Atlantic Pyramid

by Michelle E Lowe

  “Yeah, sure.”

  He reached into his pants pocket for a book of matches and lit one. “I had a similar experience myself.”

  “You?”

  “Oui.” He puffed on his pipe until the tobacco caught fire. “When we were first marooned here, some of my crew and I took a longboat to explore other ships we’d seen. The sharks attacked us when we jumped out, mortally wounding my first mate. I managed to get him out of the water and onto a crow’s nest that sat just above the water of a completely capsized vessel. Despite my efforts to stop the bleeding, he died anyway. I escaped by walking over the mainmast and finding another longboat. The following morning, my first mate woke me and said I had to retrieve his body and give it a proper burial.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I refused to go back. But he insisted, then vanished.”

  “That’s exactly what Gavin did. He just disappeared.”

  “I told none of the crew because they would have thought me mad. Morning after morning, my first mate came to me, pleading for me to bury his body. I never did.”

  “What happened?”

  “Eventually, he faded away and never returned.”

  “Is that what I should do? Ignore him so he’ll go away?”

  “Don’t tell anyone about it. Ignore the situation completely. It’ll be over before long.”

  I wished that was the case with all my problems. Just ignore them and they’d simply disappear.

  “And don’t listen to the urge,” Lafitte added.

  “The urge?”

  “To do the dead’s bidding. It will pull at you to fulfill their request.”

  “Is it really Gavin?”

  “I’ve given you all the advice I wish to give,” he said shortly. “I won’t discuss it any further.”

  I knew no amount of prodding would help, so I asked, “Should I continue going this way?”

  “Oui. Stay on shore and you should reach the village by afternoon.”

  “Village?”

  “Oui. Where else did you think I’m sending you? Now go, and if you ever feel like having a drink, come see me. Farewell, mon ami. Good luck.”

  Lafitte watched as I headed down the beach. I looked back every once in a while, hoping he’d change his mind and come with me, at least until I reached the other people he’d spoken of. I was wandering into the unknown and I was afraid. I’d crash-landed in some otherworldly place where there were unique dangers to be wary of. It was like being a character in a novel written by a twisted author who could play me like a puppet. Whether or not insane Vikings were out there waiting, I had to keep moving. I needed to find more answers than what Jean Lafitte had provided. How was it that people could live without growing old? And what was up with the dead?

  That last question brought goose bumps to my skin. The dead didn’t decompose, but why not?

  I kept walking, slapping at mosquitoes, until I noticed that no waves washed up on the beach. I stopped and studied the ocean. The water seemed completely motionless. It was yet another mystery—one I would have an eternity to understand, if Lafitte’s words were true. It had only been a day and I already missed home.

  I’d seen many dangerous things in my lifetime. Whether it was freezing to death on Mount Everest, being kidnapped and held for ransom in México, or contracting food poisoning in Peru, I at least had some idea what to expect. That wasn’t the case in this wretched place. What lurked in the shadows of the forest? I felt like a frightened Boy Scout after a night of horror stories around the campfire.

  My thoughts were interrupted by a rustling in the nearby underbrush. I turned away from the ocean and stood motionless for a minute while reaching for the loaded flare gun in my belt.

  A minute later, eight shapes emerged from the forest, walking hunched over. At first, I thought they were apes in ragged clothing. Their hair was long, even the children’s, and matted like dreadlocks. Their faces were distinctly human, but not like any human I’d ever seen. Their foreheads were small and furry, with a protruding brow shielding their eyes. None of them, not even the full-grown males, were more than five feet tall, but they had the muscle mass of a gorilla.

  It was one of the children—a young girl—who spotted me first. She called out to the others, making a sound in no language I’d ever heard before. As they shifted their attention to me, my grip on the flare gun tightened. They stared at me like wax figures, and for the life of me, I couldn’t think of what to do.

  There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Then one of the females yelled at a male wearing green flip-flops. He grunted in acknowledgment and approached me, carrying a musket like a spear. As he drew closer, I could see a dark fuzz on areas of his body I never thought could grow hair. He had gray eyes, a large fat nose, and a mouth full of crooked, chipped teeth.

  He shouted and waved his hand, shooing me away. I took a step back, but then decided to hold my ground. When he realized I wasn’t going to back down, he took the musket in both hands and trained the bayonet on me. Again he shouted, but I refused to move. Were these the people Laffite wanted me to find?

  The man approached again, more aggressively than before, leaving me with no choice but to react. I raised the flare gun and pointed it his way. He stopped and cocked his head, as if he was confused by the sight of it. Then he came at me again. I was about to pull the trigger when I glanced at the rest of the group. Whoever they were, they appeared to be a family. I’d never killed anyone in my life and wasn’t about to start now, but I had to do something.

  I raised the gun and fired into the air. In a burst of bright red sparks, the flare shot into the sky, leaving a trail of smoke behind it.

  The advancing man stopped abruptly and nearly tripped over himself to run the other way. The others took off as well, women pulling their children who stood watching as the flare reached its peak and exploded into a fiery bright light. The adults didn’t even look back as they raced into the forest.

  I composed myself from the strange encounter, building enough courage to continue down the beach. After twenty minutes, another group appeared. I stopped and held my empty flare gun tightly. After some time, they came closer. I was pleased they seemed more advanced than the first group. Even so, I kept my guard up.

  “Was dat you, mon?” a black man asked with a Jamaican accent.

  “Yeah,” I said, holding the flare gun at my hip like a lame version of an old-time cowboy.

  “You just get here?” another man asked with the Queen’s English.

  “Yesterday.”

  “You’d best come with us,” said an older woman. “This area isn’t safe.”

  Chapter Five

  I studied the people I was now among. The Jamaican in an army-green shirt, with ragged shoulders where the sleeves had been cut off, was thin and a few inches taller than me. He had short hair and a long braided goatee. His skin was dark, almost pitch-black, and he had light brown eyes and high cheekbones. The woman’s hair was shaved on both sides and only a bit longer on top. Gray bangs hung over her blue eyes. Although she was short and stocky, she carried herself with a don’t-underestimate-me attitude. She wore Converses, calf-length denim shorts, and a black T-shirt reading: If I could be somewhere else, I would be.

  The five-and-a-half-foot Englishman had dark blond dreadlocks and russet eyes. He, too, had a long goatee and a well-trimmed mustache, and was dressed in a Union Jack T-shirt, torn jeans, and black sandals.

  “What do you mean it isn’t safe?” I asked.

  “This area is where the Ancient Ones live,” the woman said, turning in the other direction. “Come on, we can walk and talk.”

  “The Ancient Ones? Like the people I ran into a little while ago?”

  “What did dey look like?” the Jamaican asked.

  “Like they’d just come off the Quest for Fire movie set.”

  The Englishman gave me a confused look but the woman said, “That’s them, the Neanderthals.”

  “Neanderthals?”


  “You lucky, mon,” the Jamaican said. “Dey be da least to worry ‘bout.”

  I stopped and slapped at a mosquito on my arm. “Are you serious? How the hell are there Neanderthals here?”

  The others took a few more steps before stopping with me. It was the woman who asked, “Do you know anything about human history?”

  I wiped the blood from the mosquito on my shirt. “Sure, do you know yours?”

  “Great, a funny man,” she said. “Then you outta know that tens of thousands of years ago, tribes spread out from Africa all over the globe, searching for other lands. How do you think they ended up on Easter Island, and in Hawaii and Cuba?”

  “Are you telling me those people drifted off the mainland and ended up in this place thousands of years ago?”

  “Yep.”

  “Sucks for ‘em, eh?” the Jamaican said, slapping at a mosquito. “I’d much rather be in Hawaii.”

  “Never been, mate,” the Englishman said. “From my understanding, those islands were discovered two years after I arrived here.”

  It was a lot for me to take in. Just the day before, I’d gotten out of bed, had breakfast on my porch, and showered in my bathroom. I’d spoken with my mother about nothing important, then gotten into my car and driven to the airport. I couldn’t have imagined a turn of events like this, not in a billion years. Even death was more plausible than this.

  “I’m Travis Livingston,” the Englishman said, extending his hand.

  I shook it and replied, “Heath Sharp.”

  Travis smiled.

  “Khenan Evans,” the Jamaican said.

  “Nice to meet you,” I said, shaking his hand as well.

  “Marissa Agnew,” the woman said over her shoulder, keeping ahead of us. “Tell us, Heath, what’s the day and month?”

  “Tuesday, June fourteenth.”

  “Whatcha you know? Ole Inglewood got it right,” she said.

  “Inglewood? Professor Inglewood?”

  “Aye,” Travis said. “How did you know?”

  “Lafitte told me to ask him about the Viking he caught.”

  “Ah, Lafitte,” Khenan said. “Da gentleman pirate. ’aven’t spoken to ’im in years.”

  “Yeah, well, the old fool better watch his ass if he doesn’t want to get tortured again,” Marissa said.

  “Tortured? Is that what happened between him and that guy, Saxon?”

  “Aye,” Travis confirmed. “Saxon has a dark loathing for pirates, especially Lafitte. He got his hands on him once when Lafitte came ashore looking for help to pull his ship upright. Saxon knew he couldn’t kill him, so he spent a week torturing the poor sod.”

  “Jean got ’is revenge, dough,” Khenan said with a grin. “One night, ’e got loose and chopped off Saxon’s arm wit ’is own sword while ’e slept.”

  “Lafitte warned the bloke that if he ever bothered him again, he’d cut off his other arm,” Travis added.

  “What happened after that?” I asked.

  “Lafitte went back to his ship like nothing ever happened and ole Saxon went back to his village.”

  “Saxon didn’t have any men with him?”

  “Nah, mon, ’is sailors were the superstitious sort. Dey believe da island to be cursed and dared not wander off dere ships until the villages were built. Some still ’aven’t left.”

  “Bloody shame about the Ancient Ones, really,” Travis said. “Some haven’t evolved at all, like the lot you encountered. They’ve been here thousands of years, give or take, and act like we’re wicked gods out to get them.”

  Marissa cleared her throat loudly.

  “Oh, and wicked goddesses,” Travis added with a smile.

  “Are there a lot of people here like that?”

  “Not as many as there used to be,” Marissa said. “They’re out there, though, living in a village on the other side of the island.”

  “How many villages are here?”

  “Three, so far,” Marissa said. “The assholes who built their village on the other side of the island are called the Obsoletes.”

  “Obsoletes?”

  “They hate it when we call them that. They know it means they’re archaic.”

  “Aye,” Travis said. “They’re thinking the exact same way they did when they arrived here.”

  “You mean like the Neanderthals?”

  “Kind of, only those chaps choose not to let go of the past. Their beliefs don’t apply to modern folk.”

  “They’re a bunch of sexist, bigoted sons of bitches,” Marissa spat. “They think women should be subservient to men and people like Khenan should serve them hand and foot.”

  “They were in control for a while,” Travis explained. “At least up until the sixties, when they were outnumbered by the newer generation and those who’d had enough of their shallow-minded ways.”

  A brief silence came over the group and I took advantage of it to soak in what I’d learned. Then I rotated my head around to Travis. “How long have you been here?”

  “Since 1777,” he said as if I’d asked his age. “I was a Royal Navy gent, sent to fight in the Revolutionary War. We were supposed to go to Savannah, but our bloody drunk steersmen took a wrong turn and we ended up a little ways down from the port. The next thing we knew, we were caught in a hell of storm and, well, here we are. I was twenty-three then. Pity I never got to see America, even if I was only going to get meself killed.”

  I turned to Khenan, and he waved his hand at me. “I ’aven’t been ’ere nearly dat long. I was on da Jamanic K.”

  Before I could ask, Marissa raised her hand. “Piper Cherokee, 1994.”

  “Passenger?” I asked.

  “Pilot.”

  “What’d you come in ’ere wit?” Khenan asked me.

  “Cessna Skyhawk.”

  “Where in da junkyard is it?”

  “The junkyard?”

  “That’s what we call the water around the island,” Marissa explained, “on account of there’s so much junk out there.”

  Referring to something as wild and beautiful as the ocean to a junkyard saddened me, but I was interrupted by a shriek from overhead. A flock of pelican-sized birds soared out of the forest and circled over the ocean. Their shrill cries were punctuated by clicking sounds, as if they were sucking their tongues against the roof of their mouths.

  “Well, if it isn’t the Shark Hunters,” Travis said. “Looks like they’re hungry.”

  “What are the Shark Hunters?” I asked, shooing away the mosquitoes.

  “Watch dis, mon.”

  Marissa rolled her eyes. “He’ll have an eternity to see this shit. We need to get back.”

  The word eternity struck me hard, giving me chills. I’d only been here a day and I was nowhere near accepting that I’d be here forever.

  “They’re making their formation, lad,” Travis announced excitedly. “They’ve spotted one!”

  Dozens of birds glided in pairs thirty feet above the ocean, as if following a drill sergeant’s order. Then they did something I’d never seen birds do. The first ten dove straight into the water like torpedoes. Minutes later, a rush of water erupted. Mixed in with the salty foam was a fountain of blood from a thrashing shark. The birds had latched onto its head and were picking at its skull with sword-like beaks. It was the same kind of shark that had attacked me the day before.

  A second wave of birds dove in for another assault, allowing the first batch to fly off. Among those fleeing was a bird in possession of one of the shark’s eyes. The bird jerked its head back and sent the eye down its long, slender gullet. The rest of the birds tore at the shark’s flesh. Their quick action and organized technique helped them avoid its snapping jaws. After several strikes, the thrashing stopped and the only sound was the shrieking and clicking of the birds.

  Travis nudged me with his elbow. “That was bloody marvelous, eh, mate? Watch what happens next.”

  A minute later, the birds emerged from the water, dragging the lifeless shark onto shore.
It had to weigh five hundred pounds, but together they managed to drag it onto the beach. It reminded me of a theory that dinosaurs were descendants of modern day birds and that certain herds killed large pry, some bigger than themselves.

  The eye eater sat on the sidelines, not helping the others, just shrieking and clicking. It was larger, with burgundy feathers and a black line running from the top of its head down its back. Its claws were off-white, unlike the others’ black ones, and its banana-shaped beak was speckled with white spots. It had to be the flock’s leader.

  When the shark was completely out of the water, a feeding frenzy began. Birds ripped off large chunks of flesh and flew off to perch on trees or rocks. They stood on one leg, eating the meat from their other foot. The leader finally waddled over to the carcass and plucked the other eye out.

  “They’ll have that whole bloody shark picked clean in minutes,” Travis said.

  When the leader spotted us, it expanded its wings and shrieked loudly.

  “All right, Bongo, we’re leaving,” Travis called to the bird.

  “Bongo?” I asked as we moved on.

  “Dat’s da stupid name some idiot gave ‘er,” Khenan said.

  “Aye, but no worries, lad, the Shark Hunters might be intimidating, but they won’t bother you unless you bother them.”

  “They’re more like our allies,” Marissa said. “The sharks are a threat to us and the birds are a threat to them.”

  “I was nearly eaten by one yesterday,” I grumbled. “Do the birds usually kill baby sharks?”

  “No, that was a full-grown one,” Marissa said. “They’re small in size but they’re dangerous all the same.”

  “I’ve never seen birds act like that before.”

  “That’s because they’re nowhere to be found on the outside,” Marissa said.

  On the outside? She made it sound like we were in a fishbowl. “Are you saying this place has its own species of birds?”

  “Wildlife in general, chum,” Travis said.

  “Really? You mean animals have gotten trapped here too?”

  “More like born and bred, mon,” Khenan said. “Da animals ’ere have been around since da island developed. Unlike us, dough, de’re not eternal. Dey grow old and die like da way it outta be.”