeological efforts occur at the site, no one will know for sure.
The Crypt Trilogy Bundle Page 46