Kevin Emerson - Drifters

PROJECT BARRICADE

REFERENCE CODE: 7

ARTIFACT #06450-1

SOURCE: U.S. NAVAL ARCHIVES

CLASSIFIED: TOP SECRET

Concerning the Tragic and Unexplainable Circumstances of the Sinking of the Trading Vessel ENDURANCE, an account by reporter Stephen Peters

28 January 1898

Dearest Willa,

I cannot imagine what wild rumors have reached you regarding my fate, and I hope this letter can bring you some comfort. How I long to deliver these words in person, to feel your loving embrace once more, but alas, I fear that my condition is unlikely to improve, and there is little hope of finding passage home in the short time I have left.

Before I continue, darling, I must make a solemn request: given what has transpired, I suspect this correspondence will be the only account of the Endurances end. Therefore, I beg you, once you have read this, please deliver it to the naval authorities, and please stress to them that, though the events described herein may suggest fantasy or madness, I swear upon my fathers name that all of what follows is true.

Now, for my grim tale: as you will recall from my previous letter, I joined the crew in San Diego on the tenth of December for the journey north to Skagway, in order to file a firsthand accounting of this Klondike gold rush that has of late gripped the imagination. The voyage began most amicably; I have always felt a certain ease among the swarthy clientele of such vessels, perhaps even more so than in the stuffy parlors of our fair city, and so I found the weeks at sea aboard the Endurance quite pleasant, until the fateful night of the twenty-third of January, when tragedy struck.

The hour was nigh seven. I had, as usual, declined the invitations to join the nightly round of card games, and was tucked into my hammock, attempting to organize my notes from the journey so far, when I heard the warning bell ringing on deck: three sharp tones.

Of course the bell did not always indicate danger. Sometimes, it was for a pod of humpback, which our navigator would want to chart for the whalers. Other times, for some sight of interest; there was no shortage of wild and breathtaking coastline along this journey, and the remains of spectacular shipwrecks to match.

And yet as I rose, I felt a portentous chill, and saw a similar disquiet on the other mens faces as we made our way up the narrow stairway to the main deck. For what, at this dark hour, could justify raising all hands, other than danger?

What is it, Barson? the captain called to the first mate, who was perched in the crows nest.

Its there, sir, Barson replied, pointing two oclock off starboard. But what it may be, I cannot say.

We crowded to the railing. The sea was relatively calm, the moonless sky clear and twinkling with uncountable stars. I could just make out the features of the coastline: a wide beach and a high bluff, which ended sharply at what might have been the mouth of an inlet.

There! a crewman shouted, pointing at the water between us and the beach.

And here you must take my word, though you are sure to doubt: there was a ghostly light shimmering beneath the surface. It fluttered and danced and seemed to spiral in a vortex... and it was spreading quickly, causing a riot of waves above it.

Could be a bioluminescence, said Mr. Partridge, our science officer. Or some phosphorescence from thermal vents, though Im not sure

It is none of those things, said the captain gravely. He stared at the growing light with a calm, almost innocent visage, which at the time I found perplexing. As a disciple of our new scientific age, I spent those precious final moments engaged in fruitless theorizing: Was this a new manner of diving bell, or some technology known only to the mind of Edison himself? But somehow, the captain knew better. Bring us hard to port, Mr. Wells, he ordered. All hands to the rigging!

Some of the crew took heel to their stations, but others remained at the railing with me, our eyes fixated on the light as if in a trance. And it grew ever more fascinating: blooming and pulsing, a brilliant golden-white. The water boiled, the waves becoming giant and chaotic, and the light shone bright enough to burn spots in my eyes and cause an unnatural heat on my face. At the same time, a storm was brewing overhead, dark clouds gathering in a spiral, as if this light were drawing foul weather to it.

Now, curse you! the captain shouted. Move!

Boots shotgunned on the boards, ropes groaned, pulleys whined. But we had barely begun our maneuvers when the first riotous wave reached us. The bow heaved, then fell steeply, sending us staggering for balance. The Endurance was thrown off its line, and so we came broadside to the next wave, which loomed high above the deck rails.

Hang on! Barson shouted from above.

For the briefest moment, I saw in that great wave a view that challenged the imagination: a disk of pure darkness had begun to grow within the center of the brilliant vortex, like the pupil of some otherworldly eye. And yet this pupil seemed more like a window: through it, I saw stars, same as the night sky above, but also green swirls of ethereal fire, and closer, a great, hulking darkness, like the blot of a cloud against a moonless night, as if some presence lurked on the other sidefor I swear to you, Willa, that was what it seemed I was witnessing, a portal into another realm. I know not how else to describe it.

Then that great wave curled overhead and broke upon us. I lost hold of the rail and was swept across the deck by the frigid, raging sea. It was sheer luck that I slammed into the mast with enough force to slow my pace; otherwise, I would have been carried overboard like so many of the crew. Instead, I was left prone against the far railing, choking and gasping for breath.

I wiped the salt from my eyes and raised my head to see that the brilliant light had only grown. It was all around us now, not just beneath the water but everywhere, such that I could no longer see the fore or aft of the ship, nor the sailsthey may have already been ripped away by that pointnor even the sky above. There was only that blinding brightness.

Ahh! A nearby crewman shrieked, and when I gazed at him, I witnessed a horrifying sight. His eyes had clouded over with a milky-white film, becoming pearlescent, unseeing, like something from one of Poes ghastly tales. He began to speak in wordless tones, his fingers clawing at his face, before he collapsed to the deck.

The light had grown so bright it seemed to spear through the very fiber of every board, of the air itself, but that dark pupil had grown in kind, and from within it, a figure now appeared, walking forward as if out of nowhere. A human form in a heavy blue suit, similar to what a deep-sea diver might wear, and yet lined with flashing lights, as if it were somehow electrified. The figure stopped right in the middle of the deck, looking this way and that.

I realized that I could no longer hear the waves, the wind, even the creaking of the ship. There was only a rhythmic whooshing, like breathing through a pipe, and a steady hum as if made by an enormous windmill. Then a series of urgent sounds: at first, I heard only strange clicks and chirps, but somehow, these unearthly noises began to form themselves into words in my mind, a voice, edged with fear, and sounding as if it were coming through some manner of megaphone.