Empire Of Salt

by Weston Ochse

  Columbus put a hand on Metzger's shoulder. "Sorry, son. You've got better things to do than stand around and tell me war stories. Maybe I'll catch up with you later."

  "Naw, it's okay." Metzger glanced back at the restaurant. Derrick and Veronica stood in the door, trying to get Natasha's attention. She wouldn't be long now.

  "Ever spend time aboard a ship?" Columbus asked.

  "I was on the Mercy." Metzger stood with his hands in his pockets. "It was a hospital ship," he added.

  "What happened?" Reverend Kim asked. "Were you injured?"

  Metzger shrugged. "A little. Our Hummer was hit by a roadside bomb."

  "Jesus." Columbus shook his head. "We never had those in Vietnam."

  Derrick and Veronica bounded towards him.

  "I think I gotta go," he said.

  A moment later, Natasha came out the door. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She was damned cute.

  She grabbed his arm and pulled him. "Sorry, we have to go."

  Metzger gave Reverend Kim and Columbus an apologetic look as he was pulled down the street, almost losing his balance. He took his hands out of his pockets, and removed her grip on his arm.

  "Easy," he said. "Where are we going in such a hurry?"

  "Anywhere but here."

  She was smiling, but looked as though she'd been crying.

  "Okay then. Let's go."

  They all jogged to Veronica's house. The lights were on inside. Through the window they could see Veronica's aunt and uncle sitting on the couch watching television.

  Her trailer had a porch as well as a roof deck. They sat on metal chairs on the porch.

  Derrick was the first to talk.

  "I'm sorry, Metzger. I didn't mean to tell them."

  "Don't sweat it. You had to answer them. It's not like I'm Billy the Kid or something. I'm no outlaw."

  "To Hopkins you are," Veronica said.

  "You're not talking about Colonel Hopkins, are you?"

  "Colonel?" both Veronica and Natasha asked together.

  "We didn't know he was a colonel," Natasha said, "We were told he works for some sort of ecological agency for the government."

  "What does Colonel Hopkins look like?" Metzger asked.

  After the three described him, Metzger nodded. "Sounds like the same fellow. He came to our clinic in Virginia on a recruiting trip."

  "But what about the ecology thing?" Derrick asked.

  "Probably a cover. If he went around as an Army colonel you all might be suspicious."

  "People around here found him pretty suspicious anyway." Veronica frowned. "So the question is, how is he connected to those things?"

  "Yeah," Natasha said. "We figured you were going there to fight the creatures."

  Metzger didn't see the logic in that at all. If there was truly a threat from the creatures he'd seen, the government would have sent in Special Forces or some elite infantry unit, not a bunch of PTSDers.

  "Then what's the connection between the creatures and the buses of soldiers?" Derrick asked.

  Metzger shrugged. "I don't have enough information yet. We need to see one of those things up close, then maybe we can discover what they were before they became..." He gestured uncertainly.

  "So all we need is a creature who will stand there while we look at it." Veronica made a face. "Simple, right?"

  "Maybe it is." Natasha stood. "I think I know where one is. I saw someone, or something chained behind a house the first day we were here."

  "Like someone was keeping them as a pet? Hey!" Derrick snapped his fingers. "That's what you were talking about. Why didn't you tell me what you saw?"

  "It was hot and smelly. It could have been my imagination."

  "It's not your imagination," Veronica said. "And who you're talking about isn't any creature, it's the Klosterman Kid."

  "The who?" Metzger asked.

  "Klosterman Kid. Although he's not a kid, really. He's about thirty-five. His grandparents keep him outside. He lives in a doghouse."

  "What?" Metzger stood, his face expressing his incredulity.

  "Serious. He has some sort of brain damage from a car crash when he was a kid. His parents were both killed and he was in a hospital for a long time until it closed down. Now the grandparents take care of him as best they can."

  Metzger still couldn't believe it. "By keeping him outside?"

  "They say he's violent."

  "I thought he was wearing a mask and some gloves," Natasha added.

  "They make him wear a baseball catcher's mask so he won't bite anyone. He wears boxing gloves so he can't pick up anything."

  Metzger couldn't believe what he was hearing. It was the craziest shit he'd ever heard.

  "Okay. We have gotta go see that."

  Derrick grinned. "Yeah. Let's go."

  Veronica shook her head. "We better not."

  "Wait a minute. Since when are you scared of something?" Natasha asked.

  "I'm not scared. It's just..." she fought to find the words. "It's just that he shouldn't be living the way he's living and everyone knows it, but no one has ever done anything about it."

  "Does the Deputy know?" Metzger asked.

  "Yeah."

  "Then don't sweat it. I think if there was something illegal, he would have put a stop to it. Know what I mean?"

  Veronica nodded. But then she added, "But it sometimes feels immoral."

  Ten minutes later they were all staring at the Klosterman Kid and Metzger knew what she meant. He lived like a dog.

  The backyard of the trailer was lit by a spotlight. The Klosterman Kid sat in the middle of the yard playing with a ball. His legs were splayed like a toddler's as he repeatedly bounced it against the wall of his doghouse. Sometimes it would come right back to him, others he'd have to scramble for the ball before it got farther than his leash could take him.

  Metzger followed the leash from the thick leather collar to the dog house. The structure was sound and, from where he was standing, seemed to be more than a mere dog house. A vent spinning on the pitched roof kept the air circulating inside. The entire structure was about five feet high, with light emanating from somewhere inside.

  He was relieved that it was less a doghouse than it was some boy's fort. Now he saw a little of the reasoning the locals used to justify the man remaining outside.

  "Wow," was all he could say.

  "Feels like the Twilight Zone, doesn't it?" Veronica asked.

  Metzger nodded. "Everywhere I turn in this place, it seems that things are just a little bit off."

  "Sometimes a lot," Derrick said.

  "Sometimes a lot," Metzger agreed. He turned to Natasha. "But we're back to square one. We don't have one of the creatures to examine."

  "Actually, we might," Veronica said, glancing at Derrick. "We think we might have found an abandoned trailer with one inside."

  "You think? You didn't check?"

  "We're not soldiers. Are you kidding me?" Veronica shook her head.

  "What did you see, Derrick?" Metzger asked.

  "I didn't really see anything. I just felt it. I kind of, I don't know, knew it was there." Derrick glanced at the soldier hopefully. "Do you know what I mean?"

  Metzger knew exactly what the boy meant. His own sixth sense had saved him on countless occasions during building clearing in Baghdad.

  "It's getting late," Natasha said. "Let's go back to that trailer tomorrow and check it out in the light."

  Veronica and Derrick nodded, clearly liking the idea.

  Metzger would have rather gone tonight. He had to keep reminding himself that the others weren't soldiers.

  They headed back towards Natasha's trailer. Truth be told, he was exhausted. He'd love to get a good night's sleep. He hadn't had one in more than two years.

  Derrick and Natasha brought Metzger home around eleven o'clock. Auntie Lin had taken a liking to the young man, but wasn't sure if it was a good idea to let him into the house while everyone was sleeping. Luckily, even with t
he storm blowing up the Sea of Cortez and having not yet reached Puerto Peñasco, they had twelve hours of good weather left before it hit. So Auntie Lin's solution was to have a camp out of sorts.

  Everyone took advantage of the cool air and slept on the roof in lounge chairs. Auntie Lin watched over them, sleeping in a lounge chair at the top of the stairs to the roof deck, a Sudoku book perched in her sleeping, gnarled hands.

  The next morning, Natasha was the first to wake. She, Derrick, Veronica, and Metzger had talked long into the night about what they were going to do. First they were going to talk to the Mad Scientist and get him to explain about the green hand he had stashed in his laboratory. They decided to do this instead of investigating the place where Derrick had found a monster, hoping that they could use what they learned from the Mad Scientist to their benefit.

  An hour later everyone had eaten breakfast and taken a shower. Veronica went home to change and promised to meet them at the Mad Scientist's.

  The day dawned hot, like Hell's oven had been turned up and the door left open. The superheated air nearly took their breath away. Derrick, Natasha and Metzger headed to the restaurant first, moving slowly. Where before they'd cut through yards, today they were happy to trudge down the street, heads down, hands in their pockets, their attention on the road before them.

  The restaurant was closed. The front window had been covered with plywood. The door was locked and no lights were on inside.

  "Better hurry and get inside." Carrie Loughnane smoked a cigarette as she leaned against the wall beneath the awning next door at the Laundromat. Her windows had yet to be covered, and by the looks of things, she didn't plan on doing it herself. She wore red Capri pants and tank top, making her look like a red pear. "I said hurry, before you melt." Carrie held open the door.

  All three hurried in and were suddenly soothed by cool air as the twin swamp coolers on the roof fired like turbo jet engines straight into the entryway. It would have been a peaceful paradise had Carrie's seven kids not been running around playing Cowboys and Indians.

  Her children ranged from four to eleven years old. Carrie had been continually pregnant for seven years. Once a vivacious cheerleader from a Costa Mesa high school, she'd traded community college for crack cocaine and had spent the next seven years drifting through a fog of sex, crack, and rock and roll.

  "Is this the soldier I heard about last night?" Carrie asked, looking Metzger up and down. She'd killed her cigarette in the ashtray outside, but the acrid smell of smoke still lingered on her clothes, mingling with her heavy, clove perfume.

  "Metzger, ma'am." He held out his hand.

  "What a gentleman," she said, winking at Natasha as she gripped his hand.

  Natasha didn't find it funny at all. She felt a bite of jealousy as they shook hands. Carrie was in her early thirties, and had lost little of her former beauty.

  There was a shrill scream of agony. One of the kids had stuffed another halfway into a washing machine.

  "Die, space toad!"

  Carrie shoved her hands onto her hips. "Five, let seven go. What the hell are you thinking?"

  The kids scurried off to do something out of sight.

  Carrie turned and shook her head. "Kids."

  Metzger looked at Natasha and mouthed the words, "Seven? Five?"

  Carrie saw it and laughed. "I know. It's stupid. Sometimes I forget things, like their names." She thumped the side of her head. "But I remember numbers really well, so I give them numbers. One is the oldest and seven is the youngest. Sometimes I sort of feel like Charlie Chan."

  Metzger nodded slowly, but by look on his face he thought it was one of the strangest things he'd ever heard.

  "Did you hear about the storm?" Derrick asked.

  Carrie turned her attention to him and shook her head.

  "They said it might be the worst in twenty years if it clears Puerto Peñasco. We're supposed to batten down the hatches."

  "Do you even know what that means?" Natasha asked. "How do you batten down something?"

  Derrick glanced at Metzger, clearly embarrassed to be called out like that by his sister.

  Metzger came to his rescue. "Easy now, Natasha. It's a pirate thing. We should all know how to batten things down. Ain't that right, Dread Pirate Derrick?"

  Derrick grinned. "Yarr!"

  "Are you going to need help with the windows?" Natasha asked.

  "Windows?" Carrie said.

  "Yeah. For the storm that's coming," Metzger added.

  "Storm? What storm?"

  Derrick was about to open his mouth, but Natasha elbowed him in the ribs, then pointed out on the street. Veronica was trudging through the heat heading towards the locked restaurant.

  Natasha grabbed Metzger by the elbow and began pushing him towards the door. "Listen, we gotta go, but if you need some help, come and ask us, okay?"

  Carrie stared at Natasha for a moment, then her eyes seemed to clear. "Okay. I will." Then she turned and hollered for children one, three and four.

  A moment later, Natasha and the others were out the door and calling for Veronica, who was already past the Laundromat. "Hey girl!"

  Veronica turned sluggishly. "Ugh," she said. "I feel like a zombie. It's so damned hot."

  A sluggish breeze had come up while they were inside, bringing the smell of hot, putrefied fish with each gust of air.

  They turned back the way Veronica had come and headed up Avenue A.

  "Is she okay?" Derrick asked. "She acted kind of... I don't know."

  "You mean Carrie?" Veronica nodded. "She's a winner for sure. God knows where she goes when she goes, but she goes somewhere."

  "Lost brain cells. They say that when you lose them, they never grow back," Metzger said.

  "Damn. Then she has a lot of empty space to traverse inside that head of hers." Natasha frowned. "It must be hard."

  Veronica nodded. "It is. She knows she's messed up, but not really how bad. We're a close community. You know she doesn't charge anyone to use the Laundromat, right?"

  All three looked at her.

  "I had no idea," Natasha said.

  "Yeah. She said she found the place, so she doesn't feel comfortable charging people. That would be like stealing, she says."

  "So how does she eat and feed the kids?" Metzger asked.

  "She trades. She cleans houses too, sort of."

  All four of them laughed at the idea of Carrie and kids one through seven descending upon a dirty trailer. Then they let the laughter die as they realized how hopeless the woman's life would be if it weren't for the people of Bombay Beach. It made Natasha realize even more how unusual the town was. She'd hated it horribly at first: the town was literally rotting away on a sea that no one could swim in. But she was coming to understand that Bombay Beach had far more of a sense of community than any where else she'd lived.

  "It's like the Army, sort of. We take care of our own. It's like a big family," Metzger said.

  Natasha watched him as they walked. He'd held breakfast down. That was a good sign.

  They made the turn down Third Street, and found themselves in front of the Mad Scientist's set of trailers. The main trailer on the left was light blue and white, and cleaner than most. The weeds in front had been clipped to within an inch of the sandy soil. A lime green garden gnome had a Star Trek uniform painted expertly over its body. To the right and set back was the other trailer, mostly submerged: the laboratory.

  "Which one?" Derrick asked.

  Veronica pointed to the red light beside the door on the sunken trailer. "That one."

  "Do we just walk right in?" Metzger asked.

  Veronica shrugged. "We should probably knock first." To Derrick she asked, "Do you have the book?"

  He nodded as he pulled it out. He held it carefully as though it were fragile.

  "Then let's go," Metzger said. He walked towards the trailer, but before he could descend the stairs to the door, the door opened.

  "Go away," came the thin voice of th
e Mad Scientist.

  "It's Natasha, Dr. Gudgel. I brought some friends with me. We need to talk." She glanced at Veronica and Metzger for support. They both nodded grimly.

  "I don't have time. Sorry."

  He pulled the door shut, but Metzger pounded on it hard.

  "Leave me alone."

  "We can't," Natasha said. "We need your help."

  "I can't help you."

  "You can't or you won't?" Metzger countered.

  Gudgel flung open the door. "Listen, just leave this place. You shouldn't be here now. It's just too..." He let his voice trail off, his eyes full of worry.

  "Dangerous? Is that what you were gonna say, Mister?"

  The Mad Scientist tried to close the door again, but Metzger jammed his foot into the gap. They struggled for a moment before it became obvious that the soldier was the stronger of the two. The Mad Scientist just turned and shuffled back into the laboratory, leaving the door open behind him.

  They followed him in. Derrick was last. He closed and locked the door behind them.

  The inside of the trailer was nothing like any of the others. The entire place had been gutted, leaving one long rectangular space. The trailer's walls were covered with schematics and charts, most of which were indecipherable. Natasha recognized a map of California and the Salton Sea, but not much else. Tables lined both walls. All sorts of instruments covered every available surface, including several telescopes and enough beakers and test tubes to populate a high school chemistry lab. A smell lingered in the air, a combination of unwashed clothes and a sharp, eye-watering chemical.

  "Let's get this over with," the Mad Scientist said. He turned and sat on a stool. His hands shook slightly where they rested in his lap. He wore a white, unbuttoned lab coat over shorts and a Mork and Mindy T-shirt. He didn't look scared, just defeated.

  "Get what over with?" Veronica asked.

  "Him. I know why he's here." He shook his head. "Just know that I was never a part of what the project has become."

  All four of the newcomers exchanged glances.

  "Project? What project?" Derrick asked.

  "Him. His project." Gudgel pointed at Metzger.

  "I'm not sure I get what you're saying," the soldier said. "The astromechs?"

  The Mad Scientist frowned. "Is that what they're calling it these days? Where did they tell you that they were taking you?"