Gary Brandner

by Doomstalker (v2. 0) (epub)

  He sat up quickly, aware that Vicki was looking at his hard-on.

  "Time for the Baths," she said.

  "What's the Baths?"

  "Just what it sounds like. You'll love it."

  She walked over and stood in front of him. "Are you ready to go?"

  "If I was any readier, I couldn't stand up."

  Vicki took his hand and led him out of the room.

  Chapter 25

  The city ends abruptly just north of the Foothill Freeway. There State Highway 2 slices away from the boulevard in La Canada and becomes the Angeles Crest Highway. The climb into the mountains begins immediately, and the only reminders of urban blight are the ascending aerial vistas of Glendale and Pasadena where the twisting road lips the mountainside. The higher you go the more visible is the yellow-brown layer of smog that hangs over the San Gabriel Valley.

  The Camaro handled the grade nicely, grabbing hold of the blacktop on the hairpin turns and climbing without effort into the green San Gabriel Mountains. Kettering lowered both windows and inhaled the cool, virgin air that flowed above the inversion level.

  He met no more than half a dozen cars coming down. With so many beaches and theme parks within easy driving distance, the mountains had never been a popular getaway for Angelenos. This left the scattered picnic areas relatively clean and blessedly unscarred by graffiti.

  Where the road leading to Mount Wilson and the observatory branched off, Kettering pulled into the ranger station and parked.

  Inside, a young man with glasses and a collegiate look greeted him. He wore a neatly pressed tan uniform, the shirt open at the throat.

  "Afternoon. On your way to the observatory? No charge. Just be out by four o'clock. We lock up then."

  "Actually, I'm looking for something else that's supposed to be up here somewhere. Place called Harmony Village. Heard of it?"

  The ranger's smile went away. "I've heard of it. Used to be a Boy Scout camp. They quit it maybe ten years ago. Now it's a so-called young people's lodge."

  "So-called?"

  "I've never seen it myself. Heard stories, is all. Are you, uh, connected with the place?"

  "I think my son is staying there."

  "Oh, well, you never know. The place may be perfectly okay."

  "Yeah, maybe. What do you know about the woman who runs it? Zoara Sol?"

  "Just what I hear. I've never met the lady."

  "What do you hear?"

  "Trucker who delivers food up there says she's got a body will stop a man's heart."

  "That good?"

  "So he says. But you know how truckers exaggerate."

  "You've never seen her."

  "Nope. And it's probably just as well. I'm a married man and I'd like to stay that way."

  "Ever have any trouble at her place?"

  "We've never had any complaints, not officially, about what goes on there. All I know is she has all the required permits and all the fees are paid. Beyond that, it's no business of the Forest Service."

  "How do I get there from here?"

  The ranger walked to the door and pointed up the mountain. "Follow the highway about three miles, you'll cross Barley Creek, there's a private road off to the left. No sign or anything, so you'll have to look sharp."

  Kettering thanked the ranger and headed for his car.

  "Sir?"

  He turned at the ranger's voice.

  "Be careful."

  "Of what?"

  The young man was suddenly embarrassed. He took off the glasses and started polishing them. "Just ... the road. It's narrow, and there are a lot of steep dropoffs."

  "Thanks," Kettering said. "I'll watch it."

  He had the distinct impression that the ranger had something more he wanted to say, but the young man merely nodded and went back into the station.

  ***

  At three miles exactly he crossed the short bridge over Barley Creek. Kettering slowed down and watched closely along the left shoulder for the private road.

  The ranger was right about it being easy to miss. Kettering almost drove past the road before he spotted the faint depression in the roadside brush. He backed up and nosed the Camaro through and started up the steep grade. A sign about ten yards in, not visible from the highway, warned:

  PRIVATE ROAD. NO TRESPASSING

  It was little more than a double-rutted trail snaking up the side of the mountain through Douglas fir, blue spruce, and balsam. The air was fragrant with the tang of evergreen. The sky a hard, clear blue.

  Kettering slowed to ten miles an hour as stretches of the road were cluttered by rockfall from the cliffs above. On the other side the road fell away in murderous drops into the deep canyons. He was glad to meet no traffic, as there were only a few places wide enough for two vehicles to pass.

  He jockeyed the Camaro around a thick growth of brush and almost ran into a heavy wood crossbar that blocked the road. A blond, muscular young man strolled to the side of the car. He was familiar to Kettering, except for the expression, which was smiling now. He wore a tight-fitting red T-shirt with HARMONY VILLAGE scrolled across the front in black letters.

  "Hi," he said. "Help you?"

  Kettering looked up at him through the side window. "You give up bouncing at The Pit?"

  The blonde laughed. "That's just now and then. This is where I am most of the time. My name's Bolo. What can I do for you?"

  "My name's Kettering, and you can get that log out of the road so I can get by."

  Bolo's smile was undimmed. "You must be Trevor's father. I remember you now from the club. Sorry about the misunderstanding that night."

  "Forget it," Kettering said. He pointed at the crossbar. "The gate?"

  The young man's smiled stayed in place as he kept his face at the window several seconds longer. "Why, sure. Always glad to welcome a visiting parent."

  He put a shoulder to the heavy crossbar and heaved it to the vertical without apparent effort. "Have a nice afternoon."

  Kettering drove on slowly, watching the trees on both sides of the road for any surprises. None appeared, and he began to feel a little foolish.

  Music came tinkling from somewhere. Kettering guessed that speakers must be hidden up in the trees. He could not identify any of the songs, but the overall effect was a kind of pleasurable tension.

  The road stopped in a clearing where a small pickup, a station wagon, and a van with the scrollwork HARMONY on the side were parked. Beyond the clearing was a cluster of rustic buildings. They looked shabby and in serious need of repair. A ribbon of pale smoke rose from a chimney on one of the buildings. No signs of life showed in the others.

  As Kettering approached, a thin girl in a red and black T-shirt like the one worn by the gate guard came toward him. She wore a friendly smile, but her eyes were watchful.

  The girl held out a hand. "Mr. Kettering, hello."

  He took the hand. It was cool and strong. He could feel the knuckle bones move.

  "Do I know you?" he said.

  "My name's Hillary. Bolo called from the gate to tell us you were coming up."

  He looked around uncertainly. "I'd like to talk to my son."

  "Everyone's in the Baths right now."

  "The Baths?"

  "That's what we call it. Want to see?"

  "Well, I - "

  She took his hand and led him off toward the buildings. They didn't look any more inviting close up. It was hard to imagine his comfort-loving son settling in here.

  The camp, or village, was nearly deserted, except for an occasional young man or woman doing some kind of chore. One worked in a garden, another chopped logs into fireplace size. As Kettering and Hillary passed, the campers smiled and waved.

  He tried to imagine his Trevor up here among the pines happily chopping wood. It did not compute. Trevor started getting antsy if he was out of sight of a freeway.

  "What is this place," Kettering asked, "some kind of commune?"

  Hillary laughed. "Oh, no, nothing like that. Commun
es went out in the sixties with the hippies."

  "You're not hippies, then?"

  "Mr. Kettering, do we look like hippies? Do I look like a hippie?"

  "No," he admitted, "you don't. More like some Fundamentalist Christian youth group."

  This time she really laughed. "I've got to tell that to the kids. They'll crack up."

  "Okay," he said. "I give up. What is it? What do you do here?"

  "I'm not really the one who should tell you," Hillary said. "I just help out. You go ahead, look around. Judge for yourself."

  She led him to the far side of the collection of buildings that comprised the village. Together they started down a gentle slope toward a thick growth of poplars. From beyond the trees Kettering heard the gurgle of running water and the laughter of young people.

  Hillary took him to the crest of an embankment from where they could see past the trees. Below them lay a wide pool formed by the damming of a creek. The water in the pool was clear enough for him to see the small rocks on the bottom. Thirty or so young men and women swam and splashed and frolicked in the pool. All were naked. All seemed to be having a hell of a good time.

  Kettering felt his ears grow warm, and he knew they were turning pink. He scanned the naked young flesh below looking for Trevor, trying not to let his eyes linger on private parts.

  "Do you want to go down there and talk to Trevor?" Hillary asked.

  "Why don't you go down and get him for me?" Kettering jerked a thumb toward the village. "I'll wait back there."

  The thin girl gave him an understanding smile, squeezed his hand, and tripped down the bank toward the pool. Kettering looked after her for a moment, then hurried back in the direction from which they had come.

  He stopped at the edge of the camp buildings, where a cheerful young man was snatching up vagrant scraps of litter and dropping them into a green plastic trash bag.

  The young man smiled at him.

  "Hi," he said.

  Kettering grunted a reply. The young man started off.

  "Just a minute," Kettering called after him.

  The young man turned back, sack in hand, still smiling.

  "Can I ask you something?"

  "Sure. No secrets in Harmony Village."

  "What do people do here?"

  "Do?"

  "I mean, is it some kind of religious thing? Or a New Age Shirley MacLaine trip? What's the bottom line? What keeps you kids here?"

  "That's easy," the young man said. "Zoara Sol."

  "The woman who runs the place?"

  "Oh, she's more than just a woman. A lot more. Have you met her?"

  "Not officially."

  "Oh, well," the young man said, as though that explained Kettering's confusion. "When you've met Zoara Sol, that's all you need to know."

  "I'll make it a point to meet her," Kettering said.

  "She decides who she will meet. And when."

  "What is she, some kind of a goddess?"

  The young man suppressed a smile. "More than that. You'll see. If she chooses to meet you."

  "I can't wait."

  "I'm afraid you'll have to." The young man nodded, still smiling, and strolled across the lawn, pouncing eagerly on whatever scraps of paper he could find.

  "Hello, Dad."

  Kettering's head snapped around. The sudden sound of his son's voice startled him. He scowled to cover his momentary confusion. Trevor wore his usual battered jeans and a Spuds McKenzie sweatshirt. His hair was still wet.

  "I, uh, your mother asked me to find you. She's in the hospital, you know."

  "I heard."

  "Oh?"

  "Gabrielle told me."

  "Oh."

  "I hear she's going to be all right."

  "I guess so. Don't you want to see her?"

  "What for? I can't do her any good."

  "She worries about you."

  "Well, you can tell her to quit worrying. I'm fine."

  Kettering scanned, the surrounding ridges with the jagged fringe of evergreens along the tops. He looked back abruptly at his son.

  "Do you really like this?"

  "Do I like what?"

  Kettering waved an arm to encompass their surroundings. "All this. Living the rustic life. Chopping wood. Swimming coed in the nude."

  "Why, does it threaten you?"

  "I've never understood what that means."

  "No, I guess not," Trevor said. "Did you enjoy watching the Baths?"

  "Don't get smart-mouth."

  "Dad, what did you come up here for?"

  "I told you. Your mother asked me to find you."

  "So you found me, okay?"

  "My idea was to take you out of here."

  "It won't work, you know. I'm eighteen. You could force me to go with you, but I'd just come back. This is where I belong. This is where it's happening."

  "That's where I'm confused. What is happening here?"

  "I can't explain it to you. You've got to feel it. You've got to feel her."

  "Zoara Sol."

  "Yes."

  Trevor's face took on an expression Kettering had seen in hardcore dopers just as they shot up. He took a different approach.

  "Who pays for all this?"

  "Zoara Sol."

  "And where does she get the money?"

  "Dad, it isn't important. Here in Harmony we do what we want, feel the way we like, say anything, get along. Nobody cares about money. Nobody needs it."

  "That's crap."

  "That's the way it is."

  "Don't you have to do anything to earn your keep?"

  "We go into the city sometimes. Talk to other kids. A lot of them are lost, you know. One way or another. We tell them about Harmony."

  "That's all?"

  "I don't know. I haven't been here long enough to make one of the trips in yet."

  "The idea is to get converts?"

  Trevor's mouth turned down. "That's a bunch of Christian bullshit. We tell the truth."

  Kettering leveled a forefinger at him. "Look - "

  "I gotta go," Trevor said. "See you."

  He turned his back and walked away, leaving Kettering feeling foolish with his finger pointing at empty air. He jammed his hand into his jacket pocket as though he were holstering a gun and trudged back through the cluster of buildings. Something, he was sure, was badly fucked up here in Harmony Village, and he resolved to find out what. But first he had other things on his mind. He headed for the field where he had left the Camaro.

  "Mr. Kettering."

  The voice was a soft contralto that seemed to caress the back of his neck. He stopped and turned slowly.

  Zoara Sol stood about fifteen feet away from him. She wore a tunic in earth-tone russet, belted at the waist with a green cord. Her pale smoky hair stirred in the light breeze. The silvery eyes looked right through Kettering's to the back of his brain.

  He opened his mouth, but no words came. He had not felt this kind of weakness and giddiness in the presence of a female since puberty.

  "I am Zoara Sol."

  "I know," he got out.

  "May I call you Brian? I like first names."

  "Sure."

  "I saw you talking to Trevor."

  Kettering began to reassemble his thoughts. "Yes. He didn't have much to tell me. He was in a hurry to get back to the naked swimming party."

  "You disapprove of nudity?"

  "No. I kind of like it in certain situations. And I've got nothing morally against boys and girls taking their clothes off. But considering some of the diseases going around ..."

  "You have nothing to worry about there. We are meticulous in our screening processes. No one with any suspicion of a taint enters Harmony Village."

  "Very reassuring."

  "That still sounds suspicious."

  Without seeming to move, the woman had approached to within three feet of Kettering. Or had he walked toward her? He could not be sure.

  He said, "I'm a policeman. I'm supposed to be suspicious."
>
  "That's a shame. Tell me, what is there you would like to know?"

  "More about you, for instance. All I know is you were mixed up with a sleaze named Enzo DuLac, and you're called Zoara Sol. Is that a real name?"

  She smiled, showing small, even teeth. The lids lowered over her compelling silver eyes. "If you want to come with me, perhaps I can relieve some of your ... doubts."

  Without waiting for his response, she turned and walked away toward one of the cabins on the rim of the clearing. Kettering felt as though some physical force pulled him along behind her. He was fascinated by the fluid movement of her buttocks under the tunic.

  She climbed two wooden steps to the door of the cabin, opened it, turned and waited for him.

  He hesitated a moment, looking around. The buildings of the village looked much more inviting. Almost fairy-tale friendly. An effect of the changing light?

  Feeling unbearably clumsy, Kettering covered the distance between them, climbed the steps behind the woman, and followed her into the cabin. The interior was soft and warm in satins, furs, and nubby upholstered furniture. The air held a tantalizing hint of sandalwood.

  Zoara Sol closed the door and crossed the room in front of him. The heat of her body warmed him as she passed. It took an effort to pull his eyes away from her to look around the cabin.

  The windows were covered with gauzy curtains that allowed a soft diffused light to dapple the large single room. A low flame danced in a fireplace at the far end of the cabin. On a round wooden table was a basket filled with fresh fruit.

  Zoara Sol walked slowly to a pale beige couch and sat down. The tunic slid up her thighs, revealing smooth, bare legs.

  Watching him all the time with her steady silver gaze, she patted the cushion next to her. Like a man moving through deep water, Kettering came to her and sat.

  Chapter 26

  The upholstery of the love seat was slippery and cool. Kettering felt awkward seated next to the poised, self-assured woman. The silver eyes never left him. A smile touched the corners of her pale pink mouth.

  "Are you uncomfortable, Brian?" Her voice was soothing, like muted chimes.