Progeny

by Shawn Hopkins

  John kept his eyes on the flashlight’s beam as it picked up the terrain ahead, trying uselessly to remember what it revealed for when he finally reached it. But he just continued walking into trees and banging his shins on fallen branches. He was growing extremely impatient with the quick pace Jackson was setting and was about to call out to him when Chadwick whispered a question from the darkness behind.

  “Why did Jackson say that ‘they’ would be looking specifically for you?”

  To which John simply replied, “Why do you think Ronald wanted you on the boat?”

  The simple fact of the matter was that neither of them had a clue as to why they were here, or what role they had been destined to play in the place.

  Wanting something to take his mind off both the agonizing journey and the ravenous thoughts of what his wife must be going through after not hearing from him, he further inquired about the monuments Chadwick suggested had been built to reflect First Time.

  It was obvious to Chadwick that John was trying to find some kind of connection between First Time and the Golden Age Ronald suggested belonged to Satan before his fall, and though he couldn’t bring himself to care personally — not seeing what it had to do with their situation — he humored the request, explaining further the reason for the ground plan at Giza.

  John had already forgotten most of the ancient Egyptian texts Chadwick was referring to, but he retained an understanding concerning the layout of the ancient sites, that it was supposed to play a pivotal role in the afterlife journey of the Pharaoh, somehow directing him to the place where Osiris dwelt.

  They continued to follow Jackson’s beam of light through the falling rain, stumbling and falling and stumbling again. And as they walked with their hands stretched out in front of them, Chadwick attempted to further explain. The last thing John heard him say, however, was that the monuments of the Giza necropolis were part of a long-forgotten scheme used to initiate certain individuals into an esoteric cosmic wisdom linking earth to heaven and offering immortality to the traveler.

  After that, Chadwick’s voice had faded into the backdrop of John’s own inner thoughts, further soothed away by the rain falling through the forest around them. When he finally tuned back into Chadwick’s dialogue, he caught him saying something about the Egyptians being obsessed, not with the afterlife as many supposed, but rather with creating a higher form of man through genetic engineering and other means. He started to relate it to the name of Henry’s boat when the flashlight’s beam spun around and landed right in his face.

  “No more talking from here on out,” Jackson ordered, shifting the bag of ammunition he’d taken from the boat.

  “Where we going?” Chris’ voice sounded from somewhere within the indiscernible obstacle course.

  “You’ll see.”

  And thunder erupted above them as they continued westward through the most troubling of dreams.

  ****

  The first trace of light broke over two pinnacles that were standing above the forest and piercing the coming dawn with their silhouettes. Which meant they were again heading eastward, into the rising sun. The two towers were standing about a quarter of a mile away, and even though three quarters of each monument’s body was hidden below the tree line, there was certainly no mistaking what they were. Suddenly, Chadwick’s obscure and whispered lectures on Egyptology, prompted by John’s search for a common denominator linking this place to Ronald’s writings (and even more so, his own past), suddenly seemed all the more practical.

  Chris squinted at the graying skyline. “Is that what I think it is?”

  “The Washington Monument?” Hunter shook his head. “No.”

  “Obelisks,” Chadwick stated with that familiar wonder woven into his voice. The sight made him forget about the body of water they had to swim across to get here and that his clothes were still soaking wet because of it.

  “Come on,” Jackson ordered, completely ignoring what everyone else was feeling. “We’re not going that way.” And he redirected his steps to the right, aiming instead for the beach.

  But Chadwick’s eyes were so captivated by the monoliths that he couldn’t bring himself to move. “Where are we?” his voice whispered, echoing the same question Chris had asked earlier.

  It was a question that everyone, Nick included, now found completely rational, for all notions of them being in present-day Bermuda had vanished with the night.

  John, too, was mesmerized by the obelisks, electrocuted with an even stronger dose of the trepid feelings the smaller obelisk at the Cabinet Building had generated. And then he found Chadwick no longer staring at the monument, but at his chest, no doubt imagining his bare skin and the tattoo he’d seen on it earlier. John just shrugged, kept moving.

  “Hey, Dr. Jones,” Chris called back to Chadwick, “you wanna tell us what they mean, too?” Then he swore rather loudly as he walked into a tree.

  Chadwick took his eyes off the flashlight’s illuminating beam and put them back on the monoliths, staring at them again as if trying to decipher a meaning from some obscene riddle. “I already did. The pyramidion, or benben stone, that I said was associated with the cult of the Phoenix… I said that benben indicated the seeding of a womb and that the capstone represented Osiris’ seed…”

  “You were talking about the hovering capstone on the dollar bill,” Chris remembered.

  “Actually, I was commenting on Ronald’s drawing of the Bermuda Triangle, but yeah, the capstone’s represented at the top of the pyramid as well as at the top of the obelisk.”

  “Wait a second,” Paul snorted from the growing shadows, “You’re saying that Osiris’ seed is sitting on top of the Washington Monument?”

  “And in Vatican City. It’s a phallic symbol,” he clarified.

  “But why would Osiris’ thingy be made into a monument dedicated to our first president?” Chris asked, confused. It was a strange question because it seemed so foreign to the issues at hand… or did it?

  “Washington DC’s filled with Egyptian symbology.”

  The statement prompted John to recall his conversation with the people from the cruise ship, the couple at The Keep who told him about the painting of Neptune in Washington.

  Chadwick leaned closer to John, letting him know that he was the intended recipient of the coming statement. “During First Time, Osiris left Egypt to spread his wisdom to the rest of the world, but when he returned, his brother Seth killed him. Chopped him up in pieces and hid him. Isis, his wife, was able to find all the pieces but one.” He pointed at the obelisks. “So she made one of gold and reassembled him, bringing him back to life long enough to conceive a son, Horus.”

  Chris overheard and chuckled despite himself. “An interesting twist to ‘all the king’s horses and all the king’s men…’”

  “It’s where the practice of mummification was said to come from,” Chadwick added before falling silent to his own thoughts. “The knowledge of Zep Tepi is believed to be stored in the golden capstone that once sat on the Great Pyramid…”

  Jackson held a fist up into the air, suddenly signaling everyone to stop. He clicked the flashlight off and crouched to the ground.

  “What is it?” Hunter whispered in Jackson’s ear. The urgency in Jackson’s actions had his own finger caressing the MP5’s trigger.

  Jackson whispered back, “We’re at Tucker’s Town Bay in Castle Harbor.”

  Hunter opened up John’s map, and Jackson obliged him by carefully shining the light on it. If Jackson was right, then they had trekked the entire length of St. David’s Island, swam across to Hamilton Parish, and then traveled all the way south to their present position, the coast to their right and the bay directly ahead.

  After Jackson turned the light off, Hunter asked in the blackness, “What are we doing here?”

  “There’s something I want you to see.” Then he looked back in the general direction of the others. “Keep your heads down and be as silent as you possibly can. We’re going in and o
ut quickly.” And then he crawled forward through the underbrush, leaving the rest of them to follow carefully in his wake.

  The dense ferns eventually gave way to the bay and the large rocks piled high along its coast. Now that they were out of the forest and the sky was growing brighter, they could make out their surroundings without the aid of Jackson’s flashlight.

  “What the hell?”

  It didn’t matter who said it. They were all thinking the same thing.

  Resting in front of them, and littering the shallow water of the bay as far as they could see, was an enormous fleet of boats and planes.

  Jackson motioned for them to follow him, and they entered the lazy water, boats of every size surrounding them. There were small private motor boats, a huge tanker that sat stretching across the mouth of the bay three hundred yards away, and everything in between. Rows and rows of airplanes were also present, keeping the aquatic vehicles company.

  Moving quietly through the water, Jackson gathered them all together beneath the one hundred and eighty-six-foot wingspan of a B-52 that was providing shelter for fifteen smaller Cessnas, Apaches, and Cherokees, their lightweight bodies rocking gently back and forth in the sloshing tide. Jackson pointed out to the huge ship and whispered, “USS Cyclops.”

  The ex-SEALs muttered a string of profane unbelief.

  But Chadwick didn’t understand.

  Chris explained, “The Navy considers her the greatest mystery of the sea. Vanished in March of 1908 with over three hundred men aboard.” Then he fell into a whispered wonder of his own. “It’s five hundred and forty-two feet long with a displacement of nineteen thousand, three hundred and sixty tons.”

  “What is this, Jack? What’s going on?” Hunter demanded. “Tell us where we are!”

  But by now, John was already beginning to recognize some of the names around them. Santa Rita. Timandra. Southern Districts. Sandra. Bounty. Witchcraft… He started drifting away from the group, moving quietly through the clear water, its shapeless fingers reaching up and caressing his stomach. More familiar names. Real Fine. Intrepid. Polymer III. Then he spun back toward Jackson, pointing at the old vessels. “These are all boats and planes that vanished in the Triangle!”

  Hunter, Paul, Chris, and Chadwick all stared at Jackson in anticipation, their eyes begging for some kind of an explanation that would make more sense than John’s ridiculous announcement.

  But none came.

  “Come on,” Jackson only whispered. And he led them out of the water and back south across the land, his eyes surveying their surroundings with an intensity that had everyone else doing the same.

  They cleared the small stretch of land and found themselves staring out across a long beach that was littered with more vehicles. A lot more vehicles.

  Chadwick gasped.

  Huge cargo ships, like buildings, were stretching up into the sky, their massive propellers turning slowly in the wind like giant fans. Other freighters, five football fields in length, were lying on their sides. Small yachts were sprinkled about as if they’d simply fallen out of the sky one day. While some were completely buried, others looked ready to escape if only the tide would come in, take their hands, and carry them over the reef and the large rocks that separated them from the sea. And then there were the older vessels that time had eroded, ships made of wood, their sails now absent from rotting masts. Some were 17th and 18th century war ships, others most likely the floating prisons that had been hell on earth for a number of slaves.

  Jackson led them down into the sand and continued guiding them through the museum of lost vessels. After skirting around a K-135 Strato-Tanker, they came face to face with a submarine.

  Its head was buried in the sand, its tubular body stretching upward at a seventy degree angle as if it, too, had fallen from the sky. Beyond it were sitting rows of military planes dating from the 1940s: Avengers, PV-1 Venturas, Catalinas, PB4Y Privateers, a C-54, C133 Cargomasters… They were all rocking beneath the wind’s gentle touch, standing ready as if waiting for their ghostly crews to take them out of here on one last mission. Further away, there were actually some jets half buried in the sand — a Grumman Cougar, Fighting Tiger 524, and a Phantom II F-4E.

  Chadwick held his head in his hands, trying to compute such an impossible equation. “This isn’t possible,” he repeated to himself.

  John stepped past him, briefly laying a hand on his shoulder before noticing five TBM Avengers resting closely to each other, bleached and rusted beneath cracked or missing canopies. “Flight 19,” he said in disbelief, recalling Ronald’s detailed account of the famous incident.

  Even Jackson seemed taken aback by the presence of the lost Flight, walking past them and reverently running his fingertips underneath their eroding wings before continuing to lead them all through more aisles of 20th century avionic technology. There were even a few representatives from the present century scattered throughout the crowd, letting them know how recently their world had been bridged by this one.

  Thunder sounded, and they all jumped. The storm that held off all night was about to unleash itself.

  “Okay, let’s get out of here,” Jackson ordered, moving for the trees.

  As John followed, he noticed a Tudor IV resting a few yards away, its paint faded and its name peeled almost beyond recognition, but there was enough of it remaining for him to make a positive identification. The Star Tiger, another of the planes Ronald had described in detail. And then a thought smacked him in the brain. “Wait,” he called out to Jackson.

  He turned, a slight impatience flickering in his eyes.

  “Where’s Henry’s boat?”

  Jackson nodded. “That’s why we need to get out of here right now.”

  “What do you mean?” Chadwick asked, Jackson’s voice making him maneuver the submachine gun off his shoulder.

  “They’ll be showing up with it soon. We don’t want to be here when they do.”

  But before anyone could even try to wrestle with another of Jackson’s cryptic messages, he stood up straight and began looking around, his face suddenly distorted with concern.

  “Where’s Nick?” he asked.

  Everyone looked around, realizing with dismay that he was suddenly missing.

  And then, as they were searching their surroundings, sweeping their concerned gaze like radar designed to detect lingering clues, John’s started pinging. He stepped away and turned around, taking note of the footprints they’d all left behind in the wet sand. The line disappeared behind the swaying hangar of ghost-craft. Following the tracks back the way they had come, he stopped when he came across a different set of tracks. They were stretching from another direction before disappearing into the woods. At first he thought they had to be Nick’s. But then he finally got close enough to see just how large they were.

  Chris cursed out loud, coming up behind him and seeing the prints for himself. “So now it’s Sasquatch? Give me a break, man!”

  Chadwick shook his head. It was clear what they were all thinking, but it was absurd. More than absurd, it was insane. And the insanity of it so disturbed them that nobody said another word.

  At least not until John counted the number of toes belonging to the footprints.

  Six toes.

  And John’s nightmares had become a reality once more.

  TWELVE

  7:08 AM. 23rd day of May. Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania

  Kristen rolled over beneath the crisp sheets of the guest bed and stared intently at the cell phone that was resting dumb in her hand. Though it informed her that it was Sunday morning and that John hadn’t called during the night, it still wasn’t offering any explanation as to why. Her thumb danced desperately over the number keys again, and soon John’s automated voice was telling her to leave a message. The helpless frustration was maddening, and she slammed the phone into the pillow beside her. After a moment to gather some composure and whisper a prayer, she swung her feet onto the floor and set about getting dressed.

 
When Kristen walked into the kitchen, Brian was standing there with his back to her, looking out the window. He had a steaming mug in his left hand and a phone pressed against his ear in the other. He was nodding to whatever was being said on the other end of the line and then tilting his head to see the watch on his wrist. “Yeah, that’s fine,” he said. “Just have him call me when he gets in. Thanks, I will. Bye.” He hung up the phone and sighed deeply, turning around and coming face to face with Kristen. “Shhhugar!” he hollered, spilling some coffee on the floor.

  “I’m sorry,” Kristen said, running for the paper towels above the sink.

  “It’s okay,” Brian reassured her, chuckling. “Don’t worry about it.” He had his free hand over his chest, trying to catch his breath.

  But she wiped it up off the floor anyway.

  “Thanks, you didn’t have to do that.”

  She dropped the wet paper towel into the trashcan beneath the window and looked outside. It was a typical scene that anyone in the country would be familiar with, nothing extraordinary or alarming, just a regular side street splitting rows of modest houses. But something about it did seem different. And she realized that the world itself was beginning to feel foreign to her, its everyday sights somehow altered. When she looked back to Brian, she saw that he was sitting at the table with his hands folded around the cup, his eyes glued to the steam whisking up from out of it. She knew from his expression that something was wrong. “What is it?” she asked.

  He looked up at her and almost started to say something, but instead dropped his gaze back to the dark contents of the mug.

  “Brian…”

  And then Tabitha walked into the room. “Good morning, Kristen,” she said as politely as she could. But it was clear that she, too, was troubled. She circled around her husband and came up behind him, resting her hands on his shoulders. “Did you tell her?” she asked gently.

  Brian shook his head.

  “Tell me what?” Kristen stepped forward.