The Lost Level, page 10
“Do you remember anything else?”
“No. As I said, I was very little. I always thought it was a bird.”
Approaching the closest plane, I ran my hand across a .30 caliber machine gun which was mounted in the nose. I doubted that the weapon was still functional. The barrel was rusty and insects had made nests inside of it. Obviously, it had been here for some time.
“What is this Flight 19?” Kasheena asked. “Were they vehicles?”
“Yes,” I said, thinking back to my years of research into the paranormal. “Very famous vehicles. These are called airplanes, like we talked about before. They’re machines that flew through the air, just like the one you saw when you were little. These numbers painted on the side correspond to Flight 19, which was a group of airplanes that disappeared on December 5, 1945 during a training flight off the coast of Florida—that’s a state in America, the place where I’m from. Each plane had a three–man crew—a pilot, a gunner, and a radioman. The pilot flew the plane, the radioman was in charge of communicating with people on the ground, and the gunner was the fighter. He would shoot at enemy planes.”
“So, where are the men who flew in these airplanes?”
“I wish I knew. So do many people back where I come from. See, Flight 19 was a famous disappearance, connected to something we called the Bermuda Triangle—an area of the ocean where many people have vanished over the years. I must have read a dozen books about this when I was younger. I was nuts about the whole thing.”
“Maybe those people who vanished in this Triangle came here,” Kasheena said.
I nodded. “The crew of Flight 19 did, at least. The flight leader was….” I searched my memory, trying to recall the name. “Lieutenant Charles Tyler? Or Taylor, maybe? Yeah, I think Taylor was his name. Some people believed it was his fault the planes disappeared. He showed up late the morning of the training mission, and he made some confusing and strange decisions while they were in the air. There was a theory that he might have become disoriented, and then he ordered his men to ditch the planes into the ocean after they ran out of fuel, and everyone bailed out. Obviously, that didn’t happen.”
“Could these airplanes still work?” Kasheena asked. “Our journey would be much easier and safer, I think, to travel in one. How amazing that would be, to travel across the sky!”
I shook my head. “No, these are long past working. And even if they were still functioning, I don’t know how to fly one. You need special training for that.”
“But you have proven capable many times, Aaron. Surely, you could do this, as well.”
I chuckled softly. “I wish. But sadly, no.”
We searched each of the aircrafts, but exposure to the elements had left nothing salvageable amongst the wreckage. Some kind of animal had nested in one of the cockpits. It was filled with sticks and matted leaves. The nest had been abandoned, but it had a musky scent that I found unsettling. In all of the planes, the seats were torn and covered with mold and grime, and most of the metal had rusted. There were no skeletons or other signs of human remains, nor were there any scraps of uniforms or survival packs. That meant one of two things. Either Lieutenant Taylor and his men had abandoned the planes and ventured out into the forest, or they had died here and the site had been looted and time had erased all existence of their remains. Judging by the position of the planes, they hadn’t crashed, but I couldn’t imagine how they’d managed to land them in the ravine without incident. Maybe whatever event it was that had transported them here deposited them in the ravine upon arrival. But if they had survived, where were they now? Were they even alive? Judging by their condition, the Avengers had been here for a very long time. So had the pilots, if they were still alive. How old would Taylor and his men be now? I didn’t know how to tell time in the Lost Level, but I knew how to mark its passage—the stubble on my face or the length of my fingernails indicated that time still passed normally here, just like it did back home. If Flight 19 had indeed landed here in 1945, then they would be old men by now.
I weighed the possibility that they had landed here more recently. Perhaps it had still been 1945 in their world when they vanished, but their arrival here in the Lost Level had been merely a few years or months before my own. Given the nature of time travel, this was plausible, but when I considered the condition of the airplanes themselves, I found it the most unlikely scenario. Which brought me back to speculating on the whereabouts of the crew. Had they made a life for themselves here, perhaps building a permanent shelter? If so, could any of them still be alive?
Or maybe it was possible that they’d found a way back to our world. Or their world. There was no guarantee that this particular Flight 19 was even from my reality. It could just as easily originated from an alternate universe—an alternate Earth. Maybe they’d found a way to return there, albeit without their planes. If so, then—despite legend saying it was impossible—that meant that I could do the same. I could find a way to return to my own level and escape this place once and for all. The possibility didn’t excite me as much as it should have, and I paused to wonder why.
I turned to Kasheena. “I’m assuming that no one from your tribe has ever mentioned this place? Or the planes?”
“No. If so, then it was before my time, and our elders have never spoken of it to us. I have only been this way a few times, and there was never time for exploration on those trips. The landscape will become more familiar to me after our next sleep.”
I nodded, turning my head to scan the forest.
“Are you okay, Aaron? You seem troubled.”
“I’m still wondering what happened to the men who flew these craft,” I said. “Wondering if they are alive or…dead. Wondering if they made it back home. Do you know of any other settlements or villages nearby?”
“No. In this area, it is just ours.”
I nodded again, still staring at the trees.
“We should move on,” Kasheena suggested. “There is nothing here for us, and I do not like this place. It feels sad.”
Nodding in agreement, I climbed down from the plane, and we continued on our way. I glanced back only once, and when I did, Flight 19 had already vanished again, swallowed once more by the undergrowth.
And by time.
8
GREY WATER
OUR JOURNEY PASSED UNEVENTFULLY FOR a while after that. At times, it felt to me as if we were wandering in circles. The terrain didn’t change much, although Kasheena seemed to recognize various distinct features and landmarks. She seemed positive that we were still on track for her village, and getting closer. I had no choice but to trust her instincts. Bloop seemed okay with this arrangement, as well. Most of the time he stayed with us. Occasionally, he would bound off into the underbrush in pursuit of wild game. Then he’d return, happy and gloating, and usually with something for us to eat. In some ways, he reminded me of a big dog. He was certainly as committed and faithful a companion as a dog, but obviously far more intelligent. I wondered what his story was and wished he could tell us. Were there more of his people here in the Lost Level, or, like me, was he a dimensional castaway? Did he have a mate? Children? Parents, perhaps? Was there someone back home missing him?
That thought made me consider my own family. Only once since my arrival in the Lost Level had I considered how my disappearance might be impacting them. I hadn’t exactly been close with them over the last few years, devoting my time to my occult studies and other pursuits, as I had. But I’d stayed in touch with my siblings online and called my parents every Sunday afternoon, and we all got together during the big holidays. The last time I’d seen them in person had been the week between Christmas and New Year’s, when we’d all stayed at my parents’ home. Most of our discussions then had been polite but guarded, the conversation of people who didn’t have much in common anymore but still shared a history. But despite that distance, I loved them, and I think they loved me. Would they notice I was gone by now? Indeed, I wondered how much time had passed back on my Earth. Was time there the same as here in the Lost Level, or was it different? It would have been presumptuous of me to assume that time passed the same in both dimensions. While I had only been here a few days (or whatever passed for days in a place where the sun never set), entire decades or even centuries might have passed back home. Or perhaps only a few minutes or seconds. If I was ever successful in making it back to my Earth, it was possible I might find that I’d long been given up for dead by those who had known me. It was equally possible that I’d discover I had barely been gone in the time it takes to blink. Thinking about all of the different possibilities made my head hurt.
As we hiked, Kasheena and I continued our discussions about the Lost Level. I learned more about its ocean and desert regions and was very surprised to discover that it even had frozen areas with regular arctic–like conditions, despite the presence of an eternal sun hanging overhead. Other than the snowfall on some of the mountaintops, I had assumed the entire dimension was as temperate as the forests and jungles I’d experienced so far, but that wasn’t so. I was especially curious to know more about the Creator and anything more concerning the Lost Level’s subterranean features, but unfortunately, Kasheena didn’t know much. She insisted several times that she had told me everything she knew about what lay beneath our feet. As for the Creator, her people believed that the Creator was just that—an entity who had created the Lost Level. It had no sex or gender, at least not that she knew of, nor were there any fables or legends surrounding it. There was no dogma and no set of rules or commandments dedicated to or derived from its worship. She knew of no identifiable characteristics. According to her, the mysterious figure didn’t even have a name, other than the Creator, which she admitted was a name her people had given it. Other inhabitants of the Lost Level had different names and theories for the unknown entity.
Sometimes, we encountered signs of other intelligent life. Once, we found what appeared to be Native American petroglyphs carved into the exposed face of a large boulder. The crude diagrams depicted everything from beavers, deer, and snakes to dinosaurs, flying saucers, and what was almost certainly an Anunnaki. Kasheena had no knowledge of them and no idea who might have made them or how long they’d been there. Another time, we found Chinese letters scratched into a tree trunk. These she had known about and said that while she had never seen them for herself, a hunter from her tribe had spoken of them. Apparently, they’d been there for a long time.
Occasionally, we also came across random dimensional relics that reminded me of home. There was nothing as impressively awe–inspiring as the wreckage of Flight 19, or as bizarre as a Jeep fused with a mountainside or a partially–digested wheelchair buried in dinosaur shit. Some of the things I found weren’t even from Earth, mine or any other, but the ones I recognized were comfortable in their familiarity, all the same—a pair of scissors half–buried in the dirt, a broken television, a frayed dog collar, an empty disposable cigarette lighter, a pair of hospital crutches, a cracked child’s wading pool with faded animal characters painted on the sides of it, a cell phone charger, a doll with a missing arm and eye, a rubber gasket, plastic bottles and dented aluminum cans (because apparently even parallel dimensions had pollution), an automobile license plate from the United Kingdom, a dirty and weathered Chinese takeout menu whose lettering was so faded that I couldn’t make out where it was from, a department store mannequin, a red yo–yo with Japanese writing on it, an empty canister of bug–spray, a glass Mason jar with a chip on the rim, a jumble of parts that I thought might have come from a propane grill, a Civil War–era powder can with a bullet hole in it, and a steel–belted radial complete with a chrome rim that had become the nesting place for a family of small lizards. All of these items appeared to have been here for a long time, and none of them were really salvageable.
I thought Bloop might enjoy the yo–yo, so I cleaned the dirt off of it and tested it out. I was surprised to find that the string was still strong and resilient, and not nearly as frayed or weatherworn as I’d assumed it would be. I then ran through my rather meager repertoire of tricks with it. Bloop seemed interested enough and laughed as I did Walk the Dog, Sleeper, and Around the World. Kasheena smiled dubiously, watching us both. I did a few more tricks, and Bloop clapped, so I handed the yo–yo to him. He tried to repeat the tricks, but the string became tangled almost instantly. Growling with frustration, he brought the yo–yo to his nose and sniffed it. Then he tried to untangle the string but only succeeded in making it worse. Next, he put the toy in his mouth and tried to bite it. His teeth clacked against the hard plastic. With a grunt, he hurled the toy into the forest.
I grinned. “Maybe we can find you a Playstation or an Xbox, instead.”
Bloop snorted at me, and then scratched his groin. We continued on our way. The police riot armor grew heavy, chafing my shoulders. The backpack didn’t help. I considered jettisoning some of my gear—things like the compact discs and other assorted items from John LeMay’s Jeep, but after thinking about it, I decided to hold on to them a while longer. They might still prove useful, I reasoned. But I also wondered if it was their practicality that made me keep them, or the fact that they reminded me of home. And, in truth, they weren’t that much of a burden. Dropping them wouldn’t have noticeably decreased the weight I was carrying. I glanced at Bloop, clutching one sword in his left paw and wielding the other with his tail, and wished I had an extra prehensile appendage to help lessen my load.
When we got tired, we stopped and made camp again. After building a fire and eating a meal together, I volunteered to take the first watch. After Bloop was asleep, Kasheena and I made love twice. Then she went to sleep, as well. I stroked her hair for a while, then got up and sat cross–legged near the fire. Falling asleep on watch wasn’t a concern—not the way my mind was spinning. I thought back over the events of the past few days, which led me to return to the train of thought I’d had earlier and ponder the idea of days themselves. At that point, I was really struggling with how to mark the passage of time. It had never occurred to me just how reliant we were—as a species—on calendars and schedules. When I attempted to calculate just how long I’d been trapped in the Lost Level, my only frame of reference was how many times I’d slept. It seemed so strange, but as I pondered it more, I wondered if this style of living might not be better. There was a certain freedom in not being beholden to the cycles of the sun, or a time clock, or a busy social calendar—to sleep only when tired and awake only after the body was sufficiently rested, rather than the obtrusive blaring of an alarm clock.
When the fire began to dim, I added some more wood to it. Then, I tended to my gear. Using some broad, green leaves, I wiped down my police riot armor and helmet and sat them aside to air out. Then I cleaned my dagger, sword, and handgun. Using the reflective side of one of the compact discs I’d scavenged from the Jeep, I studied my reflection. It was strange, seeing myself with a beard and longer hair. Even stranger were the new contours in my face. Gone was the puffiness and sagginess of civilized living. I’d already known I’d lost weight after having to cinch up my pants with a belt made from vines, but it became even more apparent when I saw my reflection. My face looked leaner. I liked it.
It occurred to me that, judging by the length of my hair, the beard growth, and the changes in my face, I’d been here longer than I’d thought. Although it felt like only a few days had passed since my arrival, the length of my hair seemed to indicate that it had been a month or more. The same could be said of my beard. Its scruffiness indicated that I’d been growing it for weeks, rather than days. Another indicator was the loss of fat and the addition of muscle throughout my body. I’d always been in fairly decent physical shape, but since arriving in the Lost Level, it had taken on more visible prominence.
I don’t know how long I sat there, lost in my thoughts. I certainly wasn’t paying attention to anything around me. It wasn’t until the mournful call of an owl startled me from my musings that I remembered I was supposed to be on watch. I glanced at the fire and was surprised to see that it had burned down once more to just a few glowing embers. My gear was just beyond the fire, and Kasheena and Bloop lay past that. Had it been dark, they would have just been two dark lumps in the shadows.
The owl hooted again. I scanned the trees, looking for it. I didn’t have to search for long. A large, winged form soared down from the treetops and perched on a low–hanging limb nearby. I studied the bird, and it did the same to me. As far as I could determine, it was a normal owl just like the ones we had back home. It turned its head slightly, staring at me with gold–rimmed eyes. I stared back at it, mesmerized. A sense of calm came over me. I relaxed. The owl’s eyes seemed to grow bigger. I watched it, mesmerized. It didn’t move. Just stared. And I did the same.
I was dimly aware of Kasheena stirring. She rose without a sound and crawled to my side, also staring at the owl. She didn’t speak. She, too, seemed mesmerized.
The bird hooted a third time, and I tried to turn toward Kasheena, only to find that I couldn’t move. The calm sensation vanished. Alarmed, I struggled against an unseen force that held me in place. I couldn’t kick my legs out or move my arms, nor could I speak. Only my heart and lungs continued to work. The rest of me was paralyzed. I couldn’t even swallow. The worst part was still having my wits, but being unable to do anything. It was frustrating to have my weapons within reach but unable to use them.
My alarm turned to sheer terror as the owl fluttered down from the tree limb and onto the ground in front of us. As I watched, the owl transformed, changing from a bird of prey into the pop culture representation of a grey alien. The entity’s mass seemed to flow like liquid or twist like taffy as the transformation took place. The metamorphosis lasted only seconds. The alien was short, possessed a bulbous head and two large eyes, a small slit of a mouth, an almost non–existent nose, elongated arms, and disturbingly long fingers. The creature was dressed in a black one–piece uniform that ran from its feet up to its neck, leaving only its hands uncovered. The uniform had no discernible writing or markings on it—nothing to identify an affiliation or origin.
