Chapter 10: I Dream of Death
"Every crisis you face is an opportunity cleverly disguised."
The gang all stood around the Stonehenge looking hopelessly at the sopping wet pyre. The Devil himself, backed by the full faith and credit of Hell, couldn't make it catch on fire.
"We're going to be here forever, aren't we?" said London. Akela had tucked himself under a bush at the first sign of thunder and was refusing to come out. There was no need to distract him with bait in a tree.
"Is there anything we can do?" asked Maya.
"We solve the problem step by logical step." said Cody.
"The wood is wetter than a mermaid's bathing suit." said Zack dryly.
"So, we dry it out." said Cody.
"With what?" asked Zack.
"Sunlight, the only thing we have." answered Bailey.
"The Sun won't be able to penetrate the pile." said Zack.
"Then we spread out the wet wood on the disc and the Sun will dry it out better." said Cody. "It's not a five person job, Zack and I can get it."
"London, Bailey, and I can make a food run to the Pyramid." said Maya. The girls headed off down the hill and Cody started pulling wood off the main pile.
Two hours later, Cody wasn't making much progress. He had strewn a quarter of the wood from the main pile around the Stonehenge. Cody was trying to do the bulk of the work, since Zack was still sore from the previous day. The Sun was doing it's job of drying out the wood. Unfortunately, it was also drying out the twins.
"Cody, you have muscles. When did this happen?" Zack joked. He didn't remember Cody lifting this much, ever.
"I got them just before they started burning." answered Cody. He deposited another armful on an empty space in the disc.
"You know," said Zack leaning against one of the pillars, "It's a shame we can't enjoy this island more. Set up a tent on the beach, live off the land, swim in the bay. If I wasn't worried about surviving I could be spending some quality time with Maya."
Cody dropped the wood he was holding. He bent down quickly to pick up the sticks.
"You might even be able to get back in Bailey's good graces." Zack said slyly.
Cody mumbled something and hurried off to the other side of the disc.
"What's up with him?" wondered Zack, picking up another branch.
"They're so cute!" Bailey and London crooned together. They were watching three of the baby orangutans swinging through a fig tree in the Pyramid.
"Frankly, I don't trust anything that cute." said Maya, watching them suspiciously. Having a face like that; it wasn't even fair.
They had gone directly to the Pyramid from the Peak. After they found the rope ladder they had explored the first tier thoroughly. Eventually, they found a staircase leading up to the next level. The next level was much the same but a different variety of trees.
"You know," said London, "it's a shame we aren't here under better circumstances. It really is a beautiful island. We have food, Sun, beaches, boys..."
"You like Zack and Cody?" asked a shocked Bailey.
"No, they can just carry my stuff." said London
"It would be nice to reconnect with Cody on an island paradise." Bailey admitted, blushing. Maya hurried ahead, suddenly very interested in something farther down the path.
"Wait!" said Bailey, hurrying to keep up. "Zack's probably going to turn on the charm while we're here." she said to Maya when they caught up. "You'd better not go off alone with him, unless, you know, you really want to."
Maya gave a laugh that was less cheerful and more...unsettling. They continued exploring the Pyramid, scaling the different levels. Finally, they reached the top. The last tier of the Pyramid had a door leading inside. There was no light coming from the interior, and nothing could be seen past the first few feet.
Bailey and Maya contemplated the darkness. As they stared into the darkness, it seemed to stare back at them. It was just daring them to step in.
"It would be irresponsible to go into a poorly lit cave." said Bailey.
"It would be diametrically opposed to everything we learned from watching horror movies." commented Maya.
London was already walking into the cave with the flashlight she had in her bag. Bailey and Maya followed her, knowing that horror movie law dictated that the dunce dies first.
"These," said Bailey looking at the walls, "are the same hieroglyphs we've been finding everywhere." The walls were indeed littered with the same symbols.
"They were on the pits in the valley, too." said Maya.
"The what where?" asked Bailey.
"Cody and I went to the bigger hill. It has a valley in it. It's full of these holes." said Maya.
"You went hiking with Cody?" asked Bailey.
"Yes. Just hiking." said Maya. "Just...AH!" she yelled as something small and furry ran by and knee height. London turned the beam of the light to reveal one of the orangutans ambling through the corridor. It turned into a doorway and disappeared.
They peaked around the door to see the orangutan perched on a waist high platform. Maya noted that it was one of the unfairly adorable babies.
Bailey grabbed the flashlight and barged up to the platform. She stared at the surface in rapt attention.
"Maya," she called rummaging for something in her back-pack, "come hold the flashlight for me, please." Maya stepped up and held the flashlight aloft so the surface of the platform was illuminated. It was a drawing of some kind a bunch of lines and symbols she couldn't make anymore sense of than the other hieroglyphs.
"What is is?" Maya asked.
"It's a schematic." answered Bailey. She was frantically writing down something in her notebook. "It's a layout of a machine or vessel or building...I think it's this island."
"The island is a machine?" asked Maya, her mind wandering back to the horror movie mythos.
"No idea." admitted Bailey. "But some of the elements on this schematic match features on the island." she bent down and picked up a few stones from the floor. "The Peak," she placed a stone by an icon on the schematic that resembled the Stonehenge. "The Bivouac," she placed another stone by an icon that looked like stadium. "and The Pyramid," she put the last stone on a pyramid icon.
"And," added Maya, picking up a stone, "The Pits." she put the stone on a section of the drawing that resembled a honeycomb.
Bailey flipped to a different page of her notebook. "This is an approximate map I've been making of the island." she showed them a sketch that had the same landmarks on it. "The map matches the schematic." When she put it down on the table for the other girls to compare the placement of the landmarks did match up geometrically.
London stared giggling. The other two turned to look at her. The horror movies were looking more accurate all the time.
"What?" asked Bailey.
"The island," said London, pointing at Bailey's drawing, "is shaped like a thingy."
"Oh, for heaven's sake!" said Maya. "London this is serious! We have to...Oh, hey, yeah, it is." and she joined in laughing.
"Focus!" said Bailey, turning to a less distracting page in the notebook. "This means that someone or multiple people built an island in the middle of nowhere without anyone knowing then disappeared without a trace. The implications are nothing short of terrifying."
"And also terrifying," she said, picking up another stone, "is what the heck this is." she put the stone down on what would be the bay of the island. It was where many of the conduits of the schematic intersected. It was marked by a jewel icon.
"Ow...ow...ow..." moaned Cody as he trudged down the hill. This wasn't the best day. He had pulled muscles he didn't even know he had. Which was quite an accomplishment considering his high grades in Anatomy. On the plus side, he felt less guilty about leaving Zack do all the work yesterday. He still felt guilty about...other things. He was being dragged along by his twin.
"I'm proud of you Cody." said Zack. "I've never seen anyone unbuild a fire so fast. The wood will spend the rest of the afternoon drying out and we can light up the pyre tomorrow."
"Ow..." Cody said happily.
ca-thunk ca-thunk ca-thunk
"Hey, it's Pepé." said Zack. Pepé was hopping out of the down at the base of the hill. Zack followed behind him with Cody in tow. They came up to a cave. It wasn't a natural whole in the ground. It was a huge round portal. The perimeter of the entrance had a metal frame. It was marked with dozens of hieroglyphs. The passage continued into the hill where it was enshrouded in total darkness. Pepé hopped right into the cave and disappeared into the abyss.
As Zack walked away he could still hear the echoing ca-thunk ca-thunk ca-thunk coming from the world beneath.
"What is it?" asked London. They had all left the Pyramid and walked in the direction of the larger hill.
"All I can tell you," said Bailey, "is that it's a really big hole." there was a cave going into the hill. It was a large and perfectly round, with a metal frame.
"So, the island..." said Zack.
"Was constructed." finished Bailey. They were all back at the Bivouac. The girls had filled the Twins in on their discovery.
"And it was constructed by..."said Zack.
"No idea." said Bailey.
"And it was built for..." said Zack.
"Don't know." said Bailey.
"And they all went..." said Zack.
"Not a clue." said Bailey.
"And the language they were using..." said Zack.
"Is completely unfamiliar." said Bailey.
"So, we know..." said Zack.
"Nothing." finished Bailey. She laid out her notebook on the desk showing her copy of the schematic. "Some of these look like passageways. There might be a cave system under the island."
"These symbols match the ones we've been finding everywhere else." said Cody, indicating the glyphs he had copied down in his notebook.
"Do you two always carry stationary around?" asked Zack.
"Yes." Cody and Bailey answered simultaneously.
"But with the tools we have, none, we can't tell anything else about what the island is and, unless they also made their own Rosetta Stone somewhere, we can't translate the hieroglyphs." said Bailey.
"Well, that doesn't matter." said Cody. "Unless the previous islanders were writing 'A Hundred Ways to Escape a Deserted Island' the history of this island doesn't affect how we're going to get home."
"You aren't interested?" asked Bailey, incredulously. "This is a major archaeological find. It's an island, a city, and a people no one ever knew about."
"I would see to my brother's safety first." said Cody angrily. "all of our safety." he added. "We don't have enough resources do divide them between two initiatives." he paused. "We barely have enough resources for one initiative. With the food and water we have we can survive on the island indefinitely, but the minute one of us gets so much as a bad cut we could contract Tetanus or Staphylococcus infection, and all we'd be able to do is hold them while they die."
The anguish on Cody's face as he said this disintegrated Bailey's anger. He was genuinely concerned about their survival, and she was just curious about an old building. An incalculably valuable old building, but that was neither here nor there. You definitely can't take that with you.
Maya was fixated on Zack's expression during Cody's outburst. It was a mix of tender affection with undertones of serious guilt. She decided to cut in before they went from Horror movie territory to the unmentionable horror of Family Drama.
"Whatever we decide to do," she stared, "we can't do it tonight. The wood at the Peak has will be dry by tomorrow. We can all go up there, make a pyre, light it up, and then will think about what we want to do next."
They all went to their spaces on the Dais and turned in for the night. Maya was still going through the days events in her mind. It was so much to take in: Ancient Ruins, the lingering threat of Tetanus, that...one thing in the bay that night. As she finally drifted off to sleep she noticed that's Zack's usual snores were absent.