He took one last draw from his pipe before placing it on the table. “My life took a turn for the worse in 1821. Despite my loyalty to the US Navy, they still viewed me as a threat and drove me out of Galveston. In retaliation, I set my entire empire ablaze so the government couldn’t claim its spoils. I meant it as an act to bring me more power but it caused my downfall. After losing two of my ships when I refused to attack a Spanish merchant vessel, I was reduced to nothing but a common thief. I tried to rebuild my militia but failed. After five years of living like an outcast in the country I’d fought for, I went to Teljas to enjoy wild hunts with the natives. I then left for Puerto Rico to buy slaves, but a hurricane set upon us.
“When the storm ended, we found ourselves here. There were other ships trapped here, as well, but not nearly as many as there are now. Over time, more ships came. Then strange flying machines began to fall from the sky.” He chuckled. “I thought I’d seen everything. Then I saw my first television, although it didn’t work. Nothing that requires batteries or electricity can operate here.”
“Why not?”
“No one knows.”
That explained why neither my cell phone nor flashlight worked. “What about that body inside the ship? The suicide note I found said he died in 1836. If that’s so, why hasn’t he decomposed?”
“Nothing from the outside rots here,” he explained. He twisted his fingers around his goatee again. “Everyone is preserved in the same manner they were when they arrived, even after death. Machines and ships stay as they were. Metal does not rust and the water does not eat at the wood.” He untangled his fingers. “And flesh does not decompose or wither away.”
“Why?”
“I do not know.”
“You don’t know? You’ve been here all this time and still don’t have a clue?”
“I told you, I don’t leave the ship often. And frankly, I no longer care.”
I decided to try another route. Perhaps it was because I still didn’t fully believe he was who he claimed to be. “Before you came here, you say you were a slave trader?”
“Oui,” he answered without hesitation.
“So, those black men on the deck are slaves?”
“I understand in your time the thought of slavery is inconceivable. But in my time, slavery was a part of everyday life, like tying a witch to a stake and burning her to death. Yes, I sold salves, even owned them. We’re all guilty of the wrongs from our own eras, non?” He took a drink. “And yes, they were slaves. They once belonged to me, but shortly after we arrived here, I set them free. I gave them the option to leave or stay. At first, they wouldn’t leave the ship. Like the rest of us, fear kept them planted here—especially the sounds at night.”
“Sounds?”
“Oui. Torturous shrills with the ability to cease the beating of even the stoutest heart. Fortunately, they’re not as common now as they once were. As time went on, some of the crew and slaves left, but those who remained here have become my friends. My equals, if you will.”
“Didn’t you say you wanted to show me something?” I asked.
“But of course. Wait right here.”
He went to the other side of the room, where he rummaged through his belongings. As he did, I glanced over at the green sheet covering the severed arm. If I didn’t watch my step, I might end up losing a limb.
When Lafitte returned to the table, he carried a large wooden chest. With a mighty heave, he hefted it onto the table, knocking over several bottles and sending them crashing to the floor.
“It’s not another arm, is it?” I asked nervously.
He smiled. “How well do you know my story?”
“Not well.”
He reached into his shirt pocket for a handkerchief. “I see,” he said, pressing the cloth against his forehead and drumming his fingers on the lid of the chest. “When I left home, I took a substantial amount of treasure with me.”
My eyes widened when he raised the lid, exposing silver and gold coins, pearl necklaces, rubies, and uncut diamonds. It was a typical pirate treasure—enough to make Bill Gates drool.
“Holy shit!” I said, reaching into the chest and plucking out an uncut diamond. I held it up to the light to study the stone. It was heavy, with rough edges, and about the size of a prune. Once cut and polished, the clarity would be clear enough that it would be worth more than my plane.
“It’s all real, mon ami,” he said, pulling the stone from my fingers and tossing it back into the chest. He closed the lid. “Everything is real. And so am I.”
I sat back as the reality of the situation washed over me. Lafitte laughed as he retook his seat and rekindled his pipe. Blowing a perfect smoke ring, he said, “Tomorrow, I will show you where you must go.”
Chapter Four
I had difficulty sleeping that night. Too many questions were left unanswered, giving me a headache. Lafitte had urged me to rest and given me a couple of sleeping tablets. I didn’t take the pills. I was afraid of what strange shit might happen while I was knocked out.
The hours crept on and I was still tossing and turning on the upper deck. Finally, I drifted off to sleep. As I slipped into unconsciousness, I began to accept that I was actually on the pirate ship The Pride and Jean Lafitte was alive and well. I couldn’t explain how it was possible but I vowed to find more answers as soon as I woke up.
I don’t know how long I was out before I heard a familiar voice. “Heath, you gotta get me outta this, man.”
I opened my eyes but saw only the colorful lights overhead. Thinking the voice was part of a dream, I closed my eyes again.
“Heath! Damn it, get your ass up! I need your help!”
I sat up but saw no one. “Who’s there?”
I liked to consider myself a brave soul and a disembodied voice in the dark wasn’t too frightening, but when someone stepped out of the shadows, I nearly screamed.
“Hey, man, it’s me!”
Gavin? He looked exactly as he had when we’d gotten into the plane for takeoff. He wore the same jeans, gray T-shirt, and worn boots. The only thing different was the blood on him.
“What’s the matter, man?” he asked in his familiar southern accent. “I ain’t that grotesque, am I?”
Gathering my senses, I stammered, “Y-y-you’re dead. I checked your pulse before I left the plane. And you have blood running into your eye.”
“Blood? Oh, this thing?” He bent over slightly to show me a gash near the top of his skull. The wound was no larger than a ping-pong ball but it bled profusely. “It hurts like a bitch, man. Itches too.”
“You can’t be here,” I said, shaking my head. “You’re dead.”
“Okay, ya got me there. I’m as dead as the wood on this ship, but I’m here all right and I can’t leave till you help me.”
“Help you?”
“Yeah, I’m stuck. I need you to dispose of my body. I don’t want to be left in the plane, marinating in piss.”
“You’re stuck? What do you mean?”
“I dunno.”
“Then how is it you’re talking to me?”
“What do you think we are? I mean, what we’re made of?”
“I don’t know, seventy percent water?”
“Energy,” he corrected. “Our bodies are just meat, but inside, we’re pure energy. I’m talking to you now ’cause I’m focusing my energy squarely on you.”
“When did you become a scientist? Do we get smarter when we die?”
“No,” he said, a little petulantly. “I’m just able to channel my energy through your own energy. You know, like a magnet.”
I didn’t understand what he was saying, and it surely didn’t sound like Gavin. He’d never struck me as the philosophical type. Even so, I pressed for more information. “What do you want?”
“I already told you,” he snapped, wiping blood from his eyes. “I need you to dispose of my body.”
“What do mean, dispose?”
“Bury it, burn it, put it on a raft a
nd push it out to sea, I don’t care. Just don’t leave it out there, man.”
I couldn’t recall him ever calling me man before. He’d always called me dude, which I hated. “I don’t understand. Why can’t you leave if your body stays where it is?”
“Look,” he said, continuing to wipe away trickles of blood, “I’m not sure how I know anything, but I think it’s a rule around here.”
“A rule? What’s that supposed to mean? What do you know that I don’t?”
“I can leave my body if I’m speaking to you, but only for a short time. I can’t fully explain it, but for some reason, my body keeps me latched to it. I’ve been told the only way to be free of it is if my body is rightfully taken care of.”
“You’ve been told?” I inquired. “By who?”
“Other ghosts. They’re all around us. There are more bodies out in the ocean than you know about. You think things are strange? You ought to see what it’s like on my end.”
“I rather not. But I’d like a more in-depth answer.”
“Maybe next time. Right now, I’m out of time.”
He walked over to the railing and floated onto it as if he was weightless, then twisted around to me. “I’ll be back later. My head is killing me. Ha! Killing me—that’s a good one!”
He stepped off the railing and dropped like a stone. I rushed over to where he fell but saw nothing—not even ripples in the water.
It was getting brighter, the black sky fading into gray. Morning was coming and I was glad, even though I’d gotten very little sleep. After Gavin’s visit, I wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep anyway.
As I leaned against the railing, I wondered what he meant by out of time. Did he have some ghostly curfew?
My ruminating soon vanished when I noticed the fog was gone. Everything became clear and visible, and for the first time since my arrival, I could see the vastness of the wreckage. It was a museum of transportation, displayed like toys in a gigantic bathtub. Masts of other galleons and schooners poked up in the far distance. Planes, sailboats, and yachts were strewn about in the shallow water. The SS Marine Sulphur Queen was exactly as the captain had sketched it.
“My God,” I whispered.
“God isn’t here,” Lafitte said, coming up beside me. “I stopped believing in him years ago. Nothing but mystery resides in this place.”
“The fog is gone,” I pointed out.
“Oui. Every morning at this time it dissipates. Don’t get excited. It’ll return in a matter of minutes.” He lit his clay pipe. “We should reach the island in good time.”
“What island?”
He pointed behind me. “Over there.”
I twisted around. My eyes widened as I stepped across the deck to get a better look. It was truly remarkable. It was the mysterious triangular object I’d asked about in the sketches. How the hell could I have missed it? The island was at least a mile high, covered with lush trees and heavy fog hovering around its peak. Below the hills was a coffee-colored beach. “It kind of looks like a—”
“A pyramid,” the captain said, finishing my sentence. “Oui, a lot of us thought the same thing. We call it the Atlantic Pyramid. Fitting, non?”
“And people live on it?”
“Oui.”
I studied the island a bit longer, before the sky became overcast and the fog rolled in. It was as if someone had switched on an oversized smoke machine.
“What the hell?” I muttered, turning back to Lafitte.
“I told you. Now, get ready to go ashore.”
I quickly put on my clothes, which weren’t completely dry, then followed him and two crewmen, Judson and Amado, through the open water and pockets of wreckage. Judson, shirtless and with my flare guns tucked into his belt, was incredibly pale. Vampires had better skin color than him. Had he been sick before he’d arrived here? He seemed healthy enough.
The journey to the island was easier than what I’d endured going to Lafitte’s ship. Planks had been placed between the wreckage of planes and boats, creating narrow but sturdy bridges. After a while, the planks stopped, forcing us to leap from one wreck to the next. The captain, his pipe in hand, didn’t wheeze one bit as he made catlike jumps.
“How can you chain smoke like that and not be dead?” I asked, trying hard to keep up.
“I told you, everything here is preserved. My lungs were in perfect condition when I arrived, and they still are today. I can smoke a can of tobacco every day and my body will react to each puff as if it was the first. But beware, you can become ill by fault of the island, so try to stay healthy.”
I glanced back at Judson. If what Lafitte said was true about the health of someone when they arrived here, wouldn’t it be the same for someone who was sick?
“Don’t you ever run out of supplies?” I asked.
Lafitte jumped onto the tail end of a small plane. I was in mid-leap when I realized he’d stopped. I tried to avoid bumping into him, but my foot slipped and I fell in the water.
“What are you doing down there?” he asked as his crewmen laughed.
I stood up, angry. “I was trying not to run into you, since you apparently felt the need to stop like that.”
“Oh, my apologies, I was about to answer your question.”
“And?”
“Yes, of course we do. Run out of supplies, that is.” With that, he turned and resumed walking, talking to me as he went. “That’s why we trade or grow our own things. I have a tobacco garden on a vessel not far from my ship. And I should show you our vegetable garden.”
I grabbed the plane rudder and pulled myself up. “Trade? With who?”
“Villages.”
“Villages?” I teetered from side to side, my arms out to maintain my balance.
Lafitte continued strolling along, as if he was on a flat surface. “Of course. Where else are people going to live?”
A simple explanation, I’ll admit, but it took me by surprise. “But—” I started, until I was cut short when I almost lost my footing again. “Okay, new question. Why aren’t there any planks for us to walk on anymore?”
“To keep any threats of the island from coming to my ship. Come, come, it can’t be that difficult. We’re almost there.”
“What kind of threat? People from the villages?”
“No, people I can handle. It’s the monsters that worry me.”
I let that remark pass. I could finally see the shoreline as Lafitte stepped off the nose of the plane, onto one last plank at least twenty feet from the beach.
My eyes never left the island as I sloshed through the shallowest part of the water, onto the sand. I was dead tired of nearly breaking my neck just trying to get from point A to point B, and the thrill of having my feet on solid ground sent shivers up my spine.
“Master Judson,” Lafitte said, patting his pipe against his palm to dump the ash. “Give him back his flare guns.”
Judson handed the guns to me without a word.
“Thanks,” I said, to which Judson nodded in reply.
“Don’t go into the forest,” Lafitte warned. “It’s safer to stay on shore.”
I slid my eyes up the island’s steep hillside. “I’m not in the mood for climbing, but why not? What’s up there?”
“The monsters I mentioned, they’re Vikings gone insane.”
“Vikings? Are you serious?”
“Very much so,” he said gravely.
“How did they get here?”
“Just like the rest of us. They wandered off the beaten path.”
“So why do you say they’re insane?”
“Too many years trapped on this island, I suppose. In my time, there were over a dozen of them. Some were women and children, but they never seemed to stay together. In fact, they hunted each other.”
I slapped at the back of my neck, at a hungry mosquito. “What do you mean they hunted each other?”
“That’s one of the reasons why my crew and I stay onboard The Pride. For some reason, the Vikings
turned on each other. Whatever happened to them in that forest made them worse savages than they already were. I can only image how bad things got after they started killing each other.”
My question about what happens after death once again came to mind, but he continued before I could ask it. “After years of picking each other off, their numbers dwindled to only four. There are only three males and a young girl left. Professor Inglewood captured the girl.”
“Whoa, hold on. Professor who captured what?”
Lafitte smiled at my confusion. “Professor Inglewood captured the young Viking girl.”
“This is getting too weird.”
He snorted. “You haven’t even begun to experience weird, mon ami. Come, I will walk with you a little way before you go off on your own.”
We strolled along the misty beach while his men stayed behind, and Lafitte spoke gravely, “I wanted to talk to you alone and give you some hard facts.”
“Like what?”
“Like you shouldn’t expect to leave this place. There is no way out. If you get bored, you can pass the time by trying to escape, but that’s all you’ll be doing—passing the time.”
“Why’d you have to tell me this alone?”
“My crew doesn’t like to hear such things. They stubbornly hope there’ll be an end to this miserable place.”
“Is it really so bad here?”
He paused. “It depends on how you perceive the situation.”
“Lafitte,” I said, addressing him by his name for the first time I, “something happened to me this morning. I was visited by my student pilot.”
“Did he die in the crash?”
“Yeah.”
He stopped to give me a grim look. “Go on.”
“He told me he’s stuck and I need to dispose of his body.”
“You told me you hadn’t touched any bodies.”
“I didn’t. I mean, shit, I checked his pulse. But what does touching the body have anything to do with what happened to me this morning?”
“And you say he asked you to dispose of his body?” he asked, seemingly avoiding my question.
“Yeah.”
He sighed as he stuffed his pipe. “What I’m about to tell you is in the strictest of confidence, understood?”
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