Travis. I thought.
“The illusssions the fragggment producesss responds to actions. Where there’sss an action, there’sss a reaction, and when anyone givesss thessse illusssions attention, they unknowingly let off a charggge of enerrrgy causssed by their acknowledgement, allowing the illusssion to return. When ignored, the impossster lossesss that connnnection.”
“Have you found out how the island can draw fake spirits to someone?”
“Yesss. When a sssoul isss asleep, it taaakes a certain amount of disssturbance to awaaaken it, such asss moving the body or shaaaking it hard enough to rouse it.”
“Like waking up a sleeping person?”
“Yesss. The fragggment hasss figured out how to connect the illusssions of the dead to the living by waaay of alternating currents to laaatch onto our own enerrrgy sssource.”
What she said reminded me of those plasma globes I’d seen at novelty stores, the ones with the neon currents that were attracted by the touch of a person.
“What about the urge that Lafitte talked about? The one that drew him to his first mate? I had the same experience with Gavin.”
“Once the fragggment hasss you within itsss boundaries, it hasss waaaysss to control you. Not completely, but in smaaall waaaysss to get you to dooo whaaat it wantsss, such asss usssing the connection the perssson already hasss with a deceasssed companion.”
“Sort of like installing an addiction in someone?”
“Yesss. The clossser a perssson gets to the body, the lesss connntrol they haaave to resissst.”
“Lafitte said the island is changing and trying to communicate with us about a means to an end. Like it’s ready to die or something.”
“He isss half-right. The fragggment is weakening.”
“Weakening? How?”
“I’m not suuure, but I’ve noticed the changesss myssself. Something isss causssing it turmoil. But it’sss not trying to communicate, it only wantsss an endlesss supply of nourrrishment.”
“Meaning it wants to bring in more people as others die off,” I surmised, wrapping the bandages around her arm. “Like an entire cruise ship?”
“Indeed.”
“If the island stays, it’ll swallow up more people.”
“Yesss. Itsss appetite hasss become more dangerousss. It’ll continue taking in living organisms for asss long asss it existsss.”
I pondered that for a moment. It hurt to think about all those people yanked from their lives, only to serve as a dish for some hungry moon rock.
“Now that the island is weakening, it’s the perfect time to find its sweet spot and stab it, right?”
“Yesss.”
I still had a long way to go in tending her wounds, so I asked, “What’s your kind like?”
“Currrious,” she said. “Passionnnate and peaceful. Our race yearrrns to learrrn and explore.” She seemed to laugh a little. I couldn’t tell. “I think we’re like the fragggment. We must absorrrb everything we can in orderrr to surrrvive.”
“I think all living things share that nature,” I said, cleaning a gash across her back. “How smart do you think the island is? How far would it go to protect itself?”
“Like anything that valuesss itsss life, thisss plaaace will do what isss necessaaary to staaay alive.”
I came around to clean and smear salve on her chest, meeting her eyes.
“And the deeper we gooo, the more dangerousss I fear our search will become.”
* * *
When Starr touched the ground, I showed him the blood trail and the cave it led to.
“Damn,” he said, peering into the tunnel with his own candle. “What do you think happened to the body?”
“An animal, I’m guessing. We should be careful.”
The large chamber had several openings to other caves, some reaching as high as the ceiling, others low enough for only a peek inside. Each cave varied in size, some small enough for only a toddler to fit through. We discussed briefly which one to enter, since splitting up wasn’t an option.
We snuffed out the candles and lit torches before entering the mouth of a fourteen-foot cave that descended into the cool unknown underground. The temperature dropped significantly and a breeze increased the farther we went into it. An odd sensation took over. Each nerve in my body tingled and every strand of my hair rose as though an electrical current traveled through me. I felt charged, my senses sharpened to a fine point, and I was more aware than I ever remembered being. Starr expressed that he experienced the same sensation and that even in his prime he’d never possessed this kind of energy. Ruby healed instantly and tore off her bandages.
The ground wasn’t exactly smooth but was carpeted in dirt, making for an easy trek. Then the cave started to close in on us. There were entrances to other passageways, and when the ceiling dropped a little too low, we slipped into another tunnel.
“This place is a labyrinth,” I said. “We’re going to get lost if we don’t mark where we’ve been.”
“Don’t worry,” Ruby said. “I have a superrrb memorrry. I can retrace our stepsss.”
We walked through the tunnels for hours, stopping only to eat.
“It’s odd that we haven’t run into any dead ends,” Starr pointed out as I stirred a pot of soup over a fire. “It’s like this place is completely interconnected.”
“We arrre in the islandsss’ lungsss,” Ruby stated.
“Come again?” Starr said.
“We’re in the lungsss of the fragggment,” she explained.
“Are you saying this place breathes?” Starr challenged.
“Haven’t you noticed a pattern of airflooow?”
She was onto something. The air came in one way, then went out the other in a rhythmic pattern, as though somewhere in the caves something inhaled and exhaled. The air that was pulled in felt more intense than the air going out.
“Do you really think there’s some kind of life source here?” Starr asked Ruby.
“Yesss.”
“How will we know when we find it?”
“I’m thinking it won’t be hard to miss,” I said. “The question is can we actually destroy it?”
“It dependsss on what we’re dealing with,” Ruby said.
We ate and moved on, traveling through another cave with a high ceiling and narrow walls. My shoulders scrapped painfully against either side, forcing me to walk canted to one side. Ruby had to do the same. She had a thin frame but her shoulders were wider than a football player in pads.
Starr led the way through the narrow passageway. I wanted his place but he’d won the coin toss. I just hoped the tunnel didn’t narrow down any more, forcing us to turn back after coming all this way.
“Hey,” Starr said, stopping, “do you hear that?”
In the silence, a faint but steady roar, like heavy traffic, echoed in a distance.
“What is that? Water?” I asked.
“Probably.”
“Where there’sss waaater, there’sss life,” Ruby put in.
I swallowed my nervousness. What kind of living things would we find down here?
“Let’s move,” Starr commanded.
As we pressed on, the roar grew louder, until I could identify it as a waterfall. I became more alert and prepared for any creatures we might face. Ruby’s comment knocked ten points off my courage card. I was glad Starr had won the toss to take the lead after all.
Paranoia kept me glancing over my shoulder, to the point my neck ached. But the pain disappeared the moment the floor beneath Ruby and Starr caved in. They dropped from sight in a heartbeat. I’d been close enough to nearly fall in with them, but I managed to stumble backward as the ground crumbled like dry clay underfoot. I fell back, landing on my ass, but on solid ground.
I picked up my torch and leaned over the edge, calling out to them. They weren’t there. Instead, a fifteen-foot drop into rushing water went by as fast as white water rapids. The roar of the current drowned out my voice.
It didn’
t matter. They were gone and I had no idea where they were headed. I envisioned the river led to a pool somewhere, possibly back outside.
“Gavin!” I screamed. “I need your help! Where are you?”
He never appeared.
Finding the life source of the island dissolved. Finding my friends was my new priority. My first dumb thought was to jump in after them, but I refrained from doing so. If the current happened to fork, I could go the wrong way. If I cracked my head on a rock, what good would I be to them—if they were still alive. I worried for Ruby the most. Starr, like me, still wore his helmet, but Ruby’s body wasn’t equipped to withstand much abuse.
I hated it, but I decided to continue through the cave and search for them on foot.
“Gavin, where the hell are you?”
I panned my torch around, expecting him to appear in the fiery light, but he never showed. I didn’t know why he wasn’t here but I had no time to stand around, waiting.
I sucked in my gut and leapt over the opening, imagining the floor caving in the moment I landed on the opposite side. It didn’t and I moved on.
The tunnel inclined drastically and my feet started sliding. The ground got very slippery. Fat water droplets dripped from the ceiling, annoying me whenever they landed on my shoulders. The waterfall sounded closer. I guesstimated it to be somewhere to my right and the stream that had taken Ruby and Starr came from it.
I kept a hand on the damp wall, giving myself as much balance as a tightrope walker in a high wind. Eventually, I crouched and skidded on my feet over the incline. The torch’s flame withstood the extra breeze until the ground left my feet and I dropped into four feet of water. I didn’t even see the drop-off coming. A tunnel of darkness was the only thing visible and my entire body was soaked. A perfect setting for a horror scene—moron caught in the dark, regretting every decision that had led him to this point.
I stood up and groped the air blindly with one hand, while holding the now useless torch in the other. I found a ledge and hoisted myself out of the water. As I stood in the pitch blackness, with the sound of drops striking the floor, I flicked my lighter. Only small sparks flashed from it, the flint too wet for a flame. Yet sparks were a good sign. Time, however, wasn’t on my side. I had to find Ruby and Starr. Even if they were dead, I had to know.
I didn’t worry about finding my way out. I’d pretty much gotten lost the second Ruby and I had separated. With no light to guide me, I took the course slowly.
To my good fortune, the floor leveled out and I could walk without the fear of slipping. Falling was another story. I had no idea if or when the ground would cave in beneath me. That it had collapsed so easily when Starr and Ruby had walked over it made me realize the island was getting weaker. The island’s distress would be sweet if not for being deep in its bowels.
I hummed as a distraction and flicked my lighter until my thumb throbbed. After a while, a flame sparked to life. I wanted to jump for joy but I restrained myself and kept going.
It wasn’t long afterwards that a raunchy stench burned my nostrils and made me gag. I’d smelled it before but I couldn’t remember where.
The tunnel opened up and a gust of wind blew my lighter out. I stepped into the quiet opening, no longer feeling the walls around me, and stopped. I wasn’t completely in the dark, though. Above me were thousands of glowing pale green lights, each the size of a tennis ball, blinking like oversized fireflies. They amazed me to no end.
The smell persisted and was something I could have done without. I tried flicking my lighter, only to have the flame extinguished by the breeze. I decided to try my last flare. I brought it out and ignited it. Big mistake. If only I’d known what those beautiful lights were and recognized that horrible stench, I would’ve crept through the darkness like a rat looking for a hole to scamper into.
The chamber lit up in a bright flash of red and white as thousands of bats went mad. When the flare erupted, they screeched and flew frantically around. Some dropped to the floor into mounds of their own guano.
Even having a heart attack, I refused to backtrack. I swatted at any creature that came near me as I ran toward the nearest exit with thoughts of my limbs being bitten off. My feet didn’t stop even when I was well into the throat of the other tunnel.
My heart pounded against my ribs and I shook like a Chihuahua. I tried to collect myself until a strange scratching sound caught my attention. It was accompanied by chirping and hissing. The cave’s walls, ceiling, and floor were covered in millions of insects, some as large as my face. I hurried on, ignoring their crunch under my feet.
I went through the cave and exited into something extraordinary. It was the largest chamber yet and the energy from it was overwhelming. Bugs no longer crunched under the soles of my shoes. Instead, I stepped on soft moss. Sprouting from it were flowers, tall mushrooms, and small trees no higher than my waist. In the center of the stadium-sized chamber was a pool of dark water.
My flare fizzled out. I wrapped what was left of the first aid gauze around the head of my torch and flicked the lighter to set it ablaze. I staked the torch in the soft earth beside a wide rock column and knelt beside the pool.
The water bubbled like a hot tub. The wind entered it for a moment, then flowed out again, escaping through hundreds of holes in the ceiling and passageways. Curious, I held my hand over it, feeling every hair stand on end. Blue electrical currents shot into my arm and fingertips, causing my heart to skip a beat.
I snatched my hand away and fell back on my ass, holding my wrist. It occurred to me that this was the water the fragment had stored within itself and I might have found the island’s life source.
Where there is water, there is life.
I picked up the torch and straightened to my full height, ready to search for Ruby and Starr. Instead, I turned and found myself face to face with a ghost. Only it wasn’t Gavin.
“Who the bloody fuck are you?” the ghost asked, pointing a sword at my chest.
I raised my hand that held the torch and gave him a fake smile. He was the oddest thing I’d seen. His skin was so pale he glowed. He had black hair and eyes, with a shade of gray around both. He wore torn pants with a sleeveless shirt and no shoes.
I reached slowly for the pistol tucked under my belt. “Just someone who took a wrong turn.”
A sharp point pressed against my back. “Don’t do it, wanker!” shouted another voice behind me.
I raised my other hand after my weapon was taken from me.
“Is it a gun?” the man in front asked. Their British accents threw me for a loop.
“Aye, should we fire it off?”
“No, idiot, save the bullets. It’s not every day we get a loaded gun, eh?”
The other person finally walked around to face me. He, too, looked like a corpse, only his hair was dark red. He wore no shirt, just a pair of ratty brown pants and one sock on his left foot. In his hand was also a sword.
“What’s that thing on your head?”
“It’s a helmet.”
The redhead demanded that I give it to him, and I did. He put it on. “What should we do with him, eh?”
I threw in my two cents. “Let him go?”
“Quiet, you,” the black-haired one ordered. “You have no rights anymore. You belong to us now.”
“Let’s take him to see what Killian wants to do. He might think we have too many of these as it is.”
“Too many of what?” I asked, already forgetting the order to keep quiet.
They didn’t yell at me. Instead, the black-haired one actually answered me. “Other aboveground buggers like you. Killian might decide we have too many. And if so, you’re in real trouble.”
Chapter Thirty-three
We journeyed beside the pond and past other wide columns. My head was bloated with questions and concerns. Not concern for my own wellbeing, but for my friends. I said nothing about them. If they were alive, I didn’t want these people searching for them. They weren’t friendly and I ha
d no idea what they were capable of.
My torch was what must have drawn them. I was allowed to keep it only because it seemed they didn’t need light to guide them. We walked around the pond and through another cave, where a tunnel inclined upward in a spiral.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Shut it,” the redhead snapped. “You’ll bloody well know soon enough.”
“Are you from England?”
“I said shut it. We don’t like your kind coming down here, sniffing about.”
“My kind?”
“Frankie!” exclaimed the black-haired man, “stop chatting with him.”
“He’s the one who won’t bloody shut his trap, Amos.”
Amos whipped around to face me, jabbing a finger at my chest. “Listen, boy-o, you’re ours now. From here on out, you don’t speak unless you’re spoken to. You don’t ask questions unless you’re given permission to, got it?”
“Got it,” I grunted.
We continued through the cave until it opened up to reveal a dark village. This chamber appeared to be the same size as the one below us. Stairways carved into the walls spiraled upward and led to hollow spaces that appeared to be homes. Tall poles were staked in the ground, burning blue and green flames inside glass lamps. My own torch was taken away and tossed to the side.
We stepped into what looked like a marketplace on the ground level, passing shops made of wood. Other ghostly figures glared at us. In the center of the market was a small stage where costumed children performed.
“What slew none and yet slew twelve?” a young boy said to a girl dressed like a princess.
“A raven ate from a dead poisoned horse and died from it. Then twelve robbers ate the raven and died from that,” the princess said.
The boy laughed. “Ha, ha, ha! You have not solved the riddle but merely sought the answer while I slept.”
“And what proof do you have?” she challenged.
The boy beckoned three other boys over to him. Each carried a robe. “Your robes, my lady. Each one found in my bedchambers. And this one . . .” He pointed to the robe in the middle. “. . . will be embroidered in gold and silver and be worn on our wedding day.”
Atlantic Pyramid Page 28