Progeny

by Shawn Hopkins

  “The storm just pushed us to a place we haven’t seen,” said Nick, impatiently dismissing the tone in Paul’s voice.

  John quickly unfolded the map again, examining it more closely. “There’s only three possible places we can be.” He stabbed his finger at the map. “The Great Sound, Castle Harbor, or St. George’s harbor. They’re the only spots where we can have land off portside and open ocean from the bow.”

  Again Chris confirmed.

  “Then what’re you saying, Johnny? You saying that the airport just vanished?” Nick was pointing his handless arm toward where John was suggesting the airport should be.

  “No. I’m just saying that, according to the map, we have to be in one of those places, and that, of the three, St. George’s harbor is the only one that works.”

  Hunter stared out to the island resting off starboard and repeated his original objection. “It’s too small.”

  “It’s too small?” Nick shook his head in disbelief. “How ‘bout there’s nothing on it?” He laughed, unable to comprehend what was being implied by his friends. “I’m telling you, the storm just pushed us away from all that.”

  “From all what?” Chris asked, taking his eyes off the map. “From the twenty-one square miles that accommodate sixty thousand people?”

  “Yeah, but there’s over one hundred and fifty smaller islands, and a lot of them look like this.” Nick was waving his remaining hand now. “With nothing on them!”

  Chris pointed back to the land that was resting off their port and stretching out a mile ahead of them. “You think that’s one of the small islands?”

  John tuned out their argument, trying instead to untangle a nagging thought that was tugging the back of his mind. Nick had to be right, it couldn’t possibly be St. David’s. And yet he still found himself searching for an explanation that might account for its smaller size. And then the thought finally pulled free and he remembered. It was something that Jackson said in the taxi the day before. We built the airfield in 1941… The revelation slipped out of his mouth.

  Nick sighed, his irritation growing. “What are you talking about, Johnny?”

  But it was such an absurd thought that he couldn’t even bring himself to say it. “Nothing.”

  “Maybe this isn’t even Bermuda,” Nick offered, finally conceding to the fact that there were discrepancies.

  Chris sneered. “Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, is the closest piece of land to Bermuda, Nick.”

  “Then the map’s wrong.”

  Hunter held up his hands, bringing the discussion to an abrupt close. “Whatever, it doesn’t matter. We’re not gonna solve anything by just sitting here arguing. All we know is that Jackson lied to us. So we should go find out why.”

  Chris nodded in agreement. “You’re right.” And then he turned and headed back astern. Twenty seconds later, he reappeared, holding a few of the weapons the sinister wave hadn’t claimed, extra clips shoved into his pockets.

  Nick wagged his head in shock. “What are you doing?”

  “Jackson brought these for a reason, and since he’s the only one who seems to know what’s going on, I’m gonna trust it’s a good one.” He tossed an MP5 to Hunter and another one to Paul.

  Nick protested. “If you get caught with that thing, you’re gonna get in a lot of trouble. And depending on what Jack’s been up to, you could get us all in trouble.”

  Chris looked down over the side of the boat. “There’s a couple more down there, but suit yourself.” And then he hopped over the railing, landing in the water below with a gentle splash.

  Cursing under his breath and shaking his head, Nick went after one of the remaining guns.

  Paul moved his fingers in a circular motion over his temples for a few seconds in a futile attempt to alleviate his headache. “When we find him, I’m gonna kill him…” And then he fell backward over the side, joining Chris in the water below.

  Hunter swung his own leg over the railing, intent on following Chris and Paul, but first asked Aland, “Any idea why that author guy or Jackson would want you here?”

  He didn’t even have to think about it. “No idea. But I got the impression that your friend didn’t know who I was.”

  John nodded in agreement. “Ronald must’ve hidden him in the closet before Jackson got the boat.”

  “Doesn’t make any sense.”

  John looked at Aland. “Can I call you Chad?” He spoke calmly, attempting to reassure Aland as much as himself.

  He nodded.

  “Okay, Chad, where’s the book I handed you?”

  “It’s down in the cabin.”

  “Can you go get it?”

  “Sure,” though it was obvious he didn’t understand why John would want it now.

  Nick brushed by Aland with a scowl as he came back carrying the remaining two guns, one tucked under his handless arm. He extended one out to John.

  John declined. “I don’t want it.”

  “I can’t imagine why we’d need them, but I guess Chris is right. Jackson wouldn’t have brought them for nothing.” Then he jumped into the water, too.

  Now standing alone with John, Hunter asked him, “Why did Jackson say that about the storm? That you caused it?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Hunter swore. “None of this makes any sense.” And then he joined the others.

  John watched them all swim to shore as Chadwick came back to him with the book in his hand.

  “Here.”

  John put it in his bag. “You ready?” he asked.

  “For what?”

  “I have no idea.”

  A short hesitation. “Can I take that?” he asked, pointing at the submachine gun.

  “Everyone else seems to think it’s a good idea.”

  “Yeah, well, I think it’d make me feel a little better, you know? Considering that I was kidnapped and don’t really know who any of you people are. And after seeing that thing—” He squinted. “Why do you think we’re the only ones that could see it?”

  He said “that could see it” instead of “saw it,” and John didn’t care so much for what the phrasing insinuated. “Come on.”

  “Do you feel it?”

  The way he asked raised the flesh on his arms. “What?”

  “Something’s not right here,” Chadwick whispered, looking around at the trees. “That storm did something.”

  “And what do you think it did?” John moved closer to the railing, keeping an eye on the SEALs who were just now getting to shore, disappearing into the aerial roots of a mangrove swamp.

  “I don’t know, but you know what I’m talking about.”

  “Just get in the water and try not to shoot anyone.” But the truth of the matter was that he knew exactly what Chadwick was talking about.

  He dove for the crystal water, the dark sky above inverted in its reflection. And as he descended, the clouds coming to greet him, he wondered if he was in fact plummeting to a different world. Surfacing, and making sure Chadwick was following behind, he began swimming after the others.

  ****

  The turquoise waters slowly gave way to the shallow mangrove swamp, the plants’ dense aerial roots forming a thicket that was more reminiscent of the Florida Everglades than the long stretches of pink sand Bermuda was famous for. Exhausted after laboring through the oppressive terrain, John turned back to help guide Chadwick.

  “I’m fine,” he said, waving him off while climbing through the last of the larger roots. “Regardless of my formal appearance, I’m more than capable of handling myself in such an environment.”

  And, despite the dark slacks, expensive black shoes, satin shirt, and glasses — now soaking wet and looking rather silly — he did indeed maneuver through the overgrown maze with a gracefulness John found rather surprising.

  “You said you’re an archeologist?” John removed his backpack and took off his windbreaker.

  “Well, I was,” he said, bending forward with his hands on his knees, trying to
catch his breath. “Not anymore. At least not officially.”

  “Anymore?”

  “Some of my views were considered to be unorthodox by my peers, so I never made it through their reviews. Now I just do it as a hobby on the side while I teach history at community college. That’s actually why I was meeting this author. I thought maybe having some of my ideas published in a bestseller would be the break I needed to establish a credible platform for my work.”

  Nick, Paul, Hunter, and Chris were standing nearby and pulling their own clothes off, ringing them out.

  “How’d Ronald find you?” Paul asked from a few yards away.

  “I don’t know. I have a few published articles, a newsletter, a daily blog… I guess I never asked.” And then he stood up and started unbuttoning his own shirt. “Why do you think he kidnapped me?”

  Chris just laughed. “Dude, you know as much as we do.”

  He looked back at John, thinking. “So you’re all looking for this guy Henry — that was his name, right? — but your friend Jackson—”

  “He said we don’t know,” Paul snapped.

  The finality in his voice came off a little too threatening for Chadwick’s liking. “I’m just trying to figure out what I’m doing here.”

  “At this point, we all are.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that you too were shaking hands with someone in New York one second and then locked in a yacht seven hundred miles away the next.”

  “Chad,” Hunter called out, getting his attention. “Relax.”

  “Whatever,” he mumbled, and then hoped no one had heard the comment. Seeing these men without their shirts on was proving to be an extremely intimidating experience for him. “What are you people?” he asked. He wasn’t exactly out of shape himself, but next to these people he looked like one of those weird stick insects.

  “They’re retired SEALs,” John explained, ringing out his shirt.

  That’s when Chadwick noticed John’s bare chest, noticed the inked covering that wrapped his flesh. “Interesting artwork,” he mumbled, eyes narrowing suspiciously.

  “It was a long time ago.”

  “Yeah,” Paul said, “once upon a time Johnny was a Ranger. And then he saw a blinding light that changed his life forever.” He sneered, but even he seemed a bit taken back by the images across John’s body. It was a plethora of death, dark and twisted images ranging from skulls, sickles, and web-covered tombs to crossed M-16s and black hooded skeletons.

  “What’s with the obelisk?” Chadwick wanted to know.

  It started from below his beltline and reached up beside his navel, capping just below the clavicle.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” he responded, and instead flipped the conversation back on him. “You said something about the boat’s name having to do with why Ronald wanted to meet you. What did you mean?”

  “The Gegenes.” He twisted his nice shirt, draining it onto the fertile ground at his feet. “Yeah, like I said, it’s the Greek translation of the Hebrew Nephilim and the same word for the Titans in Greek mythology.”

  “What’s Nephilim?” Nick asked, inserting a rather strong expletive between the words. He was having a little trouble wringing out his shirt with just his one hand.

  “It means ‘fallen ones,’ but it’s sometimes translated as ‘giants’ in the Old Testament. The Titans were the offspring of gods and mortal women. Our English words ‘genes’ and ‘genetics’ come from the same root, genea — meaning ‘breed’ or ‘kind.’ That’s what the author said he was researching, the gods’ hand at eugenics.”

  Nick shook his head. “I met the guy twenty minutes ago and he still hasn’t said a word I understand.”

  John asked, “Why would Henry choose that name for his boat?”

  “How should I know?” He had his shirt back on, a pale blue work of silk, and was busying his fingers with buttoning it. “But just naming it Titan would’ve made more sense in a conventional way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, the modern concept of the Titans, like the Celts and pirates in general, have been largely romanticized. I mean, you even have a professional football team named the Titans… But to use that specific word? It suggests a more intimate knowledge of the subject, though why someone with that knowledge would name their boat after it…” He shrugged.

  Paul had his shirt and jacket back on and was adjusting the German-made Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun over his shoulder. “This is all fascinating my socks off, but we need to start moving.” He turned and began leading them away from the shore and toward the interior of the island, the sound of light rain pitter-pattering against the tropical plant life accompanying them.

  A few minutes later, they found themselves facing a wall of cedar trees, their thick trunks twisted in braids and their needled branches curving upward toward the sky. Once past the edge of the twenty-foot evergreens, they discovered a thick forest — its red soil spongy beneath an endless bed of ferns, and palmetto trees waving their shaggy, fan-shaped appendages in the breeze. There was an eerie loneliness permeating the air, a feeling that had been completely foreign to the busy island they were on just a few hours earlier.

  “Can you tell which way he went?” John called up to Hunter, who was now taking the lead.

  He nodded, pointing further into the forest.

  A few birds suddenly flew by, letting loose an awful scream that echoed back and forth through the trees.

  “This is weird, man.” Chris’ eyes were fixed on the dripping canopy above.

  As they followed Hunter, everyone but John with weapons hanging off their shoulders, John stepped closer to Paul’s back and began speaking softly over his shoulder.

  “You find any diving equipment on the boat?”

  Paul shook his head, no.

  “And none of you knew that he and Ronald were already acquainted?”

  “No,” he grumbled.

  “Why would they lie about the boat?”

  Paul smirked back over his shoulder. “I don’t know, Johnny, you’re the key, why don’t you tell me?”

  Not amused, he walked past Paul and approached Hunter again, setting a watchful eye on Chadwick while doing so. It was impossible that an archeologist familiar with the giants of Genesis six could have found himself here by random chance. As he’d begun to suspect earlier, there was some kind of design emerging behind all this, some kind of purpose. Though whoever (or whatever) the master architect of their predicament, and whatever its intended end, John’s limited realm of comprehension could draw no suspects. Considering that he’d never told anyone about the Afghan cave, it was unlikely that Jackson even knew of the subtle connections now being paraded around him. Ronald, on the other hand, somehow seemed to be right at the center of the mystery. And yet the accusation wouldn’t stick, the author getting off due to the lack of any rational evidence.

  John came alongside Hunter and asked, “You were saying something earlier about my father’s diary and dreams Henry was having?”

  After a moment to climb over a fallen cedar, he sighed. “You were supposed to know all this. It’s why we brought you along.”

  “According to Jackson.”

  “Yeah, according to Jackson.”

  John navigated over the tree. “So fill me in.”

  Hunter shook his bald head and pushed some underbrush out of his way. “I only know what Jackson told me. I never heard it from Henry. You should ask him.”

  “He’s not here.”

  Hunter swore under his breath, for some reason reluctant to divulge what little he knew. He stole a glance at the others behind them before yielding to John’s request. “Ever since I knew him, he had these nightmares that would wake him up. After he read your father’s journal, though, he became obsessed with trying to decipher them, convinced they meant something. Apparently, the journal indicated that the malady had been in the family for a long time. Some secret legacy he was determined to understand. But like I said
, he never talked to me about it.”

  “But he thought this Ronald guy knew something about it?”

  “Apparently.”

  John lapsed into silence, his mind clogged with half-digested thoughts. Was there a connection between The Gegenes and Henry’s dreams? If so, then perhaps this “family legacy” Hunter just mentioned had tainted his branch of the tree as well. And what of Henry’s name being included on the list of those disappeared in the Triangle? But there were simply too many dots to connect, and even the ones that seemed in tune with each other weren’t creating a very sensible picture.

  And then, before he could formulate more thoughts into questions, he found himself, along with the others, standing before a wide open clearing, the rain now unimpeded by the forest’s canopy. Ripping across the field of rustling grass, stretching from left to right for a hundred yards, stood a massive rock wall.

  “That’s interesting,” Chris remarked, shaking water off his baseball hat.

  The wall stood almost twenty feet high and was constructed like some sort of jigsaw puzzle — huge rocks, geometrically cut into an assortment of sharp angles, fitting precisely into one another.

  “Don’t remember seeing that in the tour guides,” whispered John.

  Chadwick took a cautious step forward, shaking his head in bewilderment, his eyes frantically sweeping back and forth. “It looks just like the fortress of Sacsayhuaman hill.”

  “The what?”

  He whispered, “I don’t understand.”

  “Understand what?” Paul growled.

  And then Chadwick spun around, a fire suddenly burning behind his water-beaded lenses. “Are you lying to me?” He asked with such indignation that he confused them.

  “About what?” John asked.

  “Where we are. That this is Bermuda…”

  Hunter held up his hands in an attempt to reassure him, not fully understanding what had just made him so skeptical of their location. “We’re in Bermuda. I promise you.” Like Chris had said, the closest piece of land was in North Carolina.