The Devil's Triangle

The Devil's Triangle

         “I stared over the eternal ocean, hearing voices behind me. They were of the crew men swapping their tales of how they came to be here. We'd been sailing for months on end by now. A few of the crew members claimed they'd been sailing for years. The only solid area for ever, as far as we now, was this ship, The Emperior. It looked like a modernised pirate ship, plastic and not wood, but it still had the feel of a pirate ship. We were barely bobbing, it was more like a train than a ship.
“Wha' about ye, Ade?” One of the crew members, Shivault, called to me. I turned around, my blonde hair flailing in the wind, to face Shivault. He was old and scraggly, probably mid 50s. He had a stubbly white beard, white hair down to the base of his neck. He spoke with a very, very heavy pirate-esque accent, which was ironic, considering our predicament.

“What about me?” I replied, vaguely knowing what he asked me.
“''Ow did ye come t' be 'ere?” He husked. Obviously a heavy smoker, I thought.
“Oh, right, sorry. Well... uh....” I searched my mind for the story, but it didn't take long at all. How on earth could I have forgotten?

“Well, I was on holiday, the Bahamas, 2009.” We often had to specify dates, as some of them were convinced they were from the future, past, whatever. “Well, I say holiday, it was more of a student trip. I was studying history when I went in the water, fell through the ground, and landed on the ship.” I said this quickly. I was never one for words, always forgetting them before the end of the sentence. “And, before you ask again, which you will tomorrow, why don't you-”
“Oi, Adrian! Get your bony butt down here!” Screamed Gregorio. He was from new York, from the early 22nd century, he claimed. I never believed any of the “time travellers” and thought they were fantasising geeks with nothing better to do. A large, round head popped out from the main deck. In front of the library door. I know it has to be serious, when he called me Adrian. Usually he called me Stupid. I ran across the deck, down the short set of stairs and ran through the large doors.

         The Library was fairly small, for big doors. I thought it was a bit anti-climatic at first. This was my first time in the Library. It was more like a small book shop.
“Adrian, look at this.” Gregorio called from the other side of the room. For his size, he was very quick on his feet. He already pulled out a small, dusty, paperback book from a shelf. It looked exactly like any other novel you'd find in W.H. Smiths, nothing at all odd about it. He flicked through the pages, and then choking on the dust that followed. I was soon next to him, peering in to a book. Still nothing special.
“Funny thing, books.” Gregorio started, still reading the odd page. “Never know what you're gonna find. Could be about a group of space explorers on delta five in the year 3000, or it could be Harry and Louise on a date, slurping up spaghetti in some French restaurant.” Then he looked at me. “Or, quite unfortunately, you.”
Gregorio flicked to the first page. “Adrian Joseph Wall. Born February 5th, 1979.”
I glared at him, how the hell could he know that? First name, yeah, sure. Middle name, maybe. Last name, no way. It was far too embarrassing for anyone to find out. 'Adrian Wall.' Gregorio burst out laughing, flickering through the book.
“Way to go, you wet yourself on your first day of school. No... college!” He collapsed in howls of laughter, so I hit him around the head and took the book.
“The Life Of Adrian Wall. By Bermuda.” Startled, I turned the book around, scanned over the blurb.
'“Hilarious, Heart wrenching and Enthralling, 5 Stars.” - The Independent'
And then, at the bottom, I found the publication date.
“Published 1960.” 19 years before I was born! I blazed through the book, turning the pages all the way to the end. If it had my birth, I thought, it must have my death. But no. Nothing. When I thought about it, I didn't remember seeing any words in the book. It was blank. I shot a sharp glare at Gregorio, threw the book at him, and returned to the deck.

“What did 'e want?”  Shivault said, glancing up at me. I rested myself against the bars, which stopped crew members falling in. The rest of the crew were still swapping their stories of how they became to be on The Emperior.
“He was having me on. Made this book, pretended it was about me.” Then, something hit me. “He must have been stalking me long before this. He knows my last name, my birthday and my most embarrassing moment.” Me and Shivault both stared at each other. “Which is totally impossible, if his time travel story is true. Plus, when did he arrive here?” I enquired, not really to Shivault any more, just out loud.

“726 nights ago, why? Wai' a minute. That's impossible then. You've been here for only 234 nights.” Shivault said, very gravely. I then glared at the Library door, and it got closer, and closer. I was running again, at full speed now. After 2 seconds of running, or just about, I was back in the library. Gregorio was reading the book. I simply walked up to him, plucked the book out of his big hands, and ran off again, straight towards Shivault. Shivault was the sort of father figure for all the crew, the one to talk to. He snatched the book out of my hands, and quickly blazed through the pages.
“This is you, all right; This book is about you.”

         Shivault flicked through to the end, and his eyes suddenly shot wide open. He started cursing under his breath, as I figured out what he was reading. The end. Was this really the truth, and he was reading how I die? Or was he part of all of this?
“Can I have it, please?” I asked calmly. He ignored me, and kept on reading the book. “Give it to me.” I said. “NOW.” I felt something new building up inside me.
I jumped at him. He looked up to catch me hurling for him. I didn't know what was wrong with me, I felt a sudden need to read the book. Shivault quickly dived out of the way, turning back the pages, and then he looked up at me. I ran towards him again. Trip. Land on a nail, it left a large puncture in my hand. Impaled. I pulled it back out and carried on trying to get the book. He dodged left. Right. Back. Forwards. By now, the other crew members were trying to stop me killing myself or Shivault. I was scared. It was like I needed the book to survive.

         Shivault ran down through a trap door, in to the kitchen.
“Adrian ran forwards at Shivault. Then, as the man had ran in to the kitchen, he stopped and read out this passage.” His husky voice was a shout by now. You could hear coughing afterwards. He was obviously unfit. I followed the voice in to the kitchen. And there, in the corner, was Shivault. He still held the book in his hands. “'Don't you get it, Adrian?' Shivault called to him. 'It's this book. The book isn't about you. You're about the book. This book is controlling you! Adrian carried on with his advance towards the old pirate. He had obviously heard him, as his face was carrying on as if his body had stopped. 'This isn't fiction, Adrian, it's non-fiction! This is the sort of book you get in the Bermuda Triangle! Wait... the what? This isn't the triangle, is it?' Shivault carried on reading. He said the last part like the rest of the sentence. He obviously was more fussed with my approaching a large meat-cleaver. And with quickening speed.

“You're lying” Both me and Shivault said together, him with the hollow voice like before. He had read me saying it. I had now got the cleaver, and was approaching him. Shivault seemed at total peace now. He had figured out long ago what the book was doing, and he knew what would happen next.
“'And as Adrian approached Shivault, meat cleaver in hand, Shivault looked calm. And with a single step to the left, he barely missed the'” Swish, the cleaver went down, missing Shivault, who had stepped to the left, “'Meat Cleaver.'” Shivault looked up from the book, to me. I saw my reflection in his glasses, I looked absolutely terrified, but not from not having the book, but because of what I was doing. I knew I couldn't control myself. “Adrian, listen to me. Ye can't stop this. It says 'ere, that I say 'Now that ye've seen the book, and know what it is, there is no turning back. It has got ye. I am sorry. Just let it take ye over.'” I look at him, and, as much as I could, I tried to mouth the words, “I'm sorry.” And then, he ducked, and I swung the meat cleaver, breaking a bottle of red wine. It spilt all over Shivault, but he had put the book under his shirt, to protect it.

         He fled from the kitchen. On to the deck. Where the others were. “The other crew members all surrounded the trap door.” Shivault read aloud from the deck. I could here him still coughing. I put the meat-cleaver in my mouth, and climbed up. The eternal ocean backdrop looked so tranquil, compared to what was happening. I was now completely taken over, my eyes had become a greed-filled pit. He held the paper back. The yellow and orange book was now, as far as I knew, on the final page.

“'Adrian wondered where Gregorio was in all this.'” Shivault read to me. “'He'd read the ending, he read what I am saying now. He stays in the Library, out of the way.'” Shivault explains. I am terrified now, he knows what I am thinking, the book from 1960 knows what I am thinking right now, more than 40 years later. Meat cleaver in hand. Run. Slash. Blood flew everywhere, but none of it touched Shivault, who was ducking and diving out the way, not risking missing the next sentence. I ran to Shivault, while the crew members were subdued. Or dead. The carnage seemed nothing to me. Nothing at all. I was now running faster than I ever had. Over the plastic deck, over the metal bars, down through the water, down to the bottom of the sea, down through the end of the book.”
Shivault looked up and closed the book, many years after this happened. He was still on the Emperior, a new crew all sat attentively around him. All were waiting for the next thing the old pirate sage said. After a few minutes, a woman, Claris, turned to Shivault.
“Captain? What makes him so special? I mean, why was he the only one with a book?”

Shivault stroked his now long beard. “I have had many years to think about this. All the carnage on this very deck that day left me as the last survivor. And I have learnt, that he wasn't. Just as it wasn't special Gregorio found the book, I was the last survivor, and that Adrian succumbed to the book. It's all totally random. I suppose everyone has a book, somewhere. His was just in the right place. My theory is that this is another planet, and due to that, we could be from whenever, earth-wise. I know it's all very HG Wells, but it could be possible. If you look in a library, or a bookshop, or a loft, wherever, whenever, you might find your book. But if you fine a book about you, or with your name in the title, at all. I order you not to read it. Put it down, walk away. Don't even read a word.”
For the rest of the evening, the wise Captain Shivault or The Emperior was sat in the library, reading the book again. And now, so many years after it had happened, there was one final page he never found. It was one he had never read. But, Shivault had just read Adrian Joseph Wall's death to the new Crew Members.
“At the bottom of the ocean, I felt free from the reaches of the book, but I knew whatever I saw, thought, felt, heard, anything, would be in that book, a world away. So, for my final words, ever, in all of my life. I said, through the bubbles,
'Thank You, Shivault.'”
Shivault grinned, and he put the book on a shelf at the back of the Library.

         The deck was orange with the sunset, and the ocean was getting dark. The Emperior carried on it's eternal Voyage around the Devil's Triangle.