Stories: All-New Tales

Emery nodded. “Yeah, I know. It looks like one of those old silents, The Lost World or something. But it’s not. I used to watch it back when it ran a hundred times a day in our gallery, the way you used to watch the Head. And it’s definitely real. At least the pilot, McCauley—that’s a real guy. I got a big magnifier once and just stood there and watched it over and over again. He was breathing, I could see it. And the plane, it’s real too, far as I could tell. The thing I can’t figure is, who the hell shot that footage? And what was the angle?”

Robbie stared at the empty screen, then shut his eyes. He tried to recall the rest of the film from when it played in the General Aviation gallery: the swift, jerky trajectory of that eerie little vehicle with its bizarre pilot, a man in a black suit and bowler hat; then the flash from the corner of the screen, and the man toppling from his perch into the white and empty air. The last thing you saw was a tiny hand at the bottom of the frame, then some blank leader, followed by the words “The Maiden Flight of McCauley’s Bellerophon (1901).” And the whole thing began again.

“It was like someone was in the air next to him,” said Robbie. “Unless he got only six feet off the ground. I always assumed it was faked.”

“It wasn’t faked,” said Leonard. “The cameraman was on the beach filming. It was a windy day, they were hoping that would help give the plane some lift but there must have been a sudden gust. When the Bellerophon went into the ocean, the cameraman dove in to save McCauley. They both drowned. They never found the bodies, or the wreckage. Only the camera with the film.”

“Who found it?” asked Robbie.

“We don’t know.” Leonard sighed, his shoulders slumping. “We don’t know anything. Not the name of the cameraman, nothing. When Maggie and I ran the original footage, the leader said ‘Maiden Flight of McCauley’s Bellerophon.’ The can had the date and ‘Cowana Island’ written on it. So Maggie and I went down there to research it. A weird place. Hardly any people, and this was in the summer. There’s a tiny historical society on the island, but we couldn’t find anything about McCauley or the aircraft. No newspaper accounts, no gravestones. The only thing we did find was in a diary kept by the guy who delivered the mail back then. On May 13, 1901, he wrote that it was a very windy day and two men had drowned while attempting to launch a flying machine on the beach. Someone must have found the camera afterward. Somebody processed the film, and somehow it found its way to the museum.”

Robbie followed Leonard into the next room. “What was that weird flash of light?”

“I don’t know.” Leonard stared out a glass door into the parking lot. “But it’s not overexposure or lens flare or anything like that. It’s something the cameraman actually filmed. Water, maybe—if it was a windy day, a big wave might have come up onto the beach or something.”

“I always thought it was fire. Like a rocket or some kind of flare.”

Leonard nodded. “That’s what Maggie thought, too. The mailman—mostly all he wrote about was the weather. Which if you were relying on a horse-drawn cart, makes sense. About two weeks before he mentioned the flying machine, he described something that sounds like a major meteor shower.”

“And Maggie thought it was hit by a meteor?”

“No.” Leonard sighed. “She thought it was something else. The weird thing is, a few years ago I checked online, and it turns out there was an unusual amount of meteor activity in 1901.”

Robbie raised an eyebrow. “Meaning?”

Leonard said nothing. Finally he opened the door and walked outside. The others trailed after him.

They reached the edge of the parking lot, where cracked tarmac gave way to stony ground. Leonard glanced back, then stooped. He brushed away a few stray leaves and tufts of dead grass, set the film canister down and unscrewed the metal lid. He picked up one end of the coil of film, gently tugging until it trailed a few inches across the ground. Then he withdrew a lighter, flicked it, and held the flame to the tail of film.

“What the—” began Robbie.

There was a dull whoosh, like the sound of a gas burner igniting. A plume of crimson and gold leaped from the canister, writhing in the air within a ball of black smoke. Leonard staggered to his feet, covering his head as he backed away.

“Leonard!” Emery grabbed him roughly, then turned and raced to the house.

Before Robbie could move, a strong chemical stink surrounded him. The flames shrank to a shining thread that lashed at the smoke then faded into flecks of ash. Robbie ducked his head, coughing. He grasped Leonard’s arm and tried to drag him away, glanced up to see Emery running toward them with a fire extinguisher.