He motioned toward the beach, “There is something I need to share with you too.”
“Eh, too many ears around here. Let me kick off my Jandals,” she said while stepping off the trail. Ayla took off her sandals and placed them at the base of a palm tree.
Logan gestured in a direction toward the jetty. He stepped off the walkway and she could tell that he was stiff and in pain, “Were you injured?” She was looking at him attempting to understand where the pain was coming from.
“Well, if you were to look at the scratches on my chest you would swear that I have been attacked by a bear or something. I’m not just sore, I’m a lot sore. If that makes sense,” he was walking a little gingerly.
“Let me see,” Ayla demanded.
Logan stopped walking and pulled his shirt up. Seven scratches from three to five inches long ran in crossing patterns on his chest and abdomen. Ayla pulled up her cell phone and took a photo of the marks. She noted the width and depth of each scratch.
“You studying my injury?” he asked.
“Na, make your abs my new wallpaper on the computer,” she laughed. “You didn’t do a great job cleaning up the cuts. Several spots are fairly deep…you should get stitches. Butterfly band-aids aren’t the best option.”
“You’re a doctor?”
“Yeah nah…not the medical field, but I know bloody well when someone needs stitches.”
He pulled his shirt back down and they continued to walk on the beach near the line of mature coconut palms. “Okay, I apologize if this seems rude or insensitive, but I have to know. Who are you? Why was that thing following you?”
The smile faded but she expected the question. It was less than a year since the incident and it was still difficult to talk to anyone about it. “Well, I’m an archaeologist…Egyptologist, originally. I specialize in ancient languages…hieroglyphs. I began to focus more on the Central American cultures. Last year I was contacted by Dr. Dennis Smith. He believed that he had stumbled on some ancient Mayan hieroglyphs in the jungle, way out in the wop-wops to the west of Tulum.”
“Wop-wops?” Logan inquired.
“The middle of nowhere. How did he find that bloody place? Some of the glyphs were odd and he had never seen anything like them before. He wanted me to help interpret them.” Her hands began to tremble as she recalled the experience. “We tramped through the jungle and made it to the site. There was this wall of glyphs behind a curtain of vines. Seems like it was intended to be…a warning to anyone who read it. Over time a thick wall of vines had grown over it making it virtually invisible. It was by chance that he found it. If you objectively interpret the meaning, it seems that it was a recording of a tragic event that happened it Tulum. It quite possibly could be the reason for the fall of the Mayan empire. An event so important that it could rewrite Mayan history,” she said looking up making eye contact with Logan.
To Logan, it was obvious that she was uncomfortable sharing the information. But if it was related to the creatures from the water and beach he needed to know. “And, what was the interpretation?”
“It noted a blue-eyed white man coming from the sea…possibly fitting one of the descriptions of a god named Kukulkan or Quetzalcoatl…depending on if you were Maya or Aztec,” she noted.
“He was a feathered serpent that transformed into a blue-eyed man with white hair—”
“Yeah. According to these glyphs, this blue-eyed man, who was clearly taller than the Mayans, struck the leaders of Tulum down from the top of one of the temples. Then, it looks like flying alien ships came from the sea and took a bunch of the Mayan people. There was a symbol…an oval with a V in the center. It looked like an eye with an oddly shaped pupil,” she said.
Logan pulled the phone from a holster on his side and punched a few buttons, then turned the phone to Ayla, “Like this?” he asked showing her the symbol from the box that once held the piece of metal that was essential in fighting off the aggressive aliens twice.
Ayla’s eyebrow rose in surprise to see the symbol again. She rolled the phone in her hand over to see the screen. Within a few seconds, she found the image from the glyph and put her phone by his, “Yeah, exactly like that. The doctor noted drawings in some underground caverns nearby that backed up the glyphs. He wanted me to see them, but we had to go underground and he didn’t have a flashlight. He returned to camp to get one while I waited by the wall of glyphs. I heard this strange noise over a ridge and smelled a bad odor. I hid behind the wall of vines in a crack on the side of the rock wall. If it would have been a jaguar it would have smelled me and that would have been that. That’s not what it was. This tall creature, not like the thing on the beach today, climbed up the ledge and walked into the camp. The bloody screams, I can still hear them. It was awful and brutal. It killed them…dismembered them limb by limb…actually it was two of those things, they attacked from two sides. They threw some of the body parts up into the trees…not sure why. Blood and body parts were everywhere. Dr. Smith’s body was never found. I do not know what happened to him.
“Then I saw this strange ancient-looking Mayan man…like a bloody ghost, waving at me by a rock wall. He was desperately waving almost pleading with me to come to where he was. One of the aliens left its weapon on the ground…one of the guides escaped and it set its weapon down and chased him, then returned to the camp. I ran from the covering, grabbed the gun…weapon and ran toward the Mayan. There was a hole in the ground. I really didn’t want to get in it and froze for a second trying to figure out what to do. That was about the time when the men stopped screaming…I guess they were dead at that point. A pair of hands grabbed my ankles and yanked me into the hole. I’m not sure why I didn’t scream or get hurt. I’m not sure why they couldn’t find me. I guess their tracking abilities aren’t so great.”
“Who grabbed you?”
“Eh…never figured that out. Bloody ghost I reckon. I was all alone. Never saw anyone in that cavern.”
While listening to Ayla, Logan counted the number of steps they had taken from the walkway. He stopped and turned to her, “Is it okay if we sit down for a second?”
“I’m a bit knackered. Sure, I can sit but this dress is expensive. If I wasn’t so scared, I could lay down and take a nap right here right now. But, the second I do,” she pointed to the water, “some bloody alien will come out of that water for me.”
Logan pulled off his button-up shirt and laid it out for her to sit on, “That is kind of why we are here.”
“Awe, thanks. That was sweet,” she said as he took her hand and helped her sit. “But, what surprise do you have up your sleeve, well if you had any?”
He plopped down in the sand near a blooming royal palm and winced in pain for a second. Through grinding teeth, he said, “Please continue.” Logan looked around for a second, then shoved his hand in the sand.
“Eh…I stayed there all bloody night and never saw or heard anyone in the hole. When I finally got the nerve to turn on my flashlight, it turned out to be the opening to a large cavern. It was the next day when I surfaced and found the remains. I grabbed a satellite phone and called the authorities for help, but it was nearly noon before anyone found me. While I waited, I went back into the cavern to hide. I explored the area. It looks like a large group of people; a small village had lived there at one time. The area was huge with a freshwater spring bubbling up in the middle of it. The stream carried on for several hundred feet before going underground again.
“I found the images on the cavern walls that the Doctor was talking about,” Ayla ran her finger from right to left on the phone showing Logan the photos of the cavern.
Logan stopped her when the painted images of the blue-eyed man began to roll by, “So, that is him… Kukulkan? They started following you after that?”
“Yes. Well, I’m not sure when they started following me. Once the story got out, the buzzards in the media had a field day with it. Every bloke on one side wanted desperately to debunk what I said had happened and every
bloke on the other side desperately wanted it to be true. Cameras and microphones were shoved in my face everywhere I went. For several months, I really was stuck…in my own home. I received a number of invitations to go on some talk shows, but the government very firmly ‘asked’ me not to.”
“Mexican or American?” Logan asked.
“The American military was there, and interestingly, seemed to take the bodies and just about the entire campsite. I reckon they even took the gun…bloody weapon, whatever it was. At least it was an American that took the thing from me. They sent people into the cavern, I’m sure the whole place is upside down now. Until today, I had no idea that they could shape change and take on the likeness of…us. If they are all as odd and obvious as the one from today, then it wouldn’t be difficult to find them. But, if they have the ability to travel light-years to get here, shapeshift, and disguise themselves, they have to be much smarter than the alien today…unless he was some sort of decoy or distraction until you called it out.” She watched his interaction with the sand and became concerned, “did you not get enough of playing in the sand as a young lad?”
“Sure, I did, but this is not playing,” he continued pushing his hand deeper into the ground. The longer he did, the more visible his anxiety became. Then, he stopped moving and appeared notably relieved.
“What on earth are you doing?” Ayla asked staring at the hole in the ground.
Logan looked at her and slowly pulled his hand from the sand exposing the tip of the rod, “This may be critical to our survival. Those things don’t like whatever this is. I hid it here before the authorities arrived. Look, I am sorry for pushing you away this afternoon. It’s just I don’t know what this thing is made of and why it shocks those things. This may have shocked you too. I am sorry. Considering the circumstances, I didn’t have time to explain.” He looked down at it, “Tolkien had the one ring…we have the one metal that will save us all,” he said with a chuckle.
“Critical to our survival…well, we would have to be together at all times for one piece of metal to save us unless you plan to hunt them all down. We can’t stay here forever. What is it? I thought it was like a dagger or something. That’s not what it looked like earlier; is this a different piece?” she asked giving an odd look.
He hesitated for a second and considered his answer, “No, somehow it changes shapes.”
“What do you mean…by itself?”
“Yes, by itself. I can’t explain it, but twice when I needed it, it changed shape.”
Before the experience in Tulum, she would have politely dismissed herself from the conversation and walked away from the madman. She had seen too many unexplainable things to simply brush off his claim. Perhaps unexplainable things would be the new normal. However odd his claim might have seemed; he may have been the only reason she was or would continue to be alive. With an agreeable nod, she asked, “How did you know what that was? Why did you walk over there and challenge the…it? How did you know it would react to that…whatever it is?”
“It seems like we both have a number of questions. Early this morning, I saw him, or whatever it is, walking toward the beach. So, I followed him,” Logan looked up and pointed to his left, “it climbed over that jetty and walked into the water with its clothes on. It was like he had either no buoyancy at all or total control over it. He walked straight in and disappeared. I watched and waited for thirty minutes and he never surfaced. Never came up for air or returned to the beach. Then, there was a light beneath the surface at the end of the jetty. It took off almost directly toward the location of our dive earlier.” He told her about finding the metal and the underwater creature that attacked them. “When we pulled up to the dock, I saw him, or…it sitting there. After all that has happened over the last twenty-four hours, I decided that I was going to talk to him…force his hand. He was going to answer some questions. After a few minutes, it threatened to kill me. Its voice was not natural; it was almost robotic. For whatever reason, it let me see its eyes. I guess it thought it could intimidate me. They morphed and took on the shape of the symbol that was on the box.
“I had no idea he was an alien or some cryptozoological freak. It just seemed that I had nothing to lose since he made a threat. The creature underwater was shocked by the metal, it destroyed the weapon it was carrying. I wondered if it would do the same to this thing. It was a shot in the dark, but worth the risk. The honest truth is that I didn’t know anything,” he was looking off into the sky. Logan wondered if it was from another planet or some experiment gone wrong in a lab.
“Well, you were right. I am glad that you were right. I have been looking over my shoulders since Tulum, but more for reporters than alien life. Until coming here I had no bloody idea they were following me,” Ayla said.
“Maybe they weren’t. Maybe they have tracked you down since you were here,” Logan said.
“Nah, I’m sure they’ve been tracking me,” she noted. “I will be off again and I have to return to work in a couple of weeks. I’ll always be wondering where they are…and where you are.”
The look she gave made him melt. He looked into her eyes for a second thinking about what was happening at the moment. He had seen that look many times and wondered if she would be the one to make the move or if she was sending an invitation to him. The metal in his hand morphed as if being forged without fire then slid like a snake from the hand, coiling around the wrist and forearm. Once in place, the metal returned to a solid form. Ayla noticed the coarse texture of the finish and leaned in for a closer look. Embedded in the metal were intricate details as if handcrafted by a master bladesmith. Without thinking, she lifted her hand to touch it.
“I’m not sure you want to do that,” he said giving a warning.
Despite all that she had seen, this may have been the most illogical and difficult to comprehend. “How does a solid piece of metal without heat or anything influencing it, become almost liquid on its own and then transform into something by itself…with exquisite detail? How does that happen?” she used the flashlight on the phone to study the metal.
“All I know is that those things out there don’t like it.”
“What is it doing to you?” she asked.
“Me? I don’t feel anything. This isn’t like having the ‘one ring’ that will brainwash me and turn me into a hideous creature. At least, I don’t think so,” he said with a raised brow while looking at it.
“Are you a big Tolkien fan or something? Two references in one evening,” she asked while looking at him.
The dog from the walkway ran up to Logan. It dug its front paws into the sand, leaned toward him and began to bark loudly in rapid succession. It spun in several clockwise circles as if chasing its tail, stopped and continued to bark. It ran behind them and back again.
“I think the dog is trying to tell us something.” For the first time since being lost in the conversation with Ayla, Logan looked up and noticed that the beach was twice its normal size. “It’s not low tide! Something is wrong.” The water continued to rapidly move out to sea, and it dawned on him, “Run!” He demanded as he leapt to his feet. He could see the apex of the large wave quickly approaching the beach.
“Tsunami?” Ayla said hauntingly in unambiguous disbelief. The reality of their situation, in that moment, appeared to be impossible. They were by the beach and higher ground was two hundred feet or more away. She didn’t know the speed of the wave and could not accurately estimate the time before impact, but she knew they had no option but to get to higher ground if they were going to survive. Instinctively, she didn’t see how they could make it to any building or structure. All they could do was run and pray that they could find something to help them get above the wave. The dog with its long ears flapping in the wind behind its head, was ahead of them running as if leading them to safety. The sand was soft creating significant resistance, which seemed to limit them to a painfully sluggish pace. They felt as if they were moving in slow motion.
All over the
beach area, people screamed hysterically and ran at the realization of what was upon them. Some ran into the building trying to get to upper levels, others ran past it and up the mountain. Logan and Ayla had very few options as they both realized that they would not make it back to the resort. To their right was a pile of granite boulders. Logan stopped and as if reading his mind, Ayla leapt up on the first boulder and began to make the near straight vertical climb upward to the second tier.
“Go!” he yelled.
A thin layer of moisture covered the large granite boulders limiting their ability to securely grab the rock and pull themselves up. With no time to lose, Logan stopped and pushed Ayla up until she was secure then quickly ascended as best he could on his own. Ayla moved to the third section of rock.
“Go!” he yelled again. As Logan reached up, he read the expression on her face and knew that it was too late. He didn’t turn to watch it take him but stared into her horror-filled eyes. So much seemed to flash before him in that second, including a thought that he had never considered the possibility of dying in a tsunami. He just stared into her eyes wondering if he would ever see her or anyone else again as the water slammed into is back and ripped him from the rock wall. The force of the water knocked the wind out of him and sent him tumbling into the dark aquatic abyss.
His initial thoughts were that of being tossed into the boulders and smashed. Instead, he was swept further inland. He realized this since the water had not shifted direction. The current took him under and he fruitlessly searched for air and something to grab onto before it took him out. There had to be some way to save himself before the water receded and took him out to sea. Disorientation got the better of him and there was no way to know up or down in the churning water. His lungs were burning and screamed for air and he was helplessly unable to find the surface. It seemed that fighting the currents was not improving his situation and a part of him thought about relaxing and just letting it all happen. For a second, he tried to relax and see if he could achieve some positive buoyancy, but he continued to tumble and slam into various objects and was not able to find the surface.
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