Atlantic Pyramid

by Michelle E Lowe

  She pried herself away from me, looking up to meet my gaze. “I don’t hear him anymore.”

  “He left?” I asked.

  She took a quick look around. “It appears so.” Then she gave me a long passionate kiss that made every nerve in my body tingle.

  “Huh,” Travis said. “Maybe he just vanished for a bit. They do that when they want to. He’s still around but not seen.”

  “Perhaps,” she said as she withdrew from me and walked away. “Maybe it is only temporary, but it’ll give me time to think.”

  I was such a fool. I didn’t realize she was lying until she reached into her desk drawer. “Eleanor! No!”

  She pulled out her six-shooter pistol, put it to her temple, and pulled the trigger.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The nearby window shattered when the bullet passed through it. Blood sprayed the wall and glass.

  I blinked once before Eleanor fell, it happened that fast. One second, she stood; then blink, she was on the floor. Her body hit hard, the gun clanking on the wood, her hand wrapped around the butt. I stood frozen a moment before rushing toward her.

  “No, lad,” Travis said, holding me back. “Don’t touch her!”

  People who’d heard the shots stood on the front porch, looking in. Travis was able to hold me back despite his diminutive stature. His military training kept me in place but his hold was slipping.

  “I need some help in here,” he called to the people outside.

  “Eleanor!” I shouted after I found my voice.

  “Get him out of here!”

  I reached for her as more hands grabbed and pulled me away. My natural reaction, my basic instinct, was to hold her. In my desperate state of mind, she wasn’t really dead, only hurt and needed help. After all, she’d been alive just seconds ago.

  “Let go of me, damn it!” I shouted. “Eleanor!”

  “She’s gone,” Travis said calmly.

  His soothing tone helped me realize the bitter truth without throwing me into a raging fit. Even so, I wanted to hold her. A part of me hopefully, foolishly, thought she wasn’t gone yet, and if I could just cradle her in my arms, she could die peacefully. But I couldn’t reach her, not with people dragging me out the door.

  After I was across the threshold, she was no longer in view, and they took me home. By that time, I was calm and in zombie mode.

  “Wah ’appened?” Khenan asked, entering the hut.

  Travis pulled him aside and whispered, “Bad news, mate. Eleanor is dead.”

  “Dead?”

  Travis looked back as the others let me go. “Darwin came by. Things got out of hand and she shot the bugger, then killed herself.”

  Free from their grasp, I slowly walked out to the back porch.

  “We ’ave to keep ’im away from da body,” Khenan whispered. “He may wanna try burying her or someting.”

  “I know. We’ll stand by. When he clears his head, we’ll have a chat with him.”

  I was on lockdown. I stared at the odd plants growing from the stone wall directly in front of me. Travis and Khenan talked behind me but they sounded distant. I gripped the railing with one hand and pressed the other against my face as I wept.

  “Let’s go,” Travis whispered. “Give him some space, eh?”

  They left, gently shutting the door after them.

  By the time they returned, I was sitting out front, my eyes dry from crying.

  “How are you feeling?” Travis asked.

  “I want to see her,” I said.

  They looked at each other apprehensively. Travis nodded and said, “All right, mate, we’ll take you back. But, remember, you can’t touch the body.”

  “I understand.”

  “First, let’s treat that cut of yours.” Travis whittled a vine out of its dark green skin, down to a neon green inside. He mashed it in a bowl, then squashed a handful of seeds in before mixing it all together. When he applied this mixture to my cut, it stung, then tingled. This must be the salve Eleanor had told me about.

  “This will keep the infection away and numb the pain,” he explained. “If you use it every day, the wound will begin to heal itself.”

  At Eleanor’s, we found Neal standing in the hut, looking dirty and worn, as if he’d just fought his way out of the Amazon jungle. He had dark circles under his eyes from the broken nose I’d given him. He said nothing and left.

  A short time later, Carlton came in and walked past me, looking paler than usual. He didn’t acknowledge my presence at first, until I noticed Darwin’s corpse was gone.

  I didn’t ask where his spirit had gone without a host. I didn’t care. Nor did I care about what they did to his corpse. It was no more than a piece of trash to me.

  I wanted time alone with Eleanor and asked everyone to leave. As evening came, I lit the star lamp and placed it on the floor near her body.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She was lying on her side, her head to the left. The entrance wound on her right temple was large enough to fit a finger through, where just a sliver of blood had trailed out. The exit wound was much gorier. A pool of red surrounded her head, as if it rested on a crimson pillow. Her blonde hair was matted with it and the gun was still in her hand.

  After some time, Travis and Khenan returned. Travis said, “I know you’re dying to do it, but you can’t touch her, lad.”

  “Go away.”

  “Sorry, we can’t do that. At least, not until we’ve cleared up a few things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like if you’re planning to draw Eleanor’s spirit to you, you need to consider what you might be taking from her.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m talking about peace,” he said. “She loved this place and now she’s bound to it.”

  “And?” I asked, needing more of an explanation.

  “Don’t bring ‘er back, mon,” Khenan said. “If you draw ‘er to you, she’ll have more limitations den before.”

  “You two would never be apart,” Travis said. “Which might sound grand to you right now, but think about it from her point of view. Wherever you go, she’d have to go with you. The two of you could never interact on the same level again and that would be torture for you both. She’d just be there.”

  It hurt to admit it, but what they said made sense. I remembered Mrs. Jones, who’d buried her husband. She’d said he was just a shade, not a man, and no matter how much he wanted to play his guitar, he couldn’t. It was bad enough to be stuck on the island, but not to be able to do the things that gave you pleasure would be infinitely worse.

  How could I adjust to never having any physical contact with her? What about personal space? Even couples who are in love need their time alone. Would she and I stay in love if we couldn’t touch each other or have time apart? Not likely. Our relationship would eventually turn bitter—an eternal hell for both of us.

  “What if it’s not like that,” I challenged. “What if we could make it work?”

  “It’s possible,” Travis said half-heartedly. “But is that a chance you want to take?”

  I turned back to Eleanor. My head was so clouded with grief it kept reasoning at bay. I didn’t care about the repercussions my actions would cause as long as I had her with me.

  Someone had to talk sense into me. With Travis and Khenan’s help, my head cleared a little, forcing me to think twice about what I was close to doing. Perhaps I’d been waiting for clarity all along and didn’t know it. Otherwise, I would’ve already moved her.

  I remembered what they’d said about suicides, that the departed were stuck with their bodies. Eleanor might not be able to wander far, but at least she could go about on her own. Having her with me might be like having a second chance, but it would never be the same.

  “I won’t do anything,” I promised. “I just want some time alone with her.”

  Both Travis and Khenan exchanged glances and nodded.

  “All right, lad,” Travis said, patting me on the
shoulder. “We’ll be down at Miller’s Tavern if you need us.”

  “Thanks.”

  They left me alone in the house. I sat with Eleanor for a long time and wanted so much to stroke her hair, despite the blood soaked in it. But I couldn’t. I knew I couldn’t. It wouldn’t be fair to either of us. We could no longer feel each other’s skin or smell each other’s scents. We could walk together, talk for hours, but soon that wouldn’t be enough. Our conversations would dry out.

  Immortality is a bitch. I thought.

  The clouds in my head dispersed and I finally came to terms with where things stood. Eleanor was dead and that was the end of it. I had to treat it as if I’d lost her and didn’t have the choice to share her company. That was the real hell of it. It seemed like a test of willpower, saying a final goodbye and meaning it.

  * * *

  I couldn’t sleep that night. Every time I closed my eyes, the vision of her blowing her brains out replayed in my mind. When it had happened, it had taken a split-second and was done. Now that my memory had time to process it, the act played out more slowly, revealing every gruesome detail.

  I stayed on her front porch, staring into the dark. It was so quiet out here. The fireflies did their usual dance. I sat there in complete silence for hours until the morning light crept over the heavens, while the darkness made way for blue skies. When everything became visible, I saw the strange formation sitting on the hazy line of the horizon again. It was the same thing I’d seen the week before. There was something in the far distance, just naked to the eye, but I couldn’t identify it. I kept my eyes on it, leaning over the railing, trying to distinguish exactly what it was.

  “So, she’s dead, huh?” Gavin said.

  I turned to the vague outline of him. He’d nearly faded into oblivion, along with his voice, which sounded far off. I was nearly rid of him for good.

  “It’s a shame. She was the only thing that made you happy. She made you forget about your plans to escape.”

  I turned my head to watch the sky turn cobalt.

  “Now that she’s gone, there’s no reason for you to stay. Nothing to distract you from your original goal of getting out of here. But there’s that little thing about dying to consider.” He turned to the ocean and rubbed his chin in deep thought. “If only there was some way you could leave without worrying about gettin’ yourself killed.” He snapped his fingers. “Ha! I know. I’ve known it all along. Eh…since my death, that is.”

  My expression was level. I thought, fuck it. “How?” I asked.

  Chapter Twenty

  On the day of her funeral, Eleanor’s front deck was completely covered in flowers. The attendees closest to her stood around her body, listening to a priest read the same Bible verse he’d read at Inglewood’s funeral. She remained exactly where she’d fallen, a halo of dried blood still around her head, the gun clutched in her hand. Her body would stay in that position forever, like the statue of a fallen empress, and unless disturbed, it would never decay. The blush of her cheeks would never fade.

  I felt so numb I could have lain on a bed of nails with a sixty-pound cinder block on my chest and not felt a thing. The priest’s words never seeped into my thoughts. Though I hardly blinked while I stared at Eleanor’s body, I didn’t see her. My conversation with Gavin and the agreement we’d made ran through my mind as the priest rambled on.

  * * *

  It was like I’d given life back to him when Gavin had my attention. He’d materialized into solid form, like an image developing on an old Polaroid picture. Once he became whole, he stretched his limbs as if he’d been cooped up in a box all that time.

  “Ah, that’s better,” he’d said in a strong and clear voice.

  “I want to bring the others with me.”

  “Oh, you wanna get them out too? I don’t care. Take ’em all outta here.”

  “How?”

  “Before I tell you, you have to do something.”

  “I’ll do anything,” I’d said grimly. “But how do I know you won’t double-cross me?”

  “You have my word. I’ve been here long enough. I’m ready to move on to whatever else is out there. And I know you are too.”

  I’d nodded. I’d lost Eleanor. Without her, there was no reason for me to stay. Like a lion in a cage, I wanted to return to the wide open plains where I could run free. Or die trying.

  “So, do we have a deal?” Gavin had asked.

  “Yeah, what do you want done?”

  “Burn my body. Drag it back to shore and bury it. Shoot it into space, it doesn’t matter. Just take care of it.”

  I’d turned toward the ocean with a sigh. “All right, I’ll do it. Just leave me alone in the meantime.”

  It was a desperate act and I knew it. I couldn’t be sure Gavin would keep his word and reveal the escape route that only the dead knew about, but I wanted out one way or another.

  * * *

  I hardly noticed the service had ended. Everyone brave enough to look at Eleanor’s body walked by to pay their respects. Afterward, people boarded up the windows and doors and enclosed her in the hut like a tomb.

  Travis, Khenan, and I went to Miller’s Tavern, where I got shitfaced and later crashed at Travis’s place. I didn’t want to think. If I could’ve drunk myself into a state of total oblivion, I’d have done it. Instead, I had to settle for temporary memory loss. The hangover hurt like hell the following day.

  No one seemed to care about the docks anymore. It was as if their interest to build them had died with Eleanor. Nothing was done about the logs lying on the beach. They didn’t affect the fishermen’s daily routine.

  Travis, Paddy, Khenan, and I were amusing ourselves with a game of poker in front of Travis’ hut when Travis said, “Carlton told me we’re gonna get back to work on the docks in a couple of days.”

  “Good,” Khenan said. “I’m ready to do someting constructive. ‘ow ‘bout you, Heat?”

  “What?” I said, barely paying attention. “Yeah, sure, definitely.”

  When Paddy tossed two hundred American dollars and six British pounds on the table, Travis said, “Are you aware of how much loot you’re bettin’, mate? The max is twenty.”

  “So?” the Irishman said with a shrug. “Who gives a toss? It ain’t like I’m gonna be buyin’ meself a mansion anytime soon.”

  “Hmm…I suppose you’ve got a point. I’ll raise you.”

  I folded.

  “Call,” Khenan said.

  Travis laid his hand on the table: a pair of deuces, a three, a queen, and a ten.

  “Shit, mon, you shoulda folded,” Khenan chortled.

  “I was never one to back down.”

  “A pair of aces,” Paddy announced.

  “Not enough, mon,” Khenan said happily, laying down his cards. “Straight flush.”

  “Damn it!” Paddy cursed. “Now I’ll never get that Mercedes Benz.”

  Khenan pulled his winnings toward him while Travis collected the cards to reshuffle. His eyes caught something behind me and hiked up. “Bloody hell, is that Sandy?”

  I twisted around to see a woman coming up the beach toward us.

  “Yep,” Khenan said. “Wonder what she’s doing ’ere wit’out Neal. She’s never come ’ere alone before.”

  As Sandy reached the stairs, I noticed marks on her face.

  “Stepping out of your castle to mingle with the common folk, milady?” Travis said sarcastically.

  Sandy approached our table. She wore navy blue sweatpants, a gray T-shirt with a faded Care Bear on the front, sand-covered sneakers, and dark sunglasses.

  “You awright?” Khenan asked.

  “I . . .” she began, then hesitated. “I have to tell you something. It’s about Neal.” She removed her sunglasses to reveal a swollen eye. “He’s, like, done some bad things.”

  According to Sandy, after his humiliation at the docks, Neal had gone back to his yacht and taken his anger out on her. The next day, he’d left until nightfall. When he returned
, he’d told her that he’d gone to the Obsoletes’ village and told Darwin about Eleanor and me to provoke him into coming to North Village.

  My face flushed with anger, but it was Travis who asked, “Are you sure about that, lass?”

  “Like, yeah,” she said in her usual ditzy verbiage. “I’ve had it with Neal hitting me whenever he gets pissed off.”

  We went to Carlton and had Sandy repeat her story. When she finished, Carlton said angrily, “Gentlemen, I think we need to pay Neal a visit.”

  Neal lay on his bed reading a magazine when I pushed the door to his bedroom open.

  “What the hell are you doing on my boat?” he demanded before I yanked him off the mattress and hurled him to the floor.

  “We just found out what you did, you son of a bitch!” I bellowed, scarcely able to control the urge to kill him with my bare hands.

  As Neal staggered to his feet, he stammered, “Wh-what are you talking about? I didn’t do anything.”

  The fact that he denied his actions pushed me over the edge. I grabbed him again and smashed my fist into his face. He started to go down, but I caught him and wrenched his head up to punch him again. “You sent that bastard to start trouble between me and Eleanor!”

  Even over my yelling I heard the crack of cartilage.

  I didn’t wait for a response before I hit him again. If Paddy, Travis, and Khenan hadn’t pulled me off, I would’ve killed him.

  “Don’t punch ’is freakin’ face in, mon!” Khenan yelled, holding my arms tightly.

  “That’s right,” Carlton said from the doorway. “He needs to be tried.”

  Spitting blood from his mouth, Neal staggered to his feet, but fell due to his injuries. “That’s bullshit! I’ve been on my yacht the whole time!”

  “Except when I saw you shortly after Eleanor killed herself,” Carlton accused. “I’m guessing you were returning from the Obsoletes’ village. You looked like shit and we all know you’re too vain to let yourself go about like that.”