A man was running toward her.
And he was carrying a rifle!
Amelia pushed both throttles as far forward as she could. The Electra pulled forward, as though eager to finally escape the confines of the castaway island.
Up ahead, the soldier took aim at her.
She glanced at the Air Speed Indicator. It read, 85 miles per hour. Not nearly enough for takeoff.
A shot fired.
She ducked instinctively, but she didn’t need to. The Electra would take off in a nose-up position, meaning that the metallic nose of the aircraft and part of the fuselage would be between her and the man firing at her.
Her attacker might still get lucky and damage an important part of the Electra, but it was unlikely he would be able to stop her taking off.
She glanced at the Air Speed Indicator. It now read 120 miles per hour.
Amelia held the wheel forward for the count of three more seconds, and then pulled it gently to her chest.
She heard the staccato of multiple shots being fired.
A hundred feet in the air, she banked to the left, and set a course southeast — toward New Zealand.
Amelia flew on into the night and into the next day.
As the Electra flew on, reaching into her 20th hour, Amelia felt the tingling grip of Death pawing at the back of her neck.
Had she missed New Zealand altogether?
She had already flicked over to the final reserve fuel tank, but even those, too, were now almost completely dry.
The twin propellers continued to beat the air.
The left engine went first.
For a total of three minutes the right one continued, before it misfired, sputtered, and eventually conked out completely.
Amelia pushed the wheel forward, dipping the nose, avoiding an immediate stall, before settling into the Electra’s optimum glide ratio.
At five thousand feet, there was still time.
Her eyes raked the sea for any sign of land.
Failing that, she studied the swell, trying to determine the best place to put down on the sea. Her gaze caught something that didn’t quite seem right. The large swell was flowing in a southeasterly direction and then flattened out into a millpond. The sea changed from the monotonous midnight blue of deep, dark ocean water, into shades of cyan, pale azure, and aquamarine.
She was over shallow water.
That didn’t make sense. Even off course, anywhere near New Zealand was surrounded by deep water.
The question remained, where was she?
Far into the distance, the water turned a deep blue, nearing shades of black.
Amelia squinted her eyes trying to get a better grasp on what she was seeing. She corrected her course, just slightly to the south, aiming for the anomaly.
The Electra glided on dutifully and as she approached the site, Amelia realized for the first time that she was looking at the back of a small mountainous atoll. The black, glassy volcanic stone formed the shape of a large half-dome.
It was most likely the very tip of an ancient volcano.
As she lost the remaining altitude, she made minor adjustments to prepare for a landing within or nearby the island’s protected waters and the beach. Through the windshield, she was granted her first glimpse of the island that might just pluck her from the possibility of death by ditching in the sea.
The volcanic dome curved to form a giant U at least half a mile in width. The beach was shaped like a large mouth, its white sands stretching open wide, like the smile of a Cheshire cat. It funneled into a large grotto beneath the rocky outcrop, the tips of the U-formation nearly touching. It left a sliver of land less than twenty feet wide through which a tidal river of turquoise water flowed into the inside of the larger body of a sheltered lagoon.
Amelia banked to the left, extended the flaps to full, and lowered the landing gear wheels.
The Electra glided across the edge of the beach. She pulled back on the wheel, lifting the nose until the aircraft flared. The Electra fought to maintain lift for a further second or so, before succumbing to gravity, and stalling.
Her wheels touched the thick sand, and the Electra rolled to a stop.
Amelia climbed out, grabbing her Kodak 620 Duo camera.
She took a photograph of the Electra with the backdrop of the strange volcanic island in the background. Somehow, whatever happened, she felt there needed to be a record. Even if she didn’t survive, someone would one day find her, and she wanted that person to know the truth.
In the sand, white as snow, were a set of footprints that led east, toward the half-dome shaped remnants of the ancient volcano that now overhung part of the beach like the mouth of a behemoth monster turned grotto. But the shipwreck drew her attention. The wooden remains of a 16th century Dutch Fluyt, with its distinctive pear-shaped hull — most likely used in early exploration of the Southern Seas — rested half buried in the sand. She’d seen drawings of the same type of vessel in old maps produced by the Dutch East Indies Company. It must have washed up on the beach long ago.
Amelia took a photograph of the shipwreck.
As she walked around the back side of the half-buried hull, she spotted that the glass fitting that adorned the captain’s aft cabin had long since shattered, allowing a clear line of sight inside. She made a cursory glance, knowing full well that the wreck was far too old to offer anything of any useful assistance to her.
The hollowed eyes of a skeleton’s skull stared back at her.
Lying next to the wretched remains was a broken chest. The iron had rusted through, revealing a hoard of gold coins which had now leaked out, scattering along the cabin floor. It was a bounty fit for a king.
She put her hand to her mouth, and stepped back, knowing full well that it would serve her no better than the crew who had died on the island as castaways. Amelia expelled a deep breath of air, hoping that she wouldn’t share the same fate as the Dutch explorers.
If the gold had remained untouched all these years, it meant one thing — she was the first visitor to the island since the demise of the Dutch ship.
Where the hell am I?
Not one to give up on anything, Amelia continued to follow the footsteps which led toward the cavernous opening in the volcanic structure.
She crunched her face up tight and swallowed down the fear that rose in her throat, as she noted that all of the footprints led from the shipwreck to the cave, with none returning to the beach. Her gaze traced the deep lines of the footprints to a section of rock where three separate stones, each as large as a bus, jolted together to form a natural archway. Her eyes landed at the entrance. There was something ominous about an opening that descended underground on a deserted island, where others had entered and likely never returned.
Amelia mentally closed her mind to the idea. After all, she was on a deserted island somewhere in the South Pacific. Nothing dangerous was lying in wait for her.
She stepped through the arched gateway.
A set of stairs had been carved into the brittle volcanic rock. It looked like a medieval stairwell, spiraling to the left with the precision that she doubted few stonemasons could recreate today. She set her jaw and with an equal mixture of awe and curiosity, Amelia descended deep into the subterranean tunnel.
Her descent continued for an intangible duration.
Light filtered through glassy rocks, allowing enough ambient glow to make out the shape of the tunnel and the location of the stairs, but little else. She placed her left hand on the smooth, glassy surface, using it for guidance and balance.
The effort that someone had made to construct the strange stairwell amazed her. Her ears hurt as she continued her descent and she found herself swallowing to equalize them.