Progeny

by Shawn Hopkins

  Paul stepped closer to the stranger, causing him to step back.

  Chadwick Aland spoke quickly, as if he only had a few seconds before the angry man with the scarred face was on top of him and pummeling him to death. “Some author wanted to meet about a new book he was writing. I’m a freelance archeologist, and he wanted to interview me about my discoveries, some of my theories. I was waiting outside the place and then… that’s it. Next thing I know I’m tied to a chair in the closet.” He pointed to the closet with one hand while reflexively bringing his other hand up to guard his face against what he thought would be an attack from Paul.

  Paul didn’t hit him, though, just stared at him.

  John reached into his back pocket and pulled out Journey with the Gods. Flipping it over, he thrust it at Chadwick while asking if he saw the man he was supposed to meet.

  Chadwick took the book without looking at it, confused. “Yeah, for a moment. He introduced himself, and we shook hands. That’s all I remember. What’s going on?”

  “Is that him?” he asked, pointing to the book.

  Looking down at the author’s picture, the captive’s eyes widened with even more bewilderment. “Yes. Professor Connelly.”

  John took the book back and spun it around so that the author’s name was visible. “Or Ronald Douglas Carter.”

  Paul swore out loud.

  “You’ve never seen this boat before? The Gegenes?” Chris asked Chadwick.

  A flicker of recognition registered in his eyes. “What did you call it?”

  “Gegenes. Do you know it? Do you know Henry Carter?”

  “Gegenes is the Greek word the Septuagint used to translate the Hebrew word Nephilim. It’s the same word Greek mythology used for the Titans… It’s what the guy was coming to interview me about…”

  “What’s he talking about?” Paul asked Hunter and Chris, frustration and impatience boiling in his voice.

  But John was halfway up the steps already. “We need to get out of here right now!”

  They followed him back up to the deck but what they saw when they got there halted them in their tracks.

  The sky above was pitch black, branches of lightning flashing like spider webs throughout its sinister and seemingly unnatural transformation into something otherworldly. But the water around them was like a single sheet of endless glass, a placid electricity dancing over the eerie waters to the beat of thunderclaps.

  Chris looked behind them and saw the reef fading in the distance. “We’re past the reef! Where’s he taking us?”

  Though the sails were tied down, the boat being propelled by its motor, it was clear that there was not even the slightest breath of air whispering over the water. Everything was still, calm — except, of course, the churning darkness that was now twirling above them.

  John stepped to the railing, grasping it tightly with both hands. “I saw a map of the Bermuda Triangle in Ronald’s house, the boats and planes that have disappeared catalogued on it. There was a list of names written across its back.”

  “The Bermuda Triangle?” Paul hissed.

  John ignored the skepticism that he himself shared. “Henry’s name was the last one on the list.”

  But before anyone could comment, Nick came running at them from the front of the boat, appearing suddenly from behind the folded sails with his mouth open and about to shout something. And then he tripped and tumbled awkwardly across the deck.

  “You okay?” Hunter asked, going to help him up.

  “Yeah,” he grunted. But his attention was aimed at the large black army bag that had caught his legs.

  Paul went and pulled the mouth of it open, standing in shock after gazing inside it.

  “What is it?” Chris asked, coming alongside him.

  But Paul was already making his way to the bow.

  Grabbing the bottom of the bag, Chris turned it upside-down, dumping its contents out onto the deck.

  Sprawled out at their feet was a small arsenal of submachine guns.

  “May I ask one more time just what in the world is going on?” Aland’s troubled voice sounded from behind, his eyes wide at the sight of so much firepower.

  “I think we’re about to find out,” Chris answered, chasing after Paul.

  John grabbed Hunter, pointing to the unmanned wheel. “Why don’t you steer us back to port, or at least try to get us back in the harbor before this thing breaks on us.”

  Hunter nodded and ran for the boat’s controls.

  ****

  Jackson was leaning against the railing and staring out over the ocean ahead, seemingly oblivious to everything going on around them.

  “Jack!” Paul yelled coming up behind him, veins in his neck bulging with furry.

  Jackson turned and faced him, a strange look on his face.

  “We passed the reef! What the hell are you doing?”

  The boat began to turn as Hunter spun the wheel, something that Jackson seemed to notice with complete indifference.

  “He was right,” Jackson muttered. “John was the key.”

  John stepped out from behind Paul. “What are you talking about?”

  Jackson smiled as a bolt of lightning split the sky in half. “You didn’t read the third edition, did you?”

  “Third edition of what?”

  “Journey with the Gods…” He looked up at the sky. “It’s you, Johnny.”

  John moved forward. “What’ve you done, Jackson?”

  “We’re gonna get him back.”

  “Get who back?”

  “Your brother.” And then his attention switched to something else, his eyes narrowing on something behind John. “Who is that?” he asked, picking Chadwick Aland out of the group.

  But at that moment, the darkness unleashed its storehouse of rain, drowning their world beneath a blinding waterfall of fury. A huge gust of wind suddenly pushed from the starboard side and almost flipped the entire yacht, sending them all flying to the deck, desperately trying to grab ahold of something.

  His arms wrapped firmly around the bottom of the railing, John looked out ahead and could barely make out land. They weren’t going to make it back into the harbor.

  “Look!” Aland screamed from next to him, pointing up into the sky.

  John followed Aland’s finger with his eyes and watched as the sky split open above them. The clouds began to move against themselves, no longer traveling in one direction with the wind but folding backward and piling on top of themselves, as if they were trying to transform into something unnatural. And as the same swirling figure he had seen from the airplane the day before descended on them now, he knew that its reach would not come up short this time.

  A R R I V A L

  And it came to pass when the children of men began to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born unto them, that the angels of God saw them on a certain year of this jubilee, that they were beautiful to look upon; and they took themselves wives of all whom they chose, and they bare unto them sons and they were giants. And lawlessness increased on the earth and all flesh corrupted its way, alike men and cattle and beasts and birds and everything that walketh on the earth — all of them corrupted their ways and their orders, and they began to devour each other, and lawlessness increased on the earth and every imagination of the thoughts of all men was thus evil continuously.

  —Book of Jubilees 5:1-2

  Then they took wives, each choosing for himself; whom they began to approach, and with whom they cohabited; teaching them sorcery, incantations, and the dividing of roots and trees. And the women conceiving brought forth giants, whose stature was each three hundred cubits. These devoured all which the labor of men produced; until it became impossible to feed them; When they turned themselves against men, in order to devour them; And began to injure birds, beasts, reptiles, and fishes, to eat their flesh one after another, and to drink their blood.

  —Book of Enoch 7:10-14

  Moreover Azazyel taught men to make swords, knives, shield
s, breastplates, the fabrication of mirrors, and the workmanship of bracelets and ornaments, the use of paint, the beautifying of the eyebrows, the use of stones of every valuable and select kind, and all sorts of dyes, so that the world became altered. Impiety increased; fornication multiplied; and they transgressed and corrupted all their ways. And men, being destroyed, cried out; and their voice reached to heaven.

  —Book of Enoch 8:1-2,9

  EIGHT

  My footing is no longer sure as a steep decline speeds my disoriented journey into further darkness. I trip over piles of rubble and assume them to be pieces of the walls around me, recently dislodged by the bombs carpeting the mountains now so far above. For a second, my night vision falls away from my eyes, and I get a glimpse of pure nothingness. A horrible terror seeps all the way through my being. The blackness begins to crush my body with an incredible weight seemingly impossible for such a large expanse of nothing, but it presses in from every possible angle as if the absence of anything is itself the densest form of matter. I quickly adjust the equipment covering my eyes, and with great relief, the ghostly green and white display is reestablished, lifting the world a few inches from off my shoulders. I stumble back to my feet and continue following the slope into the center of the earth, into some kind of chamber…

  The Gegenes rocked gently in the clear shallow waters, the only sound that of small lapsing waves caressing her exposed hull. The sky was gray, its clouds drifting lazily over the sun while a light breeze pushed ripples into the water and rustled through the plant life growing along the nearby shore, a lingering drizzle further complimenting such a scene of serenity. But it was not the soothing sounds of his environment that awakened John.

  Something was striking him on the head, its impact reverberating loud and painful against his cranium. He opened his eyes and half expected to see some kind of winged, sickle-carrying creature with horns laughing sadistically down at him while aiming black marbles between his eyes. Thankfully, there was only a broken piece of wood hanging above him, its jagged edge dripping water, not marbles. Even still, each rhythmic impact was threatening to destroy his sanity.

  Managing to roll out from beneath the tormenting assault, he tried to gather whatever of his senses might have survived the dream… and the forgotten events that led him off to sleep in the first place. Reluctantly, and with much soreness, he forced himself to a sitting position. As the seconds passed, a string of events pieced itself together and formed a timeline that he desperately wished could be dismissed as part of the dream. He got to his feet, his backpack still hanging faithfully around his shoulders, and stumbled for the railing. Sweeping a wary and consternated gaze over his brother’s damaged boat, he noticed that the masts and sails were missing. Using the railing for support, he began walking shakily abaft.

  “So you’re not dead.”

  The voice came from the stern, shattering the gentleness of the boat’s surroundings.

  It was Paul. He was sitting in a puddle and resting against the back of the yacht, his eyes barely open and a trail of blood dripping from beneath his short black hair.

  “Where is everyone?” John asked, hobbling near.

  “Saw Jackson head off into the woods with an MP5.” He licked rainwater off his lips. “Think I heard voices coming from the other end.”

  “You okay?”

  “Just a concussion.”

  John turned without another word and headed back portside. By the time he reached the cockpit, he could hear voices coming from the bow. “Hey!” he hollered, stopping to lean on the railing. He could hear the sound of approaching steps, the thump, thump, thump of heavy boots jogging across the yacht’s deck.

  Hunter and Chris appeared.

  “You alright?” Hunter asked, looking him over.

  “Yeah.” He swallowed, closing his eyes. “What happened?”

  Chris shook his head again. “No idea. We all blacked out when that wave hit us.”

  “Where’s Nick and that Chadwick guy?” John only lifted his eyes, finding it an easier chore than moving his whole head.

  Chris threw a thumb across the deck and toward the starboard bow. “They’re fine.”

  “Paul said Jackson ran off into the woods with a gun.” He managed to stand tall and tried stretching out his back, wincing in the process.

  “He’s awake?” Hunter looked relieved and began moving astern.

  Chris took off his baseball hat and ran fingers through his long wet hair. “Why would Jackson take off?” His green eyes reflected the blue water around them as they searched for some kind of clue.

  “Why does he have so many guns?” was what John wanted to know.

  But Chris just shook his head and went after Hunter, so John went the opposite way, heading instead for Nick and the archeologist.

  They were standing at the bow, staring out over the water. They seemed to be worked up about something, their animated voices matching their exaggerated hand gestures.

  Hearing footsteps, Chadwick Aland turned. Once he recognized John, he stepped toward him. “Did you see it?” There was a slight tremble in his voice.

  John hesitated, not wanting to admit to himself that he actually knew what the guy was referring to. But then he thought it might actually be good news, not being the only one who saw it. It would mean that he wasn’t crazy after all. Of course, there were things worse than being crazy…

  Chadwick sighed in relief. “I was starting to think I was losing it. No one else saw it.”

  John recalled the incident the day before, how none of the other passengers had noticed the creature then either, something that was preposterous if it had actually been real. “You didn’t see it?” he asked Nick.

  Nick looked amused. “You mean the storm monster?” He spit over the side of the boat. “Sorry.”

  “They think I’m nuts,” Aland commented while using the bottom of his expensive dress shirt to clean his glasses.

  John didn’t want to pursue the issue right now, so he turned and focused his gaze on the land around them instead. “Looks like we’re in one of the harbors,” he muttered, squinting into the rain.

  “It’s amazing that we made it around the reef and back through the channel,” Aland explained, returning the glasses to his face. Evidently, he had properly assessed their position after having been set free from below.

  He was right. But for some unknown reason, John found the miracle to be more troubling than consoling. He swiveled his head, suddenly confused by something else. “Where are all the other boats?”

  Nick raised his eyebrows while pointing at the islands surrounding them — they were forming a permeable barrier against the open ocean. “We were just saying that. We’re it.”

  And he was right, there wasn’t another boat to be seen anywhere.

  “We can’t be in a harbor then,” John stated, his unease growing. Swinging his backpack off his shoulders, he unzipped it and pulled out the map. It was slightly damp but otherwise okay. As he unfolded it, he looked up at the relaxing sky. “How long you figure we’ve been out?”

  “Looks like it’s late afternoon. Maybe a couple hours?”

  Aland was obviously disoriented, and his facial tics were doing him no favors in hiding it. “Isn’t it a little weird that we all blacked out?”

  But John just looked up from the map, turning in a complete circle to compare what was actually before his eyes to what was printed on the paper in his hands. “This doesn’t make sense,” he whispered.

  “What doesn’t make sense?”

  Paul’s voice interrupted his thoughts. Turning to see Chris and Hunter half-carrying him to the bow, John swept his hand in a circular motion, indicating the land around them. “According to the map, the only place this could be is St. George’s Harbor.”

  “So?” Aland asked, reminding everyone that before being freed from the closet, his last memory was that of standing somewhere in New York.

  “So this island here,” he pointed to the shoreline fift
y yards away, “has to be St. George’s Island. And that one over there,” he swung his arm to the opposite side, “should be St. David’s Island. And Smith’s Island, Paget Island, Higgs’ and Horseshoe Island should be those smaller islands.”

  Chris moved closer, peering intently over John’s shoulder. “He’s right,” he mumbled, not a hint of amusement in his tone.

  “What do you mean, ‘he’s right’?” Paul snapped as he wiped more blood off his face. “He can’t be right. If it’s St. George’s harbor, then where the hell’s the airport?”

  “And the forts?” added Chris.

  Nick frowned. “Yeah, that doesn’t make sense. What about the cruise ship terminal?”

  After Hunter looked at the map himself, he could only shake his head. “That can’t be St. David’s Island. It’s too small.”

  John looked back at the map and realized that Hunter was right; the island that he had suggested on their starboard side was only half the size of St. David’s. He shrugged, confused but not yet concerned. He folded up the map. “I guess we should just motor back out, follow the coast until we find a wharf or dock.”

  “Can’t,” Hunter said. “Motor doesn’t work. Nothing works.”

  “What do you mean, ‘nothing works’?”

  He held up his wrist. “Not even my watch.”

  John reached in his pocket for his cell phone but found only his reflection in its blank face.

  “None of our watches work,” Nick stated.

  And then a little seed of concern did sprout. “That’s a little odd.”

  “The storm must have produced some kind of electromagnetic pulse or something,” explained Hunter, though it was obvious from the look in his eye that it was nothing but a wild guess.

  Paul’s icy stare was fixed out at the trees covering the land around them. “Where’s all the hotels and pink houses?”

  Whereas the skyline should have been highlighted by hills decorated with multicolored homes, big hotels, golf courses, and old military forts, all they could see in any direction and on every island were twenty-foot trees.