Atlantic Pyramid

by Michelle E Lowe

  “When?”

  “Not too long ago. I’ve been trying to find you.”

  “Damn it. How did he come up with the same idea?”

  “He didn’t. He had a tail on you after he left. His spy must’ve heard you telling me and Killian about your plan.”

  I remembered the man I’d seen running down the stairs after I’d left Carlton’s place. Touché, Starr.

  “Hi, Carlton,” Calla called.

  The old man squinted at her.

  “Kathy? Oh, it’s Calla now, is it? It’s been ages. Look how you’ve grown! The last time I saw you, you were barely a teenager.”

  “We have to go,” I urged before they started reminiscing. “I’ll take care of this, Carlton.”

  “Good luck.”

  Calla took Khenan and me on a short journey into the wooded hillside, then through a slim crawl space under a rock protruding from the mountainside.

  “It took me a while to move these rocks out of the way,” she said, motioning to the rock pile inside the cave. “I think someone moved them before me and put them back.”

  “Did your people seal off every cave entrance big enough for people to fit through?”

  “After the Vikings came, our ancestors sealed off the caves to keep them from venturing underground.” She crawled inside on her belly and vanished into the darkness. “It’s a tight squeeze, lads.”

  I gave Khenan a lantern and went in after her. After squeezing through a space just a hair short of rib-cracking closeness, we headed through a tunnel. Calla’s shortcut got us to the energy pool twice as fast as the last time. When we got there, everything seemed quiet enough.

  “Good, we beat them here,” I whispered. “Calla, go warn everyone what’s about to happen. Khenan and I—”

  “Warn us about what?” came a voice out of the darkness.

  Frankie came into view of our lamplight. He held my gun trained on me. He wasn’t alone. With him was Dustan and Amos. They looked pissed.

  “’Im be da whitest man I’ve ever seen,” Khenan whispered.

  I noticed several more faces appearing in the light.

  “Kathy,” Frankie said, “looks to me like you’ve spent too much time living on the surface.”

  “It’s Calla now,” she returned. “And you should try living up there. I look much healthier than you.”

  Frankie snorted and set his sights on me. “I didn’t expect to see you after your daring escape. Where’s Killian?”

  “On his way right now. He’s guiding a bunch of outsiders to this very spot.”

  He looked baffled. “You’re lying.”

  “No, I’m not. They’re bringing explosives to blow this place. I strongly advise getting your people out of here.”

  “Put the gun down,” Calla ordered. “We have work to do.”

  “But . . .” Frankie stammered, “they can’t. This is our home. Why do you people want to hurt us?”

  This was the very reason why I’d wanted to take things slow. There were so many questions to answer, so much preparation to do. We needed to hold a meeting, set the stage before performing this play. Rushing an evacuation of scared, confused people could cause many unpleasant turns. If they decided to stand and fight, things would get messy. I imagined many horrible things happening, like an accident involving explosives. Unless they went peacefully, nothing good was going to come from this.

  “This place isn’t home anymore,” Calla said. “It’s time for our people to walk in the light where we belong.”

  “We’ll go blind,” Frankie said, his tone wavering.

  “No, I’m proof we won’t. We haven’t lived in the pitch blackness. In time, our eyes will become accustomed to the light. You have to trust me.”

  “We should fight!” Dustan yelled. “We have the element of surprise.”

  “You don’t have shit!” I bellowed, fed up with the whole thing. “If you don’t go right now, you risk getting killed. You want your children to end up crushed to death under tons of stone because you’re too fucking busy being dead to get them out of harm’s way?”

  What I said led to muttering. I thought I was getting through to them. Then Starr yelled, “He’s right. You don’t have shit on us.”

  I looked back as he and a group of others emerged from the mouth of a cave. With him was Killian and what looked like five of Killian’s people.

  “Those are our best lookouts,” Frankie muttered in disbelief. No doubt, the sight of their finest held captive shocked him.

  While Frankie was distracted, I snatched my gun from his hand. He almost lunged at me, but I held up a fist and gritted my teeth in warning, and he stayed put.

  “Help me,” Killian pleaded to his people. “Please, someone get me away from these beasts!”

  “Let him go, Starr,” I said.

  Amazingly, he did. “Go on, shoo,” he said, shoving Killian. “We don’t need you now.”

  Killian stumbled away, his hand on his chest as if he was suffering a heart attack. Amos came to aid him.

  “And the others,” I said, stopping an arm’s length from Starr.

  “Don’t try to stop us,” he growled.

  “This isn’t the way to do this. You don’t need to hurt anyone.”

  “They locked us up for sixty years,” Clint hollered from behind Starr. “We did nothing to them and they put us in cages like animals!”

  “Are you willing to make the next generation pay for what their ancestors did?” I challenged.

  He didn’t respond.

  “Heath,” Starr said calmly, “we just want to go home.”

  “So do I, but killing these people won’t help.” When I saw that he wasn’t completely won over, I added, “Going on a killing spree will only delay detonation. Think about it.”

  He glared at me. Then, with a grin, he said, “You’re a manipulative asshole. All right, you have till we set up the explosives. That should give you practically the whole night.”

  “Sounds great.” I held out my hand to shake in a truce. After the shit he’d pulled, I really didn’t want to, but I needed to keep the peace as long as possible. “Don’t mess this up. We only have one shot at this.”

  We shook. Just as I was about to let go, he yanked me toward him and whispered, “And don’t let any of those sons of bitches attack us or this place will become their burial ground.”

  I kept eye contact with him, my expression as serious as his. Eventually, he let go of my hand and said, “Good luck to you.”

  I wanted to break his nose but I stood in place as he ordered the volunteers to release the prisoners. After the five were cut free, we hurried up the tunnel to the village above.

  * * *

  At least the evacuation went well. Once Killian’s group told everyone what was going to happen, no one tried to resist. There were a few mild protests but those people eventually listened to reason. I did feel bad about their situation. They were given the choice of leaving everything behind or getting blown up. I tried to see the bright side. I saw Calla as a strong, healthy woman in comparison to her people, even the youngsters. She was right. They belonged in the light like the rest of us. Some wouldn’t adapt right away, and others might never adjust, but, in time, the majority would ease into it and thrive. They’d learn new things and grow as a community.

  I remembered what Ruby had said about how anything that values its life would do what was necessary to stay alive. Was it solely the fear that kept these people from venturing aboveground or had this island provoked them to evolve where they had to protect its life source? Not all plans work. These people weren’t warriors. They lacked fighting experience, and worse, because of small-minded fear mongers like Killian, they lacked the knowledge of those they considered to be their enemies. No matter, eventually someone would have figured out the island’s secrets if I hadn’t.

  Hours went by before everyone gathered what they needed and headed down the cave. My nerves were wracked as we entered the energy pool chamber. From th
e additional light, I spotted dozens of wide, rocky columns. They seemed to support the floor to the chamber above. People were busy stacking gunpowder barrels and bricks of TNT everywhere. With all the torches moving around, it amazed me that no one had blown themselves up already. What irked me were the hard stares we received as Calla, Khenan, and I led the line of these soon-to-be-homeless underground dwellers around the pond. It would only take a few cross words to ignite a conflict and bring us to an explosive confrontation. But no one said a word to each other and we slowly trailed out.

  “Will you get them to the village where Ruby’s body is?” I asked Calla as we journeyed through the narrow passageways.

  “You think it’s best to keep them away from North Village?”

  “For the moment, yeah. There’s that cargo ship pretty close to shore. I think you should gather everyone onto it. Being on land might not be the safest place to be with the amount of explosives they’re loading down there.”

  “Good idea. Where are you going?”

  “Back to North Village.” Then I added a lie. “To collect my things.”

  We resurfaced in the wooded area between North Village and the village of the Obsoletes. Khenan and I parted from the pack and headed home.

  “Wah if it doesn’t work, mon?”

  “I’m trying not to think of that. When we get back, you should pack up everything you want to keep and tell everyone to get to the docks.”

  “I’d be very upset if it doesn’t work.”

  “You and me both.”

  The sky began to brighten by the time we reached home. I realized how late in the night it was, or early in the morning, I should say.

  Marissa and Tammy asked us what was going on. I told them to tell everyone to pack their things and get down to the docks, then I headed up the stairs alone, only I didn’t stop at my hut.

  When I reached the boarded-up door, I took a moment to ask myself if this was what I really wanted. Was I prepared to take the next step? The only way to know was to go in.

  The boards nailed over the window had just enough space between them for me to slip my hand through and yank them off. I threw them off to the side and climbed inside. My lantern lit up the dark house. Its warm glow illuminated my way to Eleanor’s body.

  Nothing had changed since the day I’d said farewell to her. She remained on the floor, untouched by decay, resting in a pool of dark blood, her hand clutching the gun. I placed the lantern near her head and knelt beside her.

  “Are you gonna do what I think you’re gonna do?” Gavin asked.

  “What if . . .” I said, my lips dry when I spoke. “What if there’s a landslide and it crushes the house? What do you think would happen to her soul, then?”

  “Couldn’t say. Nothing might happen. Just, whatever you do, consider her more than yourself.”

  “I am.”

  “Then here we are.”

  Here we were. I’d made a dumb promise to let her be. What right did I have to force her to be around me forever? If the plan worked and we could return to the outside world, would the rules of the dead still apply? Or would souls move on to some other place? This could be the only time I’d have to tell her goodbye face to face. Who wouldn’t jump at the chance to speak to a departed loved one, one last time?

  Without putting too much thought into it, I lifted her and held her against me. The sunlight crept through the window, sweeping a bright golden glow throughout the entire house.

  “Heath, darling,” she said, “what took you so long?”

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  She stood in the sunlight. The morning glow had turned most of her hair white; the rest was clumped in red. Blood dripped from her jaw line, onto her shoulder, sliding down her arm and chest. Having her stand there made me almost forget I was holding her dead body.

  “How do you feel?” I asked.

  “Fine, I suppose. I’ve been cooped up in this house for so long.”

  “Did you see us after you shot yourself?”

  “I saw everyone. You looked so sad.”

  “Is Darwin with you?”

  “No,” she answered with a pleasant smile. “He had no choice but to leave when there was no host to attach himself to.”

  That was the best news I’d heard in a while.

  “Now we can be together, darling.”

  “For a little while, at least. We’re blowing up the island today.”

  “Really? How exciting!”

  She looked at me a moment, then shifted her eyes to her corpse. “You should put that down. It’s useless now.”

  “I thought I’d bury your body properly.”

  “If the island is going to be destroyed, why bother? I’m not attached to the thing any longer. Leave it here.”

  She approached me as gray light cast a gloom over the golden morning. I looked up at her from the floor as if she was my queen and I was her humble servant. She reached for my face. I couldn’t feel her touch, even though her hand was on my cheek.

  “It’s all right, darling, leave it behind.”

  I placed her body on the bed, folded her hands over her chest, and covered her with a blanket.

  “Let’s go outside,” she said. “I don’t want to miss the excitement.”

  I crawled through the window. Everyone was headed for the docks.

  “Oh, they finished it,” she observed.

  “Yep.”

  “I wasn’t able to see its completion after they boarded up my windows. I couldn’t even leave the house.”

  “Really?” That depressed me. “I wished I’d known. I would’ve come for you sooner.”

  “I wish you had. But the docks look perfect.”

  “Except now it looks like they’re going to be used as a safety plank instead of a floating suburb.”

  “Everything is done for a reason,” she remarked.

  We walked side by side down the stairs. I wished I could hold her hand.

  “It’s good to see you again,” I told her. “I’ve missed you.”

  “I’ve missed you too. And whatever happens from this point on, I’m glad to have had this time with you.”

  Her words relieved me. I worried she’d be upset at what I’d done but her eyes told me she was content. I was thrilled to have her by my side again.

  Those who’d gone underground to set up the explosives were returning to the docks. I looked forward to finding a secluded place with Eleanor so we could watch the island fall apart.

  “Everything’s set,” Starr said.

  I turned around and found him standing at least a dozen steps above me. “Good for you,” I said flatly.

  “Want to come with me for a final sweep of the place before doing the honors?”

  “You totally screwed me,” I returned harshly. “Do it yourself.”

  “We found the critical answers together. It seems only right to end it together.”

  “What, we’re best buds again, now that you got your way?”

  “What’s past is past,” he said. “What matters is here and now.”

  He turned and went back up the stairs. The rage I felt for him made my stomach tighten. Granted, the chance to blow up an island didn’t come along every day, but I’d rather hang out with a mass murderer than go with Starr.

  “Let’s go,” Eleanor’s lovely voice chimed in.

  My head fell sideways onto my shoulder, my eyes rolling over to her. “I’d much rather spend time with you.”

  “It’ll be exciting,” she encouraged.

  In truth, I’d had enough excitement to fill the life of a stunt double. But when those big blue eyes of hers latched onto mine, I couldn’t say no. We followed Starr.

  Once again, I journeyed underground. The three of us came to a cave entrance with dozens of boulders piled around its mouth. Eleanor hummed sweetly beside me until her voice and image faded.

  “I just want to tell you I’m sorry for the shit that went down,” Starr said as I followed him through a tunnel thin enou
gh to force us to walk slightly sideways.

  “Save it,” I returned sharply. “I thought you were cool, but you’re really just a dick, running high on testosterone.”

  “True,” he concurred. “This place freaked me out in the worst way. I don’t understand how any of this can be real. It’s a lot to take in.”

  “It was a lot for me to take in but I didn’t flip the fuck out.”

  “In my defense, you’ve been here longer than me. You had time to adsorb it. I got shit thrown at me like an angry monkey.”

  “The hell with you. You have no idea what I’ve been through. You were willing to kill people to get to this point.”

  He said nothing to that.

  “Whatever,” I said. “By the way, I quit.”

  We came to the energy pool chamber where others stood by the edge of the water.

  “Lafitte?” I said in surprise.

  Beside him was his crewman, Judson, also an underground dweller. That’s why he’d spotted me in the dark when I’d first found The Pride. He had great night vision. I wondered if Lafitte had known or just found out.

  Lafitte held a glowing lantern in one hand, a lit pipe in the other. “Bonjour, Monsieur Sharp.” He turned to Judson. “Merci for guiding me, mon ami. You should go and reunite with your kind.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain,” Judson humbly said before darting off into a nearby tunnel.

  “They’re at the village on the other side of the island,” I shouted in case he didn’t already know. He didn’t answer back.

  “What a wonderful day to blow up an island, non?” Lafitte stated.

  “If you don’t put out that pipe, we’ll be included in the show,” I said as Starr and I approached. “What are you doing down here?”

  “Shubrick came to my ship ranting about how people came to his kingdom and stole his gunpowder. Naturally, I was curious, so we wandered over to see what the fuss was all about.”

  My eyes snagged on the sword under his leather belt. “Why do you have that?”

  Lafitte glanced down at his weapon, then raised his eyes to me. “A smart man always arms himself when traveling into potential danger. Guns are too risky since killing isn’t wise. There is more control with a sword.”