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.That tingled something in Ivar’s memory, but he couldn’t grab onto it.But even as he pondered that, he saw what lay on the other side of the freighter: five Spanish galleons, stranded on the sand as if evenly parked by some massive hand.Scattered on the black sand around them were ransacked chests and supplies.“Hello!” Ivar called out, knowing as he did so there would be no answer.It was all so still and quiet.And if there were people here, Ivar wasn’t sure he wanted to meet them.He was drawn forward, curiosity overwhelming his confusion about this place.“Whoa,” Ivar whispered as he saw what was beyond the galleons.An old ship.Very old.Something he must have seen on the History Channel or some similar show.A single-masted ship with holes on the sides for a bank of oars.The ship was old in design, but the vessel looked relatively new, definitely not a thing for the museum.A replica, Ivar wondered, but he knew that wasn’t the case.It was the real thing.He climbed up a ladder attached to the side of the ship with wooden pegs.As he came up over the bulwark, he saw something on the other side of the ship that caused him to halt: five military propeller aircraft, lined up wingtip to wingtip.“Flight Nineteen,” Ivar whispered, remembering the opening of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and knowing it had something to do with a formation of planes that had disappeared with no trace.The five TBM Avengers were in mint condition, no sign of accident or foul play.“Okeydokey.” Ivar climbed down the ladder to the “sand.” He went over to the planes.There was no sign of the pilots, not that he expected to see any.He turned away from the water.Ivar took several deep breaths, then looked “landward.”In that direction, the land rose up to a dune about fifty yards away, which blocked any further view.Besides the black sand and the vessels, there was no vegetation, no rocks, nothing.Ivar took a step landward.The sand gave way slightly, but was firm enough to walk on.He moved toward the dune, to gain some altitude and try to get some sense of the terrain.Ivar crested the dune and wasn’t surprised to see similar dunes rippling away into the haze.“Great,” Ivar muttered.He wondered if this was another one of Orlando’s tests to see how he would react to this unique environment.Even Orlando couldn’t come up with something this complex and vast.“Aliens,” Ivar muttered to himself, which he knew wasn’t a good sign, but there was no one to notice.Maybe a big spaceship with a lot of lights flashing and organ sounds.People coming out of it.The pilots of the Avengers.Except he wasn’t on top of Devil’s Tower but deep inside some sort of place.“No spaceship,” Ivar said.Ivar made his way down this dune and up another, no idea what he was in search of, but with a feeling that moving was better than staying still.He had to have gotten here some way, so there had to be a way back.It was the way a scientist would think.Of course, the ships and planes had gotten here some way too: They’d disappeared off the face of the planet.And they were still here.In what looked like the exact same condition as when they’d disappeared.Ivar looked over his shoulder and saw his footprints.As he watched, the black “sand” slowly shifted back into place, making it look as if he had never walked by.Ivar shivered at the deeper implications of that.He crested another dune and paused.There was really no way to tell direction here, and if his footprints faded away, he wouldn’t be able to retrace his steps back to where he’d started.Belatedly, Ivar pulled out his phone.He wasn’t surprised to see no bars: He doubted any of the cell companies had made it this far, however far this was.Still he tried to make a call and got nothing.He shoved the phone back in his pocket.Ivar puzzled over this predicament for a few moments.He was so lost in thought, he failed to realize he was being surrounded.When he tuned back in to his environment, he had to blink several times to make sure what he was seeing was real: Four men had materialized with no sound, as if sprouting from the ground itself.They were dressed in black lacquered armor and wore ornate helmets.What Ivar focused on, though, were the swords they held in their hands and the spears slung over their backs.He’d only seen their like in movies: samurai.Or maybe ronin [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]