Mystery Sea Island

Tuesday - June 2018. Peter Scott, my husband of six years, stood anxiously in line with me as the morning sun rays beamed on our tattered carry bags. “Naomi, are these all of the bags you’re bringing?” Peter said. “I’m shocked.” I didn’t want to make a scene since I was raised to be a lady at all times. “Peter, we’re only traveling for a week.” I responded carefully. “Is that supposed to be a compliment?” The line begins to move forward as Peter quickly grabs his blue duffle bag and I reach for one of mine. We move with the other anxious vacationers, then he notices my other bag. “I guess you need a little help, “, he grunts. “This one is for the books. Just two bags.” Ten A-M on the dot and we arrived at the check – in counter. Farrah, the ticket lady, as her badge read, met us at the desk. “Welcome to Mystery Sea Island. May I have your tickets, please?” Peter reaches into his left back pocket of his khaki shorts and gives Farrah two paper tickets. “Thank you”, said Farrah, “we know you will both enjoy this one-of-a-kind experience.” Our faces lit up with charming smiles as we started to walk through the metal counter bars, carrying and toting our bags with us. Before us was a long concrete tunnel with gobs of green, bluish algae-looking paintings on the walls, ceilings, and floors, coated with bluish paint underneath. Strange oceanic plant life hung from above and grew up the walls as we the strolled along the tunnel. Other tourists were following us and a few were gazing from behind. As we walked closer to the end, we could see out of carefully spaced windows on the left side of the wall. I walked closer to one of the windows to take a peek the other side, I tiptoed slightly to get a good view and adored the sun’s glowing rays on the Atlantic. It captured my attention. Peter stood close, but I signaled to him to take a glance. His six-foot frame allowed him to just peek through the window without tiptoeing. We both focused on the one object sitting in the middle of the ocean. “You think this is our ship?” I asked Peter. A voice from behind Peter and I spoke quite powerfully, “Nope! This one just left the port. Ours is the next one.” Peter and I looked at the man who responded. He was obviously a tourist as well, dressed with the typical khaki shorts and a plain, dark blue, oversized, slightly worn t-shirt. “I take it you’ve been on this voyage before?” asked Peter to the tourist. “Yes, a total of five times, but never this particular mystery. It stimulated my brain after I retired a decade ago as a Humanities professor. What brings you here?” Peter answers, “My wife, Naomi and I are adventurous. I’m Peter.” The gentleman offers his hand. We left the window and continued down the colorful tunnel. “Hi, Naomi.” He gently reaches over to shake my hand. “Hello, sir.” I exchanged a hand shake with the stranger. Peter, now leading the conversation, “we’ve been married for six years and my wife is in school to become a psychologist. I’m currently in law school.” Excitedly, the gentleman says, “well, it’s nice to see a future doctor and a lawyer coming to solve a good mystery!” I exclaimed, “Indeed…I have been waiting for this…” Peter interrupts, “...you know, I did not catch your name, sir?” I felt a bit of a gut punch when I was interrupted, but this was for a good reason. “How rude of me” in his kind voice, “Professor Polk. My students gave me the name in my thirty-five-year teaching career. It just sticks to me so I just refer to that. Otherwise, it’s just Thomas, Thomas Polk.” His genuine smile made us feel comfortable to continue walking with him. “We waited for a full year to book this trip. My wife bugged me to not forget.” I snarled at him. “This was mutual, Professor Polk.” I said in defense of myself. Professor Polk answered, “No need to explain. This is a very busy tour, especially during this time of year. The northerners come to vacate and the southerners come to have a little adventure without the long traveling distance. Are you from this area?” Peter answers, “Yes, we live about two hours away in North Florida.” Professor Polk looks at back at Peter, “Ah, the first coast, very nice beaches.”. He switches his bag to his other arm as we approach the end of the tunnel, only to find another check-in area. The painted walls now appeared in a solid coral color. Peter approaches the new ticket lady, sitting on a stool, dressed in a blue blazer and jeans, holding a book to her face. “Hi, are we headed in the right direction?” Peter asks. “we’re here for the sea mystery trip.” Her eyes shift from her book to Peter as she stares at our belongings. “there’s only one way into the ship. Keep walking.” I clutch myself closer to Peter as we bump into each other while keeping our bags close. We passed the nonchalant ticket lady and kept walking until the tunnel takes a turn to the left. “Did you see her, Peter?” I asked curiously and suspiciously. “Something feels weird since the walls changed colors. What an extreme change, don’t you think?” I expressed. “It doesn’t feel that different to me.” Peter said, “Just a color change and a ticket lady with a boring job. We seem to be moving closer to the ship. By the way, I never answered your question.” Peter had a way of remembering conversations when he wasn’t able to see he was truly the winner. “What question?” I asked. “Whether I complimented you about carrying so few bags?” I couldn’t believe he wanted to readdress that lame subject. “Go ahead Peter, you know it was intended as a joke, or so I would think so.” A larger window appeared to the right of the new tunnel and we could see the ship more clearly. “I did.” Peter gently responded. He gave a snarly smile and kissed me on my cheek. All of a sudden, we heard loud voices coming from down the tunnel. We couldn’t tell if they were cheering or howling. It was just noises. We looked behind us and realized more tourists had caught up with us, so we decided to walk a little faster. Peter gasped for a moment, “Oh my God, I just realized, what happened to Professor Polk?” I almost felt another gut punch because I didn’t even realize he wasn’t with us. “You’re right, he seems to have disappeared. He’s been on this trip so many times, perhaps he went another way.” Peter quickly reminded me, “That couldn’t be because remember the ticket lady said there was only one way on the ship.” I began to wonder if the mystery had begun now or if we were headed for a surprise once we boarded. Finally, we saw where tourists enter to board the ship. “Peter, I think this is it.” I was so excited and shook up from the creepy ticket lady to missing Professor Polk. Peter thought it would be a good idea to maybe ask the people behind us if they saw an average looking guy, about in his 60’s wearing khaki shorts and a dark blue, oversized t-shirt walking around, but all of a sudden, THE SOUND! Shouts of horror came out of nowhere! Peter and I felt an immediate, strong pull of air drawing us downward into another tunnel. This time, the tunnel was dark and no matter how hard we pulled away, we couldn’t stop it. “Naomi, grab on to me!” Peter yelled. With lightning speed, we were tossed into a dark dungeon-like space with other tourists. Our bags were surprisingly clung to our bodies. We adjusted them so we could feel our way through the dimly lit area. People were crying and occasionally, we would step on a hand or a foot, but the space was large and we could still walk around. “I’m sorry, sir…. ma’am, I’m sorry.” I tried to acknowledge every person when I stepped on a hand or a foot. The noises in the room were from eerily quiet to an occasional scream, but that wasn’t the noise we heard earlier. “Stop apologizing! I see a light.” Peter exclaimed, as he was frightened as well. His palms were sweaty as I tried to stay as close as possible to him. As the light became more apparent, we found ourselves standing in front of a very tall curtain. “The light is behind this curtain.” Peter said. “I hope this is our way out of here!” I shouted. “Let’s pull it back and see.” Professor Polk’s face appeared on the ground as he grabbed our legs and shouted, “NOOOO!” We were both startled, but in our nervousness, we grabbed the middle of the curtain and pulled it back to find….my alarm went off.

THE END.