One Minute to Midnight

by Steve Lang

  Within a minute, Alexander's cell phone was in hand and he was dialing his best friend Peri Lyle.

  "Hi Alexander, sorry to hear about your grandfather. I would have been there at the funeral, but I was out of town on business." Peri said.

  "I know, and thank you, but he wouldn't have minded. He wasn't much for funerals. The man never attended one in his life until his own. Listen, I found a map, a treasure map to some uncharted island."

  "Are you serious? You know I love this kind of stuff. Are you gonna' go?" Peri asked.

  "Yeah, I think so, you want to join me?"

  "I'm in! Let me pack a bag, and then I'll be right over. I know a guy who owns a fishing boat, too! He could take us, unless this island is half way across the world!"

  Alexander hung up the phone, closed the lid to the chest, and sat down on the dust covered box mulling the treasure map over in his hands for a few more minutes. He felt exhilaration in the pit of his stomach that had not been there since his childhood. The mummified remains of someone's pet dog from two thousand years ago, shelves of leather bound books detailing the past histories of cultures no longer in existence, mysteries untold around every corner. This was his chance to further the dreams of a man he had respected his whole life, and experience a taste of freedom on the high seas. He folded the map and placed it into his pocket before going home.

  In three days Alexander and Peri were sailing the seas with their Captain, one Spitz McGee. He owned a deep-sea fishing boat named Sexy Sandra, which he rented out for excursions and sword fishing trips in high season. Today he was fighting to keep his boat from sinking into the Atlantic, as twenty foot swells rocked the small ship and turned the stomachs of his two passengers. Sea sickness is one of the worst feelings in the world, and Alexander and Peri were miserable. The sickness came on with a belch, like the unexpected release of pressure when too much carbonation enters the stomach. No more than twenty seconds later, the sensation that they had been punched in the stomach doubled them over.

  "You boy's OK, down there?!" Spitz yelled. He was upstairs on the control deck steering, with little success.

  "Peachy!" Alexander yelled back. Peri was beyond words, and grunted.

  After an hour or so, the sea calmed, the terrible storm moved on, and the trio were left to their own devices. The ocean was now as still as a frozen lake and it seemed like they would never move again, until a fog moved in around them that was so thick it looked like a black wall. Spitz walked below deck and the seasick friends sat up, holding their still aching stomachs.

  "Well, we survived that one. Wish I could say it was the worst storm I've ever sailed through, but this was mild. You guys are weak! Ha Ha!" Spitz laughed. "But, seriously, we did almost die more than once." Spitz expression became sterner.

  He stood five foot eleven, stocky, and had greasy blond hair that was just long enough to drape his shoulders. Alexander thought Spitz had the rugged good looks of a model in men's clothing ads. The fact that he captained a boat like Sexy Sandra out into the middle of storms like the one they had just been through was enough to earn his respect, too. Alexander was about to say something witty when the fog parted, and through the gray a seashore became visible.

  "I sure hope you're right about this island, guys." Spitz yelled down. "Because there are hundreds of these islands out here that ain't on any nautical map I’ve ever seen."

  "I think that's it." Alexander said. His stomach was beginning to settle, the nausea fading.

  "How are we supposed to get in there?"

  Behind the small beach were tall cliffs surrounding the island, and to scale them would require the skill of a professional climber. Neither man had such experience and the task ahead seemed impossible. Palm trees and low lying plants grew at the base, as if the island were a crown, ringing the head of some submerged ocean god. The sea was beginning to become choppy once more, and the waves pushed the fishing boat toward the rocky shore.

  "There's an opening in the island! See that dark recess in between the trees? I think it's a way through." Alexander shouted.

  "You two take the dingy to shore and I'll wait here. Don't take longer than three days though, or I'll have to return home. If I do leave you here, I'll come back in a week or so; I got bills to pay and there are customers on dry land looking for my services, sorry fellas." Spitz said.

  "You're not leaving us here!" Alexander protested. Spitz frowned, his brow furrowing. His hand was moving to the bottom of his shirt and the guys could see a metal object in his waistband.

  "We'll be back in three days, don’t worry everything's cool. Alexander, let's go." Peri said. "Spitz has a terrible temper so, don't piss him off," he mumbled to Alexander.

  For a moment, Alexander pictured Spitz abandoning them there the minute they were out of sight, and felt his stomach sink.

  "Three days? We'll be back sooner." Alexander winked. Spitz was eyeballing him for his earlier outburst, but relaxed his stance.

  "Have fun, and don't get yourselves killed. Good luck!" Spitz said. He clapped them both on the shoulders.

  The tiny three-man boat was lowered into the ocean, and as the two adventurers were climbing down the ladder, a fin appeared in the water next to them.

  "I don't mean to be a downer, but there’s a really big shark down there." Peri pointed.

  "Yeah, that's not good." Alexander replied. He started back up the ladder.

  "Oh no you don't." Spitz said. "We didn't come all the way out here so you can bail out at the last minute because of a little old shark. Get in the boat...he's in the water and won't hurt you." Spitz was holding a small pistol on them. Had they been near home, Alexander would have thought the gun almost comical, but out in the middle of uncharted islands, it looked like a cannon. Alexander descended into the boat with Peri, and fired up the onboard motor. Through one choppy wave after another they cleared the fifty yard distance to the ominous gray shoreline, and stepped onto the wet sand.

  "There's the opening! Up ahead!"

  Alexander yelled.

  Rain began to fall as they made their way past the shore and into the dark opening. A path that had been fashioned from bamboo boards led off into the darkness beyond. Ominous cliffs on both sides rose high into the sky, as pellets of cold rain shot from the sky like icy bullets.

  "Look, someone laid out a walkway. This can't be more than a few years old." Alexander said.

  "Yeah. Do you think whoever did this found the treasure?" Peri asked.

  "Only one way to find out. Let's go."

  As they passed through a grove of trees, they came upon a partially clothed human skeleton. The body was facing the ocean, its hands clawing sand, and there were two small bullet holes in the skull. Tattered cargo pants covered the hip and leg bones.

  "That's strange. What do you think this guy was running from?" Peri asked.

  "Not sure, but he dropped a machine gun." Beside the corpse was an AR15 in good condition despite the corrosiveness of the ocean air.

  "Look, there's a backpack a few feet away with some kind of metal rods sticking out of it." Peri said.

  He walked over to the sand-covered bag and opened the flap. Inside were six rockets and a foot away from the backpack lay a rocket launcher. Peri picked up one of the rounds and squinted as he read a white label. "RPG-7 rocket round. Awesome!"

  Alexander found a small case of rifle ammunition for the machine gun lying next to another decomposing corpse. This body was almost obscured by brush, and it smelled like a sewer. Alexander picked up the AR-15 and checked to see if it was loaded.

  "Well, there's a round chambered, and it looks like they may have been using these before they were killed." Alexander fired a test shot at the ocean. The report was deafening to both him and Peri.

  "Ouch, man! Warn me before you do something like that!"

  "Hey, I wasn't sure it would even fire. Look at all this gear; it's laying in wet sand. The powder could have been soaked for all I know." Alexander said. Peri was watching the
corpse as Alexander spoke.

  "That thing’s starting to move." Peri said.

  "The dead guy? Impossible."

  "Impossible or not, its happening, right now. Maybe you should tell him it’s impossible." The corpse began to groan and inch forward. Its head rose, glaring at them with a spectral gaze from the crypt.

  "Shoot it!" Peri yelled. The corpse pulled forward and grabbed his leg.

  Alexander fired a round into its head, and the monster dropped still and lifeless to the gray sand.

  "That's it! I'm out of here. Grandpa would probably have left too, had he come." Alexander said.

  "Um, we can't do that, bro. I kind of promised Spitz a share of the treasure, and he's expecting a cut." Peri shrugged.

  "Are you serious? How can you promise something like that when we don't know if it’s there? I'm leaving. Forget it; I don't want to run into anything else like that again."

  "We kind of can't. Look man, I'm real sorry, but I'm into some bad guys for a lot of money I lost in a card game, and Spitz is one of the bad guys I owe money to. If we don't come out of here with something, he's going to shoot me and leave you here to die." Peri said. He looked at Alexander with apologetic eyes.

  "When we get out of here I'm going to have to consider the value of our friendship. You idiot."

  "I'm sorry, bro. I had no choice."

  Alexander looked with fearful eyes into the forest beyond and wondered if they would make it back alive. Together, they walked into the jungle and entered Zombie Island. The air was thick and humid, and it was much darker under the jungle canopy than out on the beach. The trees seemed to move, creating a wall around them as each footstep along the bamboo path creaked and groaned. Moans could be heard from within jungle, guttural and spooky like stirring cattle. Fog rolled down the cliffs and into the jungle, making it even more difficult to see.

  "Where's this cave supposed to be? We need to get in and get out."

  "Just ahead, from what little I could understand from that map."

  A white windowless building, two stories tall, began to appear in the fog.

  "I think that's where X marks the spot. Right there, where that building is. Crap!"

  Something behind them moved. Alexander turned to see a group of shambling ghouls plodding toward them at the speed of a turtle. Then more appeared from the left and right.

  "This isn't good..." Peri said. There were too many of them.

  "Run!"

  Peri attached a rocket to the front of his launcher. As Alexander began to run, he fired a round into the ground in front of the closest group, which was about twenty feet behind them. Dirt and body parts hurtled through the air in a large blast of fire, causing the other zombies to pause for a moment. Two zombies jumped out of the brush nearest Alexander, but he turned and fired two rounds, dropping them to the ground.

  "That was close." Alexander said.

  "There's a door over there, at the front of the building. Run to it!" Peri yelled.

  A man appeared in the doorway, holding it open for them with terrified eyes.

  "Get over here, quick! It's safe inside." The man yelled.

  Alexander squeezed off two more shots, dropping another zombie, while Peri loaded a second RPG. To the left of the building Alexander saw what remained of the cave opening, but it appeared to have been covered by a rockslide some time ago. Only a sliver of the entrance remained, no more than a foot wide. Impassable.

  "Come on, I don't have all day!" The stranger said.

  They made it to the doorway where a scruffy man in a filthy lab coat awaited them. He had a long tangled beard, wild eyes, and overpowering body odor. "Quick! Before more of them come."

  A shambling mob of the undead approached the entrance but the stranger closed the door behind them and locked it with a keycard.

  "Who are you two and what are you doing on this island? Are you here to get me out? Who sent you?"

  "I'm Alexander, and that's Peri. We're here to get some pirate treasure off this island." Alexander immediately regretted telling this stranger their mission without knowing who he was.

  "My name’s Tailor, I was a lab technician here before this place fell apart."

  "How many of you are left?" Peri asked.

  "Just me. The others have turned. This place was a genetics and engineering laboratory. We were making the humans of tomorrow, when a batch of gene therapy solution got corrupted and ended up in our drinking water. In about two days this place turned into what you see out there. Two of my partners, Don Stratford, and Reggie Hassan, escaped to go find help, but they haven't returned."

  "I think we found them on the way in. They didn't make it. Look, we don't have much time before our boat leaves us here. Do you know how to get into the cave we saw outside?" Alexander asked.

  "There's a door in the basement that leads to a deeper part of the case. We built this place into the side of the cliff and we've been using the cave as a storage facility. The caves in there wind around in a maze, and no one has explored the system. You say there's a treasure in there?"

  "According to this map, yes. If you help us find it we'll get you out of here with us. It's not specific about where the treasure is hidden, so we may have to search around, but like I said, we only have a short time. Can we go?" Alexander said.

  "Right this way! I've been waiting for a month for someone to come rescue me. I figured you guys must have heard the distress beacon." Tailor led them down a flight of stairs to an iron door, swiped his card, and opened it.

  A dank odor drifted out, tingling their nostrils with the smell of fungal rot and stale cave water. They passed by several stacked airtight crates that had been piled to the ceiling. Tailor grabbed a flashlight from a shelf and motioned for the others to do the same. Peri and Alexander chose a couple of mag lights, clicked them on and followed Tailor.

  "Up here, around this bend is the farthest we've explored." Tailor said as they walked.

  They followed him into the tunnels, and after about a minute Alexander saw daylight through a crack in the cave wall. "There's the cave entrance!"

  "Winding through the tunnel, they came to a wall of solid volcanic rock, a dead end. But to the right was a medium-sized cavity, covered in cobwebs. It was big enough for a small child to fit through.

  "Look, there's a hole," said Peri.

  Alexander moved closer, his rifle pointed forward as the other two watched with curiosity. He wiped the cobwebs away and shone his light inside. To his amazement, there was a box.

  "I think I found it!" The box was constructed of cedar and as he reached in it was dry to the touch. He dragged it out.

  "Open it!" Tailor yelled. He was grinning with excitement.

  Alexander flipped up the latch, and opened the box to see it was filled with gorgeous pirate jewels and pure gold.

  "Okay, now let's get it out of here and back to the boat. Come on boys!" Peri said.

  Tailor reached into his pockets and pulled out two tasers. Before the other two could register what was happening, they were each struck with fifty thousand volts of pure electricity. Peri slammed his head into the wall and passed out while Alexander fell to the floor, shaking and wetting his pants.

  "I'm real sorry about this guys, but I don't work or play well with others. I'm not sure why I put the serum into the water supply, but I guess it was the devil that made me do it." Tailor laughed. He started to drag the treasure away as Alexander watched helplessly on the ground.

  By the time he could move again, he heard the iron door slam shut, locking them in.

  "Peri, we have to go! Wake up." Alexander mumbled. Peri's eyes popped open, and he held his sore head. "Tailor's got the treasure and he locked us in here."

  "Ungh, my head feels like a bomb went off inside it." Peri replied.

  "We have to get out of here before he gets to the boat. He told me that he poisoned the people he worked with. He's a madman!"

  "Dude, did you wet your pants?"

  "Can we please jus
t move? I saw the cave entrance back there when we came in. It may be our only way out. Tailor locked us in here from the other side of that large door." Alexander said.

  They found their way back to the tiny cave entrance.

  "It's a rock slide. How are we supposed to get through that?" Peri asked.

  "Fire a rocket from your new toy there and blast the wall."

  "That could drop the ceiling in on us. You know that, right?"

  Alexander shrugged and stood behind the wall, nodding for Peri to fire. Peri shook his head in disbelief, raised the rocket launcher, fired, and stepped aside as an ear-shattering explosion rocked the tunnels. Tinnitus deafened their ears, but as they peered around the corner, they saw a new three-foot opening in the mud and rocks, giving them easy access to the outside. Alexander ran forward with Peri in tow as they scaled the dirt wall and slithered through. Tailor was nowhere in sight, but there was a trail of fallen zombie bodies leading through the jungle.

  "He left us a path to follow." Alexander said. Peri could hear sound again, but it was distant, as if his friend were speaking to him through a tube.

  They jumped down and headed up the path. They found a decrepit zombie walking out of the trees, and Alexander fired a round into its head. One more down. They heard screaming up ahead and followed the sound. Two hundred feet through the jungle they saw the chest lying on the beach, and Tailor being carried off into the trees by a herd of zombies.

  "He did half the work for us. Let's get the chest and go!" Alexander and Peri ran forward.

  They dragged the chest another two hundred feet until the jungle exit appeared, and three minutes later they were on the beach. The undead inhabitants of the island followed them out of the jungle as Alexander loaded the chest onto their small boat. Peri fired another rocket into the sand, knocking the undead back and turning several of them into a cloud of smoke and sand.

  Alexander pushed the boat into the tide, turned it around, and Peri jumped in after, tossing the chest onto the floor as he fired up the engine. They were safe, and thanks to the treasure, Peri paid off his debt, and the two friends had a story to tell for the rest of their lives. Alexander wrote a children's book, while his best friend Peri drafted a movie script that was optioned by Hollywood and became box office gold. The two friends never forgot their adventure, nor the treasure of Don Diego. Although most of it now resides in the Smithsonian Museum, the most attractive pieces remained with them. They had, after all, risked their lives to bring it back.