Atlantic Pyramid

by Michelle E Lowe

  Amazing. I was standing on a piece of history.

  As I turned, I found that Gypsy Girl and the PBM Martin weren’t alone. In the field of water around me, numerous planes and ships were scattered about, some clustered together, others by themselves. It was hard to tell in the fog, but I could have sworn they came from several different eras.

  Chapter Two

  From where I stood, I saw a 1947 C-54 airplane, three yachts, two sailboats, other Cessnas, and one Piper Cherokee. In the far distance, blurry silhouettes of more planes and ships faded into the fog, some larger than the ones near me.

  What the hell had I crashed into? I’d traveled all over the world and experienced many strange things, but nothing like this. When I was a kid, my mother and grandmother had taken me to the Mystery Spot near Santa Cruz, where people could walk up walls and pool balls would roll upward on planks. It had been my first taste of the bizarre. In my later travels, I’d seen even more exotic and extraordinary things, but nothing compared to what I witnessed now.

  It appeared that I’d crashed at the edge of a mysterious landfill. Behind me, there was nothing but mist and dark water. I turned back to the abandoned ships, both air and watercraft, cupped my hands around my mouth, and yelled, “Hello! Is anybody out there?”

  Silence.

  After a few minutes, I decided to explore the PBM. The plane was tilted sideways, its wing acting like a kickstand. I walked up to the canopy and looked in. It was dark inside but objects were visible beyond the thick glass. I half expected to find the skeletal remains of the pilot.

  No dust coated the equipment. Other than the dented and scratched exterior, the entire plane was in pristine condition. No rust had eaten away at its black metal or the propellers. The stars and stripes on the side were crisp and clear, as if they’d been painted on yesterday. I wanted to go inside but the door was too far down the tail section and nothing was available for me to climb on.

  Judging by the wide-open door, it appeared as if the crew had survived and abandoned the plane. Even so, the PBM had gone down several decades ago, so I didn’t expect to find them. There were more recent vessels and aircraft with possible survivors I could look for. I needed to find someone. I needed explanations.

  The trip off the plane proved more challenging than the trip up it and my sneakers slipped out from under me. I landed on my back and slid along the wing like a water slide, all the way into the ocean. I was underwater for less than a second before my life vest brought me back to the surface. There, I stood on the muddy surface and slid my hands back to pull the hair out of my face. My heart knocked against my breastbone as I waded back to my plane to retrieve the flares, flashlight, and life raft.

  When I reached the open door, I looked behind me at the gray horizon. No wrecks sat out there. The water was flat and dark, and as I strained to see through the fog, several chunks of what appeared to be ice drifted by.

  Ice in tropical water?

  As the ocean swirled around me, the floes liquefied. I waded a few steps to my right, my arms outstretched, until the muddy bottom suddenly dropped out from under me. My life vest kept me afloat but it didn’t keep me warm. The subfreezing temperature raced through my body and ate into my bones.

  How could I be in water so cold that ice floated around me? My limbs were numb and my heart rate slowed. I frantically thrashed my arms to keep afloat. Although it was difficult to do the backstroke with my vest on, I kept kicking until a wash of warm water swept over me. My feet found the ground and I stepped back onto the ledge, shivering.

  The irony of it was overwhelming. If I’d crashed just three feet farther away, my plane would’ve sunk in that frigid water. It was an amazing stroke of luck to escape death twice in the same plane crash.

  As I counted my blessings, something bumped against my side—a floating wine bottle with a piece of paper rolled up inside. I popped the cork and managed to pry it out. It was handwritten but in Spanish. I shoved the note back inside, stuffed the cork in the opening, and hurled it back into the ocean.

  As feeling returned to my body, I waded over to my plane and pulled the cord to inflate the life raft. Tossing the flare guns, flashlight, and oars into it, I took a last look at Galvin’s lifeless body.

  “Sorry, but if I find help, I’ll come back for you.”

  It didn’t seem strange to make a promise to a dead man. After all, I’d yelled at the living, screaming Gavin not long ago.

  I clambered into the raft and started my quest to look for survivors. The journey was more difficult than I anticipated. Everything was surreal. I didn’t know what was out here but I needed to keep moving. I had to find someone—anyone—who might give me answers.

  I hadn’t been rowing more than ten minutes before a sharp, jagged piece of metal snagged my raft and tore a hole in it. I didn’t have any patching supplies, so I jumped ship. Drowning was the least of my worries. I’d been captain of the swim team in high school and now wore a life vest.

  I should’ve known the water would be full of hidden debris on the bottom or floating around, and I cursed myself for not thinking of it before ruining the raft. To prevent my legs from getting sliced, I tried leaping from one wreck to the next, until I came upon something my mind couldn’t wrap itself around.

  I climbed onto the deck of a sailboat, heading toward another plane, when a massive blob stopped me in my tracks. It was a living mass with veins and tentacles, and it stretched over the side of the boat to curl around the mast. Its suction cups—each the size of my palm—had fish bones and broken bits of crab shell stuck to them.

  If it was an octopus, it was the biggest goddamn one I’d ever seen. I’d heard about giant octopuses in the North Pacific, but this looked as if it could swallow a car whole. Its glossy black eyes stared at me as it heaved short breaths. I retreated slowly, not knowing if it would envelope me in its huge tentacles. But it didn’t. It just breathed heavily, as if gasping for air.

  After carefully wading through the water, I stopped to rest on the wing of a Piper Aztec. I was surprised to find a number of other octopuses lounging on ship decks and planes like sea lions. But it was another massive silhouette that caught my attention. Curious, I carefully jumped to another Cessna before leaping onto a speedboat and then stepping into the water. As I drew closer, my mind screamed, This can’t be real! I can’t be seeing this.

  It was the underbelly of a massive wooden ship tilted at a seventy-degree angle. The hull was infested with barnacles, and as I looked closer, the white shell of one opened. Something spiraled out, nearly licking my nose. The barnacles were alive, despite being out of water. How the hell did they survive that way?

  I waded along the edge of the huge vessel until I could climb to the top of a 1979 Beech Musketeer. There, I stood in silent awe of a thousand-ton Manila galleon warship. It was the oldest and largest vessel I’d come across so far. I’d seen a couple of Grumman T9F-2 Panthers from World War II, at least twenty Chris Crafts, three schooners, several Piper planes spanning three decades, a handful of yachts, and a 1942 TBF Avenger, but the galleon went back two centuries, although it appeared to be in pristine condition.

  None of the vessels had been eaten up by the elements. I came across two Lancer wooden boats and a Catalina yacht, all as perfect as the day they’d been made in the fifties. How was it that every one of them seemed unaffected by the humidity and salt water?

  Like the other vessels, the galleon looked ready to go. Sails hung in the still air on their masts, along with an American flag on the mizzen topsail. Why the galleon hadn’t capsized confused me, until I noticed what it rested on. Crushed beneath the side of the great vessel was another long wooden ship with carvings on its side. The damage done when the galleon had come to rest against it prevented me from distinguishing its artwork.

  I caught sight of something else—a long plank extending from the unfortunate vessel to a half sunken sailboat. I wanted to stay out of the water, which meant leapfrogging from one craft to the next.
I jumped onto another aircraft, then onto the back of the sailboat, where I studied the plank, which turned out not to be a plank at all, but a wooden sculpture of an ancient dragon.

  “A Viking ship?” I muttered, my eyes following the carving to the crushed ship it was attached to.

  The head of the dragon nearly reached the sailboat’s bow. I took a chance and leapt onto it. The thick wooden construction held my weight but not without some rebellious creaks. I scrambled over the dragon’s neck, where a long ladder hung down. I wondered if the crew had placed it there to escape the ship.

  I climbed the ladder, but halfway up, the air seemed to squeeze my lungs, making it hard to breathe. I stopped to rest and took advantage of the sights. The fog remained thick but the planes and boats were still visible. It seemed like a dream, and in a way, I was excited about this strange world around me. I loved experiencing new things. When I’d left home to explore the world, I’d journeyed far off the beaten path to discover what most tourists avoided. But hanging out with headhunters in a jungle couldn’t top the mystery I now faced.

  Near the end of my climb, I found myself face-to-face with a porthole door. When I raised the heavy wooden flap, the mouth of a cannon stared back at me. By the time I reached the deck, my lungs burned like a fifty-year-old smoker. The ship was in perfect condition, with smooth, untarnished floorboards and ropes hanging from shrouds that were neither broken nor frayed.

  I climbed one of the stern side staircases to reach the helm. The ship’s wheel was polished and turned with ease. I could hear the rudder sliding back and forth behind me.

  I’d never been on an actual galleon before. The closest I’d come to that was the Galleon Swinging Ship pirate ride at American Adventures. Like a kid high on imagination, I played with the wheel for a while before going below. There, I peered into the dark captain’s cabin. I clicked on my flashlight but it wouldn’t work.

  “Damn it!” I shook it as if that would help. I’d just changed the batteries.

  After my eyes adjusted to the dark, I could make out a small table. The gray light filtering in through the doorway and large windows gave enough illumination to find some matches. An oil lantern hung from a column beside the table. I struck the match and dipped it inside the glass. To my relief, the wick sprang to life.

  I expected spider webs and a blanket of dust, but the corners and surfaces were clean. The floor, though, was littered with fallen items. It appeared as if the ship had been caught in a massive storm, throwing everything that wasn’t nailed down to the floor.

  “Hello?” I called, looking around. The cabin smelled of body odor mixed with a hint of smoke, as if every candle in the room had been blown out only minutes before. “Is anyone here? Anyone?”

  I touched one of the flare guns tucked under my belt. I didn’t like the idea of using it as a weapon. Shooting someone with a flare would be like shooting them with a ball of fire. I’d use the aluminum flashlight over the flare gun if it came to that.

  I scanned the room but there was no reply to my call. I kept my guard up, just in case.

  An oak table sat in the center of the room with a scroll on it. I set the lantern down next to a map pinned on each corner by a Mora knife. It was a map of the Atlantic Ocean, although many Caribbean islands were missing. There were over seven thousand islands in the area but the map showed no more than two hundred. Even the Gulf of Mexico—the ninth largest body of water in the world—was missing, and Cuba was listed as Isla Juana. The date in the right-hand corner read 1804.

  If the ship and everything on it was really over two hundred years old, why did it all look relatively new?

  There weren’t many other things in the room. Anything worth taking, the crew had probably carried off with them. Even the mattress on the small bed was gone. I hoped to find the captain’s log to give me clues as to what had happened but I couldn’t find any trace of it.

  I left the cabin and went down to the gun deck, where cannon balls were scattered about. The smell of gunpowder permeated the air. I knelt, placed the lantern and flashlight on the floor, and picked up one of the cannon balls. It was no larger than a coconut but weighed enough that I couldn’t hold it for long. When I dropped it, it landed with a thud and rolled across the floor.

  As I walked through the ship, I passed several empty barrels. I searched for other artifacts until I found a second staircase.

  “Hello? Anyone down there?”

  I warily descended to the next level. As I crept down the steps, another strong whiff of body odor struck me. When I stepped off the staircase, I found the source of the smell—a man lying in a hammock.

  “Oh shit!” I exclaimed, startled.

  The man wasn’t disturbed by my expletive.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  He said nothing. He appeared to be asleep, although I thought otherwise.

  Several oil lanterns hung from support beams. Playing cards and coins were scattered around, as well as three human skeletons. At first, the skeletons startled me, but I quickly recovered and continued my search around toppled chairs. I found another skeleton lying behind a table. Each was dressed in nineteenth century clothing and armed with weaponry from that era. The bodies, except for the one in the hammock, seemed to have been involved in a struggle before they’d died. It wasn’t long before I noticed bullet holes in the walls and one column.

  Unlike the others, the man in the hammock looked as if he’d died not long ago, yet he was dressed in the same fashion. He had a single bullet wound to the temple. One of his arms hung down, while the other rested beside him. On the floor, next to a brown stain, was a pistol.

  I wondered when he’d died. It couldn’t have been any later than that day. His body smelled of BO, not decay.

  A note lay on his chest. Nearly every word was misspelled, but at least it was in English—my first real clue. After reading it twice, I was able to grasp what the letter meant.

  To my captin, Jon T. Sherbrik,

  I writ tis to xplain wat hapined. Onc you red tis, you wil understan an not condem me for the achins I hav takin. Dekhand Pal Roy, canon comandor Joshuy Walkor, secint-in-comand Mastor Richerd Troi an my self had com bak to the shep Thrs day nit to play cards whin Mastor Walkor acused Mr. Roy an Mastor Troi of cheeting. To my sham, ech man had ben drinking hevly an thar mind set was most ineproprit. Harsh words wer xchaned betwen the men an gun fir eruptid. Mr. Roy was shot in the gut an fel ded, an Mr. Walkor was wondid. I saw the devel in his eyes, captin.

  Mastor Troi trid takin Mistor Walkors pistel whin Mr. Walkor tok owt his sord an sunk it strait in to Mastor Trois bely. I trid to sav him. I puld my gun an fird, kilin por Mr. Walkor. It was to lat for Mastor Troi an I fownd myself alon wit my ded shep mats. I didt want to be hanted by Mistor Walkor, captin. Ater tirty yers in tis God forsakin plac, we al no wat hapins win we kil. I codnt liv that wa. I kiled Mistor Walkor an cold not hav him arownd, tantin me til I go mad. So I hav kiled myself, captan. Ma God show mursy on me.

  Tomas

  Febuwry 4th 1836

  A tide of questions arose in my head. It wasn’t just the misspelling that confused me. If the men’s death had happened on the same night, how could it be that all but one—Tomas—had long since decomposed?

  “There’s no freakin’ way this guy died in 1836,” I said out loud, as if to someone else in the room—someone with a pulse.

  I collected some of the coins strewn across the floor. They were old and American. I saw no other kind of currency, which wasn’t surprising if the incident had taken place in 1836, since paper money hadn’t been issued in the United States until the Civil War.

  My head was spinning and not just because of the strange quality of the air. I wondered what Tomas had meant when he’d said he didn’t want to be haunted by the man he’d killed. I placed the note back on Tomas’s chest and went topside.

  I continued in the same direction I’d been heading before boarding the galleon. After climbing over wreckage and wading thr
ough dark water, my heart lurched into my throat. A pale fin drifted across my path. I stopped as it made a U-turn and headed straight toward me.

  “Oh shit!”

  I fought my way toward a nearby plane rudder. Even though the water was only waist deep, I knew I wouldn’t make it to safety before the shark reached me.

  I spun around, pulled a flare gun, and fired. I missed my target but it scared the shark long enough for me to reach the plane. I grabbed hold of the rudder and started up. The shark came back and hitched its teeth into my life vest, yanking me into the water, thrashing. I unbuckled the vest and slipped out of it, then grabbed the rudder again, hoisted myself up, and flopped onto the tail of the plane. Breathing heavily, I watched as the shark glided just beneath the surface. It was a baby great white, an inexperienced hunter. That was the only reason I was still alive.

  Once it realized I wasn’t in the water anymore, it swam off. I lay on the tail section for a long time, collecting myself before I stood up and crossed over to a 1950s Grumman F6F-5 Hellcat. As I neared the cockpit, I saw another dead body. The canopy window had shattered, sending a large shard of glass into the pilot’s left eye. Like Tomas, the pilot’s body showed no sign of decomposition.

  Somehow, the vessels and aircraft—and most of the bodies—remained perfectly preserved. I became more confused by the second, but it was getting late and I had to find a dry place to sleep.

  Just as it almost became too dark to see, I caught sight of a blotchy dot—another galleon. Light came from torches lining the railing and through the window of the captain’s cabin. I climbed onto a yacht and read the distant ship’s name on the stern: The Pride. A moment later, I heard gales of laughter booming from inside.