“You’re in luck,” she said as I slowly lowered myself into the cushy seat. “The water’s boiling.”
She went to the fireplace in the kitchen, while Ruby stayed with me, standing nearby, watching me with those waxy eyes of hers. They had no pupils. Her ashy skin was mottled and had protruding veins over her body. She wasn’t grotesque, just not what I expected to find when I’d regained consciousness this morning.
“Youuu have questionsss,” she said, her words tearing the air. When she spoke, her lipless mouth hardly moved.
“Many, starting with—”
“Meee,” she cut in.
“Yeah,” I squeaked.
“Weee were explorersss, my brrrother and I. Our plaaanet isss twice assss large asss yoursss and one hundrrred fifty millionnnn light yeeearsss awaaay. Our ship and twooo othersss came herrre when wee crashed.”
“How can you breathe this air?” I asked stupidly.
“The air heeere isss acceptaaable to everrrry living thing. Did yooou not notice the air differsss from yourrrr own?”
I remembered the tightness in my chest when I’d first arrived.
“Are you educated in history, Mr. Sharp?” Calla asked, returning with a tea set. She placed the tray on the table in front of me.
“I know some things. Call me Heath.”
“Did you ever read about Christopher Columbus’s claim of lights in the sky while sailing across the Atlantic?”
“I saw something about it on the History Channel once.”
“The History Channel?” she questioned, pouring tea into two cups.
Again, I needed to remind myself where people like her had come from. I didn’t feel like explaining, so I simply said, “Yeah, I heard about it.”
“Those lights were from Ruby and Hector’s party.” She handed me a cup.
“My brrrother died in the crash. He wassss in the storrrage hull jussst beforrre the storm caaame upon usss. He haaad no time to come up befooore ourrr ship slammed into the island.”
Ruby became quiet and turned her head away. She spoke in some weird language to something that wasn’t there.
“Who’s she talking to?” I asked.
“Hector,” Calla replied and casually sipped her tea. She didn’t need to explain the details. I understood.
“What’s she saying?”
“I don’t know. Their language is far too complicated for me to comprehend. That’s why I call her Ruby and her brother Hector. I can’t pronounce their real names to save my life.”
After Ruby finished speaking to her brother’s spirit, she turned to me. “I saw the otherrr shipssss circling around. Theirrr lightsss pieeerced the black sky after the storrrm clouds clearrrred. I don’t eeeven think they sssaw the island. Eeeventually, they left and I wasss alone.”
“Why did you come here to begin with?”
“Toooo ssstudy the enerrrgy moooon frrragment.”
That took me by surprise. “The energy moon fragment?”
“They call it another name,” Calla said. “One impossible for us to pronounce.”
“Oh. Okay, what’s an energy moon?”
“It’sss a moooon made of high quaaantiteees of pure enerrrgy. It wasss your planet’s sssecond mooon. It collided wiiith the moooon yoooou knooow of today.”
“What? The Earth had two moons?”
“Indeeed,” Ruby said. “Two mooons once orbited your planet millions of yearsss after the other plaaanet collided with Earth. The farthest and smaller mooon had stored much of what the Earth needed to start life—waaater. Asss time passssed, water began forming oceansss of powerful and dangerrrous energy.”
What she said about this other planet colliding with Earth took me aback. But then I remembered the theory of a Mars-size planet called Thea that had supposedly crashed into Earth, sending rocks orbiting around until they clumped up to form our moon…or moons as I just learned.
“And you said this energy moon collided with our bigger moon?” I asked in awe.
“Yesss. We believe the energy moooon targeted Earth and pulled itself toward Earth’sss gravitational field. When it did, it caaame into the paaath of the larger moon and collided with it. Fragments of the collisssion maaade it all the waaay to Earth.”
“We were lucky,” Calla said. “The fragments that penetrated our atmosphere were small and didn’t cause much damage.”
“Whoa, whoa, wait a sec,” I said, putting a hand up after I set my cup on the table. “What are we exactly talking about here?”
“I’m talking about luck,” Calla said. “If the fragments of this energy moon had been larger when they’d struck, there may not have been an Earth for us to evolve on.”
“No, that’s not what I’m asking. I’m . . .” My questions got tangled up in my head and I didn’t know which to ask first. “You both said fragments? Meaning more than one?”
“Yes, one landed off the coast of Japan, another crashed in Alaska. The third landed somewhere in the ocean and eventually ended up here.”
“How do you know that?”
“Ruby told me,” Calla said, smiling at the tall alien. “She was part of a research team. Their mission was to locate these fragments, study them, and bring samples back to her home planet.”
“You’re saying we’re sitting on a moon fragment?” I asked in disbelief. “I hate to tell you, but this place isn’t a fragment.”
“That’sss becaussse it greeew,” Ruby explained. “The sssalinity in the waaater awaaakened itsss energggy. Yourrr planet isss verrry fertile.”
“As the Earth’s continents broke apart and shifted, this particular fragment followed an enormous land mass that later became America. Eventually, it settled on top of an underwater volcano. The fragment merged with the molten earth and slowly matured into this island.”
“It grew?”
“Like a seed,” Calla put in. “It’s the energy that kept the fragments alive.”
“Alive?”
“Yes, moons can be living things too, depending on the situation. What’s unique is that the fragments remained alive so long after the energy moon was destroyed.”
“The fragment had much of itsss own waaater storrd within it.”
“What about the one in Japan? Has it grown into an island?”
“Nooo,” Ruby said. “It never did. The fragment maaay ssstill be down there. I’ve been trapped here for a long while.”
“What about the reports of alien aircraft coming out of the water over there?” I asked, remembering the segment on the History Channel.
“Humansss haaave claimed to haaave seen shipsss?”
“All the time,” I said. “There are reports from all over the world.”
She snorted. “That shooould not surprissse meee. Other life formsss haaave visited thissss world since the—” She uttered something incomprehensible. “—discovered it twooo million yearsss agooo.”
“The what?”
“The other aliens,” Calla clarified.
“It’sss only out of curiousity, you underrrstaaand, that other speeecies come to yourrr planet. Our thirst for knowledge is insaaatiable.”
I considered asking about experiments on humans but I really wasn’t in the mood to discuss anal probing with her, so I went with, “Those other aircraft spotted in Japan are just explorers studying the other fragment?”
“Most likely.”
“No weird alien space station down there?”
“Nooo.”
“What about Alaska? People go missing more up there than they do down here, and there isn’t any island. ”
“That’s because it’s part of the land now,” Calla said. “The fragment can grow and shift in Earth’s soil fairly easily, since it had come from here anyway. In a way, it’s like the fragments were returning home.”
“Where are the people who’re trapped up there, then?”
Calla shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never been to Alaska.”
“The energggy isss very much here. It pull
sss in other energggies.”
“Other energies?”
“Us, for instance,” Calla said. “The fragment feeds off our energy to survive.”
“Is that why we’re trapped here? To feed this damn island?” Was that why so many of us had been taken from our lives? It made me sick to my stomach.
“Yes, the more inhabitants there are, the stronger the fragment becomes. It even sucks the life from batteries.”
Ruby’s comment about the hungry energy moon suddenly made sense…well, sense enough for this weird conversation.
“And the dead?”
“Our soul—or whatever you wish to call it—is pure energy and that’s what the fragment needs. It uses its own energy to hold the souls of the departed to their bodies, but only by a thread. When that thread is broken by a disturbance, it causes the soul to awaken. In a way, it’s like a second chance at living. The body decays but its energy latches onto the one who disturbed it, like a magnet.”
Gavin sat cross-legged on the floor, listening intently. He’d been strangely quiet since we’d come downstairs.
“Even the souls of the dead are needed?” I asked, feeling odd.
“Yes, but the dead don’t supply as much energy as the living. They’re like an appetizer before the main course.”
“Why can’t anyone else see the ghosts?
“When the spirit is attached to someone, it becomes part of that person, like an outside thought.”
“Sort of like an imaginary friend?” I said. She seemed confused by that, so I said, “A make-believe friend no one else can see.”
“I suppose, but their imaginary friend is real. I’ve come to the conclusion that the fragment didn’t deliberately make spirits invisible to other people. It just turned out that way.”
“What you’re saying is that the meat and soul are attached even after death, like a teetering glass on a table’s edge, and anyone who tips the glass over has to clean it up?”
“That’s a very good analogy,” Calla said. “The fragment keeps us immortal to feed it. When it needs more nourishment, it simply waits until it senses energy, sometimes from miles away, and pulls the unsuspecting soul in by creating a storm.”
“If the island needs more energy, it should let people have children.”
“The radiation after we cross into the fragment’s boundaries seems to sterilize men and women, keeping them from ever conceiving children.”
“Then what about needing to eat? If we’re preserved the way we are, wouldn’t we stay full or hungry, however we arrived?”
“Energy needs fuel to survive. We can’t go without restoring our spent energy, the same as the fragment must. It’s just the way it is.”
“What about the ships and planes?” I asked, picking up the tea cup. “Don’t tell me they have souls too.”
“It’sss the water. It holdssss so much of the fragggment’sss power that it can keep inanimate objectsss untouched by time.”
“And the wildlife? Did the island make them?”
“Kind of. It was lucky for the fragment that it landed on such a habitable planet. Trillions of tiny organisms surrounded it. Things began to evolve with the fragment’s influence. They became whatever they were going to be elsewhere, but with some differences. They would have developed into creatures you and I know now if not for the fragment’s mutations.”
“But what about the people? Why aren’t there any humanoids running around?”
Calla laughed. “Humans? That’s hilarious, isn’t it, Ruby?”
Ruby nodded, letting out a piggish snort.
“Why is that so funny?”
“I often wondered what Homo sapiens would be like if they evolved with the fragment’s influence. What kind of help they could offer the people here. The things they could accomplish if they just set their minds to it.”
She went silent, turning to the window. Her face came aglow as her expression tightened. I almost said something, but then she turned back to me. “It’s all well and good there aren’t any people here. If they weren’t friendly, I can imagine what kind of damage they could do. Native living things of the fragment aren’t cursed with the souls of our dead or the dead of other native things.”
“Why? Aren’t the living things giving out energy, as well?”
“Aye, and in the beginning, the fragment fed off those organisms. But as time passed, those organisms merged with the fragment so much that the fragment could no longer absorb their energy without doing damage to itself. The fragment may be many things, but it isn’t a cannibal. It now needs outside sources of energy to survive.
I saw her point and shuddered, then asked a question I’d once asked Inglewood. “How is it that no one has found this place? Not even by satellite.”
“The reeesearch teeeam before ussss supposssed the energggy moooon had a unique deeefenssse mechanisssm that allowsss it to camouflaaage itssself.”
“Like a chameleon?”
“A what?” Calla asked, confused.
“A chameleon. You know, a lizard that changes colors.” Who the hell didn’t know what a chameleon is?
“Oh,” she said, then changed the subject. “The fragment is powerful but not as strong as when it was a whole moon.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“A lot of people here don’t know where their planes or ships are. We think it’s because people are more easily taken.”
“Maybe that’s why there’s wreckage outside the island’s borders,” I offered.
“Is there?” she asked.
“Yep, ships and planes are found all over the Bermuda Triangle, but not many bodies.”
“Ah,” Calla mused. “Even so, I wouldn’t blame it all on the fragment. Ships sink and planes go down all the time. That’s just the way it is.”
“Before the moooon’sss destruction, a frrrigid cold compleeetely shielded it. Ourrr best theory wasss that the moooon wasss a verrry warm plaaace and it usssed the cold to manifest sssuperrr ssstorrrmsss to capture annnny life formsss within range.”
“That explains the weird coldness outside the junkyard,” I said. “So, the moon once did what the island does now?”
“Yesss. The VezQuu’s—the first onesss to have discovered your solar sssystem—had ships vanish when they neared the energy mooon. They kept records of their disssappearanccces. At first, it wasss believed the moon stole shipsss when it felt threatened. Now we see the fragment does what it does in order to survive.
“You said the native organisms aren’t stuck with the souls of our dead if they kill us. What keeps them from eating the corpses?” I felt like an interviewer now, asking questions for the scoop of the century. “Aren’t they an easy meal?”
“It depends on where the body is located. The higher the corpse is on the fragment, the more of a chance that something will scavenge it. The Shark Eaters will eat anything they can get a hold of in the warm area of the ocean. But down at the beach, there aren’t a lot of predators—except for the stingrays—that’ll go after the dead because of all the people around.”
“The fleasss have deterred most from going too far up the island,” Ruby chimed in.
“Fleas?” I asked. “What about the fleas?”
“Little bastards carry a powerful hallucinogen that’ll mess your head up if enough bite you,” Calla said.
“Wait, that’s what makes people go insane here? Fleas?”
“They’re mostly in the more humid parts of the forest and are practically invisible. To keep them away, you have to smear red leaves all over yourself. The sap acts like a pesticide.”
“What about bug spray?”
“Bug spray will do the trick, but it’s not as effective.”
Now I understood why Abby had offered me the leaves. Bugs had bitten me all that day. Apparently, the bug spray I’d used helped keep the attack to a minimum, unlike the soldiers, who’d used none of the spray and had been eaten alive.
“I thought that purple tree sap was the
culprit for driving them crazy.”
“No, it just smells bloody awful.”
“How did you find the fragment?” I asked Ruby.
“My kind didn’t discover it,” she admitted. “It wasss the VezQuu yearsss after their discovery of Earth.”
I caught a few phonetic sounds this time. A “v” and a “q” maybe. I usually have a pretty good memory but not with that word.
“Five thousand years ago, those others aliens discovered this fragment by accident, while studying our planet,” Calla said. “They knew they’d come upon something odd when their equipment went wild. After searching through their records, they found out what it was. At the time, the fragment couldn’t pull in something as powerful as their ship and they could study it.”
“But it caught yours,” I said to Ruby.
“Because the fraggment haaad more strength by then.”
“But these other aliens landed here?”
“Only once,” Calla said. “They took samples and did studies on the living things here. Once they left, they couldn’t find the island anymore.”
“Mosssst likely, the fragggment kept itssself hidden from them after theeey left.”
“But that didn’t keep them from trying to find it for years afterward,” Calla said bitterly, as if what they’d done was personal to her. “Finally, they gave up and continued on with their research of Earth. Ancient people apparently noticed the alien’s documents of the fragment and were told stories about it. In time, people began building replicas of the fragment.”
“Pyramids?” I guessed.
“Exactly.”
This was a shitload to take in. It was more than I’d expected to find when I’d set out on my mission. I decided to ask the million dollar question. “What about escaping?”
Calla displayed her most baffled expression yet. “Escape? Have you tried?”
“I’m looking for a way. Why does a storm keep people from sailing out?”
“The fragment senses when someone is heading for its boundaries and triggers a storm.”
“Why?”
“It needs us to survive. It has to feed off our energy to live.”
“Keeping us trapped here like zoo animals?”
“Zoo animals?” Again, Calla’s apparent lack in knowledge of ordinary things took me by surprise.
Atlantic Pyramid Page 23
