CHAPTER 8
Dewitt, NY
Drew's dead.
The words crashed through Laney’s mind over and over again. He was gone. She rolled over and stared at the ceiling, a sharp sting in her eyes. She was cried out. There were simply no tears left.
She dragged herself from the bed and glanced at her reflection in the mirror. Rumpled sweats, bed hair, red-streaked eyes, paler than normal face. “Yup, looking good,” she mumbled.
Stopping by her office, she grabbed her laptop and her keys from the floor where she’d dropped them the night before. In the kitchen, she hung the keys by the back door, placed her laptop on the island, and poured herself a cup of coffee.
She paced and then stared out the kitchen window, watching the sun peek over the horizon, careful to keep her mind blank, not ready to face anything yet. But the insidious thoughts found their way in. How could Drew be dead? He wouldn't have killed himself. She knew that. But what then had happened?
Giving herself a mental shake, she muttered, “Pull it together.”
She dumped the now-cold coffee in the sink and poured a new cup. She pulled out a bowl for cereal and then put it back. Not hungry.
She looked around for something to do. She’d tidied up the kitchen last night in her burst of frenzied cleaning, so that was out. The papers were still standing there, waiting to be graded, but she wasn’t up for the task right now. Her eyes fell on her laptop. It couldn’t be put off any longer.
She flipped open the computer, which she’d left on last night. It had gone into hibernation. Tapping on the space bar, the password screen appeared. Hip perched against the counter, she typed in her password and began the familiar steps of getting into her email account.
Taking a deep breath, she opened Drew’s attachment. She didn’t read it, just hit the print command for the wireless printer upstairs. Once complete, she shut the computer down. She leaned against the counter, her mug nestled between her hands. Grief fell over her like a shroud.
“Drew,” she whispered. Her body weakened at the mental image of him lifeless and hanging.
“No,” she ordered herself as her legs began to shake. She pushed off the counter. He’d asked her for one last thing. And, damn it, she was going to do it.
She walked up the stairs and pulled the papers from the output tray in the office. She curled up on the overstuffed chair she and Drew had found at a garage sale a few years back. Shoving away the anguish the memory evoked, she concentrated on his words:
Gobekli Tepe. The name conjures up one of the greatest archaeological mysteries of the late twentieth century. Sonar readings of the Turkish site have revealed a series of concentric circles arranged much like Stonehenge, but measuring out at an astounding 18,000 square meters.
The fifteen-ton limestone megaliths unearthed so far reveal incredible masonry. Animal reliefs extend from the structures and pictographs were painstakingly carved upon the hard rock. While there are many disagreements about Gobekli Tepe, there is one area upon which all agree: whatever hands created this site were truly talented.
And that is where the problem lies. The beginning of civilization is attributed to the emergence of the developments around the Fertile Crescent, in the area currently known as the Middle East and Eastern Europe, somewhere between 3000 and 2000 BC.
Carbon dating of Gobekli Tepe, however, indicates that the site is over 11,000 years old – almost double the age of the ruins at the Fertile Crescent. That makes Gobekli Tepe an impossibility. Mankind should not have been capable of such an incredible feat. And yet, there Gobekli Tepe stands, mocking us, daring us to write off the incredible skill necessary for its creation.
The only possible explanation for its existence is that we have misidentified the beginning of civilization. Civilization, in terms of scientific advancement and accomplishments, must have begun much farther down the timeline. If that is indeed the case, it opens the door to the possibility of more ancient, unknown, but technologically advanced civilizations. It opens the door to the possibility of Atlantis.
Atlantis has often been relegated-
Her eyes lifted from the paper and she frowned. It sounded like something scratching at the back door. She glanced at the clock. Could be her uncle if he got someone else to cover Mass.
She paused, straining to hear. Only silence now. She waited, but the house remained quiet.
She shook her head. Probably just the neighbor’s cat. She’d made the mistake of feeding it once and now it showed up at odd hours looking for a little tidbit. She dropped part of the paper and reached down to pick it up. It was the beginning of the reference section. One name leapt out at her: Edgar Cayce.
“Drew, what were you up to?” she murmured.
Theories on the existence of Atlantis had been around almost since the dawn of mankind. But within archaeology, the topic was taboo. No reputable academic would give credence to the possibility of its existence, not, at least, if he or she wanted to get published anywhere.
And using Edgar Cayce as a source was not going to gain you any points, either. Cayce was a psychic from the early twentieth century. He was widely regarded as incredibly accurate in his psychic medical diagnosis. Research conducted in the 1970s put his accuracy at an astounding eighty-six percent. But it was his past-life readings on Atlantis that raised the most eyebrows.
A second citation caught her attention. “The Book of Enoch.” She struggled to recall what little she could about the apocryphal text. Enoch, Noah’s great-grandfather, allegedly wrote it after a visit to heaven.
Her stomach growled, interrupting her thoughts. She realized she hadn’t eaten since lunch yesterday. Picking up her mug, she drained the last bits of coffee. She might not want any food, but if she was going to get through the day, she’d need the fuel.
She headed downstairs, her mind filled with Drew’s ideas. Lost in her thoughts, she rounded the bottom of the stairs, eyes cast on the ground, her mind millennia away.
“Ah, there you are.”
Her head jerked up and she stumbled to a stop. An Asian man stood staring at her, a small smile on his face. “I’ve been waiting for you.”