Atlantic Pyramid

by Michelle E Lowe

  “No thanks, I like to use soap.”

  She snatched my wrist and started grinding the leaves against my arm.

  “Okay!” I shouted, taking them from her. “I’ll do it, damn it.”

  She didn’t move or take her eyes off me until I’d scrubbed the leaves over every inch of my naked skin. The leaves caused a strange tingle.

  When we caught our second wind, I decided to ask her a very important question I’d refrained from asking before. “Where are we going?”

  She looked at me, confused. I repeated the question more slowly, as if uttering the words cautiously made them more understandable to someone who didn’t speak my language. I tried pantomiming my meaning by pointing at her, then to me. “Where are we…” I did the walking man with my fingers. “…going?”

  I should’ve tried asking her back at the campsite, but in the midst of my grief, I simply hadn’t cared if she was leading me into a black hole.

  She stared at me for a good long while, then took a stick and drew a circle in the dirt. Not a perfect circle, but hell, how many people could do that? I studied it, then raised my chin to her. She grunted, stood, and walked on before I could ask her about it.

  For the rest of the way, we went across the island instead of up it. She led me somewhere I hoped wasn’t to her tribe. Cannibalism came to mind. I wanted to reach the top of the island. Maybe up there, I could see some open gateway out of this place.

  I kept my mouth shut—mostly to save myself from dehydration—and followed her. To my relief, we came to a stream. I washed the sweat off my face and filled my canteen. Maybe the stream was the reason we’d come in this direction.

  Once we’d refreshed ourselves, she continued along the same route. Again, I said nothing. My feet ached from struggling to maintain my balance against the steep embankment. The sticky humidity got to me. If we’d kept going up straight, we would’ve reached the top by now.

  “All right,” I finally said in frustration. “I’ve had it with this shit.”

  I started upward but didn’t get far before she grabbed my wrist. Not just grabbed, but held it so tightly it felt like my bone was crushed into a fine powder. I would’ve hated it more if she’d snatched my wounded arm. “Ow, Jesus!”

  She grunted loudly, followed by other incomprehensible noises. It made me wonder if this was what teenagers sounded like to their parents when they talked slang to them.

  “Let go,” I protested, trying to pull my arm free. “I don’t want to follow you anymore.”

  That didn’t work. In fact, she yanked me down to the hacked trail she’d created and spoke again. Whatever she said, it sounded urgent. I’ll admit, she scared me.

  She let go, scratching me with those long jagged fingernails of hers, then pointed forward with the machete and began hacking through the vegetation again. I decided it was best to cooperate.

  It was another fifteen minutes before she stopped. She spoke to me in her gibberish again. I raised my head while wiping sweat from my tired eyes.

  “What the…?”

  At first, I believed the heat played tricks on my mind when I saw an alien aircraft protruding from the rock wall. I knew in an instant the thing hadn’t been manufactured on Earth. The object was identical to the description people had recounted about their encounters with Martians. It was a silver sphere, at least two hundred feet wide. It looked as though it had crashed right onto the island, hitting so hard the rocky mountainside had devoured it. The undercarriage was scratched and badly dented. Nature had nearly consumed it. Thick vines hugged the machine’s every curve. Moss had made a home on the roof with flowers and other plant life sprouting from it.

  I stood there, stupefied, until my trance broke when the girl climbed on top of the craft.

  “Ah,” I managed to say. I feared the aircraft would loosen from its rocky bed and fall over, transforming into a sliding whirling disk of death for anyone in its path. But it didn’t budge, even as she walked all over it.

  “Take a picture, Heath,” Gavin said. “Ain’t no one gonna believe this.”

  The girl pointed to the other side of the ship. I walked around it and between the vines was a foot-wide line of glass surrounding the craft. The half that wasn’t supported by rocks stuck out vertically. I could hide under it for shelter, if needed. At the rear—at least, I think it was the rear—where the glass line was, were five diamond shapes lined up side by side. Two of them were broken. They appeared to be bulbs, most likely the kind of lights spotted from the sky. Hanging from the undercarriage was some kind of landing gear. Not a wheel, but three metal poles with a flat end, almost resembling suction cups. The craft wouldn’t have rolled over the ground like an airplane, but hovered down for landings.

  As I came around, the girl crouched at the ship’s edge and pointed to a platform leading into an opening.

  “Ooh, go in,” Gavin urged. “Go in, go in! I wanna see what’s inside.”

  I debated it. I wished the girl could explain things to me, like why she’d brought me to an alien spacecraft and what was inside that she wanted me to see.

  I approached the platform and stopped at the bottom of it, where I took out my gun and aimed it at the ground. The girl objected. She grunted, shook her head, and jumped onto the platform. She was built like a gladiator and took a huge leap to land with ease on an uneven surface. It made me a little jealous.

  She waved me forward and went inside. I didn’t holster my gun, but followed.

  I expected it to be pitch-black inside, but as we entered the craft, everything was as transparent as if we’d entered a glass room. The only thing not translucent was the floor, which was made from a glossy metal. The gripping vines, moss, and everything else outside were visible. From the outside, the ship’s exterior appeared to be solid steel, but the inside told a different story. The front of the ship was totaled. Broken equipment littered the floor. Earth and rock spilled through a large hole caused by its impact. I couldn’t identify anything. What looked like switches could have been something else. Hell, I didn’t even know how they’d steered this thing. There were no chairs, only a cracked glass counter that wrapped around the wall. When I studied the counter top, I found faint symbols imprinted on it.

  The girl’s grunt caused me to turn to her. She waved me over, and I approached another platform leading into a hull. Unlike the rest of the ship, it was dark. The girl held a small torch and a lighter. Where she’d gotten the lighter, I’ll never know, but after lighting the torch, she descended into the hull. I went with her.

  I almost expected some mystical being living on the ship, a being with the answers to all my questions, but the hull was empty, completely and miserably vacant. The empty space might have been used to hold supplies, all of which had been taken by the aliens who’d once manned the ship.

  “Why are we down here?” Gavin asked, as if I knew. He walked ahead, following the girl, and his hunched silhouette reminded me of Igor. “Jeez! Heath, take a gander at this.”

  I joined the girl where she stood by a pile of bones. They looked like the complete skeleton of a large animal. Then I noticed the skull. Kneeling, I picked it up and examined it. It felt spongy, like foam rubber. It had small eye sockets, two tiny holes for a nasal cavity, and toothpick-like teeth. It also had a large crack at the base, revealing how the creature must have died.

  I was in awe. I mean, damn, I was holding the actual skull of an extra-terrestrial. No one on Earth I knew had done that except for those who’d found the ancient Incan tribal skulls and suspected they were alien. But that wasn’t what I was looking at. This was the real deal. I wanted to take it back with me but I didn’t. Instead, I placed the skull back in its original spot with the rest of the skeleton and left the ship with the girl.

  She wanted to show me something else and I followed without argument. After coming across the spacecraft, I could only envision what other wonders she knew about. We left the spaceship and this time headed up.

  We came across mor
e trees covered in slimy, smelly goo. These trees had grown on top of huge boulders sitting close together. I had no intention of touching one, but as we closed in, the girl suddenly stopped and whipped around to face me. She made a series of loud urgent noises, pointing to the trees, shaking her head.

  “I don’t think she wants you touching them,” Gavin said.

  “I gathered,” I retorted.

  Why not, I wondered, then figured it out. The trees made you lose your mind.

  It made sense. Nearly all of us had touched the sap on the trees hours before we’d started seeing things. My hallucinations had worn off because I’d only gotten a little on me, unlike Eric and Point-Blank, who’d gone nuts after they’d been doused with the shit. I wondered if Khenan was still alive and if he’d ridden out his nightmares like me.

  I nodded to the girl, letting her know I understood, and we moved on.

  The journey past the boulders and trees was unnerving. It was like walking through a dangerous labyrinth. I did my best not to touch the gooey sap-covered roots that smothered the rocks. When squeezing through tight spots, I started to perspire, and it wasn’t because of the heat. The rotten egg stench was overwhelming. I nearly vomited.

  After passing through the field of doomsday boulders, we continued on. When we reached the top, we were again on solid ground. The next leg of the trip lasted until we reached a two-story house. A nice house, I might add. One made of logs and stone, with a chimney—though when it was ever cold in the Bermuda Triangle, I had no idea.

  The house sat in a clearing, with the logs likely coming from the surrounding woods. The owner had an actual yard and a garden, and that was where I spotted a woman. The girl made a loud noise to get her attention and the woman turned. She seemed surprised.

  “Abby?” the woman said in an English accent. “What are you doing?”

  Without a word, the girl ran away and vanished down an embankment, taking my machete with her. I stayed in place as the woman approached. She cradled a basket against her hip. As she drew closer, I caught more details about her. She appeared to be in her late thirties or early forties, and wore green Capri pants and a sleeveless shirt. She wore no shoes, and like Carlton, her skin was cocaine-white.

  “Why did she bring you here?” she asked hotly, never breaking her steady stride. “Who are you?”

  “Heath Sharp. And I don’t know why she brought me here. Maybe it has something to do with the dead Vikings.”

  The woman stopped abruptly. “Dead Vikings? Have those bastards finally been killed off? Who’s the poor hero who has Viking blood on his hands? You?”

  “No, a good friend of mine shot two of them. He’s dead now.”

  “Oh,” she said with sympathy. “I’m so sorry.” She took off her dirty gardening gloves and extended a hand to me. “I’m Doctor Calla Newbury.”

  I was about to shake her hand when she quickly withdrew it. She sniffed at me. “You haven’t touched the purple sap have you?”

  “No.”

  “Good. That bloody stuff really stinks.” We shook hands. “What happened to your arm?”

  “I got sliced by a knife,” I answered, glancing at the red seeping through the gauze around my arm.

  “It seems as though it needs to be treated. No worries, I have plenty of salve here. So, tell me, Mr. Sharp, what brings you to my home?”

  I told her about my mission and the people who’d died along the way. I explained that the girl, the one she called Abby, had led me to an alien spacecraft where she’d shown me the occupant’s bones.

  “Really?” she said, surprised but not all that astonished. “You saw Hector? Would you like to meet his sister? She’s in the house playing Mouse Trap.”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  It didn’t fully register what she said even as we approached her house.

  “Did she say sister?” Gavin asked, walking beside me.

  “I can’t believe Abby brought you to me,” Calla said. “It’s quite odd. She’s never done that before.”

  “Does she come here often?”

  “Once in a while. I give her vegetables for her tribe.”

  “So why did she run off like that?”

  “She’s probably hunting. Bringing you here must’ve interrupted her.”

  I had so many questions for this woman, I didn’t know where to begin. I decided to start with the basics. “How long have you’ve been trapped on the island?”

  “Seventy-four years.”

  “Plane or ship?”

  “Boat,” she said as we reached the door to her house. “I’m probably the only one who deliberately trapped herself here.”

  “Why?”

  She scraped her bare feet over a mat, moving like a chicken. “Would you mind taking off your shoes? I keep a clean house.”

  I sat on a small bench beside the door and unlaced my dirty sneakers.

  “I’m a researcher. I study strange occurrences around the world. At least I used to. When my husband died, I went out on a mission—perhaps a suicidal mission—to study the Devil’s Triangle.”

  I slipped off one shoe and unlaced the other.

  “I wanted to know why ships and planes were vanishing. What caused them to drop off the face of the Earth. I rented a boat, brought my notes, and sailed into the Atlantic. Needless to say, I found out.”

  For good measure, I removed my grimy socks. “What did you do, then?”

  “I lived in North Village. South Village wasn’t really built like it is now. Not until the World War II chaps arrived and Worley had enough men to build it. Come in.”

  I followed her inside.

  “I wish Amelia Earhart had crashed here. She would’ve been grand to talk with. She and I are alike, both women who ventured into men’s fields.”

  It was a very clean and picturesque house. The main section had bookshelves not only filled with books, but other items, like ship parts, landing wheels, and brass compasses. On the wall hung portholes and life preservers.

  We came into the kitchen with a dinner table between where the kitchen ended and the rest of the house began. The chimney suddenly made sense. Set in a space between a kitchen counter was a small fireplace where an iron kettle hung over a fire. The makeshift stove had a few pots cooking. Calla placed the basket of vegetables on the counter next to a bowl of water and a jar filled with dead insects.

  “I stayed in the village and studied plants, wildlife, even the people who’d been here long before me.” She explained while taking out the vegetables and washing them in the bowl. “I took notes, but without any kind of scientific equipment, I couldn’t do any real experiments. One day—I think it was in the fifties—I left the village to explore the island, despite the dangers. I’d been looking for answers, after all.”

  “What did you find?”

  She dried her hands on her pants, leaving the vegetables on a cutting board. “Ruby.”

  I followed her through the main section of the house and up a spiral staircase, where we came to a door. Calla knocked on it.

  A strange sound came from behind it, like keys scrapping over a jagged piece of metal. I turned to Gavin and he only shrugged. Calla turned the knob and went inside—or outside, I should say. We stepped onto a large deck with small tables in every corner, sheltered by patio umbrellas. On the tables were objects I couldn’t make out through the mosquito netting hanging from the umbrellas.

  “She likes to be outside,” Calla explained.

  “Who?”

  “Holy moly!” Gavin exclaimed. “That can’t be real.”

  I craned my neck to see the far end of the deck where the alien stood. It was eight feet tall and had a slender neck and an overly large head, the same shape as the skull in the spacecraft. Its body reminded me of a lizard, with a broad chest and skinny waist. I mean anorexic to the point where a young starlet would be jealous. It also had bony hips and long limbs.

  The alien stood by a table, where it dropped a silver ball into a red basket. That began
a chain reaction in a game of Mouse Trap. The metal ball rolled and clanked against the plastic components. My attention wasn’t on the ball, but on the creature from another world.

  “Ruby,” Calla called, “we have a guest.”

  The thing grudgingly turned its head from the game to lay its beady gray eyes on me. It walked toward us, its posture perfectly straight, which made it seem much taller and frightening. I took a step back, every nerve in my legs twitching to make a run for it.

  “Relax,” Calla said. “Ruby isn’t a monster. She’s a highly intelligent being with perfect social skills.”

  Her claim didn’t sell me, especially after seeing the alien get its jollies off on a child’s board game. “How do you know it’s a girl?”

  “She, not it,” Calla snapped. “And I know because she told me.”

  “Beeesides,” Ruby said in a voice like tearing Velcro, “can’t you ssseeee my vaginaaaa?”

  My eyes focused on her stilt legs. What appeared to be two milky-white flaps of skin hung between them.

  “Jeez, porn stars have privates tighter than hers,” Gavin chortled.

  “You speak English?” I asked, quickly shifting my eyes up her body. Ruby’s hands and feet were large and bony, with long black nails curled in short spirals.

  “I speeeeak hundreds of languagesss. Ssseverrral are yoursss.”

  “She taught me a few of our other languages,” Calla said. “German, French, Portuguese, and Spanish.” She said something to Ruby in Russian. It sounded like a question.

  “Nnnyet,” Rudy replied.

  “See?” Calla said.

  “I . . . I think I need to sit down,” I said, glancing around for a chair. There were none.

  “Ruby’s kind doesn’t sit,” Calla said. “Come with me back downstairs. I’ll make you some tea.”

  I followed her downstairs and Ruby came with us. Calla offered me a chair near a window.