Free Area 51: Nosferatu-8 by Robert Doherty

place where two tall white-capped mountains beckoned in the distance and the land changed from jungle to open plains reaching the shoreline. Nosferatu heard the men muttering about turning around, about going back; but he pressed them to continue on, giving them more gold, a fortune that would mean none would ever have to work again.
    Unable to find anything on land as they passed an arid stretch of coastline, three weeks later, Nosferatu's second kill was one of the sailors. He took the poor man in the night, silencing him, pulling him off the ship and onto land, where he drained the man's blood and hid the body. In the morning there was panic and consternation among the survivors about the sudden and silent disappearance of their comrade. Nosferatu said nothing, only pointing to the south before retiring with his gold to the tube, making sure he locked it from the inside as he knew they were considering killing him and taking the gold. The man had been the one who had been the most insistent that they turn back, so the consensus among the others was that he had jumped ship and was trying to make his way back by land.
    After two more weeks they rounded a storm-lashed cape and began moving north.
    Nosferatu realized they must be on the other side of the continent in which Egypt rested. Was he far enough away from the Airlia to be safe for a while?
    He killed a second crewmember not long after they began moving north. The remaining four were panic-stricken and superstitious. They spent that entire day in the rear, muttering among themselves as the boat made its way north. The shoreline had also turned forbidding.

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    The land was edged with cliffs, rocky and barren. The men were running low on food and water but they pressed forward for another week. Nosferatu knew he had gone as far as he could without feeding again. He took a third that night, draining him, then sliding the body overboard, where sharks immediately took it into the depths.
    Sated with blood, he climbed into his tube just before dawn, and sealed the lid against intrusion. As always he fell into an uneasy slumber, dreams of Nekhbet mixed with nightmares of darkness and confinement.
    He woke when his forehead slammed against the top of the lid. Disoriented for a moment, he pressed against the metal sides of the tube to steady himself. The tube rolled one way, paused, then the other. The action didn't stop.
    They'd thrown him overboard, Nosferatu realized with a rush of panic. He cursed at this unexpected turn of events. He'd counted on their fear to keep them in place and knew now that he had miscalculated. He held steady against the sway of the tube to the waves. He knew if he opened the lid, water would pour in and the tube would be lost, leaving him adrift in the shark-infested water.
    He waited.
    It was unlike his previous time in the tube underneath the Giza Plateau.
    Worse, much worse, as the days and nights went by. Then he had had the monthly feedings and the presence of Nekhbet. Here he suffered in darkness, enclosed, growing weaker as the strength of the feeding from the last sailor faded. And his strength was worn down further as he fought against the external motion of the tube to avoid being injured.
    Several times he spent hours fighting severe motion, the tube sometimes rolling over completely. He had to

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    assume that those were periods when he rode out storms. At times he would sleep, more a lapse into exhausted unconsciousness, always broken by a slam to one side or the other of the tube.
    Never did he despair. Never was he tempted to unlatch the lid and let the ocean in to finish his agony.
    Foremost in his mind was Nekhbet, his last vision of her. He could endure a thousand storms before he would let go of that vision, before he would abandon her to an eternity of empty life in her tube.
    Nosferatu woke with a start as he was once more slammed against the right side of the tube. He braced himself, ready for the inevitable roll to the