In the meantime, I knocked on the door and he let me in. He made sure that the black Corolla parked in his driveway was in fact mine, I told him it was. If you think I should’ve turned around then and left, let me tell you something; I’d later go back and meet with him again.

Inside the house, there were several walls covered with crazy mind maps and conspiracy theories. His living room seriously looked like that It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia meme where Charlie’s going off the deep end, mainly because James was going off the deep end. He kept trying to tell me a bunch of shit could be decoded using ancient languages.

I tried to steer him back on subject and he responded with, “Oh, I’m sorry. You’re right! The USS Malibu.” He quickly looked through some boxes behind his couch and found a fairly large folder full of random documents. “It was clearly sunk on purpose because the crew had accidently come across something they weren’t supposed to. You wanna know how I’m so sure of this?” he asked.

I shrugged.

“Because a ship was sunk in the same exact spot the Malibu called from in 1997. In 1968, same fuckin’ thing. There’s something about that spot that isn’t right,” he explained as he flipped through the book to find the coordinates.

He found them, and I scribbled them down on a spare piece of notepad he offered me.

26°30’54.6"N 83°20’04.3"W

“The USS McCoy sank there in 1968. Similar radio distress signal to the one they radioed out this year. In ‘97, it was the USS Vanderbilt, same thing with the distress signal. Now, in 2018, it’s the Malibu. Have you heard the tape?” he asked.

“I haven’t,” I responded.

“Well, look into getting a recording from your friend, Dan. It’s truly haunting what happened to those men, but if you want to blow the lid on whatever is happening at those coordinates, I suggest you get that tape,” he explained.

“Dan doesn’t have that tape,” I said, confused.

“Well that’s where I got it from,” James said.

“I know you must’ve heard it from him,” I began, “But he told me that-”

“No, I have a copy that I got from him,” James interrupted, “He told me that I’d be able to blow the roof on this shit once and for all.”

I was so puzzled. “No . . . he said that he only listened to it because of his super. He said that he didn’t have access to it.”

James smirked. “When’d he tell you that?”

“When I talk to him about it,” I said, “It was like a week ago.”

“Uh huh,” James said before he paused. He then looked back at his files. “He gave me a full recording of the distress signal sent from the Malibu the day that they got it. He said he needed everyone to know about this. That was nine days ago.”

I frowned at this. “Well then I’m gonna need to talk to Danny. It was good meeting you, I’ll call you if I need some more information. The number on the door is . . . yours?”

“That’s a much more important number. You’ll need it if whatever I’m on to manages to find it’s way to us. Time and time again, we neglect to get the help we desparately need,” he explained. I still shudder at the fact that these would be the last words he’d ever say to anyone.

As I left, I jotted down the phone number and address onto my paper before I left. When I plugged the address into Google Maps, it showed that it was in the middle of absolutely nowhere, just outside the town of Groveland. I was guessing it was probably a lake house or something, considering there was a pond right next to the house.

I put all of this aside for a couple days so my mom could come visit me from her quaint little abode in Palmyra, Maine. Mom always loved the sun and would spend hours at the beach by my lovely house. Many would be shocked to see the size of my house and find out I was a journalist, but I bought the house with some of the money my father had left me after he passed, as I was his only son.

After mom left, I decided to drive up to the address that was written on James’s door. It was an abandoned house about ten miles away from almost any sign of civilization. This house probably hadn’t been lived in since Reagan was demanding Mr. Gorbachev to tear down the wall. Decay was rampant across the structure and plant life had begun to reclaim a fair portion of the building. Vines slithered out of windows like snakes and small palmetto tree seedlings sprouted up from under the porch steps.

I eventually gathered up the courage to venture inside the house, which was unlocked, and see what the fuss was about this place.

The interior was strange in the fact that it was clear the departure from this house was unplanned. Imagine grabbing your car keys and driving off from this house never to return, that was how this place was left. The island in the kitchen looked to have been set for a meal, and there looked to be the disgusting remains of some sort of poultry that had been planned for dinner. A flyer for George H. W. Bush’s presidential campaign had been left on the living room table, along with a copy of TV Guide from 1989. There was a picture of a younger Oprah with the caption “Richest Woman On TV?” printed off to the side.

Now this may have popped into some of your heads already, but I was unsettled by one key fact about florida life.

Since 1989, we’ve had our fair share of nasty and destructive hurricanes. From Andrew to Charley to Wilma to Irma, the state has been redeemed by some nasty weather. Even if this was miles inland, tornadoes were a threat around here. So the fact that this house hadn’t been wiped into the swamp it seemed to reside on was off putting to say the very least. How had the house managed to survive so many years of destruction without being demolished like a freakin’ sand castle?

As I explored more, I discovered that things only got more and more strange. I opened one of the doors by the living room and found it lead to a basement. When I flashed my light downstairs, there was no water. The basement was probably drier than any other place in the house; there wasn’t so much as a wet spot.

I started to move my light around when a sudden sense of complete dread washed over me. It was strong, stronger than any feeling I’d ever felt before in my life. I booked it out of that house faster than a stoner college student would book it out of the town house when the cops show up. When I turned back to the house, I saw something lurking in the upstairs window. I couldn’t see much of their face, but I could tell they were tall and lanky.

Either way, I said fuck it and sped out of that place. On my drive back, I called the number James had told me about and was completely taken aback when some from Homeland Security answered. I didn’t even know what to say, so I just hung up and drove further along. Eventually, I pulled into a Burger King parking lot and called Danny, asking for James’s number. Once he gave it to me, I dialed in the number.

James didn’t pick up the first three times I tried; the fourth time he picked up in a nervous panic. “He-he-hello?”

“What the fuck James!? Homeland security!? That’s the number on your fucking door?” I shouted in dismay.

He paused for quite some time. Then, he said, “I-I-I . . . I don’t know.”

Then he hung up.

“What the fuck!?” I shouted out loud. I drew the attention of a young woman standing next to her Prius and her daughter. With that, I drove out of the parking lot and all the way home. I didn’t stop for anything; I was too weirded out by all this crazy shit.

Next Chapter: Shoreline: Section 3