Maddy nodded emphatically. “I’m sure of that, based on what I read earlier before we left the Bahamas. And look at these other words: They’re ancient Greek and have no direct translation today, but as best I can tell, if I look at only that series of bold words, it says, In this new place they learned the evil of their ways and were able to live for generations of fruitful activity.”
Hunt appeared perplexed. “So this…Cuba…is the old place…but where is the ‘new place’?”
Maddy bit her lip while continuing to stare at the manuscript she held up to the sunlight. “Well that’s the funny thing…it doesn’t say. The story — the Critias, which is the end of Plato’s Atlantis tale, the first part being the Timaeus, ends here by saying…” She squinted at the scroll while interpreting the ancient Greek. “…from the sea it rises again. I’m pretty sure that’s what it says, anyway.”
“You’re probably right, Maddy. But okay, so Atlantis was destroyed, the people relocated in anticipation of those God-induced floods and tidal waves, rebuilt the city somewhere else, meaning it rose again from the sea…right?”
Maddy shrugged. “That’s how I see it.”
“But where?”
Maddy looked up at the scroll again, shaking her head. “It doesn’t actually say where that I can see — either in the bold words or the regular text. I guess I’ll have to have a more thorough translation done back at home, and then—”
“Guys, hey — over here — I found something!” In addition to his voice, they heard the sound of Jayden’s footsteps pounding across the island to the beach. He stopped at the edge of the beach and beckoned them. “Come with me, check this out!”
“Everything okay?” Hunt asked.
“Yeah, no emergency, just found something cool. Not sure what it is, though. This way!”
Maddy carefully rolled the scroll back up and tucked it away. Hunt took a last look at the water, checking for boats or planes, but saw none. Then he and Maddy jogged across the sand and caught up with Jayden, who led them across the island’s thin cover of scrubby vegetation. They trekked across the middle of the island, which was roughly crescent-shaped, while a flock of gulls wheeled around overhead. Before long, Jayden reached the edge of the beach and stood in place for a second, hands on his knees, out of breath.
“Found a campsite!”
“What? There are people on this island?” Maddy’s eyes widened, but Jayden stood up straight and shook his head. “Come on, I’ll show you.”
Hunt and Maddy left the beach and followed Jayden at a trot toward the middle of the barrier island, finding the going easy over the flat, hard ground. After a few minutes, Jayden stopped walking and looked around. He pointed into the distance, along the curving crescent of the island’s natural shape. Colored swatches of fabric contrasted sharply with the brownish-green of the island’s terrain.
“Those are tents,” Jayden said. “Come on.”
They trekked the rest of the distance to the campsite. Maddy stopped a few yards short of the camp, balking at the obvious remnants of recent human activity. “Jayden, are there…did you see…are there dead people here?”
But Jayden shook his head immediately. “No. Saw no people, living or otherwise. Not that I checked every single area, but I’m pretty sure it was left in haste. Come on, I’ll show you.”
They walked over to the nearest tent, a green fabric two- or three-person affair, the stakes of which had been bent and twisted beyond repair, collapsing the fabric so that it no longer had its intended dome shape.
“Whose camp was this?” Hunt asked, getting right to the point.
“Not sure yet, but whoever it was, they had some technology.” Jayden picked up an ethernet cable off the ground from inside the tent and held it up.
“Any actual computers or drives left behind?” Hunt wanted to know.
“Not that I could find so far, but let’s have a look around.” Jayden ducked farther inside the collapsed tent while Maddy combed the ground nearby and Hunt ventured to the next tent over. This one was also ruined, mangled into unusable scaffolding supporting a shredded, orange fabric. Inside, he saw a mix of soda pop and Cristal beer cans on the ground, along with a sleeping bag and a battery powered lantern. He moved to the sleeping bag and lifted it off the ground. Beneath it he saw a pile of books. He dropped the bag and picked up the volumes, which were relatively recent hard covers with titles like, ATLANTIS: THE EIGHTH CONTINENT, MEET ME IN ATLANTIS, THE TRUE MYTH OF ATLANTIS, and the like. He opened the pages of a few, looking for handwritten notes or any sign of the owner’s identity. He found nothing inside the first couple of books, but third caused him to suck in his breath when he opened its cover.
The pages had been cut away and inside the book was a 9mm pistol. Hunt carefully extracted it from the book and checked that the safety was on and that the magazine was full. Looking for the serial number, he saw that it had been filed off. He started to put the gun back in the book but then thought better of it and tucked it into the waistband of his shorts, pulling is shirttail over it.
He looked around the tent some more but found nothing further of interest. Outside the tent, Maddy was stooped down on the ground, combing through the vegetation with her fingers. She picked up something and held it up to Hunt as she heard him emerge from the tent. It was small and brass-colored. “Look at this, I’m finding some bullet casings.”
Hunt nodded and lifted up his shirt. “And I found a gun. Let me see one of them.”
Maddy’s eyes widened at the sight of Hunt’s new acquisition and he took the brass shell from her, inspecting it briefly before dropping it to the ground. “Yep, 9mm, it could be from this gun. But let me see that one…” She handed him one of the other spent shells in her hand.
“This one is a different caliber. So there are either more firearms still on this site, or there was some sort of shootout here, with all the players long gone.”
Jayden emerged from another tent and walked over. “Look what I found?” He held up another pistol, of a different model than the one Hunt found.
“Found a 9mm myself,” Hunt said, showing Jayden the gun in his waistband. “I figure we may as well keep them until we get out of here, since we never know what kind of jam we may find ourselves in.” He looked all around at the sea surrounding the island and thee sky above.
“But what do you think happened here to make someone want to leave their guns behind?” Jayden asked.
“Is the serial number filed off that one, like it is on the one I found?” Hunt asked. Jayden inspected the gun before answering. “Sure is. Just like the VIN number was gone from that sweet El Camaro I used to have.”
“Your taste in cars it what concerns me the most about that statement.”
“Hey, you two — over here!” At the sound of Maddy’s voice they broke off their conversation and looked farther into the camp, where Maddy stood in an open, grassy area in the middle of a circle of ruined tents. They trotted over to her, where she stood next to a wide pit that had been dug into the Earth. A couple of shovels, one of their handles broken, lay alongside a rock-hammer lay in the open hole.
“They tried to excavate something, it looks like. At the very least, they wanted to see what lay beneath the top layer of soil.”
Hunt peered into the hole, where a flat layer of exposed dead coral, limestone, lay exposed.
“Not only that,” Maddy said, “but this isn’t the only pit they dug.” She pointed farther away in the campsite. “There are at least two more that way.”
“Let’s check them out,” Hunt said, moving off toward the other freshly dug pits. Maddy snapped off a photo of the current pit and then she and Jayden joined Hunt at the next nearest one. It looked much like the other one, with one important exception.