I'M NOT DEAD: The Journals of Charles Dudley Vol.1

by Artie Cabrera

  “Well, that’s the problem, Marcus, our brainchild went up and missing last night with some of the other subjects. I don’t know where they are. Security can’t uplink the surveillance or the data. They could be anywhere.”

  “Right, well, you don’t worry about that then. It’s been taken care of.”

  “Oh, good, taken care of, so you have them?”

  “Hmm, had them and taken care of.”

  “So where are they?” Windham asked with sudden alarm.

  “You can say they’re in a much better place now. I wouldn’t lose sleep over it.”

  “Wait, hold on, Marcus, please, tell me you didn’t have them…Oh God, what have you done?”

  Windham ran his hand over his face. “Do you have any idea how close I was to stabilizing them? This is the closest it’s ever come!”

  “Windham, I’m afraid you might be blurring your personal feelings with your work. This isn’t a petting zoo, you’re a doctor. You understand there are consequences, especially in the sensitive nature of what we’re doing here. Learn to separate yourself from it. It might do you some good.”

  “I’m sorry, I just feel like we should brief the board. We can’t keep them in the dark forever about the strain.”

  Bryce took a long stern glare at Windham and almost looked like he wanted to smile. “That’s charming. First, drop any notion that you might have of teaching the old dogs any new tricks. These men have more money than you’ll ever see in multiple life times. They do this for recreation; they are not scientists. They will keep on dumping money into this sinkhole as long as they think we are all onto something. It’s the elusive pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and sometimes the safest place for some of us to be, is in the dark. Don’t be a hero, Windham. Just keep doing what you are doing and leave the rest to me.”

  “What if I told you I had the data?” Windham said, defiantly.

  “I know, and that’s been taken care of also, so, in other words—You don’t have it anymore.”

  “How, how did you know?”

  “Windham, you don’t get a job at Jericho and think you can take a bathroom break without anyone ever knowing how many times you shook your pecker or wiped your ass, do you? We keep logs of everything you do, on and off this island. I had the data extracted from your home this morning, as a precaution. Once I reviewed your presentation and saw how trigger happy you’d become about discussing certain aspects of the research to the board, I became concerned.”

  “My home? Why didn’t you stop me before?”

  “I don’t know, I guess a part of me trusts you. Maybe, I was curious to see how far you would go with it. However, I don’t know what would compel you to inject yourself with the serum. You must really like your job or have a death wish.”

  “Great, you know about that too?”

  “Oh, I know things about you that you probably don’t even know yourself yet, Doctor. How do you feel? Have there been any side effects from taking the serum that I need to be aware of?”

  “I guess I feel okay. I’ve only treated myself with small doses at a time, just drops, and the effects are not always the same. One night I’ll feel euphoric and beside myself, the next night I’ll feel terrible: restless, severe migraines, lights bother me. So are you going to ask me for my resignation, are you going to fire me or…?”

  “Neither. Relax. I’m afraid I can’t let you go. I have assigned you quarters on compound C. You will need to undergo evaluation because you look like hell, and believe me when I tell you, I do have the utmost respect for you, Clarence. We are in this together.”

  “No.” Windham struck back, feeling a bearing he had never felt before in himself—the brand of dignity that made your balls feel like steel.

  “Listen, until we’re sure the serum has not had any significant influence on your body, you are official Jericho property now. We will discuss your job once we get clearance from the labs. The arrangement won’t be long term. I’ll write you up on sick leave, so you’re not discredited.”

  “No,” Windham struck back again.

  “Yes, and this is not a negotiation,” Bryce concluded.

  “That’s funny, because I’m hoping you’re screwing with me.” This time, the steel balls had no bearing.

  “I’m afraid I’m not. You know Marcus Bryce doesn’t screw with anyone. You’re classified as a carrier, and I can’t have you walking out of here until I’m sure you’re not a liability.

  If any of this got out there, it could mean very bad things for a lot of people. You know that just as much as I do, and I won’t be taking that risk.”

  “You’re going to detain me against my will? I can’t stay here. I’m flying out to Montana in the morning to see my family.”

  “Your flight’s been canceled, and your family’s been very understanding. I’m sorry, Windham.”

  “You called my family? Okay, I’ve heard enough. What’s stopping me from walking out of here right now?”

  Bryce’s mouth curled into a smile. “Well, unless you are one hell of a swimmer, the ferry isn’t going anywhere in this storm. Other than that, there are three nice men standing outside my door waiting to kindly escort you to your quarters.”

  “Do you have any idea what you’re doing?”

  “I know. I feel terrible.”

  “You can’t do this to me, Bryce!”

  “I’m not doing this to you, I’m doing this for you.”

  “What about the board?”

  “You will be at the meeting, and I hope this conversation of ours has inspired you enough to rethink your position on the presentation. If you’ll excuse me, Doctor, I have to get to the grid. The storm is doing the hustle on the reactors. We don’t want to have our meeting in the dark, do we?”

  FALL FROM GRACE

  November 7th, 1942 – Alsace, North Easter France

  There was a thunderous burst and a God-sized clap followed by a scatter of fire in the fall sky before a large stone descended onto the voluptuous lavender fields of Ensisheim. The stone shot down from the heavens with the ferocity of a fiery arrow, burying itself deep within the earth just outside the village, scorching the ground and trees in its path. The only witness was a young boy carrying out his chores in the field that morning.

  The boy frantically raced back to town to tell the everyone what he saw, but the villagers had felt the shockwave from the crash miles away. They gathered and hurried back to the crater through the valley, where they attempted to pry the stone from the smoldering ground, but found it too hot and heavy to lift.

  Within minutes hundreds of curious and suspicious villagers began to crowd the site of the fallen stone, some taking their turns at removing it themselves from the earth.

  Each failed several times, despite the muscle, while ignoring the warning from the superstitious and skeptics.

  Hysteria surged throughout the townspeople like a flame on a trail of gunpowder.

  Determined villagers returned, once the stone cooled, with pikes and tools from town and began chipping away at the ore filled with crystals and blue globule-like liquid.

  They spent several torch lit hours, into the night and morning, picking apart and breaking away at the strange pod until the town constable and his men ordered them to stop, threatening imprisonment and punishment.

  The constable ordered them back to their homes until the Emperor of the Holy Empire arrived in the morning. Some of the sneaky villagers had already taken off with pieces of the stone into the night.

  When Maximilian I, the German-Roman Emperor arrived in Alsace the following morning, he declared the stone to be an omen from God and a sign of victory for his war with France and Turkey. He basked in the arrival of the stone and transported the it to the local Paris church.

  Maximilian, consumed and seduced by the Thunder Stone and its power, offered those who held the remaining broken pieces generous rewards for their return.

  He soon grew impatient with the lack of cooperation from the townsfol
k and threatened confinement if the thieves failed to come forward with the shards. Still, no one volunteered the pieces, no matter how severe the consequences became. Not even the threat of execution drew them out. The thieves had simply vanished.

  Some blamed the disappearances on Maximilian forcing his hand in taking and executing innocent villagers to scare others into surrendering the shards. Others believed the stone had brought a curse onto the village, but most dismissed such foolish myths—God throwing stones.

  A group of young men, on their way to the fields to work one morning, found the maimed remains of missing villagers hanging from the trees in the woods: four men and two young boys all butchered and hung in pieces.

  The desperate townspeople begged Maximilian to stop his men from killing any more villagers, but the German ruler knew nothing of what was happening in the Ensisheim village. He promised the shards did not mean enough to him to cause such carnage on his own people and even offered protection to the village after seeing what he called the unholy acts himself. Not even the strength and courage of Maximilian’s men could have guarded the village from the terror.

  Those that entered the woods never returned alive and those that entered the lavender fields alone at dusk vanished into thin air.

  Every morning before the yellow sun reached the top of the sky, villagers prepared graves for the dead. Months after the meteorite had fallen from the sky, local villages had all mysteriously vanished and were replaced with overgrown plant life and whimsical creatures. Legends of the unexplained disappearances of the villagers and the stone were not spoken during the 15th and 16th centuries.

  The stone from the sky remained hidden within the walls of the church in Paris for three hundred years until, during French Revolution, where it was banished into the Atlantic Ocean in 1793.

  DIABLO DEL MAR – (Devil of the Sea)

  On December 25, 1492, Cristobal Colon (Christopher Columbus) and his fleet were well on their way to returning to Spain after their five-week voyage to the Americas with slaves, spices, and exports in tow.

  Minus his ship the Santa Maria, Columbus met a furious force of nature that restrained his fleet in the turbulent waters of the Atlantic for five long, dark days. Unlike any engagement in his travels before, Columbus and his crew barely survived one of the most devastating and unforgiving storms, losing two hundred of his crew and the Pinta to darkness and the undulating madness of the ocean. Night and day spears of lightning crackled throughout the sky, and thunder growled like a bloodthirsty beast from beyond the tumbling clouds.

  Columbus heard the desperate cries of the men from other boats in the distance, but only caught glimpses of their horror through flashing lights of the storm as he hailed them.

  Without food and shelter from the cold, the men suffered and became so sick they prayed for their deaths to come quickly–some surrendering themselves to the grave of the sea when they could not brave the storm anymore. Eventually their voices were silenced beneath the water.

  Rats plunged themselves to the ocean in droves. Columbus and his men clung to the frayed ends of hope as long as they could, the deluge of rain and floods punished the fleet, mercilessly capsizing and sinking half the ships. The whipping winds and water tore apart the sails, dinghies, and hulls of the remaining ships.

  The explorer’s vessel, the Nina, swung high and low on the waves amid wreckage, ships turned up on their noses and bodies tumbling and crashing into one another in the rising waves.

  “We are the only ones left now,” the Admiral announced to his crew, looking out into the heart of the abyss.

  At wit’s end, Columbus looked to his compass, each time the needle spiraling in aimless directions even though the admiral himself was certain the ship was not moving as radically as the compass was showing. They were nowhere.

  The mutinous crew questioned Columbus’s ability to navigate and accused him of recklessly destroying the ships through his reliance of unorthodox instruments such as the compass. Columbus failed to ease the men as the storm began playing tricks on their minds.

  One crewmember claimed to have seen shapes of strange birds circling in the clouds. Others said they had seen the writhing tentacles of the monsters of the deep. Another said the passing eyes of the devil himself were staring right at him through the waters of the tides.

  On the fifth day, the strangest occurred. At nightfall, the men were all asleep on deck when the water beneath Columbus’s ship began to rise though the storm itself finally broke.

  They all once again scrambled and braced themselves to the galleys as the water pushed the beaten ship upward nearly toppling it over. The men shuddered, they panicked, they looked to Columbus for answers, but he did not understand what could have been happening as the sound of roaring propulsion and whirling lights swelled around them.

  They carefully crawled to the side of the boat where they witnessed a bright red, circular object quickly emerging through the turbulent waters as wreckage and dead pirates slid off the top of it.

  Everyone froze in fear as the disk hovered in the sky above them as if it were weightless, humming vibrantly with a spectacle of red and white lights. They stood speechless as the specter swirled and sat in the sky, as if it was surveying the presence of the men and their ships before shooting off into the far distance between the stars.

  Columbus, and the remaining few, charted back to Spain, near lifeless, where Queen Isabelle and King Ferdinand awaited their arrival at the ports. Once it became known that they returned without the goods and slaves, people started chattering amongst themselves, making a mockery of the outlandish tales that came from the voyagers.

  “Is what they say true, your men, what they saw in the ocean?” asked Queen Isabelle of Columbus, quietly inside the Santa Luz chapel.

  “I no longer am certain what to believe, Your Majesty,” the admiral admitted. He truly was dumbfounded, although he knew what he saw.

  “Your men have driven the people into a dreadful clamor with their wretched fairy tales. Have they all gone mad?” she asked, watching for those who might overhear her speaking of the Admiral’s voyage. Even the Queen herself was careful of spies and watchmen who were employed by the Spanish Inquisition.

  “Perhaps, it is not true, and I do not wish to alarm the people with what they cannot see with their own eyes. It is foolish and vain of my men to poison their minds with such calamity, forgive me,” said Columbus.

  “I believe you, Admiral,” she said. Nevertheless, the truth…the truth does not belong to the people. Whether you choose to believe it or not.

  What you speak of is madness. Burning chariots in the stars, mystics in the water? For your sake, it might as well be untrue and you shall not speak of this to anyone, for it never happened—ever.”

  Columbus was certain of what he and his men had seen in the water and among the stars, but he also knew what Isabella had said was true. Queens feared their Kings, but Kings feared their people. A King could not survive a kingdom plagued by the truth.

  Two evenings had passed when three tall, shadowy figures in black cloaks halted Columbus as he returned, alone on a dark dirt road, from his fishing trip on the Galiana River.

  “Admiral Columbus, I presume,” said the woman, standing before him. Her eyes were set deep behind dark sockets and accentuated by her cold white face and high forehead. The faces of the two men who stood tall beside her, hid behind veils of cloth. They did not speak, but remained like two spires in the night.

  “I am, and what business do you have with me?” asked Columbus.

  “Some say you have seen the cosmic traveler manifest from the sea in your voyage.”

  “I hold no knowledge of such matters and must be getting on my way, good evening, friend.”

  “In any manner, my business associate will pay a wealthy sum for the service of you and your crew. Five thousand maravedis, of course, if you were to provide coordinates and what is left of your men to charter. We will arrange for a ship suitable for the ex
ploration to leave in three nights. It would be most unwise to decline the proposition, Admiral.”

  Columbus, angered, marched past them toward the hilly road. “You will find that your threat will not persuade me, stranger. There is nothing I may offer you, what you seek is a fool’s fantasy. If you had any sense, you would drop the matter and so should your business associate.”

  “It is no threat, Admiral, I assure you, but you are in great danger here, and if you had any sense, you would heed my warning. Ready your men for departure and await further instructions. Be on your way, Admiral, and may the winter moon guide you safely on your journey.”

  DER GEIST DES REICHS – (Ghost of the Empire)

  On February 13, 1942, Adolph Hitler ordered three German battle cruisers, with a security escort of sixteen fighter planes, to retrieve a sunken vessel from the English Channel. Hitler classified the unidentified vessel as priority cargo. Evading the British naval fleet and their pilots, Hitler’s fleet centralized their forces on extracting the cargo from the channel.

  Before deploying that day, only three men in high command knew the true nature of the siege, including the diabolical war criminal Baron Luft. They called it “Operation Fallen Star”–to others it was “Operation Cerberus.”

  A determined Hitler aimed to have the convoy blaze through the Channel, seize the vessel from British forces, who kept the it guarded with a ring of explosive charges, and transport it to a highly secured bunker underneath Tor der Morgenrote (The Gates of Dawn Castle) located in the Eastern Alps.

  Despite the brave effort from British military and its response with a fierce naval engagement that morning, the German fleet managed to spear through the British blockade.

  The British aerial and naval assault failed due to faulty radars, increasingly poor climate, and delays in coordinating an effective counter against the German’s cunning execution. Most of the mines surrounding the vessel failed to detonate as the German ships hauled it from the waters, an unusual fact in and of itself. Baron Luft and his men escaped after suffering only minor losses and damage to their ships.