Authors: Erik Williams
Before Yusuf made the call, one of the axmen succeeded in severing the line. It recoiled slightly, hitting the side of the ship but not snapping through the bullnose chock.
“That was close,” Alwad said behind him.
Yusuf turned and smirked but said nothing. Instead, he focused on navigating safely out of Basra and avoiding port security.
S
emyaza sighed as the bulkhead vibrated against his back. The ship was moving. It lurched to one side for a few moments and then shifted in the opposite direction. Minutes later, the ship accelerated and the sideways movement stopped.
Finally.
He looked at his hands, now only bone. The skin had peeled off up to the elbows but no farther. The blood did not pour out as it had before. Instead, it turned to powder. The red dust saturated his clothes and the floor. The muscles of his biceps had crumbled in chunks. He had slowed the rapid disintegration he had experienced with Henry Prince, though. The cold of the refrigerator seemed to help. Progress.
Now that the ship was underway, he did not have to work so hard to maintain the flesh. He would find a new host soon. Until then, he would rest and prepare and let this body disintegrate.
A
large crane had already removed the infamous section of sewer pipe from the pit. The broken pieces of slab remained down there, though, glimmering under the generator lights. Mike wondered what those pieces were made of. They had a dullness to them, like once-polished stones left in a garden too long. But the way the light danced across the surface reminded him of metal flake paint. Weird.
The ancient writing carved into the fragments bothered him more. Mike read and spoke Arabic and Hebrew. This language resembled neither. Nor did it look anything like cuneiform. For this region, it was extremely out of place.
The entrance to the tomb was a black rectangle in a sea of sand. He couldn't make out anything beyond the surface. Like gazing into the mouth of a bottomless pit. A mouth with perfectly squared corners. After a few seconds, he looked away, his half-drunk mind losing to a bout of dizziness.
“Ready to go down?” Greengrass said.
“Lead the way.”
Greengrass climbed down the ladder into the pit, followed by Lowe and then Mike. At the bottom, the fragments appeared less like metal than they had from above. They also lost their stone resemblance. Mike had never seen anything like it. Maybe the whiskey skewed his vision because, for a moment, he thought the surface of a piece rippled, like a calm pool of water that a pebble's been dropped into. As he moved by it, though, the effect ceased.
“We found a journal on the dead archeologist,” Greengrass said.
Mike turned and found Greengrass staring at the same fragment he had been hypnotized by. “What'd it say?”
“He noted the slab seemed to be made of a material neither metal nor stone. He wrote the surface looked both static and kinetic at the same time. Like water moving under ice.”
“You saw it, too?”
“Yep. Freaky.”
Mike nodded.
Good, I didn't imagine it.
“Did the archeologist say what writing this is, sir?” Lowe said.
“He couldn't identify the language.”
Mike rubbed the back of his neck. “This keeps getting better and better. Can't wait to see what's down there. Maybe a unicorn.”
Lowe snorted.
Greengrass walked over to the side of the tomb and shined a flashlight down. Mike followed and looked over the major's shoulder.
Below, the light illuminated a wall constructed of the same material. The surface seemed to dance as the beam passed over it. A flowing solid, if such a thing existed.
As Greengrass swept the light back and forth, Lowe brought down a halogen lamp from above and set it up. He flicked the switch and the entirety of the tomb came into focus.
Mike saw four walls and a floor, all constructed of the mysterious substance. The tomb, he estimated, was probably ten feet by ten feet by ten feet. Every square inch had the unknown language carved into it.
It's a box,
Mike thought. A box that had been built and buried.
“Want to go down?” Greengrass said.
Mike hesitated, but his curiosity got the better of him and he eventually nodded. Lowe brought over the ladder they'd climbed down into the pit with and lowered it into the tomb.
Greengrass motioned his hand down in a sweeping gesture. “Be my guest.”
Mike smirked and stepped on the ladder and took the first couple rungs down. Cold air tickled his legs as he descended. As his waist and torso entered the tomb, the cold grew more intense. By the time he reached the bottom, Mike had to hug his chest, shivering uncontrollably.
“Holy shit, it's cold down here,” Greengrass said as he stepped off the ladder onto the floor of the tomb.
Mike's teeth chattered. “I didn't feel the cold when we were looking down in here.”
Greengrass shook his head. “Neither did I.”
Lowe climbed down and shivered as well. “Jesus, it's like the cold exists only in here.”
It did feel like the cold couldn't escape the tomb even with the cover gone, as if it existed in the tomb and nowhere else.
Impossible,
Mike thought. Hot air rose and cold air descended, but this was ridiculous. It sure as hell wasn't cold on the surface, so Mike couldn't even begin to imagine how it got like this.
“Maybe an underground spring runs beneath here,” Greengrass said. “Keeps this place naturally cold.”
“That would have to be one cold damn spring,” Mike said, his breath rising in clouds.
“Look at this,” Lowe said.
Mike pivoted and almost slipped.
“Careful,” Greengrass said. “This stuff is like ice.”
Mike nodded and shuffled to Lowe. Gunny ran his hand over the wall. At first Mike thought he was tracing some of the letters with his hand. But as he got closer, he realized it wasn't writing but a picture.
“What is that?” Greengrass said.
Mike didn't know. A two-dimensional head turned on its side. But it wasn't human. The eyes, narrow slits, had no pupils or irises. No nose, either. The mouth opened in a permanent scream. What looked like a foot without toes stamped its heel down on top of it.
“Got me,” Lowe said. “But it doesn't look happy.”
Mike's eyes drifted off the weird creature and gazed at the other walls, searching for any other pictures that might shed some light on the mystery. He didn't find anything other than letter after carved letter of the unknown language.
“No dead bodies,” Mike said. “You'd think there'd be a skeleton or something in a tomb.”
“Not if they already turned to dust,” Greengrass said.
Mike shook his head, his whole body shivering. “Doesn't make sense. Walls made out of some material that looks like its flowing water in different lights. A language an archeologist couldn't identify. A picture of some kind of creature getting its head crushed by a foot with no toes. And whatever was in here escaped and sent everyone nearby into a killing rage. I'd like some damn answers instead of more questions.”
“Well,” Greengrass said, “whatever was down here is gone, and I doubt anyone will ever be able to shed light on what this place was built for.”
Mike sighed and walked over to the ladder. “I'm tired and cold.”
“Fuckin' A,” Lowe said.
They climbed out of the tomb, one after the other, with Mike in the lead. Then they climbed to the surface. It didn't take long for Mike to warm up. Once he did, his thoughts soon turned back to the box in the desert floor.
Something had been down there,
Mike thought.
It took a lot of time and energy to build that tomb just to bury it without a purpose or function. So what's the reason?
“Maybe we're looking at this all wrong,” Mike said after a few minutes.
Greengrass stood at the edge of the pit. “How so?”
“Well, we keep calling it a tomb and expected to find a mummy in it. But that place was spotless, like a cleaning crew polished it before we went down there. Even if the bones turned to dust, there should have been dust.”
“Not if it was never used,” Lowe said.
Greengrass nodded. “Maybe it was supposed to be part of a bigger complex that never got built beyond a certain point. The tomb could have been abandoned after construction stopped.”
Mike bit his thumbnail and rolled the idea around his head. It sounded plausible, but there was something there he didn't buy.
“Well, how did the hallucinogen get in there?” Mike said. “Whether it was gas or something else, it had to get in there after it was sealed.”
“Right,” Greengrass said. “Over time, some kind of gas seeped in through the walls. When the pipe broke the cover, thousands of years of mystery gas escaped.”
“That actually sounds pretty reasonable,” Lowe said.
Mike, though, only shook his head.
“What?” Greengrass said.
“I don't know,” Mike said. “It just doesn't feel right. Every inch of that tomb is meticulously intricate. I don't think anything could get in or out with that cover on. I think it was perfectly sealed.”
Greengrass put a hand on Mike's shoulder. “You could wrack your brain for a year trying to figure it out, but the simple solution is usually the right one. Something got in, built up over thousands of years, and then was released when the lid broke.”
“What about Henry Prince?” Mike said. “How did he transmit it if it was a gas?”
Greengrass shrugged. “Maybe he had something wrong with his lungs that allowed his body to hold on to traces of the unknown agent. So, when he exhaled, he exposed anyone around him.”
Mike rubbed his temples. “That would mean Prince would have to be genetically capable of carrying the substance and immune to its effects. What are the chances of that happening?”
“What are the chances of any of this happening?” Greengrass said.
“No way he was exhaling it. The people up close could be infected that way. But the truck convoy? No fucking way.”
“It's a freak occurrence.” Greengrass's voice rose a few notches. “Look, I know you want to find the answer; but in this case there isn't one. Got to accept that.”
“Yeah.” Mike stopped rubbing his temples. “I guess you're right.”
“Why don't you go back to the tent and relax. Gunny, see if you can scrounge up a cot for Mr. Hosselkus to rack out on.”
“Yes, sir.” Lowe walked off toward the other side of site R91.
“Thanks,” Mike said.
“No problem. It'll do you some good to get some rest and peace and quiet.”
Machine-gun fire echoed in the night. Mike turned toward the familiar sound of an AK-47 discharge. Muzzle flashes lit up the night a couple miles in the distance. The return fire of several M16A4s followed.
Greengrass lifted his radio. “Chief of the Guard, Company Commander, report.”
A voice crackled back. “Under fire. Looks like insurgents moving toward the siteâ”
Down the road, the guard post exploded. A ball of fire shot skyward, illuminating the darkness in shades of orange and yellow. In the brief moment of light, Mike saw dozens of armed insurgents advancing on foot toward them.
“Enemy sighted,” Lowe said, a pair of binos pressed to his eyes. “Estimate two dozen on foot, all carrying AKs advancing up the road.”
Mike dropped down to one knee and unholstered his Beretta nine millimeter. Around him Marines swarmed, taking up defensive positions. Lowe directed them, setting up firing lines.
Greengrass took position in the center of the site. “Mr. Hosselkus, hang tight.” He lifted the radio and barked another command Mike couldn't make out.
A few minutes later, the Humvee pulled up to the site in reverse at full speed, its .50 cal pointing down the road toward the advancing insurgents. The driver slammed on the brakes and sent sand flying all over Mike.
“Stand by to open fire,” Greengrass said to the gunner. He turned to Mike. “Get in the car.”
“I can take care of myself.”
Greengrass smirked. “Yeah, I know. But this won't take long and you don't have body armor. When that .50 cal opens up, these ragheads will run for the hills. Just in case, though, I want you safe.”
Mike started to protest when the sound of several shrill whistles filled the night air. He recognized it immediately and jumped to the ground.
“Mortars incoming!” someone shouted.
“Take cover!” Greengrass yelled.
T
he fully loaded
al-Phirosh
sliced through the waters of the Shatt al-Arab toward the northern Arabian Gulf, the Al Basra Oil Terminal well behind them now. Alwad had been right: a little money to the right person and the oil was pumping in no time. The crew could relax now, knowing it was free of Basra and heading toward South Africa and a paycheck.
Yusuf breathed easy and smiled in the darkened wheelhouse. The Furuno marine radar showed a clear channel ahead with little traffic. Hopefully, it would remain that way.
Port security had not proved a problem. One ship had been detained, and all the others that had set sail had been able to depart without hassle. Yusuf thought maybe port security had been told after the first detainee to let the rest of the traffic go, knowing the cargo on the merchants still represented income for Iraq. But then the
al-Phirosh
passed port security's base. All their boats sat moored and abandoned.
“They ran away,” Yusuf had said at the time.
“Cowards always do,” Alwad had said, “no matter the uniform they wear.”
Thinking about it now, knowing even the authorities had panicked and abandoned their posts struck at Yusuf's national pride. Although he was glad the
al-Phirosh
had not faced a challenge upon departure, it would have been more comforting to maintain the belief the civil authorities still worked to protect the people rather than fleeing with them in the face of a crisis.