Cam - 04 - Nightwalkers

by P. T. Deutermann

  "There's this one area, maybe two-thirds of the way to the river, which might be a tailings pile. Hard to tell with all these trees."

  We drove down to the bottom of the hill, turned left on the dirt path that led down toward the river and the brickworks, and began to scan the hillside on our left. To our right were crop fields, overgrown with tall weeds and grass. The highest point of the ridge was above where the central road came through. From there it descended toward the river, devolving into wooded bluffs. While Tony drove I tried to match the aerials with the terrain, but it all looked pretty much the same. Then, about a quarter mile from the river, I saw what looked like a spur path leading off to the left and up the hill. It was more like two ruts in the dirt than a road, but I noticed that it was covered in large gravel.

  Tony took the vehicle off the path and pointed it upward into the trees. We got maybe fifty yards and had to stop because of all the new-growth scrub trees in the way. The two ruts were still visible, and they led into those trees. We shut the vehicle down and took stock. Tony got out and scuffed the ground. The shepherds jumped out and began sniffing around.

  "Something must have been up here," he said. "This gravel is two, maybe three inches deep, and hard-packed."

  Frick suddenly stiffened and looked up the hill. Kitty stopped her examination of the ground and also looked.

  "Down!" I ordered, and Tony hit the deck, rolling swiftly behind the vehicle, where I was already unlimbering my SIG. The dogs kept looking up into the trees, and I expected gunfire in the next few seconds.

  Nothing happened. The sounds of the country intruded, birds, insects, a couple of crows raising hell about something in the distance, a jet flying high overhead, the ticking sound of the engine as it cooled in the late afternoon air.

  "What ya got?" I asked the dogs. Frick looked back at me but then resumed her scan of the hillside. Somewhat to my surprise, Kitty moved slowly to her left, away from Frick, and then began to creep up the hill. As she got about thirty feet up the hill, two black shapes came out of the trees above us.

  The Dobermans.

  This time, however, they weren't attacking. They were coming down the hill in a submissive posture, not quite slinking but displaying zero aggression. I heard Tony rack his weapon. I told him to wait, that something had changed. Frick went forward, hackles up, but Kitty did not seem alarmed. That confirmed to me that something had indeed changed.

  The Dobermans came on down to the vehicle, with the shepherds closing in from both sides. They got to about ten feet from us and then sat down, ears back, heads down, their sleek bodies actually trembling. When they stopped, my dogs stopped.

  I stood up and came out from behind the vehicle. "Watch the tree line above us," I told Tony.

  I approached the Dobermans, who wouldn't look at me. They were a pair of males, beautifully conditioned, with cruelly cropped ears and shiny black coats. They were still wearing their collars. One of them was slightly larger than the other, and I spoke to him.

  "Down," I said. No reaction. He still wouldn't look at me.

  "Heel." Nothing.

  I tried German. No response. I didn't know any Japanese.

  So I sat down in front of the larger male.

  "Boss," Tony said.

  "I think they're here to surrender," I said. "I just don't have their language."

  I put out a tentative hand, fingers down, to the bigger male's muzzle. Finally he looked at me, crept forward, licked my hand, and then lay all the way down. I massaged his head and rubbed his ears while making comforting sounds. The second one then approached for some of the same treatment, and then they were both alongside, pressing in as Dobes do, demanding affection and orders at the same time.

  "What the fuck," Tony said.

  "Their master has been killed. I'm guessing they saw it happen, and now they don't know what to do."

  I continued to rub their heads and mutter sweet nothings to them. The words didn't matter as much as the tone of my voice and the feel of my hands. Finally I stood up. I called my dogs into the vehicle, and they both jumped in.

  I told Tony to get in, and then, after he had turned the vehicle around, I called to the two POWs, and they dutifully followed us back down the hillside and all the way back to the big house.

  Sheriff Walker and his animal control van showed up an hour later, and I explained what had happened. The animal control officer was a female, and I wondered if there was going to be some drama between her and the Dobes. Turned out she knew exactly what to do, and in five minutes, with the assistance of some dog treats and a few dominance maneuvers, she had them in the back of the van and was petting them through the access hole while they wolfed down some food.

  "Nice work," I said.

  "Piece of cake," she said. "Dobies are respectful of dominant females. These are really gorgeous dogs."

  "You should see them with their game face on," Tony said.

  "Yeah, I know," she said, "but I had a Dobie bitch one time? If you put both arms out in front of you with your palms up? She'd jump into them and lick you to death. A bad Doberman simply reflects a bad human."

  "Those dogs have been trained to attack people," I said. "If they're going to the county shelter, they can't go home with just anyone."

  "In that case," she said, "I may take them myself. Surprise the hell out of my asshole ex one day."

  The sheriff and I watched her drive off with her prizes. "So maybe your ghost didn't run those guys himself," he said. "Maybe the lady dog trainer was along for all the operations."

  "Then why would he kill her?" Tony asked. "That cost him a real asset."

  "Thanks be to God," I said. "I was more afraid of them than him."

  "Two possibilities come to mind," the sheriff said. "Either he didn't kill the woman, or he did because they failed to nail your associate here, when they had him dead to rights at the springhouse. Your opening fire on the barns meant that those dogs, and by definition their handler, weren't up to the job."

  Tony and I looked at each other. That was a sobering observation.

  "Unforgiving ghost," I said.

  "Very," the sheriff said.

  It was almost sundown by the time the sheriff left. We still hadn't found the entrance to the abandoned coal mine, and neither of us was especially enthusiastic about going back up there in the dark. We were standing by my vehicle out in front of the big house, swatting at the year's first mosquitoes.

  "So," Tony said. "We try it again? Hole up here tonight, see what happens?"

  "He figured that out last time," I said. "Once the dogs came back without some meat scraps, then Pardee's headlights, and then my firing into the barns, he had to know we'd been waiting."

  "So let's try a variation," he said. "I'll hole up in the cottage with the vehicles, you walk over here with the dogs and hide here, in the house this time. I've got some night-vision gear in my truck you could use."

  "You're assuming he recons the cottage before he starts anything."

  "I would," he said. "Or we missed a bug in the sweep and he simply interrogates it before making any moves."

  "So, what then? We leave here, together, go back to the cottage, settle in for the night, and talk whatever trash is required to set the stage that we're in for the night?"

  "Right."

  "What if he comes for you instead of me?"

  "Bring it," he said. "Those dogs scared the shit out of me last night. I owe him one."

  That became the plan, in the absence of any other brilliant ideas. I didn't like the fact that we were still reacting to whatever this guy might do. On the other hand, his Dobermans were off the board, and the Rockwell County Sheriff's Office was on his tail now instead of just us chickens.

  I went out into the yard after dinner to use my cell phone and called Carol. I told her I needed her electrician to meet me at the house tomorrow so that we could rig some power on all the floors for Pardee's video surveillance system. She said she'd make it happen and asked how it wa
s going. I told her that we'd made a little progress today and that the sheriff's office was now officially in the game, which ought to help. She wished us luck. I told her how much I'd enjoyed our time together the other night.

  "I think I surprised myself," she said.

  "Maybe just horny? I mean, did you still respect me the next morning?"

  She said something rude, laughed, and hung up.

  At a little after ten, I took the shepherds over to Glory's End. Once inside, I wrestled the mattress off the old lady's four-poster on the ground floor and humped it up to the second floor. I had brought one of my rifles as well as my SIG .45. Before securing myself upstairs I'd sent the dogs down into the lower level and then the basement just to see if they had any reaction. They did not, so I locked the doors, told the dogs to stay on the main floor, and went upstairs. There I set up a watch station at the back windows of the larger bedroom. I had a night scope on a tripod, a thermos of coffee, and a blanket and pillow from the cottage. I'd been careful to show no lights once in the house, and I stayed back away from the windows in case my stalker had his own night-vision gear. Now it was a matter of waiting and keeping awake.

  I failed the keeping awake part. I don't know when I fell asleep, but it was sometime after midnight. I'd gone down once to check on the dogs, who pretended to be wide-awake when I showed up. They undoubtedly went back to sleep as soon as I went back upstairs.

  The waking up part turned out to be a breeze, as I bolted upright to the sound of screaming. Really loud screaming, a woman's voice, and she was being drawn and quartered by the Inquisition on a rack somewhere in the house.

  I jumped off the mattress, SIG in one hand, flashlight in the other, trying to gather my wits while the poor wretch screamed, desperate, bloodcurdling screams of mortal agony. It was coming from everywhere, but it was louder downstairs. I ran down the stairs and nearly tripped over the shepherds, who were beside themselves, running around in circles and barking.

  The moment I hit the lower landing, the screaming got louder upstairs, and it seemed to be coming from the lower level, too. The woman was truly shrieking now, and I had visions of babies being torn out of living wombs. I ran into the back of the house, using the flashlight now, and the screams were definitely coming from the lower level.

  But also from upstairs.

  I stopped and thought about that. The noise on this level was nothing compared to what I was hearing from the other two levels.

  Motion detectors and speakers.

  Fuck.

  I ignored the awful racket and went around the rooms of the main floor until I found a small white cube sitting on a white mantel, practically invisible unless one was looking for it. The cube was heavier than I expected, and there was a tiny glass eye on the front. When I waved my hand over the eye, the dying woman stopped screaming in my face from the embedded speaker. The shepherds backed away, totally confused by what they were hearing and not seeing.

  I went back upstairs and found the second speaker, and then down to the lowest level for the third one. In each case, the speaker stopped its noise the moment I came into the room. I carried all three in my hands to ensure the eyes could detect motion, and the house went blessedly silent. I went back up to my mattress and popped out their batteries to end the disturbance once and for all.

  Not bad, I thought. Somewhere nearby there was a transmitter that had been activating these devices. It was amazing how much noise these innocuous looking four-inch cubes could generate. Once again my ghost had flushed out his quarry, and once again he'd been in the house while we'd been out beating the bushes for coal mines. His ready access to the house had to mean that he had a hide somewhere not too far away--or more accomplices. Or maybe not, given this guy's predilection for shooting accomplices who disappointed him.

  I called Tony and told him what had happened. I said I was going to come back to the cottage. He pointed out that that might have been the objective of the screaming barrage: to get me to come out of the house into the darkness. I thought about that and then told him I was going to try a gambit of my own. I hung up, gathered up the dogs and my gear, and went to the front door of the house. I opened it and then slammed it again, loud enough that if someone was listening, he might think I'd gone out the front door. Then I took my buddies downstairs to the kitchen, unlocked the trapdoor, and went down into the basement. I used the flashlight freely down there until we were right in front of the escape door. It had a red lens that could be rotated over the clear lens, and I did so. Then I switched it off and pushed gently, hoping that our guy hadn't discovered our fake door latch.

  The ballpoint pen dropped and the door swung open. A wave of cool air came in from the tunnel. We stepped through, and I left the door ajar. Keeping the shepherds right behind me, we crept to the dogleg turn and then stopped and listened. There was no sound in the old tunnel, just the smell of ancient mortar, dirt, and mold. I stuck a gun around the dogleg and followed it. The red light would have been useless outside, but in the absolute darkness of the tunnel it worked just fine and also preserved my night vision. We hurried down the tunnel to the point where the fire-pit access hatch was right above us, stopped, and listened.

  This was going to be the tricky part, so I decided to wait and listen for a few more minutes at the base of the ladder. My plan had been to go out the tunnel and up into the yard, where I hoped to get behind my tormentor. I'd forgotten the dogs: There was no way to get them up that ladder.

  Then I heard a sound, a heavy clunk down at the other end of the tunnel.

  The door had closed.

  I tried to remember the bolting arrangement. There had been a black iron bar and brackets, but they were on my side of the door. The other side had been a bare wooden wall. I looked up at the trapdoor underneath the fire pit. Tony had lifted the trapdoor by pulling up on those andirons, but there'd been no latch. So either way, I wasn't trapped down here.

  Or was I?

  I went up the ladder and pushed on the trapdoor. It moved a quarter inch, but there was something really heavy on it, and I couldn't get the leverage I needed to lift it.

  I went back down the ladder, checked my SIG, and then went back into the tunnel to the dogleg turn. I sent the shepherds around the corner, but nothing happened, so I followed them to the basement door. It was shut, but that black iron bar was still lying on the floor. I went up to the door and listened and then pulled gently on the edge board. The door didn't move.

  What the hell? There had been no latches on the other side, no bars, brackets, or any other way to keep that thing shut except from this side.

  Three powerful bangs on the other side made me jump and the dogs bark. I quickly retreated to the dogleg turn.

  "That you in the box, Richter?"

  It was that same throaty voice I'd heard behind the mask, sounding more like a prolonged cough than a voice.

  "Good job on the screaming woman," I said. "Those are some speakers."

  "Made you move," he said.

  "So it did," I replied, still staying out of the line of fire in case he decided to put a few rounds through the door. "Now what?"

  "Now you're buried alive," he said.

  I wanted to say, No I'm not. Tony will be out here at daylight. Instead I tried to draw him out. "Why'd you shoot the biker mama?"

  "She failed me," he said.

  "Will you please tell me what this is all about?" I asked. "I mean, since I'm buried alive, now's the time, right?"

  "I've already told you," he said.

  "We've looked back. It's not true."

  "True to me, and that's what matters," he replied.

  "How'd you get into the house?"

  "There are two bolt holes, just like you thought. Only I know where the second one is, and you don't."

  "So I guess it's not the smokehouse, then."

  "Remember all those bricks stacked in there? They're all oversized, handmade. Weigh about eight, nine pounds apiece. Push hard, maybe you can lift them. Except,
perhaps, for that pole."

  "Pole?"

  "Yeah. The one that wedges the trapdoor shut. It'll move about a quarter inch, enough to give you some air when you need it, and you are going to need it. Got your dogs with you, do you?"

  I still wasn't too worried. This was a big tunnel, relatively speaking, and there was plenty of air. "Always," I said. "We captured yours."

  "They were useless when it really counted," he said. "You're welcome to them. I had high hopes, but you can't find good help these days."

  "I've got lots of good help," I said.

  "You think so?" he said, and those were the last words I heard from him.

  I did try to lift those bricks, and he was right--I managed about a quarter of an inch before the dead weight of several hundred pounds pushed back. I'd tried the door again, but it still wouldn't move--and, of course, there was the pole.

  You think so?

  Had he done something to Tony? Had we missed a bug and somehow revealed that I'd be in the house and Tony would be alone in the cottage? I'd called Tony and he'd answered immediately, which meant he'd been awake. I'd left Frack over there, so he should have had some warning if someone hit the house.

  The shepherds were worried and showed it. I'd turned off my flashlight to conserve the batteries. Daylight up above would not do anything for the absolute darkness down here. Assuming I couldn't force my way out of this tunnel, I'd be dependent on one of the guys, Tony or Pardee, who knew about this tunnel. I couldn't remember if I'd told the sheriff about this place. Carol knew, I reminded myself. Would any of them think about the tunnel if I disappeared? The only one I'd told I was going to try something had been Tony.

  You think so?

  That didn't sound so good.

  "Okay, guys," I said. "Time to go night-night. See what happens in the morning."

  I went back to the basement door and lay down on the cold earthen floor. The shepherds curled up beside me. The air still seemed serviceable, and the tunnel was at least a hundred feet long.